luxury, led gradually to the
forgetfulness of all things but self, and to an infidelity only the more
fatal because it still retained the form and language of faith.

Sec. XCIII. IV. INFIDELITY. In noticing the more prominent forms in which
this faithlessness manifested itself, it is necessary to distinguish
justly between that which was the consequence of respect for Paganism,
and that which followed from the corruption of Catholicism. For as the
Roman architecture is not to be made answerable for the primal
corruption of the Gothic, so neither is the Roman philosophy to be made
answerable for the primal corruption of Christianity. Year after year,
as the history of the life of Christ sank back into the depths of time,
and became obscured by the misty atmosphere of the history of the
world,--as intermediate actions and incidents multiplied in number, and
countless changes in men's modes of life, and tones of thought, rendered
it more difficult for them to imagine the facts of distant time,--it
became daily, almost hourly, a greater effort for the faithful heart to
apprehend the entire veracity and vitality of the story of its Redeemer;
and more easy for the thoughtless and remiss to deceive themselves as to
the true character of the belief they had been taught to profess. And
this must have been the case, had the pastors of the Church never failed
in their watchfulness, and the Church itself never erred in its practice
or doctrine. But when every year that removed the truths of the Gospel
into deeper distance, added to them also some false or foolish
tradition; when wilful distortion was added to natural obscurity, and
the dimness of memory was disguised by the fruitfulness of fiction;
when, moreover, the enormous temporal power granted to the clergy
attracted into their ranks multitudes of men who, but for such
temptation, would not have pretended to the Christian name, so that
grievous wolves entered in among them, not sparing the flock; and when,
by the machinations of such men, and the remissness of others, the form
and administrations of Church doctrine and discipline had become little
more than a means of aggrandizing the power of the priesthood, it was
impossible any longer for men of thoughtfulness or piety to remain in an
unquestioning serenity of faith. The Church had become so mingled with
the world that its witness could no longer be received; and the
professing members of it, who were placed in circumstance