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

THE MINOR PAPACIES. 433right,—accountable only to the Pope, as he to God. Thusdid the Pope succeed in extending his sway far beyond thelimits of the States of the Church. He reduced the wholeof western Europe under the rule of the Papacy, by plantinghis system of government in each of its kingdoms, andby making its various kings dependents on the chair ofPeter. There was not a single ruler, of whatever degree,from the monarch down to the petty subaltern, within thewide limits of the papal empire, who was not a limb of thePapacy, and who had not his place and his function assignedhim in that vast and terrible organization which the popesset up for overawing and oppressing the world, and aggrandizingthemselves. How religion was desecrated bythis unhallowed connection between Church and State,—thismonstrous blending of things civil and sacred,—we need notexplain. Heaven was sought only to obtain earth; and religionwas employed only to cover the basest practices, topalliate the most revolting crimes, and to vindicate the mostenormous usurpations. The words of the poet are strikinglydescriptive of a policy which, the more it pointed towardsheaven, the more directly did it tend to hell." Quanfum vertice ad aurasj3Etherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit."*But we dishonour religion by giving that holy name to whatwas so called within the Church of Rome. The piety of theReligion, appalled by these giganticcorruptions, which had only borrowed her name the moretimes, as we have already shown, was essentially and undisguisedlypaganism.effectually to counterwork her purpose, had fled, to buryherself in the caves of the earth, or to find a shelter amideternal snows and inaccessible cliffs. A vast theocracywielded the destinies of Europe. A blind, irresponsible,and infallible despotism, issuing its decrees from behind aveil which mortal dared not lift, sat enthroned upon the* Virg. -ffineid, lib. iv.2 F