-a woman, for her own brother. Julius coldly replied, that the person was unworthy,' and then turned his head away, and expired.

He was succeeded by Leo X.-a name which belongs to the history of the Reformation, and with which, in this work, we are no further concerned, than as we propose to follow the council, Leo X. assembled by his predecessor, through its remaining deliberations. Before the end of the year it held three more sessions, under the presidency of the new Pope: the sixth and seventh produced no memorable enactments, but the eighth was somewhat more important. On this occasion the king of France at length announced his adhesion. A bull was likewise published, for the purpose of establishing the separate existence and immortality of the soul against the dangerous and, as it would seem, prevalent theories of certain philosophers; and at the same time an edict of safe-conduct was granted to the Bohemian schismatics, with an invitation to assist at the council: for their heresy was again rising into formidable attention. These measures were followed by a decree, directed against the officers of the apostolical court, for the diminution of their fees or salaries. On the 5th of May, 1514, the prelates proceeded from the abuses of their dependants to the consideration of their own; and on this occasion they published an imposing body of regulations for the reformation of the Roman court, and the general discipline of the Church. It was enacted, that only persons of worth and morality should be appointed to benefices: to bishoprics, at an age not earlier than twentyseven years; to abbeys, not earlier than twenty-two; and that care should be taken to ascertain their merit, before their names were proposed in consistory. That deprivation should only be inflicted after due examination. That monasteries and abbeys should not be held in commendam, unless for the better preservation of the authority of the Holy See, and by cardinals or other persons qualified; and that cures and dignities of little value (less than 200 ducats a year) should not be so held even by cardinals. That there be no separation or union of Churches, unless for a reasonable That no dispensation be granted to hold more than two incompatible benefices, unless to persons qualified, and for sufficient reasons. That persons possessing more than four benefices, cures, or dignities, be obliged, within two years, to reduce them to the number of four, by resigning the rest.

cause.

Canons of Reformation.

It was likewise ordained, that the cardinals should lead an exemplary life, celebrating mass in their chapels, observing perfect sacerdotal modesty in their house, furniture, and tables, to the exclusion of all secular pomp; treating with honour and respect those about them; attentive to the interests of the poor, no less than to those of princes; visiting in person, or by deputy, their titular churches; providing for the prosperity of the monasteries, or benefices, which they might hold in commendam ; avoiding every show of luxury, and every suspicion of avarice in their attendants. Respecting the inferior members of the court of Rome, a number of laws were published against blasphemy, concubinage, and simony. It was strictly prohibited to all kings, princes, and lords, to seize or sequestrate the ecclesiastical property, unless by permission of the Pope. All the laws concerning the exemption of ecclesiastical persons and goods from lay jurisdiction were confirmed. And lastly, the inquisitions were stimulated to proceed zealously against heretics* and Jews;

* • How ill, alas! (says Raynaldus,) these most holy laws were observed, appears from

especially against those who had relapsed, from whom every hope of pardon was withheld. . . . . On the above regulations, which formed the substance of the most important decree of this council, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that they touched very ineffectually even those few among the multifarious corruptions of the Church, which they touched at all; that, in respect to the Court of Rome, as no attempt was made to reduce one fraction of its power and wealth, it was superfluous to publish general exhortations of modesty and humility; and, besides, that the principal points in dispute with France and Germany were entirely overlooked in this reformation of the Catholic Church.

A year afterwards, (on May 4, 1515,) the council held its tenth session. It then published a decree to restrain some of the abuses of chapters; to moderate, though very slightly, the granting of exemptions; to refer the decision of trifling suits respecting the smaller benefices to the ordinaries; and to encourage provincial councils. Another decree peremptorily cited the ecclesiastics of France to appear at the council, and show sufficient reasons why the Pragmatic Sanction should not be wholly abolished. Another, promulgated on the same The Press. occasion, was levelled against the presumed abuses of the press. The Pope (an enlightened and literary Pope) pronounced to the effect, that, though knowledge was acquired by reading, and though the press much facilitated such acquirement, the cultivation of the mind, the instruction of Christians, and the consequent propagation of the faith and the Church; yet, as it had reached the ears of his Holiness, how some printers had published many Latin translations from the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean, which contained false and pernicious dogmas, and offended the reputation of persons in dignity, he was bound to ordain, in his desire to remedy that evil, that no book should be hereafter printed at Rome, or in any other city or diocese, until it had been examined-at Rome by the vicar of his Holiness, and the master of the sacred palace-in other dioceses, by the bishop, or some doctor appointed by him, or by the inquisitor of the place, on pain of immediate excommunication*.'

Abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction.

