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opinion, to use the words of Theodosius, guided by heavenly wisdom, (Infallibility!) and insert a few extracts of the character of the church and priesthood of

that age.

On this period, Haweis says, "The church, in all the pomp of rites and ceremonies, groaned under the load of her own trappings. Vestments, holidays, fasts, festivals, shrines, martyrs' tombs, holy water, with all the trumpery so happily since improved, had begun to deck out the meretricious Church of Rome. The growing virtue of relics, and the supposed efficacy of the intercession of departed saints, opened a door for the grossest superstitions. Even Augustin himself laments, that the yoke, under which the Jews were held, was liberty compared with the bondage imposed on Christians." Patronage was then introduced, which has ever since been the curse of even many protestant churches. Building churches was an atonement for sin, and entitled the builder to the appointing of his own pastor. This right is continued even in Britain. The deserts were then peopled with monks and hermits, to whom an uncommon degree of sanctity, and the power of working miracles, were ascribed.

"The presbyters wholly depended on bishops and patrons: The bishops were the creatures of patriarchs and metropolitans; or, if the see was important, appointed by the emperor. So church and state formed the first inauspicious alliance, and the corruption which had been plentifully sown before, now ripened by court intrigues for political bishops of imperial ap-. pointment, or at the suggestion of the prime minister.”

"The establishment of christianity under Theodosius, and the uniformity enforced by his decrees, seem-;

ed to have placed the Catholic Church on the summit of eminence. This, added to all the wealth poured into it, and the patronage now enjoyed, cast a glare of splendour around it, which might lead an inattentive spectator to reverence this establishment as a glorious Church; but corruption already preyed on its vitals. The name prevailed, but the glory was departed. The profession of Christianity had become general, but the power of it was nearly lost. Ambition, pride, luxury, and all the legions of evils engendered by wealth and power, lodged in her bosom. Heresies, contentions, schisms, rent her garments and discovered her nakedness; whilst every hand grasping at pre-eminence, sought their own exaltation, instead of in honour preferring one another, and in meekness instructing those who opposed themselves: the victors as well as the vanquished, afforded an humiliating spectacle of the absence of all divine principle and influence.

The divided empire began to fall in pieces, and to be crushed by its own weight; whilst the feeble hands which grasped the trembling sceptre, scarcely defended the tottering throne on which they were seated. We are now sinking into Gothic barbarism, ecclesiastical usurpation, monkery triumphant, and the profession of christianity buried under fraud, follies, ceremonies, and all kinds of the most ridiculous and debasing superstitions." Haweis, vol. I. p. 301. Am. Edit. For much more to the same purpose, see Mosheim, Millot and Gibbons.

This was the state of the political catholic church, in that period, which Mr. Wylie selects for our imitation, in preference to the apostolic age, and the present state of the church in this or any protestant country.

The period of history which I have stated, is from the council of Nice to that of Chalcedon, a period of 196 years, which he has held up as a period of the greatest perfection of the christian church, and this church dignified with the superb title of Catholic by Theodosius, who, in his own opinion, was guided by infallible heavenly wisdom. It has undergone no material change of principle since that period. It indeed progressed in ignorance and superstition, but not in the viclence of persecution. If its own infallible authority was not called in question, it always admitted of more freedom of opinion than Theodosius and Justinian did. It always admitted of both the disciples of Augustine and Pelagius, to be in its communion, (viz. doctrinal Calvinists and Armenians.) The transfer of the infallibility from the emperor Phocas, to Boniface bishop of Rome, about the same time that Mahomet arose in the east, made no change of principle, nor did it prevent the struggle for power between kings and bishops. Theodosius, guided by heavenly wisdom, declared in a solemn decree, that the bishops of Rome were possessed of the infallible traditions which all must receive under the penalty of temporal and eternal vengeance. It was reasonable then, that those immortal bishops should enjoy and exercise the infallibility, and be the sole and final judges of truth on earth; they being the successors of St. Peter, and the vicars of Christ. If it was even now to be put to vote, I would prefer a learned clergyman to decide on religious truth, to such fortunate military adventurers as Constantine and Theodosius were, or as Napoleon now is. I am, however, so much of an infidel, as not to believe one word about the infallibility or heavenly wisdom claimed

and exercised by these emperors and bishops. I have not faith enough to believe that Peter was ever at Rome. The scriptures say nothing of it; and he was an old man when he wrote his last epistle in Asia. Christ and his apostles gave testimony of their infallibility, by their holiness of life, and mighty and beneficent works, beyond the ordinary powers of nature. The author's standard emperors and bishops, by their general conduct, gave evidence that they were guided by another spirit.

I was astonished, indeed, on reading the Sons of Oil, to observe that he was so severe against the members of the catholic church of Theodosius in this state, as to assign the protection of them and their property from injury, as one of the reasons why he and those that think with him, could not obey (homologate) the civil government of the state. The author, and those who think and act as he does, ought, like honest men, to avow their creed, viz. that received and practised on, in what he represents as the purest time of the christian church; and declare to the world on what grounds they can, or do, keep separate from the catholic church, or exclude papists from their communion; and what is still more extraordinary, endeayour to exclude them from breathing in the same air, or drinking in the same running stream with themselves. It cannot be for believing the infallibility of their church, nor in a purging fire, (purgatory) nor in the actual removal of the guilt of sin by baptism, nor the laying on of the hands of the bishops, nor for adoring the elements of the supper, nor worshipping and praying to the spirits of departed saints, or reverencing their supposed bones, nor indeed for almost any super

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stition that I know of, practised at this day in the Catholic church; surely not for the surplice, and endless. ceremonies practised in their worship. All these were practised in his period of purity which he pompously holds forth as a perfect model for our imitation. Surely, to be consistent, the author ought to keep communion still with the church, dignified by the emperor Theodosius, with the honourable title of catholic. That emperor certainly set the most perfect example of ratifying and sanctioning the laws of the most high God, and the decrees of the church, and of that discretion so much recommended by the author. He decided on the ordination and doctrine of the clergy, and purged the church fully, agreeably to the author's prescription, p. 24, &c. He, in the free exercise of this authority, appointed such bishops to princely thrones, as, in his discretion, he thought proper; and degraded from that pre-eminence more, perhaps, than a thousand, by one stroke of his pen. They might have deserved it, but they were not admitted to answer for themselves, agreeable to the Roman law, as the apostle Paul was, even in the reign of the monster Nero.

It is a received opinion, that the best things, when corrupted, become the worst. The persecuting laws of Theodosius, Justinian, &c. were more absurd and inconsistent than even the laws of the inhuman monsters Nero and Domitian. The laws of Moses did not permit any man to be condemned, but at the mouth of two witnesses. Theodosius, guided by heavenly wisdom, did not consider himself to be bound by such limits. He authorised the Catholics to kill the impious heretics at discretion. Charles II. and the parliament of England, followed this pious example; they cast

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