ble, he should take care that this respect be not carried to such a superstitious veneration as shall arm the hand of an ambitious priest with a powerful engine with which he may force weak minds into whatever direction he pleases. When once the clergy become a separate body, they become formidable. The Romans (we shall often have occasion to recur to them) the wise Romans elected from among the senators their pontifex-maximus and the principal ministers of the altar; they knew no distinction between clergy and laity; nor had they a set of gownsmen to constitute a separate class from the rest of the citizens. BOOK I. CHAP. XII. sons which If the sovereign be deprived of this power in matters of 144. Rereligion, and this authority over the clergy, how shall he precapitulation of the reaserve the religion pure from the admixture of any thing contrary to the welfare of the state? How can he cause it to be establish the constantly taught and practised in the manner most conducive sovereign's to the public welfare? and, especially, how can he prevent rights in the disorders it may occasion, either by its doctrines, or the religion. manner in which its discipline is exerted? These cares and [ 65 ] duties can only belong to the sovereign, and nothing can dispense with his discharging them. matters of Hence we see that the prerogatives of the crown, in eccle- Authorities siastical affairs, have been constantly and faithfully defended and examby the parliaments of France. The wise and learned magis- ples. trates, of whom those illustrious bodies are composed, are sensible of the maxims which sound reason dictates on this subject. They know how important it is not to suffer an affair of so delicate a nature, so extensive in its connections and influence, and so momentous in its consequences, to be placed beyond the reach of the public authority.—What! Shall ecclesiastics presume to propose to the people, as an article of faith, some obscure and useless dogma, which constitutes no essential part of the received religion?-shall they exclude from the church, and defame those who do not show a blind obedience?-shall they refuse them the sacraments, and even the rites of burial?—and shall not the prince have power to protect his subjects, and preserve the kingdom from a dangerous schism? The kings of England have asserted the prerogatives of their crown: they have caused themselves to be acknowledged heads of the church: and this regulation is equally approved by reason and sound policy, and is also conformable to ancient custom. The first Christian emperors exercised all the functions of heads of the church; they made laws on subjects relating to it,*-summoned councils, and presided in them,appointed and deposed bishops, &c. In Switzerland there are wise republics, whose sovereigns, knowing the full extent of the supreme authority, have rendered the ministers of * See the Theodosian Code. BOOK I. religion subject to it, without offering violence to their conCHAP. XII sciences. They have prepared a formulary of the doctrines that are to be preached, and published laws of ecclesiastical discipline, such as they would have it exercised in the countries under their jurisdiction,-in order that those who will not conform to these establishments may not devote themselves to the service of the church. They keep all the ministers of religion in a lawful dependence, and suffer no exertion of church discipline but under their own authority. It is not probable that religion will ever occasion disturbances in these republics. 145. Per sequences of the contrary opinion. If Constantine and his successors had caused themselves nicious con- to be formally acknowledged heads of the church,-and if Christian kings and princes had, in this instance, known how to maintain the rights of sovereignty,-would the world ever have witnessed those horrid disorders produced by the pride and ambition of some popes and ecclesiastics, emboldened by [66] the weakness of princes, and supported by the superstition of the people,-rivers of blood shed in the quarrels of monks, about speculative questions that were often unintelligible and almost always as useless to the salvation of souls as in themselves indifferent to the welfare of society-citizens and even brothers armed against each other, subjects excited to revolt, and kings hurled from their thrones? Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum! The history of the emperors Henry IV., Frederick I., Frederick II., and Louis of Bavaria, is well known. Was it not the independence of the ecclesiastics, was it not that system in which the affairs of religion are submitted to a foreign power, that plunged France into the horrors of the league, and had nearly deprived her of the best and greatest of her kings? Had it not been for that strange and dangerous system, would a foreigner, Pope Sextus V., have undertaken to violate the fundamental law of the kingdom, and declared the lawful heir incapable of wearing the crown? Would the world have seen, at other times and in other places, the succession to the crown rendered uncertain by a bare informality-the want of a dispensation, whose validity was disputed, and which a foreign prelate claimed the sole right of granting? Would that same foreigner have arrogated to himself the power of pronouncing on the legitimacy of the issue of a king? Would kings have been assassinated in consequence of a detestable doctrine? Would a part of France have been afraid to acknowledge the best of their kings, until he had received absolution from Rome? And, would many other princes have been unable to give a solid In England under Henry VIII. Henry III. and Henry IV. assassinated by fanatics, who thought they were serving God and the church by stabbing their king, Though Henry IV. returned to the Romish religion, a great number of Catholics did not dare to acknowledge him until he had received the pope's absolution, peace to their people, because no decision could be formed BOOK I. within their own dominions on articles or conditions in which CHAP. XII. religion was interested?* ticularized. 1. The pow All we have advanced on this subject, so evidently flows 146. The from the notions of independence and sovereignty, that it will abuses parnever be disputed by any honest man who endeavours to reason justly. If a state cannot finally determine every thing er of the relating to religion, the nation is not free, and the prince is popes. but half a sovereign. There is no medium in this case; either each state must, within its own territories, possess supreme power in this respect, as well as in all others, or we must adopt the system of Boniface VIII., and consider all Roman Catholic countries as forming only one state, of which the pope shall be the supreme head, and the kings subordinate administrators of temporal affairs, each .in his province,nearly as the sultans were formerly under the authority of the caliphs. We know that the above-mentioned pope had the presumption to write to Philip the Fair, king of France, Seire te volumus, quod in spiritualibus et temporalibus nobis subes† [ 67 ] -"We would have thee know that thou art subject to us as well in temporals as in spirituals." And we may see in the canon law his famous bull Unam sanctam, in which he attributes to the church two swords, or a double power, spiritual and temporal,-condemns those who think otherwise, as men, who, after the example of the Manicheans, establish two principles, and finally declares, that it is an article of faith, necessary to salvation, to believe that every human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff.