Empire was thus disquieted by their controversies, and he wished to thank God for the common union and liberty which he desired for all mankind. Such was the substance of his letter, and it breathes the spirit of a Sovereign, zealous and anxious for the general good.

The next proof of the impartiality of Constantine was shown on the meeting of the Council.

Not only was the Empire divided between Paganism and Christianity, as the Christian world is now divided between Protestantism and Popery, but the various Bishops of the Churches mutually accused each other, and presented libellous petitions against each other to the Emperor. Constantine directed that all should be burned. He implored and exhorted them to forgive each other, as Christ had commanded them, as they themselves hoped for the pardon of their own sins from Him. He entreated them, for the sake of their common Christianity, to study peace, and to establish truth, and required them to proceed to the business of the Council, that the controversies of Christians might be lessened, and the union of Christians be promoted both by their decision and by their example3.

Of the example of Constantine, in summoning and appealing to the Council of Nice, I shall speak immediately; but if the secular princes of Europe will indeed attempt to bless their people, by endeavouring to diminish their mutual religious hatreds, they will certainly imitate his princely impartiality in appealing with equal affection to the parties which divide the nations. As Constantine made no distinction, before the Council of Nice, between Arius and Alexander, they may declare, both to the Papist and the Protestant, that they will regard them both with equal political affection; and that the mutual accusations of their past histories, and the bitterness of their present exasperations, shall be considered only as warnings of errors to be avoided; as beacons to guide the conduct of Princes in future; as monuments of past evils, and not as topics of unalterable and perpetual reproach. When Luther became the mouth of Europe, in embodying the remonstrances of Kings, and the indignation of the People, against the additions to the primitive Christianity, which had gradually accumulated in the course of the periods justly called the dark ages', the Bishop of Rome,

2 Bißλía deńσewv-Socrat., &c., l. i. cap. viii. p. 20, edit. Reding, fol. Cantab. 1720.

3 If the student will compare the accounts of Eusebius, de Vit. Const. 1. iii. cap. 12 (p. 583, edit. Reding), and Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 1. i. cap. viii. (p. 18 of the same edition), he will perceive that I have endeavoured to give the substance of Constantine's addresses.

An objection has been lately urged by some writers to the expression, "the dark ages." It is said that the medieval ages of the Church, in which flourished ecclesiastical architecture, the monastic institutions, and the Papal and Conciliar additions to the creeds of primitive antiquity, ought not to be thus designated; because the Church and the State abounded with learned men, and there was intense devotion, both among Princes and People.-It is, indeed, most true, that there was much learning and much devotion; but the ages in question are still justly called the dark ages, for the same reason that we call the night dark,—not because there is no light whatever, but because the sun does not shine upon the world. The moon may give her borrowed light; the stars may pour forth their radiancy; comets may excite the admiration of the sleepless, and the fears of the superstitious; while meteors in the heavens may astonish the gazer, or meteors in the marshes may bewilder or destroy the wanderer;

