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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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< jf courts the false prophet will continue to occupy a share of our regards . We have for sometime looked upon the papal authority , as having received a blow , from which it could never revive : yet it still exists , and it is by no means certain , that its influence in the affairs of
the world may not hereafter be very considerable , iThat part of Italy , which was formerly known under the title of the patrimony of the Church , is now part of the French empire , and , if Rome ceases to be the chief city of an independent state , its splendour will attract the strangerwhen he visits the
, palaces of the viceroy and of the head of the Church . The decree , which annexed the patrimony to the French empire , made Rome the second city , gave palaces . to the Pope in both Paris and his ancient metropolis , iixed on him a very large revenue , and confined within determined limits his future powers .
To understand his new state we must look back to the ancient struggles , which subsisted between the see of Rome and the Gallican church . The kings of France were , by no means , pleased with the depression , in which it was the ambition of the court of Rome
to place them . The ' Gallican church claimed certain privileges , and the court , according as it was in good or ill humour with the' see of Rome , brought forward , or kept in the back ground , their claims . In the reign of TLouis the fourteenth , they were reduced to the following four propositions .
ist . y St . Peter and his successors have not received from God , any power to interfere directly , or indirectly , in what concerns the temporal interests of princes and sovereign states : kings and
pnnces cannot be deposed by ecclesiastical authority , nor their subjects be freed from thd" sacred obligation of fidelity and allegiance , by the power of the church , or the bulls of the Roman pontiiF .
2 d , The decrees of the council of Constance , which maintained the authority of general councils , as superior to that of the Pope ' s in spiritual matters , are approved and adopted by the Gallican church . 3 d . The ruLes , customs , institutions , and observances , which have been
received in the Gallican church , are to be preserved inviolable . 4 th . The decisions of the Pope , in points of faith 3 arc not infallible ; unless
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they are attended with the consent of the church . These four propositions were , as might naturally be expected , a sad bone of contention at Rome . Whilst the supremacy of the Pope in the hierarchy is allowed , the denial of temporal authority and infallibility to him , could
never be allowed . The doctrine was , however , partly orthodox in France ; and it is now established , and it is not only established , but the Pope himself must , in future , become a party to them , They are to form part of his coronation oath , and we may easily imagine , with what grace he will swear , that he has no right from God , to turn thrones upno xignt irorn vjroa , co turn uaron . es
upside down , and that he is not infallible . He is , however , now a subject of France , and this oath he must take , before he is put into possession of his palaces at Rome and Paris , and raised tp be the head of the cardinals , archbishops , bishops , priests , and deacons , and of the French empire , and of the united kingdom , of Great Britain and Ireland ,
A similar revolution to this took place formerly , in a distant part of the world- J apa-n was anciently under the dominion of a spiritual and a temporal sovereign , and the spiritual gentlemen played exactly the same tricks in that inland , that their spiritual brethren have done in Europe . The same spirit guided
them both , that of deception and fraud . The temporal sovereign , at last , got the better of the spiritual , who , however , is allowed to have his palace , a large income , and great respect ; but he is confined entirely to his spiritual tricks . Whether this Pope -will , by any art regain his former pre-eminence , time must determine . His claims as the successor
of St . Peter , remain the same ; the bigotted catholic will stiii retain his allegiance , and this may , in future times , be turned to an advantage , "which at present is by no means suspected . The true Christian will not however be dismayed . Fraud may prevail for a time , but an end must arrive when mankind
shall see the deception in its true light ; they will then , in scripture language , hate the whore and tear off her
meretrie iou 3 ornaments . The Catholics of Ireland seem determined to preserve their attachment to the pretended holy see . A meeting of Bishops has published their resolutions , in which they declare the necessity of their adhering to their present consti-
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State of Public Affairs . 151
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1810, page 151, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2402/page/47/
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