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 {189} 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."