VI. The Study of the holy Scriptures made up of the Psalms which being Pronounced with a Grave and distinct Voice were highly Instructive as containing in them a kind of summary or Abridgment of what lyes more dispers'd in the other sacred Books and supplying a collection of those thoughts and reflexions which a Man should make in every condition Athanas. Epist ad Maroellin of Life and upon every Emergency With the Psalms they always joyned the reading of some other parts of Scripture and from thence came in the little Chapters of the Hours As the Night Prayers were always the Longest so they had more Lessons belonging to them And as the Mass is the most solemn part of all the Office so it is that which had more of the Instructive part mixed with the Devotional Nothing was read in the Church as Scripture and of Divine Inspiration but what was received into the Canon that is to say such as the Constant Tradition of the Churches had Authorised Those other Writings which some Private Persons would have introduced where called Apocryphal that is hidden or obscure To secure the Ecclesiastical Books from all change and that neither the Boldness nor carelessness of the Transcribers might make any Alterations in them there was sometimes Joyned to them a Protestation Conjuring in the name of God whosoever should Transcribe the Writing to do it Faithfully Such an one did St. Irenaeus add to the end of his Epistle to Florinus and of the Euseb Hist v. xx the like nature is that Menacing Clause affixed to the Apocalyps Apoc. xxii 18. The Church therefore was not only the House of Prayer but the School of Salvation The Bishops expounded to the People the Gospel and the other sacred Books with the diligence of a publick Professor but with far greater Authority And therefore in the Stile of the Ancients the Title of Doctor that is Teacher is scarce given to any but Bishops They Instructed their Flock both Publickly in the Congregation of the Faithful and Privately going as was St. Pauls own Act. xx 20. Practise from House to House And as the same Apostle directs in his Epistles to Titus and Timothy they variously applyed their Instructions to the several conditions Ignat. Ep. ad Polycarp of Men. They professed that they Spake nothing of themselves that they Tertull. Presâ—r c. viii kept to what was revealed not pretending to make new discoveries after the Gospel but Faithfully to Deliver to others what they themselves had received from St iren ad Florin ap Eus. v. Hist 20. St. Clem. Al. Strom. init their Fathers that is from the most Ancient Priests and Bishops living within the memory of Man and they in like manner from others before them and so backward by an uninterrupted Tradition ascending up to the Apostles themselves They Imprinted in the minds of the Faithful an Abhorrence for all kind of Novelties Pap. apud Eus. Hist iii. c. 38. more Especially in the Doctrinals of Religion So that if any private Persons heard any thing contrary to the Faith they never amused themselves about contradicting or confuting it that care they left to their Pastors They only stopped their Ears against it and would have nothing to do with it And this is the reason why so many Heresies Ignat. ep ad Trall et al. which started up in the first Ages were silenced and came to nothing without the Interposing of Councils or any formal proceedings of the Church against them The Catholick Pastors unanimously consented in the same Traditions and the People inviolably adhered to the Doctrine of their Pastors The Faithful studyed the Word of God in private every one by him self meditating upon it both Day and Night They used to read over again in their Houses what they had heard read at the Church to fix in their Memories the expositions of the Pastors and to discourse them over among themselves Above Const Apost iv c. 10. all the Fathers of Families took care to make these Repetitions to their Domesticks For every Master of a Family was within the Walls of his own House as it were a private Pastor keeping up therein a regular Course of Praying and Reading instructing his Wife Children and Servants and in a plain and familiar way Administring proper Exhortations to them and thus preserving all that belonged to him in the Unity of the Church by the entire Submission he himself paid to his Pastor What I have said of Fathers is also to be understood of Mothers who took the same Religious care of their Children St. Basil and his Brother Basil Epist Lxiv Lxxv. Lxxix Greg. Vita Macr. â—un St. Gregory Nyssene Glory in their having kept the Faith which they received from their Grand-Mother Macrina and she from St. Gregory Thaumaturgus And it seems to be upon this account that St. Paul gives so particular a Character of the Faith of the Mother and Grand-Mother of St. Timothy One proof of the 2 Tim. i. 5. special care that Parents took in the well instructing their Families is that we do not find in all Antiquity any such thing as a Catechism for little Children nor any