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

—!56 PROGRESS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTV.racter.Caiaphas"* hall ;Once with a crown of thorns by the blasphemers ofand now again with the tiara, in the personof the pontiff. Never did she demean herself with suchdivine dignity as when the thorns girt her brow ; but, ahthe burning shame of the tiara.It is farther worthy of notice, that at the same time, andto a great degree by the same acts, did the bishops of Romeestablish the worship of images, and consolidate their ownjurisdiction as temporal sovereigns. These two form analogousstages in the career of the Papacy. They manifestan equal decline and advance,—a decline inthe spiritual,and an advance in the secular element. By the first,Rome perfected the corruption of her worship ; by the second,she perfected the corruption of her government.Therewas a meetness, therefore, in the two being attained at thesame period. These two constitute the leading branches ofthe Romish apostacy,—idolatry and tyranny. These are thetwo arms of the Papacy, superstition and the sword:both arms were now grown ; and thus Rome was equippedfor her terrible mission. Her inglorious task was to bowdown the world in ignominious thraldom, and her two-edgedsword made itequally easy to enslave the mind and to tyrannizeover the body. Her idolatry was to display itselfm yet grosser forms, and her political power was to bevastly enlarged by new accessions of dominion and influence;but the world had now a fair specimen of the leadingprinciples and organization of the Roman Catholic Church.Rome was to be a temple of idols, not a sanctuary oftruth ; a hierarchy, not a brotherhood. Were we calledupon to fix on a period when Rome completed her transitionfrom Christianity to Paganism, we would fix on thisera. Henceforward she did not deserve to be regardedin any sense as a Church. She was not simply a corruptChurch ; she was a pagan institute. The symbols of theApocalypse had now found their verification in the corruptionsof Europe : the temple had been measured ; the outercourt and the city had been given over to the Gentiles ; and