Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The Popish organ here has been equally plain-spoken, and pronounced,
in the most dashing style, the triumph of Rome, and the return of _all
Protestants_ under its yoke, _on pain of damnation_! Who but must be
indignant at this language! But who can henceforth be deceived?
Mr Warren, in reverting to the character and pretensions of the Papacy,
lays it down as a fundamental proposition, that "the Pope's avowed
spiritual power is pregnant with disavowed political power." He, tells
us further, "that we have to tolerate a rival, who condescends to
equality only as an advance to ascendency." He then gives the memorable
Florentine canon of 1439, which the Romish lawyers regard as containing
"the true doctrine of their church," and for the consequences deducible
from which all Papists are answerable. These are its words:--
"Moreover, we define that the Holy Apostolic See, and the Roman
Pontiff, have a primacy _over the whole world_!--and that the Roman
Pontiff is the successor of St Peter, the chief of the apostles, and
true Vicar of Christ!--and that he is 'head of the whole church,' and
the father and teacher of all Christians!--and to him, in St Peter,
was delegated by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to _feed, rule, and
govern_ the universal church, as also is contained in the Acts of
General Councils, and in the holy canons!" In this daring proclamation
of power, we have the assumption of an authority obviously incompatible
with the peace of any nation under heaven, and equally incompatible
with the common liberties of mankind--for there can be no liberty where
the arbitrary will of a stranger is the fountain of the law, and most
especially contradictory to that Scripture which declares that Christ's
kingdom is _not_ a kingdom after the fashion of this world. When the
question was contemptuously put by Pilate to our Lord himself, "Art
_thou_ a king?" the answer was, that he was not a king in the sense of
the Roman; that, if he were such, "his servants would fight"--in other
words, that he would have the troops and attendance of an earthly king,
that he would have resisted and made war. "But now is my kingdom _not_
of this world."
But what is the Papacy, with its princes and pageantries, its armies
and intrigues, its cabinets and alliances? In what does all this
complicated and systematic mixture in the affairs of the world differ
from the kingdoms of this world? except perhaps in its deeper intrigue,
in its more perpetual artifice, in its more insatiable craving for
power, and in its more habitual gratification of every daring and
dangerous passion of man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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