their distinct Belief of the Resurrection wore out that Aversion among the Christians which the ancients even the Israelites themselves had for dead Bodies and Graves TO finish the Character of these first XXV Their Bishops Priests Clerks Times I must necessarily add a Word or two concerning the Pastors and Ministers of the Church Origen making the Comparison before mentioned of the profane Contr. Cels iii. p. 130. Ecclesias with the Christian Churches openly Avers it as a thing undeniable That those who preside over the Christian Churches had in reality that Eminency of worth and Vertue above others which the Magistrates of Cities had only in Name and shew and this he speaks in his Book against Celsus where he had ridiculously exposed himself to the Heathens had not the thing been manifestly So. 'T is indeed plain Matter of Fact The one and thirty Popes who filled up the three first Ages were all but two of them Martyrs and during the six Ages following to the ninth Century there are not above three or four of them whom the Church hath not acknowledged for Saints Most of the Bishops mentioned in History for the three first Ages stand upon Record for singular Examples of Vertue and Piety so that the Emperor Alexander Severus Lamprid in Alex. proposes the Christians Method of chusing their Clergy as an Example of the Care which ought to be taken of enquiring into the Manners and Qualifications of all Persons to be admitted into publick Employments They chose therefore Tertul. Ap. c xxxix v. Orig. Contr. Cels lib. 8. in fi Cypr. Ep. 33 34 35. to put into the sacred Functions those Christians whose Sanctity was more Eminently remarkable and whose Vertue was the most approved This honour was ordinarily the recompence of such Confessors whose Faith had been sufficiently proved by Torments such were Aurelius and Celerinus whom St. Cyprian made Readers the last of whom had his Body deeply marked with many Scarrs for the Testimony of his Constancy besides that his Grandmother and his two Unckles were glorious Martyrs Such was Numidicus the Priest who exhorted and perswaded many others to suffer Martyrdom and his own Wise among the rest was himself led with them to the place of Execution and there left for Dead Cypr. Ep. xxxiii The Bishop often chose his Clerks at the instance of the People at least not without their Knowledge and always with the advice of his Clergy But whether the Persons themselves to be Ordained were desirous of it or not that they little regarded They did not only not wait till they should offer themselves to Ordination but many times partly by force partly by Artifice constrained them to take holy Orders upon them even against their own Will so that some Persons so ordained could never prevail with themselves to exercise their Functions Cypr. ep 68. The Bishop was chosen in the presence of the People by the Bishops of the Province Assembled together in the vacant Con. Ap. viii â— 4 c. Church at least to the number of two or three of them for it was not easy in those times to hold great Synods unless in the Intervals of the Persecution and therefore sometimes the Sees of the ancient Greg. Tur. x. hist c. 31. Churches have continued vacant a long time together The Ordinations were always preceeded Act. xiii 2 3. v. Bar. an xliv n. 74. by a Fast and accompanied with Prayers These Prayers were generally continued from the Saturday-Eve to the Sunday following all that Night they passed in Watching and Praying and the next Day came on the Ordination the principal Ceremony whereof hath always been the Imposition of Hands The Ordination was followed by the Sacrifice The Bishop ordained no more Priests Deacons or other Clerks then just so many as were necessary for the Service of his Church that is to say for all his Diocess This number was not great since in the time of the Pope St. Cornelius Euseb vi Hist. c. 43. Anno Christi 250 the Church of Rome had but forty six Priests and but one hundred fity four Clergy of all sorts though the People belonging to it were vastly numerous The Bishops were Lib. Pontifical much more numerous in Proportion every City that had any considerable number of Christians in it had also its Bishop Hence it is that in the Lives of the first Popes we find more Bishops ordained by them than Priests They ordained Priests only for their own Diocess but made Bishops for the greatest part of Italy The Clergy depended entirely upon the Bishop living under his direction in the nature of Disciples and 't was his business to instruct and Discipline them to advance them from one Degree to another and allot to every one their different Functions according to the different Talents he found in them The young Martyrs that suffered with St. Babylas Martyr xxiv Jan. iii. Feb. xxx Apr. de S. Laurent xi Mai. de S. Valente St. Blaesus and with some other Saints were manifestly some of those which were breeding up for holy Orders The Clergy ordained by one Bishop could not without his permission quit him to go serve under another and one Bishops so receiving another Bishops Clergy would have been condemned as a kind of Can. Apost xiv Theft Yet this Authority of the Bishops over their Clergy was no Arbritrary and Despotick 1 Pet. v. 3. Power but a Government mixed with Love The Ecclesiasticks shared some part of the Authority with the Bishop since he did nothing of Importance without their Advice The Priests especially were consulted with who made as it were the Churche's Senate The Priests were so Venerable and the Bishops so Humble that to common appearance there was but little difference between them Nay the Clergy had some kind of Authority over the Bishop himself being the continual Inspectors both of his Life and Doctrine They attended on Const Apos ii c. 28. him in all his Publick Functions as Officers do on the Magistrate or rather as Disciples on their Master For the Clerks were to the Bishops as the Apostles to Jesus Christ his constant Attendants If therefore any Bishop should have presumed either to Teach or Practise any thing contrary to Apostolical Tradition the more elderly of the Priests and Deacons would presently have Remonstrated against it They would first in a Friendly manner have Advertised him of his Error if that took no effect they would have made their complaints against him to the other Bishops or at last have accused him before a Council The greatest part of the Clergy led the Ascetique Life feeding onely on Pulse or dry Dyets Fasting often and practising other such like Austerities as far as the great Labours of their Callings would admit of Above all Continence was in a more especial manner required of Bishops Priests and Deacons Not but that Marryed Persons were often advanced to
these Orders For how could they have found amonst the Jews and Heathens that were Dayly Converted to Christianity any considerable number of Persons that had preserved an absolute Continence to their advanced Years It was much to find those that had confined 1 Tim. iii. 2. themselves only to one Wife in that liberty which the Jews and other Eastern People took of having many Wives at once and the custom of Divorce Universally admitted which put them often upon changing their Wives But when a Marryed Person was made a Bishop he began from that time forward to look upon his Wife only as his Sister And to the same Rule hath the Ep. Dccret Siricij ad Himer c. vii Can. Apos vi Latin Church all ways kept her Priests and Deacons Yet they were still obliged to provide for their Wives and not to cast them off as Strangers And the Women out of Regard to the Dignity of their Husbands were somtimes called Presbyterae by the Name of Priestesses In Greece and the East this strict Rule of Continence Episcopae came in Course of time to be less and less regarded But in no place whatsoever Can. Neocaeâ— i. did the Catholick Church ever allow a Priest to Marry after his Ordination If he did he was for his Incontinence Degraded of his Order and reduced to the State of a simple Laick As for the Inferior Clerks as Readers and Door-keepers they were commonly Marryed Persons and Cohabited with their Wives So that a great part of them passed their whole Lives in these lower Orders at least they continued in them for many Years till they either lost their Wives or else by mutual Consent they agreed to Separate from each other in order to the leading a more perfect Life Yet was Marriage always spoken of by Christians as an Honourable State And that the rather because there were some Hereticks who professed an Abhorrence of it and others who Absolutely condemned all second Marriages as Unlawful All the Clergy even to the Bishops themselves Lived after a Poor at least a Plain and Ordinary manner having no thing as to outward appearance to Distinguish them from the common People In the Persecutions as they were the Persons the most sought after they had no mind to make themselves known by their Habit or any other marke of their Profession If in any thing they Differed from the common People t was in appearing more like the Philosophers Many of them had parted with all their Temporal Possessions to the Poor before their being advanced to Holy Orders and many of them again after their Ordination still continued like St. Paul to Live by the Labour of their Hands Not that they were obliged so to do The Church always took care of her Clergy supplying them with all Necessaries out S. Cypr. Ep. xxxiv of her common Treasure And accordingly every Clerk received either Weekly or Monthly a certain Distribution either in Money or of Provisions in Specie answerable to the Exigencies of their Condition or the Quality of their Office For the Clerks of an higher Station and consequently charged with greater Labours received according to the precept of St. Paul more liberal Allowances 1 Tim. v. 17. Some there were also that kept their own temporal Estate together with their Spiritual Dignity St. Cyprian at the Pont. Diac. Hortos time of his Martyrdom had still left him a little Country-Farm the only Reserve he made to himself out of the vast Possessions he had quitted The Pastors and Clerks rendred themselves no less amiable by their Charity and their Application to the Services of Religion than they were Venerable for other Excellencies The Bishop dispenced not with himself from performing the Dutyes of his Place in Person presiding always at the publick Prayers Expounding the Holy Scriptures and Offering the Sacrifice on all Sundays and Stationary Days He and his Priests found themselves always fully Employed and never wanted Work to Instruct the Catechumens Comfort the Sick Exhort the Penitents and Reconcile such as were at Variance For to them it belonged to make up all Differences They would Const Apost ii c. xlv 46 c. 1 Cor. vi by no means allow what St. Paul had expresly Forbidden that Christians should bring their Causes before the Heathen Courts and they that would not Submit V. Patres apud Baron an lvii n. 37. 38 c. Tertul. Apol c. xxxix to the Arbitration of the Bishops were Excommunicated for Impenitent and Incorrigible But such Disputes could not often happen among Christians so Disinteressed so Humble and Patient as they were Munday was ordinarily the Day which the Bishop took to determine Differences so that if the Parties should not readily Acquiesse in the Sentence they might yet have time before them to Moderate matters and bring them to a Right understanding before the Sunday following when they were all to meet again in the Church and Pray and Communicate together On the Day of Hearing the Bishop seated in his Chair the Priests sitting down by him and the Deacons attending the Parties Presented themselves before him respectfully standing on their Legs in the midst of the place of Audience After having heard the Cause he first did all that was possible to Reconcile them each other and to perswade them to make up the Difference in a Friendly manner between themselves before he pronounced Sentence At the same time also they heard Complaints and received Informations against Persons accused of not leading their Lives like Christians The Bishop was fully entrusted with Const Apost ii c. xxiv 25. the Churches Treasure all which lay absolutely at his Disposal Nor were they under the least Apprehension of its being Misapplyed Had they had the least suspicion of his Integrity and Uprightness they would never have committed to his Care the Government of Souls a concern of Infinitely greater Moment than Const Apost xli all Earthly Treasure T was to him therefore that all who stood in need of Relief were to apply themselves He was the Father of the Poor and the Refuge for all in Misery and Distress After all this what Wonder is it that their Prelates should be so beloved and Respected by the Faithful as they were 'T is observed of St. Polycarp that he had not for many Years together pulled off his own Shoes the Faithful that were Epist. Eccles Smyrn near him always offering themselves and Ambitiously Courting the Honour of that humble Office So that he had not of a long time before done it with his own Hands till at his Martyrdom as he undrest himself and prepared for the Stake Acta S. S. Hippolyti c. Apud Baron an 259. n. viii Acta S. Sus. an 294. n. viii 10. 12. Their usual way of Approaching their Priest was to Prostrate themselves before them Kiss their Feet and in that Supplicating Posture crave their Blessing And the
An Historical ACCOUNT OF THE Manners and Behaviour OF THE CHRISTIANS And the Practices of CHRISTIANITY Throughout the SEVERAL AGES OF THE CHURCH Written originally in French by Msr. Cl. Fleury Praeceptor to Monseigneur de Vermandois and to the Dukes of Burgundy and Anjou LONDON Printed for Thomas Leigh at the Peacock against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1698. THE PREFACE THE Learned Author of this Book gives several Instances of his Ingenuity and Candor He recommends some Primitive Practices that justifie our Reformation Particularly the continual reading and studying of the Holy Scriptures Speaking of the Ancient Christians he says that they studied the Word of God in private Meditating upon it Day and Night They read over in their Houses what they heard at the Church Masters of Families took care to repeat those Expositions of Scripture they had Learnt from their Pastors Many Lay-Christians could say the Holy Scripture by heart They generally carried a Bible about with them and many Saints have been found Buried with the Gospel lying on their Breasts Women no less than Men read the Holy Scripture and in the Persecution regretted nothing so much as the loss of their Bibles Parents took such care to Instruct their Families that in all Antiquity we find no Catechism for little Children nor any publick provision made for the Instruction of those that were Baptized before they came to Years of Discretion Every private House was then as a Church He observes that St. John was the Chief in our Saviour's Affection Jesus Christ had a particular Kindness for his Disciples and for his Apostles and among them for St. Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee and for St John above all the rest He does not found the Preference of the Blessed Virgin upon Blood and natural Relation but upon the Endowments and Qualifications of her Mind Notwithstanding the most tender Affection which JESVS CHRIST had for his Mother He seems sometimes to have expressed himself harshly towards her and reproved the Woman that Blessed her barely upon the account of her being his Mother and declared that he owned no other for his Mother and Kindred but they that did the will of his Father He knew what that great Person was able to bear and was willing to let the World see that Flesh and Blood had no share in his affections Mr. Fleury well observes that the Church of Jerusalem which JESUS CHRIST with his own Hands began to Build upon the Foundaion of the Synagogue was the Root and original of all other Churches He seems in nothing more to censure the Reformation than in what he writes of the Celibacy of Priests altho' Platina a Contemporary with Aeneas Sylvius tels us that that Learned Pope Pius II. used to say ' There was great reason for Prohibiting Priests to Marry but greater for allowing it again And Mr. Fleury writes thus of the Primitve Christians they knew but two States Marriage or Continence They generally made chocie of the Married State having no good opinion of the Celibacy of the Heathen tho' they preferred the State of Continence as knowing its Excellency and often found a way of Reconciling both these States into One for there were many Married Persons who yet Lived in Continence They considered Marriage as an Emblem of that Union which is between Christ and his Church They knew that the Relation of Father and Mother was an High and Honourable Character as being the Images of God in a more peculiar manner and co-operating with him in the Production of Men. It is Certain by the Gospel that St. Peter was a Married Man Tradition tells us the same of St. Philip the Apostle and that both of them had Children and it is particularly observed that St. Philip gave his Daughters in Marriage Among the Rules they give for the Education of Children this is one that to secure their Virtue they should timely dispose of them in Marriage And they advised those that out of Charity Bred up Orphans to match them as soon as they came to Age and that to their own Children rather than to Strangers so little did they regard Interest What He says of their Communicating in both Kinds publickly Reading the Holy Scripture always in the Vulgar Tongue The Custom of Sitting in their Churches the Length of their Sunday-Service is also Remarkable When they reserved part of the Sacrament as a Viaticum for Dying Persons that which they carried Abroad was only the Bread tho' in their publick Assemblies all in general Communicated under both Kinds excepting little Children to whom they gave only the Wine All the Lessons of the Scripture were Read in the Vulgar Tongue i. e. in the Language Spoken by the better sort of People in every Country During the time of the Lessons and Sermon the Audience was regularly Seated the Men on one side of the Church and the Women on the other When all the Seats were filled the younger sort of People continued Standing In Africa St. Augustin takes notice that the People stood all Sermon-time but he better approved the Custom of the Transmarine Churches as he calls them where they heard Sitting Their Litnrgy must needs have been very long Indeed Christians did not then think that they had any thing else to do on Sundays but to serve God St. Gregory to shew how much his Strength was decayed says that he was scarce able to keep himself standing for those Three Hours while he performed the Office of the Church and yet his Sermons that are left us are very short What Mr. Fleury says of the Compassion the Church had for Hereticks must not be omitted because nothing seems more to have encreased the scandalous Divisions of Christendom than severity The Church Interceeded in behalf of her own Enemies We have many Epistles of St. Augustin where he Begs the favour of the Magistrate in the behalf of the Donatists convicted of horrid violencies and even Murders committed on the Catholicks He pleaded that it would be a dishonour to the Sufferings of the Murdered to put to Death the Authors of them and that if they could find no other penalties for them but Death they would thereby bring themselves to that pass that the Church who delighted not in the Blood of her Adversaries would not dare to demand Justice against them This was a general Rule that the Church should never seek the Death of any Man They were content that Christian Magistrates should Correct or over-aw Hereticks by Banishment or Pecuniary penalties but they would have their Lives Spared And the whole Church declared against the proceeding of the Bishop Ithacius who Prosecuted the Arch Heretick Priscillian to Death Yet the Bishops could not always obtain the Pardon they desired for these sort of Offenders no more than they could for others Princes to preserve the publick Peace Enacted the penalty of Death against Hereticks and their Laws were sometimes put in Execution If in these latter Ages the
such as made his Persecutors themselves admire He who with a Word Speaking could have confounded his Accusers the false Witnesses and his Judges themselves yet he opened not his Mouth and that because he knew they were not disposed to hear any thing in his Justification Upon the Cross it self and under the last Agonies of his Suffering he still Maintains the same firmness of mind the same Freedome nay the same Tranquillity of Spirit He Prayed for them that put him to Death he recompenced the Faith of the good Thief he took care to provide for his disconsolate Mother he fully accomplished the Prophecies he recommended his Spirit to God The Apostles after their having receiv'd the Holy Ghost appeared in the World as so many Living Images of Jesus Christ and as it were Transcripts of that Original according to which the Faithful were to form themselves Nor do they stick to declare as much Be ye followers of me saith St. Paul even as I am of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. and again Be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for Phil. 3. 17 an ensample So that though they diligently applyed themselves to Teaching they did it more by their Examples than by their Discourses Among the Faithful the Apostles chose out some select Persons whom they made their Disciples and upon whom they bestowed more full and distinct Instructions using them as they themselves had been used by Jesus Christ These their Disciples in particular always attended their Persons living in the same House with them Eating at the same Table and Lodging in the same Room At least t is after this manner that the Author of the Recognitions describes St. Peter to have Lived with his Disciples Nor is this Tradition as will afterwards appear lightly to be rejected These Disciples accompanied the Apostles in their Travels and as new Churches were established had the Government of them committed into their Hands Thus we find St. Peter attended by St. Mark whom he calls his Son by St. Clement so famous throughout all the 1 Pet. 5. 13. Churches St Evodius who succeeded him at Antioch St. Linus and St. Cletus who succeeded him at Rome With St. Paul we find St. Luke St. Titus St. Timothy and the same St. Clement With the Apostle St. John we find St. Polycarp and Euseb 3. hist c. 38. St. Papias These Saints took care to preserve the Doctrine of the Apostles rather in their Memory than in writing and to teach it more by their Practices than by their Discourses And thus imitating their Masters they made themselves as St. Paul expresses it the examples of Believers 1 Tim. 4. 12. Tit. 2. 7. in Word in Works in Faith in Charity in Purity in Gravity and in all manner of holy Conversation Besides these Disciples after the same manner took to themselves other Disciples whom they formed and Disciplined as they themselves had been by the Apostles Qualifying and Capacitating them also to do the like to others This is the charge given by St. Paul to Timothy The things which thou hast heard of me among many Witnesses the 2 Tim. 2. 2 same commit thou to faithful Men who shall be able to teach others also But to return to those that were taught and governed immediately by the Apostles themselves and particularly to this Church of Jerusalem which Jesus Christ had begun with his own Hands to build upon the Foundation of the Synagogue and which was not only the Example but also the root and Original of all others Let us see therefore after what manner the Scripture describes unto us these first Believers They continued stedfastly in the Apostles Act. 2. 42. Ibid. 43. Doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers All that believed were together and had all things common and sold their Possessions and Goods and parted them to all Men as every Man had need They continued daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from House to House they did eat their Meat with gladness and singleness of heart Praising God and having favour with all the people and again The multitude of them that believed were of Act. 4. 35. one Heart and of one Soul Neither said any of them that ought of the things he possed was his own but they had all things in common Neither was there any among them Ibid. 34 c. that lacked for as many as had Possessions of Lands or Houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles Feet and distribution was made unto every Man according as he need And by the Hands of the Apostles Acts 5. 12. were many Signs and Wonders wrought amongst the People and they were all with one accord in Solomon's Porch And of the rest durst no Man join himself to them but the People magnified them And believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes both of Men and Women The summ of which description may be reduced to these following Heads amongst themselves Preaching Praying Communion mutual Affection Communication of Goods inward Satisfaction and from without the Respect Esteem and Favour of the People This first Church was composed of Persons of every Sex and Condition and grew quickly very numerous For there were three thousand Converted at the first preaching of St. Peter and five thousand at a second It is said more than once that the number of Believers encreased every Day and one Acts 21. 20 many thousand 't is â—n the Original Myriads passage there is that seems to imply as if there were many ten thousands of them They were the greatest part of them married Persons absolute Continence being a thing rarely practiced in those Days They lived separately for 't is said they went from house to house breaking bread that is Consecrating and distributing the Holy Eucharist yet they lived in common reducing all they had into ready mony which at first the Apostles and afterwards the seven Deacons distributed to every one according to his need and with such fidelity and discretion did they manage this affair that there were no Poor amongst them Here therefore was to be seen a visible and real Example of that Communication of Goods and living in common which the old Legislators and Philosophers looked upon as the most proper means of making mankind happy but without ever being able to bring it into practice 'T was to Arist polit lib. 2. compass this and that Minos in the first times of Greece would have established in Creet his Tabulae Communes and that Lycurgus took such Precautions to banish from among the Lacedoemonians all excess and the use of Riches But Plato pushes his Idea of Community a little too far when to leave nothing uncommon he was for taking away the distinction of Families They well saw that to make a perfect Society there must
be left no Meum and Tuum no room for private and separate Interests But they could onely make use of Penalties to constrain or Arguments to perswade Men to accept of their Regulations and therefore all their labour was in vain 'T was only the Grace of Jesus Christ that could change the Hearts of Men and cure the corruption of their Natures Thus this Communication of Goods among these Christians of Jerusalem was the pure effect of that singular Charity with which the Gospel had inspired them which made them all Brethren to each other and as it were of one and the same Family where out of one and the same Estate the Father provides for all his Children and loving them all equally suffers none of them to want They had always before their Eyes the Commandment of Jesus Christ of loving one another so often repeated by him and particularly the night before he suffered making this the distinguishing Character by which all men were to know that they were his Disciples But that which obliged them to sell their Possessions and reduce all into ready Mony Joh. 13 35. was our Saviour's Command of forsaking all that they had which they practised not only in the inward disposition of the Heart in which terminates the obligation of this Precept but in reality of Fact according to that Counsel of our Saviour If thou wilt be perfect go and sell all that Ma. 12. 21. thou hast and come and follow me For a Aug. de Catech. Rud. C. 23. man more effectually secures himself from being incumbred with the things of this Life if he really parts with them than he can be while he keeps them in his Hands Besides they considered that our Saviour had foretold the Destruction of Jerusalem Ma. 24. 34. and that he had limited the time of it to be before that Generation should pass away which made them willingly clear themselves of all the concerns they had either in that accursed City it self or in the Country belonging to it devoted to Destruction So that the Believers living in common was a practice peculiar to the first Church of Jerusalem and suitable to the condition of those times and Persons For it would have been an hard matter at least Humanly speaking for so numerous a Church to have long Subsisted without the support of some fixed Fund and Revenues that were certain and by the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul we see that during the short time of its continuance Act. 24. 17. it stood in need of Relief from other Churches and that out of all the 1 Cor. 16. 3. Provinces there were remitted considerable summs for the use of the Saints at Jerusalem And yet St. Chrysostom so Hom. 11. in Act. long time after sticks not to propose this Example of Believers living in Common as a thing still Practicable and as a means of converting all the Infidels 'T is to be supposed that these Saints of Jerusalem Laboured with their own Hands since in so doing they did but follow the most perfect examples of Jesus Christ and his Apostles nor can we suppose any thing too perfect of them And this was also a considerable means of supplying their want of fixed Revenues 'T is said that they continued stedfast in the Doctrine of the Apostles and they are commonly called by the Name of Disciples from their applying themselves to the Learning of the Doctrine of Salvation both by hearing the Apostles who made frequent Discourses to them and diligently Instructed them both in Publick and Private delivering to them the same saving Truths they themselves had received from the Lord And likewise in reading the Holy Scriptures and conferring upon them among themselves 'T is added that they continued in Prayer and that they went Dayly to the Temple assembling themselves in Solomon's Porch and there with Act. 3. 1. one accord joyning in Prayer The Example of St. Peter and St. John going up together into the Temple at the hour of Prayer being the Ninth hour makes it probable that they then observed the same hours of Prayers which the Church hath Baron an 34. 12. 250. always since kept to As to their outward way of living they conformed themselves to the rest of the Jews observing all the Ceremonies of the Law even to the Offering of Sacrifices which they continued to do as long as the Temple was standing And this is what the Father 's called Giving the Synagogue an honourable Interment Aug. ep 19. After Prayer the Scripture takes notice of the breaking of Bread by which there as in several other Places of the New-Testament is signifyed the Eucharist They Celebrated this Mystery not in the Temple where they could not be at liberty enough to do it and where the Christians were intermixed with the Jews but in private Houses with onely the Faithful amongst themselves It was attended as the Peace-Offerings under the Law with a Repast the use of which continued for a long time amongst Christians under the Name of Agapae which Word signifies Love as much as to say Love-Feasts It is said that these Feasts were accompanyed with Gladness and singleness of Heart And indeed all the Faithful by their Humility Simplicity and Purity of Heart were as so many little Children Innocent and Inoffensive And by their renouncing the vain hopes and Enjoyments of this Life they cut off all occasions of Vexatious and Disquieting Passions as leaving no matter for them to work upon and having their Thoughts wholly taken up with the hopes of Heaven and the expectation of the Kingdom of Christ which they looked upon as very near at hand And if we cannot without wonder so much as Read that little which the Scripture hath left to us in Writing concerning the first Church we may easily imagine how much they must have been beloved and admired by those who were the Spectators of their Vertues This first Church Subsisted at Jerusalem for near the space of forty Years under the Direction of the Apostles and particularly of St. James their Bishop till the Christians seeing according to the Predictions of our Saviour the Judgments denounced against that unhappy City near approaching Seperated themselves from the Unbelieving Jews and retired to the little City of Pella where they enjoyed a safe retreat during the Siege of Jerusalem II. PART IN the mean time there were formed several other Churches in divers parts of the World Composed both of Jews and Gentiles which though they came not up The time of the Persecutions The state of the Gentiles before their Conversion to this height of Perfection yet were great Examples of Vertue and Holiness especially if we consider the state of the Gentiles before their Conversion They who are unacquainted with the History of past Ages are apt to imagine that the Men who lived in the World sixteen hundred Years ago were more simple more innocent and
