the people, and extorting from both large sums, to support the pomp and luxury in which they lived."

Thus far our historian. Nothing, indeed, could be better calculated for both extending and securing their authority, than thus engaging all the most eminent prelates in the different countries of Christendom, from a principle of ambition as well as interest, to favour their claims. Rome was already gotten too far, as we have seen, above the episcopal sees of the west, for any of them to think of coping with her, and was, besides, too distant to excite their envy. But it would greatly gratify the covetousness, as well as the pride and vanity of those bishops whom she was thus pleased to distinguish, to be by her means raised considerably above their peers and neighbours.

Add to this, that not only the ambitious views of individuals served to promote the schemes of Rome, but the general ambition of the clerical order greatly forwarded her views. The western empire soon came to be divided into a number of independent states and kingdoms. Now, in the form into which the church had been moulded before the division, a foundation had been laid for incessant interferings and bickerings, in every country, between the secular powers and the ecclesiastical. In these interferings, the principal advantage of the latter arose from the union that subsisted among the churches of different countries, as members of one great polity. And even this connexion, (however possible it might have been to preserve it for the single purpose of promoting piety and virtue), it was absolutely impossible to preserve for the purpose of spiritual dominion, unless they were united under a common head. The republican form of any kind, democratical or aristocratical, could never answer in such a situation of affairs. Not only are commonwealths slower in their operation than the exigencies of such a state would admit, but they can do nothing without the authority of a legislative council; and this it would be in the power of a few temporal princes totally to obstruct, either by preventing them from assembling, or by dispersing them when assembled ; and from any state, or kingdom, it would be in the power of the chief magistrate to prevent a deputation being sent.

The monarchical form, therefore, supported by the prejudices and superstition of the people, was the only adequate means both of preserving and of extending the high privileges, honours, titles, and immunities, claimed universally by the sacred order, and which they most strenuously contended for as the quintessence of Christianity, the sum of all that the Son of God had purchased for mankind. This could not fail to induce them to put themselves under the protection of the only bishop in the west who was both able and willing to support their bold pretensions.

I must likewise add, however unlikely, that the ambition of secular princes concurred in the establishment and exaltation of the hierarchy. Nothing can be more evident, than that it was the interest of the princes of Christendom and their people to combine against it. But though this was the general and most lasting interest of all the states of Europe, what was, or at least was conceived to be, the immediate interest of a particular prince or state, might be to favour the hierarchy. Let it be observed, that the European monarchs were almost incessantly at war with one another. Neighbour and enemy, when spoken of states and kingdoms, were, and to this day too much are, terms almost synonymous. The Pope, therefore, could not make even the most daring attempt against any prince, or kingdom, which would not be powerfully backed by the most strenuous endeavours of some other prince, or kingdom, whose present designs the Pope's attempts would tend to forward.

If England was the object of papal resentment,-if the enraged ecclesiarch had fulminated an excommunication or interdict against the kingdom, or issued a bull deposing the king, and loosing his subjects from their oaths and allegiance, (for all these spiritual machines were brought into use one after another), France was ready to take advantage of the general confusion thereby raised in England, and to invade the kingdom with an armed force. The more to encourage the French monarch to act this part, the pontiff might be prevailed on (and this hath actually happened) to assign to him the kingdom of which he had pretended to divest the A man may afford to give what never belonged to

owner.

him: But if the owner found it necessary to make submissions to the priest, the latter was never at a loss to find a pretext for recalling the grant he had made, and re-establishing the degraded monarch. In like manner, when France was the object of the pontiff's vengeance, England was equally disposed to be subservient to his views. Nay, he had the address, oftener than once, to arm an unnatural son against his father. Such was the situation of affairs, all Europe over. Those transactions, which always terminated in the advancement of papal power, could not fail, at last, to raise the mitre above the crown. Every one of the princes, I may say did, in his turn, for the gratifying of a present passion, and the attaining of an immediate object, blindly lend his assistance in exalting a potentate, who came in process of time to tread on all their necks, and treat both kings and emperors, who had foolishly given their strength and power to him, as his vassals and slaves.

