firming the orthodox faith, and condemning Theodorus, formerly bishop of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul of Conftantinople, and their heretical writings, with the impious ecthefis and the impious type," This authoritative definition and decree gave great umbrage, and did not foon fubfide; for it appears, that the authority of the pope, fo late as the year 669, was a matter of difpute: it was not acknowledged in Italy itself without the limits of the Suburbicarian provinces, the ancient limits of the jurifdiction of the bishop of Rome. Maurus, bishop of Ravenna, being foon after fummoned by Vitalianus, to Rome, to give an account of his faith and his conduct, not only refused to obey the fummons, but let the pope know that he had no authority over him or his fee. This unexpected anfwer provoked Vitalianus to fuch a degree, that he immediately thundered against Maurus the fentence of excommunication, but of his excommunication he made no more account than he made of his fummons; nay, thinking he had as good a right to excommunicate the pope as the pope had to excommunicate him, he retorted the fentence, and excommunicated him in his turn, which was thought a crime of fo atrocious a natures that he was ftripped of his priesthood and reduced to the state of a layman: but the bishop of Ravenna being fupported by the exarch, he continued, in fpite of the pope to exercife all the functions of his office till his death, and then left it in charge with his laft breath, never to fubmit to the undue power affumed by the pope, which was ftrictly adhered to by his fucceffor* In 680, when Agatho was bishop of Rome, another council was held at Conftantinople on the errors of the Monothelites, in a fpacious hall of the imperial palace, called from the form of the building Trulla, that is, Cupola, from whence it has fometimes that name: it * Bowers's History of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 87. [Seventh confifted of 166 bishops. It was moved at their first feffion, that the opinions of the fathers should be carefully and diligently confulted, in order to determine this point with greater certainty; and accordingly the ten first feffions were fpent in examining paffages out of the fathers and approved councils; and in the 18th feffion was read, and approved, and figned, che defini tion and decree of the council, firft acknowledging they received the five general councils; then they ana thematized the impious and execrable doctrine of one will, and the abettors of it, among whom was Honorius, bishop of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria, Macarius of Antioch, and others; and in the conclufion the imperial edict was read, requiring all the subjects of the em pire to conform in their belief to the prefent edict, on pain of being depofed, if ecclefiaftics; forfeiting their honour and estates, if laymen of rank and diftinction and if private perfons, to be banished the city of Conftantinople and all other cities in the empire. This fe vere edict was founded on that doctrine being repugnant to the faith of the holy catholic and apoftolic church, and the opinion of the fathers. 207-310 Such was the conduct and conclufion of the fixth ges neral council, declared to be of equal authority with the council of Nice, or any other council, and their de crees; according to pope Gregory the Great, equal with the gofpels themfelves; but by this council the infalli bility of the pope is irreconcilable with that of the council, Honorius the pope being thereby condemned as a heretic, his books ordered to be burnt, and he over and over anathematized. Hence it is obferved by some authors, that one would think the papal infallibility would be given up by all who pretend to acknowledge the authority and infallibility of this council. * T C It is also remarked, as the conclufions of this council were principally founded on the authority of the fathers, this introduced fuch a veneration for them, that their authority was almost univerfally afferted to be the rule of faith and doctrine, anathematizing all who do not * not from the heart believe, and with the mouth profess, every thing delivered by the fathers notwithstandingas our author afferts, they must then believe the moft abfurd and contradictory doctrines, doctrines even repugnant to fcripture, to reason, and common fenfet. For the primitive fathers went very far in fuperftition, even fo as to imitate the gentiles in their worship of dæmons; for they canonized faints, and honoured their relics; they varied the mode of baptifm by fuffufion, trine immerfion; introduced xorcifm; Chrilm gave milk and honey to the new baptifed, and in the eucha rift they mingled water with wine, gave the facrament to children, and this continued to be the practice of the church to the twelfth century ‡ Pope Gregory I. who was to remarkable for fuperftition and invention, as to be furnamed the Great, ingoifniflib br Bower's Hiftory of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 15. Baille, concerning the Right Ufe of the Fathers, lib. ii. chap. iv.An Effay on Seripture Prophecy, Prin. 1724 (a). St Aufting prayed for the dead, for the foul of