POPERY, in Ecclesiastical History, comprehends the religious doctrines and practices adopted and maintained by the church of Rome. The following summary, extracted chiefly from the decrees of the council of Trent, continued under Paul III. Julius III. and Pius IV. from the year 1545 to 1563, by successive sessions, and the creed of pope Pius IV. subjoined to it, and bearing date November 1564, may not be unacceptable to the reader. One of the fundamental tenets, strenuously maintained by popish writers, is the infallibility of the church of Rome; though they are not agreed, whether this privilege belongs to the pope, or a general council, or to both united; but they pretend that an infallible living judge is absolutely necessary to determine controversies, and to secure peace in the Christian church. However, Protestants allege, that the claim of infallibility in any church is not justified by the authority of Scripture; much less does it pertain to the church of Rome; and that it is inconsistent with the nature of religion, and the personal obligations of its professors; and that it has proved ineffectual to the end for which it is supposed to be granted, since popes and councils have disagreed in matters of importance, and they have been incapable, with the advantage of this pretended infallibility, of maintaining union and peace.
Another essential article of the popish creed is the supremacy of the pope, or his sovereign power over the universal church. On this subject it is maintained, that every Christian, under pain of damnation, is bound to be subject to the pope; that no appeals may be made from him; and that he alone is the supreme judge of all persons, in all ecclesiastical causes, but that he himself can be judged by no man. To this purpose they assert, that the church of Rome is the catholic church; the mother and mistress of all churches; that the pope is the vicar of Christ, successor of St. Peter, and the supreme pastor over all the world. And they likewise assert his dominion over temporal princes; pretending that he may over-rule what they command; excommunicate and depose them, if they contradict his commands; and absolve their subjects from allegiance, and exempt the clergy from their jurisdiction.
This exorbitant power hath been challenged by the pope for many successive ages, and in several instances actually exercised. Thus Gregory VII. excommunicated the emperor Henry IV. and gave away his kingdoms to Rudolphus duke of Sweden. Gregory IX. excommunicated the emperor Frederick II. and absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance. Pope Paul III. excommunicated and deposed Henry VIII. king of England, and commanded all his subjects, under a curse, to withdraw their obedience from him. Pope Pius V. and Gregory XIII. damned and deposed queen Elizabeth, and absolved her subjects from their allegiance. And this practice has been warranted by the decrees of the third Lateran council under pope Alexander III. and by the fourth Lateran council under pope Innocent III. though it is contrary to the express language of Scripture, to the doctrine and conduct of the apostles and primitive fathers, and to the confessions and practice of the ancient bishops of Rome, and altogether inconsistent with the rights of government and the welfare of society.
Farther, the doctrine of the seven sacraments is a peculiar and distinguishing doctrine of the church of Rome: these are baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony.
The council of Trent (sess. 7. can. 1.) pronounces an anathema on those who say, that the sacraments are more or fewer than seven, or that any one of the above number is not truly and properly a sacrament. And yet it does not appear that they amounted to this number before the 12th century, when Hugo de St. Victore and Peter Lombard, about the year 1144, taught that there were seven sacraments. The council of Florence, held in 1438, was the first council that determined this number. These sacraments confer grace, according to the decree of the council of Trent (sess. 7. can. 8.) ex opere operato, by the mere administration of them: three of them, viz. baptism, confirmation, and orders, are said (can. 9.) to impress an indelible character, so that they cannot be repeated without sacrilege; and the efficacy of every sacrament depends on the intention of the priest by whom it is administered (can. 11.) Pope Pius expressly enjoins, that all these sacraments should be administered according to the received and approved rites of the catholic church. With regard to the eucharist in particular, we may here observe, that the church of Rome holds the doctrine of transubstantiation; the necessity of paying divine worship to the consecrated bread, or host; the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, according to their ideas of which Christ is truly and properly put to death as a sacrifice as often as the priest says mass; and solitary mass, in which the priest alone, who consecrates, communicates, and allows communion only in one kind, viz. the bread, to the laity. Sess. 14.
The doctrine of merits is another distinguishing tenet of popery; with regard to which the council of Trent has expressly decreed (sess. 6. can. 32.) that the good works of justified persons are truly meritorious; deserving not only an increase of grace, but eternal life, and an increase of glory; and it has anathematized all who deny this doctrine. Of the same kind is the doctrine of satisfactions; which supposes that penitents may truly satisfy, by the afflictions they endure under the dispensations of Providence, or by voluntary penances to which they submit, for the temporary penalties of sin, to which they are subject, even after the remission of their eternal punishment. Sess. 6. can. 30. and sess. 14. can. 8. and 9. In this connection we may mention the popish distinction of venial and mortal sins: the greatest evils arising from the former are the temporary pains of purgatory; but no man, it is said, can obtain the pardon of the latter without confession to a priest, and performing the penances which he imposes.
