general law, but only by local statutes of their own appointment. Sect. 5. in these matters by parochial churches. Yet in one of these two ways the Alterations made clergy were commonly provided for the endowment of out of the revenues of the great church, till such times as endowments and settlements began to be made upon parochial churches; which was not done in all places at the same time, nor in one and the same way: but it seems to have had its rise from particular founders of churches, who settled manse and glebe upon the churches which they builded, and upon that score were allowed a right of patronage, to present their own clerk, and invest him with the revenues of the church, wherewith they had endowed it. This practice was begun in the time of Justinian, anno 500, if not before, for there are two of his laws which" authorize and confirm it. About the same time, a settlement of other revenues, as oblations, &c., was also made in some places upon parochial churches, as has been observed before out of Theodorus Lector's accounts of the churches of Constantinople. Yet the change is thought by some' to be much later in England: for they collect out of Bede, that the ancient course of the clergy's officiating only pro tempore in parochial churches, whilst they received maintenance from the cathedral church, continued in England more than a hundred years after the coming of Austin into England, that is, till about the year 700. For Bede plainly intimates, that at that time the bishop and his clergy lived together, and had all things common, as they had in the primitive church in the days of the apostles. Sect. 6. No alienations to 13 I have but one thing more to obbe made of church serve upon this head, which is, that upon nary occasiona. but pen extraord: such goods or revenues as were once given to the church, were always esteemed devoted to God; and therefore were only to be employed in his service, and not to be diverted to any other use, except some extraordinary case of charity absolutely required it. As if it was to redeem captives, or relieve the poor in time of famine, when no other succours could be afforded them: in that case, it was usual to sell even the sacred vessels and utensils of the church, to make provision for the living temples of God, which were to be preferred before the ornaments of the material buildings. Thus St. Ambrose melted down the communionplate of the church of Milan to redeem some captives, which otherwise must have continued in slavery and when the Arians objected this to him : Justin. Novel. 57. c. 2. Novel. 123. c. 18. Cawdrey, Disc. of Patronage, c. 2. p. 8. Selden, of Tithes, c. 9. p. 255. Bede, Hist. Gentis Anglor. lib. 4. c. 27. Ambros. de Offic. lib. 2. c. 28. Possid. Vit. Aug. c. 24. 19 Socrat. lib. 7. c. 21. invidiously as a crime, he wrote a most elegant apology and vindication for himself, where, among other things worthy the reader's perusal, he pleads his own cause after this manner: Is it not better that the bishop" should melt the plate to sustain the poor, when other sustenance cannot be had, than that some sacrilegious enemy should carry it off by spoil and plunder? Will not our Lord expostulate with us upon this account? Why did you suffer so many helpless persons to die with famine, when you had gold to provide them sustenance? Why were so many captives carried away and sold without redemption? Why were so many suffered to be slain by the enemy? It had been better to have preserved the vessels of living men, than lifeless metals. What answer can be returned to this? For what shall a man say? I was afraid lest the temple of God should want its ornaments. But Christ will answer, My sacraments do not require gold, nor please me the more for being ministered in gold, which are not bought with gold. The ornament of my sacraments is the redemption of captives and those are truly precious vessels, which redeem souls from death. Thus that holy father goes on to justify the fact, which the Arians called sacrilege, but he by a truer name, charity and mercy; for the sake of which he concludes, it was no crime for a man to break, to melt, to sell the mystical vessels of the church, though it were a very great offence for any man to convert them to his own private use. After the same example, we find1 St. Austin disposed of the plate of his church for the redemption of captives. Acacius, bishop of Amida, did the same for the redemption of seven thousand Persian slaves from the hands of the Roman soldiers, as Socrates 19 informs us. whence we also learn, that in such cases they did not consider what religion men were of, but only whether they were indigent and necessitous men, and such as stood in need of their assistance. We have the like instances in the practice of Cyril of Jerusalem, mentioned by Theodoret 20 and Sozomen, and in Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, whose charity is extolled by Victor Uticensis" upon the same occasion. For he sold the communion-plate to redeem the Roman soldiers, that were taken captives in their wars with the Vandals. This was so far from being esteemed sacrilege, or unjust alienation, that the laws against sacrilege excepted this case, though they did no other whatsoever. As may be seen in the law of Justinian, which forbids the selling or pawning the church plate, or vestments, 20 Theod. lib. 2. c. 27. Sozom, lib. 4. c. 25. From 21 Victor. de Persec. Vandal. lib. 1. Bibl. Patr. t. 7. p. 591. 