Church was greatly augmented in the ninth century, by the fabrication of a large body of decretal epistles or ecclesiastical laws, which purported to have been written by the popes during the first three centuries, and in which the judgment of all bishops, the holding of all councils, and a right to hear appeals from all ecclesiastical judgments, were claimed for the Roman pontiffs. These epistles, which had been forged in the preceding century, and which are now acknowledged by the most learned Romanists to be mere fabrications, exaggerated to the highest degree the powers and privileges of the popes; and the ignorance of the ninth century prevented any discovery of their falsehood. The bishops of Rome asserted their genuineness, and carried their principles into practice; though the bishops, especially those of France, offered much opposition. Thus the liberties of Churches were gradually invaded, while their discipline was injured by the obstacles thrown in the way of assembling synods and condemning offenders, and by the facility of appeals to a foreign and too favourable tribunal.

The growing influence of the Roman see in the western Churches is shewn by the gradual adoption of the liturgy of that Church. Originally one liturgy was used in Rome, another at Milan, another in Spain, another in Gaul, and another in Britain and Ireland. It seems that the Spanish, Gallican, and British liturgies were all derived from the same parent-stock; and there are reasons for supposing that they owed their origin to the apostle John, or the Asiatic Churches. The African Churches had also peculiar rites of their own. Thus it appears that for six centuries at least the Roman liturgy was not used out of Italy. Augustine and Boniface carried that liturgy into England and Germany in the seventh and eighth

But

centuries; and in the ninth, Pepin and Charlemagne, to gratify the bishops of Rome, obliged the clergy of France to adopt it; while in Spain, the ancient Mosarabic liturgy was abolished at the end of the eleventh century by the princes of that country, assisted by the papal legates, and the Roman was received in its stead. Milan alone, in all the West, was able to maintain its ancient rites against those of the dominant Church of Rome. It thus appears that the unity of worship and liturgy which Romanists so often boast of, was altogether unknown in the earlier and purer ages of the Church.

The bishops of Rome gradually acquired power over the metropolitans of the West by conferring on them the pall, which was an ornament originally given to the patriarchs by the Roman emperors, and which from the sixth century the patriarchs of Rome bestowed on those bishops whom they constituted their vicars. This honour became an object of extreme desire to the western metropolitans and bishops; and from the middle of the eighth century, the metropolitans generally began to receive it. But they were obliged to solicit it earnestly, and at length to go to Rome for the purpose; and, in fine, about the end of the eleventh century, it was represented by the popes as essential to the discharge of the duties of metropolitans; and this point being gained, the metropolitans were at last compelled to take oaths of obedience to the pope, before they could obtain their palls.

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE DIVISIONS OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN

CHURCHES.

A.D. 680-1054.

URING the period now before us the rival Churches of Rome and Constantinople had several disputes. When the controversy about images broke out in the eighth century, Gregory II. and Gregory III. of Rome excommunicated the emperors of the East, and forbade the payment of tribute to them, in consequence of their opposition to images. The emperors in return confiscated the possessions of the Roman see in their dominions, and withdrawing the various Churches of Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, as well as those of Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria, from the jurisdiction of Rome, subjected them to the see of Constantinople. The three former provinces had been under the see of Rome for about 350 years; the latter for a much longer time: however, the eastern Church offered no objection to this arrangement, nor was communion interrupted between the East and West on this account, though the bishops of Rome made frequent efforts to obtain a restoration of their authority. Their requests were fruitless, as long as they were addressed to the eastern emperors or Churches; but when the Normans subdued Sicily and Naples, in the eleventh century, those provinces, after an interval of three centuries, again became subject to the Roman jurisdiction. During the disputes on image-worship, the Roman see was for some time separated from the communion of the Church of

Constantinople; but it does not appear that the western Church generally regarded either party as heretical, or refused communion with them.

In the ninth century a dispute arose between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople about the province of Bulgaria, which each claimed. This was heightened by the controversy in the case of Photius, who had been made patriarch of Constantinople when Ignatius, the last patriarch, was expelled from his see by the emperor, and deposed by a synod of 318 bishops, by whom Photius was acknowledged patriarch. The Roman see took part with Ignatius, and deposed Photius, who retaliated by deposing the bishop of Rome: but after a time he was expelled, and Ignatius restored by another emperor. The majority of the eastern Church, however, adhered to Photius; and on the death of his rival Ignatius, he was again placed in his see by a synod of 383 bishops, in 879, with the approbation of pope John VIII. The latter consented to his restoration, on condition that Bulgaria should be transferred to the Roman jurisdiction; but this transfer was opposed by Photius and his successors; and though he became, in consequence, very obnoxious to the popes, who withdrew their communion from him, the communion of the universal Church was not seriously affected, and the two rival Churches afterwards remained in communion till 1054.

In this year, however, a division began between the eastern and western Churches, which has never yet been entirely healed. For when Cerularius, bishop of Constantinople, wrote to the bishop of Trani, in Italy, condemning several of the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Church, and shut up the Latin churches and monasteries of Constantinople, the legate of the Roman see, Cardinal Humbert, insisted

on his implicit submission to the pope; and, on his refusal, left an excommunication on the altar of his patriarchal church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. And as the eastern Churches adhered to Cerularius, and the western to the Roman see, they gradually became estranged from each other, though for many ages some communion still existed between them.

I have thus endeavoured to trace briefly the principal features in ecclesiastical history from the beginning to the division of the eastern and western Churches, and to shew that in every age the Church of God still existed, notwithstanding all the temptations of the devil, the world, and the flesh. It will next be my endeavour to carry on the same plan from the division of the East and West to the Reformation.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.

A.D. 1054-1517.

HE period under consideration is chiefly remarkable as exhibiting the progress of the division between the eastern and western Churches, and the rise and increase of the prodigious spiritual and temporal power of the popes. It was the unreasonable claims of this power which separated the eastern from the western Church, and which still continues to be the great obstacle to their re-union. spirit of worldliness, of craft, cruelty, and avarice, which so often disgraced professing Christians, and even ministers of Christ, in these ages, was but too faithfully copied from the example of the pretended

The