The council of Trent (sess. 14. can. 1.) has expressly decreed, that every one is accursed, who shall affirm that penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ in the universal church, for reconciling those Christians to the divine majesty, who have fallen into sin after baptism: and this sacrament, it is declared, consists of two parts, the matter and the form; the matter is the act of the penitent, including contrition, confession, and satisfaction; the form of it is the act of absolution on the part of the priest. Accordingly it is enjoined, that it is the duty of every man,
Popery. man, who hath fallen after baptism, to confess his sins once a year, at least, to a priest: that this confession is to be secret; for public confession is neither commanded nor expedient: and that it must be exact and particular, including every kind and act of sin, with all the circumstances attending it. When the penitent has so done, the priest pronounces an absolution; which is not conditional or declarative only, but absolute and judicial. This secret, or auricular confession, was first decreed and established in the fourth council of Lateran, under Innocent III. in 1215, (cap. 21.) And the decree of this council was afterwards confirmed and enlarged in the council of Florence, and in that of Trent, which ordains, that confession was instituted by Christ, that by the law of God it is necessary to salvation, and that it has been always practised in the Christian church. As for the penances imposed on the penitent by way of satisfaction, they have been commonly the repetition of certain forms of devotion, as pater-nosters, or ave-marias, the payment of stipulated sums, pilgrimages, fasts, or various species of corporal discipline. But the most formidable penance in the estimation of many, who have belonged to the Romish communion, has been the temporary pains of purgatory. But under all the penalties which are inflicted or threatened in the Romish church, it has provided relief by its indulgences, and by its prayers or masses for the dead, performed professedly for relieving and rescuing the souls that are detained in purgatory.
Another article that has been long authoritatively enjoined and observed in the church of Rome, is the celibacy of her clergy. This was first enjoined at Rome by Gregory VII. about the year 1074, and established in England by Anselm archbishop of Canterbury about the year 1175; though his predecessor Lanfranc had imposed it upon the prebendaries and clergy that lived in towns. And though the council of Trent was repeatedly petitioned by several princes and states to abolish this restraint, the obligation of celibacy was rather established than relaxed by this council; for they decreed, that marriage contracted after a vow of continence is neither lawful nor valid; and thus deprived the church of the possibility of ever restoring marriage to the clergy. For if marriage, after a vow, be in itself unlawful, the greatest authority upon earth cannot dispense with it, nor permit marriage to the clergy, who have already vowed continence.
To the doctrines and practices above recited may be farther added the worship of images; to justify which, the Papists often leave the second commandment out of their catechisms: the invocation of saints and angels, with respect to which the council of Trent decreed, that all bishops and pastors, who have the cure of souls, do diligently instruct their flocks, that it is good and profitable humbly to pray unto the saints, and to have recourse to their prayers, help, and aid; for which practice no scripture command or example, nor any testimony within the first 300 years after Christ, can be pleaded: the worship of sacred relics, by which they understand not only the bodies and parts of the bodies of the saints, but any of those things that appertained to them, and which they touched: and the celebration of divine service in an unknown tongue; to which purpose the council of
Trent hath denounced an anathema on any one who shall say that mass ought to be celebrated only in the vulgar tongue, sess. 25, and sess. 22, can. 9. Though the council of Lateran under Innocent III. in 1215 (can. 9.) had expressly decreed, that, because in many parts within the same city and diocese, there are many people of different manners and rites mixed together, but of one faith, the bishops of such cities or dioceses should provide fit men for celebrating divine offices, according to the diversity of tongues and rites, and for administering the sacraments.
We shall only add, that the church of Rome maintains, that unwritten traditions ought to be added to the holy Scriptures, in order to supply their defect, and regarded as of equal authority; that the books of the Apocrypha are canonical scripture; that the vulgare edition of the Bible is to be deemed as authentic; and that the Scriptures are to be received and interpreted according to that sense which the holy mother church, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense, hath held, and doth hold, and according to the unanimous consent of the fathers.
Such are the principal and distinguishing doctrines of Popery, most of which have received the sanction of the council of Trent; and that of the creed of pope Pius IV. which is received, professed, and sworn to by every one who enters into holy orders in the church of Rome; and at the close of this creed, we are told, that the faith contained in it is so absolutely and indispensably necessary, that no man can be saved without it.
Many of the doctrines of Popery were relaxed, and very favourably interpreted by M. de Meaux, bishop of Condom, in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, first printed in the year 1671: but this edition, which was charged with perverting, in endeavouring to palliate, the doctrine of the church, was censured by the doctors of the Sorbonne, and actually suppressed; nor does it appear that they ever testified their approbation in the usual form of subsequent and altered editions.