publick provision made for the Instruction of those that were Baptised before they came to Years of Discretion Chrys Hom. xxxvi in Ep. ad Cor. Every private House was then saith St. Chrysostom as a Church to it self There were even many Lay Christians that had the Holy Scripture by heart so constant were they in the Reading of it They generally carryed a Bible about them making it their Companion where ever they went and many Saints have been found Buryed with the Gospel lying on their Breasts St. Chrysostom tells In Mat. Hom. Lxxii us that in his time many Women wore it hanging at their Necks That they washed their Hands when they received those Holy Books That every one expressed his inward Regard for them by the tokens of external Reverence at the In Jo. Hom. Liii Mor. Reading and Hearing of them the Men uncovering their Heads and the Women such was their way of expressing Reverence covering theirs For Women read the Scriptures no less then Men. We find some of those Holy Female Acta SS Agapes c ap Bar. an 304. n. 46. Martyrs who in the Diocletian Persecution having been forced to quit all they had and hide themselves in Caves Regretted nothing else but the loss of their Bibles and their being thereby deprived of those Blessed Consolations which they before enjoyed in exercising themselves Day and Night in those sacred Writings Besides the Scriptures themselves the Christians had also for their reading the Writings of their Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Authors plenty of whom and those of great Note these first Ages produced Eusebius gives us an account Euseb iv et v. Hist of about forty by name besides those whose Works came forth without the name of the
Vows of Celibacy and Poverty have been inconvenient and but ill kept this might have been prevented by the Omission of of them for as this Author observes We see no Solemn Vows in these first times St. Chrysostom speaks of a Monks returning to the World as of a thing altogether free Again He tells us that the Monks in imitation of the Primitive Christians spent much of their time in Reading the Holy Scriptures The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes the same to his Monks and more particularly that all the time of Lent and on Sundays they should apply themselves only to this Exercise He Judiciously remarks how Forged Books and pretended Miracles gained Credit For want of critical Learning and the knowledg of Antiquity they were ready to receive such Suppositious Writings as were Imposed upon the World under the specious Names of Ecclesiastical Authors and also became too Credulous in believing Miracles So certain it was that the Apostles and their Disciples had wrought Miracles and that many true one 's were Daily performed at the Tombs of the Martyrs that they were not now over-curious in examining so as to distinguish the true from the false The most surprising Relations of this kind in History were the best received Ignorance in Philosophy and the little knowledg they had of Nature made them take all strange Appearances for Prodigies and interpret them as the Supernatural signs of God's wrath They believed there was something extraordinary in Astrology and dreaded Ecclipses and Comets as dismal Presages To give but one Example more Religion says Mr. Fleury can't subsist without Study and Preaching to preserve the Soundness of its Doctrine and the Purity of its morals It must necessarily fall into Decay unless the Holy Scripture be diligently Read taught and expounded to the People unless the Apostolical Traditions be preserved in their Purity and Purged from time to time of those Spurious Additions which the Inventions of Men without any just Authority have made to them Would but the Church of Rome take away these and all other Additions that are contrary to and Inconsistent with the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Christ in the first and purest Ages of Christianity and forbid all Disputation c. as Innocent XI by his Decree of the 19. of Feb. 1678. entirely abolished the Office of the Immaculate Conception c. Approved by Paul V. They might happily put an end to the great Division that has so long made the Enemies of Christianity to rejoyce or be able to maintain the charge of Schism against those that should then refuse their Communion What Passages or Expressions occur in this Treatise which may be judg'd contrary to and Inconsistent with the Doctrine Worship and Government of the Church of England as by Law Establish'd the Author and Editor of this Book are not answerable for nor pretend to justify considering that 't is only a Translation of an Historical Tract written in French and often Printed by a Learned Author of the Roman Communion whose Name is mention'd in the Title-Page of this Book What he hath said in favour of several of the Doctrines of the Reformation and the admirable Moral Reflections which frequently occur throughout his History and especially the former part together with other pious