is inseparable from all Sovereign Power and Christianity and all the Power that it brings along with it comes into the World upon its supposition So that by it we are so far from making the King a Priest that without it we cannot own him to be our King And on the other side when we assert a Spiritual Power to the Church distinct from though subject to the King's Supremacy others cry out Popery Praemunires and I know not what hard names they would soon let fall their out-cry if they would consider that it is such a Power as never any Prince exercised or wittingly challenged though it is possible that some may have run upon it by mistake and is neither Temporal nor Foreign Jurisdiction And in those two points lies the malignity of the pretended Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome for as it is Temporal it plainly subjects the Regal Authority to its Empire and as it is Foreign it makes the whole Kingdom Feudatory and brings us into the form of a Province under an Italian Prince both which are such abuses of Government as evidently subvert it Nay farther as a Foreign Temporal Jurisdiction is inconsistent with the English Monarchy so is all kind of Foreign Jurisdiction though meerly Spiritual irreconcileable with the Prerogative Royal. The reason and the account whereof I shall give in its proper place when I come to state that easie but yet undiscover'd Point of the Divine Authority of National Churches All that I am obliged to at present is to shew the difference between that Authority that we assign to the Church of England and that which the Bishop of Rome would Usurp against which though there were nothing else to be objected but its being Foreign for that reason alone it ought to be banisht the Nation as an Enemy to the Civil Government Whereas the Authority of the Church of England is seated in the King 's own Subjects who can call them to an account for it if they use it to his own or his Subjects prejudice and can as well punish them for any disorders in the abusive Exercise of it as he can any of his own Officers for their misdemeanors in their trust in the Common-wealth So that so far is the King's Supremacy as it is stated in the Church of England from entrenching upon the proper Power of the Church as the Romanists cavil that it only protects it in the due exercise of its Jurisdiction And so far is the proper power of the Church from disclaiming or abating any thing of the King's Supremacy as the other Factions clamour that it first Establishes that upon the most lasting Foundations of Divine Institution before it makes any claim to its own Power and when it does it does it upon no other Terms then of entire submission to its Supreme Authority And now that Man must wilfully dream that can imagine such a power as this in the Church can be any way prejudicial to or detractive from the Civil Government and yet that such a Power there is is an assertion worth no less then our Christianity it self that stands or falls with it For if our Saviour have not entrusted his Church with a Power within it self sufficient to maintain it self by vertue of his own Authority then it stands upon no stronger Foundation then the Will of the Sovereign Power And then as that can Establish so it can Abrogate its whole Obligation which is plainly to say that it is no True Religion for it is certainly none if it relye only upon humane Authority So that all that can be concluded in this case is that upon supposition that our Christian Faith is an Imposture there can be no Power in the Christian Church and that for a very good reason because then the Church can be no Church But upon supposition that our Saviour founded it by Divine Authority the peculiar Power of the Church derived meerly and immediately from himself without any interposition of humane Authority is the first thing to be believed as absolutely necessary to its Being and Subsistence But this will appear with a brighter evidence if we consider the several branches of Jurisdiction that as they are complicated with the supposition of Christianity so are they such acts of Power as no Sovereign Power ever challenged or can with any decency exercise As the Power of Preaching the Gospel through all Nations of the World in the Name and by the Authority of God The Power of granting or with-holding the Instruments of Grace the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist The Power of the Keys or judging who are fit to be admitted into the Society of the Christian Church and who ought to be cast out of it for non-performance of the Conditions undertaken at their Admittance The Power of instructing the People in the Duties of Religion or guiding and directing them in the safest way to Salvation The Power of Ordaining Consecrating and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers to succeed in the Government of the Church through all Ages These are the several points of their Commission and are granted to be so by Mr. Hobbs himself and that at the very time when he undertakes to demonstrate that all these acts of Power are no acts of Authority And that is one of his choisest methods of Demonstration in all things to bear down the undenyable Truth of all things by meer force of Assertion thus here he reckons up the chief Acts of Authority in the Apostle's Commission and then will bear us down that they are no Acts of Authority only by saying so and that against the Common Sense of Mankind For if they had a Commission from our Saviour to do these things then were they Empowred and Authorised by their Commission to do them So absurd a thing is it to talk of acting by Commission without acting by Power whereas every Commission as such is granting so much Power And therefore if the Apostles and their Successors were Commissioned by our Saviour to these several Acts of their Office as he grants because it cannot be denyed every Act is an effect of that Power that is settled upon them by virtue of their Commission And is it not strange that this witty Gentleman should begin all this Extravagant discourse against all Power Ecclesiastical as such with this very Assertion That the Power Ecclesiastical was at first in the Apostles and after them in such as received it from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands What thickness of Contradiction is this A Power Ecclesiastical and yet no Power at all Why then if it be no Power it is no Power Ecclesiastical and if it be a Power Ecclesiastical then it is some Power And then again a Power by virtue of our Saviour's Commission i. e. a Power warranted by Divine Authority and to say that this is no Power is plainly to averâ— That there is no such thing as Divine Authority And upon this supposition that
of enquiry which though a fault is by no means so disingenuous as acting against knowledge But as for this Case of Apostates in time of Persecution upon whom Mr. Hobbs says Excommunication could have no effect of Terrour If indeed the Providence of God had not given them sufficient evidence of their Faith I will grant it to be true not only of that but of all the other Threatnings of the Gospel But if God have given sufficient motives of belief as if the Gospel be not a cheat he has if it be all Mr. Hobbs's dispute is without bottom a Man's Apostacy is no Fence against the Reflections of his own Conscience For though it is in his Power to deny his Faith for fear of Persecution yet it is not in his Power to disbelieve it So that upon such a Man the Sentence of Excommunication by which he is cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven lights with as much Terrour as upon any other Believer And there is nothing more evident in the History of the Primitive Church then the Efficacy of this Sentence upon such Offenders For the greatest part of those that fell in time of Persecution were by this means alone recover'd to the Church brought to sue for pardon and undergo very severe Penances as a satisfaction for the Scandal But to what purpose do I put my self to the trouble to prove these things when all Mr. Hobbs's discourse upon this Argument runs upon this supposition as if Christianity were but a trivial and indifferent thing that might or might not be believed as Men variously fancied or were casually inclined And upon that supposition I will freely grant it to be of as little effect as he would have it But if the Providence of God hath given us such a Demonstrative Evidence of the Divine Authority of this Religion that no Man who inquires into it can wink against its Light without doing violence to his own Convictions then whether Men will or no it will be a perpetual Terrour to their Consciences And that this slight Opinion of the Evidence of Christianity though upon what slight and indeed ignorant pretences I have elsewhere shewn is the bottom of Mr. Hobbs's meaning is too manifest from his next branch of the Supremacy of Sovereign Powers which indeed is neither better nor worse then bare-faced Blasphemy And that is the Power of making Scripture Law i. e. Obligatory But if that be the state of the Christian Religion that it is not at all material whether a Man regard it or not for any Obligation or Authority in it self Mr. Hobbs is not to be blamed unless in point of Prudence for all those irreverend abuses that he has been pleased to put upon it But if it be made Law by the Command of God as it is if it be not all imposture in pretending falsly to his Authority then whatever the Sovereign is pleased to make of it Mr. Hobbs and all his Followers that will allow it no obligation but from Man stand Convicted of the most manifest Treason and Blasphemy against the Sovereign Lord of all and this part of Ecclesiastical Supremacy of making Scripture Law that they give to Kings they take away from God himself After all this rank prophaneness it is almost needless to consider his last branch of Ecclesiastical Power viz. the Right of Ordaining and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers not only because it is of the same Nature and derived from the same Divine Authority with all the other particulars of the Apostolical Commission but because himself grants it in general by placing it in the People For if it be any where that is enough against himself that denies all manner of Power in the Church but most of all because he has confessed and no Man can deny it the whole truth of the matter both against the Hobbist and the Independant too viz. That the Apostles conveighed their Authority to their Successors whom themselves Deputed and Ordained by Imposition of hands and if so this Power of constituting Successors resided in them alone because no Man could be constituted an Officer in the Church but by their Imposition of hands or those to whom by it they Transmitted their Power So that whatever interest they might permit the People in their Choice or Nomination of their Officers the whole power of Constituting them in their Office and Authority lay in themselves alone §. IV. But Mr. Hobbs having hitherto treated of the Power Ecclesiastical as it stood before the Conversion of Kings and Men endued with Sovereign Civil Power and after his rate of Demonstration proved it to be no Power at all whilst vested in the Pastors of the Church he comes now to prove that it is lodged in Civil Sovereigns upon their Conversion to the Christian Faith and that when it comes to them it becomes true and proper Power But before I consider his small Arguments I cannot understand why that which was no Power before becomes Power now There can be but one reason for it and that is too obvious in all Mr. Hobbs's Writings viz. Because it is now abetted with the Penalties of this life whereas before it was only abetted with the Penalties of the life to come so that the plain English of the Assertion if spoken out is this that there are no penalties at all but in this life and then I must confess that the power of the Church can be no Power till complicated with the Civil Power But the man that discourses upon such Principles as these has nothing to do with the Christian Religion or any thing relating to it But secondly Which way came this Power into Civil Sovereigns Our Saviour left it to his Apostles and they delivered it down by Imposition of Hands to others who were to conveigh it in the same manner of Succession through all Ages how then came Civil Sovereigns by it If any were Ordain'd to it they had it by virtue of their Ordination not their Right of Sovereignty if they were not which way could they become possessed of a Power that was never derived to them in the way of Ordination which is the only way in which it can be conveighed and therefore if they have it not that way they can never have it any other As for the Principle upon which he founds this Power of the Civil Sovereign though it be true in it self yet it is no proper reason for what he would infer from it viz. That the Right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil This is undoubtedly true that they are the proper Judges of what conduces to the peace and quiet of Government but then this Power is common to Heathen as well as Christian Soveraigns they are all equally concern'd and obliged to take care of the Publick Peace so that this Power does not accrue to the Civil Sovereign by his becoming
of Renouncing his Saviour for so does every one that denies his distinct Authority and takes it to himself So inseparably is the right of Governing the Christian Church annexed to the Apostolical Office by virtue of our Saviour's Divine Authority that to take it from them and place it any where else is open Rebellion against the Soveraignty of God himself Thus far have I consider'd the wild Consequence of that Opinion that gives all Power in the Christian Church to the Civil Magistrate and shewn not only that it gives them what no Prince was ever so Extravagant as to challenge a Power to Administer the Sacraments a Power to Ordain Ecclesiastical Officers a Power to do all those Offices that are known all the World over to be proper only to the Ecclesiastical Function but withal that it apparently takes away all Authority from our Saviour himself And this in the Conclusion of all I must say for Mr. Hobbs that though he sticks not to own all these bad Consequences he affirms no more then what he is forced to by his first Assertion and whoever gives the proper Ecclesiastical Power to the Civil Sovereign if he will not own Mr. Hobbs his Consequences must quit his own Assertion And this I shall prove in its proper place upon all the followers of Erastus that will not acknowledge any form of Ecclesiastical Government settled by Divine Right they must Renounce their Christianity and be Baptized into the Church of Leviathan §. V. And now having avoided these two dangerous extremes one whereof destroys our Government and the other our Religion upon the supposition of the Truth of the Premisses there are and ever must be in all Kingdoms and Common-wealths where Christianity is Entertain'd and Protected two distinct Jurisdictions so as that if we confound them both together or that either invade or intrench upon the other it is as much as our Christianity is worth and the wrong either way will light at last upon our Saviour's own Authority For if the Priest challenge any Temporal Jurisdiction as derived from our Saviour beside the violation of the Rights of Sovereign Powers he directly affronts his Masters own Government and in effect disclaims it For his Kingdom is purely Spiritual and he becomes our Lord and Saviour by virtue of his Supremacy over it and therefore to pretend to any Power of another Nature from him as head of his Church is the thing that I charge with turning Christ into Mahomet and forces upon him in spight of his own Protestation against it a Temporal Dominion Which is such an abuse of his Institution and such a contradiction to his whole Design that to call him Impostor would not be a greater Blasphemy For this implies no less then that under pretence of such a Religious and Innocent design of erecting a Kingdom but not of this World he really intended no other Design then to advance an Universal Empire over all the World and all the Sovereign Powers of it And on the other side if a Sovereign Prince shall assume to himself the Exercise of that Power that is peculiarly vested in the Governors and Officers of the Church and so take upon him the sole Government of it as such instead of Governing the Church he destroys it when every Church as a Church is capable of no other Government then what was delegated to the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's own special Commission after the full settlement of the Rights of Sovereign Princes So that after this for them to take it to themselves is to act not only without but against our Saviour's own express Commission when he has so particularly appropriated that Power to another Order of Men. Neither is it only an encroachment upon our Saviour's own Authority but an assuming of it to himself In that the Prince thereby Challenges the Supreme Government of our Saviour's Kingdom without any Commission from him and then has it by virtue of his own Title and not of our Saviour's Grant and then is our Saviour plainly turn'd out of his Kingdom and another seated in his Throne Now this being the true State of the Christian Church the grand difficulty that follows upon it and that has hitherto so much puzled most Men in this Debate is the danger of Competition between two Supreme Powers For if they happen to contradict each other as of later time they have too often done who shall over-rule If a man obey his Prince contrary to the Prescription of his Spiritual Guide he may endanger his Soul if he obey the Bishop he disobeys his Prince and thereby forfeits his Neck to Justice This Knot is thought so difficult that instead of untying it it is generally cut asunder and the competition avoided by denying the distinction Thus the Romanists that are the high flying Assertors of Ecclesiastical Power unanimously confine all the Power of Sovereign Princes to things Secular and take away all Authority from them in matters Ecclesiastical And on the other side the greatest part of those that Assert the Royal Supremacy deny any Jurisdiction at all in Ecclesiastical Officers making their whole Function meerly Ministerial or nothing but a right to perform and administer the Offices of the Church but as for any Power or Jurisdiction in it they have none but what is granted by the Civil Magistrate But both these run into all the fore-mention'd ill Consequences the first by denying the King's Supremacy over all things within his own Dominions The second by denying our Saviour's Supremacy over his Catholick Church in all places by which he has every where settled a Power in his Deputies distinct from the Power of Princes so that either of these Extremes howsoever minc'd and stated still carry us upon the same Precipice Though this difficulty becomes so much the more nice because of the more Ancient Possession of Sovereign Powers in that before the Institution of the Christian Church they govern'd their Kingdoms without Competitors and therefore have reason to be jealous of this new Authority as an encroachment upon their old Soveraignty For whereas before the setting up of this the whole and sole Power within their Dominions was in themselves now they seem to enjoy but a kind of divided Empire and see another erected in it backt by no less Authority then the immediate and miraculous Power of God himself and that is greater then the greatest Power upon Earth so that by it they seem not only to be rivall'd but over-topt in their Authority That is that Providence that had hitherto made them Supreme under it self within their own Dominions seems hereby to introduce a Superiour Power over their Heads by his own more immediate Institution All which seems to be an unavoidable contradiction to the first Principle that I have laid of a Christian Church that it makes no alteration or abatement of the Rights of Sovereign Princes But all these difficulties as big and as dreadful as they may
as any other Ceremony whatsoever Now the Bishop being with this great care and caution admitted to his Trust he was consider'd in a treble capacity first in relation to his own Diocess secondly to the Bishops of the Province thirdly to the Catholick Church Within his own Diocess he had the Supreme Government for every Diocess though it be but a Member of the Catholick Church is yet a distinct Society of it self and ordinarily Govern'd by a Jurisdiction within it self and that was by the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters in which he enjoyed such a Supremacy that no act of the Presbyters could be valid without his Consent and Authority and yet his Supremacy was so confin'd that he could as little act without the concurrence of his Presbyters as they without his Now this Episcopal Superiority acting only in conjunction with the Presbyters was the most proper method that could have been contrived to prevent confusion on one hand and Tyranny on the other For where a Body of Men act in an equality of Power without some real Authority above them nothing can be expected but perpetual Factions and Animosities And on the other side a Power purely Monarchical without any Associates in the Government may easily if it please degenerate into Tyranny and when it does so has nothing to restrain it and though Tyranny be an ugly thing in Civil Government yet in the Ecclesiastical it is far more indecent because Church Power is founded upon the profession of Meekness and Humility But though the Bishops ever associated the Presbyters in Authority with them from the time of the Apostles yet I imagine that there are no Footsteps of any Divine Command requiring it though its early practice may prove it an Apostolical Custom and Tradition but if it was it was for any thing we know their own voluntary act as becoming the modesty of Christian Governors But the Jurisdiction of the Church being thus seated in the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters matters were so effectually ordered that their Acts were not only valid within their own Precincts but in the Catholick Church all the World over Thus it is Enacted that if any Clergy-man or Lay-man excommunicate or any way unfit to be received shall be received in another City i. e. according to the Language of those times in another Diocess without commendatory Letters both he that receives him and he that is received shall be excommunicate And if any Clergy-man shall quit his own Diocess without his Bishops leave he shall be degraded from his office And the Bishop that shall receive such an one in his Clerical Capacity shall be excommunicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Master of confusion or an enemy to the peace and unity of the Catholick Church No Clergy-man that is excommunicate by his own Bishop shall be absolved by another as long as that Bishop lives And no Clergy-man of what Order soever not a Bishop himself is to be so much as relieved without commendatory Letters No Bishop is to ordain in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition There is no Flight or Appeal from one single Bishop to another but if any man thought himself aggrieved by his own Bishop he had power of Appeal to the Bishops of the Province who were to assemble twice a year in Council to Debate Matters of great weight in the Church especially to review the Acts of Government in every particular Diocess of the Province that if they found any wrong Judgment they might reverse it or if any harsh or too severe they might mitigate it Here is all the care in the World taken to preserve the Efficacy of the Discipline in every Church and it was so religiously observed in the Primitive times that I do not remember one instance of its being violated till the time of the Constantinopolitan Usurpation And it is reckoned among the many other strange Enormities of Dioscorus by the Council of Calcedon in their Epistle to the Emperours Valentinian and Marâ—ian in which they give an account of the reasons of his Deposition viz. That he had received several Persons legally excommunicate by his single Authority in contempt of the Holy Canons which command that those that are excommunicate by one be not received into Communion by another And in pursuance of the foremention'd Apostolical Canons to preserve the Authority of every Bishop within his own Jurisdiction it was afterward decreed by the Nicene Council that there shall be no redress no nor complaint against the Sentence of the Diocesan Bishop unless it be at the meeting of the Provincial Synod And it is said that at the motion of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople for prevention of Frauds and Cheats in Canonical Epistles such an artificial form was contrived by the Council as was impossible to be counterfeited The form is extant in Gratian Distinct. 73. it is somewhat remarkable and very well worth the perusal But it is plain that they confined every Bishops power within his own Circuit and every Clergy-man to his own Bishops Jurisdiction And all the following Councils stick close to the same principles of Discipline though the African Bishops were more strict then other Churches in this as well as all other points of Government no Travelling among them without dimissory Letters And if any Bishop carried a complaint to any Forraign Church he stood ipso facto excommunicate to all the African Churches But lastly beside this form of Provincial Government in which all matters of common concernment were determined by the major Vote of the Episcopal Synod and by which all the Diocesses within the Province were united and cemented into one Communion there was a common tye of Government between the Bishops of several Provinces in whose Concord consisted the Unity of the Catholick Church so much talked of by the Ancients And this was chiefly kept up by Communication of Synodical Letters which was not an Arbitrary correspondence but an indispensable duty of every Church to every Church so that whatever Bishop neglected it he was for that reason cast by all others out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and by this device every Act of Discipline in every Church was of force in all Churches all the World over and whoever was taken in a Member of one Church had a right from it to communicate in all Churches and whoever was cast out of the same stood excommunicate to the whole Christian World And this was done with all security and expedition by setling the power of correspondence in every Province upon the Metropolitan and by the mutual intercourse of Metropolitans all the general Affairs of the Church were transacted And therefore upon the choice of a new Metropolitan it was the custom to signifie his Election to all the rest that they might know to whom to direct their corresponding and communicatory Letters Thus the Synod of Antioch that deposed Paulus Samosutenus in
