The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-17 00:00:00

INFALLIBLE SUPREMACY OF TILE ROMAN

BISHOP."

The trumpet blastavlahas gathered an Italian
congregation from every quarter of this metropolis is
an event pregnant with vast ulterior results,and it is
now evident that what was at first only a political
sentiment is fast assuming the form of a religious'
persuasion fully developed and organised wider the
apostleship of .an able and vigorous champion. The
enthusiastic adhesion of his auditory, now swelled to
the full dimensions of a Christian church, and the
ready adoption of his views by every. intelligent
Italian who takes the smallest interest m revealed
faith, has concentrated here the hopes and pro-
spects of a nation. When, at the close of yestcrsia s
appeal. the father broke forth into a strain of highly
devotional eloquence, the visible emotion hi the
crowd responsive to his effort to evoke a deep and
solemn recognition of belief in a Redeemer and the
great atonement on Calvary gave convincing proof of
the vivifying influence he can exercise over the
minds and hearts of his countrymen.

How did this ultrismontime system originate ? If you
open the ponderous tomes of its official evieninders, you
will learn with awe and a suspicion of blasphemy that the
Creator in the Book of Genesis foreshadowesl the Vatican's
supremacy when he made the sun an emblem of the papal
power and the moon a symbol of temporal authority, which
is but the reflex of the termer—kings heing mere planets
who resolve in their orbits round the central luminary, and
shine only with derivative light ; the fact being that this
papacy is hut the ghost of the old Damian empire—a huh-
goblin made up of a lantern and white sheet, squatting in
the graveyard of the seven hills, a phantom formidable to
iguorauce alone. In the dust of paganism it picked up the
words Pontifea Maximus, a fragment of imperial preten-
sions, and turned it to meouut as it did other shreds and
patches of idolatry. To the system of centralisation, of
which the Itoinan empire was the mighty model, was
traceable the notion of absorbing the whole Christianepisco- ',
pees, in one bishop. A primacy of honour and simple I
precedency freely granted toner& the decline and tall of
the Lamar* was enlarged and expanded at their disappear-'
'inc: into the full inheritance of their autocracy, unit the
good will of the premises in which they carried on business
passed into the hands of their successors with its con-
comitant monopoly. Away with the pretext of Peter and his
transformation into a rock to support a superstructure of
delusion. Is Christ to be thus thrust aside ? Can any man
I insert "any other fouadation than that which has ti:en
placed in Jesus ?" is he not the corner-stone whom the
builders rejected? Did Isaiah and David prophecy in vain?
Did Paul mislead the Ephesians and Corinthians on this
very point on which he is so explicit as to the foundation-
stone of the Christian edifice ? To Christ is the church
espoused, not to Peter. Christ in the supreme head of the
universal church, not :my of his twelve apostles.
'rhe Father proecoded, on the assumption that a
body can have but one head, to describe the mon-
strous chimera which Horace in his Art of Poetry
ridicules, but Roman casuists have reprodueed; the
pretended headship of Peter combined with the
admitted headship of Christ; a sort of bifurcated
neck with the crown of thorns on one brow and the
pompous tiara on a rival forehead, after the fashion
of the Austrian eagle, an object equally abominable;
he asserted the perfect equality as to jurisdiction and
inspiration of Christ's twelve apostles, maintained
' that Christianity in its origin was touch more a re-
public than a monarchy ; all we read of its simple
organisation, its popular elections, its elders, over-
seers, and deacons, utterly demolishes the notion of a
centralised despotism either at Antioch or Rome. The
possibility of a quasi-presidential power entering into
• the scheme of its constitution was barely admissible ;
the idea of an all-absorbing authority in any of its
bishops WWI totally irreconcileable with the tenor of
' the acts of the apostles and the early writers of church
history. The Christian episcopacy derives its func-
tions and its rights directly front God, not through
the intermedium of any brother bishop, be he pa-
triarch of the cast or patriarch of the west. This
latter title was accorded to the ordinary of Rome
without murmur, and in deference to the importance
of the city in which he resided, but the style of
" 'ecumenical patriarch " WWI only first granted by the
emperor Pitman to lioniface the Fourth in 61)7. Photos
was the real founder of this fabric of fraud; though
no monument proclaims it, save a column in the forum,
but patriarchs, like bishops, often forget their maker.
l'hoeas not only gave Bonithee, whom he had known
at Constantinople, his cast-off appendage of l'ontifex
Maximus—of no use to the original owner--hut also
handed him over the Pantheon, another l'agan pro-
perty, unproductive to its imperial proprietor and
symbolical of Rome's old assumption of universal su-
premacy over the idolatrous rites of the world.
