Ambition, mingled with humility; and superstition, mingled with faith, characterized the great pontiff. This strange mixture and confusion was no doubt the result of his false position. It is difficult to understand how a man of such sound sense could be so debased by superstition as to believe in the working of miracles by means of relics, and to have recourse to such things for the confirmation of the truth of scripture. But the sad truth is, that he was blinded by the one great absorbing object, the interests of the church of Rome, in place of being devoted to the interests of Christ. Paul could say, "One thing I do;" another said, "One thing I know." First, we must know that we are pardoned and accepted; then, to do the things that please Christ is the high and heavenly calling of the Christian. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.... But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3) Such was, and ever ought to have been, the spirit and breathings of Christianity. But what do we find at the close of the sixth century? What was the one thing Gregory had in view? Clearly not the claims of a heavenly Christ, and conformity to Him in His resurrection, sufferings, and death. We may safely affirm, that the one great object of his public life was to establish beyond dispute the universal bishopric of Rome. And to this end, in place of leading souls to delight in the ways of Christ, as well as in Himself, which Paul ever did, he sought to advance the claims of the Romish See by idolatry and corruption. Neither was the spirit of persecution altogether absent.
Monasticism, under the patronage of Gregory, especially according to the stricter rules of Benedict, was greatly revived and widely extended. The doctrine of purgatory, respect for relics, the worship of images, the idolatry of saints and martyrs, the merit of pilgrimages to holy places, were either taught or sanctioned by Gregory, as connected with his ecclesiastical system; all which we must own to be the unmistakable features of the activity of Balaam and the corruption of Jezebel.
But we are now in the seventh century. The dark ages are at hand, and dark indeed they are. The papacy begins to assume a definite form. And as we have reached in our history the close of one age of Christianity and the commencement of another, we may profitably pause for a moment and take a general survey of the progress of the gospel in different countries.
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