cause to St. Cyprian and by acknowledging a double relation or capacity in every Bishop one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Church and that is all the Political Union we contend for But Seventhly This Political Unity does not accord with the nature of the Gospel because it would bring too much Worldly State and Grandeur into the Church as appears by the Papal Monarch And that is true a Monarchical Unity would naturally bring in a Worldly Kingdom but not such an Unity as consists in the Communion of all Parts together and not in the Subjection of the rest to one part as our Author expresses it or as Mr. Thorndike often repeats it That not the infinite Power of one Church but the Regular Power of all is the mean provided by the Apostles for attaining Unity in the Whole This is the state of the Question between us and therefore all our Authors flourishes about the Papal Tyranny are nothing but flourish because it is so far from being that Catholick Unity that we own that it is the whole design of this work to prove that it is a most execrable and impudent subversion of it The 8th and 9th Arguments proceed upon the same Supposition of a Papal Monarchy The tenth upon its no Necessity against our Authors own confession The 11th and 12th because such an Unity was never in fact attain'd If he means in full perfection no more was ever any Government and therefore it is not to be required in this World but if he means that it was never put in practice so as in good measure to attain its end the whole History of the Church down to the Papal Usurpation contradicts it as appears by the whole Series of this Discourse This is all that this learned Man has alledged upon this Argument and from it the Reader I hope is sufficiently satisfied how little that has to alledge for it self for he was a person of that comprehensive mind that he never omitted any thing pertinent to his design was never in debt to any cause that he undertook nor ever fail'd that but when that fail'd him and therefore when we see so great a man able to say so little in defence of this uncatholick Assertion that is the strongest proof that we can have and perhaps stronger then any we could have had without it that it is utterly indefensible PART II. SECT I. HAving in the former Part of this Discourse set down the practice of the Church both as to the Exercise of its own Jurisdiction within it self and its entire subjection to the Civil Powers whilst it subsisted meerly upon its own Charter without any Assistance or Protection from them We are now arrived at a new state of things as they stood under Christian Emperors And here we shall find that the Government and the Constitution of the Church continued as it had ever been within it self and that the Christians when the Empire was on their side own'd the same kind of Subjection and that upon the same Principles of Duty to the Civil Government that they had ever done in the times of Persecution and when I have made good both these it will make up a compleat Demonstration both of the unalienable Power of the Church within it self and of the Sense of the Catholique Church unanimously condemning all resistance against the Civil Government in any case but most of all in the case of Religion Under Constantine the Great it is not to be doubted but that they were forward enough in their Loyalty and Obedience to his Government for all Men are for the Government when the Government is for them and therefore this part of the Enquiry concerning the Peaceable behaviour of Christians under his Reign is wholly superseded because if they did their Duty they had no motive or temptation not to do it submission to his Government being no less their Interest then their Duty and therefore it was no matter of Praise or Vertue in them if they own'd and honour'd that Power that was their peculiar Deliverance and Protection So that this side of the Controversie I shall altogether wave in this place and only consider the Ecclesiastical State of things under his Government where I once intended to have Exemplified the due Exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church from his Example First As a Sovereign Prince Secondly As a Christian Sovereign And that First In matters of Faith and Christian Doctrine Secondly In matters of Discipline and Christian Government and here particularly First Of his Power in Summoning Councils as Supreme Governor of a Nâ—tional Church Secondly Of that Obligation that he brings upon himself by becoming a Christian First To abet the Power of the Church with his own Secular Authority Secondly To endow it with a Revenue for the maintenance of the Service of God and those that attend upon it But upon more mature deliberation I thought it much more adviseable to forbear all such Reasonings and Discourses till I had first set down the whole matter of Fact as things stood not only under his Reign but all the Succeeding Emperors where we shall find Precedents enough to make up a Demonstration of all the fore-mentioned Principles But because this is the first Instance of Uniting Church and State into one Body and because this Wise and Prudent Emperor seems to have exerted his Power in both exactly according to the Rules both of Religion and Government I shall the more curiously consider the management of Affairs under his Reign whereby will be fully exemplified how this Union may be reduced to practice without any Diminution of either Power or Confusion of one with another and that will plainly demonstrate wherein consists the Original Rights of the Church in a Christian State and the due Exercise of the Supremacy of Christian Kings over all Ecclesiastical Persons Rights and Powers Now because the Supreme Power in all Government is the Legislative Power and is the thing most disputed in this Controversie I shall shew that he was so far from annexing this Power in the Church to the Imperial Crown that he expresly asserted its inherent Right and Protected it in its Exercise within it self with all his zeal and ability In that whenever he had a mind to have any Ecclesiastical Laws Enacted he never presumed to do it by his own Authority which he ever declared would have been no less Crime then to invade the Power of God himself but always referred the matter to the Bishops in Council and by their Canons he framed his Ecclesiastical Laws but never made any without or against them And that is a full and clear acknowledgement of that antecedent Authority that they enjoyed by our Saviour's appointment when he constituted the Apostles and their Successors Supreme Governors of his Church to the End of the World So that in all Changes and Revolutions of things their Government must remain unalterable and indefeasible and whatever Assistance
here a Courtier whether through ignorance or to divert any farther discourse about the Tyrian Council steps in and swears that he was deposed by the Council of Nice To which the grave Bishop could make no other reply then a scornful smile and so proceeds to represent the foul dealings of the Tyrian Council the Forgeries and Recantations of Valens and Ursacius but here he is again upon a dangerous point and so is again interrupted by the Courtiers with rude and impertinent reflections upon the drift of his discourse and there is an end of all the Conference upon that point The next great Jealousie that they had blown into the Emperours head was that Athanasius had so little Wit Manners and Religion as to have made it a great part of his business to make bate between the Emperour and his Brother and carried it on so effectually that if Constantius had not very much restrain'd his own Passion it had broken out into an open and Fatal War and he is so much possest with this jealousie that he professes that the Victory over Magnentius though he run mad for joy of it was not more acceptable to him then one over Athanasius would be But to this the Bishop replyes That if it were true it was most proper for the Emperour to punish such an Offender at his own Tribunal and not to force the Ecclesiastical Judicature to condemn a Person of any Crime unheard But when nothing will do he has his choice either to subscribe the Condemnation or leave his Bishoprick The first he peremptorily refuses and so is banisht to Beraea in Thrace and Faelix his Arch-Deacon put into his place And here it is again observable that Faelix was no Arian himself but a Stickler for the Nicene Faith only allowing the Arians a capacity of Communion with the Church And that is the thing that I affirm all along to have been the Eusebian Cause not to restore Arianism but to piece up the Peace of the Church by comprehending all in one Communion or by mutual forbearance So that notwithstanding that vehement out-cry that has been hitherto made of the Universal Predominancy of Arianism under Constantius especially at this very moment of time I do not find it hitherto so much as own'd nor any man preferr'd upon the account of his being an Arian Auxentius that was at this very time thrust into the place of Dionysius of Milan has as bad a Character as any man of the time yet St. Hilary himself though he were apt enough to make Arians by Consequences says of him that he always openly disclaim'd Arianism though he suspects that it was because he dâ—rst not own it so that whatever was at bottom it is evident that the Arian Heresie it self in all this Controversie never appear'd at top And those very Bishops that are represented as the most zealous Arians were rather Atheists then Heretiques The Head and Founder of the Party was Eusebius of Nicomedia and what a worthy Saint he was already appears from the Tenour of his whole life But when by his unfortunate favour at Court he had got the Power of the Church into his own hands especially the disposal of Bishopricks and made that the only qualification for Preferment to join with him and his malice against Athanasius in this case it is no wonder if the vilest of Men flockt in to his Party in as great sholes as Irish Evidences to a Plot. And such were Valens and Ursacius Men Educated in Villany and so hardened in their wickedness that they were past shame at its very discovery and when they could not stand out a Perjury they would impudently confess it and then â—ace it out and ask Pardon with as little remorse as modesty and when they had unsworn a Perjury they would the next opportunity swear it all good again And such an one was Epictetus as he is described by Athanasius a Neophite rash and daring and therefore dear to Constantius because he found him prompt and dextrous at all manner of Wickedness and so could by his help ensnare what Bishops he pleased for he would never stick at any thing so it were but acceptable to the Emperour And it is the same Character that is given of Cecropius and Auxentius that they were Men of no worth and prefer'd for no other merit then meerly their dexterity in wickedness to destroy good Men. And such an one was George of Cappadocia who was thrust into the place of Athanasius as he is described by Gregory Nazianzen his Countrey-man the most notorious Villain of the Age He was a Monster bred up in the Borders of our Country of an ill-bred but a worse Temper a Slave and a waiter at other Mens Tables and so of no value that he was sold for a Bushel of Corn and by this baseness he was inured to do or say any thing for Bread till at length he crept into some publick Employment though the vilest that could be to be Hoggard to the Army which he discharged with so much cheating and knavery that he was forced to fly and so wandred up and down the World till at length he setled at Alexandria where though he had made an end of his Travels he did but begin his mischiefs and though he were contemptible in all points of no Learning no Wit no Conversation not so much as pretending to a shew of Piety fit for nothing but to make mischief and disturbance he outed so great a Man as Athanasius and as vile a Wretch as he was presumed to get himself placed in his Episcopal Throne And yet this very Wretch is vehemently recommended to the Alexandrians by the Emperour 's own Letter as one of the best Divines in the World So miserably did his Eunuchs abuse the good meaning of this poor Emperor as to put the vilest of Men into the best of Preferments for Money and as he got it so he used it not like a Bishop but a Publican till his Oppressions cost him his life for which he had the good fortune in the barbarous Ages of the Church to be Canonised among the Principal Saints and Martyrs For in all the timely Records of the Church I can find no other St. George then this And this was the peculiar miscarriage of this Emperour 's unhappy Reign that the Preferments were got into wicked hands and then it is not to be doubted but that wicked Men would get into the Preferments and things were so basely carried at last that nothing seem'd to keep up the good old Eusebian Cause but the advantage that it gave ill Men for Ecclesiastical Plunder and Sequestration But to return to the train of the Story Liberius the Bishop of the great City being dispatcht the last Enemy to be overcome was the great Hosius that Father of Councils who by reason of that high Authority that he had acquired in the Christian Church both by his Age and Wisdom was
Grant and Commission And that certainly is as high a Prerogative as any Prince can care to demand to have a Sovereign Power over all the Powers within his own Dominions So that whether they are derived from his Authority or not they shall be as entirely Subject to it as if they had subsisted by no other Charter And that is as high a Supremacy as Mr. Hobbs himself has been pleased to challenge for Sovereign Princes when he took away all Power from the Church to vest it in them for though it is a very gross prophaneness in him to allow no Authority for Religion it self then as it is enjoyn'd and made Law by them yet that Authority that is in the Church by Divine Right is as absolutely Subject to their Dominion as it could have been had it been establisht as Mr. Hobbs contends only by their own Authority And this State of the Controversie if it can be made good I am certain will satisfie all Parties that can claim any share or degree of Government in Church or State but most of all the Supreme Powers to whose Soveraignty all Power whatsoever it is or whencesoever derived is indispensibly Subjected As for the Jurisdiction of the Church as settled by Divine Right and nothing else I have discoursed of that in former Treatises and proved that it is immediately derived from our Saviour himself and settled unalienably by him upon the Apostles and their Successors the Bishops forever so that here I must suppose the Constitution of the Christian Church within it self and all that I am bound to do at present is That supposing its distinct and independent Authority for granted to explain how it accommodates and submits it self to the Civil State and comes under the common obligation of all good Subjects to true Allegiance and Loyalty to the Sovereign Prince §. II. And here the first and chiefest thing to be consider'd is That Christianity supposes the Power of Princes Civil Government being settled in the World from its beginning by the general Providence of God and antecedently to our Saviour's particular Institution And therefore as the first thing that our Saviour openly declared when he enter'd upon his Office was the erection of his own new Kingdom so the next thing that he took care to instruct his Subjects in was that this his Kingdom was no Kingdom of this World So that from thence it is evident that he left the Government of the Kingdoms of this World in the same posture in which they had ever stood be ore he came into it And therefore there could be no alteration much less abatement of the Civil Government any where upon the score of his Authority otherwise the Institution of his Kingdom had been a breach upon the Ancient Rights of those Sovereign Powers in whose Dominions it was erected which was the first thing that our Saviour whilst himself conversed upon Earth was careful to avoid This therefore is to be set down in the first place as the Fundamental Article of his Religion that neither himself nor any of those that he has deputed for the Government of it challenge any Temporal Power to themselves or any exemption from the Authority of those that have it Neither is this to be lookt upon only as a positive duty but it is necessary in it self from the nature and the design of Christianity which was to settle a pure Religion in the World by the strength of its own truth and goodness without any help of worldly power or mixture of worldly interest as I have elsewhere shewn at large from the whole story of its first settlement And therefore agreeable to this great Observation it is very remarkable That our Saviour himself whilst he convers'd upon Earth did not only never challenge any kind of Civil Authority to himself but seiz'd all occasions to defie and disclaim it as absolutely inconsistent with his Commission Thus John 6. 15. When the People supposing him to be that Temporal Messias that they expected would have forced him to take the Kingdom upon himself he immediately withdrew into a Solitude to shift their importunity And Luke 12. 13 14. When one solicited him only to take upon him the Authority of an Arbitrator he perfectly disavows it as if he were solicitous not to give them the least pretence of Objection against him for his intermedling with the Civil Government And yet he might lawfully have done â—t according to the received custom of the Jews at that time for in the Babylonish Captivity to avoid the scandal of Contention before Heathens they referred all their Controversies to the Rabbies and Doctors of the Law and such an one this Jew supposed our Saviour to have been as appears by his giving him their proper Title of Master and whoever refused to stand to their award he was Excommunicated their Society as a scandal to the Jewish Nation And this priviledge of being their own Judges among themselves was granted to them by the Romans and for a long time continued by the Christian Emperors themselves And therefore though our Saviour might have undertaken this Office by the allowance and permission of the Civil Government yet to avoid all suspicions of any such imputation he protests against it as unbecoming his own Office and Person And the case is the very same as to the Woman taken in Adultery Joh. 8. 3. of whom he declares that he had no such Authority as they imagin'd to pass any Sentence upon her according to their Law so that if she were not legally condemn'd before they brought her before him she was at liberty for any such Power that he had to pass Sentence upon her But the most remarkable passage for his disclaiming all Earthly Power is in his Examination before Pontius Pilate Joh. 18. 36. to whom he freely confesses that he is a King but to prevent his jealousie or mistake he both immediately declares that his Kingdom is not of this World * and clearly explains what he means by it For If my Kingdom were of this World then would my Servants fight that I should not be deliver'd to the Jews From which words we understand his evident meaning when he professes that his Kingdom is not of this World that it is not endued with any power of the Sword So that for any of his Officers or Subjects to make any resistance to the Civil Power by the Sword in defence of his Kingdom is to destroy the very nature of itâ— Constitution that consists in this that it is to be govern'd by the power of Truth and is distinguisht from the Kingdoms of this World in that it is a Kingdom without the power of the Sword And therefore for any Officers in it to pretend to any such Power by virtue of any Authority or Commission from him is at oncâ— both to dethrone and renounce his Kingly Power because it is a contradiction to his whole design in the World to have
either such a Kingdom or such Subjects And that he further declares to be nothing else then the Institution of Christian Truth in it by virtue of its own Goodness To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the World that I should bear Witness unto the Truth every one that is of the Truth heareth my Voice That is all Men that are lovers of true Goodness will voluntarily come into my Kingdom and submit themselves to my Doctrine and Discipline for that is the evident meaning of that phrase They that are of the Truth they that are ingenuous and sincere lovers of it as in the Epistle to the Romans c. 2. v. 8. They that are of the Contention i. e. Persons that are given up to Contention So that there is the true State of Christ's Kingdom that it is a Kingdom without force within it self and has no true Subjects but such as freely and of their own accord submit themselves to it out of love to the Goodness of its Government So that whereas all other Kingdoms subsist by the power of the Sword his taken by it self and as not complicated with the Civil Government cannot subsist with it And therefore when St. Peter drew his Sword in defence of his Master he commands him to sheath it because it was a Method inconsistent with his Design Matth. 26. 53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father and he shall presently give me more then Twelve Legions of Angels If that had been the proper method to compass his design and to settle his Kingdom he could easily have done it by an Army of Angels but that would have spoil'd the whole work had he betook himself to any forcible defence who was to establish an Institution in the World by no other means then its own Truth and Goodness Many reasons are given of our Saviour's reproof to St. Peter by learned Men of all Factions to enhance or abate its obligation but the only true reason is that which himself has here given that it was utterly inconsistent with the nature of his Institution This was the sense of the Doctors of the Church through all Ages down to the very time of Gratian himself in the year 1150 an hundred years and more after the time of Pope Gregory the Seventh so that though he had declared and practised against it it seems his Doctrine could not speedily obtain any great footing in the Christian Church who treating of the power of the Sword to whom it belongs determines from this very passage that of all Men the Officers of the Church have nothing to do with it De Episcopis verò vel quibuslibet Clericis quòd nec suâ auctoritate nec auctoritate Romani Pontificis arma arripere valeant facilè probatur Cùm enim Petrus qui primus Apostolorum a Domino fuerat electus materialem gladium exerceret ut Magistrum a Judaeorum injuriâ defensaret audivit converte gladium tuum in vaginam Omnis enim qui gladium acceperit à gladio peribit ac si apertè ei diceretur hactenus tibi tuisque praedecessoribus inimicos Dei licuit gladio corporali persequi deinceps in exemplum patientiae gladium tuum id est tibi hactenus commissum in vaginam converte tamen spiritualem gladium quod est verbum Dei in mactatione veteris vitae exerce Omnis enim praeter illum vel auctoritatem ejus qui legitima potestate utitur qui ut ait Apostolus non sine caus◠gladium portat cui etiam omnis anima subdita esse debet omnis inquam qui praeter auctoritatem hujusmodi gladium acceperit gladio peribit As for Bishops and all Orders of the Clergy it is evident that they ought not to take up Arms either by their own or the Pope's Authority For when Peter the Prince of the Apostles brandish't the material Sword to defend his Master from the violence of the Jews he heard a Voice Put up thy Sword into its Scabbard for all that take the Sword shall perish by the Sword As if he had expresly said hitherto it has been allowed thee and thy Predecessors i. e. I suppose the High Priests under the Old Testament to punish the Enemies of God with the Corporal Sword but from this time forward I command thee to sheath it for an example of Patience and use the Spiritual Sword which is the Word of God to Sacrifice the lusts of the old life For all beside him or the Authority of him who is endued with legal Power and who as the Apostle says bears not the Sword in vain and to whom every Soul ought to be Subject every Man I say that draws the Sword without his Authority shall perish by it And this state of the question he proves from the Authority of divers ancient Councils and Popes which I here forbear to recite because I intend if God permit to consider them in their proper Times and Places for that is my design as I proceed to reap the whole field of Church Records and not Glean as the common Custom is its scatter'd fragments Only this passage of the Father of the Canonists I have here dropt in to let his modern Followers that are one and all base flatterers of the Roman Court against all Sovereign Powers see how enormously they wander from the Text of their own Law as well as the Holy Bible But to return our Saviour having declared to the President what his Kingdom was not i. e. a Kingdom destitute of Force and the Power of the Sword he proceeds to declare what it was viz. a Kingdom of Truth Which Pilate taking to be some kind of Stoical Kingdom for such a thing the Stoicks pretended to at an high rate by virtue of their Philosophy he asks him what is the Truth that he professes But reflecting it seems with himself that it was not pertinent for a Judge upon the Bench to enter into a Philosophick dispute with a Prisoner at the Bar he lets fall the Question by not staying for an Answer But beside these evident passages in our Saviour's conversation for disclaiming all Civil Soveraignty there is one Text that is usually by mistake applyed to this purpose though it relate to a very different matter and that is Matth. 17. 27. where our Saviour is supposed to pay Tribute to the Roman Collectors and that is owning his subjection to their Government But the Didrachma the Money there demanded of him was not Tribute money paid to the Roman Publicans for we never read of any such Tax but Temple-money paid to the Jewish Priests and their Collectors for the Use and Service of the Temple and this continued till the time of Vespatian who as Josephus relates it imposed upon the Jews this Tax of two Drachms that they had hitherto paid towards the repairs and annual expences of the Temple at Jerusalem for the use of the Capitol at Rome And this
