IF WE look into the ecclesiastical historians even from the third century, we shall find the Christian world to have then had a very different aspect from what some authors have represented; and so far from being endued with active graces, zeal, and devotion, and established within itself with purity of doctrine, union, and firm profession of the faith,1 that on the contrary, what by the ambition of the clergy, and what by drawing the abstrusest niceties into controversy, and dividing and subdividing about them into endless schisms and contentions, they had so destroyed that peace, love, and charity from among 1 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 163, &c. 2 Vide Hyde ubi sup. p. 4. 1 Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 187. them, which the Gospel was given to promote; and instead thereof continually provoked each other to that malice, rancour, and every evil work; that they had lost the whole substance of their religion, while they thus eagerly contended for their own imaginations concerning it; and in a manner quite drove Christianity out of the world by those very controversies in which they disputed with each other about it.2 In these dark ages it was that most of those superstitions and corruptions we now justly abhor in the church of Rome were not only broached, but established; which gave great advantages to the propagation of Mohammedism. The worship of saints and images, in particular, was then arrived at such a scandalous pitch that it even surpassed whatever is now practised among the Romanists.3 After the Nicene council, the eastern church was engaged in perpetual controversies, and torn to pieces by the disputes of the Arians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and Eutychians: the heresies of the two last of which have been shown to have consisted more in the words and form of expression than in the doctrines themselves;4 and were rather the pretences than real motives of those frequent councils to and from which the contentious prelates were continually riding post, that they might bring everything to their own will and pleasure.1 And to support themselves by dependants and bribery, the clergy in any credit at court undertook the protection of some officer in the army, under the colour of which justice was publicly sold, and all corruption encouraged. In the western church Damasus and Ursicinus carried their contests at Rome for the episcopal seat so high, that they came to open violence and murder, which Viventius the governor not being able to suppress, he retired into the country, and left them to themselves, till Damasus prevailed. It is said that on this occasion, in the church of Sicininus, there were no less than 137 found killed in one day. And no wonder they were so fond of these seats, when they became by that means enriched by the presents of matrons, and went abroad in their chariots and sedans in great state, feasting sumptuously even beyond the luxury of princes, quite contrary to the way of living of the country