Many other historic details illustrative of the gradual
encroachments of the Roman bishopric, first over the
neighbouring sees of Italy, and next of France, were
rapidly sketched by the speaker, who brought the
annals of usurpation down to the present day, when
Route has succeeded in getting into its own manage-
ment the exclusive appointment of bishops in Asia,
Africa, and America. lu Europe alone it en-
countered resistance, and had to haggle and bar-
pin with conflicting autocrats for a share
in the enslavement of the church which had
originally elected its own bishops throughout all
chnstendom, the papacy itself being elective in tho
people and clergy of Rome, not, as now, an ignoble
game of intrigue among bloated cardinals and cor-
rupt diplomacy. The origin of concordats way de-
scribed, and these negotiations denounced as the de-
vice of two rival despotisms, to rivet closer the chains
of doubly-enslaved Christianity. True to their
worldly and secular derivation, mitres tyrannised in
the interest of kings and romanised in that of popes"
so much so, that when the present unhappy occupant
of the principul bishopric in Christendom showed a
brief velleity of honest dealings and liberal tenden-
cies, the whole episcopacy betrayed strange misgiv-
ings; and now that the dog has returned to his
vomit, their uneasiness is changed into plaudits of
congratulation. He has renewed the old league
with the world's despots ; and a new tariff
of commercial interchange is struck between
the Vatican and Vicuna. The famous journey of
Pope Brasehi to the Austrian capital, in the vain
hope of cajoling Joseph 11. into complicity with the
Roman court's manceuvres, was graphically set forth,
and the annual claim of a white palfrey in homage
from Naples contrasted with the mendicant appeal
for shelter at Gaeta, and the subsequent grovelling
servility to the most brutal of the besotted Bourbons.
Alternately a bully and a sneak, the Papacy dared
'to talk of infringement of agreements to Piedmont,
when it was notorious that among the decisions of
'the rota, or high chancery of Rome, it was formally
laid down as a papal principle that Rome might in-
I fringe any sort of concordat distasteful to its preten-
sions; a pleasant arrangement, much like going to
law with a horned potentate in the iufcrnal courts.
But the tiara confers infallibility ? To illustrate which
the Gospel shows us Peter a recreaut to Christ in the ves-
tibule of Caiphas, stumbling on the very threshold of a
long career fur his presumed successors. Is it not to the
body of the episcopate that the promise of Christ belongs, HEPRINENTATION OP BEnronnsnutr..—The fond
that he will he with them to the consummation of ages? expectations of the protectionists that Colonel Gilpin would
Has the gigantic mind of Ilomnet laboured in vain to make is wan, over" unopposed for this county will not be
this clear ? Is it not laid down by the council of Constance, realised. On Friday morning hand-bills were circulated
when rival Popes were at loggerheads, and in the council announcing that a public meetine would be held at the
of Basle ? I* not the assumption of the Pope's indi- Castle-rooms Bedford, to receive an independent candidate.
vidual liability to err the rationed/a of every church A at excitement was occasioned by this notice, and at
assembly from that of Jerusalem to that of Trent ? eight o'clock in the evening the huge room was quite filled.
