church." The synodal decision contains a direct and unmitigated avowal of the diabolical maxim, that no faith should be kept with persons guilty of heresy or of rebellion against the popedom.

The synod of Diamper, in India, issued a decision of the same kind. This assembly, in 1599, under the presidency of Menez, invalidated the oaths that those Indian Christians had taken against changing Syrianism for Popery, or receiving their clergy from the Roman pontiff instead of the Babylonian patriarch. Such obligations the holy council pronounced pestilential and void, and the keeping of them an impiety and temerity. The sacred synod, in this manner, could, by a skilful use of their spiritual artillery, exterminate obligations and oaths by wholesale.

The encouragement to faithlessness and perjury was not confined to provincial synods, but extended to universal councils. Six of these general ecclesiastical conventions patronized, in word or deed, by precept or example, violation of engagements and breach of trust. These were the universal councils of the Lateran, Lyons, Pisa, Constance, and Basil.

The third general council of the Lateran, superintended by Alexander and clothed with infallibility, taught this principle in word and deed. The unerring fathers, in the sixteenth canon, styled "an oath contrary to ecclesiastical utility, not an oath, but perjury." The pontiffs, whose province it is to explain oaths and vows, always confounded ecclesiastical utility with pontifical aggrandizement. Obligations, therefore, which militated against the interest or grandeur of the Papacy, soon hastened to their dissolution. The Lateran convention, in its twenty-seventh canon, exemplified, its own theory, and disengaged, from their oath of fidelity, the vassals of the barons and lords who embraced or protected the heresy of Albigensianism. These princes patronized heresy, and their subjects, therefore, were not bound to keep faith with such sovereigns, or to yield them

Cossart, 6. 51.

Pith. 110. Labb. 13. 426. Gibert. 3. 504. Labb. 13. 431.

fealty or obedience. This language is unequivocal, and supersedes, by its perspicuity and precision, the necessity of any comment.

The fourth general council of the Lateran, in 1215, issued an enactment of the same kind. This infallible assembly, in its third canon, "freed the subjects of such sovereigns as embraced heresy from their fealty." The temporal lord, who refused to purify his dominions from heretical pollution, not only forfeited the allegiance of his vassals, but his title to his estate, which, in consequence, might be seized by any orthodox adventurer. Heresy, therefore, according to this unerring congress, rescinds the obligation of fidelity, cancels the right of property, and warrants the violation of faith.

The general council of Lyons absolved the Emperor Frederic's vassals from their oath of fealty. The synod, in their own way, convicted the emperor of schism, heresy, and church-robbery. His criminality, therefore, according to the unerring council, warranted a breach of faith, and a dissolution of the subject's oath of obedience. Innocent, who presided on the occasion, represented himself as the viceroy of heaven, on whom God, in the person of the Galilean fisherman, had conferred the keys of his kingdom, and vested with the power of binding and loosing. The council concurred with the pontiff. The pope and the prelacy, says Paris, "lighted tapers and thundered, in frightful fulminations, against his imperial majesty." The tes timony of Paris is corroborated by Paduan, Nangius, and Henry.

The general council of Pisa imitated those of the Lateran and Lyons. This assembly, in its fifteenth session, released all Christians from their oath of fidelity to Benedict and Gregory, and forbade all men, notwithstanding any obligation, to obey the rival pontiffs, whom the holy fathers, by a summary process, convicted of perjury, contumacy, incorrigibility, schism, and heresy. The sacred synod,

• Bin. 8. 807. Labb. 13. 934.

+ Labb. 14. 52. Binn. 8.852. Paris 651,652. Giannon, XVIII. 3.

Labb. 15. 1138. Alex. 24. 573. Dachery, 1.847.

in this instance, assumed the power of dissolving sworn engagements, and of warranting all Christendom to break faith with two viceroys of heaven, who, according to the synodal sentence, were guilty of schism and heresy.

