III.

who instructed them, the preachers themselves, ap- CHAP. peared men of great endowments, of unparalleled piety and virtue; men of the most unblemished lives, who they saw every day lay down" those lives in the defence and maintenance of the truth of that doctrine which they preached, against all the temptations of interest and worldly advantages; and for which they could receive no benefit or recomperice but what they were to receive in another world. The consideration and view of this, with the brightness of their manners, wrought so much upon all who were converted by them, that they looked upon them as inferior only to him whose messengers they were; and were so transported with reverence to their persons that they gave up their lives by their examples, disposed their estates by their directions, built churches by their advice, and in all things which concerned their fortunes so totally referred it to their determination, that all other judicatories ceased, and nobody was looked upon as a good Christian or an honest man that would not refer any difference he had had with any neighbour to the judgment of the clergy. And that they might not be disturbed in or diverted from intending wholly all offices of piety and charity, they were exempted from all impositions and charges whatsoever, and had all such privileges granted to them as the primitive devotion and simplicity thought requisite for such excellent per

sons.

conferred

by the peo

This extraordinary virtue and piety in the first Privileges planters of the Christian religion was (as hath been upon them said) the true foundation and original of all the rights ple, conand privileges of the Church and the clergy; and as soon as Constantine was converted, he confirmed all Constan

enlarged by

tine.

CHAP. the liberties and privileges of which the Church and

III.

founded.

་་་

churchmen were possessed before from the voluntary devotion of the people, and added new and important concessions to them, and ordained that the clergy should be judges in all causes whatsoever though of never so temporal a nature: and so, probably by his example and that they might be more acceptable to him, as soon as ever any prince became Christian (though it appeared not in any other actions of his life or manners) he was very active and solicitous Churches for the building of Churches, (which many impious men did,) and immediately confirmed all the old and granted new privileges to the Church and to all ec clesiastical persons; by which they then came to have a title to all they claimed which could not be shaken by their original founders, when the first zeal that begat it was exceedingly decayed, and when the views of churchmen grew as notorious as their prudence and piety had been eminent. This is manifest by the records which are yet left with all the nations who were first Christian, between which (at what distance soever they were) there seemed a correspondence or rather an instinct and sympathy dictated from nature in the joint reverence they had for their clergy, who were in all places assigned to principal part in the government of all kingdoms and states, and quickly obtained in most of the provinces Clergy be of Europe the stile and appellation of the third estate. them a great ascendant in the government, which together with their faculties made them very necessary and of signal authority with the crown itself. Nobody can believe that this prerogative was granted to them by the Pope, who doth not yet pretend to any such power, even in those regions which

come the

third estate in most parts of

Europe.

This

gave

9900

ΤΟ

M997 are

are newly converted, and in some degree by his own CHAP. ado. missionaries, but that it was settled in the first constitution or institution of all Christian governments,

as necessary to the peace and security of it; and le dogodi when they had that, they were not capable of receiving any addition of benefit from the Popes, but were always very vigilant and jealous upon the first visible Jealous of improvement of their power, that the Popes might power. not invade their interests, and rob them of those zuotivilor me advantages which they had never conferred upon them.

the Papal

of the cler

I wish it were in my power to conceal the too soon Corruption decay of this primitive affection and zeal for the Church and religion; or to shew that it proceeded not from the decay of learning and virtue in the clergy, and from their eminent ignorance and the improbity of their lives, which made too much haste to TIPTORUMIRA TO &WSIV pull down or deface the memory and the monuments of their predecessors' sincerity and merit: so that the power and authority which the people had first given, and the princes afterwards confirmed, grew grievous and even odious to their founders and bene

A

factors. Though there was in truth no age in which
Tot bon zo
there were not in every Christian region some pre-
låtes and other clergymen of that extraordinary and
transcendant knowledge, (for the dark times in which
they lived,) and that singular perfection and integrity
Pou squide
in their lives, which still uphold the credit and repu-
tation of the purity of the religion they professed
yet the scandalous laziness and ignorance and ini-
quity of others (even of some Bishops as well as of
Y Водо
the common and inferior clergy) did so much dis-

SVIJE

credit it, that the power of
power of the Church and the clergy

seemed more active in disturbing and almost dissolv

III.

CHAP. ing the practice of religion and the peace and tranquillity of kingdoms than it had formerly been in the establishing the one or composing the other; neither was there any seditious attempt against the sovereign power in any country, nor any unjust and tyrannical encroachment and oppression upon the peace and quiet of the subject, to which the clergy did not contribute too much.

Charlemagne introduces

authority

Charles the Great himself (when he had done so great things and had settled his own authority and the Papal the Pope's according to his wish in Italy) was sensiinto France, ble of this temper or distemper in France and all his other dominions. The assemblies of the clergy (which they called councils, and were often called by the bishops or metropolitans without so much as the privity of the kings) had usurped or exercised a very extraordinary jurisdiction, and assumed a power of judging in cases of all natures as if there had been no other judicatory in the kingdom. Nor was this latitude of authority always applicable to the King's purposes, but did as often thwart his designs as advance them. To remedy these excesses this great Emperor could not find a better expedient than by introducing a superior ecclesiastical power into France, which with his help might control that of his own bishops; and to this he found less opposition in his dominions in Germany, where our countryman Boniface (as hath been said before) had with the elements of religion infused such a reverence The Ger- towards the Bishop of Rome that the ecclesiastics man clergy had signed an engagement in writing, by which they ligation to were not only obliged to preserve the catholic faith, Church of but also to remain united and obedient to the Roman the Pope. Church, and to the Vicar of St. Peter. This was the

sign an ob

obey the

Rome and

7

14

III.

first declaration of that kind that had been heard of CHAP and embraced by any temporal authority. King Pepin his father, when he had gotten the upper hand of all his enemies, (towards which he had committed and countenanced horrible outrages,) and intended to place himself in the throne, (which his father never durst attempt,) yet could not rely upon the affection of the bishops of France, who were chosen by their chapters as the abbots were by their monks.) So that though the King's recommendation found usually much respect in those promotions, yet they had not so much dependance upon the crown as they afterdwards came to have; and therefore before Pepin would accept the crown, which the convention of the states offered to settle upon him, and to depose Chilvderic their King, he made use of the Pope's benignity for a dispensation of that oath of fidelity which himself had taken to his King, and likewise for absolving all the subjects from their obedience; both which the Pope very cheerfully granted and performed, and Hikewise declared Childeric to be unfit and incompetent to govern. Over and above this, when he came into Italy, Stephen the Second crowned and conseolerated with his own hands Pepin and his two sons; exhorting the French to pay them all fidelity, and excommunicating them from that very time in case they should ever choose any King but of that race; which stupendous proceeding, never before heard of, 99terrified much all the small neighbour princes and theirs bishops and clergy. And now the Emperor (after repeating and confirming all the generous acts his father had performed on the behalf of the Church, and adding so many favours to them himself, and being made Emperor and his eldest son [crowned. 10

F 4

King