vested with the clerical office, so that the fourth council of Toletum, A. D. 633, by solemn enactment, provides for their education, and training for their duties. 46 "No physician," says Gregory Nazianzen, A. D. 370, "finds employment until he has acquainted himself with the nature of diseases; no paintter, until he has learned to mix colors, and acquired skill in the use of the pencil. But a bishop is easily found. No preparation is requisite for his office. In a single day we make one a priest, and exhort him to be wise and learned, while he knows nothing; and brings no needful qualification for his office, but a desire to be a bishop.47 They are teachers, while yet they have to learn the rudiments of religion. Yesterday, impenitent, irreligious; and to-day, priests; old in vice; in knowledge young."48 "They are, in their ministry, dull; in evil speaking, active; in study, much at leisure; in seductions, busy; in love, cold; in factions, powerful; in hatred and enmity, constant; in doctrine wavering. They profess

to govern the church, but have need themselves to be governed by others."49

(c) The total neglect of Christian discipline, and the general corruption of the church, were the necessary consequences of a secular ministry.

In this respect, the state of the church under the metropolitan government appears in melancholy contrast with its early purity. "Formerly, the church of Christ was distinguished from the world by her piety. Then, the walk of all, or of most Christians was holy, unlike that of the irreligious. But now are Christians as base, and, if possible, even worse than

46 Nos, et divinae legis, et conciliorum praecepti immemores infantes et pueros, levitas facimus ante legitimam aetatem ante experientiam vitae.-Conc. Tol. 4. c. 20.

47 Orat. 20, De Basil. Ed. Colon. 1590. p. 335.

48 Orat. 21. In laud. Athanas. p. 378.

49 Sidonius Apollinaris, A. D. 486, Lib. 7. Ep. 9.

Biblioth. Vet.

Pat. VI. p. 1112. Comp. Mosheim, De Rebus Christ., Saec. III. §

26.

heretics and heathen."50

"How unlike themselves are Chris"How fallen from

tians now," says Salvianus, A. D. 460. what they once were! when we might rejoice, and account the church as quite pure, if it had only as many good as bad men in it. But it is hard and sad to say, that the church which ought, in all things, to be well pleasing to God, does little else than provoke his displeasure."51 This is but a faint sketch of his complaint. Much more to the same effect is said by this writer, and confirmed by others, which we gladly pass in silence. Enough of this sad tale of the degeneracy of the church, of which the half has not been told. "No language," says Chrysostom, "can describe the angry contentions of Christians, and the corruption of morals that prevailed, from the time of Constantine to that of Theodosius."52

Of grosser enormities we forbear to speak. Much that is recorded both of the clergy and the people, in the period now under consideration, cannot with propriety, be transferred to these pages. Suffice it to say, there is evidence sufficient to show that a shocking degeneracy of morals pervaded all classes of society. It began, confessedly, with the clergy,-in their worldliness and irreligion, their neglect of duty, their departure from the faith, and corrupt example.53 From the time of Constantine, the tide of corruption, which had begun to set in upon the church, became deep and strong, and continued to rise and swell, until it well-nigh overwhelmed her. There were still examples, indeed, of men high in office in the church, who nobly strove to turn back this flood of iniquity; but they too frequently strove in vain, as their lamentations over her degeneracy plainly show. Among her pri

50 Chrysostom Hom. 49, in Math. Vol. VI. p. 204. Opus imp. Hom. in Ps. 61. Vol. I. p. 195.

51 Lib. 6. De Gub. Dei in Biblioth. Pat. Vet. Vol. VIII. p. 362 seq. 52 Hom. 49, in Math. p. 202. Opus imperfectum.

53 Chrysostom expressly says, that they were the cause of this degeneracy of the laity. In Math. 23. Comp. also, Catal. Test. Verit.

vate members, also, there still remained, no doubt, many faithful followers of Christ, who have, in heaven, their high reward, however history may have failed to record the honored memorial of their virtues.

Wearied, however, with the oppressive hand of prelatical power that was upon her, and sickened at the sight of the ungodliness which had come up into the church, and sat enthroned in her high places, the pure spirit of piety withdrew, in silent sadness, to the cloistered cell, drew the curtains, and reposed in her secret recesses, through the long night of darkness that settled upon the world.

This religious declension, of which we have spoken, it should be well considered, could not have come over the church so generally through the operation of any one cause alone. It is the combined result of various causes. But that the ecclesiastical polity that early supplanted the government originally established by the apostles, was one efficient cause of this degeneracy, we cannot doubt. It filled the church with corrupt and unworthy members, by first giving her an ignorant, ambitious priesthood, equally degenerate and corrupt.

The object of the Christian emperors was to bring all their subjects to embrace Christianity. But they totally mistook the means by which this work was to be accomplished. They sought to do it by state patronage; by making a professed faith in Christ the passport to favor and to power. To enter into the church of Christ, was, accordingly, to enjoy the favor and protection of the government; to hold her offices, was to bear rule in the state. The consequence was, that multitudes pressed up to the altar of the Lord, eager to be invested with the robes and the office of the Christian ministry, who had nothing of its spirit.54

Such was the wayward policy, the fatal mistake of the 54 Comp. Sermon by Thomas Hardy, D. D. Cited in Dr. Brown's Law of Christ, pp. 511, 512.

first Christian emperors. Such were its disastrous results. My kingdom, saith Christ, is not of this world. Christianity, though mingling freely in the affairs of men, like its great Author, works its miracles of mercy and of grace by powers that are hidden and divine. It stoops to no carnal policy, no state chicanery, no corrupt alliances; while, like an angel of mercy, it goes through the earth, for the healing of the nations. To borrow the profound thoughts and beautiful language of Robert Hall," Christianity will civilize, it is true; but it is only when it is allowed to develop the energies by which it sanctifies. Christianity will inconceivably ameliorate the condition of being. Who doubts it? Its universal prevalence, not in name, but in reality, will convert this world into a semi-paradisaical state; but it is only while it is permitted to prepare its inhabitants for a better. Let her be urged to forget her celestial origin and destiny, -to forget that she came from God, and returns to God; and, whether employed by the artful and enterprising, as the instrument of establishing a spiritual empire and dominion over mankind, or by the philanthropist, as the means of promoting their civilization and improvement,—she resents the foul indignity, claps her wings and takes her flight, leaving nothing but a base and sanctimonious hypocrisy in her

room.

155

55 Address to Eustace Carey.

CHAPTER X.

THE PATRIARCHAL AND THE PAPAL GOVERNMENT.

I. THE patriarchal government.

This form of the hierarchy we shall dismiss with a very brief notice. The principles on which it was based, and its characteristics, were essentially the same as those of the metropolitan. The state of the church under this organization has of necessity been anticipated in the preceding remarks. It was only a farther concentration of ecclesiastical power, another stage in the process of centralization, which was fast bringing the church under the absolute despotism of the Papacy. Man naturally aspires to the exercise of arbitrary power; or, if he must divide his authority with others, he seeks to make that number as small as possible. This disposition had already manifested itself in the church. In many of the provinces there were ecclesiastical aspirants among the higher orders of the clergy, who, even to the fifth century, had not established an undisputed title to the prerogatives of metropolitans. But the continual effort and strife of the bishops for a greater consolidation of ecclesiastical power ended in the establishment of an ecclesiastical oligarchy in the fifth century, under the form of the patriarchal government.1

In the course of the period from the fourth to the sixth cen

Comp. Planck, Gesell. Verfass. I. S. 598-624. Ziegler's Versuch. etc. S. 164-365.