wonder if the Judgment of God follow upon it And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation But though this Argument from the Divine Original of Government be so strong an enforcement of this Duty yet the Apostle goes on to tye it harder and that is from its End the Good of the Subject For he is the Minister of God to thee for good And common Sense will tell us that submission to the worst Princes is much more the Interest of the Subject then Rebellion against them So that how much harm soever a Tyrannical Prince may bring upon a Common-wealth he does it more good though it were only by being a Bar against the Miseries of War and Confusion And common experience will confirm the Wisdom of St. Paul's Argument that be the Governors the worst that can be and so they were at that time yet their Government in spite of their own folly and wickedness is highly beneficial to the Common-wealth and in that every private mans Interest and Property is comprehended Now from both these Premises the conclusion is unavoidable Wherefore ye must needs be Subject not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake That is not only for fear of the King and his Laws but out of sense of duty to that God by whose Authority Kings Reign and who has bound upon our Consciences the duty of Subjection to them Now one would think it impossible for Men to escape from the obligation of so clear a Law and so it is till they lay aside the natural Sense and Ingenuity of Mankind and then indeed Mens Consciences are arm'd against all Conviction and so it happens among us that as once much learning made this great Apostle mad so now much Reliligion makes him a Fool. For so we are told that we must not think that he would be so silly as to abett the Wickedness of Tyrants Non ut Neronem aut Tyrannum quemvis alium supra omnem legem paenam constituendo crudelissimum unius Imperium in omnes mortales constabiliret that he would not set up Nero or any other Tyrant above all Law and Punishment and establish the cruel Dominion of one above all And therefore we must distinguish between the King's Person as a Man in Concreto to express it in Mr. Rutherford's words though it is the Sence of all the Monarchomachists and as a King and his Office in abstracto the Person may be resisted though not the Office because if the Person govern not by Law and Justice he ceases to be a Lawful Power But to what purpose is it for God to make Laws if Men may evacuate their force by such Metaphysical Nothings For how can we submit to the Office of a King but by submitting to the King himself If the Office it self could Govern without him then it might be the safest way to stick to the Abstract but seeing it cannot subsist without the Concrete he that commands to submit to the Office commands us to submit to the Man in whom it is or he commands us nothing So that this is really no better then prophane trifling with the Word of God when we are in plain and express terms commanded to make no Resistance to our Governors to get loose from so useful a Law by such childish and senseless Trifles as plainly contradict the Law it self For whereas the only design of such Laws is to preserve the Peace of humane Societies by such evasions as these all Men are left at liberty to disturb it as they please notwithstanding all the Laws in the World that ever were or ever can be made against it And therefore I would advise these Men that can cheat and lullaby their own Consciences with such Rattles as these either to lay aside their Metaphysicks or their Religion because such niceness and subtilty makes it a thing of no Use in the practice of the World For if there were no such Laws at all Men would be under no greater restraint from the Sin then they are now by the most effectual Laws that it is possible for God himself to lay upon them Men that can use such abusive and prevaâ—icating shifts to escape their plain Duty are arrived either to too great Prophaneness or too high Enthusiasm to be admitted to the Rights of common Christianity They serve their Saviour just as they do their Prince they obey him in abstracto and Rebell against him in concreto they submit to his Laws when themselves think it convenient but when they do not they then cease to be his Laws This is the unavoidable result of these thin and precarious distinctions that Religion if Men will shall be of no use or force in the practice of the World But secondly this is down-right Childrens play and make all Laws whatsoever ridiculous when it leaves it to those who are commanded absolute submission to judge when submission is sit and when not Do but once allow that Liberty and after that all the Laws injoyning this Duty can never command any thing For after they have commanded all that can be commanded every Man will be as much at liberty to do what he pleases as he was beâ—ore being sole Judge of the fitness of his Subjection But if he be Judge of that he is not bound and if he be bound he is not Judge but is absolutely bound In our present case what can the Apostles Command signifie when he peremptorily and indefinitly requires subjection to the Higher Powers i. e. say these Statesmen to all Powers that govern by Law and none else This makes the Subjects the Supreme Judges of the Government not the Governors themselves for by it whatever these do or Command it is of no Authority then as the Subjects judge it Legal and if they do not they are at liberty to Resist and Rebel And if this be so St. Paul would deserve to be laughed at for being so serious in enforcing a Law that can never bind whilst he commands Subjection or Non-resistance to higher Powers when the Subjects after that have full Power in themselves to determine to what higher Powers they will or will not resist Such Non-sence lyes at the bottom of all Rebellion for if Men are at all bound to submit to their Governours they are bound to submit to all if not to all then not to any because the Power of Resistance is by this poor Republican Principle at last wholly left to their own Judgment and then they are subject to no Authority but themselves and their own Wills But thirdly if a King ceases to be the higher Power or to be a Lawful King whenever he does not act according to Law or whenever his Subjects shall apprehend so how is it possible there should be any settled Government or Society among Mankind when it is so plainly impossible but that there must be miscarriages as long as Kings are Men and much more misapprehensions of the Government as long as the People
it relate to the whole Flock or only the subordinate Clergy it is the very same word which is used by our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so does St. Paul when he tells the Corinthians that the Apostles do not Lord it over their Faith the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we improperly enough Translate Not having Dominion over their Faith for the word Dominion is not always taken in a bad Sense but often signifies Lawful Authority whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies nothing but domineering or treating them as Masters do their Slaves whom they care not how they use for their own gain and advantage that is the proper import of the word and therefore it is very aptly joyn'd by St. Peter with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed the Flock for filthy lucre as the Romans kept their Slaves And to the same purpose is the advice of St. Paul that a Bishop be no striker nor greedy of filthy Lucre but patient or mild and gentle not a brawler not covetous i. e. not to run into any of these Vices or Disorders in the exercise of his Episcopal Authority but to infer from hence that he has no true and real Authority at all only becomes the Man that knows no better Sanction of a Law then a Sword or a Cudgel And this very thing is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that moderation that is so frequently injoin'd in the Apostolical Writings as Phil. 4. 5. T it 3. 2. Jam. 3. 17. It is not as it is by some Men very ignorantly interpreted an unconcernedness and indifferency between dissenting Parties for that may be good or bad as it happens if the controversie be trivial it may be an instance of it but if it be about a matter that is setled either by the Authority of God or the Church there indifferency and moderation is nothing else then Falshood and Treachery But the true meaning of the word is a mildness and gentleness in the use of Authority the same that is attributed to God himself in the Government of the World Wisd. of Solomon c. 12. v. 18 But thou Mastering thy Power judgest with Equity and orderest us with great savour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. judgest not by rigour of Law but with mercy and gentleness and so Aristotle defines the vertue of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that its Office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to correct and moderate the general Law when it is applyed to particular Cases And all good Government is ever more merciful then the Law ought to be for that cannot be too severe to deter Men from offending so that there are not many cases in which it is broken wherein the offender may not require some mercy and compassion But as this Vertue is so highly commendable in all Government so is it much more in that of the Church in which Almighty God shews more of it in himself towards Mankind the Gospel being nothing but a dispensation of his Mercy and Gentleness to Offenders And as this is a necessary Qualification in the Governors of the Church for guiding and rectifying their publick Government so is it most becoming their private Conversation and by gaining Authority to their Persons doubles that of their Office So that when our Saviour instructs his Apostles in this new way to Greatness his instructions are wise in a literal Sense for nothing is really so great and commanding in the World as true Humility Whoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whoever will be first among you let him be your Servant Matth. 21. 26. If any one desire to be first the same shall be last of all and Servant of all Mark 9. 35. He that exalteth himself shall be abased and he that will abase himself shall be exalted Math. 23. 12. The common experience of the World sufficiently attests the Truth and the Wisdom of these Propositions so Powerful is the obligation of Courtesie Condescention and Humility But if the Governors of the Church are so strictly injoin'd this Vertue where they have Authority how much more are they where they have none If they may not contend with one another for Dominion though they have equal Power how much less with Sovereign Princes of whose Power they have no share and to whom they are bound to a more exact and exemplary Obedience and Submission then other Subjects by their Office and Power So that our Saviour has taken all possible care as far as Law can do it to reduce the Constitution of his Church to an entire compliance with the Civil Government And though he has instituted a distinct Government in it suited to the design of his Religion he has so many ways brought it into Subjection to Sovereign Powers that they are much more disabled by their very Authority to give them any disturbance then they could have been without it the very Authority it self being a new and distinct Obligation to a stricter Allegiance But because notwithstanding all this Evidence some Men are jealous of granting any Authority to the Church peculiar to it self especially when all Power is so apt to degenerate into abuse and therefore though they cannot deny the truth of it in general are very shy of admitting it at all lest they give it too much advantage sometime or other to fix and strengthen an interest within it self against the State And I must confess the prophane boldness of the Bishops of Rome ever since the Hildebrandine Apostacy in justling and contesting with Princes as the Vicars of Christ has given too much ground for this Jealousie I shall from this general state of the Christian Law as fixt by our Saviour and his Apostles proceed to its particular Precedents when it came to be reduced to practice in the Primitive Church Whereby I shall make it to appear after and beside all these foregoing considerations to forestal all pretences whatsoever of resistance to the Civil State that thô this because all Power is so may be liable to abuse yet that there is not any one point of Government more easie then t◠prevent it and that the danger is so very little that no Government that does not grosly forsake it self can possibly suffer any thing from it and that the abuse is so unlikely and so difficult ever to be put in practice again that there is no one thing in the World that requires less care to watch against it in short that it can never come to do any harm without such a long continued stupidity in the State as is utterly inconsistent with all Government of it And on the other side the advantages that accrue to the State by receiving the Church into its protection are so great so certain and so universal that there cannot be a grosser faileur in Policy then to refuse or deny it And here I say for our better direction as every where else we must advise with the practice
himself is Deposed and Anathematised as one that destroyed the Order of the Church and disturb'd the Peace of Christian Empire and compass't the Death of a Catholique Prince and abetted a perjured Usurper and subverted the Peace of the World And the same Sentence was ratified five years after in a Council at Mentz though all in vain for they got nothing by it but the Name and the Brand of Schismatiques But what bloody work has been made in Christendom by the Principles of this Termagant Pope from that time to this will make up a Volume of it self when we come to those times But to return to the state of the Primitive Church though there are no examples of any affront or violence offer'd to the Civil Magistrate in it yet there are numberless Instances of their quiet and peaceable Submission and that too upon Principles of Duty and Obligations of Conscience Thus was it bravely said of St. Polycarp and worthy the greatness and wisdom of the Martyr to the Pro-Consul at his Tryal We are Commanded Sir to give all due and decent honour to Princes and Magistrates so far as we can do it without doing wrong to our own Consciences They were bound to comply with and submit to the Will of their Governours in all things but Sin and that by the Laws of their Religion But the most magnificent Account of this is to be seen in the Christian Apologists who in the very heat and flame of Persecutions when if ever Men should be exasperated into Passion Glory and Triumph in their great Zeal and Loyalty to those very Princes by whom they were persecuted Just in Martyr is so confident as to Petition the Emperours to punish all such as profess't Christianity and yet lived not according to the Laws of their Religion and then immediately adds As for our parts we are the most forward of any Subjects to pay Taxes and Contributions to the Emperour as we are Commanded by our Master to give unto God the things that are God's and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's And therefore we worship God alone but cheerfully serve them in all other things as well knowing them to be Sovereign Princes over Men and withal praying for them that God would add Wisdom to their Imperial Dignity This is our Practice and Profession and if notwithstanding this you will proceed against us we shall be no losers being assured that every Man must after death give an account of his own Actions and then our Rewards shall be proportion'd to our Sufferings And after the same manner and with the same confidence does his Scholar Athenagoras conclude his Eloquent Oration to the Emperours when he had shewn the Innocence of the Christians in all other particulars when he had wip't off all Calumnies and when he had represented their Piety their Honesty their Temperance their Sobriety he adds And now great and worthy Sirs lend me your Royal Ear who think you are more likely to obtain the things that they pray for then Persons so qualified and yet we daily poure forth our Prayers for the prosperity of your Government and that the Son may according to right succeed the Father in the Empire and that your Government may ever increase and flourish in short that all things may fall out as successfully as your hearts can desire which will be a benefit also to our selves that living under your Reign a quiet and peaceable life we may readily obey your Commands That was the sum of all their Apologies and it was suited to the Nature of their Religion as it stood founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross we are obedient to all your Commands that are not contrary to the true worship of God and the Laws of our Religion there we crave leave to be excused and if that offend you we can but suffer for it which we are ready to do with all manner of meekness and submission as being assured of an â—ternal Reward for a short calamity Theophilus Antiochenus in his Address to his Friend discoursing of the Folly and Vanity of giving Divine Worship to the Emperours he tells him That it is a much greater honour to them not to worship but to pray for them I will worship that God from whom Caesar received his Authority But you will say why not Caesar too Because he was not set up to be worshipt but to be paid that proper honour that is due to Caesar for the King is not the Deity but ought to remember that he is advanced by God to that height of Dignity not to be worshipt by his Subjects but to do them Justice for this end the Divine Majesty placed him in the Imperial Throne and therefore as Caesar will not suffer any of his Subjects to usurp the Caesarean Title because it belongs to him alone neither let himself challenge that worship that is proper and peculiar to the Divine Majesty And therefore O Man honour the King honour him I say by loving him obeying him and praying for him and by so doing you will do the will of God for this is the Sum of the Divine Law my Son honour God and the King and be not disobedient or refractory to either of them This was the true state of the Case in his time to shew all manner of respect and honour to Sovereign Princes as such only in Subordination to God so as to obey them in all things but when their commands interfer'd and then indeed they choose to obey God in the first place still preserving in all other things the same honour and duty to their Prince And after the same manner Origen answers Celsus when he asks him why the Christians cannot worship and appease the Emperours because says he there is only one God that ought to be worshipt the Lord of all and he is best appeased with devout Prayers but the favour of Princes is not to be courted by such mean and dishonourable obsequiousness as is inconsistent with true Piety or such servile Flatteries as are unworthy a generous man and one that esteems magnaâ—imity to be the greatest of Vertues but as far as our Piety to God will permit we are not so frantick that we should wilfully exafperate the displeasure of Kings to deliver us to torments and death for we are so taught in our Books let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but is of God therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God And these words are to be understood in their plain and natural sense And their Sense is so very plain that it is impossible to fasten any other Sense upon them beside their own With all these imminent Doctors of the Church agrees the Answer of that pious and resolute Prelate Dyonysius of Alexandria in his Examination before AEmilianus Prefect of Egypt that we worship one God the Maker of all things and who bestowed the Empire upon their
most Sacred Majesties Valerianus and Gallienus to him we offer up our daily Prayers for the safety of their Empire that it may continue firm and unshaken forever §. 10. And as for the Latins they kept pace with not to say that they out-ran the Greeks in the same Track of Loyalty Irenaeus Scholar to Policarp writing against the Gnosticks who taught that the Powers of the Earth ought to be obeyed because they were set up not by God but by the Devil has stated the Obligation to the duty of Obedience upon its true and proper Principles First from divers passages of Scripture expresly commanding it Secondly from the Providence of God who sets up Kings for the preservation of Mankind lest they should prey upon one another like the Fish of the Sea And lastly to prevent the Objection that God would not set up bad Kings he replyes that by whose command they were born men by his command they were ordained Kings fit for the times in which and the people over whom thâ—y reign for some are given for a Punishment others for a Blessing to their Subjects all to all People as they deserve the just Judgment of God equally extending to all Which is a full declaration not only of the Loyalty of the Primitive Christians but of the Principles upon which it was grounded Tertullian in the time of Alexander Severus under the rage of the fifth Persecution that was very bloody and severe writ his admirable Apology in imitation of Justin Martyr and for a Foundation of his Plea states the true condition of the Christian Church in this World Scit se peregrinam in terris agere inter extraneos facile inimicos invenire caeterum genus sedem spem gratiam dignitatem in coelis habere Unum gestit interdum ne ignorata damnetur She knows her self to be but a Stranger and Pilgrim in this World and cannot but expect to meet with Enemies in a Forreign Country but her Kindred her habitation her hope her favour and her honour all dwell in the World to come She has but one thing to request or indeed to challenge that she may not be condemn'd unheard Here is no pleading any exemption from the Imperial Judicatures upon the Account of Christian Priviledges but he offers himself and his cause to a fair and impartial Tryal and he is so confident of its innocence as to desire no other favour but only the Justice of being heard Neither does he any where complain of their punishing such Actions as belonged not to their cognizance but only of the Illegality of their Officers Proceedings in that they were condemned unheard and unexamined And though they were so yet he no where appeals from their Courts but only presses them to examine and search into their cause and so stipulates in the name of the Christian Church to stand or fall by their Judgment And as for their strict Loyalty to their Prince he farther pleads that they pray for the Emperors that God would grant them long Life a quiet Reign and undisturbed Family Valiant Armies Faithful Counsellors Obedient Subjects and whatever else they can desire either as Men or Emperors and then bids them proceed to murther them and tear their Souls from their Bodies whilst they are praying for their Emperors Happiness And therefore you that think that we have no concern for the Safety of Caesar look into our Books and learn from them with what Redundancy of Kindness we are commanded to pray for our Enemies and Persecutors and who are more so than those by whose Authority we are condemned as Criminals But beside that we are expresly injoyn'd to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority We revere the Wisdom of God in the Emperors that sets them over the Nations we acknowledge that Character in them that God has imprest upon them and therefore we will wish them safe whom he would have so But what do I say any more of the Christians duty and even Religion towards the Emperor whom they are particularly bound to honour as one chosen by their God so that I may well say that Caesar is most of all ours as being set over us by our God c. And a while after he boldly demands Whether there were ever found among the Christians any Casfii Nigri and Albini three known Rebels the first against the Emperor Verus the other two against Severus And in his Apology to the Prefect Scapiâ—la he tells him that we are slander'd about the Imperial Majesty and yet there could never any of the Albinian Nigrian or Castrian Rebels be found among the Christians A Christian is no Mans Enemy much less the Emperor's for knowing that he is apointed by God he cannot but Love Reverence and Honour him and pray for his safety and therefore we worship the Emperour as far as it is lawful for us and convenient for him viz. as a Man next under God only less then him and deriving his whole Authority from him It is an excellent Passage in Minutius Faelix who lived not long after Tertullian concerning the calm and peaceable Magnanimity of Christians How delightful a Spectacle is it to God when a Christian encounters Sorrow when with a composed mind he meets threatnings and Torments when with smiles he insults over the noise of Death and the dread of the Executioner when he asserts his liberty against Kings and Princes and yields only to God whose he is when with the Triumph of a Conquerour he has the better of the Judge who gives Sentence against him for he overcomes who gains what he fights for That is the only Christian Combat Courage and Submission And therefore it is very well observed by the learned Lawyer Baldwin in his Prolegomena to this acute Author that Caecitius the Heathen though he were in all other things a very bold Calumniator and insisted fiercely upon all the vulgar slanders against the Christians yet he never durst charge them with the least suspition of Disloyalty or Rebellion To which they might have added That though they were usually indicted of Treason by their Enemies yet the only proof of it was their resusing to Sacrifice by the Emperour's Genius And setting that one act of Idolatry aside there is not any one charge upon Record of any one act of Disloyalty and that as says the learned Lawyer was the glory of our Ancestors that they would be provoked by no injuries to any thought of Hostility against Lawful Sovereigns howsoever barbarously they were treated by them or enter into any Conspiracies against them though at that time they were frequent and plausible as being always mindful what became their Patience Meekness Modesty and Sobriety so far were they from being Turbulent and Seditious and running mad with a thirst of Revenge And in reality if they had behaved themselves otherwise they had laid wast the very Foundations both of their own Religion and all humane Society too And to mention no more
