their Cities from Plunder at the peril of their own Lives Thus Attila was diverted from entring Rome by Pope St. Leo and from Troys by St. Lupus from Orleans by St. Martyr 23 Mai. 14. Dec. Agnan but St. Desiderius of Langres and St. Nicasius of Reims lost their Lives for their Flocks having their Throats cut by the Vandals When these Barbarian Kings turned Christians the Bishops made part of their Councils and were the most trusty of their Ministers They did what they could to recommend Gentleness and Clemency to them often interceding for Criminals and making use of several methods to this purpose 'T was for this end they were so very careful to have the rights of Sanctuary maintained a Privilege which at first the Veneration of Martyrs and afterwards of some illustrious Saints had procured to the places of their Sepulchre as in France to that of St. Martin Hence also 't is plain came in the Custom of putting out Peoples Eyes who ought to have suffered Death they thought to put them out of a capacity of doing more mischief in the World and yet give them time to Repent but sometimes they shut them up in Monasteries The Bishops also made use of the credit they had with their Princes to restrain them from Acts of Injustice and Oppresison to procure the Relief of the Poor and the common good To these ends and purposes they frankly employed the Riches of the Church He that reads what V. Anastas good Works the Popes have done from the time of St. Gregory to Charlemain both in repairing the Ruins of Rome and Reedifying not only the Churches and Hospitals there but likewise the Streets and Aquaeducts as also preserving all Italy from the Violence of the Lombards and the Avarice of the Greeks He that reads the Lives of St. Alnulphus St. Eligius St Audoenus St. Ligarius and the other Prelates who had a great hand in the Management of the publick Affairs in those Days He may see that Christianity is so far from interfering with the Interests of the State that it is indeed the surest foundation of true Politie as being the best means of Uniting Men together and making them serviceable to each other in Society This great Reputation of the Bishops and Abbots insensibly drew them in to share in the Temporal Power They were Lords and had the same priviledges with Lay-Peers but still with the same Incumbrances As to furnish out Soldiers for the Service of the State and often to lead them in Person The different Nations were in time sufficiently intermixed to make the Clergy either of Barbarians or Romans But an intire alteration in their Behavior was much more difficult 'T was very hard to restrain them from Hunting and the exercise of Arms after their Ordination especially when by the orders of their Prince they were obliged to appear in the Field Nor indeed can it be denyed but that those Temporal Seigneuries annexed to Spiritual Dignities were a great cause of the decay of Discipline IN the East they never had any of XLVII The Manners of the Christians in the East from the fifth Age. these Temporalties But there were other causes there which produced as bad effects The great Heresys which took their Rise and Course in those parts had set the Wits of many too busily on Work and shaken the Foundation of their Faith Nestorius on the one side and Eutiches or rather Dioscorus on the other had vast numbers of followers Their disputes were endless and from disputing they often fell into Quarrels and Seditions The Clergy and Monks who were the most Zealous brake forth into the greatest Heats and when these last above all others espoused the Quarrel so far as to quit their Solitudes and flock to the Citys to maintain the Cause of God as they thought there were no methods too Lawless or Violent for them T is well known what bloody Tragedies were Acted in Aegypt and Syria by the opposers of the Council of Chalcedon The Emperors endeavouring by their secular authority to remedy the Evil did only encrease it For instead of applying themselves to see the Decisions of the Church put in execution by Chastising and Suppressing the Obstinate and Seditious by force they engaged themselves in the Controversy and to end the Dispute made use of dangerous Accommodations determining the Point by their Imperial Edicts And at length encouraged by the servile compliances of the Bishops they undertook the regulation of the Church Discipline that is to say they ruined it For there was now no other rule left but the Emperor's Will and Pleasure Though the Roman Empire in the East was yet in Being yet they were no longer Romans save only in Name nor Greeks but in Language 'T was a meer Hotch Potch of all sorts of Barbarians Thracians Illyrians Isaurians Armenians Persians Scythians Sarmatians Bulgarians and Russians So that in all History we scarce meet with a People more corrupt then these later Greeks They had the Vices of the Antients but nothing of their Wit and Ingenuity or of their Arts and Sciences And yet they were all Christians and very careful to keep up the outward shew the pomp and formalities of Religion When the Mahometans had made themselves Masters of the East the Christians of those parts could not avoid keeping great Commerce with them Great numbers of Greeks in Aegypt and Syria liv'd under their Subjection For the Conquest of the Musulmans as the followers of Mahomet call themselves established their false Religion without abolishing the exercise of the Christian in the places where they found it Their Religion was too absurd to be received by them who had ever been enlightned with the true Faith since it taught Men to Believe in a Man that pretended himself to be sent from God upon his own bare Word without any Prophecy foretelling his coming without any Miracle to prove his Mission or Reason to Support his Doctrine That which got him followers was his Addressiing himself to the Arabians a sort of Barbarians as Ignorant as himself the happy success of his Arms and fairly dividing the Spoils with them The Christians had him in Detestation and were a long time subject to the Mahometans before they could so much as think of being in the least reconciled to their Religion But at last they came to it and at the end of Two hundred Years the Empire of the Musulmans being now in its full Glory under Califs their Religion began to appear less frightful to the Christians who were now grown miserably Ignorant and had their Spirits broken by a long Servitude The Original of Mohometism was now grown Old enough to be concealed and set off with the Embelishments of a vast many fabulous Stories The Pompous Gallimafrys of the Alcoran where the Name of God appearing in every page enough to impose upon the Ignorant It every where Inculcates the Unity of God and the Abhorrence of Idolatry It
