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LECTURE XIII.

In my last lecture I entered on the consideration of the rise of papal dominion. I showed that the pretensions made by Papists, in regard to the distinguishing prerogatives of the apostle Peter, and in regard to the title which the Roman pontiff derives from him, are equally without foundation; that neither had that apostle any such prerogatives as they ascribe to him, nor has the bishop of Rome a better title to be called his successor than any other pastor in the Christian church. I took notice, that the very first pontiff who advanced this plea as the foundation of his primacy and power, lived no earlier than the fifth century. I showed particularly, that the true origin of the Pope's supremacy was the dignity of the see, and not of its founder; the wealth and temporal advantages derived from the congregation of that great metropolis, and not any spiritual authority and jurisdiction transmitted from the fisherman of Galilee, who was styled the apostle, not of the nations, but of the circumcision. I showed further, that this account of the origin of Romish dominion perfectly corresponds with the model that the church very soon assumed in conformity to the civil constitution of the empire; the dignity and secular power of the magistrate, in every city, especially in every capital, almost invariably determining the dignity and spiritual jurisdiction of its pastor. Hence the different degrees among the bishops, of suffragan, primate or metropolitan, and exarch. Hence also among those of the same class, the exarchs, a few who presided in the principal cities of the empire, such as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, were dignified with the title of patriarch. And even among these, the precedency was always regulated by the rank of their respective prefects. To these, indeed, was added Jerusalem, from respect to the place where Christ had consummated his ministry and our redemption had been accomplished; that is, where expiation had been made for the sin of man by the sacrifice of the Son of God, where the first fruits of the resurrection

had been produced in him who was both the founder and the finisher of the faith, where the Holy Spirit was first given, and whence the gospel issued, as from its fountain, to bless with its salutary streams the remotest parts of the habitable world. But this was the only city which was honoured with any pre-eminence from other considerations than such as were merely secular. And even Jerusalem came but in the fifth place.

I observed before, that power has a sort of attractive force, which gives it a tendency to accumulate, insomuch that what, in the beginning, is a distinction barely perceptible, grows, in process of time, a most remarkable disparity. In every new and doubtful case that may occur, the bias of the imagination is in favour of him who occupies the higher place, were the superiority ever so inconsiderable. And what was originally no more than precedency in rank, becomes at length a real superiority in power. The effect will be considerably accelerated, if superior opulence join its aid in producing it. This was eminently the case with Rome, the wealthiest see as well as the most respectable, because the seat of empire, of any in the church.

But it may be urged, on the other side, that when the imperial throne was transferred from Rome to Constantinople, it might have been expected that this latter place would rise to a still greater eminence than the former. That, indeed, notwithstanding its obscurity for ages, it did rise to very great eminence, in consequence of the translation of the seat of empire, is itself a very strong confirmation of the doctrine here maintained: That, though the youngest of the patriarchal sees, it did, through the favour of the emperors, arise to such distinguished grandeur and authority as long to appear a formidable rival to haughty Rome, and often to awake her most jealous attention, is a point which will not be disputed by any who is but moderately conversant in ecclesiastical history. But then it is to be observed, that Rome had been a church in the highest estimation for ages before the name of Constantinople had been heard: and as for Byzantium, the name by which the place had formerly been known, it never was a see of any note or consideration. In regard to the Romans, however uncertain it may be who it was that first

preached the gospel to them, and founded a church among them, there can be no doubt of the antiquity of this event, since Paul, as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, on his first coming prisoner to Rome, found a church there already planted; and since, in one of his longest letters, manifestly written some time before, and directed to that church, he mentions their faith as even at that early period celebrated throughout the world. Rome may therefore be justly reckoned nearly coeval with the oldest Gentile churches. Certain it is, that the tradition which prevailed most concerning this church, in the days of Constantine, and for a considerable time before, was, that it had been founded by the two apostles Peter and Paul. These were considered as the most eminent in the apostolical college, the one as the doctor of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles: the people, therefore, seemed to think, that it was an honour due to the mistress and capital of the world to believe, that she had had a principal share in the ministry of both. Here was an original disadvantage that Constantinople, or New Rome, as she was sometimes called, laboured under, which it was impossible for her ever to surmount. Antiquity has great influence on every human establishment, but especially on those of a religious nature. What advantage Old Rome derived hence, when she found it convenient, in supporting her claims, to change her ground as it were, and rear the fabric of spiritual despotism, not, as formerly, on the dignity of the world's metropolis and human constitutions, but on divine right, transmitted through the prince of the apostles, is too well known to need a particular illustration. And though the younger sister soon learnt to imitate the elder, and claim an origin and antiquity nearly equal, pretending, on I know not what grounds, to have been founded by the apostle Andrew, the brother of Peter, thought to be the elder brother, and who was certainly, as we learn from John's Gospel, (chap. i. 41-43.), a disciple of Christ before him ; yet the notorious recency, the suddenness, and the too manifest source of her splendour and power, rendered it impracticable for her, without arrogance, ever to vie with the elder sister in her high pretensions.