to give Money to save themselves from being Persecuted And thus by suffering in their Estates they shewed how much less they valued their Temporal concerns than their Spiritual But if any one gave Mony to procure Cypr. Ep. lii ad Anconian Libellatici false Certificates that he had obeyed the Emperors Edicts he was counted in the number of Apostates this being a tacit owning of himself an Idolater The Rules of the Church forbad a Man voluntarily to expose himself to Martyrdom or the doing any thing which might provoke the Heathens and occasion Persecution as the overthrowing their Idols Firing their Temples speaking Contemptuously Orig. Cels viii of their Gods or publickly opposing their Superstitions Not but that there are Examples of holy Mattyrs that have done such like things and of many others who declared themselves and owned their Religion But those extraordinary Persons we must suppose to have been acted by a special impulse so that their singular Examples are not to be drawn into Precedent The general Const Ap. v. c. v. Rule was not to tempt God but to wait with Patience till one was Discovered and called upon by Authority to give an account of his Faith In this matter there were two opposite Haeresies to be avoided the Gnosticks on the one hand and the Marcionites on the other the Gnosticks and Valentinians decried the suffering of Martyrdom as a needless thing alleadging Baron an cxlv n. iii. c. x. an ccv n. xii c. that Christ had died to save us from Death not distinguishing what kind of Death it was that Christ died to save us from They pretended also that flinging away our Lives was to affront God who since he refused the Blood of Bulls and Goats it was not likely that he should delight in the Blood of Men. The Marcionites on the other hand causelesly Bar. an cxlvi n. xii ran themselves upon Martyrdom out of their hatred of the Flesh and of the maker of it who they said was the evil Principle So that the Church found it necessary to make inquiry into the Principles of those that had suffered Death for the Faith to know upon what Grounds they proceeded and whether they deserved to be Honoured as Martyrs and Bar. an cccii n. c. xxvi this seems to have given the Original to Canonisations When the Christians were Apprehended they were caried before the the Magistrate and by him Interrogated in open Court If they denied themselves to be Christians they were generally dismissed upon their own bare Word For they knew that those who were true Christians would never deny their Faith or that if they did once deny themselves to be Christians they would effectually cease to be so Yet sometimes for greater Assurance they made them do upon the spot some act of Idolatry or utter some Contumelious Word against Jesus Christ If they confessed themselves to be Christians then they endeavoured to beat them off from their Constancy first by Perswasions or Promises then by threatnings or if neither of those prevailed at last by Torments They tried also to surprize them into the involuntary Commission of some Impiety and then to make them believe that they had already Renounced their Religion and that 't was now too late to Recant As they were brought upon their Trials in the Court there were always standing near them some Idol and Altar There the Heathens offered Victims in their Presence and tried to make them eat some part of the Sacrifice wrenching open their Mouths and forcing down their Throats some bit of Flesh or at v Can. xiv Petr. Alex. to i Conc. p. 967. Acta SS Tharaci Probi Andron an 290. Mat. xv ii 18. least some drops of Wine offered to the false Gods And though the Christians well knew that not that which goeth into the Mouth defileth a Man but that which proceedeth out of the Heart yet for fear of giving the least occasion of Offence to those that were weak in the Faith they resisted with all their Might Some having live Coals and Incence clapped into St. Cyrilla Martyr v. Jul. their Hands together held them burning there for a long time least in throwing away the Coals they should at the same time seem to offer the Incence The most usual Tortures they were put to was to stretch them out at Length Eqvuleus upon the Rack or Wooden Horse with Cords tyed to their Feet and Hands and drawn at both ends with Pullies or to Hang them up by the Hands with heavy weights fastned to their Feet to beat them with Rods or great Clubs or with Whips stuck with sharp peices of Iron which they called Scorpions or with Thongs of raw Leather or Leather loaded with Balls of Lead so that many of them Dyed under the Blows Others they stretched out at Length Burnt and tore their Flesh and Skin asunder either with Pincers or Iron Curry-Combs so that they often Bared them to the very Ribs and opened the Hollow of their Bowels till the Fire pierced into their Entrails and Choaked them to Death To make their wounds yet more intolerable they some times rubbed them over with Salt and Uinegar and as they began to close up Rip't them open again During all the time of their Torments they were still putting Questions to them and every thing that was Spoken either by the Judge or by the party Suffering was taken down in writing Word for Word by the publick Notaires So that upon every Tryal there was left upon Record a verbal Process far more exact than any of those made now a Days by the Officers of our Courts of Justice For as the Ancients had the Art of Writing by Abreviatures or a sort of short Notes where every single Character stood for a word they wrote as fast as they Spake and took down precisely the very self same Words that were Utter'd making every one Speak directly and in his own Person whereas in our verbal Processes all the Discourse runs in the Third-person and the whole is put into order and worded by the Register These verbal Processes were what they called Acts. The Christians were very careful to get Copies of these Processes against their Brethren And out of those Acts as well as from what they themselves who were present farther observed were the Passions of the Martyrs reduce into Writing and thus Authentically engrossed and preserved in the Churches At Rome St. Clement set up Lib. Poncif in Clem. seven Notaries every one of which had the Charge of this Affair and two Quarters of the City assigned him And St. Cyprian gives it as a special Direction to Cypr. ep xxxvi his Priests and Deacons that they should carefully note the particular Day on which every one suffered Martyrdom The greatest part of these Acts of the Martyrs were lost in the Diocletian Persecution and though Eusebius Cesariensis had made a great Collection of them yet
those whose Employment it was to Dance or Sing in Publick in a Word all retainers to the Theatre all who had any part in or were much addicted to the publick Shews all Jugglers Enchanters and Diviners of what sort soever all dealers in Charms or Spells used either by way of Cure or Preservative all that exercised any sort of Heathenish Superstitions none of these sort of People were received into the Church till they had first quitted their evil Practices nor were their bare words taken for it till they had given substantial Proofs of the sincerity of their Conversion and that for some considerable time When a Person was judged duly qualified The Catechumens to become a Christian he was made a Catechumen which was done by the Imposition of Hands either of the Bishop himself or of some other Priest by him appointed to that Office who at the same time signed him with the sign of the Cross and Prayed over him That God would grant him the Grace to benefit by the Instructions should be given him and to behave himself so as to be become fit to receive Holy Baptism He continued two or three years in this State of a Catechumen which is a kind of Probationership He was present at the Publick Sermons of the Church to which even the Infidels were admitted But besides the publick Preaching there was an Order of Catechists whose proper business it was to inspect the Catechumens and instruct them in the first Rudiments of Faith without entering into deeper Mysteries which these Novices were not yet judged able to bear The time allowed for this institution of them was longer or shorter according to the Proficiency of the Catechumen Nor did they regard only his understanding in the Doctrinals of Religion but marked whether he mended his Manners and they let him continue in this State till they saw he was perfectly become a new Man Hence it came to pass that many deferred their Baptism till they were at the point of Death For they never gave it but upon Desire tho' they often exhorted People to ask it They who desired Baptism and were thought qualified at the beginning of Lent gave in their Names to be entred in the Roll of Competents or Illuminated for these Competents were distinguished from the other Tertul. de paenit init Hier. advers Jo. Hier. Photizomeni Catechumens They fasted the forty Days as the rest of the Faithful and then they were more fully instructed and the Creed was explained to them and particularly the Mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation They were from time to time brought to the Church to be there publickly examined in the presence of the Faithful to have the Exorcisms made over them and the Prayers of the Church on their behalf This is it they call the Scrutiny which continued to be observ'd v. God Sacram edit Rom. 1680. ord Rom. Missa Fer. iv post Domin iv Quadrag ibi durand for many Ages even toward little Children and some traces of it appear still in the Office of the Church At the end of Lent they were taught the Lord's Prayer and well informed of the Nature of the Sacraments they were then about to receive which were afterward to be explicated to them more at large This order of Instruction plainly appears in the Catechisms of St. Cyril of Jerusalem and in one of Fulgentius's Sermons Fulg. Serm 78. After all these Preparations they were at last solemnly Baptized either on Easter-Eve to put them in mind of rising up with Christ to newness of Life or on the Eve of Pentecost that they might then with the Apostles receive the Gift of the Holy-Ghost For at the same time that they received Baptism they had Confirmation also Baptism was regularly Administred only upon those two Feasts but in case of danger they Baptized at any time The new Baptized of what Age soever they were were called by the name of Children They wore during the whole first Week the white Robe they had received at their Baptism in token of the Innocence wherein they were to walk all the Days of their Life Nor might Tertul. de cor c. iii. they during that time wash themselves in any of the ordinary Baths From that time forward they were freely admitted to all the parts of the Church service Constantine having put an end to the Eus x. Hist c. iii. Persecution one might have seen as Eusebius relates it in all Parts of the World Dedications of Churches and Assemblies of Bishops The dispersed Christians now meet together again The Churches were now in all places frequented more than ever The Psalmody the Celebration of the Mysteries and all the Ceremonies of Religion were performed with greater Solemnity then ever So that this is the proper place to speak of their outward form of Worship Let us begin with the Description of the ancient Churches according to the best Account we can gather both out of the oldest Writings and the oldest Buildings that are left us THE Church was separated as much XXVIII The form of the Churches their ornaments as possibly they could from all profane Buildings and placed at a distance from noise surrouuded on every side with Courts Gardens or Buildings belonging to the Church At the first enterance v. Euseb Hist Eccle. x. c. iv de vita Const lib. iii. cap. 34 35 c. 50 lib. iv c. 58. Propylaeum Paulin. ep xii Natal x. S. Greg. iv Dialog c. xiv you saw the Porch or outer Vestibulam which led you into the Peristilium or square Court surrounded with covered Galleries standing upon Pillars such as the Cloysters of our Monasteries are at this Day Under these Galleries stood the Poor that were permitted to Beg at the Door of the Church and in the middle of the Court were several Fountains for them to wash their Hands and Faces at before Prayers in the room of these Fountains succeeded afterward the Holy-Water Pots At the farther end of this Court was a double Porch and through it there was a passage by three Doors into the Hall or Basilique which was the Body of the Church I call it Double because there was one without and anothere within which the Greeks called the Narthex Near the Basilique on the inside were generally two Buildings the Baptistery at the Entry and at the other end the Sacristry or Treasury called also Cellae the Secretarium or Diaconium Along the sides of the Church were often placed Exhedrae little Chambers or Cells for the convenience of them that had a mind to retire and meditate or Pray by themselves So that they were in effect so many little Chappels The Basilique or Church was Parted into three Divisions proportionable to its Largeness by two rows of Pillars supporting the Galleries on each side and the Middle between these Galleries was the Nave as we see it in all Old Churches Toward the
the House of God or the House of the Lord they rarely made use of the name of Temple and never within the Compas of my reading of Delubrum or Fanum The names of Particular Churches were often taken from their Founders as at Rome the Titulus Pastoris the Basilica of Liberius or Sixtus which is now St. Mary the great or from the Ancient Name of the House as Basilica Laterana Afterwards they came also to make use of Churches built by the Heathens when they found them fit for the use of Religion So in Rome they Converted the Pantheon the Temple of Minerva of Fortuna Virilis with some others into Christian Churches The Churches were not only large and Beautiful as to the make of them but also looked after with great care and always kept Neat and Clean. St. Jerome Epist de fun Nepot gives a special Commendation of Nepotian the Priest for the care he took of keeping his Church in good order The Walls dry and free from Smut and Mould the Pavements rubbed the Sacristy clean the Vessels shining the Door-keeper always upon his Office This was the busines of the inferior Officers under what Name soever they went as Door-keepers Mansionaries Camerarii Sacristans and Cubiculari Aeditui there was a great number of these Officers in the larger Churches We may see Pontific Rom. V. Baron an lviii n. 102. yet in the form of Ordination what was the proper charge of the Ostiaries They were at the Regular Hours to give notice for Prayers and consequently it belonged to them to Ring the Bells when once the use of Bells was brought into the Church which was about the seventh Age. It was their business to open the Church Doors at the usual time and to stand at them upon their Duty to keep Infidels or Excommunicated Persons from Entring They kept the Keys and took care that nothing was lost We find in Dial. i. c. v. iii. c. xxiv Paul Nat. iii. vi the Dialogues of St. Gregory that the Mansionaries had the charge of the Lamps 'T was these Inferior Officers that Dres't up the Church against the more solemn Festivals either with Silk Tapesteries or other rich Hangings or only with Boughs and Flowers In a Word they were to do every thing that was necessary to keep the Holy Place fit for making Impressions of Reverence and Piety upon those who approached it All these Functions appeared too Considerable to be permitted to pure Laicks So that 't was thought necessary to Establish these new Orders of Minor Clerks on purpose to ease the Deacons and to take off some part of their Charge THOUGH t' is true the Christian XXIX Devotion assisted by Sense Religion is altogether Inward and Spiritual yet Christians are Men as well as others and therefore not above the power of Sence and Imagination Nay we may say that the greatest part of Man-kind scarce Act or Live upon any other Principle How few apply themselves to Operations purely Intellectual and they that do so find their thoughts easyly Diverted from Spiritual Objects Devotion therefore must be assisted by the Impressions of Sense Were we Angels we might Pray in all places alike in the hurry of the Roads in the Crowd of the Streets in the Noise of the Guard-Chamber in the Roaring and Riots of a Tavern over the Stenches of a Common-Shore Why then do we shun these places of Distraction and when we would be