Sacraments which was the cause of the special care they took not to admit any Infidel For they inviolably observed that command of our Saviour of not giving Holy things to Mat. vii 6. v. Methode des peres ch viii Dogs or casting Pearl before Swine This is the reason why they called Sacraments by the name of Mysteries that is to say things Concealed and that they kept them to themselves with a sacred secresy They kept them concealed not only from the Infidels but from the Catechumens also They not only declined to Celebrate the Mysteries before them but would not so much as inform them what was done at the Celebration nor pronounce in their presence the solemn words nor Speak a syllable in their Hearing concerning the nature of the Sacraments Much less did they Write upon this Subject And if in their publick Discourse or in any Writing which might fall into profane Hands they were obliged to Speak of the Eucharist or of any other Mystery they did it in obscure and Aenigmatical Act. ii 42. 46. Act. xx 7. 11. Terms So in the New Testament to break Bread signifies to consecrate and distribute the Eucharist a Phrase by which the Infidels could not guess what was meant This Discipline of the Church Continued for many Ages after the Persecutions ceased 'T was not strange to the Heathens to see Mysteries in Religion They themselves observed the like in their Profane Ceremonies They who were Initiated into the Mysteries of Isis or Osiris or Ceres Eleusinia or Cybele or the Samothracian Gods or other such like were bound under the most dreadful Maledictions to conceal the secret of the Mysteries and he that should have divulged them would have been looked upon as a most accursed Wretch Hereof Apuleius gives us a Apul. Asin lib. xi lively Instance and t is upon this account that Herodotus as he is speaking of the divers ceremonies of the Religion of the Aegyptians or other People often adds I know the reason of these things but I dare not tell it YET this secret of the Mysteries gave XV. The reasons of the general Odium against the Christians accasion to many false and scandalous Reports against the Christians For Men generally conceal themselves rather for Hurt than Good And 't was a thing but too Notorious that in other Religions the Mysteries which they took such care to Conceal were indeed no better than a Orig. in Cels. i. Tertull Apol. vii Cover for the most infamous Practises as in the ceremonies of Ceres and Cybele and in the Sacrifices of Bacchus which were forbidden at Rome by a Decree of the Senate A. V. C. 568. in which were Perpetrated Liv. lix c. 9. most horrid Cruelties The Prejudice they had against the Christians made them readily Imagin that what they kept so secret was something of the like Nature And these suspicions were Castor ap Euseb iv Hist c. vii Bar. an cxx n. 22. c. Epiph. Hares xx and xxvii Iren. lib. i. c. xxiv supported by the destable Villanies committed in their Conventicles by the Gnostick the Carpocratians and other Hereticks which indeed were such that one would scarce beleive the account the Fathers give us of them Now all these Hereticks went under the Common Denomination of Christians Besides from among the Catholicks themselves there were always some Apostates who Revolted to Paganism eithere out of levity of Mind or refusing to submit to Pennance after the Commission of some grievous Sin or as not being able to bear Persecution These Apostates in their own Defence Invented Calumnies against the Christians or at least confirmed and heightned those that were already forged against them And having been themselves Initiated in the Mysteries of the Christians their Testimony passed for Undoubted Thus came to be spread that Lye that the Christians in the Night assemblies cut the Throat of a young Child to dip their Bread in his Blood and after that Roasted him covered him over with Flower and so fed upon his Flesh Which false Report plainly arose from the Mysteries of the Eucharist Misrepresented To this they Farther added that after having taken together their common Repast in which they eat and drank to Excess they cast a bit of Meat to a Dog who was tyed to a Candlestick so that the Dog leaping at the Bait threw down the Candle after which being now in the Min. Fael Dark all the Men and Women were Promiscuously together like so many Beasts without any choice or Distinction as it happened How absurd soever these Fables were yet the People believed them and the Christian Apologists Terâ—â—ll Apol c. vii 8. 