If the sth General Council condemned the doc- Mr. Musing, the solicitor, took the chair; and he intro-
duced to the meeting Mr. John Houghton, the late candi-
bitedate for the borough of Aylesbury. Ile made a long and
intro-
trineof
vagaries Pope of V1i441 oilniounus and,
it the:
was 6th
apparently the monotthheet- 1
those functionaries were in the wrong. If Furman% I powerful speech, touching upon the chief topics of the day,
Sergio' and Stephens received similar rebukes, it is pre- and avowed himself a determined fipe-trader. At the con-
bable cludes of his address a resolution was carried unanimously
oneu tili must
that Mr. Houghton was a fit and proper person to represent
againstputrid
jesuitism,imtthhey aywee re
bean banfkaruhbplte in
in thetis faith.buu efEith reprobationer sn-
hWinge II githveteouhimnti i n
their most cordial support. Mr. Houghton
ud sepulchre or
else
which
have a liturgical book of common prayer called a breviary' thanked the meeting for the confidence reposed in him, sad
Chiar
his ampo e,ndtee. in again whitewashing
which was found so full of absurdities that Pius V. had to declared his intention to go to the poll.
expurgate it, a Clement further eliminated rubbish, and , ..
I REPRESENTATION OP GLAMORGANSIIIRE.—The
Urban VIII. finally cleared out its blunders, though heaven
writ for
of
knows it teems with abundant lies in its present edition, ; writ for the election a member of parliament for this
stereotyped by infallibility. Wm the blessed pito Juno in..; county in the room of Earl Doormen, who has accepted the
fallible in describing the matrons of Rome who bound up Chiltern Hundreds, has been messed by the h. h
the woundsof our bleeding • citutene as prostitutes--(immense Rowland Fothergill, Esq., who has caused a proclamation
cheering)--or Gregory, in denouncing the bible with the to be issued fixing the election to take place an Tuesday,
"damnable liberty of the printing press." How many in- the 2.5 th inst., at the Town Hall, Bridgend. At present the
fallible scoundrels has history recorded in her annals? I only candidate in the field is Sir George Tyler, conservative.
In the Book of Wisdom it is written, chap 1, verse 4, 1 NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE ELECTION.—The Stt
"to nealerolom ma'am non introillit sapientia tier habitabit • fordshire Advertiser states that during the past week r.
in corpore subdito percale." (This book is apocryphal with , Child visited several towns in the northern division, and
us, but not in the Roman canon of scripture.) Does not explained his political views to their constituencies. Tho
this text annihilate the claim of 30 or 40, at least of the ' chief places at which meetings were held were Newcastle,
more notorious transesitten of infallibility ? Yet these • Burslem, Stone, Longtan, Leek, Burton-upon-Trent, and
men in their lifetime were dubbed " his holiness." 11 Cheadle. Mr. Child described himself an being a liberal
sordissinso, a word in Italy, either understood to mean the conservative, and was favourably received by the electors
sacramental elements of Christ's body, or the carcase of a of the above places. The day of election is fixed for Satar-
Borgia. Come to Rome. Yon gaudy chariot is the • day, the 22nd last.
equipage of the seintissime! Yon flunky a aantissitno :
attendant. Yon beatified Swiss mercenary
.a santiati I PROTECTION . M T C tII IMMO
EETINO A . • E.—At noon
meeting of the members and friends of the
.janissary. You cook is concocting a maims° pranzo to ;on Sat.rdaY
a
pamper the aantiesimo paramour of a sister in the cogs of - !El
C brid eshire Protection Society was holden at the Red
Donna Olimpia, or a daughter in that of Donna Lucretia. Hotel.g Thwere not lees than 800 persons present
Lion ere , ,
included the leing agriculturists from every
It would be scarcely fair to claim infallibility for the late and these
and
the Isla ,
aggressive proceedings against England, because, though part of Cambridge lid -
• ke lord lieutenant of the county, took the chair. ,
called a 'nobs proprin, the brief is entirely the work of three /nc ' ~.,. ...
conlkderates, Cullen, Ullathorne, and Wiseman, and may TIM IV AR MEDAL CLAIMS.—It is understood (says
beastly deemed surreptitious, in addition to insolent and the United Service Gazette), that further time has been
I
insidious. The farm of complimentary addresses between allowed by the military authorities fur the examination of
Westminster and Armagh, the interchange of reciprocal additional claimants to the war medal, and also to examine
laudations between the intrusive primate and the obtrulsiv,-; into those cases from applicant' fur additional dupe: •.'