"They evince their attachment to virtue, by their freedom from avarice, from ambition, from sensual pleasure; by their temperance and patience, by their frugality, simplicity, and contentment; by their humility, their regard to the laws, and other similar virtues. Their love to man is evinced by their benignity, their equity, and their liberality; of which it is not improper to give a short account, though no language can adequately describe it. "In the first place, there exists among them no house, however private, which is not open to the reception of all the rest; and not only the members of the same society assemble under the same domestic roof, but even strangers of the same persuasion have free admission to join them. There is but one treasure, whence all derive subsistence; and not only their provision but their clothes are common property. Such mode of living under the same roof, and of dieting at the same table, cannot, in fact, be proved to have been adopted by any other description of men. And no wonder; since even the daily labourer keeps not for his own use the produce of his toil, but imparts it to the common stock, and thus furnishes each member with a right to use for himself the profits earned by others. "The sick are not despised or neglected because they are no longer capable of useful labour; but they live in ease and affluence, receiving from the treasury whatever their disorder or their exigencies require. The aged, too, among them are loved, revered, and attended as parents by affectionate children; and a thousand heads and hearts prop their tottering years with comforts of every kind. Such are the champions of virtue which philosophy, without the parade of Grecian oratory, produces, proposing, as the end of their institutions, the performance of those laudable actions which destroy slavery and render freedom invincible." Does not this account lead us to suppose that the Essenes preserved in its purity the mode of life instituted by the apostles? Many learned Protestant writers, with the illustrious exception, however, of Vossius and some others, have denied the Essenes to be Christians, being loth to ascribe so high an antiquity to monastic institutions. Perhaps the truth is, that these institutions are but relics of the Coenobitic institute, which was indeed founded by the apostles, but grossly perverted, as many consider, by the prevalence of asceticism, celibacy,† and superstition, but especially by its restriction to a privileged order, instead of being adopted by all Christians, and by the ample endowments which the religious orders received after the church began its adulterous connexion with the state, in consequence of which they became the greatest monopolisers of landed * "A Series of Important Facts demonstrating the Truth of the Christian Religion, by J. Jones, LL.D." 1820, pp. 40-43. + Forbidding marriage, some think, is one of the corruptions of the apostate church expressly predicted by Paul. Ridley, Civil Law, 261. property, living an indolent life upon the fruits of other men's labour.* That this, however, was never contemplated by the founders of what are called the religious orders, but that it was intended the monks should live upon a plan of joint labour and common property, we may learn from many of their rules.t * This deviation from the original design of their foundation, drew upon them the severe reprehension of the friars, who, however, in the mode which they adopted of complying with the requirement of voluntary poverty, fell into an error of a different kind, by confounding it with a mendicant life. Parker, Holden, &c., Carmelite and Black Friars, and Milverton, provincial of the Carmelites, were imprisoned in the fifteenth century for preaching against the pride of prelates and the riches of the clergy. To the last, the friars had no other real estates in England than the sites of their convents. + Passages extracted from the Rule of St. Benedict. "Neque aliquid habere proprium.-Omniaque omnibus sint communi, ut scriptum est, nec quisquam suum esse aliquid dicat, aut præsumat. Quod si quisquam hoc nequissimo vitio deprehensus fuerit," &c.-Regula Sancti Benedicti, Cap. xxiii., "Si quid debeant Monachi proprium habere." "Sicut scriptum est: Dividebatur singulis, prout cuique opus erat, ubi non dicimus, ut personarum, quod absit, acceptio sit, sed infirmitatum consideratio. Ubi qui minus indiget agat Deo gratias, et non contristetur. Qui vero plus indiget humilietur pro infirmitate et non extollatur pro misericordia: et ita omnia membra erunt in pace."—Ibid. Cap. xxiv., "Si omnes æqualiter debeant necessaria accipere." The Rule of St. Benedict, cap. xlviii., concerning daily manual labour, prescribes the proportions of time to be employed in labour, in study, and in devotion; and adds: "But if poverty or local causes require them to labour by themselves in harvest-work, &c., let them not think it a grievance, for then are they truly monks, if they live by the labour of their own hands, as did also our fathers and Respecting Labour: "Quod si labor forte factus fuerit major, in arbitrio Abbatis erit aliquid augere, remota præ omnibus crapula: ut nunquam subrepat Monacho indigeries: quia nihil sic contrarium est omni Christiano, quomodo crapula, sicut ait Dominus noster: 'Videte ne graventur corda vestra in crapula et ebrietate.""-Ibid., Cap. xxxix.," De Mensura Ciborum." 66 "Quod si aut loci necessitas, vel labor, aut ardor æstatis amplius poposcerit," &c.-Ibid. Cap. xl., De Mensurâ Potûs." "Si labores agrorum non habent Monachi-si opera in agris habuerint."-Ibid., Cap. xli. ; see also xlvi. "Certis temporibus occupari debent fratres in labore manuum; certis horis in lectione divinâ. [Then follows a division of their time.] Si autem necessitas loci, aut paupertas exegerit ut ad fruges colligendas per se occupentur, non, contristentur: quia tunc vere monachi sunt, si labore manuum suarum vivunt: sicut et Patres nostri et Apostoli. Omnia tamen mensurate fiant, propter pusillanimes."-Ibid., Cap. xlviii., "De Opere Manuum quotidiano." "Fratres qui omnino longe sunt in labore, et non possunt occurrere hora competenti ad Oratorium,-agant ibidem opus Dei ubi operantur, cum tremore divino flectentes genua."-Ibid., Cap. 1., "De Fratribus qui longe ab Oratorio laborant." * the apostles:" and, greatly as they departed from the design of their institution, the monastic orders may nevertheless furnish valuable proofs of the success with which the affairs of communities may be managed, and how literature, science, and the arts may thrive without any stimulus of private emolument. Let it also be remembered, that while in the middle ages the care of the poor, and of education, and the duties of hospitality, devolved principally upon them, they were eminently successful in agriculture, drainage, and embankment, architecture, and various works of public utility.† Disgust at the corruption of the monks might well create, in the minds of the first favourers of the Reformation, an aversion to Cœnobitism, or conventual life, which scarcely retained any traces of its first design; although, having continued in the church from the institute of the apostles in a constant succession, its perversions were no better reason for rejecting it as a Christian ordinance, than those of the Mass for rejecting the Lord's Supper. The religious revolution in this country, indeed, was mainly assisted by the division of the * The great accumulation of their wealth is to be attributed to the advantageous plan of a community, more than to any other cause. "In the monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great power for the mechanism of politic benevolence.”—Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. |