9. Orig. Contr. Cels. vi p. 293. were obliged to bestow a serious Answer upon them The Example of the Bacchanals in Rome about two Hundred Years before in which were Discovered such horrid Villanies had taught them to believe in general that there could be nothing so Abominable that might not be Introduced under the colour of Religion The Christians were also charged with being Enemies to all Mankind and to the Roman Power in particular That they rejoiced at the disasters of the Publick Luc. in Philopat were grieved at its Successes and wished the ruin of the Empire That which gave occasion to all those Surmises was That they heard the Christians talk so much of the Vanity of all Earthly Glories of the end of the World and of the last Judgment or perhaps they were somewhat Allarmed from what some indiscreet or malicious Persons might have told them concerning the Tertul. Ap. c. xxxv Punishments denounced in the Apocalyps against Idolatrous Rome and the Vengeance which God would one Day take on her for the Blood of the Martyrs which she had spilt That which further encreased these Suspicions against the Christians was their not joining with their Neighbours in their Publick Rejoyings which consisted in Sacrifices Profane Feasts and Spectacles full of Idolatry Const Ap. v. c. 9. Clem. ii Paedag. Ambros. Serm. xvii deCal Jan. Aug. in Ps xcviii n. v. and Dissoluteness On the contrary they rather chose to pass those Days in Penance and Mortification in consideration of the numberless Sins and Provocations then committed against God and they rejoiced on those Days which the Supersttion of the Pagans had marked for Calamitous and unfortunate They avoided their Fairs because of the profane Plays there Acted If ever they went to them it was only just to provide themselves necessaries or to buy some Slave in order Const. Ap. ii c. xxvi to convert him And indeed this one thing was sufficient to render them odious to the People their openly declaring against all the established Religions 'T was to no purpose to tell them that they worshiped the only true God maker of Heaven and Earth and that they worshiped him in Spirit daily offering up to him the Sacrifices of their Prayers This was a sort of Language these blind
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
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
Learning And indeed this was a thing altogether new to them For there was no Provision made by the Aug. de vera Rel init Heathens for the Instruction of the common People in matters of Religion They had only the Lectures of their Philosophers who Read to them the precepts of Orig Contr. Cels. Morality but never meddled with the proper Offices of Religion Besides as all the Hereticks passed under the name of Christians they ascribed to the whole Body of Christians all the Wild Fancies of the Velentinians and the other such like Visionaries encountred by Irenaeus The Heathens confounded all these Extravagancies with the Catholick Faith so that the Religion of the Christians appeared V. Baron an cl xxix n. 17. and 28. to them a meer mess of Infatuations vented by a parcel of Ignorant Crack-Brain'd Fools For what reason said they can you Euseb Praepar i. cap. ii give us why we should quit the established Religions Pleading so long a Prescription of Time recommended with such a pomp of Ceremonies confirmed by the Authority of so many Kings and Legislators and received by the Consent of all People both Greeks and Barbarians and that to embrace a Novel Invention of we know not who and run our selves a ground upon the Jewish Fables Or if you have a mind to turn Jews why are you not Jews thorow out But your Extravagancy is unaccountable in Worshiping the God of the Jews whether they will or no and in Worshipping him in such a manner as the Jews themselves Condemn as much as we and in pretending to their Law with which you have nothing to do 'T is true the Morals of Christians were very Exact and their Practises answered their Principles But all the World was then full of Philosophers who pretended no less than the Christians both to the teaching of Vertue and to the Practising of it There were among them also many who in the first Ages of the Church perhaps in Imitation of the Christians ran about the World from Place to Place pretending to make it their business to reform Mankind and thereupon submitting themselves to many Hardships and undergoing a kind of Persecution by the ill Treatment they sometimes met with as Apollonius Tyanaeus Musonius V. Baron an l xxv n. 6. Damis Epictetus and some others The Philosophers had for many Ages before been in great Reputation 'T was taken Orig. Con. Cels. for granted that nothing more could be added to what had already been said by some of them They could not imagin that Barbarians should have any thing better to offer than Pythagoras Socrates Plato or Zeno. They concluded that if these new Pretenders had any thing that was good in them 't was but somewhat which they had borrowed from those Old Sages Besides the Philosophers were a more Agreeable sort of Professors and their Principles better Accommodated to the inclinations of Mankind than those of the Christians The greatest part of them did not condemn Pleasure nay some of them made Pleasure the Sovereign good They left every one to enjoy his own Opinion and take his own way of Living If they could not perswade Men their method was to rally and dispise them and that was all the trouble they gave them But above all they took care not to pick Quarrels with the established Religions Some believed them and gave Mystical Explications of the most Ridiculous Fables Others troubled their Heads no farther about matters of Religion then to Acknowledge some first being the Author of Nature leaving the publick Superstitions to those whom they believed incapable of higher attainments Even the Epicureans who of all others discovered themselves the most Openly against the popular opinions concerning the Gods Assisto Divinis Horat yet freely Assisted at the Sacrifices and in what part of the World So ever they were joyned with the rest in the outward Forms of Religious Worship there Practised In this all their Wise Men agreed not to oppose the Customes established either by the Laws of the Countrey or Prescription of Time Their Belief of a Plurality of Gods went so far that they imagined every Nation every City every Family had Gods of its own who took a more peculiar care of them and whom therefore they were to Worship after