Relations of it are enough to shew that excellent use may be made of this Treatise and hence to justify the Publication of it in our own Language And the more exceptionable passages that are in it I must Entreat the Reader to consiâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the meer effects of our Author 's 〈…〉 the Communion wherein he 〈◊〉 and to admire rather that he 〈◊〉 said so much on our side than that 〈◊〉 has said no more ERRATA PAge 8. Lines 16. read to establish p. 13. l. 13. r. in mind of p. 27. l. 22. dele and. p. 35. l. 22. r. Orchard p. 37. Ibid. l. 22. r. disease p. 41. l. 11. r. furnish Ibid. 18. r. Christians p. 42. l. 24. r. Paedagogus p. 45. l. 8. r. Sanctify p. 47. l. 29. r. giveing p. 54. l. 32. r. itself p. 56. l. 27. r. used p. 77. l. 18. for where r. were Ibid. l. 24. r. Zealous p. 86. l. 26. r. occasion p. 87. l. 13. r. Gnosticks p. 99. l. 15. r. Tutelar p. 103. l. 18. r. Equueus p. 104. l. 28. r. lewd way p. 105. l. 5. for of r. off Ibid. l. 6. r. Spit it p. 106. l. 17. r. Martyrs p. 107. l. 23. dele the. p. 110. l. 25. r. reduced p. 119. l. 25. r. Slaves Ibid. r. State p. 124. l. 22. r. such cases p. 129. l. 9. for Bells r. Belles p. 136. l. 7. for thy r. they Ibid. r. delivered p. 148. l. 12. r. Wife p. 149. l. 25 r. Fifty p. 156. l. 1. r. to each other p. 157. l. 2. r. Priests p. 158. l. 17. for them r. him p. 165. l. 20. for this r his p. 182. l. 24. r. Martyrium p. 204. l. 30 dele or the least sign p. 205. l. 15. r. hath retem'd p. 240 l. 22. r. Sylvester p. 241. l. 5. r. ornamented Ibid. l. 30. r. Candlesticks p. 242. l. 15. dele with p. 251. l. 8. r. Pestilence p. 259. l. 15 r. soever p. 266. l. 17. r. many p. 272. l. 1. for for r. the p. 289. l. 24. r. thereupon p. 305. l. 30. r. Conversions Ibid. l. 32. for was r. were p. 306. l. 1. r. Religion Ibid. l. 17. r. Hungarian p. 307. l. 13. r. could p. 310. l. 2. r. Canons Ibid. l. 31. r. how miserably p. 313. l. 30. r. Barbarous p. 314. l. 2. r. do that Ibid. l. 6. r. Modesty p. 318. l. 10. r. Chaplains p. 322. l. 6. r. our way of Liveing p. 326. l. 20. r. Journeys Ibid. l. 26. r. Travells p. 327. l. 32. r. upon them p. 328. l. 15. r. beare p. 330. l. 28. r. assistance p. 332. l. 31. r. multitude THE BEHAVIOUR AND MANNERS OF THE Christians Part the First I Shall divide my Work into four Parts The first will represent the Manners I. of the Christians of Jerusalem to the The division of the whole Destruction of that City under Vespasian This first state of Christianity though but of a short continuance was so supereminent in its Perfection that it will deserves a separate Consideration The second will take in all the Time of the Persecution that is the entire space of three Centuries In the third I shall describe the State of the Church in its Liberty which Commenced in the fourth Age. And In the last consider the Changes it afterwards underwent and endeavour to discover the Causes of them The Christian Religion as it was not the Invention of Man but the Work of II. God so like the Universe it had its full The first part the Church of Jerulem Perfection in its first Birth and was most Glorious in its earliest Productions It is not to be imagined saith Tertullian that the
Church but examples of this kind were always to be found in it After what manner soever the Church was governed whether immediately by Bishops or by Priests either Commissionated by them or sent abroad by the Popes whether by Seculars or Regulars by ordinary Pastors or Foreign Missionaries it hath always had the same Religion and the same Body of Doctrine The true Faith has always been preserved in purity and the grand principles of Morality have always stood firm It hath been always a thing certain and granted that we ought to observe the Law of God explained according to Tradition and the Authority of the ancients and that we ought to form our Lives after the examples of those holy Persons whom the Church hath publickly Honoured for Saints And such living Models there have always been every Age hath had its Apostles Serm. de S. Andr. vit S. Mala. that went to Preach the Faith to Infidels every Age hath had its Martyrs Virgins and true Penitents have always been in great numbers It was as St. Bernard observes the sincere desire of Penitence that after the Eleventh Age introduced somany new Orders of Monks God hath always from time to time raised up extraordinary Persons to maintain his holy Doctrine and revive decaying Piety What is there comparable to St. Bernard Hath he not shewn in his own Person the Zeal of the Prophets the Learning and Eloquence of the greatest Doctors of the Church and the Mortification of the most perfect Recluses We are certainly much endebted to Innocent the Third and the other great and learned Popes of those times to the Master of the Sentences and St. Thomas and the rest of them who have reduced Divinity into a Method St. Francis hath given us an eminent Example of the Christian Life practiced according to the Letter of an Humility and