Devout seek after Silence and retiredness but only as a Remedy against the Impotence of Sense and Imagination 'T is not God that hath need of Temples and Oratories but We. He is equally present in all Places and always equally ready to hear us everywhere but we are not always in a frame of Spirit fit to Speak to him So that 't is a needless and useless peice of Work to Consecrate particular places to his Service unless they be also put into a Condition proper to assist our Devotion Let us Suppose for Example that which we see too often in these later Times a Church so ill Scituated that it Ecchoes with the Noises of an Adjacent Street or a Neighbouring Market and so nastily kept that one can scarce sit down or kneel in it for Dirt suppose it thron'd with such a Herd of People promiscuously crowded together that they who attend upon Prayer are every Moment justled and trampled upon by others pushing on their way through them and continually interrupted with Children's Crying or Playing Loud Beggars Bawling about their Ears Add to this that you have nothing before your Eyes but disagreable Objects the Walls covered over with a filthy Smut and Mouldiness the Pictures disfigur'd with Dust and Cobwebbs and placed in an ill Light the statues of a deformed Make or half of them broken off and the other Ornaments in as ill a condition In fine to omit nothing offensive to sense for Incense an horrid fume of stinking Vapours and for Musick a multitude of untuned Voices jumbled together in Croaking Sounds It will be much easyer for a Man to Pray in an open Field or in a lone uninhabited House then in such a Church as this On the contrary let a Man go into a Church well built beautifully adorned and neatly Kept where all things are still and quiet the People well placed and the Clergy performing the Office in a regular manner and with a becoming Reverence and Humility he will find himself insensibly Engaged to attend the Service he is upon with a composedness of Thought and be able to Pray with the Heart at the same 1 Cor. xiv 14. time he speaks with his Lips Of this the Bishops of the First Ages were very sensible Those Holy Persons were either Greeks or Romans many of them great Philosophers all of them trainep up in the nicest observance of all the Rules of Decency They knew that the order Grandeur and agreeableness of exteriour Objects have a natural Efficacy in them of exciting in the mind Noble pure and well regulated Thoughts and that the Affections follow those Thoughts But that 't is next to impossible to keep the Soul Intent upon that which is good while the Body is uneasy or the Imagination disobliged They thought Devotion a matter of that Importance that it required all the assistance which could handsomly be given it and therefore took care to have the publick Services of the Church especially that of the Sacrifice Celebrated with all possible Majesty and the People assisting at it accommodated with all imaginable Conveniencies that so they might be brought on to take delight in the House of Prayer and to approach it with Reverence And they were at the same time sufficiently Cautions also to keep out of the Holy Places all the Extravagances of a Worldly Pomp all the appearances of a wanton Vanity or whatsoever might have a tendency to Effeminate the mind or strike the Senses with dangerous Impressions 'T was not their design to
Flatter Sense but to assist it This will better appear in describing the whole Form and Manner of their Outward Worship THEY offered the Sacrifice every Sunday XXX Their Liturgy and outward Form of Worship V. S. Epiph. haeres in fi Bona i. Liturg c. xviii on all the Feasts of the Martyrs on all Fast Days or oftner as the Custom of every Church in particular required They had also both upon Publick and Private occasions their Votive Masses Sometimes they had many Masses 〈◊〉 the same Day as when the Office of a Saint fell upon some other Festival or when there was a Burial It was always â—â—her the Bishop himself or one and the 〈◊〉 Priest that performed them all as it is still observed by us on Christmas-Day On Sundays and the other Festivals Mass was said about nine or ten of the Clock in the Morning on Fast Days later for V. Cod. Sacram edit Rom. 1680. they were not to eat on those Days till after Evening Service past three of the Clock in the Afternoon The Hour being come the People met together at the principal Church to attend the Bishop with all his Clergy to the place where the Station for that Day was appointed And after this manner the Bishop took his V. Ord. Ro. round and visited all his Churches one by one every one in its Course And that this Progress might be orderly made and in a full Body Processions were Instituted As they were entring the Church and taking their places the Choir sung a Psalm with its Anthem which from thence took its name of the Introit The Const Ap. ii c. lvii Deacons and their assistants the Subdeacons and Door keepers gave every one his place in order as they came so that all was done without any thing of Confusion being all seated there they prayed for some time in Silence every Man to himself then the Bishop Saluted the People and put an end to their private Prayers Pronouncing with a lowd Voice his publick Prayer which from thence took its name of the Collect. Then the Bishop seated himself on his Throne that stood at the very end of the Church and terminated the prospect of the whole Congregation Thus every Bishop was as it were the visible Image of 1 Cor. xi 1. 1 Tim. iv 12. Tit. ii 7. God in his Church placed there eminently as St. Paul expresses it to be the patern to his own Flock as Jesus Christ was to him The Priests were seated on each side about him some on the right hand and others on the left in the Semicircle of the Absis and next to them stood the Deacons Thus the Church seemed to resemble that Image of Paradise given us Apoc. iv by St. John in the Apocalypse The Bishop on his Throne with a Book in his Hand as the Fathers are commonly painted represented that Figure of a Man under which God appeared the Priests were that August Senate designed by the four and twenty Elders the Deacons and other Officers were the Angels standing always in a readiness to receive Ordo Rom. Apoc. viii iii. and execute the Orders of God Before the Bishops Throne stood seven Candlesticks and the Altar on which they offered the Incence that Symbol of Prayer Apoc. v. where they were afterward tho' under a borrowed form to offer the unspotted Lamb of God Under the same Altar were the Bodies of the Martyrs as under that St. John saw were the Souls of those to whom it was said That they should rest Apoc. vi ix Baron ad Martyr vi Jul. yet for a little Season And lastly the number of the Faithful which filled the other part of the Church represented the innumerable Multitude of the Blessed who being Clothed in white Robes and Apoc. vii 9. with Palms in their Hands sung with a loud Voice the Praises of their Marker Such was the Face then of their Church-Assemblies The whole Congregation being seated the Reader went up to the Desk and read a Lesson first out of the Old-Testament and after that another out of the new that is out of the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles for the reading of the Gospel was reserved to some Priest or Deacon To render these Lessons the more agreeable and to give the People leisure to meditate upon them and the Readers some respite there were intermingled with them Psalms Anthems and the singing of Allelujas which were afterwards placed before the Gospel All these Lessons of the Scripture were read in the vulgar Language that is in the Language spoken by the better sort of People in every Country For though in Africa the Punick Language was vulgarly spoken among the inferior sort of People in the time of St. Austin yet we do not find that it was used in the Church But in Thebais the Scriptures must needs have been read in the Aegyptian Language since St. Antony Vi. S. Ant. c. i. who understood no other was converted by his having heard the Gospel read in the Church In the upper Syria the greatest part of the Bishops understood nothing of Greek nor of any other Language but the Syriack as it appears by the Councils where they were forced to make use of Concil eph Concil Cal. ced Act. x. Interpreters AFTER the Lessons the Sermon begun XXXI Their Sermon the Bishop Expounded the Gospel or some other part of Scripture and often continued a course of Expositions upon some entire Book of the Bible from the beginning to the end or else passing over some part of it he made choice of the most important Subjects Of these continued Expositions we have Examples in many of St. Chrysostom's Homilies in St. Austin upon the Psalms upon St. John and upon the Epistles of St. Paul In St. Ambrose we have a selected Argument which begins with the six Days work in imitation of St. Basil then the Exposition proceeds to the History of Noah Abraham and the other more Illustrious Saints of the Old Testament but still observing the Order of the Holy Bible The greatest part of those Tracts and Commentaries of the Fathers upon the Scriptures are nothing else but Sermons preached to their People which they afterward reduced into Form or were taken down in Writing as they spake them by the Art of short Hand before mentioned These holy Preachers were none of your idle Haranguers like the Sophists of the Profane Schools who filled the World with endless disputes only out of a vain Emulation of Contradicting and refining upon each others Notions or like those who laboured in their Closet to shew their Learning and fine Parts These Prelates v. Aug. de oper Monach c. 29. Epis ad Diosc v. Synes Ep. 55. were laborious Pastors who had always their Hands full of business and were too intent upon the works of Charity to spend all their time in their Studies and they were principally employed upon that necessary
care that every one heard with attention not to suffer any body to Sleep Laugh Whisper or make Signes in a Word to keep every body silent Regular and Well behav'd In Africa St. Austin takes notice that the People Stood all Sermon time but August de Catechiz rud c. xxiii he himself better approved the custom of the Transmarine Churches as he calls them where they Heard Sitting The Sermon being over the Deacons Const Apost viii c. vi Conc. Laod. c. xix obliged all those who were not to receive the Sacrament to depart And in the first place the Audientes and Infidels Afterwards they made their Prayers for the Catechumens and caused them to Dionys. Hier. Eccl. c. iii. Chrysost hom iii. in ep ad Ephes. depart then they Prayed for the Energumeni or those that were Possessed with Evil Spirits and caused them to go out after that they did the like for the Competentes and at last also for those under Penance Thus there remaining in the Church only the Faithful without any mixture they made their Prayers for the whole state of Christ's Church for all Orders and conditions of Men whether Ecclesiastical or Civil for all that were any ways Afflicted or Distressed for their Enemies and for their Persecutors The Deacon put them in mind whom they were then to Pray for and the Bishop pronounced the Words of Prayer after the same form and manner as is still observed in our Churches on Good-friday At other Masses we now supply these Prayers by those of the Prone Then the Bishop Saluted the People again and the Deacon said with a loud Voice Has any one any thing to object against any Man Is there here any one not heartily Reconciled Embrace one another Then as a sign of their being all in perfect Charity they gave each other the Kiss of Peace the Clergy by themselves and amongst the Layety the Men by themselves and the Women by themselves AFTER all these preparatorys began XXXII The Sacrifice and Sacred Habits the Sacrifice The Deacons assisted by the Subdeacons spread the Cloath on the Altar and upon another Table now called the Credence from that Italian Word signifying a Cupboard they set in order the Communion Plate and amongst the rest the Patens and Calices and for Decency and Cleanliness sake covered them with a Cloath over them Then as the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions Const Apost viii c. xii informs us the Bishop came to the Altar in a rich Habit. Which shews that they had even in those Days particular Habits for the Altar Not that those Habits had any thing singular in the make or Figure of them The Chasuble was a common wearing Habit in the time of St. Austin and the August 22. Civit. c. viii de Florentio Sartore Hippon V. ff devestim leg like we find of the Dalmatick in the time of the Emperror Valerian The Stole was a kind of Cloak and worn by Women as well as Men we have now confounded it with the Orarium which was a kind of Linnen Handkerchief worn by V. Thomass Discipl P. i. l. i. c. 31. P. ii l. i. c. xxiii those who affected Neatness to wipe the Sweat off their Necks and Faces And the Maniple was only a Napkin hanging Mappula cross their Arms for their more decent serving at the Holy Table The Albe it Surplice self that is the White Robe of either Linnen or Woollen was not at the beginning an Habit peculiar to Clerks since the Emperor Aurelian gave the People of Vopis Aur. Rome a largess of these kind of Tunicks as well as of those large Handkerchiefs which they called Oraria But as afterwards when the Albe was the common Habit of the Clergy in which they allways appeared the Priests were enjoyned to have by them one particular Hom. Leon. P. iv to viii Conc. P. xxxiv Constit Riculfi Suess c. 7. an 589. to ix Conc. Albe never to be put on but at the Altar that they might then appear unfullied So t is probable that when they commoly wore the Chasuble and the Dalmatick they had particular ones for the use of the Altar not differing in Shape from the common sort but of richer Stuffs and Livelyer Colours Above all the Canons require of the Priests and Deacons never to Conc. Brae iv c. iii. an 675. Conc. Laod. c. xii 13. perform the publick Offices of the Church without having on their Orarium the use of which was at the same time forbidden to the Inferiour Ministers They were willing that the Clergy even by their Figure and Appearance should give the People a great notion of their Character That their Faces their Hands and their Cloaths appearing clean and without spots might be a sign of an inward Purity and Innocence that the Modesty and Gravity of their Looks their Air and Motion might command Respect and excite Religion The Prelates were so Nice herein that St. Ambrose turned out of the number of the Clergy two Persons Amb. ii off c. 19. the one for an Indecent Mien and the other for an unseemly way of Walking And the event justifyed the judgment he made both upon the one and the other But here it must still be remembred that those Fathers were Greeks and Romans who had the highest Ideas of true Decorum and were polished to the greatest exactness The Bishop standing at the Altar took from the Hands of the Deacons the Oblations they had received from the People but in some Churches the Bishop himself Ordo Rom. went to receive the Offerings of the more honourable Persons such as the Senators and their Wives at Rome For all Persons Great and Small the Magistrates and Princes themselves Communicated together On the Altar was placed only Can. Apost iii iv the Bread and Wine which was to be the matter of the Sacrifice As for all other sorts of Oblations the Luminary the Money in Specie and whatsoever else the Faithful offered for the Occasions of the Church the Deacons received those and laid them up in Places appointed for that purpose 'T is true they laid upon the Altar the new Fruits to have a Benediction pronounced over them at the end of the Sacrifice They used for the Eucharist no other Bread but what was offered by the People and blessed by the Bishop and as a sign of Communion with those that were Epist deer Inocenti ad decentium absent they sent to them some of the Bread blessed but not Consecrated All the faithfull were obliged to offer at least all that were to Communicate nor was it thought reasonable that the Rich should Communicate of that which the poor offered The Bishop himself made his offering and to that purpose there was at Ordo Rom. Rome the Bishops Oblationary Subdeacon So that the Loaves of Bread came in there in such vast Numbers that the Altar was as is expressed
