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

;206 CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.even the fifth century, we find palpable proofs of Poperybut when we pass much beyond that limit, we lose all traceof the system ; and when we go as far down as the apostolicage, we find that we have passed utterly beyond thesphere of Romanism ;—we find that there is,in fact, a welldefinedmiddle region, to which Romanism is limited, andbeyond which, on one side at least, it does not extend. Wesearch in vain the pages of the earliest Christian fathers,and, above all, the pages of inspired men, for the peculiardoctrines of the Roman Church. Where, in these venerabledocuments of early Christianity,—where, in the inspiredcanon,—do we read of the mass, or of purgatory, or of theworship of the Virgin, or of the supremacy of the Bishop ofRome ? When Paul indited his epistles, and Peter preachedto the Gentiles " remission of sins," these doctrines wereunknown in the world. They were the growth of a laterage. Thus, in digging downwards, we find that we havecome at last to the living and eternal rock of Christianity,and have fairly got through the superincumbent mass ofrude, ill-compacted, and heterogeneous materials which havebeen deposited in the course of ages from the dark ocean ofsuperstition. Protestantism is old truth,—Popery is mediaevalerror.If the Church of Rome takes her appeal to antiquity,even Paganism will carry it against her. Its rites werecelebrated upon the Seven Hills long before Popery hadthere fixed its seat. The Roman Church has played offupon the world the same trick which was practised sosuccessfullyby the Gibeonites of old : she has put tatteredgarments upon her back, and clouted shoes upon her feet,and dry and mouldy bread into her sacks, and laid themupon the backs of her asses, and taken advantage of theobscurity of her origin to say, " We be come from a farcountry." It is not the number of years, but the weight ofarguments, that must carry the point.In fine, we deny that the Church of Rome is Catholic inpoint 0^ place. Catholicity, in the absolute sense of the