Mortification worthy of the Apostolick Time Thus from Age to Age from Generation to Generation God hath preserved in his Church the succession of true Doctrine and Holy Life It is certain then That Jesus Christ is Heb. xiii 8. to Day as well as Yesterday and will be the same to all Ages In vain therefore do bad Christians now adays vilify the Veneration we justly have for Antiquity and for the Examples of the Saints by supposing that in the First Ages of Christianity Men were clear of another Nature then what we are now their Bodies robust and better able to bare those Fastings and other such-like Severities their Spirits more Docile and pliable and therefore all the practices of Vertue more easy to them If we tell them that St. Peter and St. Paul lived in Poverty and Labour V. Chrysost de compunct they Answer They were Apostles St. Anthony and St. Martin underwent great Mortifications They were Saints St. Austin made his Clergy live in Common and he himself tho' a great Bishop lived but very Ordinarily This might be in those Days Do you think therefore that these Words Saintship Antiquity and the Primitive Church are allowable exceptions That the exercises of Penance the being continually occupied in the word of God the renouncing the Pleasures and Vanities of this wicked World the Clergies keeping themselves disengaged from Secular Affairs and leading lives singularly Exemplary That all these things were the extraordinary attainments of the Primitive Church whose excellencies we must not pretend to Rivalâ— That to exempt our selves from the obligation of following so glorious Presidents 't is but to distinguish the Times and the Work 's done The Church say they was strong and vigorous in her Youth and produced then Heroick Vertues She is now in her Old Age and Declension she hath had her Spring and her Summer and now she is in her Winter But what mean these Metaphors Do they pretend that the duration of the Church doth in reality resemble the Changes of the Year or the course of the Life of Man will any one dare to say that she was imperfect in her beginnings wanted time to give her full Maturity and must feel her decays as other transitory things or like the Productions of Men. But I desire to know in what this change has happened since the Publication of the Gospel Is it in humane Nature Experience and the Faith of all History assures us the contrary Is it in the Law of God or is it in his Grace Herein there is still the same Power the same Goodness that ever there was Jesus Christ hath never told us that his Church must be governed by different Rules according to the changes of Times The Abolition of the ancient Law and the Abrogation of Ceremonies was expresly foretold but as to the Gospel it must be Preached both to the utmost parts of the Earth and to the end of the World Let us not therefore deceive our selves with frivolous excuses nor charge the present corruption of our Manners upon any other fault then that of our Ignorance and Negligence Apolog. decretor It is as dangerous saith Pope Gregory the Seventh to undermine the Manners and Discipline of the ancient Church as to attack its Faith since both the one and the other are derived to us from the same Tradition IT is true the Church hath sometimes borh with some Abuses which had taken LV. Some abuses to lerated in the Church and how they came to be so too deep rooting waiting a favourable Conjuncture to Reform them and hath sometimes indulged her Children for the hardness of their Hearts in the Relaxation of the ancient Discipline The Rule of Communicating four times a Year stood in force in the Ninth Age but in the following it was only ill observed Petrus Blesensis informs us that in his times in the Petr. Bles Serm. 16. Twelfth Age the greatest part of Christians Communicated but once a Year The Church complied with this usage and put it in the Canons of the Lateran Council It was forbidden formerly to say Can. omn. utriusque 1215. Conc. Rav. iv 1317. rubr 12. ii ii 9. 147. a. vii the private Masses during the time of solemn Mass to avoid disturbing that Service yet Custom carried it In the time of St. Thomas that is a bout Four hundred Years ago they kept their Fasts till three of the Clock in the Afternoon and we find no mention but of one eating afterwards it came to Noon and a Collation was allowed Amongst these Mitigations I reckon Penance left to the discretion of the Confessor and the frequent granting of Indulgencies as likewise the dispensing with the Rigor of many of the Rules of the Monasticks They thought that the Religious though falling short of the utmost Perfection that their Rule required would yet even under some abatements arrive to an higher Perfection than if they continued in the World and that it was better somewhat to soften and qualify the Fast of Lent than to let it run wholly into disuse but we are not from those Condescensions