his mother Menica, and held, that prayers for the good were thanksgivings for those not very bad, propitiations; for thofe very bad, though of no pfe to the dead, a comfort to the living. St. Ambrofe prayed for the foul of Theodofius ;-St. Gregory for the foul of Trajan St.Chryfoftom joined to his prayers for the dead,alms and oblations; St. Auftin introduced the veneration of the relics of faints, affirm ing miracles had been wrought by them;-St. Jerom defended the adoration of them. To omit many others, St. Bafil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyffen, St. Ambrofe, St. Jerom, St. Auftin, St. Theodoret, St. Fulgentius, St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo, and more have prayed to the faints (6). St. Cyprian, and a whole cou more him condemned the baptifm administered by fuch as they deemed heretics.Origen, through too much compaffion of the wicked, afferted that the devils themfelves, after a fevere punishment, fhould at length be faved. And none exceeded Tertullian in an undue veneration for the church. "If thou fearest heaven will be fhut against thee, fays he, remember that Chrift gave the keys to Peter and by him to the church (c).. See Delaun's Plea for the Nonconformists, and his Authorities, P. 33, and Dr. Mead before quoted, t before quotedorit vesyranny Shď (b) See Thorndyke, in Epil. Part iii. p. 3580 (a) Mead's Apoftafy of Later Times." F 4 troduced (c) Sir Peter King, p. 114, who cites his Scarphiac, p. 6123 troduced the doctrine of purgatory; and amongst other devices of the church of Rome in this century, the bifhops of Romes were first honoured with the triple crown. It was required that the traditions of the Romish church should be deemed as facred, as if delivered by the mouth of St. Peter himself. The heathen temples (facred to God) were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and to other nominal faints, and it was decreed that the church fhould be an afylum to all who fled to it, though guilty of the greateft crimes. No man was to marry a woman to whom his father had been godfather in baptism: - abftinence from certain meats and drinks on certain days was deemed meritorious : all faints-day inftituted by Boniface IV. A. D. 610 ||, and the number of feafts greatly augmented:the feast of the circumcifion :- the feast of the purification: the annunciation of the Virgin Mary and the feast of the depofition or fleep of the Virgin Mary fixed to the 15th of Auguft, and the practice of fafting on Saturday's forbidden on pain of excommunication for the laity, and depofition of the clergy *.-But amongst other things, the Lord's prayer was decreed to be read in their public worship at Rome, and was, foon after, injoined on all the churches 618|| ||; and organs were first brought into the Chriftian church by pope Vitalianus, about the year 660 †. The fixth general council, held at Conftantinople in 680, decreed, that Jefus Chrift fhould be painted in a human form upon the crofs, which picture of him fhould be put up in churches to reprefent, in the most lively manner imaginable to all Chriftians, the death and paffion of our Bleffed Saviour: at other times he was delineated in the form of a lamb, and the Holy Ghoft by that of a dove**. Private maffes became Dupin, Picart, Hiftory of Popery, 2 vols. 4to. * Bower's Hiftory of the Popes, vol. iii. By 153H d'rowog Hiftory of Popery, vol. i. + Norman on Church Mufic, P. 37 sit te volto ** Picart's Ceremonies, vol. i. p.347-2 ! more 24 more frequent, and they gave the communion in both kinds with leavened bread. Another council was held in 692 at Trullo; they made 102 canons, most of them of a trifling nature, others very fevere and opreffive to fuch as differed in points of faith or difcipline*. Theodore, as he expreffes it, had the fatisfaction, before he died, of feeing moft if not all the novel doctrines and Romish ceremonies established all over England, and the churches of the Scotch establishment, in this century t. CENTURY THE EIGHTH In the Eighth century we have many melancholy inftances of the great corruption in the Chriftian -church. The number of church-officers was, indeed, in fome measure fixed, and the feveral orders of archbishops, bifhops, deans, canons, curates, &c. &c. in a manner pretty near to what fubfifts at prefent in the Romish church .1. The pope now affumed to himself the power of dif pofing of the pall independently of the emperors, and declared by repeated decrees, it was unlawful for a metropolitan archbishop or primate to exercife any branch of his power till he had received his pall from Rome, and in feveral decrees the metropolitical jurifdiction and power were faid to be conferred by the pall §. en Gregory III. in 734, by a folemn fentence, deprived the emperor Leo, both of his empire and the communion of the faithful, because he would not admit of the worship of images . Pope Leo III. fet the imperial crown on the head of Charlemaign, all the all the people crying out, To Charles Auguftus, crowned of God Dupin, feventh Century. + Bower's Hiftory of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 156. Rolt's Introduction to the Lives of the Reformers, p. vii. great |