Hardly a priest, he was made the first prelate in the kingdom.  But no sooner was he invested with the clerical character than the whole tenor of his conduct was seen to change all at once:  of his pompous retinue a few plain servants only remained; a monastic temperance regulated his table; and his life, in all respects formed to the most rigid austerity, seemed to prepare him for that superiority he was resolved to assume, and the conflicts he foresaw he must undergo in this attempt.

It will not be unpleasing to pause a moment at this remarkable period, in order to view in what consisted that greatness of the clergy, which enabled them to bear so very considerable a sway in all public affairs,—­what foundations supported the weight of so vast a power,—­whence it had its origin,—­what was the nature, and what the ground, of the immunities they claimed,—­that we may the more fully enter into this important controversy, and may not judge, as some have inconsiderately done, of the affairs of those times by ideas taken from the present manners and opinions.

It is sufficiently known, that the first Christians, 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.