thought it neceffary to exert his utmost efforts to fupprefs them. For this purpose the first croifade was proclamed of Christians against Christians, and the office of inquifition was first erected, the one to fubdue their bodies, the other to inflave their fouls. It is enough to make the blood ruh cold, to read of the horrid murders and devaftations of this time, how many of these poot innocent Christians were facrificed to the blind fury and malice of their enemies. It is (8) computed that in France alone were flain a million: and what was the confequence of these fhocking barbarities? No writer can better inform us than (9) the wife and moderate historian Thuanus. 'Against the Waldenfes (faith he) when exquifite punishments availed little, and the evil was exafperated by the remedy which had been unfeafonably applied, and their number increafed daily, at length complete ⚫ armies were raised: and a war of no lefs weight, than what our people had before waged against

• the (8). Vide Mede in Apoc. funt: nec minoris molis bellum P. 503.

(9) Contra quos [Valdenfes] cum exquifita fupplicia parum proficerent, et remedio, quod intempeftive adhibitum fuerat, malum exacerbaretur, numerufque eorum in dies crefceret, jufti tandem exercitas confcripti

quam quod antea noftri adverfus Saracenos gefferant, contra eofdem decretum eft: cujus is exitus fuit, ut potius cæfi, fugati, bonis ac dignitatibus ubique fpoliati atque huc illuc diffipati fint, quam erroris convicti refipuerint. Itaque qui armis fe initio tutati fuerant, poftremo

the Saracens, was decreed against them: the event of which was, that they were rather flain, put to flight, fpoiled every where of their goods and dignities, and difperfed here and there, than that convinced of their error they repented. So that they who at first had de<fended themselves by arms, at laft overcome

by arms fled into Provence and the neighbouring Alps of the French territory, and found a *fhelter for their life and doctrin in those places.

Part withdrew into Calabria, and continued there a long while, even to the pontificate of Pius IV. Part paffed into Germany, and fixed their abode among the Bohemians, and in Poland and Livonia. Others turning to the weft obtained refuge in Britain.' But there were others in this age, who proceeded not fo far as the Waldenfes and Albigenfes, and yet oppofed the church of Rome in many refpects. At the beginning of this century (1) Almeric and his difciples were charged with feveral herefies, and

were condemned by the fecond council of Paris in the year 1209. They might poffibly hold fome heterodox opinions; but their great offenfe was their denying the change of the fubftance of the bread and wine in the eucharift, their oppofing the worship of faints images and relics, and their affirming that the pope was Antichrist, that Rome was Babylon, and that the prelates were the members and minifters of Antichrift: fo that thefe differed little from the Waldenfes and Albigenfes. William of St. Amour, a doctor of the Sorbonne, (2) wrote a treatise of the perils of the last times, wherein he applied that prophecy of St. Paul, (2 Tim. III. 1.) This know alfo that in the laft days perilous times fhall come, to the mendicant orders and preachers of his time; and it was fo fevere a fatir upon the Dominicans, that pope Alexander IV condemned it, as containing perverfe fentiments, contrary to the power and authority of the Roman pontiff and of the other bishops, and in fine as a book' capable of caufing great fcandals and troubles in the church. Robert Grofthead or Greathead,

ner. &c.

bishop

(2) Hift. Ecclefiaft. Magde- Balæum. Dupin. Cave. Tanburg. Cent. XIII. Cap. 10. p. 588. Edit. Bafil. 1624. Dupin. ibid. Chap. 7. Spanhem. ibid. Cap. 9. Sect. r.

(3) Vide Cent. Magdeburg.

(4) Matt. Paris ad Ann. 1253. p. 874. Edit. Wats. 1646. (5) Matt. Paris. ibid. Papæ redargutor,

bishop of Lincoln, (3) in his speeches and writings inveighed bitterly against the corruption and fuperftition, the lewdnefs and wickedness of the clergy in general, and the rapacity and avarice, the tyranny and antichriftianifm of pope Innocent IV in particular. He was also no less a friend to (4) civil than to religious liberty, and ordered all the violators of Magna Charta, whofoever and wherefoever they were within his diocefe, to be excommunicated. Matthew Paris, a contemporary historian, hath (5) related the fubftance of his dying difcourfes, wherein he proved the pope to be an heretic, and defervedly to be called Antichrift: and concludes with giving him the character of refuter of the pope, reprover of prelates, corrector of monks, director of priests, inftructor of the clergy, and • in short the hammer to beat down the Romans and to bring them into contempt.' It is no marvel that fuch a man was excommunicated; but he (6) little regarded the cenfure, and appealed from the court of Innocent to the tribunal of Chrift. Not to mention others, Matthew Paris

redargutor, prælatorum correptor, monachorum corrector, prefbyterorum director, clericorum inftructor Romanorum malleus et contemptor. p. 876,

(6) Excommunicatus appellavit a curia Innocentii ad tribunal Chrifti. Henr. de Knyghton. Lib. 2. inter Scriptores X. p. 2436.

N 3

(7) Span.

Paris himself hath painted in the most lively colors the corruptions and abominations of the fee of Rome, the tyranny, fuperftition, fimony, and wickedness of the popes and clergy. A proteftant hiftorian could not more freely lash and expofe the vices of the times, than he did who was a monk of St. Albans.

As they are not all Ifrael which are of Ifrael; fo neither have all the members of the Romish church believed all her doctrins. Dante and Petrarch, the former of whom died, and the latter was born as well as died, in the fourteenth century, were (7) fevere fatirifts upon the times, and wrote freely against the temporal dominion of the pope, and the corruptions of the clergy, treating Rome as Babylon, and the Pope as Antichrift: and they probably did more hurt to the court and church of Rome by their wit and raillery, than others by invective and declamation. Peter Fitz Caffiodor, whether a fictitious or a real perfon, (8) addreffed a remonstrance to the church of England against the tyranny, avarice, and exactions of the court of Rome, advifing and exhorting the English to shake off the Roman yoke from their necks. Michael