four hundred years, he gained more ground in the next ages of the church, and went farther towards restoring his power and empire in the world, and towards overthrowing that very church which was so lately established, than all he had done by fire and blood before.
His policy now seemed to be edged with resentment, for the mistakes he had made; as if the Devil, looking back with anger at himself, to see what a fool he had been, to expect to crush religion by persecution, rejoiced for having discovered, that liberty and dominion was the only way to ruin the church, not fire and faggot; and that he had nothing to do, but to give the zealous people their utmost liberty in religion, only sowing error and variety of opinion among them, and they would bring fire and faggot in fast enough among themselves.
It must be confessed these were devilish politics; and so sure was the aim. and so certain was the Devil to hit his mark by them, that we find he not only did not fail then, but the same hellish methods have prevailed still, and will do so to the end of the world. Nor had the Devil ever a better game to play than this, for the ruin of religion, as we shall have room to show in many examples, besides that of the dissenters in England, who are evidently weakened by the late toleration. Whether the Devil had any hand in baiting his hook with an a of parliament or no, history is silent; but it is too evident he has catched the fish by it,: and if the honest church of England does not in pity, and Christian charity to the dissenters, straiten her hand a little, I cannot but fear the Devil will gain his point, and the dissenter will be undone by it.
Upon this new foot of politics the Devil began with the emperors themselves. Arius, the father of the heretics of that age, having broached his opinions; and Athanasius, the orthodox bishop of the east, opposing him; the Devil no sooner saw the door open to strife and imposition, but he thrust himself in, and raising the quarrel up to a suited degree of rage and spleen, he involved the good emperor himself in it first; and Athanasius was banished and recalled, and banished and recalled again, several times, as error ran high, and as the Devil either got or lost ground. After Constantine, the next emperor was a child of his own, (Arian;) and then the court came all into the quarrel, as courts often do; and then the Arians and the orthodox persecuted one another as furiously as the Pagans persecuted them all before. To such an height the Devil brought his conquest, in the very infancy of the question; and so much did he prevail over the true Christianity of the primitive church, even before they had enjoyed the liberty of the pure worship twenty years.
Flushed with this success, the Devil made one push for the restoring Paganism, and bringing on the old worship of the heathen idols and temples; but, like our H King James II. he drove too hard, and Julian had so provoked the whole Roman empire, which was generally, at that time, become Christian, that had the apostate lived, he would not have been able to have held the throne; and, as he was cut off in his beginning, Paganism expired with him, and the Devil himself might have cried out. as Julian did, and with much more propriety, Vicisti, Galilcee.
Jovian, the next emperor, being a glorious Christian, and a very good and great man, the Devil abdicated for a while, and left the Christian armies to reestablish the orthodox faith; nor could he bring the Christians to a breach again among themselves agreat while after.
However, time, and a diligent Devil, did the work at last; and when the emperors’ concerning themsejves one way or other did not appear sufficient to answer his end, he changed hands again, and went to work with the clergy. To set the doctors effectually together by the ears, he threw in the new notion of primacy among them, for a bone of contention; the bait took, the priests swallowed it eagerly down; and the Devil, a cunninger fisherman than ever St. Peter was, struck them (as the anglers call it) with a quick hand, and hung them fast upon the hook.
Having them thus in his clutches, and they being now, as we may say, his own, they took their measures afterwards from him, and most obediently followed his directions; nay, I will not say but he may have had pretty much the management of the whole society ever since, of what profession or party soever they may have been, with exception only to the reverend and right reverend among ourselves.
The sacred, as above, being thus hooked in, and the Devil being at the head of their affairs, matters went on most gloriously his own way; first, the bishops fell to bandying and party-making for the superiority, as heartily as ever temporal tyrants did for dominion; and took as black and devilish methods to carry it on, as the worst of those tyrants ever had done before them.
At last Satan declared for the Roman pontiff, and that upon excellent conditions, in the reign of the Emperor Mauritius; for Boniface, who had long contended for the title of supreme, fell into a treaty with Phocas, captain of the emperor’s guards; whether the hargain was from hell or not, let any one judge; the conditions absolutely entitle the Devil to the honor of making the contract; namely, that Phocas first murdering his master (the emperor,) and his sons, Boniface should countenance the treason, and declare him em peror; and, in return, Phocas should, acknowledge the primacy of the church of Rome, and declare Boniface universal bishop. A blessed compact! which at once set the Devil at the head of affairs in the Christian world, as well spiritual as temporal, ecclesiastic as civil. Since the conquest over Eve in Paradise, by which death and the Devil, hand in hand, established their first empire upon earth, the Devil never gained a more important point than he gained at this time.
He had indeed prospered in his affairs tolerably well for some time before this, and his interest among the clergy had got ground for some ages; but that was indeed a secret management, was carried on privately, and with difficulty; as in sowing discord and faction among the people, perplexing the councils of their princes, and secretly wheedling in with the dignified clergy.
Also he had raised abundance of little church-rebellions, by setting up heretics of several kinds, and raising them favorers among the clergy, such as Ebion, Cerinthus, Pelagius, and others.
He had drawn in the bishops of Rome to set up the ridiculous pageantry of the key; and while he, the Devil, set open the gates of hell to them all, put them upon locking up the gates of heaven, and giving the bishop the key; a cheat which r as gross as it was, the Devil so gilded over, or so blinded the age to receive it, that, like Gideon’s ephod, all the Catholic world went a whoring after the idol; and the bishop of Rome sent more fools to the Devil by it, than ever he pretended to let into heaven, though he opened the door as wide as his key was able to do.
The story of this key being given to the bishop of Rome by St. Peter, (who. by the way, never had it himself,) and of its being lost by somebody or other (the Devil it seems did not tell them who,) and its being found again by a “Lombard soldier, in the army of King Antharis; who, attempting to cut it with his knife, was miraculously forced to direct the wound to himself, and cut his own throat; that fcng Antharis and his nobles, happened to see the fellow do it, and were converted to Christianity by it; and that the king sent the key, with another made like it, to Pope Pelagius, then bishop.of Rome, who thereupon assumed the power of opening and shutting heaven’s gates; and he afterwards setting a price, or toll, upon the entrance, as we do here at passing a turnpike. These fine things, I say, were successfully managed for some years before this I am now speaking of; and the Devil got a great deal of ground by it too; but now he triumphed openly, and, having set up a murderer upon the temporal throne, and a church emperor upon the ecclesiastic throne, and both of his own choosing, the Devil may be said to begin his new kingdom from this epocha, and call it the restoration.
Since this time indeed, the Devil’s affairs went very merrily on, and the clergy brought so many gewgaws into their worship, and such devilish principles were mixed with that which we call the Christian faith; that in a word, from this time, the bishop of Rome commenced whore of Babylon, in all the most express terms that could be imagined. Tyranny of the worst sort crept into the pontificate, errors of all sorts into the profession; and they proceeded from one thing to another, till the very pope, for so the bishop of Rome was now called, by way of distinction; I say, the popes themselves, their spiritual guides, professed openly to confederate with the Devil, and to carry on a personal and private correspondence with him, at the same time taking upon them the title of Christ’s vicar, and the infallible guide of the consciences of Christians.
This we have sundry instances of in some merry popes; who, if fame lies not, were sorcerers, magicians, had familiar spirits, and immediate conversation