It were endless to take notice of all the expedients which Rome, after she had advanced so far as to be esteemed in the west the visible head of the church universal, and vested with a certain paramount though indefinite authority over the whole, devised, and easily executed, both for confirming and extending her enormous power. It is true, she never was absolute in the east; and, from about the middle of the ninth century, these two parts of Christendom were in a state of total separation. But that became a matter of less consequence to her every day. The eastern, which may be said to have been the only enlightened, and far the most valuable part of the empire in the days of Constantine, was daily declining, whilst the western part was growing daily more considerable. In the eastern empire, one part after another became a prey to Turks and Saracens,-Egypt, Barbary, Syria, Asia, and at length Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace: The only part of the western empire that not only was, but still continues to be subjected to the depredations of these barbarians is Proconsular and West Africa: Whereas, in the western and northern parts of Europe, there were at the same time springing up some of the most powerful and polished, and, I may now add, the most enlightened

monarchies and states with which the world has ever been acquainted. The very calamities of the east, particularly the destruction of the eastern empire, the last poor remains of Roman greatness, and the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, left the western patriarch totally without a rival, and Christendom without a vestige of the primitive equality and independence of its pastors.

When Rome had every thing in a manner at her disposal, it was easy to see that all canons in regard to discipline, and decrees in relation to doctrine, would point invariably to the support of this power. Hence the convenient doctrines of transubstantiation, purgatory, prayers and masses for the dead, auricular confession, the virtue of sacerdotal absolution. Hence the canons extending so immensely the forbidden degrees of marriage, the peculiar power in the Popes of dispensing with these and other canons, the power of canonization, the celibacy of the clergy, the supererogatory merits of the saints, indulgences, and many others.

There is, indeed, one right that has been claimed, and successfully exerted by Rome, which, as being a most important spring in this great and complex machine of the hierarchy, will deserve a more particular notice;--I mean, the Pope's pretended title to grant exemptions to whomsoever he pleases, from subjection to their ordinary ecclesiastical superiors. But this I shall reserve for the subject of another lecture.

LECTURE XIX.

FROM what has been discovered, in the course of our inquiries into the rise, the progress, and the full establishment of the papacy, we may justly say, that if happiness consist in dominion, (which it certainly does not, though all mankind, by their conduct, seem to think it), what a wonderful good fortune has ever attended Rome! From the first foundation of the city by a parcel of banditti, she rose but to command, and gradually advanced into an empire of such extent, renown, and duration, as has been unexampled in the world either before or since. And from the first declension of that enormous power, for it could not subsist always, she is insensibly become the seat of a new species of empire, which, though not of equal celebrity with the former, is much more extraordinary, and perhaps more difficult to be surmounted, being deeply rooted in the passions and sentiments of men.

Nay, how fortunate has been this queen of cities in what concerned both the formation and the advancement of this second monarchy. She continued the imperial city during the nonage of the hierarchy, that is, as long as was necessary to give her priest, though under the humble title of pastor, the primacy or precedency among his brethren, for these two terms were at first synonymous, and, by the wealth and splendour to which she raised him, to lay the foundation of those higher claims he hath since made, of supremacy and jurisdiction over them. And she ceased to be the seat of empire at the critical period when the residence of a court must have eclipsed his lustre, confined him to a subordinate part on the great theatre of the world, and stifled, in the birth, all attempts to raise himself above the secular powers. Had the eastern empire remained to this day, and Constantinople been the imperial residence, it would have been impossible that her patriarchs should ever have advanced the claims, which the Roman patriarch not only advanced, but compelled the Christian world to admit. When Rome was deserted by the emperors, her pontiff quickly became the first man there; and, in the course of a few reigns, the inhabitants came