Established Church in the Roman Empire* (principally by the Edict of Milan, A. D. 313). We are now considering the reasons which the State may have to establish the Church; and it appears, as we conceive, that in this instance, such establishment was the only mode of preserving the State from dissolution: and that this was so appears further from the entire failure of the attempt of Julian to re-establish Paganism, although, in the very attempt, we have the recognition of the necessity, then felt, of an Established Religion. But the Church was established by Constantine, not only as a useful Institution, but as the true Church. Constantine himself became a Christian and even if we were to doubt the sincerity of Constantine's piety, which there appears no good reason to do, yet still the grounds of the necessity and advantage of the establishment of the Christian Church in his time, lay in the Christian belief of the greater part of the persons by whom the State was administered and governed. It was because it was in their eyes the true Church, that its establishment gave security and health to the State. : 1019 The establishment of the Christian Church as the true Church, and as a necessary and prominent element in all Polity, alleviated many of the evils which accompanied the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and led to advantages which have been transmitted into every Christian Nation. The substitution of authorities and systems of administration which men reverenced, and with which they sympathized, for mere external compulsion, gave During nearly three centuries, the Christian Society was latently forming in the center and as it were in the heart of the Civil Society of the Roman Empire. From an early period it was a real Society, possessing its governors, its laws, its revenues, its expenses. The organization, at first perfect, free and founded altogether upon voluntary and moral ties, was nevertheless stringent. It was at that time the only association which provided its members with the joys which belong to the interior life of man; and which possessed in the ideas and sentiments on which it rested anything which could occupy vigorous minds, employ lively ima ginations, in short satisfy those needs of man's intellectual and moral being, which neither oppression nor misery can completely extinguish. The inhabitant of a nicipium, when he became a Christian, to belong to his city, and entered a new life to Society. The ecclesiastical organization of nations, into Dioceses and Parishes, tended both to disseminate moral and religious teaching, and to uphold social order. The Church was desirous to have religious Teachers, Places of Worship, Schools, diffused over the land. The whole of the People in the land, now made Christians, were recognized by the Church as belonging to her; and she wished to extend her ministrations to all. This was aimed at by dividing the land into small districts, and providing for the Christian instruction of each. The Christian ordinance which appropriated the first day of the week to religious worship and religious instruction was supported by the Law. All the great events of life, Birth, Marriage, and Death, were invested with religious ordinances. Men, bound together by local ties with which Christian feelings were connected, were moved to do good to their brethren as Christian teaching enjoins. They bestowed their wealth in providing present and future relief for the sick and needy, and in the maintenance of Christian ministers and Christian worship among them and their successors. The tenth part of the produce of the land was assigned to ecclesiastical uses. These appropriations of property to religious uses may be looked upon as a measure by which a certain portion of the wealth of the country was saved from the grasp of mere private caprice and selfishness: for though such property might often be applied to its professed uses in an imperfect manner, and under the operation of mixed motives; still, it was necessarily better bestowed than wealth which was held under no condition or limitation. Ecclesiastical property has undoubtedly, in the course of the history of Christian Nations, been employed in promoting benevolence, piety, learning and merit, in a far greater degree than any other kind of property. The possessions of the Clergy, held on the condition of the holders being learned, pious, and benevolent, and commonly bestowed upon them, in a great degree in reference to their ability, have been of far greater value in advancing the moral and intellectual progress of society, than any other portion of the wealth of nations. The cases in which the possessions of the Clergy have failed to produce these effects, have occurred where clerical property has been corruptly used; namely, dealt with as if it were private property :—a sufficient evidence how much more beneficial is the operation of the former than of the latter kind of property. 1020 By the establishment of the Christian Church as a This was confirmed by a Statute of Charlemagne for the Empire. Tithes were established for England by a Law of Ethelwolf, A.D. 855. part of the Polity of the Empire, the Clergy had naturally authority as well as maintenance assigned to them. The arbitration. of the Bishops was ratified and enforced by positive laws; the Clergy were endowed with privileges in the courts of law and exemption from civil offices. It was natural that great weight should be attributed to the advice and judgment of the more eminent Clergy in all matters; and the counsel of Bishops was sought in the conduct of public affairs. And in the course of time the holders of ecclesiastical property became powerful and important members of the State in virtue of their property, as well as of their character. For a long period, the establishment of the Church and the power of the Clergy led to the sway of moral and religious principles of a better and higher kind than were recognized by mere secular rulers. And the union of all the elements of the religious organization, as members of the Catholic or universal Church, gave to that organization a strength which enabled it to resist and counteract the destructive and degrading influences which prevailed in the breaking up of the Roman Empire. 