The general council of Constance, on this topic, outstripped all competition, and gained an infamous celebrity, in recommending and exemplifying treachery, the demolition of oaths, and unfaithful ness to engagements. The holy assembly having convicted John, though a lawful pope, of simony, schism, heresy, infidelity, murder, perjury, fornication, adultery, rape, incest, sodomy, and a few other trifling frailties of a similar kind, deposed his holiness, and emancipated all Christians from their oath of obedience to his supremacy.* His infallibility, in the mean time, notwithstanding his simony, schism, heresy, perjury, murder, incest, and sodomy, exercised his prerogative of dissolving oaths as well as the council. The holy fathers had sworn to conceal from the pontiff their plans for his degradation. The trusty prelacy, however, notwithstanding their obligation to secrecy, revealed all, during the night, to his holiness. John, by this means, had the satisfaction of discovering the machinations of his judges, and of inducing the infallible bishops to perjury. The pontiff, however, by his sovereign authority, and by the power of the keys, soon disannulled these obligations, and delivered the perjured traitors, who composed the sacred synod, from their oath of secrecy. The pontiff showed the council, that he could demolish oaths as well as his faithless accusers, who "represented the whole church and had met in the spirit of God."

The Constantians, in the twentieth session, freed the vassals of Frederic, Duke of Austria, from their oath of fealty. The thirty-seventh session was distinguished by disentangling all Christians from their oath of fidelity, however taken, to Pope Benedict, and forbidding any to obey him on pain of the penalty annexed to schism and heresy. The sacred

synod, in its forty-first session, annulled and execrated all conventions and oaths, which might militate against the freedom and efficiency of the pending election.

This council's treatment of Huss and Jerome constituted the most revolting instance of its treachery. The martyrdom of these celebrated friends, indeed, was one of the most glaring, undisguised, and disgusting specimens of perfidy ever exhibited to the gaze of an astonished world, or recorded for the execration of posterity. John Huss was summoned to the city of Constance on a charge of heresy. His safety, during his journey, his stay, and his RETURN, were guaranteed by a safeconduct from the Emperor Sigismund, addressed to all civil and ecclesiastical governors in his dominions. Huss obeyed the summons. Plighted faith, however, could, in those days, confer no security on a man accused of heresy. Huss was tried and condemned by an ecclesiastical tribunal, which, in its holy zeal, "devoted his soul to the infernal devils," and delivered his body to the secular arm; which, notwithstanding the imperial promise of protection, and in defiance of all justice and humanity, committed the victim of its own perfidy to the flames.* This harbinger of the Reformation suffered martyrdom with the emperor's safe-conduct in his hand. He died as he had lived, like a Christian hero. He endured the punishment with unparalleled magnanimity, and, in the triumph of faith and the exstacy of divine love, "sung hymns to God," while the mouldering flesh was consumed from his bones, till the immortal spirit ascended from the funeral pile and soared to heaven.t

Jerome, also, trepanned by the mockery of a safe-conduct from the faithless synod, shared the same destiny. This man, distinguished for his friendship and eloquence, came to Constance, for the generous purpose of supporting his early companion, and died with heroism, in the fire which had consumed his friend. Huss and Jerome, says Eneas Sylvius, afterward Pope Pius the Second, "dis

Lenfan, 1. 409.

+ Moreri, 4. 221. Hist. du Wicklif. 2. 127, 128.

covered no symptom of weakness, went to punishment as to a festival, and sung hymns in the midst of the flames and without interruption till the last sigh."*

Doctor Murray, titular Archbishop of Dublin, has, in his examination before the British Commons, endeavoured, by his usual misrepresentations and sophistry, to exculpate Sigismund and the synod from the imputation of faithlessness. The task was Herculean, but the bishop's arguments are silly. Murray, like Phaton, failed in a bold attempt. The imperial safe-conduct, says the doctor, follow ing Becanus, Maimburg, and Alexander, was only a passport, like those granted to travellers on the European continent, to hinder interruption or molestation on the way: but, by no means, to prevent the execution of justice, in case of a legal conviction. The archbishop's statement is as faithless as the emperor's safe-conduct or the synod's sentence. The emperor's promised protection to Huss, "extended, not only to his going and stay, but also to his RETURN." The return of this victim of treachery was intercepted by the fagot and the stake, trying obstacles, indeed, but good enough for a heretic. The emperor's safe-conduct, says the Popish author of the history of Wickliffism," was, in its terms, clear, general, absolute, and without reserve."t

The council was accessory to the emperor's treachery. The safe-conduct, indeed, was not binding on the Constantian clergy. These were not a party to the agreement, and possessed, at least, a canonical and admitted power of pronouncing on the theology of the accused. An ecclesiastical court was the proper tribunal for deciding an ecclesiastical question. The Constantian fathers, therefore, according to the opinion of the age, might, with propriety, have tried the Catholicism of Huss, and, on evidence, declared him guilty of heresy and obstinacy. But this did not satisfy the holy synod, who advised and sanctioned Sigis

Moreri, 4. 232. Sylv. c. 36. Hist. du Wicklif. 2.

