The full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy; and the greater part of this was in the hands of a few individuals, who had the command of the whole body. Avarice, ambition, and the love of secular pomp, reigned among the superior orders. Bishops and abbots rivalled the first nobility in magnificence, and preceded them in honours: they were Privy‑Councillors, and Lords of Session, as well as of Parliament, and had long engrossed the principal offices of state. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors, who contended for it as for a principality or petty kingdom; it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequently taken possession of by the same weapons.[23] Inferior benefices were openly put to sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and unworthy minions of courtiers; on dice‑players, strolling bards, and the bastards of bishops.[24] Pluralities were multiplied without bounds, and benefices, given _in commendam_, were kept vacant, during the {16} life of the commendator, nay, sometimes during several lives;[25] so that extensive parishes were frequently deprived for a long course of years, of all religious service,――if a deprivation it could be called, at a time when the cure of souls was no longer regarded as attached to livings originally endowed for that purpose. The bishops never, on any occasion, condescended to preach; indeed, I scarcely recollect an instance of it, mentioned in history, from the erection of the regular Scottish Episcopacy, down to the era of the Reformation.[26] The practice had even gone into desuetude among all the secular clergy, and was {17} wholly devolved on the mendicant monks, who employed it for the most mercenary purposes.[27] The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal to religion, and an outrage on decency. While they professed chastity, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any of the ecclesiastical order from contracting lawful wedlock, the bishops set an example of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy; avowedly kept their harlots; provided their natural sons with benefices; and gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal gentry, many of whom were so mean as to contaminate the blood of their families by such base alliances, for the sake of the rich doweries which they brought.[28]