Gregory less successful with king William of England.

Pope added in his letter to the King, that he had complied with the request of his son, not doubting but it would be approved of by him and all the lords of his kingdom, since the prince of the apostles would thenceforth look upon their country and defend it as his own.*

The despotic views of this lordly pontiff were attended with less success in England, than in any other country. William the Conqueror was a prince of great spirit and resolution, extremely jealous of his rights, and tenacious of the prerogatives he enjoyed as a sovereign and independent monarch, and accordingly, when Gregory wrote him a letter demanding the arrears of the Peterpence, and at the same time summoning him to do homage for the kingdom of England, as a fief of the apostolic See, William granted the former, but refused the latter, with a bold obstinacy, declaring that he held his kingdom of his God only, and his own sword.†

§ 16. Mr. Bower relates similar instances of Gregory's haughty assumption toward the sovereigns of Denmark, Poland, Saxony, as well as various principalities of Italy, who were compelled by the spiritual tyrant to acknowledge themselves as his vassals, but the above are certainly sufficient to demonstrate the all-grasping ambition of this pontiff, and his settled plan of reducing all kingdoms into one vast monarchy, of which the prince of the apostles should be the sovereign and head.

"Gregory was," remarks the same historian, "to do him justice, a man of most extraordinary parts, of most uncommon abilities, both natural and acquired, and would have had at least as good a claim to the surname of Great, as either Gregory or Leo, had he not, led by an ambition the world never heard of before, grossly misapplied those great talents to the most wicked purposes, to the establishing of an uncontrolled tyranny over mankind, of making himself the sole lord, spiritual and temporal, over the whole earth, becoming by that means sole disposer, not only of all ecclesiastical dignities and preferments, but of Empires, States, and Kingdoms. That he had nothing less in his view, sufficiently appears from his whole conduct, from his letters, and from a famous piece entitle Dictatus Papæ, containing his maxims." This piece, which is found in the 55th letter of the second book of Gregory's epistles, contains his twenty-seven celebrated propositions, among which are the following:

The Roman pontiff alone should of right be styled UNIVERSAL BISHOP.

* Gregorii, lib. ii., epist. 74.

For the letter of William, see Collier's Ecclesiastical History, in the Collection of Records, at the end of the first volume, p. 713, No. 12. “ Hubertus legatus tuus," says king William, to the audacious pontiff, "admonuit me, quatenus tibi et successoribus tuis fidelitatem facerem, et de pecunia, quam antecessores mei ad ecclesiam mittere solebant, melius cogitarem. Unam admisi, alterum non admisi. Fidelitatem facere nolui nec volo," &c.

Bower, in vita Greg. VII.

Dictates of Hildebrand.

Advocated and defended by Romanist authors.

No man ought to live in the same house with persons excommunicated by the Pope.

The Pope alone can wear the imperial ornaments.

All princes are to kiss his foot, and pay that mark of distinction to him alone.

It is lawful for him to depose emperors.

No general council is to be assembled without his order.

His judgment no man can reverse, but he can reverse all other judgments.

He is to be judged by no man.

No man shall presume to condemn the person that appeals to the apostolic See.

The Roman church has never erred, nor will she ever err, according to Scripture.

He can depose and restore bishops without assembling a synod. The Pope can absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance which they have taken to a bad prince.

§17. The genuineness of these dictates of Hildebrand, as they are called, is testified by several of the most famous of the Roman Catholic writers, Harduin, Baronius, Lupus and others. Cardinal Baronius (An. 1076) not only admits the genuineness of these sentences, but says that the same doctrine was received in the Romish church down to his day (about 1609). His words are, "Istas hactenus in ecclesiæ catholicæ usu receptas fuisse." Lupus, another Romish writer, has given an ample commentary on them, and regards them as both authentic and sacred.* Whether, however, they were written in this present form by Gregory, or were extracted by some other author from his epistles, as Mosheim seems to suppose, is a matter of but small importance. The whole life of that haughty and imperious spiritual and temporal despot, is a proof that he believed and acted upon these principles. In the epistles of Gregory, he more than once undertakes a labored defence of the doctrine that all earthly governments, nations, sovereigns and rulers are subject to the Pope, and after referring to several instances in which he asserts this subjection had been previously recognized and acted upon, he proceeds to prove it by the following reasons:

(1.) The apostolic See has received of our Saviour the power of Judging spiritual matters, and consequently that of judging temporal concerns, which is a power of an inferior degree.