† Alexander, 25, 258, 260. Moreri, 4. 232. Du Pin, 3. 92. Histoire du Wicklifianisme, 98. Maimb. 215. Com. Rep. 659.

mund's breach of faith, and, by this means, became partakers in his perfidy.

But Huss, says Murray, suffered in Constance, a free city, over the laws of which Sigismund had no control. The emperor, he concludes, could not have prevented the Constantian act of faith. This is another shameful misrepresentation. The bishop, in his statement, breaks faith with history as much as the emperor did with Huss. The emperor made no attempt to oppose the synod. His majesty, on the contrary, protested, that rather than support the heresiarch in his error and obstinacy, he would kindle the fire with his own hands. The sentence, accordingly, was executed by imperial authority. The council consigned the prisoner to the emperor, and the emperor to the Duke of Bavaria, who delivered him to the executioner.* Sigismund, it appears, possessed power; but instead of using it for the protection of Huss, he exerted it for his punishment. He could not, indeed, have annulled the prisoner's sentence of heresy; but he could have granted him life and liberty, till the expiration of his safe-conduct, as Charles V. did to Luther.

But the council's sanction of the oathannulling and faith-violating system depends, by no means, on the contents of the emperor's safe-conduct or his treatment of Huss. Murray, if he even could have vindicated Sigismund, would have effected just nothing with respect to the council. The holy ruffians, at Constance, avowed the shocking maxim with fearlessness and without disguise, both by their deputation to the emperor and by their declarations in council.

The deputation sent to the emperor, for the purpose of concerting a plan for the safety and convenience of the council's future deliberations, maintained this principle. These gave his majesty to understand, that the council had authority to disengage him from a legal promise, when pledged to a person guilty of heresy. This is attested by Dachery, an eyewitness, in his German history of the Constantian council.. The deputation,

Lenfan. 1. 82, 318. Du Pin, 3. 94. Bruy. 4. 66. Hist. du Wicklif. 126.

says this historian, "in a long speech, persuaded the emperor, that by decretal authority, he should not keep faith with a man accused of heresy." ."* Nauclerus, who lived shortly after the council, testifies nearly the same thing. The emperor himself entertained this opinion of the deputation's sentiments. His majesty, addressing Huss at his last examination, declared that some thought he had no right to afford any protection to a man convicted or even suspected of heresy." The deputation, on this occasion, must have known and represented the opinion of the synod, which acquiesced, without any contradiction, in this statement, and which, had the emperor been mistaken, should have corrected the error. Huss was a victim to the malevolent passions of the council, and the superstition and perfidy of the emperor.

The faith-violating maxim was avowed, not only by the deputation, but also by the council. The infallible assembly, boldly, roundly, and expressly declared, that "no faith or promise, prejudicial to Catholicism, was to be kept with John Huss by natural, divine, or human law." Prejudicial to Catholicism, in this case, could signify no infraction on the faith of the church; but merely the permission of a man, convicted of heresy, to escape with his life. Faith, therefore, according to the council, should be violated rather than allow a heretic to live. The synod of Basil, however, and the diet of Worms thought otherwise, when they suffered the Bohemians and Luther, under the protection of a safe-conduct, to withdraw from the council, and the diet, and return in safety to their own country.

The sacred synod, unsatisfied with this frightful declaration, issued, in its nineteenth session, another enactment of a similar kind, but expressed in more general terms, and capable of more extensive application. According to these patrons of perfidy, "no safe-conduct, disadvantageous to the faith or jurisdiction of the church, though granted by emperor or king, and ratified by the most solemn

Lenfant, 1. 82.

† Hard. 4, 397. Lenfant, 1. 492. Labbeus, 16. 292.

obligations, can be any protection to persons convicted of heresy. Persons, suspected of defection from the faith, may be tried by the proper ecclesiastical judges, and, if convicted and persisting in error, may be punished, though they attended the tribunal relying on a safeconduct, and otherwise would not have appeared."* This declaration, it is plain, contains a formal sanction of the atro cious principle.

Alexander, followed by Murray, Crotty, and Higgins, endeavours to vindicate the council and the emperor, by distri buting the condemnation and execution of Huss between the synodal and royal authority. The council, in the exercise of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, convicted the accused of heresy, and the emperor, according to the laws of the state, executed the sentence. Both, therefore, were clear of all imputation of perfidy.

