to its object, it is manifest that his attachment was more to the form than to the power of religion, to the name than to the thing. His aim was not so much to turn men from sin to God, and from vice to virtue, as to bring them by any means within what is called the pale of the church, and, consequently, under the dominion of its rulers; to draw them from the profession of paganism to the profession of Christianity. If this was effected, he cared not though they remained more than half heathen still. His zeal was exactly that of those Pharisees who compassed sea and land to make a proselyte, which when they had accomplished, they rendered him twofold more a child of hell than themselves. Witness the advice he gave to the monk Augustine, who had been sent into Britain for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, not to abolish their paganish ceremonies, but rather to adopt them, and give them a new direction, that so the conversion of the people might be facilitated, and their relapse to the superstition of their fathers prevented. The plain language of this conduct is, If they are but called Christians, and are subjects of the church, to which they yield an external conformity, it matters not what sort of Christians they are at bottom, or how much of the pagan they may still retain in their heart, principles, and conduct.

I must own, that this turn of thought has a very natural connexion with that kind of zeal which has for its object the erection or preservation of a hierarchy, or what is called an ecclesiastical polity. With zealots of this stamp, a bare exterior will serve the purpose. Obedience, whether voluntary or extorted; attachment, whether sincere or dissembled ; submission, whether it proceed from love or from fear— equally, as in other worldly polities, tend to support the secular honours and emoluments of the different orders which are the great pillars of the fabric.

This kind of zeal is, in like manner, the true source of persecution for conscience sake, and of a maxim inseparably connected with the principle of intolerance, that the end will sanctify the means. That Gregory had, through the misfortune and error of the times, thoroughly imbibed both these principles, will never be doubted by any person who with

judgment and impartiality reads his history. Indeed, in the sacrifices which he made, as appears from the above observations, of truth, humanity and integrity, we can hardly at present, though the maxim were admitted, consider the end as having goodness enough to justify the means. His object in the contest with the Constantinopolitan patriarch about the title of universal bishop, was not the advancement of Christianity, or so much as the profession of it; it was not the enlargement of the pale of the church, or the increase of the number of her nominal children; it was purely the honours and pre-eminence of his see. But such was the infatuation of the times, that even this was become, in their imaginations, an important and a religious object.

Nor was this the case only with the see of Rome, though it was evident that she had drank most deeply of this spirit, but, in some measure, of every particular church. It was become a popular and plausible cloak for the pride and ambition of churchmen, that they acted out of a principle of zeal for the dignity of the see with which they were entrusted; that is, said they, for the honour of the founder. This was thought to be of great weight, if the founder happened to be a saint in the calendar; of greater still, if he was, or (which is all one) if he was believed to have been, a scripture saint, or an evangelist; and greatest of all, if an apostle. They acted on the supposition, that they could not more effectually ingratiate themselves with their patron, though in heaven, than by exalting the church he had erected or endowed upon the earth, above the churches erected or endowed by others, and, consequently, in exalting him above his fellow-saints. They, in this way, were disposed to excuse their interferences with one another, thinking it reasonable that each should do his best for the saint to whom he was most indebted, and who, from being the founder, commonly became the tutelar saint of his diocese or parish. And then, as to the idea they supposed those saints to entertain of the dignity of their respective churches, it was altogether secular, or suited to the apprehensions of mere men of the world. This dignity consisted not at all in the virtue and piety of the parishioners, but in the opulence and pre-eminencies of the clergy; in the

extent and populousness of the parish or diocese, the magnificence of the churches, sacred utensils, and vestments; particularly the rank, the titles, the privileges, the prerogatives, and the riches of the pastor.

It is true, the apostles, when on this earth, before they were fully instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven, and the spiritual nature of the Messiah's government, were found contending with one another who should be greatest. And it is equally true, that their Lord and Master severely reprehended their conduct, and taught them, that unless they were converted, and acquired a very different disposition as well as different sentiments concerning true greatness, far from being great in that kingdom, they should never enter it. And it is to be believed, nay, their conduct demonstrates, that they were soon after far superior to thoughts so grovelling, to an ambition so ill adapted to their profession. But from the sentiments which gradually sprang up in the church, on the decline of true knowledge and genuine piety, men seemed universally to be convinced, that in these squabbles for greatness, eminence, and precedency, the apostles and saints were still as keenly engaged in heaven as ever they had been on the earth; and that they could not be more highly gratified, than by the successful struggles of their clients here in maintaining their respective honours and pre-eminencies.