to their demands and justifie them in their Schism because they dissent not from her in any matters clearly reveal'd which alone the Church has Power to impose and to charge the Church of Tyranny for daring to impose any other conditions of Communion then what are imposed by Divine Authority An excellent way of accommodation this in behalf of the Church of England to condemn her whole practice of illegal and unwarrantable Usurpation and allow the Pleas of the Dissenters just and reasonable And what is worst of all to take away all Government in the Church for ever and the Church it self too when it is evident from common sense that it can never subsist without a Legislative Authority within it self but that I shall have occasion to discourse of more copiously hereafter when I come to shew what injury is done to the Church of England by these false Principles of accommodation I shall at present content my self with proving it by experience and representing the particular Laws made by the Ancient Governors of the Church from time to time to secure and provide for its own Peace and Tranquility And by it I shall make good these three considerable Points First the great Authority inherent in them and independent on any Civil Power Secondly their great wisdom in the use and exercise of it for by the particulars it will appear that they generally acted upon wise and prudent reasons And thirdly the absolute necessity of it when we shall see by the Example of every age that there is no way of preserving any manner of Peace in the Church without it And to begin with the first Decree made by the Apostles themselves to accommodate the contrary prejudices of Jews and Gentiles If they had obliged the Gentiles to comply with the whole Law of Moses that would have look't like an attempt to bring them under the old intolerable Bondage and tempt them rather to renounce Christianity then submit to such a grievous Yoke And if they had wholly exempted them from the Mosaick Law that would have as much endangered the Apostacy of the Jews thinking that they should thereby have renounced the God of the Law for it was not easie to every capacity to distinguish between rejecting the Law and the Lawgiver And therefore to satisfie and avoid the prejudices of both Parties they agreed To lay no greater burthens then these necessary things that they abstain from Meats offer'd to Idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood Where by things necessary it is plain that they mean things necessary at that time and place for that they were not so in all times and places is evident not only from the direction of their Synodical Epistle to the particular Churches of Syria and Cilicia but from their not imposing the same Decree upon other Churches that were not in the same Circumstances In the Churches of Syria and Cilicia that confined upon Judaea the Jews were very numerous and therefore to avoid offending i. e. tempting them to renounce the Christian Faith it was requisite to make it a standing rule to them at that time that all Christians abstain from the Oblations to Idols and that would wholly prevent their great fear of Idolatry But on the contrary because the Church of Corinth consisted chiefly of Gentiles the same rule was not made peremptory and universal to them but they were left to their own liberty to eat Meats offered to Idols as they judged most consistent with Christian prudence and charity as they are directed by their Ghostly Father St. Paul This is all that I can make of that great Council and though they were endued with the Holy Ghost yet they proceeded by no other Rule then common prudence and discretion And if they had taken the same method that our Schismatiques and Pacificators would oblige the present Church to to search for a determination of this casual dispute in their Masters own Laws I doubt they would have been very much at a loss to have found any thing like such a decree amongst all his Precepts And yet there was as much reason that they should refer all Acts of Government to be determin'd by his own express Decree as that their Successors should refer them to theirs But next to this Apostolical Synod the Apostolical Canons are the greatest and earliest Demonstration of the Legislative Authority of the Christian Church being compiled by their next Successors in the second and third Centuries by which we understand the true settlement of the Church as the Apostles left it for all the Canons relating to Government are no new Laws but only declarations of old Customs so that though they were not Apostolical Laws they were true and early Records of Apostolical Customs and by them the practice of Church-Government was so entirely setled that they were ever after the Rule and Pattern to the determinations of following Councils And most of the chief Canons both General and Provincial were only Ratifications of these old Decrees to recover their just Authority when any of them had been neglected or violated or additional provisions in pursuance of their general design in new particular Cases For which it seems every Age found matter enough to suppress some Mens extravagant and wanton fancies and it was the new rising of Schisms and Heresies that gave occasion to enacting all the Laws of the Church But these Apostolical Canons being as it were the Institutes or Magna Charta of the Ecclesiastical Laws and being withal enacted in this Period of time that we are now in by pure Ecclesiastical Authority I shall give a brief view of them to let the Reader see the exact Model of the Primitive Church as reduced to practice and brought to perfection by the Apostles and their immediate Successors In the first place therefore because nothing has so great an influence upon the welfare of the Church as the setting up good and wise Governors over it great care is taken against rash Ordination of Bishops so that though every Bishop has an inherent Right in himself to conveigh his own Authority to another yet is it here fixt and has remain'd so through all Ages as a standing Law to the Church that every Bishop be Consecrated by three Bishops at least or two in cases of necessity Now though this Rule has been observed and practiced in all Churches over all the World and is so highly useful to the good Government of the Church by not entrusting a matter of such weight to the discretion of a single Person yet I believe it will be a very hard task to find any thing like a clear Precept requiring it in the Holy Scriptures So apparently repugnant is the principle of the Projectors of Accommodation against unscriptural impositions to the very first Law that was made in the Christian Church after the Apostles and if they pleased it might as well be used to take away this prudent Practice
the year 270 write to Dionysius Bishop of Rome and Maximus Bishop of Alexandria and all other Churches through the whole World that they had deposed Paulus and placed Domnus in his stead and this say they We therefore signifie to you that you might write to him and receive communicatory Letters from him Thus both Cornelius and Novatian when they contended for the Bishoprick of Rome acquaint St. Cyprian with their Elections who communicates the matter to all the Bishops within his Province and by that means the Election of Cornelius was approved not only by himself but by all his Collegues as he always calls them And when St. Cyprian writes to Steven Bishop of Rome to procure the Deposition of Marcian Bishop of Arles he desires when it is done to inform him who is chosen into his place that he might know to whom to direct his Letters and his Brethren significa planè nobis quis in locum Marciani Arelate fuerit substitutus ut sciamus ad quem fratres nostros dirigere cui scribere debeamus And when Fortunius the Donatist Bishop had the confidence to affirm to St. Austin that his Church was the Catholick Church and kept up the Catholick Communion St. Austin rebukes his presumption only by demanding of him whether himself kept correspondence with other Bishops by communicatory Letters And when Pope Zosimus took upon him to constitute Patroclus Bishop of Arles Metropolitan of the Province of Vienna he declares that no literae formatae or corresponding Letters shall be valid but what are sign'd by him And so Pope Vigilius when he restored the same Prehominence to Aurelius Bishop of Arles after some considerable interruption of it annexes this Authority to the See ne quis sine formatà tuae fraternitatis ad longinquiora loca audeat proficisci that no man without his Certificate ought to be own'd in Forraign Churches By all which it appears that the Power of granting Letters communicatory out of the Province was one branch of the Metropolitical Jurisdiction And that beside â—he power of summoning Provincial Councils was the only thing that he was empowr'd to do by his own single Authority For the practice of it being altogether occasional and uncertain and yet very frequent it was necessary to entrust it with some single person and for that none fitter then the chief Bishop that resided in the chief City And for the discharge of his trust he gave an account of this as well as all other parts of his Jurisdiction in the Provincial Synod that was assembled twice a year to take a review of all things that concern'd the state of the whole Province in reference to all Churches without it as well as of the Government of every particular Diocess within it And thus by this subordination of Diocesan Bishops to Provincial Synods and correspondence of Provincial Synods with each other was the Government and Discipline of every Church effectual in all Churches because no Member of one Church could be admitted into Communion with another without his Letters-Testimonial Whereby it was so order'd that whoever was admitted into one Church was admitted into all and whoever was excommunicated out of one was shut out of all And no wonder then that the Canons of the Church are so careful in this part of Discipline between Church and Church when the Efficacy of all other Acts of Discipline depend wholly upon it For if a Sentence given in one Church were not valid in every Church it was in any mans power to elude it only by slipping into the next Jurisdiction And therefore because nothing could be more pernicious to the whole Discipline of the Catholick Church then for the Bishop of one Church to receive and protect the Member of another against the Sentence or without the consent of his own Bishop for that reason it is that the Primitive Church was more watchful in that part of Discipline then any other and for the same reason 't is that I have here traced its practice thereby to direct us to the true way of restoring the effectual Discipline of the Ancient Church in Christendom Which has for many ages been with scandal and dishonesty enough utterly defeated by one single Judicatures making it self a common Sanctuary against the Jurisdiction of all other Churches And till this intolerable abuse and corruption be removed it is in vain to hope for any amendment of the poor distressed and despised Estate of the Christian Church and some men have been pleased to express it whether out of scorn or pity I know not but if the Church will crouch under such a pettifogging abuse it deserves both But by the Premisses we see that whilst the Church preserved its Original liberty it was able to preserve its Peace and Government too by observing the Canonical obligation to mutual Concord among all Christian Bishops and that was so far from being arbitrary that whoever broke the Rule was by it immediately deprived of all Trust and Authority in it And the practice of this Discipline was preserved entire and effectual in the Church till the settlement of Patriarchates who swallowed up this Authority as they did all the other Metropolitical Rights into themselves till at last the Pope swallowed up theirs And then the whole power of granting commendatory or dimissory Letters was in all Provinces entirely appropriated to their Legates This is a short account of the Polity of the Primitive Church and in it I think all things are so neatly composed for an easie a civil and an effectual Government that I may safely challenge all the great pretenders to Politiques and Framers of Common-wealths to find out a more useful or more artificial Scheme of Government But beside these great and more lasting Rules of prudence and good order they were forced to make many occasional Laws to restrain some Mens particular follies and superstitions I will for brevity sake instance only in two Apostolical Canons In the fifth Canon the Clergy of all degrees are forbid to put away their Wives upon pretence of Religion under pain first of suspension and if they persist deprivation The occasion of which Canon was the Opinion of several Hereticks especially the followers of Saturninus of whom Irenaeus reports Nubere generare à Satanâ dicunt esse that they affirm'd That Marriage and Propagation was the Devil's invention and this Opinion grew prevalent in the second Century so that Tertullian among many others was carried away with it But more especially That the Clergy were bound to leave their Wives that they might devote themselves the more entirely to Prayers Fastings and Religious Exercises the Devotions of married Persons being less pure and less acceptable to God Now to stop this Superstition as if Marriage were any way inconsistent with the Service of God this Canon was at first Enacted and is afterward Ratified by divers following Councils And the truth of it is this
be divided into two parts yet both inherit their own share in solidum and so if two Men be bound for the same Debt if they are bound each Man in partem they are obliged to pay but half share but if they are obliged in solidum either of them is bound to pay all And this is St. Cyprian's State of Episcopacy that though many share the Authority yet every Bishop has as full possession of his own share within it self as if there were no other Seeing as he elsewhere expresses it a Parcel of the Flock is allotted to the care of its particular Pastor which every one is bound to guide and govern and to account to God for the discharge of his Episcopal Office Neither was this his singular Notion but the unanimous and settled Sense of the Ancients Thus the Author of Clement's Institutions brings in the Apostles Writing after this manner to all Christian Bishops We being all gathered together have written to you this form of Catholique Doctrine For the Confirmation of you to whom is entrusted the Catholique Episcapacy of the Church This was the entire Sense of all Ignatius his Epistles which suppose the full Jurisdiction of every particular Church to be placed in the Bishop and his own Clergy So Tertullian It is necessary that so many great Churches should be that one and first derived from the Apostles from whom all are derived and therefore they are all but one and yet several Apostolical Churches So all the Ancient Canons inhibit every single Bishop even the Metropolitan to intermeddle in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition Neither is this Supremacy of Power in every Bishop any abatement of the just Rights of Metropolitans For in the Primitive Church as I have shewn in a former Treatise Metropolitans had no Power over inferiour Bishops but in conjunction of the Synod of the Province So that it was the Synod not the Metropolitan that had the Superiour Power over every single Bishop And it is evident that he was as liable to the Sentence of the Synod as the meanest Bishop of the Province as appears from the case of Paulus Samosatenus and Metropolitans considering their number were as often censured and Deposed as other Bishops And this is the reason of St. Cyprian's so earnestly disclaiming the Title of Episcopus Episcoporum because though his own Metropolitical Jurisdiction were of great extent yet as a single Bishop he had no Superiority over any other Bishop no Authority to punish his Misdemeanors to receive Appeals from his Sentence or to order and rectifie any thing within his Diocess All such Power was to be exerted only in Synodical Conventions in which he had the Honour and Authority of Presidency but the Jurisdiction was seated in the Body of the Council without whose concurrence had he presumed to do any thing more then any other Bishop his least punishment had been certain Deposition This was the real State of things in the Ancient Church and Metropolitans never took upon them any Power over their Collegues or brother-Brother-Bishops by their own single Authority till after the Papal Usurpation neither then did they challenge it as Metropolitans but as Legates to the Pope and that was one of the highest branches of the Usurpation But before that time the Governours of the Church were not more watchful against any one thing then that one Bishop should not claim any power over another Now this Principle being first laid That the whole Episcopal Authority is vested in every Bishop the next that is consequent upon it is That whoever separates from the Communion of his Bishop or sets up another against him is a Schismatick and this was the Subject of almost all his Epistles concerning the Restitution of the Lapsi or such as fell in time of Persecution For they according to the Ancient Discipline of the Church were not to be received into Communion but by these degrees First they were to Petition to be admitted to Penance and that upon confession of their fault was granted and then having undergon the Penance imposed they made a publick Confession of their Crime before the Congregation and upon that they received Absolution by the Imposition of the hands of the Bishop and Câ—ergy and after that they were admitted to the Holy Eucharist or Full-Communion But instead of this solemn severity of Discipline some of his own Presbyters had been so rash as without the consent of their Bishop to give them entire Absolution and admit them to entire Communion This was the opening of that unhappy Schism that afterward created so much trouble both to himself and the Church of God For when these Presbyters had so illegally restor'd those Enormous offenders they prevail'd by their Importunity upon the good Nature of the Martyrs and Confessors to intercede for their Restitution it being an Honour and Prerogative allowed them in the ancient Church to admit Sinners more easily to repentance upon their Request because they had by the constancy of their sufferings compensated for the scandal that the others had given by their Fall But instead of interceding for their admission to Penance these well meaning men move St. Cyprian for their complete Absolution without it to which he replies that they who had with so much courage and devotion kept the Faith of our Lord ought to be as â—areful of keeping his Law and Discipline †Epist. 16. per totum But yet he is willing to excuse them not only because they did it out of ignorance of the Laws of the Church and out of modesty being meerly overcome by the importunity of others but because they proceeded no farther than only to intercede with him in whom they acknowledge the Power and Authority of granting Absolution whereas the Presbyters had subverted all the Order of the Church by presuming upon it without him These slighting that dignity and respect which the Martyrs Hi sublato honore quem nobis beati Martyres cum confessoribus servant contemptâ domini lege observatione quam iidem Martyres Confessores tenendam mandant ante extinctum persecutionis metuÌ„ ante redituÌ„ nostruÌ„ ante ipsum pene MartyruÌ„ excessum communicent cum lapsiis offerant Eucharistiam tradant Confessors care fully observed despising the Law of God which those Good Men required to be kept before the fear of Persecution is over before our Return before the very consummation of the Martyrs themselves communicate with and give the Eucharist to the Apostates And therefore at the begining of this Epistle in which he so candidly excuses the Martyrs he reproves the rashness and disorder of the Presbyters with more then usual warmth and vehemence of Expression What Punishment Quod enim periculum non metuere debemus de offensâ domini quando aliqui de Presbyteris nec Evangelii nec loci sui memores sed neque futurum domini
Cornelius was lawfully Elected and Consecrated before Novatian and therefore that that alone was enough to null the Title of Novatian Et cum post primum c. And seeing when there is one Bishop there cannot be another whoever pretends to be second after a first who ought to be alone is not the second but none at all And though he gives a large Account of Cornelius his Vertues and the Vices of Novatian yet the Principle that he relyes upon is the Priority of Cornelius his legal Ordination after which for any other man to thrust himself upon what pretence soever into the same Bishoprick is really to thrust himself both out of the particular Church that he invades and out of the Catholick Church against which he Rebels because by the Rules of both one Church is not capable of receiving two Bishops But the Martyrs being reduced and the Schismaticks scatter'd and every where rejected St. Cyprian sets himself to bring the War to a Final Issue and for that end summons a Council at Carthage to settle the Case of the Lapsi forever whereas he informs Antonianus it was after mature debate determin'd with true Ecclesiastical Moderation Scripturis diu ex utrâque parte prolatis c. The Scriptures bâ—ing alledged and urged on either side we temper'd and pois'd the matter with an healing moderation that neither the hope of Restitution should be wholly denyed the Lapsi lest despair should drive them into utter Apostacy nor that the censure of the Church should be so loosned that the Offenders should be lightly admitted to Communion but that upon due Penance and Humiliation every mans particular cause and circumstances being examin'd he should be accordingly treated Which Decree being certified by a Synodical Epistle to Rome Cornelius at the Petition of St. Cyprian as Labbe according to the manner of the Romanists expresses it allows his Confirmation And for the proof of it alledges St. Cyprian's words to Antonianus in which he declares Cornelius his Compliance with the Authority of his determination so that instead of giving force to his Authority he only followed it And as if the number of Ac si minus sufficiens â—piscoporum Numerus in Africâ videbatur etiam Romam super hac re scripsimus ad Cornelium Collegam nostrum qui et ipse cum plurimis Coëpiscopis habito Concilio in eandem nobiscum sententiam pari gravitate et salubri moderatione consensit Bishops in Africa were not sufficient we writ to Cornelius our Collegue at Rome who calling a Council of a great many Bishops approved our Judgment with equal Wisdom and wholsome moderation The Schismatiques being thus utterly routed at Rome they fly back into Africk and there associate to set up another Bishop against St. Cyprian and agree upon Fortunatus which being done Faelicissimus with a Guard of rude and desperate Fellows posts to Rome signifies the Election of their new Bishop to Cornelius and demands Communion with him but is rejected with all manner of scorn and disgrace Upon this they huff and domineer and scare the old Bishop with their lowd threatnings and lowder Lyes particularly that this business was transacted by the concurrent Vote of five and twenty Bishops this puts Cornelius to a stand and hearing nothing all this while of it from St. Cyprian writes to him to know the whole state of the matter who returns him a large and pathetical Narrative of it where he states the whole matter with that Epist. 59. clearness and strength of reason with that evidence of proof with that fulness of Testimony that vanquisht the Faction forever for after that time we hear very little of this sullen Schism And the Fundamental Principle upon which he insists is the Divine Institution of his own Episcopal Superiority Heresies and Schisms arise from no other Fountain Neque enim aliunde Haereses obortae sunt aut nata sunt Schismata quà m inde quòd Sacerdoti dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus sacerdos et ad tempus Judex vice Christi cogitatur cui si secundùm magisteria divina obtemperaret fraterni tas Universa nemo adversum sacerdotuÌ„ collegium quidquaÌ„ moveret nemo post divinum judicium post populi suffragium post coepisco porum consensum Judicem se jam non Episcopi sed dei faceret then because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest at a time is thought to preside in the Church as Christ's Vicegerent To whom if the whole Brotherhood would obey according to the divine commands no man would move Sedition against the Colledge of Priests no man after the Sentence of God the good liking of the People the consent of the Bishops would take upon him to judge not the Bi shop but God him self That was his case that when he had been Canonically Elected and Constituted in the See of Carthage his own Presbyters should presume to out him of his Bishoprick that he held for his life by Dâ—vine Authority And therefore to Travel no farther into this Controversie though the Schismatiques according to the restless Genius of such Men made some faint sallys to save and redeem themselves we plainly see that this was the first Article of St. Cyprian's Unity of the Christian Church the Unity of a Bishop in every Diocesan Church and the dutiful and regular Communion of all its Members with him § 13. The second grand Article and that which has a more diffusive influence upon the Peace and Unity of the Church is the obligation upon all Christian Bishops to preserve Concord and Communion among themselves And as the former unites every Christian to some particular Church so this unites every particular Church to the Body of the Church Catholique And this is that which St. Cyprian and the Ancients intend by the Catholick Church viz. All Churches in the World united into one Body by the Concord of Bishops in the same Rules of Discipline and Government And this is his meaning in those several Passages in which he makes every Church both a perfect Church within it self and yet only a Member of the Church Catholique as in the formention'd Passage in his Book De Unitate Episcopatâ—s â—nus est cujus a singulis in solidâ—m pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every Bishop possesses his own share with plenitude of Power And in his 56 Epistle A Christo una Ecclesia per totâ—m orbem in multa membra dâ—visa Christ has founded one Church dispers'd through the whole World in many Districts or Divisions And in the same Epistle Episcopatus unus Episcoporum multorum concordi numer sitate diffusus There is but one Episcopacy spread every where by the Concord of all Bishops And in the 68th Epistle Etsi Pastores multi sumus unum tamen gregem pascimus oves universas quas Christus sanguine sâ—o passioâ—â— qâ—aesivit colligere fovere debemus Though we
