POPERY AN INCORRIGIBLE SYSTEM. 183 Were such guides like to edify the people by their doctrine? Were they not like to damnify them by their example? That thus it has happened experience shows, and history abun- dantly testifies.' This was observed by a pagan historian, Ammianus Marcellinus. By St Basil [it was also observed, who speaks of their] 'ppu; dur,x,7 [supercilious pride]. What mischief this, what scandal to religion, what detriment to the church, what ruin of souls it produces, is visible. The descriptions of Rome and of that church by Mantuan, in a lively manner represent the great degeneracy and corruptions of it. 6. This authority, as it would induce corruption of manners, so it would perpetuate it, and render the state of things incorrigible. For this head of the church, and the supporters of his authority, will often need reformation, but never will endure it. That will happen of any pope which the fathers of Basil com- plained of in Pope Eugenius.a " He could never be brought during all this long time, by any advice or exhortation, seriously to set upon any amendment of errors, or correction of the most gross abuses, in the holy church of God." Ifthe pope would, as Pope Adrian VI., yet he will not be able to reform, the interests of his dependants crossing it.' If there has happened a good pope who desired to reform, yet be has been ridiculous when he endeavoured it, and found it impossible to reform even a few particulars in his own house, the incorrigible Roman court. The nature and pretended foundation of this spiritual authority encourages it with insuperable obstinacy to withstand all reforma- tion; for whereas, if any temporal power grows intolerable, God's providence, by wars and revolutions of state, may dispense a redress, they have prevented this, by supposing that in this case God has tied his own hands, this authority being immovably fixed in the same hands, from which no revolution can take it: whence from its exorbitances there can be no rescue or relief. 7. This authoritywill spoil him in whom it is seated, corrupting his mind and manners, rendering him a scandal to religion and a pernicious instrument of wickedness, by the influence of his example.' Alv. Pelag. in Riv. Castig. N., cap. viii. Vid. Bern. Convers. S. Paul., Serm. i. p. 87. 2 - Nulla unquammonition, nullaexhortatione induci jam largo temporepotuit, ut aliquam errorum emendationem Christo placentem, aut notissimorum abusuum cor- rectionem in ecclesia sancta Dei efficere satageret.Conc. Bas., sess. xxiii. p. 76, sess. xxxi. p. 89. a Vid. Conc. Trid., p. 22. 4 It will certainly render him a tyrant, according to the definition of Aristotle, Pol. iv. 10 : " Cui plus Beet quam par est, plus vult quam licet" Uncle sicut langues- cente espite, reliquum postea corpus morbus invadat. Conc. Bas., sees. xxiii. p. 64. " Whence it comes to pass, that if the head be sick, the rest of the body afterward grows diseased." Vid. Conc. Bas., p. 87; Conc. Const., p. 1110. 1
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