Page:The spiritual venality of Rome.djvu/107

86 detail and observatioiis upon it are calculated to attain, and were designed to attain, the follow- ing objects Firstly, to confirm and illustrate the evi- dence, by which the fietct, scarcely credible or conceivable, is substantiated, that a society professing itself to be, not only a church of Jesus Christ, the pure and tindefiled Saviour of the World, but the only true church, should principally distinguish herself—not by her sanc- tity, not by freedom from sin, not even by moderate offences, but— by her enormous exac- tions, by her profligate venality, by her insa- tiable rapacity,* and, above all, by that wis- « These cluiges are poveifiiUy coRolxirated hj a more geni- tal view of the morcileiB extortions and q^liations, as they may jiutljrbe caUed» exerdaed by the Boman See upon her sabjects —upon Germany^ as may be seen hi the Centum Gravamina* so often xefened t(^— upon Frmnioe^ as the instnunent immedi- ately ftilowmg the former in Orthumus Gratiusli FasciculuSy dee. vlth the title, deiomatia non solTendis, and more eq»eeia]]y the defence of the liberty of the Gallican ehurchy in the works of Franc. DnarenuB» Frsncforti 1692, near the end, tea^y and upon Engkmd and Waki, aa Is sti^cndously apparent from the bare inspection of the Tazatio EcdeaiaBtica» Auctoritate ?• Kicholfii IV. drea A*D. 1291, published by the Commissioneni from the Public Beeords» London, 1802. If any thing could aggravate the iniquity of Bome in this respect, it woiild be» the solemn hypocrisy with which the ruling order of her sons, pattiealarly in Ireland^ has of late disdahned all, even the most distant, eirar, or detim as to the posses- sion, Ibr tiiemaelves, or tMr diurdi, of the fevenues, emo- Imnents, or endowments of the established church cf the Bn*