This is a beautiful specimen of Shandian logic and easuistry. The learned doctors had studied dialectics in the above-mentioned celebrated school. An action, according to Tristram, which, when committed entirely by one, is sinful, does, when divided between two, and perpetrated partly by one, and partly by the other, become sinless. Two ladies, accordingly, an abbess and Margarita, wished to name a word of two syllables, the pronunciation of which by one person would have been a crime. The abbess, therefore, repeated the first, and Margarita, by her direction, the last syllable; and by this means, both evaded all criminality. Alexander, Murray, Crotty, and Higgins, in like manner, partition the breach of faith between the council and the emperor, the church and state, the ecclesiastical and civil law, and by this simple and easy process, exculpate both from all blame or violation of faith. Breach of trust, it seems, loses, in this way, its immorality, and is transformed into duty. Some people, however, un-. acquainted with the new system of Shandian dialectics, may suppose that this

learned distinction, instead of excrimi nating each, only rendered both guilty.

The faithlessness of the council and the emperor has been admitted by Sigis mund, the French clergy, the Diet of Worms, and the infallible councils of Basil and Trent. Sigismund, on one occasion, seemed sensible of his own infamy. His majesty accordingly blushed in the council, when Huss appealed to the imperial pledge of protection. I came to this city, said the accused to the assembled fathers, " relying on the public faith of the emperor, who is now present;" and, whilst he uttered these words, "he looked steadfastly in the face of Sigismund, who, feeling the truth of the reproach, blushed for his own baseness."* Conscious guilt and shame crimsoned his countenance, and betrayed the inward emotions of his self-condemned soul. His blush was an extorted and unwilling acknowledgment of his perfidy. The emperor, it is plain, notwithstanding modern advocacy, thought himself guilty.

The French clergy, according to De Thou, urged the Constantian decision as a precedent for a similar act of treachery. The French, according to Gibert, afterward, in temporizing inconsistency, deprecated the infringement of the imperial safeguard, by which capital punishment was inflicted on a man, to whom had been promised safety and impunity. The French, in these instances, varied indeed with the times on the subject of breaking trust, and exemplified the fluctuations which occur even in an infallible communion. The French clergy, however, in both cases, both in their urgency and deprecation, concurred in ascribing perfidy to the Constantian congress.

The Diet of Worms, or, at least, a party in that assembly, pleaded the precedent of synodal and imperial treachery at the Constantian assembly, in favour of breaking faith with Luther. This showed their opinion of the council. Charles V. however, possessed more integrity than Sigismund," and was resolved not

1

• Lenfan. 1. 403.

†Thuanus, 3. 524. Gibert, 1. 106. + Paolo, 1. 28.

to blush with his predecessor."* The Elector Palatine supported the emperor; and their united authority defeated the intended design of treachery.

The councils of Basil and Trent, in the safe-conducts granted to the Bohemians and Germans, admitted the same fact. The Basilians, in their safe-conduct to the Bohemians, disclaimed all intention to fallacy or deception, open or concealed, prejudicial to the public faith, founded on any authority, power, right, law, canon, or council, especially those of Constance or Sienna. The Trentine safe-conduct to the German Protestants is to the same effect. Both these documents, proceeding from general councils, reject, for themselves, the Constantian precedent of treachery, and, in so doing, grant its existence..

The general council of Basil copied the bad example, issued at the Lateran, at Lyons, Pisa, and Constance. This unerring assembly, in its fourth session, invalidated all oaths and obligations, which might prevent any person from coming to the council. Attendance at Basil, it was alleged, would tend to ecclesiastical utility, and to this end, even at the expense of perjury, every sacred and sworn engagement had to yield. The sacred synod, in its thirty-fourth session, deposed Eugenius for simony, perjury, schism and heresy, and absolved all Christians from their sworn obedience to his supremacy. The pontiff was guilty of heterodoxy, and, therefore, unworthy of good. faith, and became a proper object of treachery. The holy fathers, in the thirty-seventh session, condemned and annulled all compacts and oaths which might obstruct the election of a sovereign pontiff. This was clever, and like men determined to do business.

This maxim, in this manner, prior to the Reformation, obtained general reception in the Popish communion. The Roman hierarchs, as the viceroys of heaven, continued, according to interest or