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XXVI
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
will
be with
the
spiritual
powers lodged
in the
successor of
"the
prince of
the
apostles."
The mundane honours
of
the
pope will
be
eclipsed
in
the
spiritual
glories of
the
personator of
the
Saviour.
But just
in proportion
as
these spiritual
claims
are advanced
will
his
civil
and political
power
be promoted; for
we
repeat
it,
and trust
we
have made
it
plain,
it
is
in virtue
of
that
same
spiritual
charac-
ter that
he challenges
"all
power
in heaven and
in earth." Let the
pope be divested of
all
worldly dominion,
let
him be literally
re-
duced
to
the state
of
the
apostle whom
he
affects
to represent, when
he
said,
"Silver and
gold have
I
none,
"
let
him
become a person-
age
as obscure
and unpretending
as
M.
Roothan,
the
General of the
Society
of
Jesus,
still
he
will be,
like
that
official,
the
symbol of a
sovereignty,
all the
more devotedly worshipped by its
true
devotees
that it
no longer boasts
of
earthly grandeur
;
a
sovereignty
at
eternal
variance with
every
other
form of
human
power
that
will
not
bend
to its
will,
-
-a
sovereignty essentially hostile
to
the
British
crown,
and
incompatible with
the
liberties of mankind.
Popery, in
fact,
so
far from being unchangeable,
has not
only
often
varied from itself,
but
has been undergoing
a gradual
process of in-
ternal
development, which
seems only now
approaching its
comple-
tion. This
transmutation
is
indicated by
the
various stages
through
which
the
Papacy has
passed.
It
has gone
through its
period
of
infancy,
of
childhood,
and
of
maturity;
and now
it
seems
about
to
reach its grand
climacteric.
The
pope
began to
rise
by
assuming
superiority
over his
brother
bishops.
His next
step
was to usurp,
as
the
vicar of Christ,
the
powers
and prerogatives
of
the Head
of
the
church.
His next
was
to
claim,
in
virtue
of
this
vicariate, the
mediatorial
"power in
heaven
and in earth,"
or
a right
to
interfere
with every
thing
that
might,
in
his
judgment,
conduce to
the
good
of
the
church.
There remained
only one
step
more,
that,
namely,
of challenging,
as
God,
the
supreme homage
of
mankind. And this
stage has been
now
attained. Mediatorial honours
will no longer
suit
the
insatiable ambition of
the
Roman pontiff: he must,
"AS
GOD,
sit in
the
temple of
God,
showing
himself
that
HE IS
GOD
I"
This heaven
-
daring
pretence, by which Rome
has all along
identified
itself with "
that
Wicked
" spoken of
in
holy
Scripture
(2 Thess.
ii 3
-8),
a
pretence
always involved
in the theory
of
the
Papacy,
often
propounded in its
schools,
debated among its
divines,
and
avowed more or
less
boldly
by
successive pontiffs,
this
truly
blas-
phemous
claim, seems
destined to be
"
revealed"
more clearly and
convincingly
than
ever,
by
being
put
forth
in all
its
naked
arrogance,
and
acknowledged in all its
portentous magnitude.