wealth. The safety of that
society, its honor, its aggrandizement, 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 probably conduce to so
desirable an end. The ambition of raising themselves or their friends
to the honors and offices of the church, was disguised by the laudable
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 stigmatize their characters with deserved
infamy, and to expel them from the bosom of a society whose peace and
happiness 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
insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. If the church as
well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any public station
rendered themselves considerable by their eloquence and firmness, by
their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in business; and
while they concealed from others, and perhaps from themselves, the
secret motives of their conduct, 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.

The government of the church has often been the subject, as well as
the prize, of religious contention. The hostile disputants of Rome,
of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to reduce the
primitive and apostolic model to the respective standards of their
own policy. The few who have pursued this inquiry with more candor and
impartiality, are of opinion, that the apostles declined the office
of legislation, and rather chose to endure some partial scandals and
divisions, than to exclude the Christians of a future age from the
liberty of varying their forms of ecclesiastical government according
to the changes of times and circumstances. The scheme of policy, which,
under their approbation, was adopted for the use of the first century,
may be discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of Ephe