The Turks long continued to maintain the power by which they overflowed the countries, and won Constantinople. After their settlement in that seat of government, the Lower Empire was divided into many provinces, at the head of which was a pasha with despotic power.* _The_eastern Roman empire was subdivided among Turkish despots, armed with supreme authority: their tails were like unto serpents, and had HEADS, and with them they do hurt.

The Turks were chiefly limited to the east, as the barbarians of northern Europe had overthrown the original empire of the west. In western Europe the imperial title had revived in the race of Charlemagne, and he and his successors had greatly exalted and aggrandized the Roman hierarchy. Italy, though threatened by Bajazet, yet escaped; and the emperor of Germany was not always ignorant that Vienna and Europe were saved by the instrumentality of the Poles. Though they saw the judgments on the half of Christendom, and that no trust was ever more fallacious, or delusion greater, than confidence in the protection of saints or images, yet the rest of the men which were not killed with these plagues, but before whose eyes they were set, and over whose heads they were hung, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, or the souls of men departed, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk. The worship

It may be remarked that the actual symbol of the power of the pashas, by which their dignities were conferred, and their authority defined and regulated, accords even with the letter of the prediction. A pasha of one tail, or a pasha of two tails, or a pasha of three tails, are their respective designations, according to the extent of their pachalics and the degree of their power. Whether single, double, or triple, a tail is the insignia which a Turkish pasha bears; and it forms to him the ducal, archducal, or princely coronet of other regions.

still full of idols. tors was implored.

of these was not forsaken. Christian temples were The intercession of many mediaShrines were loaded with rich offerings; and the decking of a senseless block continued to be held the test of piety and the measure of devotion. Men with eyes, and ears, and limbs, bowed down as lowly and devoutly as ever to things that had none, except what the axe or the chisel had formed. And this insane prostration of intellect and debasement of soul was continued after the kindred images in eastern Europe and in Asia were more wisely converted into some useful purpose, such as metals, wood, or stone could serve. Half a century expired from the taking of Constantinople to the beginning of the Reformation; and how lamentable is it still, notwithstanding the light of the nineteenth century, to witness how tardy is the repentance, in Catholic countries, for breaking the first and second commandments of the law-and with what tenacity, in marvellous deceitfulness of heart, the blinded devotee clings to his idol, and holds to the strong delusion of trusting to the merits of a saint, who can no more redeem him from any of his iniquities, than the deaf and dumb idol can hear and answer his prayers, or the inanimate image give protection to the man, who could burn or break it, like any other piece of wood or of stone.

Idolatry has ever its concomitant evils. The righteousness that is of faith cannot be dissevered from true godliness. The second great commandment of the law, our duty to man, though like unto the first, is preceded by it. That love which is the fulfilling of the law can only flow from the love of God; and faith in Christ is the only pure and sweet fountain, the well-spring of holiness, in the heart of the believer, unto life everlasting. But when the heart, out of which are the issues of life, is not purified by a holy faith, out of it proceed evil thoughts, and murders, and

adulteries; and a form of religion becomes the cloak and not the cure of iniquity. To believe in works of supererogation, or the merits of the saints, the only charter of tutelary demi-gods to the privilege of intercession and the rights of devotion, is to resist and grieve the Holy Spirit, in the very first of his operations on the spirits of men,-that of convincing them of sin and mere modes of delusion are substituted for the only means of salvation. Idolatry is an evil thing, not only as withholding from the Lord his due, and installing others in his place, which surely is transgression enough to call down judgments, but it is also the seed of a poisonous plant, the cankered root of a corrupted tree, of which unrighteousness is the natural fruit. And as the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk ; so neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. Tenderly as Du Pin touches the prevalent vices and multiform corruptions that reigned, throughout the fifteenth century, in the church of Rome, or among all the nations of western and northern Europe, yet he could not disguise them; and the confessions of a son of the church may suffice to show that the "mother" was unworthy of the name of " holy."

