The introduction into the heathen world of the fundamental truths that
there is but one God, omnipotent and omniscient, who overrules every
event, that He has revealed Himself through His Son as a God of love and
mercy, and that man's duty to Him is obedience to His laws, was a mighty
step in advance of the gross conceptions of idolatry formerly prevalent
among these nations. But neither heathens nor Christians had for a long
time any clear idea that the overruling of God in Providence was
according to fixed laws. Being ignorant on this point, they ascribed to
unseen supernatural agency, working in a capricious fashion, all
phenomena which appeared to differ from, or disturb the ordinary course
of events. Upon such matters heathen and Christian ideas commingled, and
thus heathen ideas and practices were incorporated with Christian ideas
and practices. Then, when ecclesiastical councils met to determine
truth, and formulate their creeds, these combined heathen and Christian
ideas being accepted by them, became dogmas of the Church, and
henceforth those who differed from the dogmatic creed of the Church, or
advocated views in advance of these confessions, were regarded as
enemies of truth. Naturally, as the Church became powerful she became
more repressive, and opposed all enquiry which appeared to lead to
conclusions different from those already promulgated by her, and
finally, it became a capital offence to teach any other doctrines than
those sanctioned by the Church. The beliefs of the members of these
councils being, as we have already seen, a mixture of heathen and
Christian ideas, the Church thus became a great conservator of
superstition; and to show that this was really so, we may adduce one
example:--Pope Innocent VIII. issued a Bull as follows:--"It has come to
our ears that members of both sexes do not avoid to have intercourse
with the infernal fiends, and that, by this service, they afflict both
man and beast, that they blight the marriage bed, destroy the births of
women and the increase of cattle, they blast the corn on the ground, the