CAUSES ACCOUNTING FOR THE GROWTH OF THE PAPACY. 225 Now, the Romanbishops, from the beginning, were eminent above all other bishops in all kinds of advantages. He was seated in the imperial city, the place of general resort; thence obvious to all eyes, and his name sounding in all mouths. He had a most numerous, opulent, splendid flock and clergy. He had the greatest income, from liberal oblations, to dispose of. He lived in greatest state and lustre.' He had opportunities to assist others in their business, and to relieve them in their wants. He necessarily thence obtained great respect andveneration. Hence, in all common affairs, the conduct and presidence were naturally de- volved on him without contest. No wonder, then, that after some time the pope arrived to some pitch of authority over poor Christians, especially those who lay nearest to him, improving his eminency into power, and his pas- toral charge into a kind of empire, according to that observation of Socrates, that " long before his time the Roman episcopacy had ad- vanced itself beyond the priesthood into a sovereignty."' And the like heobserves to have happened in the church of Alex- andria, upon the like grounds, or by imitation of such a pattern.' 2. Any small power is apt to grow and spread itself; a spark of it soon will expand itself into a flame. It is very like to the "grain of mustard-seed, which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof," Matt. xiii. 31, 32. "Grasping ambition," as Plutarch says, " is an innate disease of sovereignties. "' Whoever has any pittance of it will be improving his stock; having tasted the sweetness of having his will (which extremely gratifies the nature of man), he will not be satis- fied without having more; he will take himself to be straitened by any bounds, and will strive to free himself of all restrains. Any pretence will serve to ground attempts of enlarging power, and none will be balked: for power is bold, enterprising, restless; it always watches, or often finds, " never slips opportunities of dilat- ing itself"' Every accession begets farther advantages to amplify it, as its stock grows, so it with ease proportionably increases, being ever out at use [usury.] As it grows, so its strength to maintain Euseb. vi. 43, an. 254. Oblationibus matronarum ditati. Circumspecte vestiti. E" Enriched with the oblations of matrons." "Splendidly attired. "]Amm. fare., 1 xxvii. p. 337, an. 367, Euseb. 8 Th 'Pa¡aaímv i 09rñ5 .wipe, 4ñ5 ;yaw tivns ia4 L,aC4Eíav Sian +reíxai ar a.AoúO,e. Socr. vii. 11. 8 Socr. vii. 7. ¢ Tò vúFepe,ey vÓOn¡.aa 4a4 aa,rsa/j, 'i 9r.ZE0nJa. Plut. in Pyrrh. 5 Subrependi occasiones non prætermittit ambitio, &c. P. Leo T., Ep. lxii. Facilius crescit dignitas quam incipit.Sen., Ep. ci. Primze dominandi apes in arduo; ubi sis ingressus, adsunt studia et ministri. Tack., 4nn. iv. p. 143. VOL. I. 15
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