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checking the encroachments of the Church, declared in the year 1513 that any Ecclesiastic accused of theft, or murder, should be tried before the Secular Tribunals. Exceptions, however, were made in favor of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons-that is to say, nearly all the Clergy.”— Hist. Ref. [England] D'Aubigné. Observe; the Papal influences and domination of the Dark Ages have been lauded on the ground that the Primitive Reformers were a "far worse class of teachers" (qy.) THAN THIEVES AND MURDERERS! Whilst incidentally recurring to this subject, viz, the immorality of the Priesthood, we may here add a few more sable tints to our former picture. Debauchery stretches out the hand to avarice. The Officials invite women to their dwellings under various pretexts, and endeavour to seduce them, at one time by threats, at another by presents; or if foiled, they ruin their good fame. All shame has been put aside. Money, money, money, is the great object, so that the Preachers who should teach the Truth, utter nothing but falsehoods." -George, Duke of Saxony. 16th Century. "The keenest darts of classical learning were aimed at the Cloisters, those strong fortresses of the hierarchy and uncleanness.”—Loca sacra etiam ipsa Dei templa monialium stupro et sanguinis et seminis effusione profanare non verentur. Papal Bull. Wilkins Concilia. p. 622. Hist. Ref. quoted. "That the Priests should no longer keep shops or taverns, play at dice or other forbidden games, pass the night in suspected places, be present at disreputable shows, go about with sporting dogs, or with hawks, falcons, or other birds of prey, on their fists; or, finally, hold suspicious intercourse with women.”—Decree of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, assembled at Westminster, November 12th, 1529. "Penalties were denounced against these various disorders: they were doubled in case of adultery; and still further increased in the case of more abominable impurities, viz., Et in cæteris carnis spurcitiis pæna crescat. Such were the laws rendered necessary by the manners of the Clergy."― Wilkins, Concilia, iii. p. 721, qu. Hist. Ref.

"Luther's Letter:- "To the Most Holy Father in God, Leo X, Pope at Rome, be all health in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. You are aware that Rome for many years past has inundated the world with all that could destroy both body and soul. The Church of Rome, once the foremost in sanctity, is become the most licentious den of robbers, the most shameless of all brothels, the kingdom of sin, of death, and of hell, which Antichrist himself, if he were to appear, could not increase in wickedness. All this is clearer than the sun at noon day."

"For murdering a Layman, a tax of about 7s. 6d. Ditto a Parent, 10s. 6d. For assaulting a Priest, 10s. 6d." Adultery, perjury, incest, and fornication, were adjusted to a corresponding tariff of absolution.—— Taxes of the Apostolical Chancery, 1520.

"Provided money can be extorted, everything prohibited is permitted."-Claude D' Espence,

"Permission is granted to the King and Queen of France (if their Majesties' Confessor assent thereto) for the commutation of vows, or the breaking of oaths which cannot profitably be kept.”—Pope Clement VI. Here is another specimen of Papal "flexibility." Pope Julius II, "for the sake of preserving union between the Catholic Princes," granted a dispensation authorizing Catherine's marriage with the brother of her first husband, accedente forsan copula carnali, "though," said Fox, Bishop of Winchester, "such a step is seriously opposed to the Divine law." If we remember rightly, it was the aforesaid Pontiff who, after returning from the chase, granted the jelly-pardons to Thomas Cromwell.

"Having taken into our serious consideration the great zeal of the Irish towards the propagation of the Catholic Faith, and having got certain notice how, in imitation of their godly and worthy ancestors, they endeavour, by force of arms, to deliver their enthralled nation from the oppression of heretics, and gallantly to do what lieth in them to extirpate and totally root out these workers of iniquity, who, in the Kingdom of Ireland, had infected the mass of Catholic purity with the pestiferous leaven of their heretical contagion; we, therefore, being willing, with the gifts of those spiritual graces whereof we are ordained the only disposer on earth, and by virtue of that power of binding and loosing souls, which God was pleased to confer on us, to all and every one of the faithful Christians in the aforesaid Kingdom of Ireland, and now for the time militating against heretics, do grant full and plenary indulgence and absolute remission of all their sin. Desiring heartily all the faithful in Christ, now in arms, to be partakers of this most precious treasure. Urbanus Octavus. Dated at Rome in the Vatican of St. Peter's Palace, May 25, 1643." The above Bull was issued to stimulate the Irish Massacre.

"I will create such a confusion in the world as has not been witnessed for ages, even if England be swallowed up in the tempest."Cardinal Wolsey.

The cupidity and avarice of the Priesthood was cleverly satirized in

The Supplication of the Beggars, 1526. It concludes thus: "What do the ravenous wolves get in a year? Summa totalis: £430,333 6s. 8d. sterling; whereof, four hundred years past they had not a penny. And what doth all this greedy, idle sort of holy thieves with their exactions that they take of the people? Truly nothing. Send these sturdy loobies abroad to get wives of their own, and to live by the sweat of their brow, then shall your Grace's (Henry VIII) Commons multiply in riches."

