Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/124

 106 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, was obliged to adopt some form of internal policy, and '___ to appoint a sufficient number of ministers, intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, but even with the temporal direction of the christian commonwealth. The safety of that society, its honour, its aggrandisement, were productive, even in the most pious minds, of a spirit of patriotism, such as the first of the Romans had felt for the republic, and, sometimes, of a similar indifference in the use of whatever means might pro- bably conduce to so desirable an end. The ambition of raising themselves or their friends to the honours and offices of the church, was disguised by the lauda- ble intention of devoting to the public benefit the power and consideration, which, for that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In the exercise of their functions, they were frequently called upon to detect the errors of heresy, or the arts of faction, to oppose the designs of perfidious brethren, to stigmatise their characters with deserved infamy, and to expel them from the bosom of a society whose peace and happi- ness they had attempted to disturb. The ecclesiastical governors of the christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove ; but as the former was refined, so the latter was insensi- bly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church, as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any public station rendered themselves con- siderable by their eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in busi- ness ; and while they concealed from others, and per- haps from themselves, the secret motives of their con- duct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual zeal. Itsprimitive The government of the church has often been the e'qualitv.^" subject as well as the prize of religious contention. The hostile disputants of Home, of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to reduce the