184 POPERY THE SOURCE OF GENERAL CORRUPTION. To this an uncontrollable power, bridled with no restraint, and impunity, naturally tends; and [to this], accordingly, has it been [often brought in practice]. How many notorious reprobates, monsters of wickedness, have been in that see!' If we survey the lives of popes, written by historians most indiffer- ent, or (as most have been) partial in favour to them, we shall find at first good ones, martyrs, confessors, saints; but after this exorbi- tant power had grown, how few good ones! how many extremely bad! The first popes before Constantine were holy men; the next were tolerable, while the papacykept within bounds of modesty; but when they, having shaken off their master, and renounced allegiance to the emperor (i. e., after Gregory II.), few tolerable; generallythey were either rake-hells, or intolerably arrogant, insolent, turbulent, and ravenous. Bellarmine and Baronius bob off [evade] this, by telling us that hence the providence of God is most apparent' But do they call this preserving the church, the permission of it to continue so long in such a condition, under theprevalence of such mischiefs? When has God deserted any people, if not when such impiety (more than pagan) reigns in it?' But what, in the meantime, became of those souls which by this means were ruined? what amends for the vast damage which religion sustained, for the introducing so pernicious customs, hardly to be ex- tirpated? To what a pass of shameless wickedness must things have come, when such men as Alexander VI., having visibly such an impure brood, should be placed in this chair! Even after the Reformation began to curb their impudence, and render them more wary, yet had they the face to set Paul III. there. How unfit must suchmen be to be. the guides of all Christendom, to breathe oracles of truth, to enact laws of sanctity! I Vid. Dist. xl. cap. 6 (hujus culpas, etsi). Vid. Alv. Pelag., apud Riv. Cath. Orth., p. 141, Baron. Pope Marcellus II. doubted whether a pope could be saved.Thuan., lib. xv. p. 566. From John VIII. to Leo. IX., what a rabble of rake-hells and sots sat in that chair! Machiavel, Hist., lib. xvi. p. 1271. Baron., ann. 912, § 8. 2 Baron., ann. 897, § 5. It was said of Vespasian, " Solus imperantium melior," so apt is power to corrupt men. Solus omnium ante se principum in melius mutatus est. Tac. Hist. i. p. 451. 3 How vain [ridiculous] is that which Pope GregoryVII. cites out ofPope Symmachus: B. Petrus perennemmeritorum dotem cum hæreditate innocentize misit ad posterns. Greg. VII., Ep. viii. 21. " St Peter transmitted to his descendants a perennial dowry ofmerits, along with the heritage of innocence." It was one of the Dictates of this pope :QuodRomanus pontifex, si canonice fuerit ordinatus, muftis B. Petri in- dubitanter efficitur sanctus. " That the Roman pontiff, if canonically elected, is un- doubtedly made holy by the merits of blessed Peter."
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