made an Exhortation to them putting them in mind of the mercies of God and of that newness of life which they ought to live in for the time to come requiring them in token of their Confent S. Elig hom viii 11. and promise thereunto to hold up their Hands At length suffering himself to be prevailed upon by the intreaties of the Church and being perswaded of the sincerity of their Conversion he gave them Solemn Absolution Then they shaved and polled themselves quitted their Penitential habits and began to live like the other Faithful There was without doubt great diversity in these outward Ceremonies according to the difference of times and places But they all tended to the same end and had a powerful Effect to make the offender sensible of the Enormity of sin and of the difficulty of recovering out of it and to keep those still within bounds who as yet had preserved their Innocence Should a Man saith St. Austin too easily return Serm. xxiv de divers to the Happiness of his first Estate he would look upon the falling into Mortal sin as a meer Triffle NO PERSON how great soever in XXXVII Christian Princes the World was exempt from Pennance Princes were as Subject to it as private Persons and the Example of Theodosius will never be forgotten in the Church In the foregoing Ages none could have believed that the great ones would ever have submitted themselves to the severity of the Churches Discipline They could not possibly conceive how the Humility and Mortification of a Christian could have been reconciled with absolute power and vast possessions 'T was this undoubtedly that made Tertullian say that Apol. c. xxi the Caesars had become Christians long before if they could have been at the same time Caesars and Christians and Origen Cont. Cels. L. viii speaks of it much after the same manner This strange work hath God at last brought to pass in the sight of the whole World And this is that mighty Change that gave Date to the Liberty of the Church that period of time I am now speaking of Presently upon the Conversion of Constantine the name of Jesus Christ was written upon the Roman Ensigns and his Cross displayed in the midst of their Armys That Instrument of the most Infamous Punishment was now turned into the most glorious Ornament of the Imperial Diadem The Emperor had an Oratory in his Palace where he shut himself up whole Days together to read the Holy Scriptures Observing the stated Euseb iv vita Const c. xvii xxi hours of Prayer and more especially on Sundays upon which he obliged the Heathens themselves to rest from their Labours He caused to be carryed in his Sozom. i. Hist c. viii Army a Tent in the form of a Church for singing Divine Service in and Administring the Sacraments to the Faithful and to that purpose he was always attended by some Priests and Deacons He Euseb iii. vita Const c. xlvii made Constantinople a City perfectly Christian The Eve of Easter was Celebrated there with a most magnificent Illumination not only within the Churches but without All over the City there were set up lighted Tapers or rather Pillars of Wax which gloriously turned the Night into Day In the principal Squares of the City one might have seen the Fountains adorned with the Images of the good Shepherd or of Daniel in the Lion's Den. There were no Idols or Temples of the false Gods to be found within her Walls Who knows not how Magnificenly Constantine treated the Fathers of the Nicence Council and the Honours he did them He furnished them with carriages Euseb iii. Vita Const c. vi vii to bring them from the most Remote parts of that vast Empire he defrayed their Expences all the time of their Session and sent them home Loaded with Presents He burn't the Bills of Accusation that had been preferred to him against the Bishops he Kissed the Scarrs of the Confessors that still had upon them the Socrat hist i. c. v. viiii marks of the Persecution he entred the Council without his Guards appeared there with a Modest and Respectful Air and did not sit down till the Bishops gave him a sign At the Conclusion of the Council he made a great Feast for them in his Palace and sate at Table with them Then it was that Jesus Christ was manifestly seen Reigning over the Kings of the Earth Theodosius the Great did yet more Honour to Religion and that by the practice of those vertues it requires He was much in Prayer apply'd himself to God in his greatest Affairs and ascribed to him the success of his Armes He had suffered himself to be transported into a Passion against Theod. hist Eccle. iv c. 17. the Inhabitants of Thessalonica The Sin was great but his Repentance was Proportionable and he valued none of the Bishops so highly as St. Ambrose because he found none that less flattered him His Empress hath also an high Character given her in History for her Piety and for her Charity towards the Poor The same Spirit run through the Family but shined forth most brightly in St. Pulcheria their Grand-daughter who at the Age of fifteen together with her two Sisters Consecrated herself to God by a Vow of Virginity and who without quiting the Court led a Life in it so retired so full of Business so Religious that the Writers of those times compared the Palace to a Monastery the Holiest thing they could think of In this School of vertue she caused to be brought up the young Emperor Theodosius Socr. vii c. 22. her Brother making him practice the same exercises of Religion with her self He rose constantly at the dawn of Sozom. ix c. i. Theod. iv c. 36. the Day to join with his Sisters in singing the Praises of God Prayed often frequented the Churches and presented them largely He fasted often principally on Wednesdays and Fridays His Palace was furnished with a choice Library of Ecclesiastical Writers He had the Holy Scripture by Heart and discoursed of it with the Bishops as readily as if he had been one of them himself He gave a great respect to them and had an honour for all good Christians He caused the Reliques of many Saints to be translated with great Pomp. He founded many Hospitals and many Monasteries His Sister did not only exercise him in the Practices of Religion but caused him to be taught with the greatest care all the Accomplishments proper for an Emperor He had the best Masters to instruct him in Learning and others to teach him the Exercises of Riding and Arms. He was used to the bearing of heat and Cold Hunger and Thirst She her self Tutored him in all the Rules of Decency and Deportment in his Habits in his Gestures in his Gate and Posture of walking She brake his practice of falling into loud and suddain fits of Laughter taught him how to
Processes made against them as in those against Nestorius in the Council of Ephesus and against Dioscorus in the Council of Calcedon They were given to Heretical Bishops and in the Conference at Carthage St. Austin makes no scruple of saying the most Holy Emeritus and the most Holy Petiliam though though they were Donatists It had been an affront to them to have denied them these Formalities of Respect The name of Papa or Pope that signifies V. Bar. Not ad Martyr x. Jan. Father which is more especially used when one would express the Endearments of that Relation was of a long time common to all Bishops of the Latin Church and in the Greek Church is still given to all Priests They were treated as Lords and nothing is more common in the fourth and fifth Ages than such like Superscriptions as these To the most Holy most Pious and most venerable Lord N. Bishop It was as I shewed before a common practice for People to prostrate themselves before them and kiss their Feet So that 't is not a thing so much to be wondered at that these extraordinary Honours should be performed to the Supream Bishop to whom the faithful have in all Ages paid a singular deference since the V. epist Innoc i. inter epist August other Bishops treated the Pope as their Father and he treated them again but as Brethren as is still done For the Church of Rome hath been of all others the most constant in preserving her ancient usages The regard which the Temporal Powers had for the Bishops gave them Authority to take upon them the Protection of Widows Orphans and all others whose case rendred them Objects of Compassion Particularly they made use of their Interest to beg the Lives of Criminals Not but that those Holy Persons had a Zeal V. Epist liv August ad Maced for Iustice but they knew there would be always too many left to be made examples of Severity and they laboured for the Salvation of Souls Whether the Condemned had been Christian or not before the favour procured to them by these hands could not but be a Powerful motive to draw them over both to Repentance and Baptism And this Delight in shewing Mercy made even the Heathens themselves in Love with the Church The Church interceded also in the behalf August Epist 100. 133. 134. 139. edit Nov. of her own Enemies We have many Epistles of St. Austin where he begs the favour of the Magistrate on the behalf of Donatists convicted of horrid Violences and even of Murders committed on the Catholicks He pleaded that it Epist 134. n. iii. iv would dishonour the sufferings of the Murthered to put to Death the Authors of them and that if they could find no other penalties for them but Death they would thereby bring things to that pass that the Church who delighted not in the Blood of her Adversaries would not dare to demand Justice against them This was a general Rule that the Church was never to seek the Death of any Man August Epist lxxxxiii ad Vincent They were content that Christian Princes should correct or overaw Hereticks by Banishment or pecuniary penalties but they were to spare their Lives And all the Church declared their Abhorrence of the proceeding of the Bishop Ithacius Sever. Sulp. lib. ii Baron an 385. who prosecuted the Arch-Heretick Priscillian to Death But the Bishops could not always obtain the Pardon they desired for these sort of Offenders no more than they could for others The Princes to preserve the publick Peace Enacted the Penalty of Death against Hereticks and their Laws were sometimes put in L. v. L. xi Cod. de Haeret Execution In the midst of all these honours and the high esteem the Bishops and Clergy then had it was still required of them to observe the rule of Poverty In Africa Conc. iv Carth. c. lii the Clergy how eminent soever they might be for their knowledg in the Word of God were enjoyned to labour with their Hands to Till the Ground or follow some other honest Employment whereby they might without any prejudice to their Function get enough for their own Subsistence that is to say a Competency for Food and Rayment But this one would take to be understood rather of the lesser Clerks than of the Priests and Deacons who were suffiiciently employed other ways Though some of them also follow'd V. Thomass Disc P. i l. 9. c. ix x. xi this Apostolical Counsel But from what Fund soever the Clergy were supported they were obliged always to shew themselves examples of a Christian Frugality and Moderation The Same Affrican Canons give it in Direction to the Bishops that they should content themselves with a moderate Table and Ordinary Furniture This Rule St. Austin faithfully observed One may guess what was his ordinary way of living since Posidius who hath given us the History of his Life observes this particular of him That besides Pulse and Herbs he would sometimes when he had Strangers to entertain have some Flesh-meat and Wine brought to his Table St. Paulinus in the Paul ep i. in fi same Age he who had quitted so vast an Estate had his Table served with Earthern Dishes and Wooden Porringers Of St. Martin t is observed that in visiting Sulpit. de vita S. Mart. his Diocese he commonly Rode upon an Ass and was but very meanly Habited St. Lupus of Troy St. German of Auxerne St. Lupus of Troy St. German of Auxerne St. Hilary of Arles were admired for their Abstinences and Fasting Of St. Epiphanius of Pavia 't is Recorded that he never used the Bath Eat no Supper and lived only on Herbs and Pulse In the East St. Basil Eat only Bread with a little Salt Drank nothing but Water and never wore above one Coat St. Gregory Nazianzen lived much after the same manner The Enemies of St. Chrysostom grounded one part of their Calumnies against him that he Eat by himself and lived very Reserved And he himself Censures a certain Bishop for wearing Hom. 9. in Epist ad Philem. Silks riding on Horseback and being attended with a large Retinue of Servants and that though he had a convenient Habitation he could not yet sorbear Building Which were almost the same Accusations with those that had been laid against Paulus Samasotenus in the Age Conc. Antioch ii an 270. before He was charged with living Voluptuously Eating to Excess being too richly habited and that he was attended as he passed about the City with a numerous Train more resembing the Pomp of a Magistrate than the Plainess of a Bishop And yet he was Bishop of Antioch the Capital of the East and the third City in the World They were so Accustomed to see their Bishops Modest and Humble that Malicious and Indiscreet People from thence took occasion to pass harsh Censures upon such as were not altogether so reserved St. Chrysostom complaines
of too hard measure the Bishops met with upon this account There are some saith he that think much a Bishop should go to the Bath that he should Eat or Hom. ii ep ad Tit. in fi Dress as other Men do that he should have a Servant to Wait on him or a Mule to Ride upon So Ammianus Marcellinus who Amm. Marc lib. 27. was a Heathen and strangly devoted to the Old Superstitions of the Pagan Religion forbears not to expose and aggravate the visible difference there was at the end of the fourth Age in the manner of their Living between the Pope of Rome and the Provincial Bishops As if it were so strange a thing and so much to be wondred at that the Bishop of the Capital City of the World should have his Coach Voiture to carry him from one Quarter to another of so large a City that he should go well Habited and keep a good Table to entertain the greatest Persons of the Empire 'T is certain however there were at the same time in the Provinces Bishops who by the Frugallity of their Tables the Poverty of their Habits and Modesty of their Looks rendred themselves amiable both in the sight of God and Man And thus much doth this Heathen Author himself own and declare of them and that there were the like examples in the great Citys is plain by the Instances I have given besides many more that might have been added THAT which makes this moderation XXXIX The Riches of the Church of the Bishops yet more remarkable is the vast Riches of the Church which immediately followed the ceasing of the Persecutions One would hardly believe what I shall say on this Head though the thing its self be never so certain and well attested All the Lives of the Popes from St. Silzvester and the beginning of the fourth Age to the end of the Ninth are full of Presents made to the Churches of Rome by the Popes by the Emperors and by some Private Persons And these were not only guifts of Gold and Silver Plate but Houses in Rome and Lands in the Country and that not only in Italy but in divers Provinces of the Empire I shall relate no more than what was offered by Constantine as Anastasius reports it from the Ancient Memoires that remained to his time He tells us that the Emperor built and oarnamented many Churches as first the Constantinian the same with the Lateran where he bestowed these gifts viz A Silver Tabernacle of two thousand twenty five pound Weight having in the front of it our Saviour seated in a Chair five foot in Heigth weighing one hundred and twenty pound and the twelve Apostles each of them five foot high and weighing fourscore pound a peice with Crowns of the purest Silver On the back side was another Image of our Saviour five foot high weighing an hundred and forty pound and four Silver Angels of five foot each and an hundred and fifteen pound weight set with with precious Stones He gave also four Crowns of the purest Gold that is circles with Candlesticks in them ornamented with twenty Dolphins of fifteen pound each Seven Altars of Silver of two hundred pound weight seven Patins of Gold of thirty pound each forty Calices of Gold of one pound each five hundred Calices of Silver of two pound each one hundred sixty Silver Candlestick forty of which weighed each of them thirty pounds the rest twenty pound apiece And many other Vessels In the Baptistery the Cistern or Font was of Porphyry overlaid with Silver to the weight of three thousand and eight pounds In it was placed a Golden Lamp of thirty pound weight in which were burning at once two hundred pounds of sweet Oyl a Golden Lamb of thirty pound weight pouring out the Water the Image of our Saviour of the purest Silver five foot high and of an hundred sixty two pound weight and on his left Hand a St. John Baptist in Silver of an hundred pound weight and seven Silver Harts casting forth with Water each of eight hundred pound set with two and forty rich Stones All that he gave to the Church and to the Baptistery amounted to six hundred seventy eight pound weight of Gold nineteen thousand six hundred seventy three of Silver And there going but twelve ounces to the Roman pound the whole amounts to one thousand and seventeen Marks of Gold and twenty nine thousand five hundred Marks of Silver which comes to about twelve hundred thousand Livers besides the Make or fashion counting the Mark of Gold at three hundred Livers and the Mark of Silver at thirty Livers Besides all this Constantine gave to the same Church and Baptistery in Houses and Lands to the Yearly value of thirteen thousand nine hundred thirty four Sols of Gold which comes to more than fourscore thousand Livers per. annum Counting the Golden Sol but at six Livers And all this was given to that one Church the Lateran He built seven others also at Rome that of St. Peter St. Paul the Holy Cross of Jerusalem St. Agness S. Laurence St. Peter and St. Marcellinus He made also great presents to that of St. Silvester's founding He caused to be built also one Church at Ostium another at Albanum another at Capua and another at Naples What he gave to all the Churches in Gold and Silver Plate amounted to one thousand three hundred fifty nine Marks and four ounces of Gold and twelve thousand four hundred thirty seven Marks of Silver which comes to near upon seven Hundred Fourscore Thousand Livers besides the Make The Yearly Revenues with which he endowed them amounted to seventeen thousand seven hundred and seven Solls of Gold that is to more than an hundred thousand Livers and to the value of above twenty thousand Livers in divers sorts of Perfumes which the Lands in Egypt were obliged to furnish in Specie and that counting them but according to the price they now bear which is incomparably less than what it was then The Church of St. Peter at Rome for example had Houses in Antioch and the adjacent Country it had Estates belonging to it at Tarsus in Cilicia at Alexandria and throughout all Egypt nay it had them lying as far distant as in the Province of Euphrates and part of the Lands stood charged to supply the Church with a certain quantity of the Oyl of Nard Balm Storax sweet Cane Saffron and other precious Drugs for the use of the Censers and Lamps To these we may add the Churches V Euseb de vitae Const lib. iii. c. 34. 