But with the two causes above-mentioned, namely, the

superior dignity of the city of Rome, and the opulence of her church, there were several others which co-operated in raising her to that amazing greatness and authority, at which, in the course of a few centuries, she arrived. To enumerate all would be impossible; I shall therefore only select a few of the principal of them.

The first I shall take notice of is, the vigilant and unremitted policy she early showed in improving every advantage for her own aggrandizement, which rank and wealth could bestow. Scarcely had Christianity received the sanction of the legislature, erecting it into a sort of political establishment, before the bishops of this high-minded city began to entertain the towering thoughts of erecting for themselves a new sort of monarchy, a spiritual domination over their brethren, the members of the church, which might in time be rendered universal, analogous to the secular authority lodged in the emperors over the subjects of the empire. The distinctions already introduced, of presbyter, bishop, primate, and (which soon followed) patriarch, seemed naturally to pave the way for it.

These distinctions, too, having taken their origin from the civil distinctions that obtained in regard to the villages, towns, and cities, that were the seats of these different orders, seemed to furnish a plausible argument from analogy, that the bishop of the capital of the whole should have an ascendant over the exarchs of the civil dioceses into which it was divided, similar to that which every exarch enjoyed over the metropolitans of the provinces within his diocese or exarchate, and which every metropolitan exercised over his suffragans, the bishops of his province, and similar to that which the emperor himself exercised over all the members of the empire. Yet, by Constantine's establishment, the bishop of Rome, in strictness, was not so much as an exarch; the civil diocese of Italy having been, on account of its greater populousness and opulence, divided into two parts, called vicariates or vicarages ;—the vicariate of Rome containing ten provinces, and including the islands, Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, under the bishop of Rome; and the vicariate of Italy containing seven provinces, under the bishop of Milan. In deference, however, to a name which was become so venerable as that of Rome, the precedency, or, as it was also called, the primacy

of its pastor, seems to have been very early, and very generally, admitted in the church. But that for some ages nothing further was admitted, would have been at this day universally acknowledged an indisputable historical fact, had not many learned and indefatigable writers found it their interest to exert all their abilities to perplex and darken it. It was difficult, however, for wealth and splendour, the genuine parents of ambition, to rest satisfied with so trifling a pre

eminence.

Besides, many fortunate incidents, as the minions of Rome no doubt thought them, contributed greatly to assist and forward her ambitious schemes. The council of Sardica, about the middle of the fourth century, at the time that the Arian controversy inflamed and divided the whole Christian community; this council, I say, after the oriental bishops were withdrawn, was, by Osius bishop of Cordoua, a zealous defender of Athanasius, and a firm friend of Julius bishop of Rome, who was on the same side with him in the great controversy then agitated with such furious zeal, was induced to make a canon, ordering, that if any bishop should think himself unjustly condemned by his comprovincials and metropolitan, his judges should acquaint the bishop of Rome, who might either confirm their judgment, or order the cause to be re-examined by some of the neighbouring bishops. In this Osius had evidently a double view: One view was, to confer an honour on his friend Julius; the other, to give an additional security to the clergy of his own side. In those times of violence and party rage, bishops who, on the controverted points, happened to be of a different side from their colleagues in the same province, and especially from the primate, were sometimes, for no other reason, very tumultuously and irregularly deposed. A revisal of this kind seemed then, at least, to secure the final determination in favour of the orthodox, (an epithet which, in church history, commonly expresses a concurrence in opinion with the majority), whose doctrine was at that time vigorously supported by the Pope. This end, however, though probably the principal, it does not appear to have answered. The eastern bishops paid no regard to the acts of a synod, from which they thought they had the justest reasons to separate themselves. Nor

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