I shall now proceed to give you an account of the great schism, which happened in the Catholic Church, (notwithstanding they had the Doctor's third rule for their guide.) But before I commence, it may be necessary to give a short introduction explaining the cause of the schism. "Gregory the 7th," says Gibbon, "who may be adored or detested as the founder of the Papal Monarchy, was driven from Rome, and died in exile at Salerno. Six and thirty of his successors, till their retreat to Avignon, maintained an unequal combat with the Romans; their age and dignity were often violated; and the Churches, in the solemn rites of religion, were polluted with sedition and murder.”

"A repetition of such capricious brutality, without connection or design, would be tedious and disgusting; and I shall content myself with some events of the twelfth century, which represent the state of the Popes, and the city during the Festival of Easter, while the Bishop and the Clergy, barefoot and in procession, visited the tombs of the martyrs. They were twice assaulted, at the bridge of St. Angelo and before the Capitol, with vollies of stones and darts ; the houses of his adherents were leveled with the ground; Pashal escaped with difficulty and danger; he levied an army in the Patrimony of St. Peter, and his last days were embittered by suffering and inflicting the calamities of civil

"The scenes that followed the election of his successor, Gelasius II. were still more scandalous to the Church and city. Censio Frangipane, a potent and factious Baron, burst into the assembly, furious and in arms; the Cardinals were stripped, beaten, and trampled under foot; and he seized, without pity or respect, the Vicar of Christ by the throat. Gelasius was dragged by his hair along the ground, buffeted with blows, wounded with spears, and bound with an iron chain in the house of his brutal tyrant."

An insurrection of the people delivered their Bishop. Not many days had elapsed, when the Pope was again assaulted at the altar; while his friends and his enemies were engaged in a bloody contest, he escaped in his sacredotal garments. In this unworthy flight, which excited the compassion of the Roman matrons, his attendants were scattered and unhorsed; and in the fields behind the Church of St. Peter, his successor was found alone, half dead with fear and fatigue, shaking the dust from his feet. The apostle withdrew from the city in which his dignity was insulted and his person endangered."

‘These were but a few of the many abuses that their Holinesses received in the city, which induced them to retire to Avignon, in France, where they resided upwards of seventy years."

I remain yours, &c.

WM. M'GIRR.

LETTER IV.

Gentlemen: It appears that after a time, the citizens of Rome repented of what they had done in banishing his Holiness from the city; they found that there was not so much wealth flowing into it; they, therefore, importuned him to return, and finally, Gregory IX. returned at their request. At his death there was an election held by the College of Cardinals, who elected Urban VI. as the successor of St. Peter; but in a few months after, they retired from the city and excommunicated Urban VI. as an apostate and antichrist of Rome, and then elected Clement VII. whom they announced to the nations as the true and rightful Vicar of Christ.

It would appear that the Cardinals considered their elec

The bells of the

"Death, or an Some preparation

tion of Urban as an involuntary and illegal act, and annulled by the circumstances attending it, (the menaces of the Romans and their fear of death,) and their complaints are justified by the strong evidence of probability and fact; for the conclave was intimidated by the shouts, and encompassed by thirty thousand armed rebels. Capitol and of St. Peter rang an alarm. Italian Pope!" was the universal cry. was made for burning the obstinate Cardinals, and had they chosen a Transalpine subject, it is probable they would never have departed from the Vatican alive. Thus, for fifty years, the Church was divided by two Popes reigning at the same time; and during a part of the time there were three, which reduced the Catholic Church to a deplorable condition.

France, the States of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus, Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and Scotland, acknowledged the election of Clement VII. and his successors. Rome, and the principal States of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, the Low Countries, and the Kingdoms of the North, adhered to the prior election of Urban VI. and his successors: from the banks of the Tiber and the Rhone they encountered each other with fire and sword.

Thus you may see the deplorable state to which the Catholic Church was reduced. Notwithstanding it was in possession of the Doctor's third and infallible rule, its practice was suicidal, destroying itself.

I remain yours, &c.

WM. M'GIRR

LETTER V.

Gentlemen: I shall conclude the review of the third rule by making a few remarks upon tradition and councils. It appears that infallibility does not belong to either of them.

For, we find that the Eastern and Western Christians differed about the Paschal Feast-the Eastern Christians celebrating it at the same time that the Jews did their Passover, and they plead for tradition in their favor.

The Western Church celebrated it on the day that Christ arose from the dead, and they, also, plead for tradition in favor of their practice. Thus the Catholics reckon it an error to celebrate Easter any other way than their Church doth, and this can only be decided by tradition; and yet, the Greek Church, which equally lays claim to tradition, celebrates it otherwise. Yea, of so little effect is tradition to decide the case at issue, that Polycarpus, the disciple of John, and Amicetus, the Bishop of Rome, who, according to tradition, immediately succeeded the Apostles, (by whose example both parties admitted the question ought to be decided,) could not agree. Here, of course, one of them must have been in error, though professing to follow tradition as their guide; besides, in a matter of greater importance, the same difficulty will occur, viz: the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome; for many do affirm, and that from tradition, that in the first six hundred years, the Roman Prelates never assumed the title of Universal Shepherd; nor were they acknowledged as such. And there are others who allege, and they cannot be refuted, that Peter never saw Rome; and, therefore, the Bishop of Rome cannot be his successor.

2d. In relation to Councils, we find they often differed

widely; in some things they could never agree, and in others they flatly condemned what others had previously confirmed.

As we find in the Council of Florence the chief Doctors of the Catholic and Greek churches did debate, whole sessions long, concerning the interpretation of one sentence of the Council of Ephesus, about which they could never agree: likewise, the Council of Chalcedon condemned the Council of Ephesus in relation to Christ having but one nature in him.

Again The Council of Constance condemned all the Councils held in Christendom for fourteen hundred years, in relation to the Laity receiving the sacrament; for all the Councils before that allowed the Laity to receive it in both kinds, until the Council of Constance deprived them of it.

Thus you may see how the Catholic Church have differed with this double rule that the Doctor speaks of, viz: Scripture and tradition; how we find tradition arrayed against tradition, Council against Council, and Pope against Pope, writing and fighting against each other, and shedding each other's blood; so that it is evident that this double rule, as the Doctor is pleased to call it, is not sufficient, either taken separately or compounded, that is, the written and unwritten word of God, so called.

That they are not sufficient, either separately or compounded, to renovate the mind, nor yet to subjugate the passions of our animal nature, must, I think, be conceded by every reflecting mind; neither is it to be expected that it should, as nothing short of the spirit and power of the living God is able to accomplish that work.

Therefore I apprehend, it is not the written or the unwritten word that is the only rule whereby you will come to know the mind of Christ, the which I shall endeavor to show in a subsequent letter or letters; and likewise