Lanfranc, also archbishop of Canterbury, who CENT. XI. acquired a high degree of reputation by his Com- PART II. mentary upon the epistles of St. Paul, as also by several other productions, which, considering the age in which he lived, discover an uncommon measure of sagacity and erudition ;* W Bruno, of mount Cassin, and the other famous ecclesiastic of that name, who founded the monastery of the carthusians; Ivo, bishop of Chartres, who was so eminently distinguished by his zeal and activity in maintaining the rights and privileges of the church; Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, who was a philosopher and a poet, as well as a divine, without being either eminent or contemptible in any of these characters; but, upon the whole, a man of considerable learning and capacity; Gregory VII. that imperious and arrogant pontiff, of whom we have several productions beside his Letters. Among these productions we may reckon Lanfranc's Letters to pope Alexander II. to Hildebrand, while archdeacon of Rome, and to several bishops in England and Normandy; as also A commentary upon the Psalms; A treatise concerning confession; An Ecclesiastical History, which is not extant ; and A remarkable dissertation concerning the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist. In this last performance, Lanfranc endeavours to prove, against Berenger, the reality of a corporal presence in the eucharist; though it is manifest, that this opinion was not the doctrine of the church of England, in the conclusion of the tenth, or the commencement of the following century. See Collier's Eccles. History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 260, 263. * Hist. Litter. de la France, tom. viii. p. 260. The benedictine monks published in folio, at Paris, in the year 1708, the Works of Hildebert, illustrated by the observations of Beaugendre. VOL. II. 67 CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THIS CENT. XI. 1. It is not necessary to draw at full length the PART II. hideous portrait of the religion of this age. It may The state of easily be imagined that its features were full of de religion. formity, when we consider that its guardians were equally destitute of knowledge and virtue, and that the heads and rulers of the christian church, instead of exhibiting models of piety, held forth in their conduct scandalous examples of the most flagitious crimes. The people were sunk in the grossest superstition; and employed all their zeal in the worship of images and relics, and in the performance of a trifling round of ceremonies, which were imposed upon them by the tyranny of a despotic priesthood. The more learned it is true retained still some notions of the truth, which however they obscured and corrupted by a wretched mixture of opinions and precepts, of which some were ludicrous, others pernicious, and the most of them equally destitute of truth and utility. There were no doubt in several places judicious and pious men, who would have willingly lent a supporting hand to the declining cause of true religion; but the violent prejudices of a barbarous age rendered all such attempts not only dangerous, but even desperate; and those chosen spirits, who had escaped the general contagion, lay too much concealed, and had therefore too little influence to combat, with success, the formidable patrons of impiety and superstition, who were extremely numerous in all ranks and orders, from the throne to the cottage. IL. witnesses of the truth. Notwithstanding all this we find, from the CENT. XI. time of Gregory VII. several proofs of the zealous PART II. efforts of those, who are generally called by the protestants, the witnesses of the truth; by whom are meant, such pious and judicious christians, as adhered to the pure religion of the gospel, and remained uncorrupted amidst the growth of superstition; who deplored the miserable state to which Christianity was reduced, by the alteration of its divine doctrines, and the vices of its profligate ministers; who opposed, with vigour, the tyrannic ambition both of the lordly pontiff and the aspiring bishops; and in some provinces privately, in others openly, attempted the reformation of a corrupt and idolatrous church, and of a barbarous and superstitious age. This was indeed bearing witness to the truth in the noblest manner, and it was principally in Italy and France that the marks of this heroic piety were exhibited. [Nor is it at all surprising, that the reigning superstition of the times met with this opposition; it is astonishing, on the contrary, that this opposition was not much greater and more universal, and that millions of christians suffered themselves to be hoodwinked with such a tame submission, and closed their eyes upon the light with so little reluctance.] For notwithstanding the darkness of the times, and the general ignorance of the true religion that prevailed in all ranks and orders, yet the very fragments of the gospel, if we may use that term, which were still read and explained to the people, were sufficient at least to convince the most stupid and illiterate, that the religion, which was now imposed upon them, was not the true religion of Jesus; that the discourses, the lives, and morals of the clergy were directly opposite to what the divine Saviour required of his disciples, and to the rules he had laid down for the direction of their conduct; that the pontiffs and bishops abused, in a scandalous manner, their CENT. XI. power and opulence; and that the favour of God, PART II and the salvation exhibited in his blessed gospel, were not to be obtained by performing a round of external ceremonies, by pompous donations to churches and priests, or by founding and enriching monasteries, but by real sanctity of heart and man ners. III. It must indeed be acknowledged, that they who undertook, with such zeal and ardour, the ref. ormation of the church, were not for the most part equal to this arduous and important enterprise, and that by avoiding with more vehemence than circumspection, certain abuses and defects, they rushed unhappily into the opposite extremes. They all perceived the abominable nature of those inventions with which superstition had disfigured the religion of Jesus; but they had also lost sight of the true nature and genius of that celestial religion, that lay thus disfigured in the hands of a superstitious and dissolute priesthood. They were shocked at the absurdities of the established worship; but few of them were sufficiently acquainted with the sublime precepts and doctrines of genuine Christianity, to substitute in the place of this superstitious worship a rational service. Hence their attempts of reformation, even where they were successful, were extremely imperfect, and produced little more than a motley mixture of truth and falsehood, of wisdom and indiscretion; of which we might allege a multitude of examples. Observing, for instance, that the corruption and licentiousness of the clergy were, in a great measure, occasioned by their excessive opulence and their vast possessions, they conceived rashly the highest ideas of the salutary effects of indigence, and looked upon voluntary poverty as the most eminent and illustrious virtue of a christian minister. They had also formed to themselves a notion, that the primitive church was to be the standing and perpetual model, according to which the rites, government, and worship of all PART II. christian churches were to be regulated in all the CENT. XI. ages of the world; and that the lives and manners of the holy apostles were to be rigorously followed in every respect by all the ministers of Christ. [These notions, which were injudiciously taken up, and blindly entertained, without any regard to the difference of times, places, circumstances, and characters; without considering that the provident wisdom of Christ and his apostles left many regu. lations to the prudence and piety of the governors of the church, were productive of many pernicious effects, and threw these good reformers, whose zeal was not always according to knowledge, from the extreme of superstition into the extreme of enthusiasm.] Many well meaning persons, whose intentions were highly laudable, fell into great er. rors in consequence of these ill grounded notions. Justly incensed at the conduct of the superstitious multitude, who placed the whole of religion in external services, and hoped to secure their salvation by the performance of a laborious round of unmean. ing rites and ceremonies, they rashly maintained, that true piety was to be confined entirely to the inward motions and affections of the soul, and to the contemplation of spiritual and divine things. In consequence of this specious yet erroneous principle, they treated with the utmost contempt all the external parts of religious worship, and aimed at nothing less than the total suppression of sacraments, churches, religious assemblies of every kind, and christian ministers of every order. tors and ex IV. Several of both the Greek and Latin writers Commentaemployed their learned and pious labours in the positors. exposition and illustration of the holy scriptures. Among the Latins, Bruno wrote a commentary on the Book of Psalms, Lanfranc upon the Epistles of St. Paul, Berenger upon the Revelations of St. John, Gregory VII. upon the Gospel of St. Matthew, and others upon other parts of the sacred |