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

INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. 417CHAPTER II.INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL :MAN.The important question next presents itself, What is theINFLUENCE of this system? The system, we have shown,tried by the standard of Scripture and the test of reason, isthoroughly evil. Is the influence which it exerts also evil ?This is a curious and a most important inquiry. It opensup a wide field, which, like some that have gone before it,we must hastily traverse, selecting only the more prominentof the proofs and evidences, and indicating rather than fullyillustrating them. The subject resolves itself into threebranches':—I. The influence of Romanism on the individualman. IT. Its influence on Government. III. Its influenceon society.We shall confine ourselves to the first of these in thepresent chapter,—theinfluence of Romanism on the individualman.Religion is by far the most powerful agent thatcan act on man, and that for the following reasons.first place, its objective truthsIn theand its impelling motives infinitelytranscend all others ; and it is a law, not less in themoral than in the natural world, that the greatest effectmust flow from the greatest force. In the second place,with religion isbound up man''s own most important interests.Other departments of knowledge are speculative, orat best touch only the interests of time ; but religion bears2 £