1021 But the growing consciousness of this strength led gradually to the assertion of an Ecclesiastical Supremacy or Spiritual Domination; a form of Polity which thus grew out of the Polity of an Established Church. According to this Polity, the Christian Church has, here upon earth, a Sovereign Head to which the Sovereign of the State is subordinate. The pretended Head of the Church claimed this authority upon religious grounds, as Vicar of Christ: a claim which was afterwards justly rejected by the most enlightened nations as a baseless usurpation. But for several centuries attempts were made to realize this large and lofty idea of a Universal Christian Church with a visible Sovereign established in it, having all the States of the Christian World for its members. In this Polity, national and political distinctions were wholly lost sight of. The Vicar of Christ and his General Council knew nothing of England and France, of Germany or of Spain: they made Laws for Christendom-a magnificent word and well expressing those high and consistent notions of unity on which the Church of Rome based its system." 1022 But whenever attempts were made to establish this system of Spiritual Domination in nations of energetic character, already swayed by their political Governors, these attempts led to fierce conflicts between the Ecclesiastical and Civil Power; and the Ecclesiastical Supremacy was nowhere completely established. • Dr Arnold. The Sovereigns of every Nation in Europe succeeded in possessing themselves, practically at least, of the greater part of the temporal Authority which the Popes, in the day of the full manifestation of their system, claimed as belonging to the Head of the Church; such as the Appointment of Bishops, the Control of Ecclesiastical Revenues, the Authority of Supreme Judge, and the like. No nation was completely subjected to the Ecclesiastical Supremacy. Those Nations which recognize the Pope as the Head of the Church on earth, have still, in various degrees, asserted the Liberties of their own Church; and thus, made it a National Church. 1023 But yet, in the degree in which Spiritual Domination was exercised, we see how little fit men are to be entrusted with Authority of such a character. The Dignitaries of the Church, thus placed upon a footing of equal negociation, or rivalry, with Statesmen, by no means carried into action that better Morality in which we might expect religious men to excel politicians. In their political acts, they were, like other statesmen, selfish, ambitious, false, violent. Indeed it might seem as if the absence of superior control, which belongs to unquestioned Ecclesiastical Sovereigns, tended to make men rather bad than good. Some of the most flagrantly wicked characters which history presents to our view, are the Church Dignitaries, and especially the Popes, just before the Protestant Reformation. It was made apparent that the notion of a Christian world, governed in a Christian spirit, by an Ecclesiastical Body, under an Earthly Head, is one which, from the habitual conduct of men, must always be a mere dream. 1024 The resistance which was made to the claims of the Papal Power, led in various countries in Europe to the rejection of that authority altogether. The nation, in those cases, claimed for itself the right of establishing a National Church :—a member, in some sense or other, of the universal Church of Christ, but independent of the Pope or any other pretended visible earthly Head of that Church. But the establishment of such Churches involved also a rejection of alleged abuses in doctrine and in discipline which had arisen during the prevalence of the Papal Power. The national Churches thus established were also Reformed Churches. In effecting such Reformations, it is plain that the governors of the nation assert for the nation, and for themselves as acting on the part of the nation, the Right and the Duty of judging what is true in Religion, and what is false. The authority of the Romish Church was rejected in the reformed nations of Europe, not only because the Pope's Power was an usurpation, and a political evil, but because the Romish Doctrines were corrupt and erroneous. In such a reformation, the Church established in the nation might retain its organization, and become a member of the universal Church of Christ more truly than it was before, by rejecting unchristian errours and corruptions. An established Church, thus reformed, and not destroyed in its reformation, may be looked upon as a peculiar boon of Providence: this is the form of Ecclesiastical Polity which we possess in England. 1025 But though a Reformation of the national Church does not deny, but assumes, the Right and Duty of the nation to judge of religious truth; it may nevertheless happen that the indirect influence of such a Reformation may make it difficult to exercise this Right and Duty. For the very energy and freedom of mind which lead to the rejection of a system of Spiritual Domination, lead also to further differences of opinion within the nation itself. Thus the aim and plan of the Reformation, which established the Church of England, was to reject, both the Polity of Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and the various doctrinal Corruptions and Errours, which the Church of later times taught, along with that Polity. The Church of England retained Liturgies, and an organized Church Government by Bishops. But other Reformers, the Presbyterians, rejected Bishops; others, the Independents, rejected Church Government; and both, for the most part, rejected Liturgies. These Sects, however, did not professedly differ in essential points from the ancient Belief of the Christian Church, and are termed in England Orthodox Dissenters. Other Sects have arisen, rejecting more and more of the ancient belief. 1026 The existence of the Sects which thus arose in the various countries of Europe introduced difficulties into the administration of an Established Church in each nation. At first the duty of national religion was universally acknowledged; and the only questions agitated were what the national Faith should be, what its boundaries, and how to be secured. The existence of a great body of Dissenters from the national Church, made the nationality of the Church imperfect. To avoid this evil, it was urged that the Faith and Worship of the Established Church ought to be made as comprehensive as was consistent with a due regard for Christian Truth. At the Restoration of Charles the Second, attempts were made to modify the constitution of the Church of England so that it should include the greater part of the Orthodox Dissenters. If these attempts had succeeded, perhaps for a time the Church might have been more completely |