are many Pastors yet we â—eed but one Flock and we are all bound to fold and cherish all the Sheep that Christ has purchased with his Blood and Passion By which and the like passages which are very frequent in his Writings nothing less can be understood than the Obligation of all particular Churches to mutual Concord for the preservation of Peace and Unity in the Church Catholique And agreeable to this Doctrine was his practice through the whole course of his Government to give an account of his proceedings to Foreign Churches for their Judgment and Approbation and by that means a stricter Unity of Discipline was at that time kept up in all Christian Churches then in any other Age. Thus when he had cast Faelicissimus and his Associates out of the Church of Carthage they could never after it get footing in any other Church And when Cornelius had cast Novation out of the Church of Rome though he made many bold and plausible Attempts to insinuate himself into divers other Churches yet he could never meet with entertainment in any but found himself doom'd to the Fate of Cain to be a Vagabond all the days of his Life This Correspondence of Discipline is the subject of the greatest part of St. Cyprian's Epistles Thus he wrote to the Church of Rome to give an account of his Discipline and Diligence Necessarium duxi has ad vos literas facere quibus vobis actâ—s nostri Disciplinae Diligentiae ratio redderetur And then gives a particular Account of all his Proceedings in the Case of the Lapsi and the illegal Pardons of the Martyrs and Confessours Lest says he our Resolutions that ought to be uniform and agreeable in all things should be dissonant in any The very same that is done in his Epistle to Caldonius in which he tells him That he had sent the same Account to divers other Churches and desires him to conveigh it to as many Bishops or Collegues as he could That the same Resolution and Agreement in all things might according to our Lords Command be preserved in all Churches Ut apud omnes unus Actus una consensio secundùm Domini proecepta teneatur And again in his Epistle to the Clergy of Rome he informs them of the disorderly Proceedings of Lucianus and other Confessors in giving Absolution without his consent and desires their farther assistance assuring them That their former concurrence with him had supported him against that old dead weight of Envy and saved him a World of Trouble Laborantes hic nos contra invidiae impetum totis fidei viribus resistentes multùm sermo vester adjuvit ut divinitùs compendium fieret And when in another Epistle to them he had caution'd them against Privatus an Heretical Bishop they return him thanks for his great care of the Unity of the Christian Church a duty say they equally incumbent upon us all Omnes enim nos decit pro corpore totius Ecclesioe cujus per varias quasque Provincias membra digesta sunt excubare And so when the African Bishops had agreed to make an abatement of the rigour of Discipline toward the Lapsi upon the foresight of a new approaching Persecution they acquaint the Church of Rome with their Resolution by a Synodical Epistle But the most eminent correspondence at this time and about this business was that between Cornelius Bishop of Rome Dionysius of Alexandria Fabian of Antioch and Cyprian of Carthage by whose Concord and Conduct the fury both of the Schism and Schismatiques was at last utterly vanquish't And it was this breach of the Unity among Christian Bishops that was the great Aggravation and Enormity of the Sin of Novatian as it is represented by St. Cyprian in his excellent Epistle to Antonianus Cùm sit à Christo una Ecclesia per totum mundum c. When there is but one Church in the whole World divided into many Parts and one Episcopacy diffused all over by the numerous Concord of many Bishops this Man slighting the Command of God and the setled Unity of the Catholique Church endeavours to erect an humane Church sends his new Apostles through divers Cities to lay the Foundations of a new Institution And whereas there had been of a long time Bishops venerable for Age Orthodox in Faith proved in Tryals proscribed in Persecutions Ordain'd in all Provinces and every City yet he dares presume to set up over them his own False-Bishops as if he resolved to vanquish the whole World meerly by his stubbornness and by the propagation of Discord to tear in pieces the whole Union of the Ecclesiastical Body That was a plain dissolution of the Unity of the Catholique Church the dividing the Body of Christian Bishops in whose Concord and Agreement the true Catholique Unity consisted But the most remarkable Discourse in all St. Cyprian's Writings upon this Argument is his severe Epistle to Florentius or Pupianus an African Bishop who took upon himself to disclaim Communion with St. Cyprian by his own single Authority notwithstanding that St. Cyprian was in the Communion of the Catholique Church Ecclesiae universae per totum mundum nobiscum Unitatis vinculo copulatâ—â— And therefore when the one Catholique Church cannot be rent nor divided but is united and combin'd together by the Cement of the Episâ—opal Concord He charges Pupianus with casting himself out of the Communion of the Catholique Church by denying to Communicate with St. Cyprian with whom all other Bishops communicated And withal tells him That his Crime is so great that he can scarce be restored upon Repentance and Satisfaction and that for his own part he dares not do it without some express Commission from God himself I shall begg advice from God whether you shall be restored after having made satisfaction and that he will be pleased to let me know by some sign and intimation of his Will whether he will ever permit such an one as you to he received into the Communion of his Church And this is the thing that St. Cyprian means by a Bishops making himself Episcopus Episcopi with which he here particularly charges Pupianus when one Bishop presumes by his single Authority to judge another Which was in those days justly esteem'd the most unpardonable breach of Catholique Communion For upon that pretence he might if he pleased disclaim and condemn every Bishop of the Christian World And therefore though any other Offender that stood Excommunicate even by a Council of Bishops might be admitted to the peace of the Church upon satisfaction yet in this case St. Cyprian doubts whether Pupianus his Repentance will be ever accepted Insomuch that if upon it he should be received into the Communion of the Church his Absolution must not be peremptory as in other cases but so as still to refer him to the fear and danger of the Judgment of God Si temeritatis saperbiae
by the Roman Writers as his being then but a Novice in the Faith and not sufficiently inform'd of the Discipline of the Church or his being tired out by the restless importunity of the Donatists so that he could enjoy no quiet till he yielded to it These things may be true but they are needless for though it may not be proper for a Lay-man to judge in Ecclesiastical Causes yet it may not be altogether unlawful especially when the Peace of the State depends upon them and that was the Emperour's case at this time all Africa was in an Uproar and in danger to be lost by the Sedition and therefore it highly concern'd him to exert his own Power as he would secure so great a part of his Empire and upon that reason he might take the Judgment upon himself thereby to restrain the Donatists from raising Disturbances and Seditions in the State Though when all is done it is certain that the Emperour never accepted the Appeal nay that he protested against it as an affront to the Divine Authority and setting up his own Power above God's appears not only from his Epistle to the Bishops at Arles but his perpetual Declarations of it And therefore it is not to be supposed that he would be prevail'd with to take upon himself a Judgment that he so solemnly disavowed And therefore his design in hearing the Cause after Judgment was not to judge but to expose the Schismatiques or to suffer them to expose themselves For the cause was already so fully and clearly determin'd at the Council that it could not admit any Review but because they were so restless to have it re-heard before the Emperour himself he at last seem'd to condescend to their importunity when he knew it would prove their fatal overthrow for it is observable that he would not meddle with the business at all till he had the discovery of Ingentius his Forgery in his Pocket with which they were so surprised that instead of following their Suit it utterly dispersed them And for the very same reason he gave them other Hearings after his own Imperial Judgment only to give them the greater scope to lay open themselves and their dishonesty to the World as will appear anon in the foul discovery of Nundinarius the Deacon §. III. But after the Imperial Sentence against them instead of submitting to so great an Authority and such clear Conviction they raise high clamours of injustice and oppression and when they return home put the People into Riots and Tumults and seize a Church in Numidia belonging to the Catholicks and of the Emperors own Foundation Of which when complaint was made to the Empeperor by the Bishops of the Province such was then the fury of the Schismaticks and the disorder of the times that at that time he could send them no other relief then by exhorting them to patience and bestowing a new Church upon them not daring to inflict any punishment upon the Offenders for so long a Train of Sedition but leaving them as himself speaks to the Judgment of God And as he had not long before witten to his Lieutenant Celsus that he should forbear them a while till himself could have leisure to visit Africa sâ—re now assures them that when he comes the Schismaticks shall feel the Event of his Abused Patience and that he doubted not when he came to convince them of such manifest Villany that would utterly spoil all their Glory of Martyrdom For that they gave out to justifie their stubborness against the Imperial Edicts that whatever punishments the Emperor decreed against them they were ready to undergo as Martyrs for the truth of God and therefore that they were so far from dreading any severity that they desired the Execution of Penal Laws against them And so they persist railing at the Emperor for denying Justice and reviling the Catholicks for inciting him to Persecution Till at length he is forced to Enact severe Laws against them and first of all all their Meeting-houses are confiscated to the Crown and accordingly seized on and it hapned very luckily at that time that one Nundinarius a Deacon of the Donatists who was privy to the first contrivance of the Schism at their meeting at Cirta discovers the whole Conspiracy to Zenophilus the Pro-Consul of Numidia and proves both by publick Records and a great number of Witnesses that Silvanus whom they had made Bishop of Cirta and the most factiâ—â—s man of the whole Party was a Traditor and that my Lady Lucilla had given the Numidian Bishops a great sum of Money to depose Caecilian and bestow his Bishoprick upon her Ladyships Chaplain And this discovery being signified by Zenophilus to the Emperor together with a Catalogue of the Seditious Practices of Silvanus he condemns both Silvanus and all the other Ring-leaders of the Faction to perpetual Banishment and that is the utmost severity that he ever proceeded to for though some of them were sentenced to death yet such was his natural Clemency that he turn'd it into banishment and thus by seising their Conventicles and sending away their Leaders he gave himself ease and quiet for some time from their disturbances But now behold the constant ingenuity of all Schismaticks to be sure to beleager the State when ever they find it in any distress and to gain their own ends out of the publick Necessities and to make what demands they please when the Government is not in a condition to contend with them And thus about this time the War between Constantine and Licinius breaking out the Donatists presently accost the Emperor with a bold Petition both for granting liberty of Conscience and recalling Silvanus and his Collegues from Banishment are so confident as to tell him in broad expression that they would suffer a thousand deaths before they would be reconciled to that Prelatical Knave of his Caecilian And yet so involved were the Emperors Affairs at that time that he was forced to grant whatever they demanded and orders Verinus his Vice-Roy in Africk to leave them to their own Liberty And that they used with all manner of Insolence whilst the Civil War lasted neither now would they be satisfied with their own Liberty at home but endeavour to spread their Schism into all parts of the Catholick Church and poyson all the Emperors Dominions with the Spirit of Faction and Sedition What Emissaries they sent into other Churches is not so well known but to Rome they send one Victor as Titular Bishop of that See who took upon himself all â—piscopal Authority over his Party and had many Successors in his Usurpation but not having Liberty to keep their publick meetings in the City they betook themselves to Field Conventicles and Assembled in the Roks and Mountains and from thence were commonly call'd Montenses Campitae and Rupitani This is all that we have recorded of them in this Emperors Reign for he having overcome Licinius and being Master of the
whole Empire was big with a resolution to settle the Peace of the Church as well as the State and once more to quell the Obstinacy of the Shism by the Authority of a General Council But whilst he is designing this great and pious work news is brought him of a worse Flame broke out at Alexdria by means of the Heresy of Arrius that had already engaged not only all Egypt but was blown over into Asia and for the suppression of this dangerous Schism for so at first he look't upon it and therefore only endeavoured to reconcile the Parties he Summons the Great Council of Nice to which among the other Famous Bishops that were present at it Caecilian was summon'd but no Bishops of the Pars Donati as supposing them out of the Communion of the Catholick Church But after this Council we hear little or no thing of the Donatists in this Emperor's Reign himself and the Christian Bishops being wholly employed in quenching that more fatal and pernicious Heresie and how effectually and speedily he rooted up the Heresie it self by the Authority of the Church abetted with the Imperial Power we shall demonstrate in its proper place For though after the Heresie it self was vanquish't by this Council the Hereticks or rather their Friends created him infinite trouble about it by Oblique Arts and for other ends yet this I affirm and shall prove that they durst never own the Heresie it self not only in his time but in all the time of his Son Constantius till the end of his Reign And now here I ought to break off the Story of the Donatists with this Emperors History but their Progress in Schism after his indulgence is such a natural representation of the growth and improvement of Peevishness if once left to its own lâ—berty that I cannot forbear to represent their whola Story at one View especially because it suits a Parallel case that lyes at our own doors so exactly that two Indentures cannot be more like then these two Schisms And the truth of it is all Schisms are but the same for though they are raised about different matters yet they all move in the very same track of Sedition till from meer peevishness they advance to the heighth of Cruelty and end in Rebellion and it is nothing else then the natural method of ill-nature and passion if but suffered to pursue the bent of its own Inclinations And therefore it is no wonder if all Schismaticks howsoever distant in Time Place or Interest follow one another so accurately in the very same steps when they are all acted by one and the same Principle of Nature then it is for Colts to be wild in all Parts of the World if never brought under the Whip and Bridle And that is the greatest benefit of Government to be a curb to the ill-natur'd Passions of Mankind for without that Man would be the most unruly of all Beasts especially the meaner sort of the kind the Rabble that are ever drawn in to be the chief Actors in these Religious Tumults And that is the reason that these are more Cruel and Barbarous then other Seditions because they are carried on by the wildest part of Mankind that have heightned and enflamed their natural Salvageness with the heats of Enthusiasm and Principles of false Religion All which will evidently appear by comparing what our selves have seen and felt with what these wild Schismatiques acted Thirteen hundred years since The actions of both suiting so exactly to each other that had they been the very same Men they could not have acted more like themselves The Twins that were so like that their own Mother could not distinguish them were not more so then these two Schisms though born at such a distance of Time and Place §. IV. The Donatists then having by the Emperours forced Indulgence and the Diversion given him by the Arians gain'd so much ease and quiet as not only to encrease their Schism at home but to carry it into foreign Parts it happened that about the year 331 Donatus Surnamed the Great succeeded Chaplain Majorinus a Man of incredible Pride and Insolence that pretended to familiarity with God and Inspiration from Heaven that could Cant could Lye could Blâ—spheme shift his Face and Pretences with all Turns of Affairs when the Government was in any Streight threaten it with the Numbers of his Party but when his Party was low could write Pleas for Peace and forbearance from the weakness of the Faction and meekness of its Principles And upon any great occasion he had his new Lights and Discoveries from Heaven and when ever he pleased God appear'd to him in Brightness and shewed him the horns in his hands to direct him for serving his Will in that Generation But above all he had an implacable spight against aâ—l Sâ—periours and Governors but most particularly he set himself so accursed was the Envy of his Pride to all that were above him to revile and trample upon the Imperial Majesty it self and to say all the ill that can be said of one Man in one word he was the very I. O. of that Reâ—ellious and Schismatical Age. Under him were spawn'd the Câ—rcumcellians a sort of Levellers or Army Saints whom he stil'd the Captains of the Godly and made them not only his own Life-Guard but an Army against the Power of the Empire These wandred up and down the Country in great Bodys and pretended to reform the Government by Plunder and Robbery and wherever they came set Apprentices free from their Masters and Debtors from their Creditors if they would but join with them to pull down Idolatry and Arbitrary Government And force poor Men to deliver up their Bonds and Indentures to save their Lives And yet all this while they were a very praying People and sought the Lord for direction in all their Villanies And now it is no wonder if Men of these desperate Principles and managed by such a Guide as Donatus proceeded to the heighth both of folly and outrage insomuch that whilst they were in the heat of their Bloód and Zeal they feared no danger out of Ambition of being Martyrs for the cause of God and some of them were so wildly transported as to hang drown and stabb themselves for the Glory of the Lord. And thus for many years they harassed Africa with their Insolence and Cruelty and made the habitable parts of the Country more salvage then the Deserts themselves No Man could dwell in his own House or Travel abroad about his business with any safety but all was exposed to the Rapine of these merciless Robbers Till at length after unspeakable Patience complaint being made by the Catholicks to the Emperor Constans of their deplorable condition he sent two Commissioners Paulus and Macarius with a shew of dividing the Emperors bounty among the poor and distressed and by that means to soften them from that fierceness that they had contracted by this wild Schism to some
and cancell'd the Acts of another Bishop against his own Presbyter and endeavour'd to engage the Approbation of the whole Church to his irregular actings that was apparently setting up an open Schism in the Christian Church And so Alexander represents it in his encyclical Epistle and loads Eusebius with the violation of the Apostolical Canon viz. the 33d which injoyns that no Clergy-man Excommunicate by his own Bishop be received to Communion by another But Eusebius being a man of a proud Spirit regards it not neither was this his first breach of the Canons having skipt out of one Bishoprick into another which is there severely forbidden and he was the first man that I know of who was guilty of that boldness against that Sacred Law of the Church but instead of desisting from his Schismatical proceedings endeavours to spread the Schism as far as he could and his Letters fly abroad every where to engage the Bishops to his Faction by which means he being then a great Man and a Favourite of the Emperour the Court then residing at Nicomedia all the Bishops in the World were in a moment engaged on one side or other not upon the account of Arius but Eusebius whose Pride and Ambition was the only cause of all this confusion this so alarms Constantine that he dispatches away his great Favourite Osius of Corduba with his Letters to Alexandria if it were possible to allay the heats of both Parties Though Baronius is very earnest in it that Osius was first sent by Pope Silvester as his Legate into the East to Constantine by whom he was arm'd with Letters to Alexandria where he wrought great wonders by vertue of his Legantine Authority And in this the Cardinal is very vehement and often repeats it with extraordinary assurance though there is not the least intimation of it in all the ancient Historians who make not any mention of the Pope in all this business but impute the whole transaction to Constantine's own care and management Now the Scope of the Emperors Letters was to perswade and exhort them wholly to lay aside the Controversie as nice and unnecessary and not of weight enough to deserve a determination Though as Sandius tells the story the Emperour lays the blame of all upon the Bishop but this not only without any Authority but against the express words of the Letter that equally blames them both for their too much curiosity about a vain Question as he calls it And as for the Letter it self I shrewdly suspect it to have been the contrivance of Eusebius of Nicomedia who was very intimate with the Emperour and impos'd upon him all along in this whole Affair I am sure the Scope of the Letter is exactly agreeable with Eusebius his whole carriage in this Controversie which was not to have it determin'd either way but only silenced as an over curious speculation I know indeed that he is on all hands represented as a Ring-leader of the Arian Faction but it is a mistake that has brought confusion upon the whole History and made the Arian Heresie seem of a much greater extent then it ever was whereas Eusebius and his Party were no less Enemies to the Arians then to the Orthodox and yet it was they that all along made the greatest shew and noise in the Contest And as for the Arian Faction it was wholly supprest by the Nicene Council and all the Tumults that were made after that are owing to the Eusebians who were as forward as the Orthodox to anathematize the Arians but then they must have the Decree of the Nicene Council reverst and what work they made about it we shall see when we come to the Reign of Constantius all whose Persecutions of the Catholicks were meerly raised by these mens wise indiscretion and had it not been for their unseasonable tampering prudence and moderation the Arian Heresie could never have lift up its head more after the Nicene Council But to return to Constantine who finding the Contest too hot at Alexandria to be allayed by the mediation of Hosius and withal the flame too far spread into other Churches to be quench't by one mans industry he resolves upon a General Council to compose this and some other spreading Controversies particularly that concerning the time of Easter which though it had slept ever since Pope Victor began now to raise new heats in several parts of Christendom The Council being met at the time and place appointed he entertains them with an Oration exhorting to Peace and Unity but neither prescribes nor commands any thing only desires them to examine things impartially and by their Authoritative determination of the present Controversies to settle the Peace of the Church forever as appears not only from the Tenour of the Speech it self and the Emperours behaviour in the Council but from the challenge of St. Ambrose to Valentinian si conferendum de fide sacerdoâ—um debet esse ista câ—llâ—tio sicut factum est sub Constantino augustae memoriae principe qui nullas leges ante praemisit sed liberum dedit judicium Sacerdotibus If there be a consultation about the Faith that is the work oâ— the Priesthood as it was managed under the Emperor Constantine of Glorious Memory who prescribed no Laws beforehand but allowed freedom of judgment to the Bishops And the Council being fairly left to the free use of that Authority that thev had received from our Saviour they proceeded as fairly in the Exercise of it And in the first place The Acts of the Council at Alexandria against Arius are produced and the interposition of Eusebius in his behalf inquired into whereby it appear'd which side had actâ—d according to the Laws of the Church and the Arians are after a fair hearing with very little Debate condemn'd by the Unanimous Vote of the Council though Sandiuâ— affirms from no Authority but his own that they would not so much as hear Arius his Arguments much less Examine them But though the Council agreed in the Subscription to the Orthodox Faith yet the Eusebians for a time refused to subscribe to the Anathema against the Arians because they did not think them so bad as they were represented But here again our honest Arian Historiâ—grapher tells us from Eutychius and other Oriental Monuments i. e. Modern and Barbarous Arabick Pamphlets that there were above 2000 Bishops present at the Council and that all exceptingonly 31â— which was the full number of the Council according to all the true Records voted for Arius but that Constantine himself over-ruled the whole business by violence and force of Arms. And then whereas the Emperor to abet the Decree of the Council commands the Arian Books to be burnt and especially Arius his Thaleia upon pain of death and banish't some of the Arians into Illiricum this Sandius is not ashamed to say was done by the Authority of the Council it self and withal that the Bishops