(2.) When our Saviour said to St. Peter, Feed my sheep, when he granted him the power of loosing and binding, he did not except kings.

(3.) The episcopal dignity is of divine institution; the royal is the invention of men, and owes its origin to pride and ambition. As bishops therefore are above kings as well as above all other men, they may judge them as well as other men.t

*Lupus-Notæ et Dissertationes in Concilia, tom. iv., p. 164. Greg. epist., Lib. ii., epist. 10, 11, 12.

The tyrannical doctrines of Hildebrand advocated in the nineteenth century.

Many popish writers of eminence have advocated these doctrines. Thus Bellarmine asserts that though Christ exercised no temporal power himself, yet he vested St. Peter, the prince of the apostles and his successors, with all temporal as well as spiritual power, leaving him and them at full liberty to exert it, when thought expedient and necessary for the good of his church. Probably amidst the light and intelligence of the nineteenth century it is not thought expedient for the good of the church to advocate or practise these doctrines of the infallible pope Gregory, at least in the United States. Yet it ought to be known, that so late as the year 1819, a volume appeared, from the pen of an Italian Catholic, De Maistre, which has since often been reprinted, advocating to the fullest extent the doctrines of pope Gregory, maintaining that kings are but delegates of the Holy See; that the Roman pontiffs have power to depose them at will, and even prescribing a form of petition which nations should address to his holiness, when they wish their sovereign to be dethroned. It is worthy to be known also by Americans, that this spiritual despot who maintained the right of the Roman See to trample at will upon the governments of the earth is enrolled in the Roman Catholic calendar as a SAINT, and as such reverenced and honored, even in the land of Washington, with all due worship on a day annually set apart for that purpose. In an edition of that standard popish book of devotion, called " the Garden of the Soul," now lying before me, published in New York, 1844," with the approbation of the Right Reverend Dr. Hughes, bishop of New York," in the calendar of the saints' days, I find the twenty-fifth of May designated as the day set apart in honor of SAINT GREGORY VII!*

§ 18. We have now traced the march of priestly and popish usurpation from the earliest attempts of ambitious ecclesiastics to domineer over their brethren, and to usurp the prerogatives of HIM who has said, "one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." We have seen the gradual steps by which the power of ambitious prelates in general, and of the bishop of Rome in particular, was increased, till the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was established in the early part of the seventh century. We have followed these haughty tyrants in their career of ambition, till a century and a half later they united the crown to the mitre, the sceptre to the crosier, and took their place among the temporal sovereigns of the world, till at last in the eleventh century they reached the climax of their power and usurpation, under the reign of Saint Gregory VII. We cannot better close the present chapter than by quoting from the learned Deylingius the following eleven propositions in relation to the rise of this power; which he has sustained, beyond contradiction, by a vast amount of erudition and research in a disquisition occupying 117 pages. The reader will perceive, that though quoted in the language of another, these

* See also the Acta Sanctorum, Antwerp, ad d. xxv. Maii.

The learned Deylingius's account of the gradual rise of the popes' tyrannical power.

propositions constitute a comprehensive summary of the historical account, which we have given in the preceding pages, of the gradual and successive steps by which the despotic power of the popes was eventually established."

"Proposition 1. Christ did not institute in his church any sacred dominion, and much less a monarchical government, such as the Roman prelates during a long period have claimed and usurped.

"2. In the beginning, all the ministers of the church were equal; and bishops before the second century, after the birth of Christ, were not exalted above presbyters; nor did they arrogate to themselves any peculiar duties or privileges of the sacred office.

