To their exceptions on this head, his excellency's answer was very brief. He had not said more simply and absolutely, that princes are from God, than the prophet Daniel and the apostle Paul had said before him, and that if there be no heresy in their expressions, there can be none in his; that for his own part, the distinction of mediate and immediate, and the extravagant constitutions of Boniface, never entered into his mind. His apology, instead of diminishing, only increased the odium and clamour against him. He obstinately defends, said they, those errours which he ought penitently to recant. His opposition, however, and the alarm taken by sovereigns, were sufficient to prevent those attempts on the secular power being carried further. In the other questions agitated, as those about residence, and the jurisdiction of bishops, there was a division of the clergy into two parties, the pontificii, or patrons of papal despotism, on one side, and those on the other, who maintained, that the bishops had a divine right to a share in the jurisdiction. But in the struggle between the spiritual power and the temporal, the ambassadours had the whole council for antagonists. Both the contending factions were united on this head. It had been, indeed, uniformly the policy of Rome to exert herself in supporting the at tempts, made in every country, to draw both power and property out of the hands of the laity into those of the clergy. When this was once effected, she was never at a loss for expedients, whereby she might again draw the whole, or the greater part, out of their hands into her own. By the first, she secured in her interest the clergy of every nation, and laid the foundation of such a close dependance on herself, as ren. dered the exertion necessary for obtaining the second object much easier, than what had been employed for obtaining the first.

To adduce some instances: with what infinite labour and contention did the pope, aided by the bishops, (always ready, at his instigation, to rebel against the civil powers) wrest the investitures in church livings out of the hands of princes, in order, as appeared at the time, to restore them to the chap ters of the several dioceses; and with what ease, comparatively, were the chapters afterwards wormed out of that right by the pope? First, he employed the gentler method of recommendation. When this was ineffectual, he commanded. As even commands were sometimes disregarded, he proceeded to cause his commands to be conveyed by nuncios, empowered to give collation, if necessary; and armed with the highest censures against the disobedient. Thus the clergy found, to their cost, that the last errour was worse than the

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first, and that, under the appearance of recovering their liberty, they had brought themselves (as is often deservedly the case with rebels) into greater bondage. The monarch had commonly some regard to the merits of the candidate. The pope acknowledged no merit but that of a weighty purse. Natives were formerly preferred, now often aliens and stran gers, who could not speak the language. Thus Roman courtiers, minions of the pontiff, men who resided constantly in Italy, frequently drew the richest benefices of distant countries, whilst the duties of the charge lay neglected. We have another example in the monks, who, at first, under pretence of vowed poverty, acquired great credit with the publick, as aiming at no temporal advantage, but doing all through charity, for the service of the people. Afterwards, when their credit was fully established, Rome quickly devised reasons for dispensing with their vow. From that time they enriched themselves. When they were become opulent, the pope treated them as he treated bishopricks; bestowed them on his favourites, sold them to the highest bidder, or gave them in commendam. Rome always asserted resolutely, and, in most cases, successfully, the clergy's right of exemption from being taxed by the secular powers; but it was in order to slip into the place of those powers, and assume the prerogative of taxing them herself. This, though always controverted by temporal rulers, she so effectually secured, that sovereigns, in any remarkable exigency, especially when they could plead some holy enterprise, such as a crusade for the massacre of infidels or hereticks, were fain to recur to the pope, as the easiest and surest way of obtaining the assistance of their own clergy. This also gave the pope an easy method of bribing princes to his side, when he wanted to destroy or mortify any adverse power. It was his usual game, to ply the bishop against the king. But this, when his subalterns proved mutinous, he could successfully reverse, and ply the king against the bishop. At the time of this very council, he was forced to recur to these artifices. Both the Spanish clergy and the French, having proved refractory, on the article of episcopal jurisdiction, his holiness did not find it a fruitless expedient, for preventing their obtaining the countenance and support of their respective sovereigns, to give hopes to the latter, of the aids solicited from him, for extirpating heresy, and securing the catholick faith, namely, the tenths of the ecclesiastick revenues, in their own dominions.

Thus I have, in this and the two preceding lectures, given you a sketch of the state at which the papal authority was arrived in the sixteenth century, at the time of the sitting of

the council of Trent, the last which, under the name of ecumenical, (though not universally received even by the Ro man Catholicks) has been holden in the church. I have also given you some idea of the different sentiments on this article, entertained by different parties of Romanists; for, on this subject, and on some others, they are far from being unanimous. I shall now add a few things on the present state of the hierarchy, in regard to the form, particularly on the dignity and office of cardinal, which has naturally sprung up out of the changes gradually effected in the constitution of the Roman church, in respect both of the extent of her dominion, and of the exaltation of her power, concluding with some ac count of the manner in which the hierarch was wont to be installed in his sublime station.