Nor does any person seem ever to have entered more into these views than the celebrated Pope Gregory. He was ever holding forth the prerogatives of St Peter, (who was, in his time, acknowledged as the founder of his church), nor did he make any ceremony of signifying, that this prime minister of Jesus Christ, like other prime ministers, would be most liberal of his favours to those who were most assiduous in making court to him, especially to them who were most liberal to his foundation at Rome, and most advanced its dignity and power. So much for St Gregory, and for the nature and extent of Roman papal virtue.

LECTURE XVII.

In the preceding lecture I illustrated, at some length, in the instance of Gregory, one of the best of the Roman pontiffs, how far the maxim could go, of reckoning every thing just and lawful by which the papal power could be advanced, and the supremacy of Rome secured. But it was not in one or two ways only that they showed their attention to the aforesaid maxim, but in every way wherein they could apply it to advantage. I have also observed to you some of their other practices of the like nature and tendency. The only artifice I shall consider at present, is the claims which Rome so long and so assiduously affected to derive from the prerogatives of the apostle Peter, the pretended founder of that see. I have hinted at this, by the way, once and again; but as it was one of her most potent engines, it will deserve our special attention.

In my first discourse, on the rise of the pontificate, I showed sufficiently how destitute this plea is of every thing that can deserve the name of evidence, and observed, that the first pontiff who seemed directly to found the honours of his see on the privileges of Peter, was Pope Innocent, about the beginning of the fifth century. As to the apostolic age, and that immediately succeeding, there is not a vestige of either authority or precedency in the Roman pastor, more than in any other bishop or pastor of the church. Nor is this to be imputed to a defect of evidence, through the injury of time, in relation to the point in question. So far from it, that, next to the sacred canon, the most ancient and most valuable monument we have of Christian antiquity is a very long letter to the Corinthians from a bishop of Rome, Clement, who had been contemporary with the apostles, and is mentioned by Paul in one of his epistles. So much the reverse do we find here of every thing that looks like authority and state, that this worthy pastor, in the true spirit of primitive and Christian humility, sinks his own name entirely in that of the congregation to which he belonged, and does not desire that he should be considered otherwise than as any other individual of the society; a manner very unlike that of his

successors, and quite incompatible with their claims. The letter is titled and directed thus: "The church of God, which sojourns at Rome, to the church of God, which sojourns at Corinth." The words of the congregation were then considered as of more weight than those of any bishop, even the bishop of Rome. Nor is there, in the whole performance, any trace of authority, lodged either in him or in his church, over the church of Corinth, or, indeed, over any person or community. In every part he speaks the language, not of a superior to his inferiors, a master to his servants, or even a father to his children, but of equal to equal, friend to friend, and brother to brother. He uses no dictating and commanding; he only exhorts and entreats. To the contraveners there are no menacing denunciations, such as have for many centuries accompanied the papal bull, of the vengeance of Almighty God, and the malediction of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul. The modesty of the style of this truly primitive pastor, is an infallible index of the modesty of his pretensions; and, let me add, a very strong evidence of the great antiquity and perfect authenticity of the epistle.

The first who appeared to claim any thing like authority was Victor, bishop of Rome, (or Pope, if ye please to call him so, though that name was not then peculiar), who lived near the end of the second century. This man, the first noted stickler for uniformity, quarrelled with the Asiatic bishops for following a different rule in the observance of Easter, or the feast of the passover, from that followed in the west. This festival appears from the beginning to have been distinguished by Christians, not on its own account as a Jewish solemnity, in commemoration of their deliverance from Egypt, but on account of its coincidence, in respect of time, with those most memorable of all events, the death and resurrection of Christ. In the east, they were accustomed to observe the 14th day of the first month, on whatever day of the week it happened: In the west, when the 14th did not fall on Sunday, they kept it the first Sunday after. When Victor found that the Orientals were no more impelled by his menaces than persuaded by his arguments to relinquish the custom they had been taught by their founders, and to adopt implicitly the Roman practice, he, in a rage,