a more peculiar Manner So that they counted all Religions good in such Places where they had been of a long time Received But the Superstitious Women among them and other Weak and Ignorant People were always hunting after new Religions imagining that the more Gods and Goddesses they worshipped and the greater number and varietie of Ceremonies they observed the more Devout and Religious they were The Wise Men among Liv. xxix them and their Politicians did what they could to Restrain this restless Humour and keep it within some Bounds and therefore were against all Innovations in matters of this Nature Above all they Forbad all strange and Forreign Religions and this the Romans made a Fundamental Principle of their Politicks To perswade their People to believe that 't was to the Beneficence of their Titlar Deitys that Rome was beholding for all its Glorious Successes and the Grandeur of its Empire That their Gods must needs have been more Puissant Deitys than any of the rest since they had brought under their Subjection all the Nations of the World Thus when the Christian Religion was entirely established the Pagans failed not to Impute to this Change of Religion the Fall of the Empire which Succeeded soon upon it And to answer these False Suggestions was St. Augustin obliged to compose his large Treatise entituled De Civitate Dei The Contempt the Christians had of Death was not by the Heathens looked upon as any great matter They saw every Day their voluntier Gladiators who for some inconsiderable Reward or perhaps for just nothing at all but to shew their own Bravery fearlessly exposed themselves to the Swords of their Antagonists and ventured having their Throats Cut in the open Amphitheatre They had Dayly examples before them of Persons and those of the best sort who upon any little Disgust would fairly Dispatch themselves out of the World Some of Vel jactatione ut quidam Philosophi l. vi §. vii F. de injusto rump ire their Philosophers as the Lawyers report of them did the like purely out of Vanity of which Lucian's Peregrinus is a famous Instance And therefore seeing the Christians Prosessing a Renunciation of the Enjoyments of this Life and placing all their happiness in that to come they rather wondered that they did not kill themselves They tell us Saith St. Justin Justin Ap. ◠init Go then kill your selves without any more ado get you gone to your God and let us hear no more of you And Antoninus Pro-Consul of Asia seeing the Christians Crowding the Court and offering themselves to Martyrdom cryed out to them Ah! Tertul. ad Scap. c. ult Wretched Creatures
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
in some of the ancient Prayers Sacr. in nativ S. Jo. in vig. omn. S S. Ordo Rom. as it were overloaded with them The Corporal was a large Table Cloth stretched out at length and held by two Deacons at the two ends of the Altar to receive these Oblations It belonged to the Componere altare Arch-Deacon to place these Loaves decently on the Altar and to set the Calice of Wine there which was to be Consecrated and to be better assured there was nothing in it they strained it through a Silver Cullander The Pastor after the Oblation of the Bread and Wine offered also the Incense which was to represent the Prayers of the faithfull as St. John in the Apocalyps Apoc. viii 3 4 5. saw an Angel employed at the Altar in offering up to God these spiritual Odors They fumed with the Incense as is still done the Altar the Oblations the Clergy and the People and to this use they apply'd none but right Perfumes the best Franckincence and other Aromatick Gums the richest then known in the World and that with such a Magnificence too that the Church of Rome had Lands in Syria and other Provinces of the East appropriated for supplying the Altar with these Perfumes During the Offertory was sung a Psalm of which there is now left only a Versicle which was with them the Anthem AFTER the Offerings were performed XXXIII Consecration Communion Const Apo. viii xi the Doors of the Church were shut and carefully Guarded by some of the Deacons or Ostiaries placed there for that purpose who might not open them even to the Faithful themselves till the Communion was over Other Deacons therewere walking softly about the Church to see that no body made the least noise and it was the peculiar business of one or the least sign of them to keep an Eye over the Children They had a place assigned them near the Bishop's Chair and as for those that were very small their Mothers were ordered to take them into their Arms Thus all the People were kept to a deep silence and heard with a profound Reverence and Attention the Prayers of the Preface and of that part of the Service which we now call the Canon The Bishop Pronounced the Words with a loud Voice and all the People said Amen as they did at the end of all other Prayers These Prayers were much longer than they are now as is still to be seen in the Oriental Liturgies The Church of Rome retained hath Const Apo. viii 12. nothing of this form but the Essentials formerly this Canon was an Abridgment of the History of Religion Praising God for the Creation of the World for restoring it after the Deluge for the call of Abraham for the special Favours vouchsafed to the Children of Israel and lastly for the Incarnation of his Son and the Redemption of Mankind After the Consecration the Bishop Const Apo. viii 13. took the Communion himself first then he gave it to the Priests then to the Deacons and other Clerks after them to the Asceticks or Monks to the Deaconnesses to the Virgins and other Religious Persons to Children and at last to all the People To shorten this Service which was always very long many of the Priests assisted at the same time in distributing the Body of our Lord and many of the Deacons in Administering of the Cup And to avoid Confusion the Priest and Deacons carried the Communion walking through the