lation, whose intellectual character and external condition are affected by the opinions they have been taught, or the institutions under which they live and act; secondly, the class or body of directors and instructors. These, in a Popish country, assume the name of the priesthood or clergy. That class or institution constitutes Popery, just as a body of nobles and governing senate constitute an aristocracy.
Passing over for an instant the character of sanctity, or of priesthood, which it assumes, Popery, in a country that has a civil government, like France, Prussia, or Britain, may be described as the system according to which the affairs of a certain society, or company, or association, are carried on. The association consists of a body of individuals whose object is to rule mankind, and to acquire to their society the largest possible command of the power and riches of a people, without performing any part of the business, or submitting to any of the drudgery undertaken, or dangers encountered by the rest of the community. Yet, in those countries in which they are tolerated, they endeavour to attain, and generally do succeed in attaining, to the possession of high rank, riches, influence, and direct authority. The society, styled generally the Popish priesthood or clergy, consists of members received from all classes of the community. The association is perpetuated by the admission of new members, under the sanction of the dignitaries of the body. The great object of the society being to rule over the rest of the community, all their rules and proceedings are made subservient to that object.
On entering into the society, a man by solemn vows devotes himself to the pursuit of its interests exclusively, and to obedience to the superior members of the association. He renounces whatever may interfere with his exertions to promote the influence and aggrandizement of the body of which he is becoming a member. More especially, he takes a solemn vow against entering into marriage, lest domestic affections and the interests of a wife and children should obstruct the future business of his life, which is to extend the power of the society. We know what efforts men have made for their families, their kindred, and their country. Even for the glory of his regiment many a gallant soldier has, without hesitation, sacrificed his life. To the Popish priest, the association into which he has entered holds the place of a wife and children, and kindred and country. The Pope, as head of the body, is his prince, and the association is the brotherhood which forms the object of all his attachments, and the ascendency and glory of which absorbs every sentiment, either of public spirit, or of selfishness or ambition in his nature.
The society, for greater efficiency in its enterprises, divides itself into classes. It allocates some to special districts, under the name of priests and bishops; but has reserves of members in monasteries, both male and female, ready to go forth on the business of the association. These add to their other oaths a vow of poverty, which, however, is a mere equivocation. It only means that whatever a monk has belongs to his brethren of the monastery, who, along with himself, when not in the view of the multitude, endeavour to pass their lives in luxurious opulence. The most pestilent of the whole are the Jesuits, a corps created to oppose Luther's Reformation, and who form the master-spirits who devise every intrigue and share in every conspiracy in Europe.
The Popish association adopt as the groundwork of their operations the Christian religion, of which they pretend they are the only true priests; but they do not hold themselves bound by its laws and doctrines, as contained in the books written by the Hebrew prophets and historians, or by those instructed by the immediate followers of Jesus of Nazareth, the whole of which united we call the Bible. The Popish association pretend that, besides what is to be found in the Bible, they have many doctrines and precepts communicated expressly to their body by Almighty God. They regard with extreme horror any attempt to lay open the written scriptures to the perusal of the mass of mankind, lest they discover the palpable inconsistency between the written doctrine and the system of idolatry, usurpation, and gross superstition sanctioned by the association. The Jewish Rabbis were the original inventors of this kind of device. They pretended that, besides