22 Cod. Just. lib. 1. Tit. 2. de Sacrosanct. Eccles. Leg. 21. Sancimus, nemini licere sacratissima atque arcana vasa, vel vestes, cæteraque donaria quæ ad Divinam religionem ne or any other gifts, except in case of captivity or famine, to redeem slaves, or relieve the poor; because in such cases the lives or souls of men were to be preferred before any vessels or vestments whatsoever. The poverty of the clergy was a pitiable case of the same nature: and therefore, if the annual income of the church would not maintain them, and there was no other way to provide them of necessaries; in that case some canons allowed the bishop to alienate or sell certain goods of the church, to raise a present maintenance. | ceeding. The fourth council of Carthage" disannuls all such acts of the bishop, whereby he either gives away, or sells, or commutes any goods of the church, without the consent and subscription of his clergy. And the fifth council of Carthage requires him to intimate the case and necessity of his church first to the primate of the province, that he with a certain number of bishops may judge whether it be fitting to be done. The council of Agde* says, he should first consult two or three of his neighbouring bishops, and take their approbation. Thus stood the laws of the church, so long as the bishop and his clergy had a common right in the dividend of ecclesiastical revenues: nothing could be alienated without the consent of both parties, and the cognizance and ratification of the metropolitan or provincial synod. So that the utmost precaution was taken in this affair, lest, under the pretence of necessity or charity, any spoil or devastation should be made of the goods and revenues of the church. vel venditio vel commutatio rei ecclesiasticæ, absque conniventia et subscriptione clericorum. 25 Conc. Carth. 5. c. 4. Si aliqua necessitas cogit, hanc insinuandam esse primati provinciæ ipsius, ut cum statuto numero episcoporum, utrum faciendum sit, arbitretur. 26 Conc. Agathen. c. 7. Apud duos vel tres comprovinciales vel vicinos episcopos, causa qua necesse sit vendi, primitus comprobetur. BOOK VI. AN ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL LAWS AND RULES, RELATING TO THE EMPLOYMENT, LIFE, AND CONVERSATION OF THE PRIMITIVE CLERGY. CHAPTER I. OF THE EXCELLENCY OF THESE RULES IN GENERAL, AND THE EXEMPLARINESS OF THE CLERGY IN CONFORMING TO THEM. Sect. 1. I HAVE in the two foregoing Books The excellency of given an account of the great care of the Christian rules attested and envied the primitive church in providing and by the heathens. and expel the refractory and contumacious. This is plainly to say, (and it is so much the more remarkable for its coming from the mouth of an ad training up fit persons for the minis-versary,) that the Christian clergy of those times try, and of the great encouragements that were given them by the state, as well to honour and distinguish their calling, as to excite and provoke them to be sedulous in the discharge of their several offices and functions. There is one thing more remains, which is, to give an account also of the church's care in making necessary laws and canons, obliging every member of the ecclesiastic body to live conformable to his profession, and exercise himself in the duties of his station and calling. These rules were many of them so excellent in their own nature, and so strictly and carefully observed by those who had a concern in them, that some of the chief adversaries of the Christian religion could not but take notice of them, and with a sort of envy and emulation bear testimony to them. Among the works of Julian there is a famous epistle of his to Arsacius, high priest of Galatia, (which is recorded also' by Sozomen,) wherein he takes occasion to tell him, that it was very visible that the causes of the great increase of Christianity were chiefly their professed hospitality toward strangers, and their great care in burying the dead, joined with a pretended sanctity and holiness of life. Therefore he bids him, as high priest of Galatia, to take care that all the priests of that region that were under him, should be made to answer the same character; and that he should either by his threatenings or persuasions bring them to be diligent and sober men, or else remove them from the office of priesthood: that he should admonish the priests, neither to appear at the theatre, nor frequent the tavern, nor follow any calling or employment that was dishonourable and scandalous; and such as were observant of his directions he should honour and promote them, but discard were men that lived by excellent rules, diligent in The character of Christian writers. ready to have communicated much more to them. St. Austin' gives the like good character of the bishops and presbyters of his own time, making them the chief ornament of the catholic church, and