As to the office of cardinal, there can be no doubt, that for several hundred years, there was no appearance in the church either of the name or of the thing. Though some other ac Counts have been given of its origin less honourable for the office, what appears to me the most plausible is the following. When the distinction of patriarchs and metropolitans, and their suffragans, came to be established, it naturally gave rise to some distinction in the presbyters and deacons of the archiepiscopal churches, whether patriarchal or metropolitical, from the presbyters and deacons of the ordinary, that is, of the suffragan bishops. The dignity of an archiepiscopal see, as it raised its bishop above the other bishops of the province, would readily be conceived to confer some share of superiority, at least in honour and precedency, on the presbyters and deacons belonging to it, above the presbyters and deacons of the subordinate bishopricks of the province. The former were counsellors and assessors to a man, who had a certain jurisdiction over those to whom the latter were counsellors and assessors. In consequence of this, the presbyters and deacons, which constitute what, in the primitive church, was called the presbytery, or bishop's senate, came to be denominated in some capital cities, where the primates resided, (for the custom was neither universal nor confined to Rome) car dinal presbyters and cardinal deacons, that is, according to the original import of the name, chief, or principal presbyters and deacons; being accounted such when compared with their comprovincials of the same order. But still the more essential difference of the orders deacon, presbyter and bishop, was sacredly preserved. Thus a cardinal deacon, though superiour to the other provincial deacons, was held inferiour to an ordinary provincial presbyter, and a cardinal presbyter, though superiour to the other provincial presbyters, was inferiour to

a suffragan bishop. Accordingly, in the most noted councils. held at Rome, we find, that the cardinal Roman priests always signed under the Italian bishops. Nor did any bishop then accept at Rome the office of cardinal priest, though it be not uncommon now for those who are bishops in other cities, to be priests or deacons in the Roman conclave.

As gradually a number of titles, that had before been enjoyed by many, were engrossed by Rome, whose supereminence came in process of time, to swallow up all other distinctions; as the term pope, and the epithets most blessed, most holy, which had, for several centuries, been attributed to all bishops, at least to all patriarchs and metropolitans, were arrogated by Rome, as belonging peculiarly to her pontiff; so the title cardinal was, from the like principle, assumed as belonging peculiarly to her clergy. Yet it remained at Ravenna till the year 1543, when it was abrogated by Paul III. Indeed, as the Roman see rose in power and riches, the revenues of all belonging to it rose in proportion, and the patrimony annexed to a deaconship in Rome was far more considerable, than the revenue of an or dinary bishoprick in the provinces. And if such was the case with the deacons, we may be assured, that not only no provincial bishop, but very few metropolitans, were able to vie in splendour and magnificence with a Roman presbyter.

Exorbitant wealth annexed to offices may be said universally to produce two effects. There are singular exceptions; but these cannot affect the general truth. The two effects are, arrogance and laziness. When the priests of Rome were made petty princes, one might be assured, they would be no longer officiating priests. Opulence is never at a loss to find expedients for devolving the burden of the incumbent service on others shoulders. Another effect is arrogance.

When

Roman presbyters and deacons could live in greater pomp and magnificence than most bishops, or even archbishops could afford to do, they would soon learn to assume a state and superiority in other respects unsuited to the different functions. Accordingly we find, that in the three last councils of note, to wit, Pisa, Constance, and Trent, there were many and warm complaints on the haughtiness, and even insolence of these new dignitaries, who affected to be styled the princes of the church, and who thought themselves well entitled to this distinction. For they were both the electors and the counsellors of the sovereign pontiff, and had got it pretty well established, that in every vacancy one of their college should be chosen pontiff. It could not easily, for some time, be relished, that those who, by canonical rules, belonged to a lower order, as priests and deacons, should treat the greatest prelates in the church as

their inferiours and vassals. The honourable distinctions conferred on them by popes still widened the distance. They got the red hat from Innocent IV, in 1244. Paul II added the red cap and scarlet housings; and Urban VIII, in the last century, dignified them with the title of eminence,

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At the same time it must be observed, on the other hand, in excuse of their uncommon exaltation, that when the bishop of Rome, that is, the pastor of a single diocese, or, as it was still more properly called at first, a single parish, a single church, or congregation, was risen insensibly into the head of the church universal, or, at least, the greater part of it; and when his presbytery, that is, his small consistory of colleagues and ministers, who assisted him in conducting the affairs of the parish, was, by the same insensible degrees, advanced into the senate by whose assistance and consultations the affairs of the whole church were to be conducted, the members must, of necessity, become men of another sort of importance. This gave rise to the consequences I have mentioned, and these again gave rise to regulations in which (unless men's view had been to overturn the fabrick of the hierarchy altogether, and bring things back to their primitive model) it was proper, and even nesessary, to consider more what the office of cardinal then was, than what it originally had been when the church of Rome was no more than the church of Corinth, or any other christian congregation.

At different periods there have been made changes, both in the number of the members of this college, and in their functions. The footing whereon it now stands is this: the conclave, which is the name of the court constituted by the cardinals, consists of seventy members, exclusively of the pope their head. Of these there are six bishops; for though this could not have been from the beginning, or rather from the time that the distinction between bishop and presbyter was first settled; for then no more than one bishop was allowed to one church, it was not unreasonable, to have also some of this order in the number, when it was no longer the presbytery of a single church, but the privy council of the monarch for the management of the whole. There are fifty priests, and fourteen deacons. They are, on occasion of vacancy by death, nominated by the pope, and may be of any country whatever. That they should be, as much as possible, taken from the different countries of christendom, or rather, the different Roman catholick countries, since they have a share in the government of the whole Roman catholick church, is entirely suitable, and is now in a manner established by custom.