ftate and church, filled the most eminent posts ecclefiaftical and civil, taught in the univerfities and churches with an authority, before which all oppofition was filent, and maintained the pretended Majesty of the Roman Pontiffs, against Kings, Princes, Bishops, and Heretics, with incredible ardour, and equal fuccefs. And fince the Reformation, the Papal pretenfions to unverfal supremacy have been supported with equal zeal, and even carried into another hemisphere, by that order who have affumed the very name of Jefus "."

The spirit of perfecution is acknowledged to be one of the leading marks of Antichrift. Daniel fays, that " the king," who was divers from all others, fhall wear out the faints of the most High. In like manner, the beast in the Revelation of St. John destroys the faints of the most High -It was given to him to make war with the faints, and to overcome them-The woman that reprefents Papal Rome is drunk with the blood of the faints. How appli

a

Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 656. 4to Edit.

b Whitaker, p. 226.

• Daniel vii. 25. Rev. xiii. 7. xvii. 6.

cable are these descriptions to the conduct of the Papists in various ages! It has been computed that fifty millions of Protestants have at different times been the victims of their perfecutions, and been cruelly put to death on account of their religious opinions d. But for particular instances of the completion of thefe Prophecies, we look no farther into the bloody annals of the Church of Rome, than to the cruelties exercised against the Albigenfes and Waldenfes -the tortures and deaths of the martyrs in our own country, in the reign. of Philip and Mary-the barbarities exercised upon the innocent natives of South America-the acts of faith performed in Spain and Portugal-the dark and fanguinary proceedings of the Inquifition ——

the

Simpson, p. 346.

Gibbon, c. liv. p. 535. Lowman, p. 208.

The law for burning heretics in England was first paffed in the reign of Henry IV. It was not repealed till the year 1677. Simpson, p. 345.

8 The Inquifition was established A. D. 1209. Dominick was made firft Inquifitor by Pope Innocent III. This holy office, in the ftyle of the Roman court, has improved the methods of perfecution, far beyond what was known in the days of antient Babylon and Rome, and has long been the moft dreadful and barbarous tri

bunal

the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, and the maffacre of St. Bartholomew. These facts alone are fufficient to fhew, that in this vindictive and perfecuting Church was found the blood of prophets and faints, and of all that were flain upon the earth1.

"The countries that have been moft` cruelly haraffed, and deluged with Protestant blood, are Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, Holland, Savoy, Piedmont, and France. France, indeed, has exceeded all the nations in Europe for acts of perfecution, blood, and cruelty. Perfecution for confcience fake began there early, and continued long. Even fo late as the beginning of the prefent century, the Proteftants endured there as much as any people ever did fince the beginning of the world. Savoy, Piedmont, and Hungary, have fuffered much; but France boasts of more martyrs to the truth

bunal the world ever faw, for all enfnaring arts of injustice in prosecution, all inhuman severity and cruelty in punishment: as is evidently proved at large in Limborch's History of the Inquifition. Lowman, p. 201,

202.

Rev. xviii. 24.

D3

than

than any other kingdom in Europe. We think, and we think justly, that the late massacres in that distracted nation are very dreadful: but what are they, when compared with what the Proteftants underwent upon feveral occafions? At one time, by order of the king, bishops, and priests, thirty thousand (fome fay fixty thousand) Proteftants were murdered in the course of

a few days. This fhocking bufinefs was executed about two hundred years ago. After this a civil war broke out between the Papifts and Proteftants, which continued to rage near fixty years in the very heart of the country, in which Puffendorf affures us, there were deftroyed a million of people. One hundred and fifty millions of money were fpent. Nine cițies, four hundred villages, twenty thousand churches, two thousand monafteries, and ten thousand houses, were burnt or laid level with the ground.'This is but a little more than one hundred and fifty years ago.

"And then again in the reign of Louis

Mr. Simpson's book was printed in 1795. * Introduction to the History of Europe, c. v. p. 201.

the

the Fourteenth, about an hundred years fince, that haughty monarch began another perfecution against the Proteftants, during the course of which an innumerable mul titude of people were haraffed and put to death in the most cruel and ignominious manner men or devils could invent: and eight hundred thousand perfons (Voltaire fays five hundred thousand) left the kingdom, and fled into other countries, whitherfoever they could escape the fafest and most expeditiously.

"All these things were tranfacted in France. The Pope of Rome, as head of the church, was at the bottom of the whole. The archbishops, bishops, and clergy, very generally, concurred; and many of them even marched at the head of the king's troops with fmall crucifixes in their hands, exhorting the people to turn and embrace their fuperftitious and idolatrous nonfenfe, or com manding the foldiers to execute the law upon them. The king, the parliament, the princes, the nobles, the gentry, and the people of the country, all concurred in the diabolical meafures. And when the thirty, or fixty thoufand Proteftants before mentioned, were mafSacred, we are particularly informed, that