Certain Prelates of the Romish communion behaved very oddly during this year (1526). Evening Service was being performed in the Cardinal's Chapel, Oxford. The Dean and Canons en costume were singing Magnificat,—lo! the University Commissary brought intelligence that a heretic (Garret) had escaped. Foxe says, Dr. Loudon ran in "like a hungry lion seeking his prey." Again: one Prior Anthony Dunstan whilst interrogating an “abettor of Lollards," purloined the prisoner's "double gilt ring," because it bore the initials A. D.-Foxe. But these two cases are comparatively nothing. Note the following tragedy:-A barbarous murder took place on the night of December 2, 1516. The Bishop of London's Chancellor, accompanied by two assistant ruffians, entered the cell of Richard Hun, who was incarcerated for heresy, and the underlings, acting on the orders of the aforesaid official, strangled the half awakened prisoner in his bed. William Horsey, the Chancellor, personally superintended this ecclesiastical murder, and gave directions for the body to be disposed so as it should appear like that of of a suicide. Indeed, throughout the whole transaction, the Bishop's functionary maintained the traditional "flexibility which adapts itself to all circumstances," by affecting much surprise at the tragedy, and had only just arisen from his prayers when he received the "sad" news. "Despair," hinted the Chancellor. We tremble to reflect over the doom of this vile dissembler. A crime so flagitious speedily aroused popular feeling; but the Diocesan, with the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln, attempted to screen clerical contrivance at this deed, by declaring the victim to have been guilty of heresy, and they accordingly adjudged his body to be burnt. However, the Church stood almost alone in justifying its villany, for the public declaimed against the " frightful tyranny" of the clergy, and even the King marked his abhorrence of such an outrage. He bade the "priests return to the unhappy children the property of their father whom they had so cruelly murdered." Foxe, Acts and Mon. 11, 12,

13 p. Verdict on the Inquest, held before W. Barnwell, City Coroner, and twenty-four Jurymen.

The Prelatcs are dressed in red, because they are eager to shed the blood of whomsoever seeketh the word of God. Scourge of States, devastators of Kingdoms !"-Tynd. Doctr. Ob. Chr. Man. p. 251.

'It were better to be without God's laws than the Pope's."-The answer that a celebrated Romish theologian gave to Tyndale, the hellenist. But the schoolman's logic was superior to the demeanour of his co-priests, who, sitting in the alehouses over their jugs of beer, "like unclean swine that follow carnal lusts," (Tyn. Ex.) poured forth a thousand curses on the Reformers.

During the sixteenth century, there was a great outpouring of the Christian life in France, Italy, and Spain: it is attested by martyrs without number, and history shews that to transform these three great nations, all that the Gospel wanted was Liberty. If we had set to work two months later,' said a Grand Inquisitor of Spain, who had dyed himself in the blood of the Saints, it would have been too late: Spain must have separated from the Roman Church.'”—Llorente, Ann. Inquis. Gonsalvi, Mart. Hisp. M'Crie. Ref. in Spain. Gedde's Martyrology. quo. D'Aubigné.

"Let the soul of the unknown heretic, if he be dead already, be quenched this night in the pains of hell-fire, as this candle is now quenched and put out; and let us pray to God, if he be yet alive, that his eyes be put out, and that all the senses of his body may fail him as now the light of this candle is gone."-The Great Curse with "Book, Bell, and Candle," as pronounced against Thomas Bennet, in Exeter Cathedral, October, 1530, by the Dominican and Franciscan Priests of that City.

The Comte de Montalembert tells us that our ancestors thrived under the "benign" sway of Romanism. In the Ledger of Rochester Church, Kent, there is a Solemn Form of Excommunication, which, during the days of yore, evidently had been a Priestly weapon of considerable force. Transcript subjoined :-The Declaration." By the Authority of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and also of the Holy Canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, Mother and Patroness of our Saviour, and of all the Celestial Virtues, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim; and of the Holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, and of all the Holy

curse him or them.

Innocents, who in the Sight of the Holy Lamb are found worthy to sing the new Song of the Holy Martyrs, Holy Confessors, (?) Holy Virgins, and of all the Saints, together with all the Holy of God, we hereby Excommunicate and Anathematize him or them, Malefactor or Malefactors. And from the Threshold of the Holy Church of God Almighty we Sequester, that he or they may be Tormented, Disposed of, and Delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those that say unto the Lord God, Depart from us. And as the Fire is quenched with Water, so let the Light of him or them for Evermore, unless it shall Repent him or them to make Satisfaction. Amen. The Curses." May the Father, who created Man, curse him or them. May the Son who Suffered for us curse him or them. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in our Baptism, curse him or them. May the Holy Cross, which Christ for our Salvation, Triumphing over His Enemies, Ascended, curse him or them. May the Holy and Eternal Virgin Mary, Mother of God, May St. Michael, the Advocate (?) of Holy Souls, curse him or them. May all the Angels and Archangels, Principalities and Powers, and all the Heavenly Hosts, curse him or them. May St. John, the Chief Forerunner of Christ, curse him or them. May St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other of Christ's Apostles, together with the rest of His Disciples, and four Evangelists who by their Preaching Converted the Universal World, curse him or them. May the Holy and Wonderful Company of Martyrs and Confessors, who by their Holy Works (?) are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him or them. May the Holy Choir of the Holy Virgins, who for the Honour of Christ have Despised the Things of this World, curse him or them. May all the Saints, who from the Beginning of the World to Everlasting Ages are found to be Beloved of God, curse him or them. May he or they be cursed wheresoever they be, whether in their House, or the Field, or the Highway, or the Path, or in the Wood, or in the Water, or in the Church. May he or they be cursed in Living, in Dying, in Eating, in Drinking, in being Hungry, in being Thirsty, in Fasting, in Sleeping, in Slumbering, in Waking, in Walking, in Standing, in Sitting, in Resting, in and in Bloodletting. May he or they be cursed in all the Faculties of their Body. May he or they be cursed Inwardly and Outwardly. May he or they be cursed in the Hair of his or their Head. May he or they be cursed in his or their Brain. May he or they be cursed in the Top of his or their Head, in their