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

PRACTICE OF ROMAN CHURCH.S83taiitlsm were concerned. What, we ask, is her history, butone long unvaried tale of lies, frauds, perfidies, broken vows,and violated oaths ? Every party that has trusted her shehas in turn betrayed.It mattered not how awful the sanctionswith which she was bound, or how numerous and sacredthe pledges and guarantees of sincerity which shegiven :hadthese bonds were to Rome but as the green withes onthe arm of Samson. Her wickedness is without parallel inthe annals of human treachery. Perfidies which the mostabandoned of pagan governments would have shuddered tocommit, Rome has deliberately perpetrated and unblushinglyjustified.In the case of others, these enormities havebeen the exceptions, and have formed a departure from thegenerally recognised principles of their action ; but in thecase of Rome they have formed the rule, and have sprungfrom principles deliberately adopted as the guiding maximsof her policy. We question whether an instance can beadduced of so much as one engagement that has been keptin matters involvingthe conflicting interests of Protestantismand Popery, when it could be advantageously broken.We do not know of any such. But time would fail, andspace is wanting, to narrate even a tithe of the instances inwhich the most solemn engagements were most perfidiouslyviolated, nay, made to be violated,—framed toentrap theconfiding victims. The cases are innumerable, we say, inwhich Roman Catholics have made promises and oaths toindividuals, to cities, to provinces, with the most public andsolemn forms ; and the moment they obtained the advantagethese oaths were intended to secure, they delivered over toslaughter and devastation those very men to whom they hadsworn in the great name of GoD. Ah ! could the soil ofFrance disclose her slaughtered millions,—could the snowsof the Alps and the vales of Piedmont give up the deadwhich they cover,—these confessors could tell how Romekept her oaths and covenants.Their voice has been silentfor ages ; but history pleads their cause : it has preservedthe vows solemnly made, but perfidiously violated ; and.