The claim of the Headship of Christianity was the first of the Romish errors, and the fount from which they all flowed. But this claim was first formally made in the sixth century, (A.D., 533,) and was established by the Emperor Justinian. But no mortal power had the right to give, or to assume, this title. The headship of the universal church belongs to Christ alone, who has been made "Head over all things to His church." No human being could be competent to the high duty of governing a church spreading, and to be ultimately spread, through all nations. The government is also _spiritual_, of which no human being of this earth can have a _comprehension_. Its seizure by the Bishop of Rome was an enormous usurpation. In about sixty years after, the title was disclaimed by the Bishop of Rome, in indignation at its seizure by the Bishop of Constantinople; but it was solicited again, in the reign of the Emperor Phocas, (A.D., 606,) and has been ever since retained. It is not to be presumed, that this usurpation was universally allowed. God has not left Himself without witnesses in any age. Successive opponents of Rome, preachers of the gospel, the true Protestants, arose during the dark ages; and a continued resistance to superstition was sustained for the thousand years of the Popish assumption; until, in the sixteenth century, the recovery of learning, the renewed intelligence of the human mind, the translation of the Bible, and, above all, and acting through all, the mercy of God, restored Christianity to the world in the glorious German Reformation, (A.D. 1517.) The most visible practice of Popery is Mass-worship. This practice commenced early; but we have no direct record of its reception until the _Second_ Council of NICE, (A.D. 787.) Infallibility was too monstrous a conception to be adopted, but in the utter prostration of the general mind. It was, accordingly, first made an article of faith in the very centre of the Dark Ages, (A.D. 1076.) But this claim is so repugnant to reason, so contradictory to the common sense of man, and so palpably overthrown by the vicious conduct of Popes, and the contemptible quarrels of Councils, that, even among the Papists, it has been the most dubious of all doctrines--some of the Popish parties placing infallibility in a General Council, some in a General Council united with the Pope, some in the Universal Church. But those disputes, which no human understanding could ever decide, show only the repugnancy of the doctrine itself to the human intellect. Infallibility was, at length, by the mere ignorance of knowing where to place it, quietly delivered into the possession of the Pope. He now presumed to be the _acting_ infallibility of the Romish world.