15. In book VI on The Providence of God, Salvian continues his arraignment:
We rush from the churches to the theatres, even in the midst of our perils. In Carthage the theatres were thronged while the enemy were before the walls, and the cries of those perishing outside under the sword mingled with the shouts of the spectators in the circus. Nor are we better here in Gaul (France). Treves [Trevz] has been taken four times, and has only increased in wickedness under her misfortunes. The same state of things exists in Cologne [Ko-lon]—deplorable wickedness among young and old, low and high. The smaller cities have been blind and insensible to the dangers threatening, until they have overwhelmed them. It seems to be the destiny of the Roman empire to perish rather than reform; they must cease to be, in order to cease to be vicious. A part of the inhabitants of Treves, having escaped from the ruins, petitions the emperor for—what? A theatre, spectacles, public shows! A city which thrice overthrown could not correct itself, well deserved to suffer a fourth destruction. * * * Would that my voice might be heard by all Romans! I would cry: Let us all blush that today the only cities where impurity does not reign are those which have submitted to the barbarians. Think not, then, that they conquer and we yield by the simple force of nature. Rather let us admit that we succumb through the dissoluteness of our morals of which our calamities are the just punishment.[[107]]
16. State of Morals in Centuries Subsequent to the Fifth.—Such was the condition of the Christian church as to morals in the fifth century. It was no better in the sixth or the seventh or the eighth. Indeed the concurrent testimony of all authorities is to the effect that matters moral and spiritual grew gradually worse in these centuries until darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people. Of the ninth century Mosheim says:
The ungodly lives of most of those intrusted with the care and government of the church are a subject of complaint with all the ingenuous and honest writers of this age. In the east, sinister designs, rancor, contentions and strife were everywhere predominant. * * *
In the west, the bishops hung round the courts of princes and indulged themselves in every species of voluptuousness; while the inferior clergy and the monks were sensual, and by the grossest vices corrupted the people whom they were set to reform.[[108]]
17. State of Morals in Tenth Century.—Of the tenth century Dr. Milner, who wrote his great history for the purpose of maintaining that there had been a succession of pious men since the founding of the church by Messiah, and to "trace the goodness of God taking care of his church in every age by his providence,"[[109]] says:
The famous annalist of the Roman Church,[[110]] whose partiality to the see of Rome is notorious, has, however, the candor to own that this [the tenth century] was an iron age, barren of all goodness; a leaden age, abounding in all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable above all other things for the scarcity of writers and men of learning. Christ was then, as it appears, in a very deep sleep, when the ship was covered with waves; and what seemed worse, when the Lord was thus asleep there were no disciples, who by their cries, might wake him, being themselves all fast asleep. * * * Under an allusion by no means incongruous with the oriental abd scriptural taste, this writer [Baronius] represents the divine head of the church as having given up the church for its wickedness, to a judicial impenitency, which continued the longer, because there was scarcely any zealous spirits who had the charity to pray for the cause of God upon earth. * * * Infidel Malice has with pleasure recorded the vices and the crimes of the popes of this century. Nor is it my intention to attempt to palliate the account of their wickedness. It was as deep and atrocious as language can paint; nor can a reasonable man desire more authentic evidence of history than that which the records both of civil and ecclesiastical history afford concerning the corruption of the whole church.[[111]]
18. The Church Destroyed.—Beyond this century it is not necessary to go. The church of Christ no longer existed in the earth. The persecution of the Jews and the Romans, coupled with the internal dissensions in the church; the rise of false teachers, who brought in damnable heresies; the changing of the character and spirit of the church government; the addition of pagan rites and ceremonies to the doctrines and ordinances of the gospel; the admixture of pagan philosophy with Christian theology; and, finally, the universal departure of the church from that moral life enjoined upon mankind by the precepts of the Christian religion—utterly subverted the religion of Jesus Christ, and destroyed the church which he founded. The apostasy of men from that religion and church was complete; and since they did not like to retain God in their hearts, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts. [See notes 1 to 6, end of section].
NOTES.
1. Admission of the Great Apostasy by Christian Writers.—The church of England in its Homily on the Perils of Idolatry, says: "Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects and degrees have been drowned in abominable idolatry most detested by God and damnable to man for eight hundred years and more."
2. In Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (page 163)—the work is endorsed by sixty-three learned divines and Bible scholars—the following occurs: "We must not expect to see the church of Christ existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any one of those fragments."