The next session was not held till the 19th of December, 1516. The Pope found himself at the head of a very tractable assembly, still consisting almost entirely of Italian prelates, and yielding obsequious approbation to decrees dictated from the Vatican. Thus, without any display of impatience, he steadily pursued that which seems to have been the only object of his predecessor in this matter, and which was clearly the leading one with himself,-the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction. In the present session he accomplished that design; and the bull which he published on the occasion is worthy of the proudest days of pontifical despotism. He began by asserting the implicit obedience due by divine authority to the Holy See, and afterwards took occasion especially to confirm and renew the constitution Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII. He showed the illegality and schismatic nature of the Sanction,' by disparaging the councils of Bourges and Basle, and proclaimed the unlimited the hydra-birth of the Lutheran heresy, which came so soon afterwards.' Ann. 1514. sect. 31, &c.

*This was not the first effort of the Popes against what they considered the abuses of the press. In 1501, Alexander VI. ordained, under the severest penalties, that no books should be printed in any diocese, without the sanction of the bishop (Raynaldus, 1501, s. 36). But Sixtus IV. has the distinction of being the first who established that inquisition.

control of the Pope over such assemblies; and finally, by his certain knowledge, by the plenitude of his power, and with the approbation of the holy council, he annulled all the decrees, statutes, and regulations contained in the offensive enactment.

The bull received the assent of the council, with only one dissentient voice. The bishop of a small diocese in Lombardy had the boldness to express his veneration for the councils of Bourges and Basle, and his reluctance to disturb their inviolable decisions. But he was immediately overborne; the authority of the present (it was argued) was not inferior to that of preceding assemblies; and in ancient times St. Leo had revoked at Chalcedon, what had been too rashly ordained at Ephesus. Yet such arguments might not effectually have served the Pontiff, had not Francis I. conspired to betray the liberties of his Church. The abolition of the Sanction was immediately followed by the publication of a concordat, which tacitly restored the possession of Annates to the Pope*, and openly transferred a valuable portion of the ecclesiastical patronage to the king. During the same session, certain restrictions were imposed upon the license of preachers, and generally upon the discipline of the monastic orders; but these last were compensated by some privileges, which, though of no great apparent importance, offended the jealousy of the bishops, and roused some opposition in the council. The assembly divided, but the majority was in favour of the papal measures.

Dissolution of the Council.

On the 16th of the following March (1517), the council met for the twelfth and concluding session, and after prohibiting the popular practice of pillaging the mansion of the Pope elect, and ordaining an imposition of tenths for the service of the Turkish war, it was dissolved. The bull of dissolution announced the accomplishment of every object of the assembly: peace had been re-established among the princes of Christendom; the schismatic synod of Pisa abolished; and, above all, the reformation of the Church and court of Rome had been sufficiently provided for! There were, indeed, some fathers who ventured to argue, that every abuse had not even yet been removed, and that the lasting interests of the Church would be better promoted by the further continuance of the councilbut the majority supported the Pope; and the last universal assembly of the western Church, after having deliberately regulated all matters requiring any attention, and restored the establishment to perfect health and security, separated with complacency and confidence! And here we may mention, (for the coincidence is remarkable,) that in the very same year, almost before the assembled prelates had concluded their mutual congratulations on the peace, and unity, and purity, of the apostolical

*The Annates were not expressly mentioned in the Concordat. But as the Pragmatic, which had alone abolished that payment, was itself abolished, the right to the payment was restored; at least, it was left on the same footing on which it stood before the Sanction, and then it was commonly levied by the Pope. In fact, in the ecclesiastical writers on this subject, the words pragmatic sanction, and annates, are so constantly connected, as to make it very clear, that the recovery of that contribution was a great object with the Popes in their enmity to the Sanction, as the exemption from it may have been a great cause of attachment to their liberties with the clergy of France. The question continued where it was then placed, till the arrangement brought about by Bossuet, in 1682. The arguments by which the conduct of Francis has been defended are that many of the sees and monasteries were of royal foundation; that much confusion was occasioned by the popular method of election; that when subjects entrust the sovereign with the government of the state, that of the Church is therein included, &c. &c.

Church, Luther commenced, in the schools of Wittenberg, his public preaching against its most revolting corruption.

Though it is not strictly true, that the history of the Popes, from Nicholas V. to Leo X., presents, so far as their personal characters Degeneracy of are concerned, a series of uniform degeneracy; yet the the See. principles of their government being bad, and not being corrected, became gradually and necessarily worse. And thus, though the name of Julius II. fills us with much less abhorrence than that of Alexander VI., the policy of the apostolical See was never so directly opposed to every spiritual object, as when guided by the former : ends purely temporal were never pursued with such undisguised vehemence, or by means so sanguinary; the keys of St. Peter, though not wholly cast away, were never before so merely subsidiary to the sword of St. Paul*; insomuch, that the hand of a retributive providence might almost seem to be traced in this circumstance that the long succession of spiritual usurpers, who were the chiefs of a religion of peace and the professed vicegerents of the God of love, should terminate at length in a military pontiff. The patience of angels and of men was exhausted by this last mockery; and the more daring the exploits of the soldier, and the more splendid the conquests of the prince, the more awful was the bolt which was even then descending to rend his spiritual empire.

