The History of Romanism Author:John Dowling Subtitle: With Full Chronological Table, Analytical and Alphabetical Indexes and Glossary. Illustrated by Numerous Accurate and Highly Finished Engravings of Its Ceremonies, Superstitions, Persecutions, and Historical Incidents General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1845 Original Publisher: E. Walker Subjects: Papacy... more » Anti-Catholicism Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Supremacy claimed from divine right. discipline of those ages appear to have been either introduced, or sedulously promoted, for the purpose of sordid fraud. To those purposes conspired the veneration for relics, the worship of images, the idolatry of saints and martyrs, the religious inviolability of sanctuaries, the consecration of cemeteries, but, above all, the doctrine of purgatory, and masses for the relief of the dead. A creed thus contrived, operating upon the minds of barbarians, lavish, though rapacious, and devout though dissolute, naturally caused a torrent of opulence to pour in upon the church." CHAPTER IV. DIVINE RIGHT OF SUPREMACY CLAIMED AND DISPROVED. § 17. -- By general consent a kind of superiority of rank had long been conceded to the bishops of Rome, chiefly from the fact that that city was the first in rank and importance, and the ancient capital of the empire ; and upon the same ground it was that the council of Chalcedon, already referred to, " proceeding on the principle that the importance of a bishop depended alone on the political consequence of the city in which he lived, decreed the same rights to the bishop of Constantinople in the Eastern church, which the bishop of Rome enjoyed in the Western."f After the fall of the ancient capital, however, and its consequent diminution of po...« less