perswaded the Emperor who but just now over-awed them by force of Arms to resign his Empire silly wretch as he was into their hands and lay down his Sword at their Feet and that they return'd it back to him only upon condition to defend their Faith The Council being ended the Emperour writes to several Churches particularly that of Alexandria to submit to the determination of the Council because the unanimous Decree of so many Bishops could be no less then the Judgment of God himself in that it cannot be doubted but that the Concord of so many Holy Men was the immediate effect of Divine Inspiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus had this prophane Heresie been for ever quell'd by the Authority of this Council had it not been supported by the pretended moderation of the Eusebians and their various carriage in the Debate is the most observable thing in all the Transactions of this Council The whole Controversie was reduced to the word Consubstantial which the Eusebians at first refused to admit as being no Scripture Word but without its admission nothing else would satisfie the Council and good reason they had for it because to part with that Word after the Controversie was once raised would have been to give up the cause for it was unavoidable that if the Son were not of the same Substance with the Father he must have been made out of the same Common and Created Substance with all other Creatures and therefore when the Scriptues give him a greater Dignity of Nature then to any created Being they thereby make him of the same uncreated Substance with the Father so that they plainly assert his Consubstantiality though they use not the Word But when the Truth it self was denyed by the Arian Hereticks and the Son of God thrust down into the rank of created Beings and defined to be a Creature made out of nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence they were call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was time for the Church to stop this Heresie by such a Test as would admit of no Prevarication which was effectually done by this word and as cunning and shufling as the Arians were they were never able to swallow or chew it and therefore it was but a weak part of the Eusebians to shew so much Zeal against the word when they professed to allow the thing for if our Saviour were not a meer Creature he must be of the same uncreated substance with the Father because there is no middle between created and uncreated Substance so that whoever denyed his Consubstantiality could not avoid the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus which yet the Arians themselves professed to defie for if he were a meer Creature it is no matter how soon or how late he was created And therefore Eusebius of Caesarea a wise and understanding Man soon discern'd the folly of this Scruple for though he at first opposed the word Consubstantial in the Council and tendred a Creed without it yet upon farther consideration he easily embraced it because as himself gives an account of it to his Diocess it signifies the same thing as to say that he is of the Father which the Orthodox Doctrine teaches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore he declares that he freely subscribed to it not only for Peace sake but that he might not incur the scandal of Heresie And as for the Anathema's against Arius he says that he readily subscribed them because they were but a just Sentence against his Prophane Novelties without any Authority from the Scriptures from whence proceed all the disturbances of the Church seeing therefore no Scripture uses such expressions as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is by no means allowable that such expressions should be used or taught And so concludes I thought fit to give you this account that you might understand with what judgment I first doubted and then consented for though I was at first offended at some words yet when I had impartially weighed their true meaning I found that they agreed exactly with those expressions that I used in my own Confession of Faith This is a rational and consistent account of his whole behaviour for when he had once said in his Creed That the Son was God of God 't is the same thing as if he had said that he was of the same Substance with the Father And yet notwithstanding this fair and ingenuous Confession of Eusebius and his more full Declaration of his real sense and meaning in his Books against Marcellus with what an unanimous Vote both of Ancients and Moderns is he condemned as a Ring-leader of the Arian Heresie as St. Jerom rashly stiles him But he can spare no Man a good word that had any kindness for Origen and that was the ground of his displeasure against Eusebius I confess that he never could heartily like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it being a new word and not found in Scripture it gave the Arians advantage of exception against the old Truth yet he always declared as expresly against the Arian Assertions as Athanasius himself But of all Writers those of the Church of Rome are most implacable to his Memory for what reason I cannot imagine unless it be that his plain account of the true State and Polity of the Primitive Church is so irreconcileable with the present Grandeur and Power of their Church As for the unkind usage he has met with from Baronius Bellarmine Binius and such like Writers it is not to be wondred at because they treat all other Authors and Records after the same Rate that do not suit their turn so that they are more offended with him as an Historian then as an Heretick and Baronius cannot forbear blabbing out the true ground of his displeasure against him in that he too much betrayed that he bore no good Will to the See Apostolick But as for Petavius a Man of a more free and impartial enquiry who does not make it his business as they do to force the Ancient Records of the Church to comply with its present State but takes things as he finds them for him I say to handle this great Man more roughly then the Italian Parasites looks like an unkindness without Provocation He has taken great pains to prove this by divers looser Passages out of his Books written before the Nicene Council which is by no means ingenuous because himself has confessed That he was not aware of the ill consequences of his own Notions till the Debates of the Council discovered them to him and as for the Passages that he has raked together out of the Books against Marcellus I cannot find that any of them reach his purpose and if any look towards Arianism they are at worst but unwary expressions when the whole design of those Books is levell'd against the Heresie and it is very hard when he has there so often
you readily receive this Order as a true divine Command for whatever is agreed on in the Holy Councils of Bishops is to be taken as the Will of God But then it is remarkable that the Emperour only imposes this Decree of the Council by its own Authority and does not back it as he does that against Arianism with secular Penalties for what reasons himself best knew it is enough that it was not needful for by the bare Authority of the Council the controversie was laid asleep forever nor do I remember that after that time we hear of any material Contention about it Now by the whole management of this business the Conclusion is evident that the Emperour thought that Laws Ecclesiastick ought to be made by the Ecclesiastick State and when they were so that they were Valid and Obligatory by their own Authority though himself had power to enforâ—e them with Civil Snactions as he judged it serviceable to the advancement of Religion and the Peace of Government §. VIII And so the Great Council was dismist as well as summon'd by the Emperour with that success he desired in the unanimous Condemnation of the Arian Heresie insomuch that in that great number of Bishops that were there present there were no more then two that refused to subscribe the Decrees of the Council Secundus and Theonas as Eusebius himself informs us both in the life of Constantine and in his Epistle to his Diocess and it is from his Authority that Theodoret corrects the Errour boâ—h of Soorates and Zozomen who set down six Dissenters that is beside those two Eusebius of Nicomedia Theognis of Nicaea Maris of Calcedon and Eusebius of Caesareâ— but though it be true that these were the great Sticklers at first against the admission of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Faith yet is it certain from Eusebius his own account of it that they all at last acquiesced in the determination of the Council and Athanasius is witness of this not only for this Eusebius of Caesarea but his Namesake of Nicomedia And here even Philostorgius himself who is miserably lost thâ—â—â—â— this whole Story and every where betrays his ignorance by his confusion of times places and persons as well as his imperfect and false Relations yet here I say he happens to report the matter accurately enough though his Disciple Sandius who always takes great pains to be in the wrong forsakes both him and all the ancient Historians to follow the imperfect Story of Nicetâ—s who sets down twenty two Dissenters and among them Eusebius of Caesarea But on the other hand St. Jerom tells us and that as he pretends from the very Acts of the Council that not only these Bishops but Arius himself and his two Companions Euzoius and Achillas the last whereof though but a Presbyter Sandius is so ignorant as to take him for the Bishop that was Predecessor to Alexander were upon submission received into the Churches favouâ— but this I take to be one of St. Jerom's hasty slips for as all Authors beside agree that he was immediately banisht so it is very unlikely that if he had recanted and been received into the Church that Constantine should at that time have publisht that severe Rescript against him that his Sect should be call'd Porphyrians i. e. Enemies to the Christian Faith and that his Books should be burnt upon pain of death But beside that is there had been any signs of Repentance in Arius we should certainly have had an account of it in the Synodical Epistle of the Council to the Church of Alexandria whereas on the contrary they bemoan the Calamity into which he had not only cast himself but drawn after him Theonas and Secundus two Egyptian Bishops and tâ—e only two Bishops that stuck to the Arian cause into the same Pit of Destruction And that could be nothing else but banishment as appears from the words immediately following in which they congratulate to the Churches of Egypt their deliverance from those wicked and turbulent men and accordingly the Historians Socrates and Sozomen tell us that Arius was recall'd from banishment not long after the Council and not long after him Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea who had been banisht from their Sees by the Emperous not at the time of the Council with Arius but some time after as is evident from the Emperours own Epistle to the Nicomedians in which he declares the reasons of their banishment viz. That though they had subscribed the Nicene Faith yet after their return home they had received some Arians into Communion that the Emperour had removed from Alexandria for the security of the Peace of that Church and that wasthefault of the Eusebians in this whole affair that though they were not Arians they thought that they might communicate with them as it is evident from the Synodof Alexandria in their excellent Synodical Epistle who do not in the least accuse the Eusebians of Arianism but only of holding Communion with them Not long after the just Banishment of these two trimming Bishops Arius is upon his submission restored into the bosom of the Church but with a peremptory command never to return to Alexandria upon which the banish't Bishops are awakened and encouâ—aged to endeavour their own Restitution in that as they plead in their own behalf when the person really guilty was absolved themselves who had never followed his Heresie but embraced the Decrees of the Council in all things and subscribed the Faith of Con-Substantial could not but be concern'd at least to deâ—â—ver themselves from the very suspicion of that Hereâ—â—e that they never own'd and therefore as they had before subscribed the â—â—â—th of the Council with which they â—â—y the Council was then well satisfied without subscribing the Anathema so now when they were ready to give an entire assent and subscribe even that too as well as the Form of Faith they hope 't it would not only give them complete satisfaction but move them to intercede with the Emperour for their Restitution And that was easily obtain'd from him who was desirous of nothing more then the Peace and Concord of the Church But Eusebius being of an haughty and implacable Spirit Studies nothing but revenge against Athanasius who was the chief man though in an inferiour station that had born down himself and his whole Party in the Council And beside his particular spite against the person of Athanasius his Party could not digest the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates relates and therefore raised a new War about it notwithstanding that they agreed with the Catholicks about the whole Doctrine of the Trinity When both affirmed says he one Godhead subsisting in Three Persons yet I know not how it came to pass they were always contending about it And this we shall find exactly true that after the Council of Nice they never in the least appeared in behalf of
falls to his Brother Constans and so came in that fatal division both of the Empire and the Church that at last proved the utter ruine and destruction of both For after this time we read of nothing so much as Wars and Dissentions between the two States and Schisms and Divisions between the two Churches unless now and then when the Empire hapned to be united in one wise Prince as in Valentinian Theodosius and Marcian till at last the Empire was swallowed up by its own divisions and the incursions of the Barbarians and the Church split asunder by an irreconcileable Schism between the Greeks and Latins The first Foundation of which breach was laid by these two Brothers who unhappily divided the Clergy of the Empire as well as the Civil State For Constantius siding with the Eusebians in the East and Constans with the Athanasians in the West which was now become the quarrel the cause of Arius being wholly laid aside by both Parties and the only contest now was Whether the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be cashier'd as offensive because unscriptural as the Eusebians contended or to be preserved as a necessary defence against the Arian Heresie as Athanasius and his friends truly maintain'd Now each Party having the Power of the Empire to abet and support its interest and the Division being become a kind of a State-Faction this to be sure made the breach wider and the quarrel fiercer then a meer Ecclesiastical Schism could have come to insomuch that it sometime came very near to a Civil War between the two Brothers All which was chiefly occasioned by the folly of Constantius who being the more zealous and serious of the two for Constans gave himself more up to his pleasure and luxury he was so much the more busie in the advancement of his Faction and it is an astonishing thing to observe how childishly he spent his whole Reign in Metaphysical wranglings about Religion as he is justly and too truly censur'd by Ammianus Marcellinus Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem anili superstitione confundens in quâ scrutandâ perplexiùs quam componendâ graviùs excitavit discidia plurima quae progressa fusiùs aluit concertatione verborum ut catervis Antistitum jumentis publicis ultrò citròque discurrentibus per Synodos quas appellant dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium rei vehiculariae succideret Nervos He debauch't the Christian Religion that was plain and easie in it self into Old-wives Superstition and by being more nice then wise in his Enquiries and Speculations about it he so entangled it into endless Knots and Controversies about meer words that he wore away the publick High-ways and his own Carriages by conveighing Bishops backward and forward to Councils when after all he took upon himself to determine all controversies by his own Arbitrary resolution of all things And this Character is truer then the Pagan Soldier who understood not the particulars could be aware of for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the only object of his fury and as St. Athanasius somewhere expresses it he spent more pains upon it then in all his Persian War what numbers of Councils like so many Armies did he summon to encounter and cashiere it and after what an Arbitrary and unprincely manner did he behave himself in them to have his Will of it Instead of calling free Councils and allowing free Conference in them he takes upon himself the Power of presiding and determining all by his own imperious Commands and at length tired out himself with vain struglings against the Churches Authority and after Five and Twenty years War against one poor single word he repents his folly and dies with the confession of it in his mouth But what if the word did not please his Palate what need of all this rage and indignation against it And granting that it might have been spared at first as those that Seduced him pleaded yet when it was approved and settled by the Authority of the great Council of Nice it ought at least for the Peace of the Church to have been submitted to For to what purpose is it to call Councils for the resolving of Doubts and ending of Controversies if their determinations have not Authority enough to Warránt and Oblige our Obedience This word therefore having been planted in their Creed by the great Council upon mature deliberation it became all modest and peaceable Men though they had not at first approved it after that to make no contention about it And that was the Schismatical humour of the Eusebians that when it was once fix't by the Authority of the Church they should be so restless against its admission which was in effect to destroy and nullifie all Government in the Christian Church For if the Decree of so venerable a Council be not of force enough to ver-rule every particular Man 's own conceit it is but folly and non-sense to talk of any such thing as Government in the Church and this is that which Athanasius in his Book De Synodis every where charges so home upon them that they troubled themselves to call so many Councils and compose so many Creeds to settle what was already done to their hands by the Nicene Fathers And they are gaul'd with the same objection by Julius Bishop of Rome in his smart Letter to the Eusebians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is an affront says he to the Synod and all the Bishops that sate in it if what they with so much Pains and Piety God himself as it were being present resolved should be slighted by us as a thing of no Authority And this to them was a cutting Argument for they all profess't great Reverence to the great Council and therefore ought to have acquiesced in it And as it was in that case so is it in all cases when once a Controversie is determin'd by the Church it ought to conclude all Christians within it Not because the Church is infallible or any Council how great soever but because its determinations are Authoritative and bind by virtue of a divine Commission in all cases that are are not against the clear express and immediate Commands of God himself so that if any Man dare presume to gainsay or disobey any Law of the Church he ought to have an extraordinary assurance to warrant his dissent But if he be refractory upon Surmises and remote Inferences or about matters of no great Weight or little Evidence he plainly runs himself into the sin of Schism in this World and the punishment of it in the World to come And that will fall upon him with so much the heavier Load because the Practice flowing from this Principle is of all things most destructive of that which God of all things most loves the Peace and Tranquility of his Church For that cannot possibly be any other way preserved than by a yielding and submissive Temper in all things
where himself has not apparently determin'd us by an antecedent Countermand And such cases can rarely happen whilst the Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church is any where preserved and at least it is clear that this was the case of the Eusebians who raised so thick a dust against what was determin'd by the Authority of the Church only because they supposed the determination unnecessary and imprudent but what then and granting it were so it was not unlawful unless it had expresly contradicted something that was necessary But that themselves had not the confidence to pretend and if they had not then it is plain that they ought not to have quarrell'd with it but to have quietly submitted to it though not for its truth yet for the Peace and out of respect to the Sacred Authority of the Christian Church And that would have saved and prevented all that Turmoil that they brought both upon it and the Empire too for so many years only to persist in a peevish and at best a needless animosity against its Legal and Canonical determination §. XI But to descend to particulars Athanasius being arrived at Alexandria with all expressions of joy from the People and settled in the quiet possession of his See the Eusebians return to all their old Arts of undermining his Peace and Settlement And to this end they deal with all the three Emperors to have the Sentence of the Tyrian Council Executed upon him But all in vain for both Constantine and Constance are better informed of the Plot and acquainted with the whole Train of the Eusebian Villanies though Constantius his Ears are wholly possess 't by his Women Eunuchs and Courtiers as his Character is too truly and shrewdly set down by Ammianus Marcellinus Uxoribus ac spadonum graâ—ilentis Vocibus Palatinis quibusdam nimium quantum addictus ad singula ejus verba plaudentibus quid ille aiat vel neget ut assentiri possint observantibus That he was too much over-ruled by his Wives his Courtiers and the Effeminate Addresses of his Eunuchs that watch't to admire and flatter every thing he said and whether it were wise or foolish applaud it But these were only Tools and Instruments placed about him by Eusebius of N. comedia to be managed for his own ends though the first Opportunity that he could seize to compass his long'd-for design upon the Deposition of Athanasius was given him by the Solemnity of dedicating the great Church at Antioch that was founded by the Emperor's Father and finisht by himself at which were present Ninety Bishops which Meeting Eusebius craftily turn'd into a Council and in it deposed Athanasius And in truth it was but high time to seise the advantage for the year before they had as craftily referred the cause to Julius Bishop of Rome to which Judgment Athanasius had according to the constant simplicity and assurance of his own Conscience submitted himself But the Eusebians finding that after they had told their Story there all their tricks were too well understood and that they could not avoid a very shameful bafle move for a general Council of Eastern and Western Bishops to be assembled at Rome And now the Western were accordingly met where Athanasius attended in Person and whither his Enemies were summon'd by virtue of their own Appeal to appear to make good their Charge against him but Eusebius the grand contriver of all mistrusting the cause takes this advantage of the Meeting at Antioch and puts an end to the Appeal to Rome and the Western Bishops by passing the final Sentence upon him at home But by what subtilty they got it to pass the Council is not easie to discover and it is commonly apprehended from the supposed Authority of Julius Bishop of Rome that the intrigue was managed only by Thirty six of the whole number that was in all Ninety but this mistake is founded meerly upon a false Translation of Julius his Words viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Baronius and they that follow him understand of the Votes of Thirty six Bishops only whereas it signifies Thirty six days Journey as Valesius renders it Quia viginti sex mansionibus And that is Julius his proper reproof of the Ordination of Gregory that it was not done at Alexandria as the Canons required but at Antioch which was Thirty six Mansions or so many days Journey or nights Lodging from Alexandria And of this use of the Phrase Valesius alledges many Parallel Passages in the Writers of that time and then the sense of the whole Passage runs clearly thus I pray you who acted most against the Canons We that upon such convincing information received the Man Athanasius to Communion or you that at Antioch that is distant Thirty six days Journey from Alexandria choose a Stranger Gregory to be Bishop of that City and place him in his See by Military force So that from this Passage rightly Translated there is no ground of supposing any either stealth or division of Votes in the Council neither is there any need of it in that for any thing we know the greatest part might either be Eusebians or Orthodox But whatever they really were they all at least pretended to be Orthodox for the Eusebians themselves did not only quit but Anathematise the Arian Heresie as 't is evident from all the four Creeds that were framed in this Council in which they detest and Anathematise all the branches of it particularly in the last which they sent as the result of all to the Emperor Constans We Anathematise all those who say that the Son existed out of nothing or out of any other subsistence and not out of God himself or that there was a time when he was not And yet for all this express declaration modest Mr. Sandius boldly tells us That this Council expresly denyed the Eternal Generation of the Son of God But beside this Council of Antioch all the Councils under Constantius that are commonly accounted Arian till the last that over-reach't him against his own Opinion have as fully and clearly condemned Arianism as the Nicene Council it self It is true they could not digest the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but otherwise as for the whole Scheme of Arianism they have in all their Creeds Anathematised it with all clearness and fullness of Expression And therefore it has been but a vain dispute that has been so long agitated about the Authority of this Council in particular St. Chrysostom when he was kept out of his Bishoprick by virtue of a Canon made in it pleads that they were Arians who made it And for the same reason they are rejected by his Patron Pope Innocent the first Pope but with what design we shall see in its proper place otherwise the Council has been universally received in the Catholick Church St. Hilary himself reckons it among the Anti-Arian Councils and the Canons of it were received into the Code of the Canons that
