shown no partiality to any thing monastical, during their lives, gave express orders, when in the immediate views of death that their friends should dress them out in monkish vestments, that in these they might die, and be buried, thinking, that the sanctity of their garb would prove a protection against a con demnatory sentence of the omniscient Judge. It is lamentable, it is humiliating to think, that we have unquestionable evidence, that human nature can be sunk so low. The igno rance and superstition of the times, by degrees, appropriated the term religious to those houses and their inhabitants.

I have often observed to you, how great an influence names and phrases have on the opinions of the generality of mankind. I should have remarked, that soon after things were put upon this footing, it was, on many accounts, judged expedient, that the religious should be in orders. For the absurdity of shepherds without a flock, pastors without a charge, was an absur dity no longer; so much can men be familiarized by custom to use words with any latitude, and even to assign a meaning to them incompatible with their primitive use. Accordingly the companions in the monastery had commonly what was called priest's orders, and were termed friars, fratres, brethren; the head, or governour of the house, was denominated abbot, from a Syriack word, signifying father. Sometimes he was only a priest, and sometimes had episcopal ordination. Hence the distinction between mitred abbots and unmitred. All these, on account of the rules to which they were bound by oath, were styled regular clergy, whereas those established as bishops and priests over the dioceses and parishes, were called secular. I know that some distinction is also made between monks and friars. Suffice it to observe at present, that the rules of the former are stricter than those of the latter.

When spacious monasteries were built, and supplied with a numerous fraternity, governed by an abbot of eminence and character, there often arose a jealousy between the abbot and the bishop, in whose diocese the abbey was situated, and to whom, as things stood at first, the abbot and the friars owed spiritual subjection. Out of their mutual jealousies sprang umbrages, and these sometimes terminated in quarrels and in juries. In such cases, the abbots had the humiliating disad vantage, to be under the obligation of canonical obedience ta him, as the ordinary of the place, with whom they were at vas riance.

That they might deliver themselves from these inconveni ences, real or pretended, and might be independent of their rivals, they applied to Rome one after another, for a release from this slavery, as they called it, by being taken under the

protection of St. Peter; that is, under immediate subjection to the pope. The proposal was, with avidity, accepted at Rome. That politick court saw immediately, that nothing could be better calculated for supporting papal power. Whoever obtains privileges is obliged, in order to secure his privileges, to maintain the authority of the grantor.

Very quickly all the monasteries, great and small, abbeys, priories, and nunneries, were exempted. The two last were inferiour sorts of monasteries, and often subordinate to some abbey. Even the chapters of cathedrals, consisting mostly of regulars, on the like pretexts, obtained exemption. Finally, whole orders, those called the congregations of Cluni and Cistertio, Benedictines and others, were exempted. This effectually procured a prodigious augmentation to the pontifical authority, which now came to have a sort of disciplined troops in every place, defended and protected by the papacy, who, in return, were its defenders and protectors, serving as spies on the bishops as well as on the secular powers. Afterwards the

mendicant orders, or begging friars, though the refuse of the whole, the tail of the beast, as Wickliff termed them, whereof the Roman pontiff is the head, obtained still higher privileges, for they were not only exempted every where from episcopal authority, but had also a title to build churches wherever they pleased, and to administer the sacraments in these indepen❤ dently of the ordinary of the place. Nay, afterwards, in the times immediately preceding the convention of the aforesaid council, things had proceeded so far, that any private clerk could, at a small expence, obtain an exemption from the super intendency of his bishop, not only in regard to correction, but in relation to orders, which he might receive from whomsoever he pleased, so as to have no connexion with the bishop of any kind.

What had made matters still worse was, that the whole business of teaching the christian people had, by this time, fallen into the hands of the regulars. The secular clergy had long since eased themselves of the burden. Preaching and reading the sacred scriptures properly, made no part of the publick offices of religion. It is true, it was still the practice to read, or rather chant, some passages from the gospels and epistles, in an unknown tongue; for all in the western churches must now, for the sake of uniformity, to which every thing was sacrificed, be in Latin. Now, for some centuries before the council of Trent, Latin had not been the native language of any country or city in the world, not even of Italy or of Rome. That such lessons were not understood by the people, was thought an objection of no consequence at all. They were not

the less fitted for making a part of the solemn, unmeaning mummery, of the liturgick service. The bishops and priests ha ving long disused preaching, probably at first through laziness, seem to have been considered at last as not entitled to preach; for, on the occasion above-mentioned, they very generally complained, that the charge of teaching was taken out of their hands, and devolved upon the friars, especially the mendicants, who were a sort of itinerant preachers, licensed by the court of Rome.

