The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

TEMPORAL SUPREMACY ARROGATED. 95and priests of Christendom that an abbot of Chmy exercisesin the order in which ho presides.'"'^ And all this theyclaimed as the successor of St Peter. But it is unnecessaryto spend time on a point so universally admitted as that thepopes now possessed ecclesiastical supremacy, and professedto hold it by divine right, that is, as the successors of StPeter, the prince of the apostles. But the point to be demonstratedhere is, that the popes, not content with beingsupreme rulers in the Church, and having all ecclesiasticalpersons and things subject to their absolute authority,claimed to be supreme in the State also ;and, in the characterof God's vicegerents presumed to dispose of crowns andkingdoms, and to interfere in all temporal affairs. Thefoundation of this power was laid when the popes claimedto be the successors of St Peter and the vicars of Christ,which they did, as we have already shown, as early as themiddle of the fifth century ; but the universal and uncontrolleddominion implied in this claim they did not seek towield till towards the times of Gregory VII., in the eleventhcentury.But that they did then arrogate this power in themost open and unblushing manner, does not admit of doubtor denial. There exists a vast body of proof to the effectthat the popes of the eleventh and succeeding centuries attemptedto prostrate beneath their feet the temporal as wellas the spiritual power, and that they succeeded in their attempt.The history of Europe from the era of Hildebrandto that of Luther must be blotted out before the condemnatoryevidence—for condemnatory of the Papacy it certainlyis, as irreconcileably hostile to the liberties of nations andthe rights of princes—can be annihilated or got rid of. Ithas put this claim into a great variety of forms, and attemptedin every possible way to make it good. It taughtthis claim in its essential principles; and, when the characterof the times permitted, it advanced it in plain and unmistakeablestatements. It spent five centuries of intrigue in• D'Aubign^'s History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 48.