quick for his flying from the Tyrian Council to Constantine and withal cut off his Restitution by the Imperial Mandate Now these had been good Laws in ordinary Cases but in the Case of Athanasius they were nothing but Rods and Snares And so it is always when injustice has got the upper hand the Execution of Laws then becomes nothing but Tyranny and Oppression If the Proceedings against Athanasius at Tyre had been any way fair and legal though he had been hardly used yet his Appeal was against the Ecclesiastical Rule and it would have been more decent and becoming Christian Modesty to have sate down under an hard Sentence then to have made a breach upon the Order and Discipline of the Church But when it was all rank Villany and open Forgery contriv'd on purpose to take away his life it was then proper for him to take Sanctuary in the justice of his Sovereign Prince for a common Subjects Protection And indeed wherever injustice is become shameless and enormous men are not bound to that punctual niceness of Rule that they are bound to observe in common and ordinary Cases And so it was here their Proceedings at Tyre were so prodigiously base and impudent that they exceeded the common Villany of Mankind and so were by their own wickedness put out of the Protection of the Laws I have the longer insisted upon this Transaction because it is an extraordinary Case and has nothing like it in all the Records of the Church in the worst and most degenerate times and though there have been several of the later Popes both wicked and cunning enough yet none of them could ever match either the Malice or the Artifice of Eusebius in the management of his Contest with Athanasius But whilst he was contriving and plotting his designs against him at Antioch the Council at Rome proceeds to a fair Tryal and after the Examination of the Acts of the Tyrian Council and of divers Witnesses clearing Athanasius from the Calumnies fast'ned on him they pronounce him innocent receive him to Communion and restore him to his Bishoprick And thus are they according to the Plot of Eusebius engaged in a new War that he knew would swallow up the old Controversie of which the two heads were the two great Bishops of the two great Imperial Cities Julius of Rome and Eusebius of Constantinople for before this time he had violently thrust himself into that See and these were the first Seeds of that long War between these two ambitious Sees that I have described at large in a former Treatise But Athanasius leaves them to manage their own Fray between themselves and makes all hast to repair to his own Church of Alexandria where he arrives before Gregory could come from Antioch to the great joy of the City but soon after comes Gregory and what havock he made by the assistance of Philagrius the Prefect an Apostate Christian may be seen at large in Athanasius his encyclical Epistle to the Orthodox Bishops and as he describes it it exceeds all the Heathen Persecutions in rudeness and barbarity But in short Athanasius is forced to fly for his life and takes Sanctuary at Rome a second time where he knew himself safe as being out of Constantius his Dominions And about the same time the Popes Legates Elpidius and Philoxenus having been from time to time retein'd and delayed by the Craft of Eusebius return from the Council of Antioch as with no satisfaction to themselves having been Eye-Witnesses of so much foul dealing so with an huffing and scornful Letter of Defiance to their Master Pope Julius and all the Bishops of the Western Church And by that Character that Julius gives of it in his answer to it for the Letter it self is not now extant it breaths the very Spirit of Eusebius but as taunting as it was and as bad as their Actings were he is forced to return a milder Anfwer then indeed was fitting because he too well knew that they relyed upon the power and assistance of the Emperour to bear them out in their Enormities But as civilly as he treats them he deals as plainly with them as they deserved and unravels the whole Plot of Lyes Perjuries and Calumnies against Athanasius from the beginning to that very day and so plainly lays open to the Christian World the foulness of all their Proceedings as to demonstrate to all men that notwithstanding they had endeavoured to get the Canons on their own side by shifts and juglings they had most scandalously broke all the most Sacred and inviolable Laws not only of Christian Discipline but of common honesty The Epistle it self is extant in Athanasius his second Apology and it is a perfect Narrative of his Cause and defence of his Innocence written with equal judgment and smartness It is large but the main head of it is in Answer to their great complaint that they should be cited to Rome To which he replyes that in some cases it is agreeable to the Canons that what is determined by one Council should be reviewed in another but however that was he minds them that when they sent their Agents after they had been pleased to refer the Cause to him to manage the Evidence against Athanasius they were so shamefully bafled in the whole business that they had no way left to escape a final overthrow but by moving for a general Council of Eastern and Western Bishops to be held at Rome and now when the Council was call'd at their motion to pretend offence at its being call'd as it argued very great Guilt in themselves so it could not but raise very odd suspitions in others And whereas they plead it as an Universal Rule that what is determined in one Council ought not to be reverst by another he asks them how then dare you to alter the Faith of the Great Nicene Council that when the Bishops of the Christian World were so unanimously concern'd to root out the Arian Heresie they should so far slight their Authority as to reject those Provisions that they had made against it And lastly to pass by their smaller Cavils he lets them see the necessity of this review by ripping up all the Villanies of the Tyrian Plot and so plainly discovers the gross dishonesty of the whole matter as must make them cautious of ever reviving it for the time to come And the Story is told so fully so plainly and so reflectingly upon the Persons Guilty that perhaps it was the dishonour of this Conviction that broke Eusebius his proud heart for he dyed soon after this though Socrates says he dyed before but this Historian is all along miserably mistaken in the Chronology of the Athanasian Story and his Errors of that kind are so numerous that Learned Men are forced to reject his Testimony as of no Authority All the certain account that we have of the time of Eusebius his death is from Athanasius himself who only says that he
them and so the good man quietly enjoyed his Bishoprick all the Reign of Coâ—stans but upon his death the Eusebians being back't with the great power of the 5 Commissioners grew more furious then ever prevail with Constantius to banish Paul again neither would that content them but he is kept in close Prison at Cucusus in Cappadocia to be starved to death at last because after six days fasting they find him alive they strangle him Having laid the Story of this poor injur'd man together I return back to our new Commissioners who finding that though they had framed four several Creeds in their first Council at Antioch none of them would satisfie the Western Bishops they Summon a second Council to the same City in the Year 344 and draw up a long new Creed for the most part consisting of Anathema's against all Branches of the Arian Heresie and send it to the Western Bishops then Assembled at Milan but they unanimously reject it for this very reason that they were resolved to acquiesce in the Decrees of the Nicene Council and not be so curious as after the Authority of their determination to make any farther enquiry though learned Mr. Sandius says they laid it aside because it being written in Greek they understood it not a wise account of a Transaction of the Christian Church that they corresponded in an unknown Language and understood not one another though they answer'd each others Papers and gave very good reasons for their disagreement particularly the offence of Innovation And there all along stuck the Controversie with the Orthodox Bishops that they thought themselves bound to abide by the Decree of that great Council and out of Reverence to its Authority would never hear of any Alteration And that is the great Charge with which Athanasius perpetually loads the Eusebians that for that very reason they could not be in the right in their belief because they opposed themselves to the Faith of the Nicene Fathers But Julius Bishop of Rome finding things grow worse and the Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches made daily wider he Petitions the Emperor Constans to move his Brother Constantius to join with him for a general Council to which Constantius agrees and the most Convenient place pitch't upon for their Meeting was Sardica in Illyricum being the Confines of both the Empires where in the year 347 met at the time appointed 280 Western and 76 Eastern Bishops But they are no sooner met then they break in pieces for the Eastern Bishops refuse to sit unless Athanasius and the other Parties Accused may be first removed out of the Council whereas the Western will have them treated as they ought to be as innocent Persons till they are Canonically Convicted Upon this after divers inter-messages the Easterns forsake the City and sit at Philippopolis and it is more then likely that they never came with any design of agreement and pick't this quarrel only to baulk the Council And this is roundly charged upon them by the Council it self in their Encyclical Epistle extant in Athanasius his second Apology as done by Compact the Passage is very remarkable and because it is so though it be somewhat long I shall give the Reader the sense of it as briefly as I can It is not without cause that these Men though often cited would never appear but by their constant shifting a fair hearing through the guilt of their own Conscience confirm'd both the suspition of their own forgeries and gave ground to believe that the Accusations against themselves were but too true And therefore because beside this shuffling they have not only restored but advanced such as were Deposed for the Arian Heresie in which design the chief Men after Eusebius Theodorus of Heraclea Narcissus of Neronias in Cilicia Stephanus of Antioch George of Laodicea Acacius of Caesarea in Palestine Menaphantus of Ephesus Ursacius of Singido in Mysia and Valens of Mursa in Panonia are now the chief Ring-leaders These Men therefore suffer'd not any of those who came with them out of Asia to Communicate with the Church here or so much as to come to the Council and in their journey call'd several Meetings in the Form of Councils in which they by their threat'nings forced the Company to enter into a Solemn Covenant among themselves that when they come to Sardica they should peremptorily refuse the Authority of the Council and never appear before it or sit in it but as soon as they came thither when they had made a formal shew of appearance should immediately vanish This Treachery is attested by Macarius of Palestine and Asterius of Arabia who were all along present at their proceedings and who being offended at so much baseness discover'd to the Council at their first coming under what force they were detain'd and with what wickedness things were to be managed Adding withal that there were great numbers of Orthodox Bishops in their parts but that these Men kept them at home by force and with the bloodiest threat'nings if they should dare to appear and for all possible Security of all that came they obliged them all to lodge in the same house that so no Man might any way be ticed and drawn away from the Conspiracy So far the Council and nothing more evident all along then that the Eusebians dreaded nothing more then a fair hearing of the Indictments of their own framing and therefore by all the Arts and Methods of disingenuity broke all Opportunities that were offered them for it So that though they were forced to make an Appearance at Sardica by the Emperor's Command yet they came with this resolution never to suffer the matter to come to any Issue And withal finding themselves so over numbred that they could not obstruct it they wisely take pet and quit the Council But the Western Bishops for all that proceed and reduce the Debate to these three Heads as they have drawn it up in their Epistle to Pope Julius First The settlement of the Faith Secondly The Examination of Witnesses that had been illegally rejected in former Councils 3dly An enquiry after all those various injuries and violences that had been done to the Orthodox Clergy by the Eusebians As to the first It is unanimously Voted to frame no new Creed but to acquiesce in the sufficiency of the Nicene Faith As to the Second They unravel all the Forgeries and Tergiversations of the Eusebians in former Councils and in an Encyclical Epistle certifie all the Bishops of the Christian World of the several Perjuries that had been made use of to raise an Accusation against Athanasius and other Orthodox Bishops and then of their several disingenuous and dishonest Methods to shift the proof of their own Indictment particulary of their running away from their own Appeal to Julius Bishop of Rome but most of all of their awkerd behaviour in this Council where they would not be prevail'd with by any importunity or
intreaty to proceed to Tryal which the Council imputes not only to their knowledge of the defect of their Accusations against others but to the Conscience of their own guilt Seeing great numbers of Persons there present that were ready to testifie of their various Cruelties and tell sad Stories of their Imprisoning Banishing Beating Starving Strangling Persons in Holy Orders only for refusing to Communicate with the Aria◠Hereticks And though the Criminals refused to appear the Witnesses were Examined and they Deposed and both the Emperors written to that their Majesties would be pleased to set all such at liberty that were still under restraint and to order their Officers for the time to come not to use any force or violence against the Clergy for their Faith but leave them first to be tryed by the Ecclesiastical Judicature In the next place the whole Intrigue against Athanasius is re-examined the Stories of Arsenius and Ischiras farther proved by fresh Witnesses and so both himself and the rest of the Deposed and Banish't Bishops are restored and the Intruders thrust not only out of their Sees but out of the Communion of the Christian Church And then in the last place they enact some Rules of Discipline useful and almost necessary for the Present State of the Church as against the practice of Eusebius and other Bishops of the Faction that invade other Mens Bishopricks and though such Offenders were only sent back to their own Sees by the Canon of the Nicene Council this Council is so severe as not only to Depose but Excommunicate them so as not to be capable of being admitted to Lay-Communion even at the hour of death Another Canon they made against the wandring of Bishops and that reach't Ursacius and Valens who left their own Diocesses to carry on the Eusebian Faction in other Provinces A third Canon was That if a Bishop were oppress 't by his Com-provincials he might have leave to make his complaint to the Bishop of Rome who might judge whether he ought to have a new hearing or not and this beside some secret reasons was to relieve the Eastern Bishops from the Oppression of the Eusebians who carried all before them by force and foul dealing Though the Romanists will have it to have been made particularly to justifie Athanasius in his Appeal to Rome but beside that if it were true it would do their Cause no service it is certain that Athanasius made not the Appeal himself but that his Cause was first referr'd thither by the Eusebians and that too with no other design then to remove it as far as they could from their own doors for fear of discovery §. XIII But as vigorously as the Western Bishops proceeded at Sardica the Eastern out-stript them at Philippopolis they first take to themselves the Title of the Council at Sardica they draw up a new Confession of Faith and call it the Sardican Creed in which they Anathematise all the Positions of Arius and only omit the word Consubstantial And as for Athanasius they cunningly load him with the Authority of the Tyrian Council and the Sentence of Constantine upon it Qui omnia ejus flagitia recognoscens suâ illum sententiâ in exilium deportavit Who examining into all his Crimes banish't him by his own Sentence as they blush not to aver as if the abused Emperor had been acquainted with all the juglings of that Council when it was their only care to keep their proceedings altogether in the dark from him But from this they proceed to infer that Athanasius being condemn'd by the Suffrage of so many Bishops and the Judgment of the Emperor it was now but a trick to move for a new Tryal when so many of the Judges Accusers and Witnesses were dead and therefore they must have the old Sentence allowed and ratified before they would act least as they plead They should bring in that prophane Innovation Quam horret vetus consuetudo Ecclesiae ut in concilio Orientales Episcopi quicquid forte statuissent ab Episcopis Occidentalibus refricaretur vice versa That the Ancient Custom of the Church abhors that the Decrees of the Eastern Church should be reversed by the Western and so on the contrary That was the point they would still be at that whatever was done in the Eastern Church should not be submitted to the Judgment of the Western Bishops and then that secured the Authority of the Tyrian Council and as long as that stood firm so did their Cause too But to make short work of it for there are vast numbers of odd casts of disingenuity in their Epistle they Excommunicate Athanasius Paul of Constantinople Julius of Rome Osius Marcellus and all that had any hand in the Absolution of Athanasius and this they signifie in an Encyclical Epistle written in the Name of the Council of Sardica to their friends in all Parts of the World and among many others it is directed to Donatus the Schismatical Bishop of Carthage Gratus the Catholique Bishop of that City with 36 other African Bishops being present at the Council of Sardica and joining with it against the Philippopolitans who therefore think to strengthen their Party by courting the Schismaticks to their side And among other sweet flowers flatter them with their own dear Expression viz. That they durst not join with the Sardican Council Ne proditores fidei Traditoresque Scripturarum dicamur Lest we should be esteemed Traytors of the Faith and Traditors of the Scriptures thereby insinuating an approbation of their Schism from the Catholicks upon that pretence And this took so luckily that the Schismatiques pleaded it in the days of St. Austin to prove that they had ever been in Communion with the Eastern Church But both parties having done the business that they came about especially the Eusebians whose only project it was to shun the Council and make the breach more general with the whole Western Church they break up their Assembly and where-ever they come put to death all that refuse Communion with them particularly they make a great Massacre at Adrianople where they cut off the Bishop's hands and after that his head with innumerable other outrages recited by Athanasius in his Epistle to the Monks But as for the Sardican Council having settled things as well as they could they acquaint both the Emperors with the Issue of their Proceedings and send three Bishops Arm'd with Letters from the Emperor Constans to his Brother Constantius to intercede for the restitution of the banish't Bishops But whilst they attended the Emperor at Antioch Stephen the Eusebian Bishop of that place by his Instruments conveighs a common Strumpet by night stark naked into the Chamber of Euphratas that was the most eminent Man of the Embassy and famous for his great Vertue and Piety but the Woman who expected some debauch't young Gallant for her Companion as soon as she saw the grave old Bishop asleep and altogether ignorant of the matter being