35 c. c. 50. lib. iv c. 58 59. that Constantine and St. Helena his Mother caused to be built at Jerusalem at Bethlehem and over all the Holy-Land That of the twelve Apostles and the others which he founded at Constantinople for he was the Founder of all the Churches there that at Nicomedia that at Antioch which was proportionable to the Grandeur
There were many of them quickly erected in all great Cities It was ordinarily some Priest that had the Overseeing of them As at Alexandria St. Isâ—dorus under the Patriarch Theophilus At Constantinople St. Baron ad 31. Dec. 27. Jun. Zoticus and after him St. Sampson There were also some private Persons who erected Hospitals at their own Expences as St. Pammachius at Porto and St. Gallicanus at Ostia This St. Gallicanus was a Patrician Martyr 25 Jun. and had been Consul and 't was a sight that drew Spectators from all parts to see a Person of his Rank and Quality one that had worn the Triumphal Ornaments and could have boasted of his Friendship with the Emperor Constantine to see I say such a Person washing the Feet and the Hands of the Poor waiting upon them at Table and giving the Sick all sort of assistance The holy Bishops thought no expences too great that were bestowed upon so good purposes Besides they took great care about the Burial of their Poor and the Redemption of Captives who had been taken by the Barbarians as it often happened in the Declension of the Roman Empire For these two last sorts of Charity they sold even the communion Plate notwithstanding the Priviledge of Appropriation The instance of St. Exuperius Bishop Hiron ad Rustic 〈◊〉 Sept. of Tholose is very remarkable who reduced himself upon this score to such a degree of Poverty that he carried the Body of our Saviour in a little Basket and his Blood in a Calice of Glass And St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola having sold all Gregor iii. Dialog c. i. ii made himself a Slave to ransom the Son of a certain Widow so that those vast Treasures of the Churches the Gold and Silver with which they were Ornamented were deposited in the nature of a Trust till pressing Occasions as a publick Calamity a Petilence a Famine or the like should require it every thing gave place to the providing for the living Temples Jo. Diac. vita S. Greg. lib. iv cap. xliii of the Holy Ghost They redeemed also such as lived in Slavery at home or within the Empire especially such as were Christian Slaves to Pagan or Jewish Masters IN the last place it was after the XLI Monasteries Church had gained its Liberty that they began to found Monasteries Under the Persecutions many Christians had retired into the Deserts Principally those adjoyning to Aegypt and some passed the remainder Hier. vita S. Pauli of their Lives in them as St. Paul who is reckoned the first Hermit St. Anthony having for some time lead the Ascetique life near the place of his Nativity withdrew himself afterward into the Desert that he might with greater freedom and security pursue his religious Exercises upon being removed out of the Reach of all Temptations which might be occasioned by Society He was the first that gathered Disciples together in the Wilderness and there obliged them to live in common They were now no longer called simply Asceticks though in effect they led the same Life but went by the name of Monks that is to say Solitaries or Hermits to wit those that inhabit the Wilderness Those who lived together were termed Caenobites and those who having lived a long time in common and there learn't to conquer their Passions and afterwards retired to a more absolute Solitude they called Anchoretes And yet the Caenobites themselves lived very Solitary seeing no Soul but their own Fraternity being at the distance of many Days Journy from all inhabited Places in sandy Deserts whither they were forced to carry all necessaries even their very Water Nor did they so much as see one another save only in the evening and in the Night at their stated hours of Prayer spending all the Day at work in their Cells either alone or two and two together and always in profound Silence Besides as in those vast Solitudes they were not streightned for want of Room so their Cells stood at a considerable distance one from another St. Anthony St. Hilarian St. Pacomus and the others that followed their Examples did not pretend to introduce Novelties or outdoe all that ever went before them Their design was only to keep up the exact practise of the Christian Religion which they saw every Day more and more declining They always proposed the Asceticks that went before them for their Examples As in Aegypt those Disciples of St. Mark who as Cassian relates lived in the Suburbs of Cass ii Jnst v. 18 Coll. v. Alexandria close shut up in their Houses Spending all their time in Praying and Meditating upon the Holy Scriptures labouring with their Hands all Day and never eating but at Night They proposed for their imitation the Primitive Church of Jerusalem the Apostles themselves and the Prophets T was not an Hier. ad Paulin. item ad Rustic Affectation to make themselves admired for the extraordinariness of their Methods but an honest intention of leading the lives of good Christians This one may see through the whole Rule of St. Basil which is indeed no more than an Abridgement of the Duties of a Christian who would lead his Life according to the Precepts of the Gospel and which he lays down in general to all sorts of Persons He saith S. Basil reg fas n. xxii for example as to Habits that a Christian ought to content himself with such Cloathing as is sufficient for Decency and to defend the Body against Cold and the other injuries of the Air but to be as little incumbred as possible And therefore to be content with one Garment both for Day and Night a thing in the Country where he lived not impracticable There is very little in his Rule which is perculiar to Monks separate from the rest of the World That which was singular in the Monks was their Renouncing of Marriage and Chrysost ad fidel patr the Possession of Temporal goods and their Separating themselves from conver sation with the rest of the World either of the Faithful themselves or their nearest Relations As to the rest they acted but the part of good Laicks living by their Cass Instit v. c. 12. 16. c. 6. c. 7. Labours in silence and exercising themselves in getting the Mastery over their Passions by degrees So that having as 1. Cor. ix 25. 2 Tim. ii 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. v. viii St. Paul expresses it like resolute Combatants Striven for the Mastery and Striven Lawfully they might arrive to that Purity of Heart which might render them fit to see God Upon these Principles were all their Methods and Practises founded St. Chrysostom gives us a Memorable History of a Young Man whose Mother Ad fidel patr was desirous that he should become a good Christian and prevailed with a Vertuous Monk to take him into his Tuition This Holy Man to Instruct him more perfectly in the Duties of Religion causes
Court Solliciting the favour of the Prince to support their Party For the Hereticks omitted none of these Practises One might have seen the Monks transported with a mistaken Zeal leaving their Solitudes flocking to the Cities raising Seditions and committing unheard of Insolencies These disorders Reigned pincipally in the East where the Spirits of Men being generally of a more hot and inflexible Temper their Passions presently took fire and carried them to the highest Excesses In the mean time this mightily sunk in the eyes of the World the respect due to Persons Consecrated to Religion and consequently the honour to Religion it self The outward appearance of vertue in the Heathens was another Stumbling-block to the Weak For some there were that led lives Morally good Were true to their Word Just in their Dealing abhorred Fraud and Avarice in a Word Aug. in Io. tract xlv observed all the Laws and Rules of civil Society Pretending that it was sufficient for a Man to Live up to the light of Nature and follow the Law of right Reason without troubling themselves with those disputes which divided the Christians As if the Christians did not profess to follow the sovereign Reason that is the Word Incarnate These wise-Men of this World looked upon Faith as an instance of weakness a prejudice of the Understanding and reckoned Mortification a rigorous chastity forbearing of Spectacles and Profane Diversions as a piece of Superstition Now though Christianity was the Religion of the Prince yet the number of Pagans was still so great that there was no hindering V. Aug. Contra. advers leg proph of them from Writing and Speaking and Dogmatising publickly This freedom was a remainder of the Antient Pretensions of the Philosophers of which the Hereticks also well knew how to make their advantage All that the Emperors could do in these first times was Cod. de Pagan to shut up the Temples prohibit Sacrifices and the other publick ceremonies of Idolatrous Worship Nor could that be done without great Murmurings of the Pagans We know what Efforts the Senate made under Valentinian the Younger Ambros. ad Valentin de relat Symmach Epist xxxi to have the Altar of Victory Restored Some times they proceeded even to open Violence against the Christians who publickly opposed their Superstitions And Martyrol i. Jan. xvii Mart. xiv Aug. therefore we meet with some Martyrs even under the most Christian Emperors The Emperors themselves retained some Formalities of Paganism which in the Baron an 312. bottom were no more than empty Titles As the Name and Habit of the Pontifex Maximus or High Priest which gave them a great Authority over all the Magistrates So also they had the Title of Divinity Numen domus divina Saâ—rum aerarium Sacr patrim c. continued to them and every thing appertaining to it As their Palace their Treasure their Demesnes their Letters their Purple to all which was commonly added the Epithet of Sacred and Divine This Stile was necessary to keep up the Veneration of the People nor did any of the most Holy Christian Bishops ever scruple the use of it In the mean time the Pagans as to the generallity of them grew every Day more and more Corrupt All that hath been said before of the Vices that Reigned in the World when the Gospel made its first appearance was still the same and excepting some few of extraordinaty Force and Elevation and the Philosophers I just mentioned there was neither among the Greeks nor the Romans any remainder of Probity which could come up to a Counter-Ballance Thus matters stood when the Empire sunk in the West and though it continued longer in the East yet it was only till it met with the like violent Shock There was neither Discipline in their Armies nor Authority in their Commanders nor dispatch in their Councils nor Conduct in their management nor Vigor in their Youth nor Prudence in the Aged nor Love for their Country nor any concern for the Common-good every one minded himself only his own Pleasures and private Interests and basely either Neglected or Betrayed the Publick The V. Amm. Maroell lib. 14. lib. 28. Romans Effeminated by Sloth and Luxury defended themselves against the Barbarians by the help of Barbarians themselves whom they hired for pay to serve in their Armies They were Drowned in Pleasures and Delights and valued themselves upon a false Gallantry which had nothing solid at the bottom so that the measures of their Iniquities and Abominations being filled up God in his righteous Judgment executed upon them that exemplary punishment foretold by St. John Rome Apoc. 14. 18. was often taken and Sacked by the Barbarians the Blood of so many Martyrs with which she had made her self Drunk was avenged and the Empire of the West fell a Prey into the Hands of the People of the North who divided it into a set of new Kingdoms The Christians living among a People so perverse and so extreamly corrupt I V. Salvian de gubern Dei lib. vi vii mean these later Romans it was difficult to keep their Vertue from declining especially being no longer Strangers among the Infidels as in the times of Persecution having nothing now to guard against but their Friendship and Caresses 'T is no wonder therefore that we find the Fathers of the Fourth Age upbraiding Christians with the grossest Vices St. Austin dissembles August de Catech. c. v. vii 17. 25. not the Matter but plainly lets the Heathens disposed to turn Christians know before hand how great Sinners they were like to meet with even among the Christians themselves that so they might be the less surprized at them and consequently the less Scandal'd Among the Herd of them saith he that fill our material Churches you will find some Riotous some Covetous some Fraudulent Persons you will see there some Gamesters Adulterers Debauchees Play-haunters others who apply themselves to Diabolical remedies Enchanters Astrologers Diviners of all sorts And yet all these pass for Christians He frankly confesses to the Manichees that Aug. de Mor. Eccl. c. 34. there were even among the professors of the true Religion some Persons Sottishly Superstitions others so addicted to their vicious Passions that they never so much as thought of their Vows made to God He often speaks to the same purpose in many of his tracts against the Donatists where he clearly proves to them That the Tares must continue together with the Wheat Aug. in ps 99. c. 12 c till the time of Harvest that is the Day of Judgment And elsewhere he censures the Injustice of them who approve or condemn all Christians and all Monks in gegeneral for the good or evil of some particular V. Chrysost in Matth. hom 61. Idem de compunct Idem ad fidel patr Persons We find the like instances of the corruption of Christians in St. Chrysostom and the other Fathers of these times to what
