1302. “The parliament of Worms presented to the emperor a request from all the people that the bishops should no longer go out at the head of their troops, but should stay in their dioceses and assist the army by their prayers; and Charlemagne willingly granted the petition. But it is remarkable that this application came not from the clergy, but from the laity; and it was so little regarded afterward, that we shall find some warlike bishops even among the popes themselves. This same emperor endeavoured with great zeal to purify the morals of the clergy; and his reproofs of their worldliness, their avarice, and their prostitution of sacred things for the sake of gain, are remarkable monuments of his own good sense and of the corruption which infested the church in the ninth century. After his death, which occurred in A. D. 814, some churches invoked him as a saint, notwithstanding he had four wives and five concubines.
1303. “The year 844 was signalized by the introduction of false relics at Dijon in France, by which, nevertheless, several remarkable cures were supposed to have been effected, until the fraud was discovered; but the proceedings show that such impostures were common. In A. D. 850 a poor presbyter named Gotheschalk, who had adopted high views on predestination, was not only deposed from the priesthood, but afterward publicly whipped, as an incorrigible heretic, and cast into prison, where he died after eighteen years’ confinement. Yet his doctrine was defended by other bishops of high reputation, and his punishment was denounced as cruel and unjust.
1304. “In A. D. 864, a violent outrage took place at Rome, in which Gonthier, the Archbishop of Cologne, protesting against the judgment of Pope Nicholas, told his brother Hildwin, who was a priest, to place his protestation on the tomb of Saint Peter: that is, upon the altar of the church. Accordingly, Hildwin entered into the church with several followers, all armed, and as the keepers opposed him, he repulsed them with blows, and killed one of them upon the spot. He then accomplished his purpose, and retreated sword in hand. The anecdote is only of importance as a proof of the spirit of the age. The first instance of a partial interdict occurs in A. D. 871. The ordeals of boiling water, cold water, and red-hot iron were employed in this age, to determine questions of justice under the auspices of the priests; and even kings employed them, with all faith and confidence. The Duke of Naples had formed an alliance with the Saracens, which the pope disproved; and as he refused to break it on the order of the pontiff, he was excommunicated. The Bishop Athanasius, who was the duke’s own brother, took him and put out his eyes, sent him as prisoner to Rome, and caused himself to be proclaimed Duke of Naples in his place. The pope approved this conduct highly, and praised the bishop for loving God more than his brother, and putting out the right eye which had offended, according to Scripture. This pontiff was John VIII., and the time was A. D. 877.
Reasons for not proceeding farther with Quotation of Details.
1305. It would occupy too much space, and make too wide a digression, were I to proceed in quoting the details of the evidence showing the state of morals in Christendom during the Middle Ages to have been much below that which the heathen displayed during the period immediately succeeding the advent of Christ, according to Mosheim and Gibbon. But although the reader should not be enabled to form an opinion directly, by a perusal of the details, fortunately I am enabled to submit that of the right reverend prelate by whom they have been compiled.
1306. The fact deserves attention, that for more than a thousand years, of all the upper classes of society the Christian clergy were pre-eminently wicked, frequent complaints having been made against them by the laity, notwithstanding the cruel persecution to which complainants were liable. The popes were generally as prominent in wickedness as high in official distinction. The summing up of Bishop Hopkins, which I subjoin, fully confirms the impression which I have endeavoured to convey:
1307. “I have now gone over the history of your church, with the single aim of proving, from your own records, the rise, progress, and terrible extent of its corruption, up to the close of the sixteenth century. Here we see that for a period of seven centuries together there had been a constant outcry for reformation; that the popes and priesthood were the objects of continual complaint on the part of the laity; that by their own acknowledgment, although the church was never destitute of true Christians, yet holiness was the exception, and iniquity the rule, since the great body of the clergy were steeped in licentiousness, avarice, simony, cruelty, violence, falsehood, and blood; that the University of Paris, one of your most famous nurseries of theological education, was infested with an infidel philosophy, and with habits of libertine sacrilege; that the boasts of absolute atheism were heard from the lips of pontiffs and cardinals; that the reliance of your church was in the terrors of the inquisition, in the rack, the dungeon, and the stake; that war, and treachery, and assassination, were patronized in the service of religion; that bishops, and cardinals, and popes, were ready to lead their troops to battle; that there were constant revolts and rebellions against the tyranny of the priestly power; that there were many schisms in the papal kingdom, in which two or three pretenders to infallibility cursed each other at the same time, in the name of God and his apostles; and that every effort to banish these horrible iniquities proved utterly abortive, until the success of the Protestant reformation compelled them to respect public opinion, by fear for their very being if they continued to brave it any longer.”
1308. It is believed that there was no such wickedness among the pagan priesthood as to have become a cause of complaint, although far less power existed to silence accusation. Throughout Christendom even monarchs were made to suffer severely for their remonstrances against papal tyranny, and had to make concessions after having been ill-treated. By way of exemplifying his disrespect for those precepts of Christ which enjoin humility, meekness, and poorness of spirit as the means of reaching heaven, Pope Celestin kicked the crown from the head of the emperor, Henry VII., as this potentate knelt before him. Could any sane man have done this while believing that Christ’s allegations were to be verified, agreeably to which the “poor in spirit” are to have heaven, the meek to inherit the earth? (See Hopkins.)
1309. According to Taylor’s Diegesis, Constantine inquired of Sopater, the pagan priest, if he could absolve him from his sins, among which was that of scalding one of his wives to death, and executing unjustly one of his sons. Sopater informed him that it went beyond his power to obtain pardon for such sins. The Christian priests having agreed to procure the desired absolution, is supposed to have been one of the principal motives which induced Constantine to embrace Christianity. Yet it was under this wicked despot that the Council of Nice was held, which decided in favour of the divinity of Christ.
1310. It is difficult to imagine that persons who actually believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, and who of course must have been impressed with the comparative insignificance of any worldly enjoyments, would, for any earthly objects, have acted so much in a way to doom their souls to perpetual torture. It may therefore be inferred that the clerical papists who acted so wickedly were religious hypocrites, like the Jewish Pharisees. I am strongly under the impression that the imperfection of the proof of the truth of Scriptures, in the first place, and the inadequate and disgusting representations respecting the future world which they present, has always been productive of secret unbelief, and consequent recklessness respecting the dictates of religion or morality.