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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 emperours, her pontiff quickly became the first man there; and in the course of a few reigns, the inhabitants came naturally to consider themselves as more connected with him, and interested in him, than in an emperour who, under the name of their sovereign, had his residence and court in a distant country, who spoke a different language, and whose face the greater part of the Romans did not so much as know. Nor was the matter much mended in regard to them after the division of the empire, as the royal residence, neither of the emperour of the West, nor afterwards of the king of the Goths, was Rome, but either Milan or Ravenna.

And when in succeeding ages the pope grew to be, in some respect, a rival to the German emperour, the Romans, and even many of the Italians, came to think, as it might have been foreseen that they would, that their own aggrandize. ment, the aggrandizement of their city, and of their country, were more concerned in the exaltation of the pontiff, who, by the way, was then, in a great measure, a creature of their own making, (for the office was not then, as now, in the election of the conclave) than in that of a monarch, who, from whatever origin he derived his power, was, in fact, an alien, and not of their creation, and who was as ill situated for defending them against their enemies, as the successours of Constantine had been before. Of the inability of both to answer this purpose, the invasions and conquests made at different times by Goths and Lombards, Franks and Normans, but too plainly showed. In short, had Rome never been the imperial city, its pastor could never have raised himself above his fellows. Had it continued the imperial city, he might, and probably would have had, such a primacy, as to be accounted the first among the patriarchs, but without any thing like papal jurisdiction over church and state. Had Rome remained the seat of empire, the pope's superiority to councils had never been heard of. The convocation of these, whilst the empire subsisted, would, in all probability, have continued, as it was for several ages, in the hands of the emperour. The dismemberment of the empire tended but too visibly to subvert the emperour's claim, and occasion the setting up of another in its stead. A sovereign has no title to convoke the subjects of another sovereign, of whatever class they be, and call them out of his dominions, whatever title he may have to assemble any part of his own subjects within his own territories. Now whatever weakened the emperour's claim, strengthened the pope's. Immemorial cus

tom had taught men to consider councils as essential to the church. And if the right to call them could no longer be regarded as inherent in any secular prince, where would they so readily suppose it to inhere as in him, to whose primacy in the church they had been already habituated? And even after the dismemberment of the empire, and the succession of a new power over part, under the same title, had it been possible for the emperours of Germany, who, in the former part of the eleventh century, made and unmade popes at their pleasure, to have made Rome their residence, and the capital of their empire, the pope, as Voltaire justly observes, had been no other than the emperour's chaplain. Nay, much of the power which the former, in that case, would have been permitted to exercise, would have been more nominal than real, as it would have been exercised under the influence of a superiour. But luckily for the pope and for Italy, to reside at Rome, was what the emperour could not do, and at the same time retain possession of his German dominions, of which he was only the elective sovereign.

The obscurity of the western, in the beginning, compared with the oriental churches, occasioned that their ecclesiastick polity was left imperfect, so as to give Rome too great an ascendancy in that part of the world; the gradual but incessant decline of those eastern nations, whose opulent sees were alone capable of proving a counterpoise to the power of Rome; and, on the other hand, the slow, but real advancement of the occidental countries, after the power of the pontiff had been firmly established; their real, but late advancement, in arts, populousness, wealth, and civilization, all alike conspired to raise him. His rivals sank, his subjects rose.

For many ages he seemed to have conceived no higher aim than to be at the head of the executive and the judicial power in the church. No sooner was that attained than his great object came to be the legislative power. You do not find, for several centuries, the least pretext made by the pope, of a title to establish canons, or ecclesiastical laws; his pretence was merely, that he was intrusted with the care, that the laws enacted by councils should be duly executed. He was then only, as it were, the chief magistrate of the community; nothing now will satisfy him but to be their legislator also. A doctrine came accordingly much in vogue with the partisans of Rome, that the pope was not subject to councils, nay, that he was not only independent of them, but above them; that he was himself entitled to make canons, to declare articles of faith, to pronounce what was orthodox, what heterodox, and that he needed not the aid of any council.