purpose then may it be objected served the publick Pennances and Excommunications To purge the Church of a Aug. Enchirid c. lxxx great many Vices though not of all To the imposing of Pennance it was necessarily required that the Offender should desire it or at least that he should voluntarily submit to it so that he was obliged to acknowledge his Offence either by a free Confession of it himself or by acquiesing in the Accusation of others Excommunication was for those who would not accept of Pennance though they were convict either by their own Confession or by legal Proofs or by notoriety of Fact And yet after all the Prudent and Charitable Bishops did not hastily proceed to this last extremity They often admonished the Convicted Offender and put him in mind of the desperateness of his Condition upon persisting in Impenitence they earnestly exhorted him to get out of that dangerous State they spared neither Threats nor Intreaties to overcome the hardness of his Heart they lamented over him before God and obliged the Congregation to Pray for him they waited in expectation a long time imitating the Patience and long Suffering of Const Aâ— ii cap. 41. the Father of Mercies in a word 't was not till they had tried all the Methods of Charity that they proceeded to this sad Remedy and that with the grief of a Parent who to save the Life of his Son is himself forced with his own Hand to cut off his Arm. But as for those whose Crimes were private and concealed either known only to God or impossible to be proved there was no remedy against them They could not deny them entrance into the Church nor participiation of the Sacraments if they were so Sacrilegiously impious as to approach the holy Mysteries In former times the Persecutions were sufficient Trials to seperate the Chaff from the Wheat But when they ceased Hypocrisy was carried on to the last breath of Men. In the mean time the Church was a great sufferer by these lukewarm and corrupt Christians their evil Discourses and evil Examples were a scandal to Religion and their loose Conduct had a pernicious effect especially upon their own Families They did but ill instruct their Children and yet brought them to Baptism And this defect of Family Education was of great Consequence in these first Ages where we cannot find that there was any Catechism publickly appointed for the Instruction of Christian Children THE Ravages of the Barbarians who XLV The Incursions of the Barbarians and their manners overturned the Roman Empire had as pernicious an influence upon the Manners of the Church as the Corruption of the later Romans The Gospel which is the highest Reason rejects every vicious disposition as being inconsistent with it Neither the affectedly Ignorant the Knavish the Savage nor the Slothful can be good Christians Barbarity and Cruelty are as incompatible with true Religion as Luxury and Effeminacy Wars and Hostilities are as contrary to Piety as they are to Justice and all good Order So that Religion suffered deeply under those horrid Confusions Hier. in Iscap v. in fi al. Idem epist. de fun Nepotiani in fi ad Gerontiam ad Agenechiam brought upon the World by the Savage Nations of the North who like a Flood breaking in upon the Roman Empire over run it all St. Jerome and the other Fathers who lived in those times have left us a lamentable Description of them A Barba-Enemy destroying all before him their Towns taken by Storm and their Countries lying at the Mercy of the rude Soldiery 'T is easy to imagin with what distraction all Mens minds were filled what would become of their Lives and Fortunes of themselves and their families how to secure their Persons from Captivity and their Wives and Daughters from Violation These were pressing Considerations and violent Temptations to them to neglect their Spiritual concerns A Man must have been endowed with a very Heroick Resolution to maintain the Constancy of his Mind in the midst of the horrible Slaughters the dismal desolations and all the other terrible Ravages of a Brutish Conqueror We have still extant the Letters of St Basil and the more ancient ones of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus where we may see into what grievous Crimes the Christians were betrayed by the Incursions of the Barbarians into Cappadocia and the Pennances thereunpo enjoyned them When the Vandals wasted Africa that which most sensibly affected St. Austin was as Possidius relates it the hazards and loss of Souls by it He saw saith that Author the Churches for saken of their Priests and Ministers the sacred Virgins and the other Religious scattered abroad in the wide World some sinking under their Torments others put to the Sword others led into Captivity where having lost the honour of their Chastity the Integrity of their Conscience and the Orthodoxy their Faith they remained Slaves to their Brutal and unmerciful Enemies He saw the sacred Hymns and Praises of God given over in the Churches and the very Buildings themselves in many places levell'd with the ground That the Sacrifices and Sacraments were no longer sought after and they that did desire them could not easily meet with any capable of Administring them That the Bishops and Clergy whom God had graciously preserved from falling into the Hands of the Enemies or gave them the means of an escape after they had been taken were spoild of all and reduced to the last degree of Beggery without any ones being able to relieve them according to their Necessities By this Instance one may imagin how it was with them in the other great Provinces in Spain Gaul and V. Conc. i. Bracar 411. Illyrium What means were there left under these Confusions either for instructing the People or breeding up Priests and Preachers How could the Bishops visit their Flocks or meet in Councils to fill up the vacant Sees and maintain the regularity of Discipline The Church hath good reason in all her Prayers to beg of God the blessing of Peace and Tranquillity without which the Publick exercise of Religion must needs fall to the Ground 'T is true the Barbarians were converted The Francs turned Christians the Goths and the Lombards of Arians became good Catholicks but still they remained Barbarians I call Barbarism here that disposition of Mind by which Men govern themselves not by Reason but by Passion or by Custom We have remarkable instances of the Power of Custom in the Iroques and the other People of America whom we call Savages We have scarce ever heard of any Nation less given to Women or less Subject to the Passion of Anger they are very Patient great admirers of Justice and Gratitude Liberal and Hospitable But to this very Day it hath been almost impossible to make Christians of them except those who have been brought up among the French and from their Infancy familiarized to our Customs not that they want Reason or
War with the Bishop himself They were forced therefore to be content with the private Masses of their Chaplains or the Office of the Neighbouring Monasteries But the Monks were never designed for the business of Preaching nor could they without their own Walls exercise any thing of Discipline or Correction In the ninth Age we find the Conc. Ticin an 855. c. iv Agob de priv Sacerd Theodulph c. xlv 46. Hom. Leon. P. P. iv Bishops complaining that all the People of Estate and Quality had forsaken the Parish Churches and earnesty pressing it upon them that they would vouchsase to shew themselves there at least at the solemn seasons So they called those Feasts on which they thought all Christians obliged to Communicate which were these four viz. Christmas Holy Thursday Easter and Whitsontide Nor were the common People better instructed than their Nobility except in some Citys where they had good Bishops For most of the Bishops themselves Preached so very seldom that we find there were many Canons made requiring them to explain to the People in the Vulgar Language the Creed and the Lords Prayer that is to say the first Rudiments of Religion or as we now call it the Catechism In this gross darkness who could have imagined how far Ignorance and Credulity might improve but that we have the Marks of it still extant in the Old Legends of those times The Priests and Clergy were in too mean a Capacity themselves to be able to instruct others Under those Universal Hostilities with which the World was then Harassed they were also forced to take up Arms in their own Defence and with Sword in Hand to secure the temporalities of the Church by which they Subsisted Many of them were by their Poverty necessitated to betake themselves to sordid Employments or else to travel about from Province to Province till they could meet with some Bishop or Lord to entertain them Being Reduced to such a Condition how could they pursue their Studies or lead Lives Conformable to their orders 'T was only in some few Cathedrals and Monasteries that a regular Course of Studying and the exact Rules of a Religious Life were preserved and maintained All this while the Monks Conc. Aquisgran an 817. and Canons were notoriously degenerated from their Primitive Constitution as one may see by those excellent Regulations which Lewis the Debonnaire made to reestablish their Discipline But the Confusions following put them into a worse state than they were in before The greatest part of the Monasteries were Plunder'd Burnt and Ruin'd by the Normans the Monks and Canons Massacred or dispersed and forced to Live in the World again This Ignorance and Poverty to which the Clergy and Monks were reduced so debased their Spirits that they soon became insensible of the Sufferings of the Church in general and little minded any thing else than how to secure their own Stakes and Live at Ease themselves Thus Simony came to be a common practise Concubinage was so too and often maintained with great Impudence especially in Germany where Religion ever had a weak footing These Ignorant Clerks who never looked upon their Ministry as any thing else than meerly a Trade to get a Livelihood who Lived every one by themselves without applying to their Studies or their Prayers but very much to their secular Affairs did not uuderstand the reasons of Celibacy and looked upon the enjoyning it as an Insupportable Tyrany This was the cause of the Rage they expressed against Pope Gregory the Seventh and all others who were for taking away this occasion of Offence Under these Publick Calamities one may easily imagin ho wmiserably the Poor were neglected How could they be releived by the Clergy who had so much ado to live themselves or where could they receive Alms in the times of such dreadful Famines as happened in these Ages where we often read of Mens being reduced to feed on human Flesh Nor was Commerce in those Days sufficiently open to have the wants of one Country supplyed out of the abundance of Conc. Calchut in Ang. 787. Tribur 89â— de consecr dist i. c. 45. another The Church found it difficult to perserve its Consecrated Plate 'T is in these times we see the Prohibition of the use of Calices of Horn Glass Wood or Copper and the permission of them of Tin Not but that the Churches had still vast Patrimonies but that served only as a Bait to the Princes and Lords the more greedily to invade them The Bishopricks were often usurped by Persons altogether unqualified who seized them by violence Many times a Neighbouring Lord would by main force of Arms place a Son of his under Age in the Episcopal See to Plunder the Church under his Name Rome its self was not secured from these disorders the Petit Neighbouring Tyrants insulted her most and during the tenth Age we meet with nothing but violent Intrusions and Expulsions in this principal See where till now Ecclesiastical Discipline had been all along maintained in its Genuine Purity Councils were very rarely held by reason of the difficulty of their meeting and the universal Commotions which were such that they could not safely pass from one City to another Thus not only the Diseases of the Church were desperate but even the Remedies were hard to come at The Precedents and Rules of the former Ages were by little and little lost and forgotten by seeing Crimes pass unpunished Men ventured more boldly upon them and thus they were at first accustomed to them and at last hardned in them It was now no longer an ordinary Distemper but a plain loss of Sense and a Spiritual Lethargy Every one was a Christian but in such a manner as if they had thought it a bare priviledge of Nature and the Christian and the Man had been the same thing There was now no longer a distinction Christianity was little more than a Custom of the Country and scarce discovered it self in any thing else than in some external Formalities As for Vertues and Vices there was hardly any difference between Christians and Jews or Infidels but only in Ceremonies which have not force sufficient for the reforming Mens Manners HAD not the Christian Religion been the work of God it could never have XLIX The preservation of Religion Ps xlvi 5. weathered out so violent a Storm But he hath plainly shewn That he is in the midst of his Church and that all the Revolutions of Affairs are not able to overthrow her on the contrary the power of the Gospel in a most wonderful manner shined forth in these miserable times How much soever ignorance prevailed yet all the World acknowledged and adored the one only God Creator of the universe and Jesus Christ the Saviour of Mankind All the World believed a future Judgment and the Life to come all the great principles of Morality were every where received and acknowledged whereas in the most enlightned times of ancient Greece they
distance from other common Buildings and out of the noise of publick Places That they thought in Cities would be to lose too much Ground We see no more of the Door-keepers or of the other inferiour Orders of Clerks belonging to the Churches whose business it was to keep every thing Decent Orderly and Quiet These Offices were either turned over to Sextons or Virgers and other such-like Servants purely Laicks or else wholly laid aside so that the Publick Congregations in the Churches became confused and Tumultuous The Lords at first began the Custom and from them the Magistrates and other Laicks of better Quality took it to seat themselves in the Choire with the Clergy and the ancient respect being once lost the whole crowd of the People Women and all prest up to the Altar V. Sup. pag. But in the Eleventh Age there were abuses of far greater importance to be Glab lib. v. c. iv V. Petr. Dam. opusc vi 17 18. corrected Simony and Incontinence Bishopricks and Benefices were commonly bought and sold and a great part of the Clergy publickly entertained Concubines nay some had the Impudence to insult the Law of the Church that requir'd the Celibacy of the Clergy and declared against it as an Abuse In opposition to these disorderly Innovators St. Peter Damianus vigorously undertakes the Cause and was supported therein by Patr. Dam opusc 24. 