Apostles were ignorant of any Truth profitable to Salvation or that the Invention of Tertul. Praescript C. 22. after Ages hath found out any new Rule of Living more perfect or more Sublime than what Jesus Christ taught his Disciples But this Heavenly Doctrine did not always produce the like effects but had its different Operations according to the different Dispositions of those that received it or the different measures of Grace with which God was pleased to Accompany it The true Israelites who had by the Tradition of their Fathers and the use of the Holy Scriptures been bred up in the knowlege of the true God and from their Infancy inured to the observation of his Laws the Gospel found them well prepared for that higher Perfection it required when that perfection should be discovered unto them and they should be made to understand what kind of Salvation that was which their Messiah was to bring them and what kind of Kingdom his Kingdom was to be But as for the Gentiles who had hitherto Eph. 2. 12 lived without God and without Law trained up according to the custom of the then Deluded World in the most horrid 1 Cor. 12. 2 Superstitions Worshiping with as little understanding as the Beasts of their Sacrifice dumb Idols plunged in sensuality and habituated to all sorts of Impieties and Impurities it was far more difficult for them to Rise to the same Perfection So that 't is among the Christians of this first Church of Jerusalem we must look for an Example of a Life the most perfectly Christian and consequently the most perfectly happy that Mortality is capable of We must begin with the Life of Jesus Christ himself who is both the Original and the Model of all perfection He Jo. 13. 15. hath given us an Example that as he hath done so should we do And this is one of the grand Advantages we receive by the Incarnation that thereby the Word became sensible and by conversing with Man as Man rendred himself the Object not only of our Admiration and Adoration but of our Imitation also having in his Life set us that perfect Exemplar in conformity to which we are to Regulate ours I know very well that a Life so Divine cannot he worthily described but by those who have seen with their Eyes and heard with 1 Jo. 1. 1. their Ears and whose hands have handled the Word of Life and who were themselves acted by his Spirit Yet may every Man according to the measure of his Capacity employ his thoughts and meditations upon it and point out some of the particulars which he Judges more proper for our Imitation leaving it to others more advanced in the exercises of Devotion and the practice of Christian Vertues to make still farther Discoveries in so Inexhaustible a Subject In the Life of Jesus Christ we cannot go too far back He was an Example from the Cradle and in his first Years set us a Copy of the first Vertues we are capable of Learning that is the Vertues of Childhood He shewed himself in that Age Docile Tractable and Submissive towards his Parents and of such a sweetness of Temper and Behaviour that rendred him amiable in the sight of all that beheld him For thus saith the Scripture As he Increased Luk. 2. 40. 52. in Stature so he increased in Wisdom and in favour with God and Man As for all the rest of his Youth till he came to be thirty Years of Age we have no other Account of it but that he abode in the little City of Nazareth passing there Matt. 3. 5â— for the Son of a Carpenter and was a Carpenter himself This Silence of History Mar. 6. 3. expresses better than any Words could have done the State of Privacy in which as yet he lived Jesus Christ himself He who came to be the light of the World passed the greatest part of his Days upon earth in obscurity He spent thirty years in the condition of a private Life and only three or four in Preaching and the publick exercise of his Ministry to shew that 't is the duty of the generality of men to keep themselves within a private Station and labour in silence and that 't is only for some few persons to put themselves upon publick Functions and that only so far forth as they shall be by the Designation of God or by Charity toward their Neighbour obliged thereunto The Occupation which he chose to follow is also worthy our Reflexion To live by the labour of ones Hands is a state of Life more Poor than to have Lands to Till or Cattle to Feed Whether his Trade of a Carpenter was to build Houses or as ancient Tradition reports to make Justin in Tryph. Plows and other Instruments of Husbandry 't is certain 't was a mean and laborious employment but at the same time a very useful and necessary one to Society and such without which there would scarce be any living in the World and therefore a more laudable way of getting a lively-hood than any of those that Minister only to Pleasure and Vanity Thus he passed his younger days in the Family of his Father and place of his Education leading a life not slavish or reproachful nor trifling and insignificant but serious employed and laborious submitting to the Penalty imposed upon the Posterity of Adam of earning their Bread with the sweat of their Brows and shewing himself an Example of those two Virtues he so much recommended to others Ma. 11. 