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

428 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT.will have wiselaws, upright judges, independent and patrioticrulers, who will maintain the national honour, guardthe public rights, and keep inviolate the homes and altars ofa country. With the departure or corruption of religionwill come the depression of public sentiment and morals ;and the degeneracy rapidly extending to those who makeand who execute the kws, there will soon be but too muchreason to complain of the injustice of the one and thedishonesty of the other. The decay of religion has everbeen signalized by the prostration of public principle, thebetrayal of the national honour, the invasion of conscience,and the violation of the security and sanctity of the family.The decay of primitive Christianity and the rise of Poperywere attended by all the evils we have now specified. Theinfluence of the latter on law and government was of themost pernicious kind, and palpable as pernicious. As Poperywaxed in strength, so did the corruption and oppression ofgovernment, till at last they grew to an intolerable height.The destruction which Popery works on individual characterwe have just had occasion to state ; but in the departmentof government it has had more room to operate, andhere it has left traces of its evil genius, if not more frightful,at least more palpable. This opens to us a new aspect ofPopery.Popery has corrupted government both in its theory andin its 'practice.It has corrupted the theory of government.God has ordainedtwin powers in the moral firmament,—the civil andthe ecclesiastical jurisdictions ; and on the due maintenanceof this duality depends the liberties of the world. As the organsof the individual are double, so those of society are doublealso. The same precaution which God has taken to preservethose bodily organs on which the existence of the individualso much depends, has he taken to preserve those essentialto the wcllbcing of society. If one is destroyed, the otherremains. These two jurisdictions are distinct in their natureand in their objects.They occupy co-ordinate spheres,