27. the Authority of Leo the Ninth and the other Popes of those times And the better to root out these evils they establish't the Order of Canons Regular who might shew to the Clergy the Example of living in Common and observing the Canonical Discipline and it was out of this Order of Men that the Bishops and Pastors were generally taken WITH respect to the Laicks it was LI. Alterations in Penance attempted to re-establish Penances and agreed upon what Penances should be regularly imposed according to the Canons but many of the greatest Offenders prov'd refractory and having the Sword in their Hands stood it out against the Discipline of the Church And many others who were content to submit to Penance Petr. Dam. opusc vii Gomor cap. 10 11 12 c. would do it yet only after some Inauthentick Canons which very much mitigated the Rigor of it Many that had undergone their Penance were not a jot amended by it Nothing was to be seen but Greg. vii lib. vii ep x. Relapses and counterfeit Penances It is true they reckoned for every Crime a distinct Penance so that a Man who had committed thirty Homicides and as many Perjuries or Adulteries had so many Ages of Penance to run through And from hence came the indulgences of so many Years as we meet with in some Bulls As God demands not impossibilities they who stood charged with Penances for their whole Lives or even beyond their lives could do no more than to employ in them the remainder of their days and to that end for the greater security to shut themselves up in a Monastery But sometimes they were relieved by the Commutation of works of Satisfaction and these were variously changed according to the Abilities or Zeal of the Penitent St Peter Damianus informs us that those P. Dam. vita SS Rod. Domin c. 8 10 c. equivalent Penances were commonly received in his time and gives us also an estimate of them Three thousand Stripes of Discipline could redeem one Year of ordinary Penance and the singing of ten Psalms continuing all the while under the Lash made a Thousand Stripes so that the whole Psaltery made up five years of Penance and as by vertue of the Communion of Saints we know God sometimes pardons Sinners out of regard to the Prayers and other good works of their Brethren there were some holy Persons in those time who devoted themselves to the doing of Penance for the sake of others Of these the most famous was St. Dominicus Loricatus so called because he always Ib. c. 8 wore next to his Skin a coat of Mail which he never put off but when he gave himself the discipline of the Rod and that he did so often and so roughly with so many Fastings Watchings Genuflexions and all other sorts of Austerities upon it that we are almost frightned at the very reading of the account St. Peter Damianus who was his Spiritual director gives us of them But the niceness and Effeminacy of our living way of finds it hard to comply with so rigorous a Devotion of which notwithstanding we see many instances in the Saints of those times But 't is to be supposed that God inspired them with this extraordinary conduct in compassion to the necessities of that Age They had to do with a Generation so perverse and refractory that 't was but necessary to strike their Senses with the most affecting objects Bare reasonings and persw asions would have provedbut weak Arguments to such ignorant and brutish People bred up in Blood and Rapine and moderate severities would have been looked upon as nothing by them who had been from their youth inured to the hardships of War and always walked in Armour But when they saw a St. Boniface the Disciple of St. Romualdus going bare foot in the coldest Countries a St. Dominic Loricatus disciplining himfelf till he was all of a gore Blood they could not imagin but that these holy Saints did indeed love God and hate Sin They knew not what to make of mental Prayer but they very well saw that he prayed who repeated the Psaltery and they could not doubt but that these holy Persons loved their Neighbour when they saw them doing Penance even for the Sins of other Men Convinced by these outward and visible Demonstrations of their Zeal they became more Docile and Tractable They willingly hearkned to the Preachings of these Priests and Monks whose Lives they could not but admire and many of them were effectually converted Though indeed these Flagellations going in Iron-Chains and such like means of mortifying the Flesh were not new Inventions Theodoret gives us a number of like instances in his Religiosa Historia or the lives of the Religious and Asceticks and St. Simeon Stilites is alone sufficient to give Authority to all these almost incredible Austerities The Rule of St. Columbanus who lived about the end of the Sixth Age kept his Monks under the Discipline of the Rod prescribing for almost every fault a certain number of Stripes And we see in the after Ages many Saints giving themselves voluntary Castigations Amongst the Instances of discipline which served instead of Canonical Penances one of the most usual was That of taking a Pilgrimage to some of the more Celebrated places of Devotion as to Jerusalem to Rome to Tours to Compostella In the ninth Age the many abuses which Conc. Cabil ii an 813. had crept into this practice occasioned great Complaints If a Priest or other Clerk had been guilty of any notorious Crime 't
longer kept up in practice the very knowlege of them was soon after lost and Penance was now made so gentle a thing that Confession was the most dreadful part of it IN the Thirteenth Century the Ancient LIII The great number of Doctors Discipline received this blow The Authority of Tradition had carryed it down through the Ages foregoing and it may be said the Church never was so great a sufferer by simple Ignorance as by new Speculations They now began in their Scholastick Disputes to depend too little upon pure Authority and were over fond of working out every thing by their own Reasonings Aristotle grew much in fashion And the Subtilties of Logick and Metaphysicks which they borrowed from the Arabians were in mighty request The scarcity of Antient Books and the difficulty of understanding them by reason of the change of Language and Customes Tempted them somuch the more to apply themselves to Speculations and the Reading of the Moderns Thus the Scholastick Divinity was more valued than the Positive Gratian and the Master of the Sentences were read more than the Fathers and in the Scriptures they were more curious in hunting after a Figurative Sense then careful to observe the Literal After the Twelvth Age the greatest part of the Bishops applyed themselves but little to Preaching and the Instruction of their Clergy They suffered themselves to be encumbred with Temporal affairs The Laiety and especially the Princes being Bred up in Ignorance knew not how to Manage without the assistanstance of the Clergy 'T was out of the Bishops and Abbots that they chose their Chancellours and Ministers of State They were made Judges in almost all Causes Without going any farther their Temporal Lordships found them work enough the Wars in which they were often forced to engage the fortifying their Garrisons and assembling their Troops They were obliged to maintain grand Equipages large Families and all sort of Officers In the midst of so much business the Spiritual part which ought to have been the chiesest was too often neglected Thus Studying Preaching and the Administring the Sacraments fell to the Lot of the Doctors of whom the Universities were full but chiefly into the Hands of the Religious Mendicants who came in very seasonably to the Relief of the Church in these unhappy Ages But these Religious how holy and how Zealous soever they might be were not Proper Pastors over any certain people nor had they any regular Jurisdiction They were rather a sort of Missionaries who following the orders of their Superiors travelled throughout all the Dioceses Labouring in the Conversion of Hereticks and Sinners Nor were their Labours without Success But the good services they did the Church took not their full effect for want of power to continue their farther Instructions to those whom they had converted to correct their Miscarriages and compleat their Work by abiding with them and watching over them till they had established them beyond relapse in the Right way All this they could do only to some particular Persons who voluntarily Resigned themselves to their Direction So that the Fruits of their Labours could not be of so general Effect as when every Bishop closely applyed himself to the Edification of his own Flock The Case was much the same with them in respect of Studies The Doctors whether Seculars or Regulars that were in possession of the Chairs had scarce any thing of Authority besides what their personal Merit procured them It was free for the Students to follow what Profession they liked best And from hence arose that Diversity of Sects and Opinions concerning matters that were allowed to be disputed For as there were a great number of Doctors who were not employed in the Cure of Souls but spent their whole time in the Schools they had leasure to treat of many Questions more Thomass discipl iv l. 1. c. 69. n. xi Curious then useful The Laicks also were left at their own Liberty to follow what Preachers they most Affected and to chuse to themselves their own Confessors besides their proper Pastors So that among such a mnltitude of Priests bad Christians could not fail of meeting with some or other who would give them Absolution upon very easy Terms And thus such as were willing to be deceived themselves or had a mind to Deceive others did not forbear without mending their Manners to frequent the Churches and come to the Sacraments The greatest part of the Doctors themselves were born down by the Stream of the Corruption of the People and suffered many considerable Relaxations of Discipline to plead Prescription The little knowledge they had of the ancient Manners of the Church was the principal cause of this Mischief The usages introduced an Age or two before went down with them for immemorial Customs It is strange for instance that in the Days of St. Thomas Aquinas they should not remember how they kept their Fasts in the S. Bern. Serm. in cap. Jejun Age preceeding For St. Bernard assures us that in his time all the World without distinction observed in Lent not to break their Fast till Evening Kings and Princes Clergy People gentle and Simple Rich and Poor all of them did so and yet St. Thomas not only plainly tells us that in his S. Thom. ii ix 147. art 7. ad i. time none Fasted beyond three of the Clock in the Afternoon but also pretends to prove That Christians ought not to Fast after any other manner and that Fasting till the Evening was peculiar to the old Law So easy a thing is it to find arguments to justify all sorts of Practices when one is ignorant of Fact This Ignorance made them look upon Antiquity as Novelty and the Authority of the Moderns as a surer Ground to proceed upon than that of the Antients of whom they had only a confused notion that their Manners were altogether different from ours without sufficiently distinguishing whether this diversity lay in any of the Essentials of Christianity or only in such indifferent matters as Habits and Language And as they gave themselves the liberty of starting every Day new Questions and inventing new Subtilies there arose at last a set of Casuists who founded their Morals rather upon human Reason than upon Scripture and Tradition as if Jesus Christ had not taught us all Truth as well for Manners as for Faith but had left us still to seek with the ancient Philosophers I SHALL not pretend to give a particular LIV. A succession of found Doctrin and good examples in all times of the disorders that followed upon these loose Principles which they brought into their new System of Morality they are but too well known of themselves Nor is it my design to describe the manners of bad Christians which are no better than those of other Men my business is only to represent the manners which distinguish true Christians from the rest of the World Now God hath never so forsaken his
to imagine that the way to Heaven is become more easy to Us than it was to them of Old that we are more happy than our Fore-fathers or that the Bishops and Popes of these last Ages thought themselves wiser than their Predecessors We need only read the Constitutions and Canons which have Authorised the several Relaxations to see that the Church never did it without Regret Many Deviations came in only by common usage In the mean time the Church hath taken special care in such cases to retain certain Observances in remembrance of the true Practice of Antiquity Thus the Office for the Noon or Evening Service said on Fast-days before Dinner All the Formularies of Ordinations and other publick Acts are as it were so many repeated Protestations to salve the authority of the ancient Rules and bar the pretence of Prescription against them There are other Abuses which the Church hath always condemned as those absurd Shows which they had the boldness to bring even into the Churches themselves and which were forbidden in the Council of Basil And as the profane Conc. Basil Sess xii c. xi V. Syn. Vigorn an 1240. c. iv Jollity on the Feasts of the Saints the remains of which wee see in that of St. Martin's Day of the Kings and on those of their Patron Saints in the Villages or Country Wakes And as the Debauches of the Carnival which had no other beginning than the Reluctance People had about the keeping of Lent resolving to take their Fill of Pleasure before they began their Fast Little did the Apostles and their Disciples imagine that this Holy Preparation for the Passover should one Day have proved an occasion of Dissolution and Licentiousness The Saints and all true Christians have always openly declared against these Abuses We know with what Vigour St. Charles Borromeus suppressed them and how Zealously he Laboured to bring back again into the Church the Spirit of Antiquity even to the lesser matters of Religion The Council of Trent and those who were employed to see it put into Execution in the Provinces aimed at no other end than This. And so many Reformations that have been made in the Religious Orders since the last Age were only in order to reduce them to their Primitive Constitution St. Teresa could Vi. S. Terâ— c. 27. fin not endure that under the pretence of Discretion and for the avoiding of Scandal there should be Restraints lay'd upon the fervour of those who affected to imitate the Saints of the first Age. She complains that these Discretions have spoiled the World and maintains that in her Age which is very near ours the Vertues of the Primitive Church were not Impracticable Lessons 'T was upon this occasion she wrote the Life of St. Peter of Alcantaâ—a she herself being an eye Witness to it Proceeding upon so good Authorities LVI The use of this Work I thought I might do some service to the World in Representing the Manners of the Ancients which ought to be the Patterns now of all good Christians I have said nothing but what is well known to Persons of Learning and taken out of Books with which they are familiarly acquainted And they will see that much more might have been added to the same Purpose There are many things here not commonly known to every good Christian and such things too as are fit for their Edification They will see that the Religion of a Christian consists not altogether as too many imagine in some formal performances To say over every Morning and Night some short Prayers to assist on Sundays at the Publick Service to distinguish the Holy Time of Lent only by abstaining from some certain sort of Dyets and to dispence with it upon trivial Occasions to approach the Sacraments so Seldom and with so small affection that they turn Solemn Festivals into Melancholy Days And as to the common Course of their Lives to be as much addicted to the Interests and Pleasures of this World as Pagans themselves could be These are not the Christians I have been Describing I hope also that the Description I have here given of the Holy Manners of those that were really Christians may make some Impressions upon such Persons who have no more sense of things than to confound the true Religion with those false ones which the Error of Ignorant or Craft of disigning Men have introduced Let a Man but consider that vast change of Manners which the Gospel hath wrought in all Nations and the Distinguishing Characters there have always been between true Christians and Infidels and he will see that the Christian Religion stands upon a surer Bottom then he thought for He will be forced to believe that it was at first established by the Power of Miracles for there can be nothing more Incredible than that such a Change should be wrought without Miracles These Miracles made so strong an Impression that it was not till very late any one did so much as think of calling them into Question To speak no more than what we know 't is scarce above Two hundred Years since this Libertinism was introduced by some Italians who tho' Men of Wit were very Ignorant of Religion and disgusted with these Abuses then they were charmed with the Beauty of the Ancient Greek and Latin Authors with the Government of these People and their way of Living And so much the more because the maxims of those Heathens better agreed with the Corruption of human Nature and the general Practices of Mankind In short these Modern Italians relished nothing else This mischief was farther encreased by the new Heresies that were broached in these last Ages The Disputes upon the very Fundamental Principles of Religion shock't the Faith of many who yet upon divers Temporal Motives continued in the outward profession of the Catholick Religion And amongst the Hereticks themselves were great numbers who being no longer restrained by Authority have driven the Consequences of their ill principles to extremity and are come to that pass as to look upon Religion it self as no more than a piece of State-Policy This unhappy notion got ground and easily spread it self Young Persons hearing their Parents perhaps or those whom they looked upon as Men of Wit making some lewd Jests upon Religion or it may be venturing to say in plain terms that there was nothing in it at the bottom presently took up with that and finding these notions agreeable to their Passions and Desires never troubled their thoughts any farther about inquiring into the Merit of the matter Vanity also came in for its share They thought by this means to distinguish themselves from the ignorant Vulgar and appear more discerning than the honest well meaning People of former Ages besides sloth was another Motive to make them either take matters upon trust or determine at all Adventures rather than to be at the trouble of examining the Truth but let Men say what they will the matters I have