canon, ordering, that if any bishop should think himself unjustly condemned by his comprovincials and metropolitan, his judges should acquaint the bishop of Rome, who might either confirm their judgment, or order the cause to be re-examined by some of the neighbouring bishops. In this Osius had evidently a double view. One view was to confer an honour on his friend Julius, the other to give an additional security to the clergy of his own side. In those times of violence and party rage, bishops who, on the controverted points, happened to be of a different side from their colleagues in the same province, and especially from the primate, were sometimes, for no other reason, very tumultuously and irregularly deposed. A revisal of this kind seemed then at least to secure the final determination in favour of the orthodox, (an epithet which in church history commonly expresses a concurrence in opinion with the majority) whose doctrine was at that time vigorously supported by the pope. This end, however, though probably the principal, it does not appear to have answered. The eastern bishops paid no regard to the acts of a synod, from which they thought they had the justest reasons to separate themselves. Nor was it ever accounted, by the African bishops, of authority sufficient for establishing a custom so totally repugnant to ancient practice, and so subversive of the standing discipline of the church.

But the popes, long after these disputes were terminated, well knew how to avail themselves of a canon so favourable to the exaltation of their see. Not many years afterwards, Valentinian, the more effectually and speedily to crush the dissensions and schisms that obtained, in his time, among the prelates, especially in Italy, and the west, enacted a law, empowering the bishop of Rome to examine and judge other bishops, that religious and ecclesiastical disputes might not be decided by profane and secular judges, but by a christian pontiff, and his colleagues. For this immunity, and the power thus conferred on the order, a considerable number of bishops, mostly indeed Italian, soon after synodically convened at Rome, expressed a grateful sense of the emperour's generosity and indulgence. The opinion, that the order had a superiour, even a divine, right to be independent of the civil powers, a notion so prevalent some ages afterwards, had not yet been broached. The single agreeable circumstance, that the imperial edict gave an exemption to the clergy from the power of laymen, made them overlook a very fatal circumstance in it, which was, its tendency to enslave the whole order, (not to say the christian community) by subjecting them to the tyranny of one of their own number. But the bitter

was surmounted by the sweet, or more properly, the poison was greedily swallowed, as it was hidden under a vehicle extremely palatable. But no advantage, once obtained, was ever overlooked by that politick and watchful power.

It is evident, that neither the canon of Sardica, nor the imperial rescript, produced at first much effect beyond Italy, and its immediate dependencies. For a long time no regard was paid in the east, or even in Africa, to these new regulations. And their influence over the clergy in the west, it must be owned, advanced by very slow degrees. The subordination of bishops to their own metropolitan, along with the other comprovincial bishops, and of metropolitans to their own exarch, with the other diocesan prelates, had by this time been so well established, that it was no easy matter to remove foundations so firmly laid. Indeed, about thirty-four years afterwards, in the pontificate of Damasus, the primitive order was expressly restored, and the canon of Sardica virtually revoked by a council assembled at Constantinople, greatly more numerous, and held for many ages in much higher estimation, than the council of Sardica.

One thing, however, in the policy of Rome, to which they sacredly adhered, was never to lose sight of any privilege or advantage once obtained, never to be disheartened at any particular check, or present want of success, in asserting a right, but carefully to watch their opportunity, and anew to urge a plea that appeared favourable to their pretensions, however often they had been baffled in urging it before. This perseverance never failed, on some occasion or other, to be of use to their cause. And one instance of success (the increase of the ignorance and superstition of the people keeping pace with the superiority of the Roman pontiffs) did them more service, than twenty defeats did them hurt.

To this unabated perseverance they added another maxim, namely, to make the raising of the papal power their primary object, to which it behoved every other consideration to give way. As this showed itself on numberless occasions, so on none more eminently than on the difference which arose betwixt the eastern churches and the western, on the subject of Acacius. This Constantinopolitan pontiff, who lived towards the end of the fifth century, had, in some of those absurd and unintelligible logomachies, with which the christian world, in those ages, was without intermission pestered, taken the side opposite to that espoused by the Roman pontiff. The consequence was, they first disputed, and, by a very usual progress, from disputing they came to quarrelling, and from quarrelling to an open breach. These holy priests, at last, most piously,

according to the fashion of the times, abused, cursed, and excommunicated each other. The Roman bishop, indeed, at this time, made a bold attempt for surpassing all that his predecessours had enterprised hitherto. He summoned before himself, and a synod of Italian bishops, who were his dependants, and, on non-appearance, tried, condemned, and deposed a patriarch, nay, the first patriarch of the east, an order over which even the insatiable ambition of that restless power had never, till then, dared to claim any jurisdiction. The reciprocal anathemas followed of course. This produced a most memorable schism between the oriental churches and the occidental, a schism which continued for no less than five and thirty years, and subsisted through no fewer than five successive pontificates. The seeds of the dissension may be said to have been sown in the time of pope Simplicius. It was by his successour, Felix the second, that the patriarch was cited, judged, and deposed.

