Thus firmly was the Papacy rooted in the middle of the fifth century, not only by the encroachments of bishops, but by the authority of emperors.  The papal dominion begins, as an institution, with Leo the Great.  As a religion it began when Paul and Peter preached at Rome.  Its institution was peculiar and unique; a great spiritual government usurping the attributes of other governments, as predicted by Daniel, and, at first benignant, ripening into a gloomy tyranny,—­a tyranny so unscrupulous and grasping as to become finally, in the eyes of Luther, an evil power.  As a religion, as I have said, it did not widely depart from the primitive creeds until it added to the doctrines generally accepted by the Church, and even still by Protestants, those other dogmas which were means to an end,—­that end the possession of power and its perpetuation among ignorant people.  Yet these dogmas, false as they are, never succeeded in obscuring wholly the truths which are taught in the gospel, or in extinguishing faith in the world.  In all the encroachments of the Papacy, in all the triumphs of an unauthorized Church polity, the flame of true Christian piety has been dimmed, but not extinguished.  And when this fatal and ambitious polity shall have passed away before the advance of reason and civilization, as other governments have been overturned, the lamp of piety will yet burn, as in other churches, since it will be fed by the Bible and the Providence of God.  Governments and institutions pass away, but not religions; certainly not the truths originally declared among the mountains of Judea, which thus far have proved the elevation of nations.

It is then the government, not the religion, which Leo inaugurated, with which we have to do.  And let us remember in reference to this government, which became so powerful and absolute, that Leo only laid the foundation.  He probably did not dream of subjecting the princes of the earth except in matters which pertained to his supremacy as a spiritual ruler.  His aim was doubtless spiritual, not temporal.  He had no such deep designs as Hildebrand and Innocent III. cherished.  The encroachments of later ages he did not anticipate.  His doctrine was, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.”  As the vicegerent of the Almighty, which he felt himself to be in spiritual matters, he would institute a guardianship over everything connected with religion, even education, which can never be properly divorced from it.  He was the patron of schools, as he was of monasteries.  He could advise kings:  he could not impose upon them his commands (except in Church matters), as Boniface VIII. sought to do.  He would organize a network of Church functionaries, not of State officers; for he was the head of a great religious institution.  He would send his legates to the end of the earth to superintend the work of the Church, and rebuke princes, and protest against wars; for he had the religious oversight of Christendom.