"The necessity of the reformation of the church in its head and members, as to discipline and manners, was acknowledged by the councils of Constance and Basil. They vainly attempted to accomplish it; for it was always delayed and eluded. The general councils which were to meet for that purpose every tenth year, was a project never put in execution. There were scarcely any general councils; and those which did meet, thought of nothing but the most gross disorders of the inferior clergy; the declarations and remonstrances of private men about the abuses of that time

were fruitless, and served only to preserve the memory of them to posterity."

It is the remarkable testimony of the same Roman Catholic writer, as if he had been watching so as to note the continued corruption of the Romish church from that very time, that from the year 1450 to the end of the century,

"The popes were more occupied with the cares of aggrandizing their temporal power, and settling their families (!) than with ecclesiastical affairs. Yet many letters and bulls were written in their name, about the affairs which are commonly carried to the court of Rome, as the canonization of saints, the privileges of monasteries, the affairs of religious orders, of dispensations, processes about churches," &c.f

According to the same authority, and from the same page, it appears, that

Callistus III., who was elevated to the popedom, during the very time of the siege of Constantinople, instead of repenting of the works of the hands of his predecessors," added to the corruptions of the church by establishing the festival of the transfiguration. His successor, Pius II., immediately, on ascending the papal throne, issued a bull, retracting all that he had formerly written in favour of a council, and forbade any appeal from the pope to that tribunal."‡

Sixtus IV., by two decrees, granted indulgences to those who should celebrate the feast of the conception, and say the office composed by Nogarol, a canon of Verona; and enjoined catholics not to treat with heretics, on pain of excommunication. He limited the term of the jubilee to five-and-twenty years. Alexander VI., the last pope of the fifteenth century, having become the head of the church by bribery and largesses to the cardinals of benefices and lands, disgraced his dignity by his ambition, his avarice, his cruelties, and debaucheries, and died in the year

66

* Du Pin's Hist. 15th cent. vol. xiii. chap. ix.

Ibid. c. 3, p. 56.

Ibid. p. 88.

1503, by unconsciously taking the poison which he had prepared for the cardinals."* Indulgences were granted in vast numbers, and with great facility, by the popes, who, in the same century, began to convert them into a species of traffic.†

From such evidence, drawn from such a source, we may, without suspicion or reserve, turn to other testimony, which, however, we still choose, as before, to give without mutilation, in the very words of the historian to whose province it pertains.

"The monastic societies, as we learn from a multitude of authentic records, and from the testimonies of the best writers, were at this time so many herds of lazy, illiterate, profligate and licentious epicureans, whose views of life were confined to opulence, idleness and pleasure.

The rich monks, particularly those of the Benedictine and Augustine orders, perverted their revenues to the gratification of their lusts, and renouncing in their conduct all regard to their respective rules of discipline, drew upon themselves the popular odium by their sensuality and licentiousness."‡

"While the opulent monks exhibited to the world scandalous examples of luxury, ignorance, laziness and licentiousness, accompanied with a barbarous aversion to every thing that carried the remotest aspect of science, the mendicants, and more especially the Dominicans and the Franciscans, were chargeable with irregularities of another kind. Besides their arrogance, which was excessive, a quarrelsome and litigious spirit, an ambitious desire of encroaching upon the rights and privileges of others, an insatiable zeal for the propagation of superstition among them, drew upon them the displeasure and indignation of many," &c.§

"The state of religion was become so corrupt among the Latins, that it was utterly destitute of any thing that could attract the esteem of the truly virtuous and judicious part of mankind. This is a fact, which even they whose prejudices render them unwilling to acknowledge it, will never presume to deny. The number of those who were studious to acquire a just notion of religious matters, to investigate the

+ Ib. chap. ix. p. 139.

Du Pin's Hist. c. iii. p. 56. Mosheim, cent. 15, part ii. c. 2, § 19. § Ibid. c. 15, part ii. sect. 20.