partial Councils, and assemblages of Bishops under the sanction and controul of the Pope, were all appealed to in vain. Cruel executions, under the Papal system, in England, Spain, and the Low Countries, with the miserable retaliations by the Protestants, and the long tale of painful vengeance inflicted by both parties on each other, have alike failed to produce their conversion or their union. The open warfare, the burnings of heretics, and the murderous hunting down of the Papists, have alike ceased. Both parties, however, still remain, encamped as it were on the field of controversy, waiting for some third party to become their reconciler and mediator. The earthly friend to effect this object can only be the united sovereignty of the secular princedom, which has succeeded Constantine. The powers of Europe can alone follow the example of the impartial Emperor. Elevated above the mists and fogs of the disputes of their divided people, they alone can burn the clashing libels of the Protestant and Papist. They alone can refuse to hear the charges of apostasy, cruelty, persecution, and heresy, mutually alleged against each other, by the religionists over whom they rule. They alone can say to priests and people, to Protestants and Papists, to sects and Churches,— "We are resolved to attend to none of your wretched accusations; we commit, "with Constantine, every libellous petition to the flames, and we resolve to "revise anew the whole system of religion; to restore the triumphs of the primi"tive Christianity, which preceded the very existence of all the divisions of the "last fifteen hundred years; to assign the victory to neither, but to revive only "that faith and discipline which the Divine founder of Christianity gave to the "world before the words Papist or Protestant were known, or Hildebrand and "Innocent, Wycliffe and Luther, Calvin and Ignatius Loyola existed. We will and light may proceed from all these, and by all these united, the darkness may be lessened; but still it is night, and still the darkness remains, for the sun shines not; and neither his morning beams, his mid-day brightness, nor his evening splendour, declare the continuance of the day. So it was also with the mediæval ages. There was light, but the sun of Scripture did not shine upon the world of the common people. The holy books were not read by the priests in the churches, in their own language, to the masses of the ignorant believers. The moon of the Church gave its borrowed light; the clergy shone in their varied glory as the stars; the Bishops of Rome, the Hildebrands, and the Innocents, and the Pascals, and the Alexanders, like the comets of their own superstition, "from their horrid hair shook pestilence and war;" while the subtle and the profound doctors shone like meteors among the marshes of their metaphysics, and bewildered the understandings of their followers. But this, the learning of the schools, was not scriptural knowledge. It was but the substitute for the religion which gives the reason to God, at the moment when it proffers to Him the affections, the life, and the will. Some light shone, but it was the darkness visible to the thoughtful Christian, who lamented the setting of the sun of primitive Christianity, or who anticipated the brightness of its rising again. See Maitland's work-The Dark Ages, 1 vol. 8vo, London.

E. g. Council of Lateran, March 16, 1517. Luther's appeal to the Pope, 1518, and March 9, 1519. Diet of Worms, May, 1521. Confederacy of Bishops and Princes at Ratisbon, under Campeggio, 1524. Diet of Spires, April 19, 1529, where the word Protestant was first used. Conferences at Smalkeld and Marpurg, in the same year; with many others, till the assembly at Trent, 1546, and the English convocations in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth.

"make one great effort to prevent the renewal of the intolerable sorrows which "have resulted to our subjects from the quarrels of Churches and Christians; and "we will begin that effort by imitating the example of the impartiality of Con"stantine, and establishing the peace of Europe upon the principles which you "shall all confess to be the basis of the common Christianity."—If it were possible that the present appeal could receive the attention of the secular powers of Christendom, and if they thus resolved to imitate the impartiality of Constantine, the way would be then prepared for their successful adoption of the next part of his example.

2. Constantine upheld his own supremacy, without acknowledging the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome.

Throughout the whole history of the attempts of Constantine to promote the union of his Christian subjects, we meet with no allusion to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. When Melchiades, the Bishop of Rome, had been appointed by the Emperor to consider the dispute between Cæcilian and Donatus, not only were many other Bishops associated with him, as his equals and brother assessors; but when the court or Synod at which Melchiades presided, as Bishop in his own city, had failed to conciliate the contending parties; Constantine assembled another Synod, with equal authority', to meet at Orleans, in France, under the Presidency of Chrostus, Bishop of Syracuse; who was provided with a chariot at the public expense, by Latronianus, a principal magistrate of Sicily. The name of the Bishop of Rome is omitted altogether from this rescript. Reference is made neither to his person nor authority. Constantine assumed and exercised the supreme power of appointing that bishop as the judge, in ecclesiastical affairs, whom he deemed fit and worthy; and no remonstrance, no objection to his conduct, was made by the Bishop of Rome. When the schism of Arius too, began to disturb the Universal Church, Constantine took no notice of the Bishop of Rome, but commanded Hosius, the Bishop of Corduba, to whom he was much attached, to proceed to Alexandria with the letter to Arius and Alexander, and allay the dissension. When the Council of Nice met, we merely read of the Bishop of Rome, that he was absent because of his age', and his presbyters attended in his place; but we read nothing of his calling the Council, or assuming, or delegating authority. He possessed no more supremacy over

In the Greek it is τwv кoλλýуwv vpov, borrowed evidently from the Latin. No instance of this word is given by Suicer in his Thesaurus.