extolling their virtues above those of a monastic life, because their province was more difficult, having to converse with all sorts of men, and being forced to bear with their distempers in order to cure them. He that would see more of this general character, must consult the ancient apologists, where he will find it interwoven with the character of Christians in general; whose innocence, and patience, and charity, and universal goodness was owing partly to the institutions, and partly to the provoking examples of their guides and leaders; who lived as they spake, and first trod the path themselves, which they required others to walk in. Which was the thing that set the Christian teachers so much above the philosophers of the Gentiles. For the philosophers indeed discoursed and wrote very finely about virtue in the theory, but they undid all they said in their own practice. Their discourses, as Minucius observes, were only eloquent harangues against their own vices; whereas the Christian philosophers expressed their profession not in their words or habit, but in the real virtues of the soul: they did not talk great, but live well; and so attained to that glory, which the philosophers pretended always to be offering at, but could never happily arrive to. Lactantius triumphs over the Gentile philosophers upon the same topic: and so Gregory Nazianzen,' Tertullian," Cyprian," and many others; whose arguments had been easily retorted, had not the Christian teachers been ge- | nerally men of a better character, and free from those imputations which they cast upon the adverse party. Sect. 3. Some few instances indeed, it can Particular excep- not be denied, are to be found of per tions no derogation to their general good Sons, who in these best ages were character. scandals and reproaches to their profession. The complaints that are made by good men will not suffer us to believe otherwise. Cyprian" and Eusebius" lament the vices of some among the clergy, as well as laity, and reckon them among the causes that moved the Divine Providence to send those two great fiery trials upon the church, the Decian and the Diocletian persecutions; thereby to purge the tares from the wheat, and correct those enormities and abuses, which the or dinary remedy of ecclesiastical discipline, through the iniquity of the times, was not able to redress. The like complaints are made by Chrysostom," Gregory Nazianzen," and St. Jerom," of some ecclesiastics in their own times, whose practices were corrupt, and dishonourable to their profession. And indeed it were a wonder if all ages should not afford some such instances of unsound members in so great a body of men, since there was a Judas even among the apostles. But then it is to be considered, that a few such exceptions did not derogate from the good character, which the primitive clergy did generally deserve: and the faults of those very men were the occasion of many good laws and rules of discipline, which the provincial synods of those times enacted; out of which I have chiefly collected the following account, which concerns the lives and labours of the ancient elergy. Sect. 4. An account of some ancient writwhich treat of clergy. To these the reader may join those excellent tracts of the ancients, which purposely handle this subject; such the duties of the as St. Chrysostom's six books de Sacerdotio; St. Jerom's second epistle to Nepotian, which is called, De Vita Clericorum; and Gregory Nazianzen's apology for his flying from the priesthood; in all which the duties of the clergy are excellently described. Or if any one desires rather to see them exemplified in some living instances and great patterns of perfection, which commonly make deeper impressions than bare rules, he must consult those excellent characters of the most eminent primitive bishops, which are drawn to the life by the best pens of the age; such as the Life of Ignatius by Chrysostom; the Life of St. Basil and Athanasius by Gregory Nazianzen; the Life of St. Austin by Possidius; the Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus and Meletius by Gregory Nyssen; in all which the true character and idea of a Christian bishop is set forth and described with this advantage, that a man does not barely read of rules, but sees them, as it were, exemplified in practice. The chief of these discourses in both kinds are already translated into our own language by other pens," and they are too prolix to be inserted into a discourse of this nature, which proceeds in a different method from them. I shall therefore only extract such observations from them, as fall in with the public and general laws of the church, (of which I give an account in the following chapters,) and leave the rest to the curious diligence of the inquisitive reader. "Euseb. lib. 8. c. 1. 12 Chrys. Hom. 30. in Act. 13 Naz. Carm. Cygn. de Episcopis, t. 2. 14 Hieron. Ep. 2. ad Nepotian. 