The Hierarchical Despotism; Lectures on the Mixture of Civil and Ecclesiastical Power in the Governments of the Middle Ages in Illustration of the Nature and Progress of Despotism in the Romish Church (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTKODUCTION. The following argument has been suggested and called forth by an ingenious lecture of Bishop Hughes on the Mixture of Civil and Ecclesiastical Power in the Governments of the Middle Ages. Under this plausible and captivating title the reader finds a bold, unflinching apology for the Papacy, with the startling proposition that it is to the Despotism of the Papacy in the middle ages that we owe the preservation of Christianity, and the possession of all our civil freedom. I do not give the words, but the amount of his assertions. The lecture was exceedingly able in point of style and scholarship, and mingled with very plausible admissions as to the errors of the Papacy; which circumstances render it so much the more important to put the affirmations of the Lecturer in their true light, and especially to show that the Romish Church, instead of disavowing the union of Church and State, constitutes in herself the very essence of such union. Her Heart in Italy is such a union; the Pope's temporal sovereignty constitutes the left ventricle, his spiritual supremacy the right; and through these two systems pours the life. blood of the Romish Church to the world's extremities. It is equally necessary to set in their proper light the astounding positions of Bishop Hughes as to the affirmed Republicanism chapter{Section 4 ITC t CC T105. feyery, awl to jfcow dot aQ a0