7 The student is requested to compare the Greek of the two rescripts to Melchiades of Rome, and to Chrostus, Bishop of Syracuse.-Euseb. Eccl. Hist. x. v.

8 He was the Corrector, a term which appears under a variety of forms. See Suicer, voce KoppiкTwp, Eutrop. ix. 9. Several inscriptions given in Gruter's Collection, contain examples of this word.

9 Socrat. Schol. Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. vii. γράμματα πρὸς ̓Αλέξανδρον καὶ ̓Αρειον πέμπει δι' ἀνδρὸς ἀξιοπίστου, ᾧ ὄνομα μὲν ἦν Ὅσιος, μιᾶς δὲ τῶν ἐν τῇ Ισπανίᾳ πόλεων ὄνομα Κουδρούβης, ὑπῆρχεν ἐπίσκοπος, πάνυ τε αὐτὸν ἠγάπα, καὶ διὰ τιμῆς ἦγεν ὁ βασιλεύς.

1 Socrat. Schol. l. i. c. viii. τῆς δέ γε βασιλευούσης πόλεως ὁ μὲν προεστώς, διὰ γῆρας ὑστέρει πρεσβύτεροι δὲ αὐτοῦ παρόντες, τὴν αὐτοῦ τάξιν ἐπλήρουν.

Constantine, than an English Archbishop or Bishop possesses over the Sovereign of England. When he visited Rome, after the defeat of Maxentius, he paid no other homage to the Bishop of Rome than to all the other Bishops, whom he welcomed to his table, and treated with the utmost courtesy and respect'. In his hortatory address to the Provinces, on the errors of Paganism, no mention is made of any deference peculiarly due to the Bishop of Rome above all other Bishops of the Universal Church3; neither does Eusebius allude to any authority of the Bishop of Rome, in his comment on the imperial Edict'. The same silence, so remarkable, if the Bishop of Rome had supremacy over the whole Church of Christ, is observed in the history of the meeting, assembling, and concluding of the Council of Nice. No allusion to him occurs in the speech of Constantine, at the commencement, nor in the account of his entertainment to the Bishops at the termination of the Council. Throughout the whole of the long oration of Constantine to the Convention of the Saints, which he dedicated to the whole Church of God, and which may be called a conspectus of the Christian religion, and of the history of his own life, he does not even make the slightest allusion to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, or mention even his name; though he speaks both with approbation and disapprobation of the conduct of the citizens of the great city. The only acknowledgment he made of any authority, not emanating from himself, is that which he declares to have been possessed equally by all the Bishops of the Church of Christ. You, he said, are Bishops within the Churches; I am the bishop of all things without the Churches. I am appointed by the Almighty to rule in every thing, but in those acts of episcopal authority, which are essential to the internal Government of the Churches of God. He allowed no supremacy of one Bishop over others. He was ignorant of the papal authority, power, and pretensions. He wielded his own sceptre. He wore his own crown. He confessed God alone to be his superior; and the Bishops of the Churches were his subjects, as well as the meanest of his people.

Till the Sovereigns of Europe imitate this part of the example of Constantine, there will be no peace among their subjects, no union among Christians. The Papal supremacy alone, the claims to spiritual power-the ecclesiastical pretensions of the Bishop of a country not included in their own dominions, over their own Bishops, Priests, and People, ever has been, and ever will be, the chief source of all the divisions and disunions which separate and alienate Christians. So long as the subjects of any kingdom receive laws from any earthly authority but that of their own secular Prince, there is no hope of a remedy for the evils

* Βασιλεὺς δ ̓ αὐτὸς τοὺς τοῦ Θεοῦ λειτουργοὺς συγκαλῶν, θεραπείας καὶ τιμῆς τῆς ἀνωτάτω ἠξίου . . . ὁμοτράπεζοι δῆτα συνῆσαν αὐτῷ, ἄνδρες εὐτελεῖς μὲν τῇ τοῦ σχήματος ὀφθῆναι περιβολῇ, ἀλλ ̓ οὐ τοιοῦτοι καὶ αὐτῷ νενομισμένοι.