15 See Bishop Burnet's Pastoral Care, c. 4. and Seller's Remarks on the Lives of the Primitive Fathers. CHAPTER II. OF LAWS RELATING TO THE LIFE AND CONVERSATION OF THE PRIMITIVE CLERGY. Sect. 1. required in the cler Reasons for it. THE laws of the church which con Exemplary purity cerned the clergy, I shall, for disabove other men. tinction's sake, consider under three heads; speaking, first, Of such laws as concerned their life and conversation. Secondly, Of such as more particularly related to the exercise of the several offices and duties of their function. Thirdly, Of such as were a sort of outguards or fences to both the former. The laws which related to their life and conversation, were such as tended to create in them a sublimity of virtue above other men; forasmuch as they were to be examples and patterns to them; which, if good, would be both a light and a spur to others; but if bad, the very pests and banes of the church. It is Gregory Nazianzen's reflection' upon the different sorts of guides which he had observed then in the church. Some, he complains, did with unwashed hands and profane minds press to handle the holy mysteries, and affect to be at the altar, before they were fit to be initiated to any sacred service. They looked upon the holy order and function, not as designed for an example of virtue, but only as a way of subsisting themselves; not as a trust, of which they were to give an account, but a state of absolute authority and exemption. And these men's examples corrupted the people's morals, faster than any cloth can imbibe a colour, or a plague infect the air; since men were more disposed to receive the tincture of vice than virtue from the example of their rulers. In opposition to such he lays down this as the first thing to be aimed at by all spiritual physicians, that they should draw the picture of all manner of virtues in their own lives, and set themselves as examples to the people; that it might not be proverbially said of them, that they set about curing others, while they themselves were full of sores and ulcers. Nor were they to draw this image of virtue slightly and to a faint degree, but accurately and to the highest perfection: since nothing less than such degrees and measures of virtue were expected by God from the rulers and governors of his people: and then there would be hopes, that such heights and eminences would draw the multitude at least to a mediocrity in virtue, and allure them to embrace that voluntarily by gentle persuasions, which they would not be brought to so effectually and lastingly by force and compulsion. He urges further the necessity of such a purity, from the consideration of the sacredness and majesty of the function itself. A minister's office sets him in the same rank and order with angels themselves; he celebrates God with archangels; transmits the church's sacrifices to the altar in heaven, and performs the priest's office with Christ himself; he reforms the work of God's hands, and presents the image to his Maker; his workmanship is for the world above: and therefore he should be exalted to a divine and heavenly nature, whose business is to be as a god himself, and make others gods also. St. Chrysostom3 makes use of the same argument: That the priesthood, though it be exercised upon earth, is occupied wholly about heavenly things; that it is the ministry of angels put by the Holy Ghost into the hands of mortal men; and therefore a priest ought to be pure and holy, as being placed in heaven itself in the midst of those heavenly powers. He presses likewise the danger and prevalency of a bad example. Subjects commonly form their manners by the pattern of their princes. How then should a proud man be able to assuage the swelling tumours of others? or an angry ruler hope to make his people in love with moderation and meekness? Bishops are exposed, like combatants in the theatre, to the view and observation of all men; and their faults, though never so small, cannot be hid: and therefore, as their virtuous actions profit many, by provoking them to the like zeal; so their vices will render others unfit to attempt or prosecute any thing that is noble and good. For which reason their souls ought to shine all over with the purest brightness, that they may both enlighten and extimulate the souls of others, who have their eyes upon them. A priest should arm himself all over with purity of life, as with adamantine armour: for if he leave any part naked and unguarded, he is surrounded both with open enemies and pretended friends, who will be ready to wound and supplant him. So long as his life is all of a piece, he needs not fear their assaults; but if he be overseen in a fault, though but a small one, it will be laid hold of and improved to the prejudice of all his former virtues. For all men are most severe judges in his case, and treat him not with any allowance for being encompassed with flesh, or as having a human nature; but expect he should be an angel, and free from all infirmities. He cannot indeed (as the same father argues in another place) with any tolerable decency and freedom discharge his office in punishing and reproving others, unless he himself be blameless and without rebuke. The priest's office is a more difficult province" than that of leading an army, or governing a kingdom, and requires an angelic virtue. His soul ought to be purer than the rays of the sun, that the Holy |