27 Meekness and Humility Before he ent'red upon the execution of his Mission he prepared himself for it by Baptism Prayer and Fasting not that Luk. 3. 21. he had any need of these Preparatories but that he might as he himself expresses it fulfil all Righteousness and give us an Example Mat. 3. 15. His Fast of forty Days and forty Nights and subsisting so long without Food is ordinarily look'd upon as a Miracle as well as the like in Moses and Elias But I know not whether we do in this matter sufficiently understand the strength of Nature it self St. Simeon Stylites did more than once pass Theodor. Hist Relig. P. an whole Lent together without Eating having by degrees brought himself to so prodigious an Abstinence And at this Day there are Idolaters in India who can pass twenty days or more without tasting a bit all that while During this Fast and all his long abode in the hideous solitude of the Wilderness in what can we imagine he employ'd his Time but in Prayer But who dares pretend to describe the Praying of Jesus Christ Let us humbly Meditate upon what the Scripture hath left to us concerning it and more especially upon that Heavenly Prayer recorded by St. John Joh. 17. Nay let not the Manner after which he prayed nor the Circumstances of it escape our Observation He prayed in the darkness of the Night and sometimes whole Nights together
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
convenient that every Monastery should have in it one Priest at least and one or two Deacons and this Priest was often their Abbot Thus having no occasion to go abroad they were shut up in their Monasteries as the Dead in their Sepulchres This was the pretence that Arch-Heretick Eutiches made for his not appearing at the Con. Chalc. Act. Council of Chalcedon There were also Monasteries for Women or Nunneries in the Deserts where they abode within Convenient distance of the Monks to receive mutual assistance from each other by their Neighbourhood yet so far asunder as to avoid all danger and Scandal The Monks built the Nuns their Cells and helped them in their most laborious Works the Nuns made the Monks Cloaths and did them other such-like Services But all this Commerce of Charity was managed by some aged Persons appointed for that purpose none else being suffered to go near the Nunneries There were also many of these Nunneries founded in Cities where all the Virgins Consecrated to God lived in Community who before lived separate in private Houses The Nuns of Aegypt and Syria Hier. epist 48. ad Sabinian Baron ad Martyr 20 Sept. cut off their Hair for cleanliness sake in other places they kept it on The practice of Antiquity in these Cases being different The Bishops who made their Clergy live in common took their Method of living from the Monks and as much as the active Life of the Clergy would permit they conformed themselves to it so that these Communities were often called also by the name of Monasteries and in time they were quite confounded one with the other In the Fifth Age the greatest part Thom. Disc ii part l. i. c. 34 35 36. of the Bishops and Priests of Gaul and of the West practiced the Monastick Life and wore the Habit. The Pope St. Gregory was taken out of a Monastery where upon quitting the grandeur of this World Jo. Diac. lib. ii c. xi he had shut himelf up but notwithstanding his Advancement he still kept to the Monastick Life and filled his Palace with Pious Monks out of whom he made many of his great Bishops and among the rest St. Austin the Monk with the other Apostles of England The true use of the Monastick Life was to improve and perfect such unspotted Souls as had preserved the Innocence of their Baptism or such Converted Sinners as desired to Purify themselves by Repentance 'T was for this end they received into their Monasteries Persons of all Ages and Conditions Young Children whom their Parents were for placing early out of the danger of the World Old Persons who desired to end their Lives Religiously Marryed Men whose Wives also had consented to the same way of Living In the Rule of St. Fructuosus Cod. Regul Arch-Bishop of Braga we find Regulations for all these Persons They who for their Sins were obliged by the Canons to do Penances of many Years found it undoubtedly much more Commodious to pass them in a Monastery where the example of Living in Common and the Consolations received from those more advanced in Years might somewhat ease their Sorrows than to Live at large under them in the wide World where they could not avoid being singular and Pointed at So that the Monastery became a kind of Prison or Exile with which great Persons were often punished of which we have examples in France under the two first Lines of our Kings and in the East from the sixth Age. THE Monastick Life is a sensible XLII The Monastick life compared with that of the first Christians proof of the Providence of God and of the care he hath