§ We shall consider the enormous power of the popes as the first abuse that sprung from this system, which divests sovereigns of their authority in matters of religion. This power in a foreign court directly militates against the independence Many kings of France in the civil posed him. In short, here are the exwars on account of religion. pressions he made use of in addressing † Turretin. Hist. Ecclesiast. Compendium, p. 182. Where may also be seen the resolute answer of the king of France. Extravag. Commun. lib. i. tit. De testis in cœlo ligare et solvere, potestis Majoritate & Obedientia. Gregory VII. endeavoured to render almost all the states of Europe tributary to him. He maintained that Hungary, Dalmatia, Russia, Spain, and Corsica, were absolutely his property, as successor to St. Peter, or were feudatory dependencies of the holy see. GREG. Epist. Concil. vol. vi. Edit. Harduin. He summoned the emperor Henry IV. to appear before him, and make his defence against the accusations of some of his subjects: and, on the emperor's non-compliance, he de in terra imperia, regna, principatus, The canon law boldly decides that BOOK I. CHAP. XII. of nations and the sovereignty of princes. It is capable of overturning a state; and wherever it is acknowledged, the sovereign finds it impossible to exercise his authority in such a manner as is most for the advantage of the nation. We have already, in the last section, given several remarkable instances of this; and history presents others without number. The senate of Sweden having condemned Trollius, archbishop of Upsal, for the crime of rebellion, to be degraded from his see, and to end his days in a monastery, pope Leo X. had the audacity to excommunicate the administrator Steno and the whole senate, and sentenced them to rebuild, at their own expense, a fortress belonging to the archbishop, which they had caused to be demolished, and pay a fine of a hundred thousand ducats to the deposed prelate.* The barbarous Christiern, king of Denmark, took advantage of this decree, to lay waste the territories of Sweden, and to spill the blood of the most illustrious of her nobility. Paul V. thundered out an interdict against Venice, on account of some very wise laws made with respect to the government of the city, but which displeased that pontiff, who thus threw the republic into an embarrassment, from which all the wisdom and firmness of the [68] senate found it difficult to extricate it. Pius V., in his bull, In Coena Domini, of the year 1567, declares, that all princes who shall introduce into their dominions any new taxes, of what nature soever they be, or shall increase the ancient ones, without having first obtained the approbation of the holy see, are ipso facto excommunicated. Is not this a direct attack on the independence of nations, and a subversion of the authority of sovereigns? In those unhappy times, those dark ages that preceded the revival of literature and the Reformation, the popes attempted to regulate the actions of princes, under the pretence of conscience-to judge of the validity of their treaties-to break their alliances, and declare them null and void. But those attempts met with a vigorous resistance, even in a country which is generally thought to have then possessed valour alone, with a very small portion of knowledge. The pope's nuncio, in order to detach the Swiss from the interests of France, published a monitory against all those cantons that favoured Charles VIII., declaring them excommunicated, if within the space of fifteen days they did not abandon the cause of that prince, and enter into the confederacy which was formed against him; but the Swiss opposed this act, by protesting against it as an iniquitous abuse, and caused their protest to be publicly posted up in all the places under their jurisdiction: thus showing their contempt for a proceeding that was equally absurd and derogatory to the rights of sove History of the Revolutions in Sweden. OF PIETY AND RELIGION. reigns. We shall mention several other similar attempts, when we come to treat of the faith of treaties. BOOK I. CHAP. XII. 2. Import- ? This power in the popes has given birth to another abuse, 147. that deserves the utmost attention from a wise government. We see several countries in which ecclesiastical dignities, and all the higher benefices, are distributed by a foreign power-ferred by a by the pope-who bestows them on his creatures, and very foreign This practice power. often on men who are not subjects of the state. is at once a violation of the nation's rights, and of the principles of common policy. A nation ought not to suffer foreigners to dictate laws to her, to interfere in her concerns, or deprive her of her natural advantages; and yet, how does it happen that so many states still tamely suffer a foreigner to dispose of posts and employments of the highest importance to their peace and happiness? The princes who consented to the introduction of so enormous an abuse were equally the wanting to themselves and their people. In our times, court of Spain has been obliged to expend immense sums, in order to recover, without danger, the peaceable possession of a right which essentially belonged to the nation or its head. Even in those states whose sovereigns have preserved so ? 148. important a prerogative of the crown, the abuse in a great 3. Powerful measure subsists. The sovereign nominates, indeed, to bishop-subjects derics and great benefices; but his authority is not sufficient to a foreign enable the persons nominated to enter on the exercise of their court. functions; they must also have bulls from Rome.† By this [ 69 ] and a thousand other links of attachment, the whole body of the clergy in those countries still depend on the court of Rome; from it they expect dignities; from it that purple, which, according to the proud pretensions of those who are invested with it, renders them equal to sovereigns. From the resentment of that court they have every thing to fear; and of course we see them almost invariably disposed to gratify it on every occasion. On the other hand, the court of Rome supports those clergy with all her might, assists them by her politics and credit, protects them against their enemies, against those who would set bounds to their power-nay, often against the just indignation of their sovereign; and by this means attaches them to her still more strongly. Is it not doing an injury to the rights of society, and shocking the first elements of government, thus to suffer a great number of subjects, and even subjects in high posts, to be dependent on a foreign prince, and entirely devoted to him? Would a Vogel's Historical and Political Treatise on the Alliances between France and the Thirteen Cantons, pp. 33 and 36. † We may see, in the letters of Cardinal d'Ossat, what difficulties, what opposition, what long delays, Henry IV. and had to encounter, when he wished to 141 |