ranks of the People in the same Order as they had before received the Offerings none of the Communicants stirring out of his place The Men received the Body of Jesus Christ in their Hands and the Women in peices of Linnen made on purpose for that use The Crumbs and Fragments that were left of the Eucharist they gave to little Children and the rest of the Bread offered but not Consecrated was distributed among those who did not Communicate Ord. Rom. And from hence came the Panis Benedictus or the Blessed Bread During the Communion they sung a Psalm of which we have now nothing left but the Anthem In the Fourth Age the Communion began to be less frequented than Hom. iii. in ep ad Eph. formerly St. Chrysostom complains that many came to the sacred Mysteries and did not Communicate and that many others Hom. 17. in ep ad Heb. Communicated only on the Festivals and others again that Communicated but once or twice a Year From all this it follows that their Liturgy must needs have been long Nor indeed did Christians then think they had any thing else to do on Sundays but to serve God St. Gregory to shew how his Lib. viii ep xxxv Infirmities were increased upon him complains that he was scarce able to stand upon his Legs for those three Hours while he performed the Office of the Church And yet the Canon of the Mass was much the same then as it is now and those Sermons of his which are left us are very short ALL the Publick Service of the Church XXXIV The Chant and Magnificence of the publick Service was accompanied with Singing The same hath been observed of the former times but 't is to be supposed this publick Singing grew much more in use upon the Churches being freed from Persecution St. Austin ascribes to St. Ambrose the having Auguct ix Confess vii introduced into the West the use of Singing the Psalms in imitation of the Churches of the East and it is about the same time that we find St. Damasus the Lib. Pontif in Damaso Pope enjoining it St. Basil tells us that in his time the Psalms were sung both in Private Houses and in publick Places and that the singing was so agreeable that the Basil in Psalm i. pleasure help'd to convey the Religion of the Hymn into the minds of the People with more advantage And this was the true design of Musick The Antient Musick was not yet lost which was diversifyed into several kinds of Harmony variously applyed as the Nature of the Subject did require Soft or V. Platon iii. de Repub Strong Gay or Sad Grave or Passionate And we may conclude that in the Services of the Church they made choice of that which agreed best with the Majesty and Purity of Religion and that they carefully avoided to apply to the sacred Mysteries and the praysing of God Soft and Estaeminate Airs or such as might tend to affect the Heart with too sensible a Tenderness or put the Spirits into any 1. Conf 33. dangerous Commotion However St. Austin thought the Singing in the West somewhat too Soft and Secular and judged the Practise of St. Athanasius more Safe who caused the Psalms to be pronounced by the Reader with so small an alteration of Voice that it was rather plain speaking then singing I leave it to those who understand this Science to inquire whether we have not some remains of this Antiquity
Glance of his Eye to observe whether any thing passed there contrary to Modesty besides their Rule farther required that there should be Lights always in the Dormitory and that every single Bed which consisted only of a Mat and a Coverlet should be placed in full view This fashion is still kept up in Hospitals and 't is certain was very ancient among Christians and the Cells likewise or every one's having his little Apartment to himself are of very ancient usage But with the first Monks of the Deserts these Cells were only little Hutts or Cottages where they dwelt separately such as those of the Carthusians and the Camaldoli and though there lodged two or three Monks together under the same Roof yet they changed not their name and therefore we find that the lesser Monasteries which we now commonly call Priories passed for a long time under the name of Cells they were also called Casae Both the one and the other of these names seem to have been taken up from the lodgings of Slaves For the Monks in their way of living chose to imitate the condition of the poorest and most despicable of Mankind Besides methinks I can trace in our Monasteries the Model of the old Roman ways of Building as 't is described in Vitruvius and Palladius Their Church that it might be free and convenient for Seculars was always in the front of the Monastery and seems to have succeeded in the stead of the first Hall which the Romans called the Atrium From thence you pass into a Court surrounded with cover'd Galleries to which they ordinarily gave the Greek name of Peristilium and this is the proper Cloister it self into which was a passage from the Church and out of which you are led into the other parts of the House as the Chapter-house which was for Exedra of the ancients the Refectory or Triclinium and the Garden which ordinarily stands behind all the rest which was the way of the ancients But let that be as it will certain it is that those Holy Persons who formed their Rules for the Monks had no design of introducing Novelties or of distinguishing themselves by the singularities of their Methods That which makes the Monks appear now so strange and extraordinary is the change of other Mens Manners as the most ancient buildings are become singular because they are the only Fabricks left us that have stood for so many Ages And as the more judicious any Architect is so much the more curious is he in finding out the imperfect remains of those old Buildings as well knowing that that the Art of Building hath in these last Ages been recovered only by the imitation of these excellent Models So Christians ought exactly to observe the Practice of the most regular