"3. Although the government and the jurisdiction of the church at that period were not in bishops alone, but the presbyters and deacons, with the whole assembly, participated in the rule and determination of affairs; yet the authority of the prelates gradually and rapidly obtained a large increase.

"4. All bishops then were equal, nor had the Roman bishop or any other the least right or precedence over his brethren.

5. In the third century after the Saviour, metropolitans arose; who were placed in the principal city of the province, so that the other prelates in the same province by degrees became subject to their jurisdiction.

"6. Whatever prerogatives of bishops, and distinction of authority and power, then were admitted, were derived solely from the dignity of the city where they presided.

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"7. Although the metropolitan dignity was supreme after the council of Nice (in 325), yet there were three chiefs, the Roman, Alexandrian, and the Antiochian, each of whom ruled his own diocese unrestricted, and neither of them possessed any right or power more than the others.

"8. In the fourth century of the Christian church, the Roman pontiff was not patriarch of all Western Europe, much less was he head and monarch of the whole church; but only a particular prelate, not superior to other metropolitans, exarchs, or primates.

9. After the peace granted to the churches by Constantine, the luxury and pomp of the bishops greatly increased; and especially the ambition, authority, and power of the Roman prelate were extended, so that they could not be restrained within the limits of the suburban cities; but by various artifices, they continually became more amplified.

"10. At length the Roman prelates, not content with having obtained the primacy of order among the other hierarchs, endeavored to establish their authority in both divisions of the empire. After long and severe strife with the Constantinopolitan patriarch, by the parricide of Phocas, they obtained the title of Universal Bishop; and extended their jurisdiction, but could not grasp domination over all the church, because they were opposed by the authority of emperors and councils.

"11. Finally, in the eleventh century after Christ, the power of

Sprinkling with ashes on Ash-Wednesday.

the Roman pontiff, by the ferocity of pope Gregory VII., was carried to its utmost extent; and the nominal Christian church, through the debasement of the imperial and royal prerogatives, were forced to submit their necks to the yoke of the despotic court of Rome.”*

CHAPTER III.

POPE URBAN AND THE CRUSADES.

§ 19.-UPON the death of pope Gregory, which took place at Salernum, in 1085, the faction which supported his measures proceeded to the election of a successor, who assumed the title of Victor III., while Clement III., who, as we have already remarked, had been elected by the Emperor's party at the council of Brixen, was acknowledged as pope by a great part of Italy, and continued to maintain his pretensions to the papal throne till his death, in 1100, that is, during the whole of the pontificates of Victor III. and Urban II. Thus, as in many other instances, both in earlier and later times, were there rival competitors for the popedom, hurling defiance and anathemas at each other, and each at the same time claiming to be the vicegerent of God upon earth, and the infallible and authoritative interpreter of the will of God to man.

During the pontificate of Urban, in the year 1091, it was enacted in a council held at Benevento, among other superstitious ceremonies, that on the Wednesday which was the first day of the fast of Lent, the faithful laymen as well as clerks, women as well as men, should have their heads sprinkled with ashes, "a ceremony," says Bower," that is observed to this day." Ash-Wednesday, so called from the ceremony of giving the ashes, is the fortieth day before Easter Sunday, and the Romish fast of Lent continues during the whole of this interval. The ashes used at this ceremony must be made from the branches of the olive or palm that was "blessed" (to use the unmeaning language of Popery), on the Palm Sunday of the preceding year. The priest blesses the ashes by making on them the sign of the cross, and perfuming them with incense. The ashes are first laid on the head of the officiating priest in the form of a cross, by another priest. After he has received the ashes himself, he then gives them to his assistants and the other clergy present, after which the congregation, women as well as men, one after another, approach the altar, kneel before the priest, and receive this "mark of the beast" on their foreheads. (See Engraving.)

* Deylingii Observationum Sacrarum, pars i., exercit. 6. Bower, in vita Urban II.