by some of those strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, who heard Peter preach, and were converted at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The bishops of the Christian Church at Rome, in the second and third centuries, had acquired considerable power and wealth; and their autority and influence were materially augmented, after Constantine removed the court, which was followed by the nobility, to the new capital of the empire which he had founded in the East. At length Italy was overrun by barbarous nations, who embraced the faith of the conquered, and who naturally transferred to the ministers of the religion they had recently embraced, the rights and powers which had formerly belonged to their antient worship. Rome itself would have fallen into the hands of the Lombards, but for the timely aid of Pepin, whom Stephen II. the then Bishop of Rome, had crowned and anointed as king of the Franks; and who made him a temporal prince, by conferring on him the exarchate of Ravenna, and the district of Pentapolis (containing five cities). Charlemagne even surpassed the liberality of his father; and in so doing he opened for himself a passage to the Empire of the West, being crowned Emperor of the Romans by Leo III., Bishop of Rome, on Christmas day in the year 800. On this occasion he granted the city of Rome and its adjacent lands to be held in feudal tenure by Leo, who exhibited to him a forged document, purporting to be a donation of the old metropolis of the empire, with its adjacent territories, made by Constantine the Great when he removed the seat of government to Constantinople; the wily pontiff at the same time intimating to Charlemagne, that he could not depart from the rule established by that pious emperor, without incurring the wrath of God and the indignation of Saint Peter. The wealth and power of the bishops and clergy of the Western Church were also materially augmented by the endowments which were made by kings and the nobility,

in consequence of the notion then universally entertained, that punishment for sins was capable of mitigation by generous donations to God and the saints, to churches and the clergy.

Europe at this period was in a state of deplorable ignorance and barbarism. "The governments were unsettled, and the people still clung to the heathen superstitions which their forefathers had professed to give up. The Roman bishops, who came at last to be called Popes (whereas all bishops were formerly so called) took advantage of these circumstances. They meddled in politics on every opportunity, and they indulged the superstitious crowd with images in churches, and with other seductive usages which had been popular in pagan times. Hence these artful prelates gained by degrees a very strong hold over the minds of men: but in the meantime the pure religion of Holy Scripture was becoming every day less understood." (Soames's History of the Reformation of the Church of England, p. 2.)

But

II. At length the different countries of the West growing more settled, knowledge happily spread itself abroad. Its progress was powerfully aided by the discovery of the art of printing about the year 1450, by which books were made much more cheap and plentiful than they had ever been before. For a long time even clergymen and others acquainted with learning had been very little used to read the Bible, or the best books in Greek and Latin. after printing was once in full operation, and the study of classical literature was revived and promoted by the learned Greeks who fled to Europe on the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, "both Scripture and other works, containing sound and good information came ordinarily into the hands of reading men. People's eyes were thus opened to see that the religion in which their fathers had brought them up could not be proved from the New Testament; and hence a general opinion

gained ground that the Church urgently needed reformation." (Ibid.)

Many other causes had concurred to prepare the minds of men for entertaining this belief. All ecclesiastical historians attest that the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries were pre-eminently distinguished for the gross ignorance and superstition which universally prevailed. Cardinal Bellarmine, a zealous and learned advocate of popery, speaking of the tenth century, says that "there never was any either more unlearned or more unhappy;" (De Rom. Pontif. lib. iv. c. 12.) and that "all kind of virtue gave way as an useless thing, and wickedness supplied its place. The world seemed to be declining apace towards its evening, and the second coming of the Son of Man to draw near, for love was grown cold, and faith was not found upon the earth. In a word, men ran themselves headlong into all vice, and all flesh had corrupted its way." (De Sacramento, lib. i. c. 8.) Cardinal Baronius still more expressly says, "What was then the face of the Roman Church? How deformed! When harlots, no less powerful than vile, bore the chief sway at home, and at their pleasure changed sees, appointed bishops, and (which is horrible to mention) did thrust into St. Peter's see their own gallants, false Popes!" Disastrous, however, as was the state of the Western Churches during this period, God left not himself without witnesses for the pure and unadulterated doctrines of Christianity, in opposition to papal corruptions. Charlemagne, early in the ninth century, convened a council at Frankfort (with which the council held at Paris in 824 agreed) by which the idolatrous worship of images was condemned: a treatise also was published in the Emperor's name against image-worship; and Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, wrote against the corruptions of popery; while Claudius, Bishop of Turin, preached the pure Gospel of Christ to the Piedmontese, among whom the effects of his pious

labours were visible for centuries. It is probable that the churches of the Vaudois, or Waldenses, either originated in his pious labours, or were greatly increased and confirmed by them. In vain were renewed the persecutions which had been carried on by heathen emperors; the Waldenses were hung, or burnt, or massacred. They continued faithful witnesses from age to age, and still subsist, a monument of the Redeemer's promise, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. But the south of France was the most conspicuous abode of pure Christianity, after the general prevalence of popery. “There vast numbers of Christians, many of them wellinformed and wealthy, adhered to the faith of Holy Scriptures, such as Protestants now profess, even so late as the beginning of the thirteenth century. Albi, at one time, appears to have been the principal seat of these professors of the antient faith, and from that place they gained the name of Albigenses. They were at length in a great measure destroyed by the unprincipled policy of Pope Innocent III., who raised up bands of warriors, to spoil their property and conquer their country;" so that not fewer than two millions of persons perished! A remnant however, escaped from the persecution, which devastated their native land, into foreign countries, whither they carried the light of pure and undefiled religion. Some of them arriving in England, prepared the way for the learned and pious Dr. John Wickliffe, who, between the years 1370 and 1387, laboured incessantly in spreading among his countrymen the knowledge of divine truth, and exposing the errors and vices of popery; and who was protected by the interest of the Duke of Lancaster against the machinations of his enemies. He first translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate; and long after his death (in 1387) his powerful writings continued to be read by his numerous followers, who were termed Lollards, and against whom a sanguinary perse

cution was raised. They nobly braved the stake at which they were condemned to be burnt, and Protestant opinions continued to be cherished among Englishmen until the Reformation.

The writings of Wickliffe, having been carried into Bohemia, were favourably received there. John Huss and Jerome of Prague, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, exposed the abominable corruptions of the Romish Church, and taught the pure doctrines of the Gospel. For their zeal in the cause of their Redeemer they paid the forfeit of their lives; Huss being burnt at Constance, in 1415, regardless of the safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismund, under which he had been invited to that city. Jerome was also burnt in the following year.

The gradual progress of Divine truth, notwithstanding all the efforts of the popes to crush it, was further advanced by the gross disorders of the papacy. Two, and sometimes three, pretenders to infallibility claimed the Papal throne, and filled all Europe with disgust. Even when a single claimant succeeded to the Pontificate, the interests of religion gained nothing. At the close of the fifteenth and in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Alexander VI. (Roderic Borgia,) was the reigning pope, who as well as his son Cæsar Borgia, exceeded all bounds in cruelty, perfidy, and profligacy. He died in 1503, of the poison which he had destined for another, and from the effects of which his son with difficulty escaped. His successor, Pius III., having held the Pontificate only twentysix days, Julian de la Rovere purchased it by presents and promises, and for nearly ten years, under the name of Julius II., filled all Europe with wars and factions. He was succeeded in 1513 by Leo X., a descendant of the house of Medicis, a man of whom it is difficult to say whether he was more ambitious, politic, or luxurious. He was a munificent patron of learning and learned men; but he greatly sullied the lustre of his character by