Monasteries to give them a view of the best examples of a life truly Christian I know there is scarce any thing which the length of time hath not somewhat impaired so there is no old building which time hath entirely sparred and of many-a-one there remains nothing but mishapen Ruins and yet by taking an exact view even of these Ruins and examining the very least Fragments of these precious Antiquities and then by comparing them with their Histories in the Books of the Ancients we come at the same time both to understand the true proportions of the whole Fabrick and the true sense of the ancient Writings After the same manner great use might be made of our Enquiries into the Monastick practices if together with them we also read the Rules of the Founders of the several Orders the old Canons the writings of the new Testament and the lives of the Saints of all Ages In the mean time it cannot be denied but that the Monasteries have been the Repositories of all sorts of Antiquities The greatest part of those old Manuscripts were found in them by the help of which Learning hath been restor'd in these last Ages In them were preserved the Works of the Fathers and the Canons of the Councils We discover every day in the Statutes and Customs of ancient Monasteries Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the greatest Curiosity In a word the Evangelical Practice in the Cloysters hath been all along kept up to its primitive Purity while in the World it hath been every Day changing from worse to worse and 't is this Declention of Religion I am now entring upon Part IV. HAVING represented the Behaviour of the ancient Christians I think XLIV The decay of Christian Piety in the Fourth and following Ages with the causes of it my self obliged now to add the principal Causes of the prodigious difference there is between Their way of living and Ours and so great is that difference that to many I doubt not this Account will appear as strange as those Relations our Travellers give us of the Indians and Chinese manner of living and the more Ignorant will scarce have Faith enough to give Credit to it because every particular is not proved home to them and the Testimonies set down at length But the whole stands upon Authorities well known to Persons of Learning and Reading We will proceed therefore to take a general view of the progress of this decay When Constantine had declared for Christianity the Converts came into it in shoals and what the Prophets had of old Predicted concerning the Church was literally accomplished that she should be established on the top of the Mountains Is ii 3. and that all Nations should flow in unto her to learn from her the Law of God and the Rule of living On the one side men with their own Eyes beheld the extraordinary Miracles which were every day wrought at the Tombs of the Martyrs the holy Lives of the greatest part of Christians and the invincible force of this Religion against which three hundred Years cruel Persecution had prevail'd no farther than to give it the deeper rooting On the other side Idolatry and the Fabulous Theology of the Poets was long before so exposed by the Philosophers that almost all the Men of Wit and Sense among them believed nothing of it but kept up the Religion of the People only for their own Interests and therefore they readily quitted it when it was no longer supported by publick Authority and most of them turned Christians Others out of a Libertine Opinion or Practice e'en continued as they were without having any Religion at all either because they could not bring their understandings to submit to the obedience of Faith or that they would not quit their Debauchery or forgo their ill gotten Goods or the unjust methods of raising their Fortunes There were scarce any Pagans left but of these two sorts the gross ignorant vulgar who were governed by Custom only and who were not capable of any thing higher than the impressions of Sense and some affected Wits who to shew their parts and Learning and out of a blind Veneration for Antiquity were resolved to maintain the cause of
Paganism and to that end underpropped it with the Allegorical explications of some Philosophers Fables These were the Platonicks of those times far from the good Sense and Solidity of Plato and the ancient Academicks his Disciples These fanciful Wits picking up what was most weak in the Doctrin of Plato and mixing it with that of Pythagoras and with the Mysteries of the Aegyptians patch't up a kind of Religion which at the bottom was founded upon Magick and which under the pretence of Worshiping good or bad Spirits authorized all sorts of Superstitions Such was the Religion of Julian the Apostate and we see somewhat of it in the Maxims of Apuleius in Porphyry and Jamblichus But there were few that penetrated into these subtilties and Paganism sunk every day more and more into Contempt Among so great a multitude of new Christians it was impossible that some should not pass in the Crowd drawn in only by Temporal Considerations upon the hopes of making their Fortunes under Christian Princes Complaisance to their Friends and Relations the fear of displeasing their Masters and in a word upon August in Jo. vi 26. tract ii all those Motives which now a Days make Hypocrites and false Zealots But these for the most part contented themselves with the bare Character of Catechumens and being loath to submit themselves to that strictness of Life which Christianity requires they were for deferring their Baptism as long as they could and often to the point of Death that so they might to the last continue the unhappy liberty of committing Sin without Subjecting themselves to the Discipline of Pennance Others proceeded even to Baptism and were V. Aug. de Catechiz c. xvii Cyr. Hier. Procatech not in their Hearts true Converts Some light inquisitive People were drawn in purely out of a curiosity to know the Mysteries which were