The Christian clergy were placed in a totally different situation, owing to the celibacy of the priests. In order to perpetuate their own body, they were obliged to have perpetual recourse to the lay society, and to seek their means of durability from out all the social positions and callings. Doubtless great pains were taken to assimilate these foreign elements, by infusing into them the spirit of the institution, but not with full success: something of the origin of the new-comers always remained: whether burghers or nobles, they invariably preserved some trace of their ancient spirit and primitive condition. There is no question but that this celibacy, by giving to the Catholic clergy a situation altogether peculiar, and divested of participation with the interests and general life of mankind, was a powerful promoter of their isolation; but it has also forced them into constant and close connection with the lay society, to recruit and renew their members, and thus exposed them to receive and undergo some portion of the moral revolutions which were accomplished in that society. Therefore I do not hesitate to aver that this ever-recurring necessity has infinitely more impeded the success of the attempt at theocratical organisation, than the spirit engendered by the institution, and strongly maintained by celibacy, has been able to promote it. The church finally encountered, within its own bosom, powerful adversaries to its attempt. The unity of the church is a thing perpetually talked of, and it is true enough that it has diligently laboured to attain it, and has done so in certain respects. But let us not be led away by imposing words, or a few partial facts. {172} What society has been torn by more civil dissensions, or suffered more disruptions, than the clerical? What nation has been more divided, broken up, or varied, than the ecclesiastical nation? The national churches, in the majority of the countries of Europe, have been in almost constant strife with the court of Rome; councils have risen against popes; heresies have been innumerable and inextinguishable; and schisms have incessantly prevailed: nowhere has there been so much diversity in opinion, so much bitterness and fury in contest, or so much splitting up of power. The internal existence of the church, the dissensions which have broken loose within it, and the revolutions which have shaken it, have been perhaps the greatest obstacle to the triumph of that theocratical organisation which it has striven to impose on society.