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An excellent sketch of these attempts had been previously given by Doctor Mosheim, in his Ecclesiastical History, Cent. XVI. Ch. III. sect. 3. part 2. c. 1. and Cent. XVII. Cha. I. sect. 2. p. 1. To these publications the reader is referred: the present Essay may be found to contain,
'Those, wrote Mosheim in 1740, 'who are best acquainted with the state of the English nation, tell us that the Dissenting interest declines from day to day, and that the cause of Nonconformity owes this gradual decay in a great measure to the lenity and moderation that are practised by the rulers of the Established Church. No doubt the friendly understanding which widely existed about this time between Churchmen and Dissenters contributed to such a result.
Such was the morality of the clergy as early as the third century! The doctrine of the Church in these primitive times was as confused as its morality was impure. Mosheim, in dealing with "divisions and heresies," points to the false teachers mentioned in the New Testament, and the rise of the Gnostic heresy.
I daresay they may be interpreted in more than one way: my point is that they were interpreted in an evil way by many primitive Christians, who took them as a warranty that it was right to lie for the glory of God. Mosheim, writing of the Church of the fifth century, alludes to the
I read Gibbon and Mosheim right through again, with Carlyle's "Frederick," "French Revolution" and "Cromwell," Forster's "Statesmen of the Commonwealth," and a mass of literature on the Rebellion and the Protectorate. I dug deep into the literature of Evolution. I read over again all Shakespeare, Shelley, Spenser, Swift and Byron, besides a number of more modern writers.
Those of our readers who are disposed to study this interesting subject, will find it discussed at some length in Mosheim, and there is a good abstract relative to these Oriental sects given by Gibbon, in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Named Canyfistola in Lichefilds translation. Lagartos in the original.
This Pope, who, says the candid historian, Mosheim, "to a profound ignorance of all those things which it was necessary for a Christian bishop to know, joined the most shameless indolence and the most notorious profligacy," abandoned his person, his dignity, and his government to the disposal of Donna Olympia Maldachini, the widow of his brother.
In reading his account and that given by Mosheim of these attempts, the writer thinks that, on each side, there was something to commend and something to blame.
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