of his second wife, and finding afterwards his error, repented in great bitterness, and besought God to punish him in this life and not in the next. His prayer seems to have been heard; for, in the year 523, he was attacked by Clodomir, king of the Franks, the successor of Clovis, and was afterwards slain with his wife and children. Clodomir himself was soon after slain in Burgundy, and his three sons were brought up by Clotilda, the widow of Clovis their grandmother.

Such was the state of the church of Christ in France during the former part of this century. In Italy, some degree of genuine piety may be presumed to have still existed, though I have no interesting particulars to record. If we turn our eyes to the east, the prospect is far more disagreeable. Factions and feuds, heretical perversions and scandalous enormities fill up the scene. Under the emperor Justin christianity began at length to wear a more agreeable aspect in some respects, and peace and good order, in external things at least, were in a measure restored. In the year 522 Zamnaxes, king of the Lazi, a people who inhabited the country anciently called Colchis, being dead, his son Zathes repaired to Constantinople, telling the emperor that he was desirous of receiving the gospel, and of relinquishing the idolatry of his ancestors. They had been vassals to the king of Persia, and had been obliged to perform sacrifices after the Persian mode. He put himself therefore under the protection of Justin, and desired to receive the crown from his hands. Justin granted his requests, and thus the Lazi became vassals to the eastern empire, and embraced christianity. The Iberians also, who bordered on their territories, and were also subjects to the king of Persia, had already received the gospel. How far any thing of the real spirit of Christ's religion was imbibed by either nation, I know not. I can only say, the limits of the christian name were extended in the east.*

In Arabia Felix* there were many christians subject to a king called Dounouas, a Jew, who caused those who were unwilling to become Jews to be cast into pits full of fire. In the year 522 he besieged Negra, a town inhabited by christians. Having persuaded them to surrender on articles, he broke his oath, burnt the pastors, beheaded the laymen, and carried all the youth into captivity. Here then the real church of Christ may be traced by sufferings voluntarily undergone for his sake. The next year Elesbaan, king of Abyssinia, a country, which, as we have formerly seen, had been christian since the days of Athanasius, supported by the emperor Justin, invaded the territories of the Arabian Jew, subdued his country and slew him. Thus the Arabian christians were relieved. Elesbaan himself was very zealous, and gave this proof of his zeal, that he resigned his crown to embrace the monastic life.

CHAP. III.

The State of the Church during the reign of Justinian. On the death of Justin, his nephew Justinian succeeded at Constantinople in the year 527. He was then forty-five years old, and reigned thirty-nine. I scarce know any prince, whose real and ostensible character were so different. If one judge by external things, he may appear one of the wisest, the most pious, and the most prosperous of men. He reunited Africa and Italy to the Roman empire; he is to this

Fleury xxxi. 60.

Bruce in his travels into Abyssinia, towards the latter end of the 1st vol. calls this king Phineas, who, he says, threw Christians into pits of fire, particularly a preacher Hawaryat, signifying the Evangelical, with ninety of his companions. The king of Abyssinia, who fought against the Jew, he calls Caleb. His story, as extracted from Abyssinian and Arabian annals, is the same; and their correspondence, in this instance, with the Greek history gives some testimony to the authenticity of the materials of Bruce's Abyssinian history.

1

day famous for his code of laws; he was temperate and abstemious in private life, and was incessantly employed in religious acts and ceremonies: he honoured monks and persons reputed holy, built sumptuous churches, endowed monasteries, was liberal beyond measure in the support of the externals of religion, was incessant in the encouragement of orthodoxy, at least of that which to him appeared to be so; indefatigable through the course of a long life in public affairs; seems scarce to have ever unbended himself in any recreations, spent much time in religious speculations, rooted out idolatry from its obscure corners, and brought over a number of barbarous kings and nations to the profession of christianity. What a character, if his heart had been right! His understanding and capacity indeed have been called in question; but I think unjustly. No weak man could have done half of what he did. He must have been a person of superior talents, and of very vigorous and strong faculties. But so far as appears from his conduct, he was altogether, in religion, the slave of superstition, in morality the slave of avarice. For gold he sold his whole empire to those who governed the provinces, to the collectors of tributes, and to those who are wont to frame plots against men under any pretences. He encouraged the vilest characters in their detestable and infamous calumnies, in order to partake of their gains. He did also innumerable pious actions, says Evagrius*, and such as are well pleasing to God, provided the doers perform them with such goods as are their own property, and offer their pure actions, as a sacrifice, to God. In this emperor then it may be seen more eminently what a poor thing the body of christian religion is without the spirit. Whatever benefit the church might, in some cases, derive from his administration, particularly in what relates to the extension of its pale, this is to be ascribed to the

