It left them no part in administering the concerns of the church; and the consequence seems inevitable, that they would do little for the promotion of its purity. The moral obligation rested, indeed upon them, to which, however, they must of necessity become in a measure insensible, having little opportunity to act directly in the fulfilment of their duty. If scandals abounded, it belonged not to them to remove them. If a case of discipline occurred, it began and ended with the clergy. Every thing tended to separate the laity from the care of the church; and practically to influence them to neglect the duty of watching and striving together for the maintenance of practical godliness among all its members. Their religious and covenant obligations, if acknowledged, pressed not upon them with the interest of an urgent and present duty. The severity of the penalties which the system of penance inflicted was such also that, by mutual consent, they connived at the offences of the church, and concealed them, to prevent the bishops from exercising their authority in this way; and thus the discipline of the church came to be neglected.

(f) The tendency of the system was to sunder the private members of the church from each other, and to prevent the enjoyment of their mutual fellowship and watchfulness one over the other.

The connection of each member with the church was a transaction between him and his bishop or presbyter. The ordinary members of the church, having no agency in the transaction, could have little oneness of feeling, or union of spirit, with those who were, from time to time, enrolled on the records of the church. They were received to the ordinances of the church, rather than to the fellowship, the confidence and affection of brethren, one in heart, in sympathy and Christian love with them. The estrangement under such circumstances is mutual.

Nor is it easy

to see how there can be that blending of spirit and flow of

love between all of the several members, and that mutual watchfulness for each other's welfare, which Christ designed as one of the richest privileges of Christian fellowship.

The mutual estrangement and the general neglect of Christian watchfulness and discipline which dishonored the church at this time is forcibly exhibited by Eusebius, who lived in the age now under consideration; he says,—“After Christianity through too much liberty was changed into laxness and sloth—then began men to envy and revile one another; and to wound one another as if with arms and spears in actual warfare. Then bishop arose against bishop, and church against church. Great tumult prevailed, and hypocrisy and dissimulation were carried to the highest pitch. And then began the divine vengeance, as is usual, to visit us; and such was the condition of the church that the most part came not freely together."9

"As things now are, all is corrupted and lost. The church is little else than a stall for cattle, or a fold for camels and asses; and when I go out in search of sheep I find none. All are rampant and refractory as herds of horses and wild asses; everything is filled with their abounding corruptions." 10 Similar sentiments occur abundantly in the writers of the third and fourth centuries and the ages following.

(g) This system was a gross infringement of the right of private judgment in religion.

It was a law strictly enforced that every laymen should be careful blindly to believe, without inquiry, without evidence, all that the church, represented by the bishop in synod, should prescribe. The evidence he was not competent to examine. Here is the origin of that papal policy that denies the Bible to the laity, and the pattern of that "prudent reserve" which Puseyism inculcates in preaching the gospel to the common people. The exercise of one's private

9 Eccl. Hist., 8, c. 1. 10 Chrysostom, Hom. 89, in Math., Vol. 7, p. 830.

judgment, leading him to dissent from the prescribed articles, was not only a heinous sin, but a violation of the law of the state, punishable with severe penalties.11

"In endeavoring by the secular arm, to compel all the Christians to entertain the same speculative opinions, the questions then debated, the sovereigns at once turned free discussions into controversy and strife. . They inflamed instead of extinguishing party spirit. They formally divided the church into sects. They entailed the disputes of their own times, as an inheritance of sorrow to posterity, and wrote INTOLERANCE over the portal of the house of God." 12

2. Results of the metropolitan government upon the clergy.

The clergy, under this system, appear in many respects in strong contrast to the ministry of the apostolical and primitive churches.