revealed to none but the Faithful Their Superstition made them greedy after Religion and ambitious of being initiated into all sorts of Ceremonies and to participate in every thing which bore the name of Sacred without distinguishing the true God or the true Religion Among so many pretenders to Christianity what caution soever the Prelates could use They were but Men and it was impossible they should not sometimes be mistaken Many even of those that were Christians in good earnest grew every Day more and more remiss The fear of Martyrdome Leo. Serm. 6. in Epiph c. iii. Cypr. de Lapsis Dionys. Alex apud Euseb vi Hist 34. Euseb viii Hist c. ii was removed and Death did not now appear to them so near at hand Their security from outward danger betrayed them into that great hazard of Laying aside their Watchfulness Even in the state of persecution during the Intervals of their Troubles there was perceived a sensible abatement of Christian fervour Of this the Fathers very much complain ascribing the hottest Persecutions to this remisness of Zeal when ever they enjoyed the least Respite from their Enemies How must it then have been with them in a sure and settled Peace when t was not only not dangerous to be a Christian but also Honourable and advantageous The Princes and Magistrates being Converted to the Faith still maintained their Secular Grandeur and were never the less good Christians for looking after their temporal concerns and exercising their Charges So the common sort of Believers seeing Religion and Worldly greatness so fairly reconciled in these examples began to think there was no such great danger in Honours Riches and other enjoyments of this Life Thus the Love of pleasure Covetousness and Ambition revived in them The World was now become Christian yet still the World was the same They began now to Distinguish between Christians and Saints and Religious We find St. John Chrysostom frequently complayning of it that Chrysost ad fidel patr Idem Hom. i. in Matth. â—or in fi his Hearers to excuse their Earthly mindedness and too great Solicitude about the affairs of this World were wont to tell him We are no Monks we have Wives and Children to provide for and Families to look after As if the Christians of Rome or of Corinth whom St. Paul calls Saints and to whom he ascribes so high a Perfection were not Marryed Persons and led in the concerns of this World the same common life with other Men. To this add the Corruption of Nature that turns Food into Poyson The Church had in her publick Offices some kind of Observances more agreeable to outward Sense These were easily abused to the Flesh and applyed to wrong Ends contrary to the Iustitution of them The Sunday Rejoycings and those of the other Grand Solemnyties exceeded sometimes the Bounds of Sobriety and Basil Orat. de Ebriet Christian Moderation So that in the fourth Age they were obliged as I have Aug. ep xxix nov before observed to abolish the custome of making Entertainments at the Feasts of the Martyrs and the Clergy were also Prohibited from being present at those of Marryages Origen hath well observed Orig. cont Cels. how difficult a thing it is to reconcile sensible Pleasure with Spiritual joy The Body is a Slave which if too much Humour'd and Pamper'd with Food Sleep or other such like Indulgences will presently become Insolent and grow upon us Usurp upon the better part take off the mind from applying it self to Spiritual things and weaken its power of bearing up against Temptation Nor can the Spirit maintain its dominion over the Flesh but by a severe Conduct and continual Application I speak here of the same times I have just now described in the third part and do rip up in them also the least Faults that so I may the better trace out the very first beginnings of the Declension of Christian Piety without designing in the least to invalidate what I there said of the Manners of the Church in general or of its Discipline which was still preserved in its full vigor And above all the Sanctity of their Clergy was extraordinary However it must be granted there were some Prelates too sensible of the great Honours that were paid them And some also were accused of having misemployed the great Estates of which they had the Disposal One may see what Complaints were preferred to the Council of Chalcedon against Dioscorus and Ibas upon this account I believe Conc. Chalc. Act. iii. x. there can scarce be found any of the Orthodox Bishops of those times justly charged with the same Reproach But as the Arrians and other Hereticks had also their Bishops and Priests Their Passionate Conduct lessened in the eyes of the World the Honour of the order it self 'T was a great scandal to the Pagans and weak Christians to see Persons that had such Venerable Titles Masters of so little Temper and disputing with such heat against the other Bishops and Priests outraging them with Injuries and aspersions both in their Discourses and Writings Coming to the
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
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