We should also observe, respecting the Popes described in this chapter, that there was scarcely one whose government did not deteriorate as it proceeded. Almost all began their reign with some promises of religious practice, or ecclesiastical reform, or broad European policy; and some, for the first year or two, observed such promises. But their reigns, upon the whole, much exceeded the usual duration of pontifical power, and they had space to imbibe the corruption which surrounded them; so that even those who carried with them into the Vatican the ordinary principles of human conduct, presently forgot them in the society of debauched parasites, in the iniquities of a simoniacal court, in the administration of a system full of every impurity. Thus are we in no manner surprised, when we observe these sovereigns engrossed by the temporal interests of their states, and engaged in securing their power within the city, and extending their sway without it: this was merely to govern like secular princes, and to pursue the policy which some of the greatest among their own predecessors had bequeathed to them. But the vice peculiarly characteristic of this race, and that which reduced them below the level of former pontiffs, was Nepotismt. It was for this that the keys and the sword co-operated; that benefices were publicly sold, and the

*The popular story, that Julius II. actually threw the keys into the Tiber, and drew the sword of St. Paul, seems to be founded (at least so thinks Bayle) on the following ut fama est of an obscure poet, Gilbertus Ducherius Vulto:

In Gallum, ut fama est, bellum gesturus acerbum,
Armatam educit Julius Urbe manum.
Accinctus gladio Claves in Tybridis amnem
Projicit, et sævus talia verba facit—

Quum Petri nihil efficiant ad prælia Claves,

Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit.

(1.) Eugenius IV. was nephew of Gregory XII; (2.) Paul II., of Eugenius IV.; (3.) Alexander VI., of Calixtus III.; (4.) Pius III., of Pius II.; (5.) Julius II., of Sixtus IV.; (6.) and finally, Leo X. was brother-in-law of the bastard of Innocent VIII. We should remark, however, that the thirst for aggrandizing their own families was not peculiar to the Popes, though peculiarly disgraceful to them. It was connected with that general struggle for super-eminence among private families which distinguished the history of Italy during this century.

pontificate all but publicly bought-that the nephews and bastards of a profligate Pope might be enriched and aggrandized. Many fiefs of the Church were alienated for that purpose; and what was of worse cousequence than this, the chief of the Church thus acquired a new motive for attachment to its abuses, and repugnance to any serious reformation. If Julius II. was less tainted with this vice than those who immediately preceded him*-for Julius mingled some magnanimity with his worldliness, it was presently restored to honour by Leo X., and resumed its dominion over the counsels of the Vatican.

Another circumstance that strikes us, in the consideration of this period, is the utter debasement to which the Sacred College finally descended. The influence, which the most

Degradation of

wicked Pope invariably acquired in consistory, may the Sacred College. be ascribed to the less direct operation of his power

and patronage. But the secrets of the conclave, which have been transmitted by contemporary writers, abound with the particulars of intrigue, and undisguised perfidy, and unblushing venality. Such was the mutual consciousness with which the Pope and his senate assembled to govern the Church of Christ! such the councils, from which edicts were issued for the suppression of simony and the correction of the morals of the clergy!.... Again, it was now become almost the practice of the Conclave to bind the future Pope by a solemn obligation, intended to influence the nature of his government. The cardinal, while on the point of being elected, voluntarily took this oath, in common with his colleagues; and immediately after his election he confirmed it. In a similar manner, restrictions were at that time not uncommonly imposed by the elective body on the emperor of Germany and the king of Poland, and they were found effectual. But at Rome the result was so far otherwise, that among the many who undertook such engagements, there seems not to have been one, who faithfully observed what he had sworn, first as cardinal, next as Pope. This distinction, so shameful to the Court of Rome, confirms the charges of supereminent immorality commonly brought against it: it proceeds, however, from the singular principles of the papal hierarchy. In the first place, the Pope, who enjoyed power unlimited over the obligations of others, might reasonably claim the right to dispense with his own. In the next, he had means of influencing those who might release him from his engagements, or connive at his contempt of them, such as the crown did not possess, either in Germany or Poland. The immense extent of his patronage, his authority over the property and persons of the cardinals, and his prerogative of creating others, gave him irresistible instruments both of seduction and terror. He exercised them unsparingly; and the result was, that among the various crimes of the Vatican, that which became, as it were, peculiarly pontifical, was perjury. While the crimes of the Vatican were indeed so various, as to embrace almost every denomination of ungodliness, there was not one among the Popes of this period, who made even the slightest pretension to piety; scarcely one, by whom decency, as well as morality and religion, was not grossly outraged. Indeed, when we consider the enormity of the scandals permitted and perpetrated by Popes and cardinals during the latter years, it seems a matter of wonder that the whole Christian world did not rouse

*Julius designed to make himself master of Bologna, and extinguish the Venetians, and chase the French out of Italy; and these projects all proved fortunate to him, and so much the more to his praise, in that he did all for the good of the Church, and in no private regard.' Machiavel (Principe, cap. xi.) is no great eulogist of Julius.