(a) Their officers are greatly multiplied. Instead of two classes of ecclesiastical officers, as the ordinary ministers of the church, there are now many in different degrees of rank, defined with the precision and guarded with the caution almost of military or naval discipline. The increase of the churches would; of necessity, require a corresponding increase in the number of its ministers. So that even in the second century, there were Christian churches which had twenty or thirty presbyters and sometimes as many deacons.13 This latter class however was more generally limited to the number of seven.14 But we

11 Sozomen, Eccl. Hist., Lib. 7, c. 6. Codex Theodosian, L. 16, tit. 3, 1. 2.

12 Rev. Thomas Hardy, cited in Dr. Brown's Law of Christ, respecting civil obedience, p. 512.

13 Christ. Antiq. Art. Deacons, chap. 3, § 10, p. 107, seq.

14 The church at Rome under Cornelius, A. D. 250, had 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 sub-deacons, 42 clerks, besides 52 exorcists, readers, janitors, &c. Euseb., Eccl. Hist., Lib. 6, c. 43.

have now several entirely new classes of officers in the church, sub-deacons, acolyths, readers, exorcists, door-keepers, &c. To these were subsequently added many others, advocates, σúrdinoi, apocrisiarii, cimeliarchs, custodes, mansionarii, notarii, oiconomoi, syncelli, &c., &c. The specific duties of these several officers are briefly stated in our Antiquities of the Christian Church,15 and more at length in the larger works of Bingham, Augusti, Siegel and Boehmer. These new officers, some of which were merely titular, had their origin, not in the exigencies of the church, but from other causes, which indicate still farther changes in the ministry and the existing government, that remain to be mentioned. To one of these, allusion has already been made, but it requires a more specific consideration.

(b) The distinctions between the different orders of the clergy are drawn with great care, and cautiously guarded.

The councils of the period abound with canons defining the boundaries of the respective grades of the clergy. Henceforward history is especially employed in describing their errors and disputes. Gregory Nazianzen, A. D. 360, in view of these ambitious contentions, exclaims, "How I wish there had been no precedence, no priority of place, no authoritative dictatorship, that we might be distinguished by virtue alone. But now this right hand, and left hand, and middle, and higher and lower, this going before and going in company, have produced to us much unprofitable affliction, brought many into a snare, and thrust them out among the herd of the goats; and they, not only of the inferior order, but even of the shepherds, who, though masters in Israel, have not known these things."16 "I am worn out with contending against the envy of the holy bishops; disturbing the public peace by their contentions, and subordinating the Christian faith to their own private interests."... "If I must write the whole truth, I am de16 Orat. 28, Vol. I, p. 484.

15 Chapter IV, pp. 119-130.

termined to absent myself from all assemblies of the bishops; for I have never seen a happy result of any councils, nor any that did not occasion an increase of evils, rather than a reformation of them by reason of these pertinacious contentions, and this vehement thirst for power, such as no words can express. "17

(c) The clergy manifest a strong party feeling.

There is an esprit du corps, which separates them in interest and feeling from the lower orders, and from the church. They have become one party, and the church another; each with their separate interests. And these too often are contrary, the one to the other. This spirit manifested itself particularly in their synods, where the bishops sought to depress as much as possible the other orders of the clergy. Even when they had occasion to inflict censure upon their own number, the hierarchy never forgot the interests of their order, in respect to the other.18 On the other hand, many rules were prescribed regulating the relative rank of the presbyters, deacons and subordinate officers; and the violating of these rules was punished with increasing frequency and severity. For proof of this reference may be had to the councils of Elvira, Neocaesarea and Nice.19

"They (the bishops) had the means of carrying any measure for their own advantage; and, while they continued united, it was not easy for a whole church, even, and much more, for a single individual of the clergy, or of the laity, to oppose them. Even if a whole church came into collision with their bishop, they must submit to the decision of the provincial synod, of the metropolitan, and also of his fellow-bishops. The danger was, that these all, and even the churches of the province, would agree in a

17 Ep. Philagrio, 65, al. 59, p. 823, and Ep. Procopio, 55, al. 42, p. 814. 18 Conc. Antioch., c. 2, Synod. Gangr., c. 7, 8. Conc. Chalcedon, c. 8. 19 Comp. Conc. Laodic., c. 20, 42, 56.