were always doubted and disputed even by the Philosophers themselves 'T is true these principles were but ill practiced and though none called the truth of them into Question yet few pursued them to their necessary Consequences so as to lead their Lives in conformity to them But the Morals of Christianity failed not to produce some good effect even upon those that were no good Christians It prevented a world of mischief it softned the most Barbarious People and V. Euseb i. Prae. Evan. c. iii c. made them more tractable and Humane If they did not avoid all Crimes yet many of them repented at least and did Penance or if they did not do that yet in their own Consciences they condemned and disapproved of them In a Word Christianity in all places where it prevailed gave a general Tincture of Humanity Modesly and Decency of Behaviour not to be met with any where else In these times of which I am now speaking when the Face of the Church appeared so disfigured in general yet there were great Doctors and great Saints of all Conditions in all parts of the West in France the Monastick discipline began to raise up its head by the Foundation of the famous Monastery of Cluny whose first Abbots St. Odon and St. Majolus are renowned both for their Life and Doctrine In Italy St. Romualdus founded the Monastery of Camaldoli with many others and had many eminent Disciples We see in the same times many holy Bishops of an extraordinary Zeal for Religion a St. Dunstan in England a St. Vdalric in Germany a St. Adelbert in Bohemia the Apostle of the Sclavi and a Martyr We see St. Boniface also a Martyr in Russia St. Bruno in Prussia St. Gerard a noble Venetian Bishop and Martyr in Hungary and many others who by their Preachings their Holiness and their Miracles continued down the Tradition of sound Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline In the same Age we have amongst the Laity many Saints even of the greatest Lords as St. Gerald Count of Aurillac St. Stephen King of Hungary and St. Emeric his Son the Emperor St. Henry King Robert In these Saints particularly those of the Nations newly Converted as St. Henry and St. Stephen we may see what dispositions towards Vertue were found in those Nations whom the Romans called Barbarians They were naturally great observers of common Equity generously Plain and Open-hearted Chast Despisers of Pleasure and sensual satisfaction lovers of Justice Hospitality and Alms-giving When these Serious Sincere and Couragious People had once made trial of the Christian Religion they Embraced it heartily They never sought after Niceties in the Interpretation of it nor were they staggered at any of the difficulties it contained 'T is true their Conduct was not always so consistent and uniform as that of the ancient Greeks and Romans but then they were greater Strangers to Hypocrisy 'T was by the special Care and Authority of these Holy Persons that the Publick Peace began to be re-established by making all the Lords swear to the Truce Glab li. v. c. i. an 1041. of God so they called the Cessation of all acts of Hostility from Wednesday Night to Munday Morning in every Week and all that time the Clergy Monks Pilgrims and Labourers in Husbandry were to be unmolested This Truce was established Cap. i. extr de trev pa. in many Councils under the pain of Excommunication such force had Religion upon the Minds of Men when the very Foundations of civil Society were almost overthrown In these times also we meet with frequent mention of Excommunication against those who should strike a Clergy-man this was a thing never thought of in the First Ages Their own Dignity was then thought a sufficient Protection to them but they were now every Day exposed to the utmost Violences THE Normans had destroyed a great L. The restablishment of Piety and discipline number of Churches and others were suffered to run to Ruin upon the false Opinion they had That the end of the World would be precisely in the Thousandth Year of our Lord but when they Glab lib. saw that the World still stood after that fatal Year they began every where to build Churches again and that after the most magnificent manner they were capable of in that Age always more stately than any dwelling Houses not only of private Persons but of the chiefest Nobility They annexed to them large Endowments though for the most part they were no more than the Restitution of Tythes and the other Gods usurp'd in the late disorders Great care was every where used for the recovery of Relicks and great cost was spent in adorning them with the most precious Jewels that could be got as we may still see in the Treasuries of the most ancient Churches They applyed themselves also at the same time to the restoring of the use of singing in Churches and the other Solemnities of divine Service 'T was in the Eleventh Century that Guido Monk of Arezzo in Tuscany invented the Notes and introduced that Method which is the Foundation of all modern Musick The Religious Princes I have before mentioned both by their Liberalities and by their Examples favoured all these good designs Part of the Responses which are now sung were composed by King Robert and he Helgand vit Rob. thought it an honour to perform the Office of a Chanter publickly in the Church I find no Age in which the long Psalmody was more in Vogue as one may see by the Rule of the Carthusians and the other Orders Baron ad Martyrol ii Nov. of those times The Monks of Cluny brought into common use the Office for the Dead and soon after commenced the little Office of the Virgin Many had devotion enough to repeat over every Day the Petr. Dam. li. 6. ep 32. whole Book of Psalms As the number of their Offices increased so did also their Masses and Altars Domestick Chappels were exceeding numerous every Lord would have one to himself within the Walls of his own Castle that so he might not in the War-time be without the Mass and other Services of the Church but there was a mixture of Vanity in the Case they loved to have Chaplians in their Family and disdained the publick Churches where they were undistinguished from the common People In the mean time it was impossible that this multitude of Offices Celebrated in so many different places should appear with the same advantage as it would have done had there been but one Form or Office performed and directed by the Bishop assisted by all his Clergy as it was the manner of the Ages foregoing Besides the Reason of a great many of the Ceremonies was now forgotten and yet the Forms were still kept up by Tradition and the notion of the ancient Politeness was quite lost so that from these times we see not the same care taken as was formerly to erect their Churches at a convenient
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