* De Vit. Const. 1. ii. cap. xlviii.-lx.

* De Vit. Const. 1. ii. § lxi.

5 De Vit. Const. iii. § xii.-xv.

6 παρὰ τοῖς μακαριωτάτοις τῆς καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας πλήθεσι. Vit. Const. iii. 17.

7 Μεγαλόπολις, cap. 22.

* ἀλλ ̓ ὑμεῖς μὲν τῶν εἴσω τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἐγὼ δὲ τῶν ἐκτὸς ὑπὸ Θεοῦ καθεσταμένος ¿πiokoжog av einv. Vit. Const. iv. 24.

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of which we complain. Unless the Bishops of the Universal Church unite with their Sovereigns, and resolve, in spite of all the oaths of obedience they have so mistakenly made to the Bishop of Rome-that they will reconsider, in the name of God, of Christ, of the Churches, and of mankind, the whole subject of the past and present controversies, with a view to their jointly promoting a better state of things; there can be no hope that the prayer of Christ can be answered, and Christians become united. "Princes of Europe," I would say, as you are the representatives of God upon earth, imitate this part of the example of Constantine. Take back the sceptres which the Bishop of Rome "has usurped from you. Make your own laws for your own subjects with your "own Bishops, Senates, Priests, and People. Allow no edicts to govern your states and kingdoms but those which thus emanate from yourselves. Invite the "Bishop of Rome to act with you in your plans of good. If he accept your "invitation, hear his opinion, and consider it with impartiality as a brother "Sovereign in his own provinces; and as a partner in the Universal Episcopate "with his brother Bishops. If he accept it not, compromise no longer the truths "of Christianity, the independence of your dominions, or the liberty of your "Churches. In the name of the God of peace, speak peace to your people. In "the name of the God of truth, give the truth to your people. Be resolved to be "no longer fettered with the chains and manacles of an irresponsible interposer "between yourselves and God, and between yourselves and your people. Rouse "yourselves from your lethargy. Scatter the clouds and mists which prevent the "brightness of your own majesty from illumining and blessing your people. Be "resolved to make some united effort to lessen these bitter hatreds, and to pro"mote the union of Christians."

3. Constantine consulted the Catholic Episcopacy.

As the Emperor himself did not know nor acknowledge any supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, so also is there no proof, none whatever, that the Bishops of the Universal Church possessed less freedom. No oath of allegiance, fealty, or obedience, was tendered to his brethren by the Bishop of Rome, or imagined or tendered by the Bishops. The Churches were as independent of each other as the Bishops of New York and of Edinburgh, are independent of the Metropolitan of England.-Though Constantine, after the Council of Nice, regulated by law the numbers and boundaries of the extent of the districts, and provinces, over which the respective Bishops presided; there can be no doubt that before the passing of the imperial enactments, the various sees which the unprotected and persecuted Church had appointed for itself, were as clearly defined and observed as the Diocese of Ohio or Michigan in America, or of Glasgow

' Bingham's Works, vol. i. lib. ix. cap. ii. p. 351.—Imperium omne, universumque Orbem Romanum Constantinus non uni sed quatuor Præfectis Prætoris regendum commisit, ut refert Zosimus, lib. ii. cap. 33. Singulisque suas assignavit dioceses ac provincias. Has siqui dem et Episcopatuum in multis exinde postea dependit subordinatio, ex Zosimo et Notitia Imperii referre est operæ pretium, quas familiares sibi ut habeant studiosi historiæ Ecclesias. ticæ, non sine causa vehementer suadet Pagius ad a. C. 37.-Fabricius, Lux Evangelii, &c. cap. xiii. § iv.