taken to preserve in his Church to the end of all Ages not only purity of Doctrine but also Holiness of Life If we call to mind what hath been said of the Christian Life in the second part of this Treatise and compare it with the Rule of St. Bennet and with the present usages of the well-regulated Monasteries we shall find that there is but little difference between them I have prov'd there that those Christians looked upon Religion as their main Concern making all the Affairs of this Life subservient to it And thus it is with the Monks who sequester themselves from the world that they may be at more liberty to mind the most necessary Poynt And for this Reason they are called The Religious a name common at first to all good Christians The Monks Asceticks and Virgins had also the name of Devotes given them from their being entirely Devoted to God Those first Christians were very frequent both in Publick and private Prayer coming as near as possibly they could to the Rule of Praying always the Psalmody is no-where better Regulated nor more exactly observed than in the Monasteries where it still continues the same as St. Benet set it above eleven hundred Years ago The Monks having nothing to divert them from the exercises of Religion have kept up the Practice more exactly than even the Clergy themselves 'T is supposed they reduced the Office into the form in which it hath stood now for a long time at least they added the Prime and Complin which at first were only private Prayers for every Christian Family or every Monastery to make use 3 Instit iv vi of at their own Houses to sanctifie the beginning and ending of the Day Cassian declares that this Establishment was but new in his Days In all this the Canons are to be esteemed as a sort of Monks and so indeed in the beginning they were being then all of them Regulars The Primitive Christians received the Communion very often fo do the Monks for the most part Ruffinus tells us the Disciples of St. Apollonius Communicated S. Basil ep 289 ad Caesar Patr. every Day The Monks kept up for a long time the Ancient custom of having the Eucharist always lying by them to Communicate themselves when they should want a Priest to Administer it 'T was perhaps for want of this Precaution Chrysost Hom. xvii in Epist ad Hebr. that some continued for the space of two whole Years without receiving the Sacrament Those Primitive Christians spent much of their time in Reading the Holy Scriptures The Rule of St. Benet prescribes Reg. S. Ben. c. xlviii the same to his Monks and more particularly that all the time of Lent and on all Sundays they should apply themselves wholly to this Exercise For on other Days they spent much of their time in the labour of their Hands of which Practice some traces are still remaining though it must be confessed that of all the Monastick customs this is the least continued Silence was necessary as is said before to avoid the common sins of the Tongue so frequent amongst Men and yet so much condemned in the Scriptures as Reviling evil Reports indecent Rallery foolish Jesting vain Impertinent and unprofitable Discourses and 't is observable that the
speaks with great vehemence concerning the last Judgment Hell and Paradise it make honourable mention of Moses and the Prophets of the Apostles and Martyrs and gives high Encomiums to Jesus Christ himself Besides it imitates several of the External Parts of Christianity The Christians Prayed seven times a Day the Musulmans Prayed five The Christians had their Annual Fast of forty Days the Musulmans have theirs of twenty nine keeping always strict Fast till Night as the Christians then did The Christians keep Sunday Holy the Musulmans Friday We assemble in our Churches to Pray to God hear the Reading of the Scriptures and the Instructions of the Priest they also Pray after their manner in their Moschs Read their Alcoran there and hear the Preachings of their Doctors They make Pilgrimages to the Land which they Esteem Holy and visit the Tombs of their pretended Martyrs ' They give much Alms and have Hospitals Founded among them in great numbers They have also some sorts of Religious Persons who live in Common and afflict the Body after a Terrible manner For there is no sort of Exteriour Austerities which Persons without Vertue may not Imitate either out of Vain Glory or for Interest But they can never bring themselves to live in Silence and Labour without being seen of Men. To do this a Man must be a Christian Our Travellers Bred up in the midst of Christendom are often affected with this outside of Religion and those Moral Vertues they meet with amongst the Infidels and sometimes return Home staggered in their Thoughts and inclining to believe that all things are indifferent in matters of Religion Under how great Temptations then must those poor Christians have layn that were Born under the power of those Insidels and obliged to pass their whole Lives with them kept under Oppression by them and having no other means of making