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How the friars discharged this trust, we may learn from the most authentick histories, which sufficiently show, that the representations of the scope of their preaching, made by the bishops in that council, were not exaggerated, when they said, that the end of their teaching was not to edify the people, but to collect alms from them, either for themselves or for their convents; that in order to attain this purpose, they solely considered not what was for the soul's health, but what would please, and flatter, and sooth the appetites of the hearers, and thereby bring most profit to themselves; so that the people, instead of learning the doctrine of Christ, are but amused, said they, with mere novelties and vanities. But whatever be in this account, the pope could not fail to draw an immense advantage from this circumstance, that the instruction of the people was now almost entirely in the hands of his own creatures. How great, then, must be the advantage of a similar but still more important kind, resulting from the exemptions granted to universities, who being taken, as it were, under his immediate, patronage, were engaged from interest to instil principles of obedience to the pope into the minds of the youth, of whose education they had the care.

Now if the chain of dependence of the secular clergy on the head, be similar to that which subsists in a civil, particular ly a feudatory constitution, where the obligation of every inferiour through the whole subordination of vassallage is consi dered as being much stronger to the immediate superiour than to the sovereign, the dependence of the regulars may justly be represented by the military connexion which subsists with the sovereign in a standing army. There the tie of every soldier and subaltern is much stronger to the king than to his captain or his colonel. If, then, the secular clergy, in Romish countries, may be called the pope's civil officers, the regulars are his guards. This matter was too well understood by the friends of Rome, who were the predominant party in the council of Trent, ever to yield to any alteration here that could be called material. Some trifling changes, however, were made, in or der to conciliate those who were the keenest advocates for re

forming the discipline of the church, or at least to silence their clamours. The exemptions given to chapters were limited a little. The bishops were made governours of the nunneries within their bishopricks, not as bishops of the diocese, but as the pope's delegates; and friars, who resided in cloisters, and were guilty of any scandalous excess without the precincts of the cloister, if the superiour of the convent, whether abbot or prior, refused, when required, to chastise them within a limited time, might be punished by the bishop.

I have now traced the principal causes, which co-operat ed to the erection of the hierarchy, and shall, in what remains to be observed on the subject, in a few more lectures, consider both the actual state of church power, and the different opinions concerning it at the time of the council of Trent, which shall terminate our inquiries into the rise and establishment of the hierarchy.

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LECTURE XX.

I Have now, in a course of lectures, endeavoured, with all possible brevity, to lay before you the principal arts, by which the Roman hierarchy was raised, and have also pointed out some of the most remarkable events and occurrences, which facilitated the erection. It is chiefly the progress of ecclesiastical dominion, that I have traced. The papal usurpation on the secular powers, though I have explained its source in the erection of episcopal tribunals, and glanced occasionally at its progress, I have, for several reasons, not so expressly examined. One is, it does not so immediately affect the subject of the hierarchy, with which I considered myself as principally concerned. Another is, that the usurpation here is, if possi ble, still more glaring to every attentive reader of church history, and therefore stands less in need of being pointed out. A third reason is, that though the claims of superiority over the civil powers, formerly advanced by Rome with wonderful success, have never been abandoned, but are, as it were, reserved in petto for a proper occasion, yet, at present, the most sublime of their pretensions are little minded, and are hardly, as affairs now stand in Europe, capable of doing hurt. Nothing can be better founded than the remark, that the thunders of the Vatican will kindle no conflagration, except where there are combustible materials. At present there is hardly a country in christendom so barbarously superstitious (I do not except even Spain and Portugal) as to afford a sufficient quan-, tity of those materials for raising a combustion. We never hear now of the excommunication and deposition of princes, of kingdoms laid under an interdict, and of the erection and the disposal of kingdoms by the pope. Such is the difference of times, that these things, which were once the great engines of raising papal dominion, would now serve only to render it