If such were really the case, all the world, popes as well as others, had been greatly deceived for many ages. When an effectual remedy was at hand, they had thought it necessary to take a very difficult and circuitous method to attain a cure, at most not more certain. To what purpose bring such a multitude together from all the quarters of the globe, with great expense and infinite trouble, to tell us, after whole days spent in chicane, sophistry, and wrangling, what one single person could have told us at the first, as soon as he was consulted? In all these different claims, made, at different periods by the pontiff, though he generally succeeded at last, he never failed to encounter some opposition. It has, however, on this article of the pope's authority, been justly observed, that the advocates for it have been much more numerous than those for the authority of councils. The manner in which Eneas Sylvius, who was himself afterwards raised to the popedom, under the name of Pius II, accounted for this dif ference, is strictly just: "Because," said he, "the popes have "benefices to give, and the councils have none." Whether

he would have returned the same answer, after he had reached the summit of ecclesiastical preferment, may be justly made a question. Certain it is, that the pontiffs cannot be charged with want of attention to those who have stood forth as champions for their authority. Whereas there is hardly a motive, except a regard to truth, which can induce any one, in Roman catholick countries, to defend the other side of the question. For on this article there are different opinions even among Roman catholicks. This, however, is a point of which there has never been any decision that has been universally acquiesced in; and, indeed, on the footing whereon matters now stand in that church, we may affirm, with great probability, that it will always remain undecided.

In the conclusion of my last lecture, I mentioned one great engine of papal policy, the exemptions granted by the pontiffs to particular ecclesiasticks or communities, by which their subjection to the ordinary was dispensed with, and their dependence rendered immediate upon Rome. The legatine power, of which I have already spoken, was somewhat of the same nature, though it had a more plausible excuse. But exemptions were not limited to those who might be considered as a sort of agents for the pontiff, and employed to represent his person. He pretended a title to make such alterations in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any country as he should judge proper, and particularly to exempt bishops, when he found it convenient, from the jurisdiction of the archbishop, priors and abbots, from that of the bishop. This

privilege came at length to be so far extended, that almost all the orders of regulars, and the universities, were taken, as it was termed, under the pope's immediate care and protection, that is, released from all subordination to the secular clergy, in whose dioceses they were situated, or might happen to reside.

For several ages after the church had been modelled on the plan of the civil government under Constantine, it was con sidered as a thing totally inadmissible, that a presbyter should withdraw his obedience from his bishop, a bishop from his metropolitan, or a metropolitan from his exarch or patriarch, where there was an ecclesiastick vested with that dignity. Accordingly, in the oriental churches, nothing of this sort was ever attempted. And, indeed, if the aristocratical form then given to the church had continued unviolated also in the west, such an attempt never had been made. But to say the truth, there was no possibility of supporting the monarchical form now given to the occidental churches, without some measure of this kind.

It is true, there had been established a subordination in all the clerical orders, from the pope downwards to the most me nial officer in the church. The pope was the judge in the last resort, and claimed the exclusive title to give confirmation and investiture to all the dignitaries. Rome, by her exactions, as well as by the frequent recourse to her from all parts, for dispensations, and the like trumpery, as we should call them, which had gradually obtained, and were then of the most serious consequence, had taken all imaginable care, that the several churches might not forget their subjection and dependence. Yet however sufficient this might have proved in a single kingdom, or country, such as Italy, where the whole is more immediately under the eye of the governours, who can quickly get notice of, and provide against a rising faction, before it bring any purpose to maturity, it is far from being sufficient in a wide-established empire. The primates, or archbishops, and even some of the wealthiest bishops, were like great feudatory lords They owed a certain acknowledgment and duty to their liege-lord the pope; but the dependence of the inferiour clergy, the suffragans and priests, like that of the vassals upon the barons, was immediately or directly on the prelates, and but indirectly and remotely upon the pope. As whilst the feudal government subsisted, the greater barons, in most kings doms, with their train of vassals and dependants, by whom they were sure to be attended, found it an easy matter to rebel against their sovereign, and often to compel him to accept terms very humiliating to royalty, we may conclude, that a

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