Though it was impossible that such extravagant proceedings should take effect, in opposition to the emperour, and all the oriental churches, they showed but too clearly to what height of pride and arrogance the boundless and ill-judged profusion of former emperours, senators, matrons, and opulent cities, had already raised this novel but formidable power. On this there ensued immediately a division of the church into two: the west adhering to the pope, and the east declaring for the patriarch, both obstinately refusing to communicate with each other. It was but too visible, by the sophistical evasions and subterfuges, which the Roman pontiff, and his immediate successour, employed in the manifestoes published to apologize to the world for this conduct, that they began to be apprehen sive lest the papal power had been stretched too far, and be-` yond what the world was yet prepared to bear. For this reason they were fain to vindicate it on principles which the see of Rome has now, for several ages, absolutely disclaimed. But what was to be done? They had gone too far to retreat, without giving a mortal wound to all their high pretensions. And to persist, had the appearance of entailing a perpetual schism on the church. This last effect, however, was, on many accounts, rather to be hazarded. Their maxim seems to have been, Better be absolute despots in a narrower territory, than have, in an extensive empire, an authority not only more limit ed, but co-ordinate, with that of other potentates.

It was a practice in the churches, at that time, and had been for some ages before, to enrol the names of those, who died in the communion of the church, in certain records, which they called diptychs, wherein the bishops were registered by

D d

themselves. And of these, publick commemoration was made, by the officiating deacon, at a certain part of the service. After the death of Acacius, repeated attempts, both in Felix's lifetime, and after his death, in the time of his successours, were made on the part of the Greeks, to restore the amity that had formerly subsisted between Greeks and Latins. And, in effect, the whole ground of the quarrel, the henaticon, or decree of union, a compromise by observing silence on some disputed points, the objections against the synod of Chalcedon, and against the doctrine contained in a letter of pope Leo, on the controverted articles, were given up. The only thing, that served to obstruct the proposed union, was, that the names of Acacius, and the bishops who succeeded him, during the continuance of the schism, were in the oriental churches still retained and read in the diptychs.

This, though it did not in the least affect the doctrine in debate, affected what more nearly touched Rome, the supremacy she aspired at over all other churches. Whilst the names of those prelates continued there, they were acknowledged as lawful bishops, notwithstanding that they had all been either deposed by the Roman pontiff, or at least refused his communion. And though nothing could be a more barefaced usurpation than the power then, for the first time, arrogated by the pope, it was, after repeated trials, found impossible to obtain reconciliation on any other terms. This obstinacy, or, if you will, firmness, in the pontiff, will appear the more remarkable, when the other circumstances of the case are attended to. The Constantinopolitans were so attached to the memory of Acacius, that for many years no successour could permit his name to be erased, without endangering not only his own life, but the tranquillity both of the city, and of a great part of the empire. The emperours, themselves, long considered it as too hazardous a thing even for them to authorize. Besides, the east was at this time divided into two great factions, the eutychians and the orthodox. It gave the former no small subject of triumph, and no little advantage, over the latter, their antagonists, that these, whilst the variance subsisted, could reap no benefit or assistance from the western churches, though of the same sentiments, in the found disputes of the time, with themselves. It was in vain. for the Greeks to urge the impossibility of a compliance, without raising a combustion in the then capital of the empire. It was in vain to urge, that the continuance of the breach would endanger the total subversion of orthodoxy in the east, that is, throughout the better half of christendom. The pope remained inflexible.

pro

The truth is, these arguments served rather to confirm him in the resolution he had taken, than to induce him to relinquish it. The more difficult the accomplishment of the condition was, on the part of the orientals, the more complete would be the victory of Rome. In like manner, the greater the clamour and the disturbances it might raise in the imperial city, and other Grecian churches, the more signal would be both the triumph of the Latins, and the mortification of the Greeks; and the less, in time to come, would the latter be disposed to hazard a breach with the former. And as to the arguments from the imminent dangers to which the orthodox faith, in the east, would be exposed by the continuance of this unnatural division, nothing can be plainer, than that this very circumstance hardened the obstinacy of the pontiff into downright inflexibility. He saw but too well the necessity the Greeks were under of obtaining peace on any terms, that they might be able to withstand and surmount so formidable a faction as that of the Eutychians, sprung up in the heart of their own country, and daily gathering strength from the divisions of the orthodox.

So far

But, may one say, is it possible that the Romans should, from such selfish and political considerations, have made so small account of endangering, throughout the half of the christian world, what they reckoned the purity of the faith, and absolutely necessary to salvation? That in reality they acted this part, is an historical fact incontrovertible. from abating of their terms, as the danger of the faith increased, they, on the contrary, raised their demands, in the persuasion that the Greeks, from the urgency of the necessity, would be disposed to yield them every thing. In fact, by this artful management, more was obtained at last than had at first been insisted on.

To one who reads the history of the church with attention and understanding, nothing can be more manifest, than that, with the Romans, power was uniformly the primary object, doctrine was always but the secondary. Their great political talents and address were constantly exerted in modelling and employing the latter in such a manner as to render it instrumental in promoting the former. This cannot, with equal truth, be affirmed of the Greeks. The many philosophick sects which had arisen among them, when in a state of paganism, had produced the pestilent itch of disputation, together with that species of subtlety, which enables those possessed of this miserable cacoethes, to find, on every subject, materials for gratifying it. Such were the disposition and habits which, on their conversion to christianity, they brought with them into