Freemasonry > Free-masons pocket-companion

57
Ajjhclate Synod's AB, \
fuming a power of difpenfing with human obliga¬
tions. This is a privilege, which, however envi¬
ed, the reformed clergy have hitherto left, toge¬
ther with his pretended infallibility, in the poflef-
fion of their elder brother at Rome ; till, in this
more enlightened age, thele bold afferters of the
Chriftian rights have dared to reclaim and vindi¬
cate it as their own : for fhould Antichrift enjoy
any benefit which the faints are not better entitled
to ?
This is not the leaft engine which has been
fuccefsfully employed to rear up and fupport the
enormous fabric of the Roman hierarchy. The
moft folemn treaties betwixt princes and Rates,
the allegiance of fubjetts to their fovereigns, the
obligations of private contraffs, the marriage-vow,
and every other the moft facred bond of human
fociety, are diflblved, and fly off at the breath of
this difpenfing power, like chaff before the wind :
and to this, as to their native fource, may be a-
fcribed thole many wars and devaftations, rebel¬
lions, maflacres, and aflaflinations, with which e-
very page of the hiftory of the Chriftian world is
defiled. Is it poffible that a doftrine attended
with fuch a train of dreadful confequences, can
have any foundation either in realbn or revelation ?
The nature of an oath, particularly of a pro-
miflbry oath, AVhich this pretended power only rd^
Ipetts, comprehends a folemn invocation of the
name of God, the fupreme and omnifcient King,
the