pursue the subject as to the extent of the Pontifical power, and some particulars of the use made of it: and first as to the sacred books.

"The power of the Pontiffs is supreme, for they determine on all things that appertain to religion.-In what cases soever they have no written laws, they enact new ones by their own determination. They are under the power of no one (though they may be compelled by the Plebeian Tribune to perform their respective sacred duties) neither are they accountable to either the Senate or the Commons. Their persons were also sacred. The Pontifex Maximus had the care of the rites of Vesta, and † the vestal virgins, and was therefore styled Exoros, or Bishop. He superintended and regulated public worship, and punished offenders by fine, &c. and sometimes with death. He could dispense with religious ceremonies, and judged of oracular books and answers, and of the circumstances under which such books might be consulted."

Were there not a few words in the above extracts, which indicate that they are descriptive of the Heathen Pontiff and the Augurs, the reader might readily suppose them to be so of the Christian Pontiff..

This power was moreover exerted to the prohibition of the use of the sacred books, and to the de

* See the French Encyclopedie, under the word Pontife. † Nunneries were not established till the vestal virgins were no more, though monasteries were so long before. Nunneries may therefore justly be considered as a continuation of the same institution, under another name.

struction of such as were thought proper to be destroyed by the Pontifex Maximus. For Augustus when he had attained to this station, *" having collected the prophetic books, Greek and Latin, burned upwards of two thousand of those, which were of no authority, or of improper authority, and retained the Sybilline books only; and even of those only a selection."

He also made a law "that any prophetic book should within a certain number of days be brought to the Prætor, and that (as had by their ancestors been decreed) no one should have such in private possession, because that many of no authenticity were published under a celebrated name."

Tiberius went further. He would not, in a time of public calamity, and when ‡ Asinius Gallus proposed that the Sybilline books themselves should be consulted, permit it to be done. "Thus," Thus," says Tacitus," he kept all, divine and human, in obscurity."

From the same source, the interference of the

* Quicquid fatidicorum librorum, Græci Latinique generis, nullis vel parum idoneis auctoribus vulgo ferebatur, supra duo millia contracta undique cremavit, ac solos retinuit Sybillinos: hos quoque delectu habito.-Suet. in Vit. Aug. cap. 31.

† Simul commonefecit; quia multa vacea sub nomine celebri vulgabantur, quem intra diem ad Prætorem urbanum deferrentur, neque habere privatim liceret: quod a majoribus quoque decretum erat.-Taciti Annal. lib. 6. cap. 12.

Censuit Asinius Gallus ut libri Sibyllini adirentur: renuit Tiberius, perinde divina humanaque obtegens.-Ib. lib. 1. cap. 76.

church, in Testamentary matters, appears to have derived its origin. At least it has none in Scripture. In cases of adoption, and probably for similar reasons in matrimonial contracts, the Pontifices inquired into the circumstances of family descent, dignity, and sacred rites; and therefore Cicero adduces the circumstance, that," the payment of the money appropriated to sacred rites attached to the inheritance of the name," as a proof that the adoption was legal, according to the Pontifical law; for the Pontifices + had, as far as regarded these rights, the cognizance of inheritances. With great prudence, however, another Roman law was not officiously brought forward, viz.

"Let no one dedicate ground to religious uses, and let bounds be placed to the dedicating of gold, silver, and ivory, for such purpose."

Hence then it will be evident, that, in the great and sudden change introduced by Constantine, the Heathen customs and prejudices were transferred to the Christian system. Hence, and hence only, can we account for that species of policy in the Romish church, which has made of a Bishop a temporal Prince; which attributes infallibility to the decisions of its councils; which establishes a supremacy of the Pontificate; a power to dispense with religious obligation, and to grant or withhold the

* Hæreditates nominis pecuniæ sacrorum secutæ sunt.-Cic. pro domo sua ad Pont.

† Vide Cic. de Legibus lib. 2.

Nequis agrum consecrato. Auri, Argenti, Eboris sacrandi modus est,-Lex xii. Tab.

perusal of the sacred books, and a prohibition of the use of them to the laity.

Hence only can we also account for the otherwise strange facility with which the laity submitted to such pretensions of a Christian Bishop. The ideas of the multitude, who were the converts more of the times and court favour than of conviction, had been formed by habit to a blind submission to the sacerdotal decision, and a fear of inquiry into the dictates of its authority. Such ideas were therefore flattered by a continuation of their former habits and old prejudices, and probably by that of the assumption of the sacerdotal titles, the dress, and even the Lituus of the Augurs, under the new name of the pastoral staff; by the display of magnificence of the former priesthood; and by the grandeur and ornaments of the temples, which immediately took place, if the authorities from which Platina took his accounts of them are to be credited in any degree.

Which of the Popes it was, who first assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus, I have not the means of determining; though I strongly suspect it to have been* Boniface III. as it is certain he was the first who took the unchristian title of Universal Bishop. Be this as it may, these circumstances of the times were equally fatal to the purity of the doctrines of the Romish church, and fatally subservient to the ambitious usurpations of a long list of Popes, to whom this disposition of the people was a most

If it were he, it would be another mark of Mr. Faber's correctness in his very able calculation of the prophetic periods.

commodious circumstance; neither was it suffered to lie unimproved. To save appearances, something like an authority from Scripture was indeed necessary; and the happy dexterity of eliciting one from the words Thou art Peter sufficiently shews the miserable shifts, and pitiable argument, they were driven to for the purpose. It was enough, however, for those, who were already content to be without a knowledge of the Scriptures.

But where the ancient prejudices militated openly against the restrictions of their Christian teachers, these converts were by no means so tractable. They were content to be ignorant; but they were not content to lose the festivities of the Heathen ritual, and the sensible representations of the objects of worship. The sacrifice once offered was not one that could favour these. What then was to be done? Pope Gregory I. in his letter to Mellitus, informs us. "For that they are wonte to kill oxen in sacrifice to the divells, they shal use the same slaughter now, but chaunged to a better purpose." This good Pope, for he was really a good man, had not, however, as it should seem, any notion of the

* Heb. ix. v. 28.-That this sacrifice was offered once for all, and not to be repeated, is clear from the context of this whole chapter, wherein it is put in opposition to the repeated and daily sacrifices of the Jews; and indeed from the remainder of this verse, "He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation." He is not then to appear a second time till then; and consequently is not offered, nor does appear in the Mass.

† Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book 1. chap. 30. Stapleton's Translation.