* Ch. xxx. b. iv. Evagrius Scholasticus. His ecclesiastical history takes us up, just after we are deserted by Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, the tripartite historians of the same period; and in future I must make some use of him, though in historical merit far inferior to the three former.

adorable providence of God bringing good out of evil. On the other hand the evil he wrought was palpable. Dissensions and schisms, forced conversions attended with cruelties which alienated men's minds still more from godliness, the increase of superstition and formality, the miserable declension of real internal godliness, especially through the east, where his influence was most extensive, and the increase of ignorance and practical wickedness, were the undoubted consequences of Justinian's schemes.

In truth this man attempted too much: he pressed uniformity of doctrine through the world by imperial menaces and arms: he laboured to bring all nations into a nominal attachment to christianity: he prescribed what bishops and laity should believe, and was himself, in effect, the pope as well as the emperor of the Roman world; yet, wretched being! he himself seems not to have known any one thing in religion in a right manner. In external things he could not but sometimes be right; in internal religion it was hardly possible he should be so; for he was ignorant of his own heart, while his eyes and ears with insatiable curiosity were intent on all persons and objects. It will not be pertinent to the design of this history to enter into a detail of the actions of such a prince; but the view of his character, which I think is supported by the concurrent testimony of civil and ecclesiastical historians, may teach persons of eminence, either in power, or learning, or genius, who shall give their minds to religious objects, to be in the first place more concerned for their own genuine conversion, and for personal godliness*; and then to contract and limit their plans within the humble circle that belongs to a fallible, confined, and shortlived creature like man; and steadily

Nothing shows in a stronger light the emptiness of his mind than his boasting after he had finished the magnificent church of St Sophia, "I have excelled thee, Solomon." Yet was this vain emperor made use of by divine providence as a shield to support external christianity at least in the world. In his time Chosroes king of Persia persecuted the christians in his dominions, with extreme cruelty, and publicly declared, that he would wage war not only with Justinian, but also with the God of the Christians. The military measures and the religious zeal of Justinian how ever checked the progress of his ferocity.

to move within that circle in the propagation and support of the gospel of Christ, and of whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy, without being seduced by romantic and dazzling schemes to attempt what is vastly above their reach: for by this method they may be the victims of their own ambition or avarice, while they think they serve God, and may fill the world with evil, while they vainly suppose they are its benefactors. But these are ideas with which the profane and the careless governor has no right to meddle: Justinian was neither the one nor the other. He was serious through life, though void of humility, faith, and charity; and for serious spirits, the caution, which his character is calculated to give, will stand an instructive lesson.

In his first year he made laws relating to bishops: a few words of them will deserve to have a place in this history. "The absence* of bishops, says he, is the reason that divine service is so negligently performed; that the affairs of the churches are not so well taken care of, and that the ecclesiastical revenues are employed in the expenses of their journeys, and of their residence in this city (he means the metropolis of Constantinople) with the clergy and domestics who accompany them. Let no bishops quit their churches to come to this city, without an order from us, whatever may happen. If we find their presence to be necessary here, we will send for them." What motives induced bishops to attend the court so much, is easy to guess; and we have here a plain description how much the eastern church was secularized, and how it gradually ripened into a fitness for desolating judgments.

Justinian says further, "when an episcopal see becomes vacant, the inhabitants of the city shall declare in favour of three persons, whose faith and manners shall be testified by witnesses, that the most worthy may be chosen.” He proceeds to lay down rules to restrain the avarice of bishops; rules which had no existence in purer times, because a purer spirit prevailed.