istians, avoiding the Pagan
tribunals, tried most even of their civil causes before the bishop, who,
though he had no direct coercive power, yet, wielding the sword of
excommunication, had wherewithal to enforce the execution of his
judgments. Thus the bishop had a considerable sway in temporal affairs,
even before he was owned by the temporal power. But the Emperors no
sooner became Christian than, the idea of profaneness being removed from
the secular tribunals, the causes of the Christian laity naturally
passed to that resort where those of the generality had been before. But
the reverence for the bishop still remained, and the remembrance of his
former jurisdiction. It was not thought decent, that he, who had been a
judge in his own court, should become a suitor in the court of another.
The body of the clergy likewise, who were supposed to have no secular
concerns for which they could litigate, and removed by their character
from all suspicion of violence, were left to be tried by their own
ecclesiastical superiors. This was, with a little variation, sometimes
in extending, sometimes in restraining the bishops' jurisdiction, the
condition of things whilst the Roman Empire subsisted. But though their
immunities were great and their possessions ample, yet, living under an
absolute form of government, they were powerful only by influence. No
jurisdictions were annexed to their lands; they had no place in the
senate; they were no order in the state.

From the settlement of the Northern nations the clergy must be
considered in another light. The Barbarians gave them large landed
possessions; and by giving them land, they gave them jurisdiction,
which, according to their notions, was inseparable from it. They made
them an order in the state; and as all the orders had their privileges,
the clergy had theirs, and were no less steady to preserve and ambitious
to extend them. Our ancestors, having united the Church dignities to the
secular dignities of baronies, had so blended the ecclesiastical with
the temporal power in the same persons that it became almost impossible
to separate them. The ecclesiastical was, however, prevalent in this
composition, drew to it the other, supported it, and was supported by
it. But it was not the devotion only, but the necessity of the tunes,
that raised the clergy to the excess of this greatness. The little
learning which then subsisted remained wholly in their hands. Few among
the laity cou