PART II.

of departed souls, were now carried to the great- CENT. X. est height, and exceeded by far the terrifying apprehensions of infernal torments; for they hoped to avoid the latter easily, by dying enriched with the prayers of the clergy, or covered with the merits and mediation of the saints; while from the pains of purgatory they knew there was no exemption. The clergy therefore finding these superstitious terrors admirably adapted to increase their authority and to promote their interest, used every method to augment them, and by the most pathetic discourses, accompanied with monstrous fables and fictitious miracles, they laboured to establish the doctrine of purgatory, and also to make it appear that they had a mighty influence in that formidable region.

concerning

and the Lord's

II. The contests concerning predestination and The disputes grace, as also concerning the eucharist, that had predestination agitated the church in the preceding century, were supper. in this happily reduced to silence. This was owing to the mutual toleration that was practised by the contending parties, who, as we learn from writers of undoubted credit, left it to each other's free choice to retain or to change their former opinions. Beside, the ignorance and stupidity of this degenerate age were ill suited to such deep inquiries as these contests demanded; nor was there almost any curiosity among an illiterate multitude to know the opinions of the ancient doctors concerning these and other knotty points of theology. Thus it happened, that the followers of Augustin and Pelagius flourished equally in this century; and that if there were many who maintained the corporal presence of the body and blood of Christ in the holy sacrament, there were still more who either came to no fixed determination upon this point, or declared it publicly as their opinion, that the divine Saviour was really absent from the eucharistical sacrament, and was received only by a certain in

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CENT. X. ward impulse of faith, and that in a manner wholly spiritual. This mutual toleration, as it is easy to conclude from what has been already observed, must not be attributed either to the wisdom or virtue of an age, which was almost totally destitute of both. The truth of the matter is, that the divines of this century wanted both the capacity and the inclination to attack or defend any doctrine, whose refutation or defence required the smallest portion of learning or logic.

Superstition nourished by

III. That the whole christian world was covered a multitude of at this time with a thick and gloomy veil of suopinions. perstition, is evident from a prodigious number of

vain and idle

testimonies and examples which it is needless to mention. This horrible cloud which hid almost every ray of truth from the eyes of the multitude, furnished a favourable opportunity to the priests and monks of propagating many absurd and ridiculous opinions, which contributed not a little to confirm their credit. Among these opinions which dishonoured so frequently the Latin church, and produced from time to time such violent agitations, none occasioned such a universal panic, nor such dreadful impressions of terror or dismay, as a notion that now prevailed of the immediate approach of the day of judgment. This notion, which took its rise from a remarkable passage in the Revela

It is certain that the Latin doctors of this century differed much in their sentiments about the manner in which the body and blood of Christ were present in the eucharist; this is granted by such of the Roman catholic writers as have been ingenuous enough to sacrifice the spirit of party to the love of truth. That the doctrine of transubstantiation, as it is commonly called, was unknown to the English in this century, has been abundantly proved from the public Homilies, by Rapin de Thoyras, in his History of England, vol. i. p. 463. It is however to be confessed, on the other hand, that this absurd doctrine was already adopted by several French and German divines. For a judicious account of the opinions of the Saxon English church concerning the eucharist, see Collier's Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, vol. i. cent. x. p. 204,

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tions of St. John," and had been entertained by CENT. X. some doctors in the preceding century, was advanced publicly by many at this time, and spreading itself with an amazing rapidity through the European provinces, it threw them into the deepest consternation and anguish. For they imagined that St. John had clearly foretold that after a thousand years from the birth of Christ, satan was to be let loose from his prison, antichrist to come, and the destruction and conflagration of the world to follow these great and terrible events. Hence prodigious numbers of people abandoned all their civil connections and their parental relations, and giving over to the churches or monasteries all their lands, treasures, and worldly effects, repaired with the utmost precipitation to Palestine, where they imagined that Christ would descend from heaven to judge the world. Others devoted themselves by a solemn and voluntary oath to the service of the churches, convents, and priesthood, whose slaves they became, in the most rigorous sense of that word, performing daily their heavy tasks; and all this from a notion that the Supreme Judge would diminish the severity of their sentence, and look upon them with a more favourable and propitious eye, on account of their having made themselves the slaves of his ministers. When an eclipse of

