THE DECLINE AND PALL

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chap, salutary. The preachers recommended thepractice of the social duties; but they exaltedthe perfection of monastic virtue, which is pain-ful to the individual, and useless to mankind.Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secretwish, that the clergy might be permitted tomanage the wealth of the faithful, for the bene-fit of the poor. The most sublime represen-tations of the attributes and laws of the deitywere sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysicalsubtleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles;and they expatiated, with the most fervent zeal,< n the religious merit of hating the adversaries,and obeying the ministers, of the church. Whenthe public peace was distracted by heresy andschism, the sacred orators sounded the trumpetof discord and perhaps of sedition. The under-standings of their congregations were perplexedby mystery, their passions were inflamed byinvectives ; and they rushed from the Christiantemples of Antioch or Alexandria, preparedeither to suffer or to inflict martyrdom. Thecorruption of taste and language is stronglymarked in the vehement declamations of theLatin bishops; but the compositions of Gre-gory and Chrysostom have been compared withthe most splendid models of Attic, or at leastof Asiatic eloquence/

vii. Pii- vii. The representatives of the Christian re-ieglfiattve P u blic were regularly assembled in the springassemblies and autumn of each year; and these synods dif-

1 Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they were destituteof the gift of miracles, they endeavoured to acquire the arts of elo-quence.