their condition Comfortable in this World but by quitting the Faith of their Ancestors 'T is a wonder they were not all Perverted And the number of Christians still remayning throughout all the Levant after a Thousand Years of Temptation is a manifest proof of the power of the Gospel and of the weakness of Mahometism The Christians also that were subjects to the Emperors of Constantinople might be easily corrupted by their Commerce with the Mahometans and the several sorts of Hereticks that Infected all the East The Judgment of the Emperor Leo Author of the Sect of the Iconoclasts is supposed to have been corrupted by the Jews and Sarasins or the Arabian Mahometans The Emperor Michael Balbus passed for no better than half-a Jew The Young Emperor Michael the third with the Lewd Companions of his Debauches acted over in a most execrable mockery the Holy Ceremonies of our Religion even to the Tremendous Sacrifice it self and not long V. Baron an 853. Curopal after him I meet with another Young Emperor Alexander the Son of Leo the Philosopher openly Blaspheming against Christianity and Regretting the Suppression of Idolatry This makes me suspect that of all Christians the Greeks were the first Authors of Libertinism in matters of Religion Not that I would be thought to fix this suspicion on the whole Nation of them but only upon some of their great ones and other particular Persons For in these times generally speaking Religion bore up nobly throughout the whole Greek Empire They had among them great Doctors great Bishops and eminent Religious besides many Martyrs too in defence of the Holy Images IN the West the Faith was hitherto XLVIII The Manners of the West The disorders of the tenth Age. kept Inviolate It never enter'd into the thoughts of any Man to call the principles of Religion in Question nor was it here infected with Heresy But Ignorance and Barbarism increased upon it Charlemain did all he could to re-establish good Literature and Ecclesiastical Discipline But the following Princes did not pursue his great designs So that after his Days both Church and State fell into greater Disorders then ever The Faith had been before planted in Saxony Bavaria and all the rest of Germany But to secure it among those rugged Nations Charlemain was oblig'd to back the Preaching of the Gospel with the Sword and Temporal Punishments so that there were many involuntary Conversion which by the unhappines of the Times was not seconded with that care which was necessary to have given Religion sure rooting in a new and unbroken Soil so that one may easily imagin there remained at the bottom a Core of Ignorance and Spiritual Insensibility And this perhaps is one of the Causes why Schism and Heresy have since found so easy an Access and spread themselves all over the North. The Civil Wars which were carryed on from the Reign of Lewis the Debonnaire turn'd all things back again into a state of Ignorance and Confusion even in the soundest parts of the French Empire And to compleat their misery the Normans as yet Pagans ravaged and destroyed it on every side The Huagarian Pagans also overran Italy the Sarasins for a long time hovered upon their Coasts keeping them always upon the Allarm and at last effectually made themselves Masters of Apulia and Sicily besides Spain which they had now Possessed for more then an Age. So that what Remainders had been hitherto left of the Old Roman Manners and Polite Genius were now perfectly worn out The loss of Arts Learning and Civility had been the more Supportable had not the Interests of Religion been involved in their Fate which cannot subsist without both Study and Preaching the one to preserve in it the Soundness of Doctrin the other the purity of its Morals Religion must necessarily fall into Decay unless the Holy Scriptures be diligently Read Taught and Explained to the People unless the Apostolical Traditions be preserved in their Purity and Purged from time to time of those Spurious Additions which the Inventions of Men make without any just Authority All this was a thing hard to be done in the miserable times of which we are now speaking The greatest part of the Layety neither had Books nor indeed could so much as Read And if some of the great Lords had amongst their Rarities some Antient Authors yet they were not able to use them being Written in Latin The Latin was now no longer in common use and in the French and the other Vulgar Languages which were as yet but in their beginning and unformed nothing was Written So that as they could not understand the one they had nothing to Read in the other But the publick Offices of the Church were performed in Latin and the Scriptures were Read to the People in the same Language but seldom Explained The Lords by reason of the little Wars they continually had one against another kept themselves close shut up every one within the Walls of his own Castle so that they seldom came near the Episcopal City especially if they chanced to be as it often hapned at