The passage here referred to, is in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelations, at the 2d. 3d, and 4th. verses; "And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and satan, and bound him a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

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CENT. X. the sun or moon happened to be visible, the cities were deserted, and their miserable inhabitants fled for refuge to hollow caverns, and hid themselves among the craggy rocks, and under the bending summits of steep mountains. The opulent attempted to bribe the Deity, and the saintly tribe, by rich donations conferred upon the sacerdotal and monastic orders, who were looked upon as the immediate vicegerents of heaven. In many places, temples, palaces, and noble edifices, both public and private, were suffered to decay, nay, were deliberately pulled down, from a notion that they were no longer of any use, since the final dissolution of all things was at hand. In a word, no language is sufficient to express the confusion and despair that tormented the minds of miserable mortals upon this occasion. This general delusion was indeed opposed and combated by the discerning few, who endeavoured to dispel these groundless terrors, and to efface the notion from which they arose, in the minds of the people. But their attempts were ineffectual; nor could the dreadful apprehensions of the superstitious multitude be entirely removed before the conclusion of this century. Then, when they saw that the so much dreaded period had passed without the arrival of any great calamity, they began to understand that St. John had not really foretold what they so much feared."

w Almost all the donations that were made to the church daring this century, carry evident marks of this groundless panic that had seized all ⚫ the European nations, as the reasons of these donations are generally expressed in the following words; Appropinquante mundi termino, &c. i. e. the end of the world being now at hand, &c. Among the many undeniable testimonies that we have from ancient records of this universal delusion, that was so profitable to the sacerdotal order, we shall confine ourselves to the quotation of one very remarkable passage in the Apologeticum of Abbo, abbot of Fleury, adversus Arnulphum, i, e. Arnoul, bishop of Orleans, which apology is published by the learned Francis Pithou, in the Codex Canonum Ecclesiæ Romana, p. 401. The words of Abbo are as follow; "De fine quoque mundi coram populo sermonem

PART II.

multiplied,

IV. The number of the saints who were looked CENT. X. upon as ministers of the kingdom of heaven, and whose patronage was esteemed such an unspeaka- The saints ble blessing, was now multiplied every where, and the celestial courts were filled with new legions of this species of beings, some of which, as we have had formerly occasion to observe, had no existence but in the imagination of their deluded clients and worshippers. This multiplication of saints may be easily accounted for, when we consider that superstition, the source of fear, was grown to such an enormous height in this age, as rendered the creation of new patrons necessary to calm the anxiety of trembling mortals. Beside, the corruption and impiety that now reigned with a horrid sway, and the licentiousness and dissolution that had so generally infected all ranks and orders of men, rendered the reputation of sanctity very easy to be acquired; for, amidst such a perverse generation, it demanded no great efforts of virtue to be esteemed holy, and this, no doubt, contributed to increase considerably the number of the celestial advocates. All those to whom nature had given an austere complexion, a gloomy temper, or an enthusiastic imagination, were, in consequence of an advantageous comparison with the profligate multitude, revered as the favourites of heaven, and as the friends of God.

The Roman pontiff, who before this period had pretended to the right of creating saints by his sole authority, gave, in this century, the first specimen

in Ecclesia Parisiorum adolescentulus audivi, quod statim finito mille annorum numero Antichristus adveniret, et non longo post tempore universale judicium succederet; cui prædicationi ex Evangeliis, ac Apocalypsi, et libro Danielis qua potui virtute restiti. Denique et errorem, qui de fine mundi inolevit, Abbas meus beatæ memoriæ Richardus, sagaci animo propulit, postquam literas a Lothariensibus accepit, quibus me respondere jussit. Nam fama pæne totum mundum impleverat, quod, quando Annunciatio Domînica in Parasceve contigisset, absque allo scrupulo finis sæculi esset,"