before they came the Emperour was little better then mad for though at the Battel with Magnentius he was so far forsaken of all Courage that he had not so much hardness as but to behold the Fight but retired into a Vault with his worthy Confessor Valens Bishop of the place who had the craft to set his Spyes to bring him the first News of the event of the Battel that so he might endear himself to the Emperor by being the Messenger of so good News if things went right But if wrong that then he might save himself in the first place either by flight or by betraying his Master to the Rebel for Men of his Principles can never boggle at any Treachery But so it happened that Magnentius his Army being put to an utter Rout that he had that timely intelligence of it that he had laid by his Spyes Whereas the Emperour and his Eunuchs a sort of Men that were his great Favourites and inseparable Companions not having the courage so much as to look out of their hole could suspect nothing of the Messengers Arrival and therefore Valens to add worship to himself like a Villain as he was pretends that the Message was brought him by an Angel and the poor Emperour in that sad pickle in which he then lay gladly and greedily believed any thing that was for his own case and imputed the Victory more to the merits of that Atheistical wretch then to the Courage of his Army All which Sandius though he carefully P. 94. baulkt the Confession of his reiterated Perjuries sets down with great gravity for a serious truth as if God had miraculously interposed his Power at the Prayers of so great a Villain But the Emperour being so suddainly delivered from the horrour of his own fears by his Information he for his sake grew much more fond of the Eusebian Faction then he had ever been and withal grew to that sottish insolence as to forget his own frailty writing himself my Eternity and concluded that God Almighty approved all his past Actions by blessing him with so much success as to make him Lord of the whole World upon which Lucifer Calaritanus writ his Book of the Apostate Kings of Israel to prove that worldly Proâ—perity was not entailed on the Pious but that the worst of the Race met with as much Prosperity in this World as the good and the religious Upon this new encrease of Insolence the Shops of Calumny as Zosimus expresses it were opened anew and though it had been a L. 2. thriving commodity all his Reign yet now it doubled its Price and the Eusebians by flattering him in the grosness of his folly got the entire management of him So that when he understood that Liberius had denyed Communion with them and entered into League with Athanasius he is all turn'd into rage and notwithstanding all his former Oaths and Promises he sets out an Edict requiring all Christian Bishops to Excommunicate Athanasius †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Solit. p. 829. upon pain of deposition About which time Arrived the Popes Legates and when they came to treat with the Eusebians or Court Bishops they refuse all manner of dispute about the Faith and the only point they stand upon is the Excommunication of Athanasius and by the help of the Emperours threatnings prevailed so far upon them that at length they subscribed his Condemnation Upon which Liberius immediately dispatches away new Legates of whom Lucifer Calaritanus was chief whose zealous temper he might safely trust and they prevail for a Council at Milan but because of the death of Gallus and other incumbrances of the Emperours Affairs it was not summon'd till the year following viz. An. Dom. 355. And when they met Constantius being now resolved to quell the Athanasians carries all things by Force and Violence So that the Legates refused to sit and so did Eusebius of Verselles who was joyned with them but they are commanded into the Council by the Emperour where Eusebius at his first entrance throws down the Nicene Faith upon the Table and tells them that he will comply with all other things if they will but secure that Dyonisius Bishop of Milan takes it up and offers to subscribe but Valens who now with his Companion Ursacius were return'd to their old Trade of open Villany shatches it out of his hand and cryes out that it was none of the business of their meeting This comes to a scuffle and that to a kind of Tumult upon which the Eusebians according to their usual Craft leave the Council and meet at Court where the Emperour in effect takes upon himself the determination of all things commands the Bishops to subscribe the Condemnation of Athanasius banishes as many as refused and when they pleaded in their own behalf against the Credit of the Testimony of Valens and Ursacius that were then and there his only Accusers he replyes what is that to them it is enough that himself was his Accuser and therefore requires it of them at their utmost Peril by this means he gets 30 Subscriptions in all then banishes two of the Legates and whips the third in which worthy Exploit those worthy men Valens and Ursaicus were the chief Actors endeavours to perswade Eusebius of Versetles and Dionysius of Milan to subscribe but they tell him that it is against the Canons to which he replyes †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Solitar p. 831. That his Will shall be the Canon For which rashness they boldly reprove him but he gives them no hearing storms rages draws his Sword swears and curses them into Exile This is the Story as it is told by the Ancients but as Sandius tells it it l. 2. p. 113. was no more then this that Athanasius was Condemn'd by the Unanimous Vote of the Bishops Paulinus only excepted §. XIV Things having been thus violently transacted in Council the Emperour resolves to follow his own will abroad with the same heat and therefore sends his Commissioners into Africk to take subscriptions against Athanasius with express Authority to banish all Abâ—orrers and sends one of his Eunuchs by whom he was chiefly managed and who were the grand instruments of all these mischiefs with bribes and threatnings to Liberius to induce him to a Subscription but he peremptorily refusing is sent for by force and by the discourse that past between them which Theodoret has set down at large we may discover by what tricks and forgeries the Eusebians had all along imposed upon him The first thing is that Athanasius must without any farther process be condemned the Bishop replyes that cannot be done according to Ecclesiastical Discipline and therefore craves a Council To this the Emperour rejoyns that he already stands under Condemnation by the Tyrian Council That was their Post which if they quitted they lost all and therefore when all other devices fail'd it was their last Borough Though
them were nicely and religiously observed by both Governments The first evidently appears from the Emperour 's summoning so many Councils to gratifie his own Will For his only design was to amend and reform the Nicene Creed for the reconciling of all Parties which if he had thought that he might have done by his own Imperial Authority to what purpose need he have broke up all the High-ways in Christendom by conveying Bishops to and from Councils He might have proclaimed down the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one Imperial Rescript if he had supposed that a proper Authority for it So that when he summoned such Variety of Councils by the Countenance of their Authority to compass his Will that demonstrates it to be a fixt Principle with him that the Controversies of the Church ought to be decided by the Authority of the Church And therefore though it was scarce ever more oppressed or abused by any Prince then himself yet his very illegal Actions are the highest acknowledgement that is upon record of that religious reverence that is due to that power that was setled by our Saviour upon his Apostles and the Bishops their Successours forever For though it so frequently crost his own design yet he durst never directly invade or usurp it but was forced from time to time to solicite their compliance with his own wicked Will or rather misinform'd judgement And though he carried things with so rough a violence yet he would never attempt any thing against the Liberties of the Church unless he could bear himself out by the Authority of a Council But if he so much own'd that how comes it to pass that the Ancients charge him so highly for usurping it particularly Athanasius Hosius St. Hilary and Liberius who freely and boldly reproved him for it to his own face And so they did and that too upon very just grounds for though he did not challenge the Authority of the Church to himself yet he endeavoured to over-rule it by down-right force and violence which is in effect to destroy it And that is the ground of their complaints that they were not allowed freedom in Council but that himself and his Prefects took upon them to forestall the Judgement of the Church by Restraints and Threatnings This is the standing complaint of Athanasius and all the Orthodox Bishops in all their Writings It is the grievance insisted upon by the Synod of Alexandria in their Synodical Epistle in behalf of Athanasius against the Tyrian Council With what forehead could they call that a Council over which a temporal Lord presided and where Spies and Notaries were placed where his Lordship determined and the Officers of the Church were silenced or rather lacquied to his Decree Where what was voted by the Bishops was over-ruled by him He carried all things by Power we were govern'd by the Guards or rather the pleasure of the Eusebians whose Tool and Instrument was the Secular President And a little after These worthy Eusebians shelter their forgeries speaking of the Villany of Arsenius under the pretence of a Council where all things were carried by the Emperour's Will where one of his Lords presided and the Bishops were under the custody of the guard and compell'd to say whatever the Emperour commanded The very same Complaint is made by Athanasius himself against the Council of Antioch in his Epistle to the Monks of Egypt That when upon the Appeal or rather Reference made to Rome by the Eusebians he had repair'd thither and the time of hearing the cause was appointed as soon as they heard they were likely to meet with an Ecclesiastical judgement where the Secular Governour was not to be present nor the Guards to keep the Council doors nor all things to be overul'd by the Commands of Caesar by which methods and no other they had hitherto born down the Bishops and without which security they durst never have made any appearance were so astonisht and surprised that they had no way of escape but to shift off their own Appeal And this is the Account that he gives of their lying off from the Synod of Sardica That when they had brought the Emperours Officers along with them and trusted to do what they pleased by their Authority but finding that all things were resolved to be managed there fairly and freely according to the Ecclesiastical Rule they quite baulkt the Council And to transcribe no more the same complaint is perpetually repeated by him in all his Writings as the fundamental miscarriage v. p. 833. 844. 845. 861. 862. This was the enormity of his Reign though he fell not so grosly into it till after the overthrow of Magnentius or the Murther of Gallus They were the Actions of that time that these good men particularly complain of and no wonder when he did all things more like a Mad-man then a Prince and Govern'd both the State and himself too as wildly as the Church As his Extravagance at that time is described by Ammianus Marcellinus Quo ille Studio blanditiarum exquisito sublatus immunemque se deinde fore ab Immortalitatis incommodo existimans confestim a justiti◠declinavit it a intemperanter ut AEternitatem meam aliquoties assereret ipse dictando scribendoque propriâ manu Orbis totius se Dominum appellare Upon the news of the death of Gallus he was so bloated by the flatteries of his Courtiers for his success against all his Enemies that he forgot himself and his own Mortality and sunk after so prodigious a rate from all sense of Justice that he was often wont in dictating Letters to subscribe himself My Eternity and Lord of the whole World They I say were the actions of this mad time that these good Men particularly complain of and as for all the time before he gave the Church reasonable fair usage and though the Eusebians drew him in to pack Councils yet he never proceeded so high himself as to forestall or over-rule their Decrees As for the Council of Antioch that was the meer contrivance of the Nicomedian Eusebius and his Eunuchs to prevent the Council at Rome in the cause of Athanasius In which it does not appear that the Emperor had any other concernment farther then to put their Sentence in Execution And was in all probability imposed upon as the good Bishops of the Council were in the Condemnation of Athanasius For it was all grounded upon the Acts of the Tyrian Council and had they been legal his Deposition had been but just so that their validity being as here it was supposed no wonder that the Bishops Vote so freely against him though for the most part neither Arians nor Eusebians The Council at Sardica was a full and free Council and though the Eusebians were forced to be cross and peevish in their own defence yet all things were managed in the Council it self fairly and candidly without any appearance of force or fraud in the Emperor insomuch
complaint of St. Hilary and the oppress 't Catholiques so wrought with the Emperor that notwithstanding his outrage against them because his Affairs in France were then embroil'd by the Incursions of the Barbarous Nations he publishes that seemingly kind Rescript in Answer to their Request Mansuetudinis nostrae lege prohibemus in Judiciis Episcopos accusari c. Commanding that the Accusations of Bishops should not be brought before Secular Magistrates lest it should give too much encouragement to wicked Men to oppress them with slanders and therefore if any Man have a complaint against them let it be Examin'd before the Bishops that so every cause might be determin'd by its proper Judicature This is a singular Law and has scarce any other parallel with it in the whole Code for though there are divers Laws of other Emperors that refer all Controversies about Religion to the Episcopal Audience yet as for the Criminal causes of Ecclesiastical Persons I do not remember any beside this that wholly exempted them from the cognisance of their own Courts And therefore that this Emperor should grant such an Universal exemption seems a courtesie more then ordinary and is thought to have been meerly extorted by the importunity of the Catholick Bishops and the present difficulty of his own Affairs And that they then insisted upon the exemption of Ecclesiastical Persons as well as Causes it was for a reason peculiar to the State of the Controversie at that time that was then managed not so much by Arguments as Accusations though that weapon was chiefly employed against the great Athanasius into whose single Person the Controversie was at last contracted and the Parties were distinguisht by nothing but subscribing and refusing his Condemnation For he being the great Pillar of the Catholick Cause the Eusebians knew well enough that if they could but blow him up the cause must fall with him and for that reason is it that they all along labour'd so hard to overwhelm him with Criminal Accusations And therefore the Catholicks perceiving their fraud interposed as vehemently in defence of Athanasius as of their Faith because all the blows that were levell'd at him were supposed to aim at that insomuch that to subscribe his Condemnation was the same thing as to quit the Party as we have seen in the case of Pope Liberius And for this reason chiefly it was necessary at that time that the Emperor if he would refer the Ecclesiastical Controversie then on foot to the Bishops he should do the same as to the Criminal Causes of the Clergy because they were then universally join'd together And yet as kind as this Law might appear to be in relieving them from the oppressions of the Imperial Courts it was but a fraudulent favour and only design'd to ensnare the Catholicks For this gracious Rescript was publisht in the same year in which he call'd the violent Council at Milan that was on purpose packt out of the fiercest Eusebians to carry things thorough with an high hand and without any contradiction So that when in this Rescript he refer'd the Orthodox Bishops to an Ecclesiastical Judgment he designed nothing but their Oppression in this mad Council and that it is evident was so far from any kindness that it was the sharpest severity he could have contrived against them For if they had just ground of complaint against the unjust actings of the Secular Courts because they were not their proper Judicatures yet when they were so rudely outraged in Council as it was done in the proper Court so was it at their own request and that both took away all ground of complaint and left them without any means of relief Gothofred has a Conjecture that this Rescript was Enacted not before but after the Council and that in favour of the Eusebians who were overcome by the Orthodox at their own weapon of Accusation and yet by the partiality of the Council were protected whilst the Catholicks were oppressed and denyed the very formalities of Justice this says the Learned Man might provoke them to make their Appeals to the Secular Courts where they might at least hope to meet with some humanity and regard to the Laws And therefore the Emperor to spoil this shift brings them all back to the Ecclesiastical Judicature that if they would come thither there they might be heard but no where else But this contradicts the whole state of Affairs at that time when the partiality and oppression of the Secular Judges was the universal Groan of the Catholicks and when this Rescript was enacted upon or at least after their reiterated complaints against it and therefore there is no ground to imagine that the Catholicks how much soever oppressed in Council would think of seeking relief there But whatever was the intent of the Rescript and no doubt it was malicious enough it is certain that it was at least pretended to be granted upon the complaint of the Catholicks against the Secular Courts for taking to themselves the Judgment of Controversies of Faith whereas they ought to have referred them to the Synods of Bishops whom our Saviour had appointed to be the proper Guides and Judges in those matters And that is the meaning of Hosius and the rest in their reproofs of the Emperor not that he used his Authority in the Church but that he abused it by opposing it to the determination of a general Council by whose advice he ought both as a wise Man and a good Christian to have been directed in the use of his Power in such matters And that was the grand miscarriage of his Reign that he would not sit down satisfied under the Authâ—ntique and Solâ—mn determination of so great a Council which if he had done as his Father did he had escaped all that tedious risk of trouble which he created both to himself and to the Church through his whole Reign But however it is evident from all the Premisses that how enormously soever he abused his own Power in the Church he never attempted to Usurp the Churches Power and he never took upon him to make any Alterations in the Faith till they were first made and decreed in Council and though he destroyed the Use and Authority of Councils by denying freedom of Vote yet that was an abuse of his Power not an usurpation of theirs For that he ever own'd with a Religious regard in his most unwarrantable Oppressions And as I have observed at the beginning he shewed greater respect to the Power of the Church then any Emperor in the whole Succession when he called such sholes of Councils only to have his Will of one Man and one Word which he durst not controul himself because they had been own'd and justified by the Churches Authority And if we carefully observe his motions we shall find him a cordial friend both to the Church and to Religion and the end of all his mistaken Zeal was the lasting settlement of Peace and Concord that was
the word that he had always in his mouth all the misfortune was that he fell into ill hands and by their advice endeavour'd it the wrong way His high Opinion of the honesty of some ill Church-Men was the Principle that exposed him to all that abuse that was put upon him all his life time It was his confidence in Eusebius and his Partisans that did drive him into that unhappy course that he took for the attainment of his desired Peace All their advice was Oracle to him and made him both deaf and blind to all other information But otherwise setting aside this unhappy oversight of being over-rul'd by ill Men he seems to have been so far from all thoughts of robbing the Church of its own inherent rights that he thought he could never shew it kindness enough by heaping continual favours of his own upon it he granted it more Priviledges and greater Immunities then any other Emperor and whereas his Father Constantine only exempted Ecclesiasticks from all Personal burthens in the Common-wealth he has in divers Rescripts freed them from all manner of Taxes and Impositions whatsoever and a very little time before his death he publisht an Edict to Establish the perpetual security of all his former Grants with this reason at the end of it as it were his dying words Gaudere â—nim gloriari ex side semper volumus scientes magis Religionibus quà m Officiis Labore corporis vel sudore nostram rempublicam contineri i. e. as Gothofred paraphrases it We freely grant all these Immunities to the Ministers of Religion as knowing that the Publick Weal will lose nothing by all their exemptions from its service but gain greater blessings from their Prayers and Devotions then they could have contributed to it by any other way of Attendance And this very thing is all along upbraided to him by the counterfeit Hilary in his Book against him that whilst he pretended so much kindness to the Christian Church and Clergy he by his ill Government betrayed the one and oppress 't the other Auro reipublicae Sanctum Dei honoras vel detracta templis vel publicata Edictis vel exacta paenis Deo ingeris Osculo Sacerdotes excipis quo Christus est proditus Caput benedictioni summittis ut fidem calces convivio dignaris ex quo Judas ad proditionem egressus est censum capitum remittis quem Christus ne Scandalo esset exolvit Vectigalia Caesar donas ut ad negationem Christianos invites quae tua sunt relaxas â—t quae Dei sunt amittantur So that it is evident from his Story and the Confession of his Enemies that he was a true lover of the Christian Church and a zealous Promoter of Religion and only miscarried by following the advice of the Eusebians which they gave him for their own ends and with what grosness they abused him all along we have seen through every Stage of his life And this is the ground of those high Commendations that are given him by Gregory Nazianzen because he was of himself a true lover of Religion and designed nothing but the Peace and settlement of the Church though under that plausible pretence his good nature and integrity were imposed upon by wicked Men to compass their own wicked designs against the true peace of the Catholick Church And that was the folly and misfortune that they drew him into not to acquiesce in the Authoritative determination of the Church in so great a Council as that of Nice which had he done it had continued in the same Peace and Tranquility in which his Father left it But when instead of that he endeavoured to remove the setled Foundation as it was laid by the true and proper Builders it is no wonder if the whole Fabrick fell upon his own head and buried his whole Reign under its Ruins And it is very likely that his impatience under so awkerd a Burthen when he could not clear himself of it put him at last upon those angry courses that he took to obtain his Will And as at last it perplext so it debaucht his Government for till the Conquest of Magnentius he seem'd to have behaved himself like a wise and able Prince but had not leisure to attempt much less perform any thing great by reason of his perpetual attendance upon this Controversie And that may be a warning to all Princes That when a Controversie of Religion is once laid by a fair and legal decision to beware how they suffer it to rise again lest it prove too strong and stubborn to submit to a second Exorcism However by the different behaviour of these two Princes in interposing in the Controversies of the Church and the different event of their actings in it we have before our Eyes clear examples of right and wrong methods of Government Constantine when he found a Faction in the Church settles peace by the Authority of the Church without putting any restraints upon it and what that determin'd he first made a Law to himself and then to his Subjects and would never after permit it to be call'd in question and by this means he quell'd a dangerous Faction and freed himself from any direct disturbance from it all his own Reign But his Son Constantius on the contrary not acquiescing in the Canonical determination of the Church broke down all the Banks of Government and let in that Inundation of Dispute that overwhelm'd his whole Reign But being sensible of the trouble that he had brought upon himself by having once dismantled the Churches Authority he thought to help himself out by retrieving its force but still the more he strugled the more he entangled himself because instead of setling things by fair and free Councils and unless they are so they are no Councils of Christs Officers but meer Executioners of the Princes Commands himself ever endeavour'd to over-rule all the Councils that he call'd either by fraud or violence And then no wonder when they were so hamper'd if they were not able to attain the end of their Institution And that was the fatal miscarriage of his Reign his garbling the Authority of Councils turning them into Courts of Guards and abetting forty or fifty Seditious Men against the whole Body of Catholick Bishops otherwise if they had been permitted the free exercise of their own proper Authority all things had been carried with that gravity and decency that became the Christian Church as we see by the great Councils of Sardica and Ariminum that had effectually setled the Nicene Faith had not the Emperor cut asunder their Decrees with his Sword and set up an Eusebian Rump in defiance and opposition to the whole Council And therefore whereas some Men are pleased to upbraid the Churches Authority with the miscarriages of these Councils under Constantius they might have been pleased too to consider that the main Body of Christian Bishops discharged their duty with entire faithfulness and
return to the Catholick Church they should be received in their Episcopal Capacity or only according to rigour of Canon be admitted to Lay-Communion But here the Fathers incline to the milder Sentence following the Example of the Nicene Council who received the Novatian Bishops in their Episcopal Capacity to Communion And thus they order here that the Bishops that had joyn'd with the Hereticks either out of ignorance or by surprize or through meer force should be received without deprivation of dignity And in this they rather shewed Justice then Mercy for in all those Transactions as we have seen above there appear'd nothing of Arianism above board and at the same time that they quitted Consubstantiality for Peace sake they anathematised all the Points of the Arian Heresie So that their complyance though it was a defect in prudence it was no Apostacy from the Orthodox Faith And if the leading Eusebians had a design by removing that word to supplant and undermine the true Faith as 't is plain by the last issue of all that some of them had i. e. Valens and his Party yet that was kept secret among themselves and honest well meaning Men had no ground to suspect it because it was always protested against And it is certain that the greatest part of them had no such design for Basilius and all his Party who so fiercely opposed the Acacians when they turn'd Arians had been all along vehement Eusebians and Enemies to Consubstantiality And therefore it is evident that their zeal against that was not at all for any love of Arianism but only of the Peace of the Church which they conceived to be obstructed by that unscriptural and unwarrantable Word And therefore it was no such kindness to receive such Persons as had innocently join'd with them upon such easie terms when by it they were not in the least tainted with the Heresie it self and so St. Jerom himself states it Post reditum Confessorum in Alexandrinâ postea Synodo constitutum est ut exceptis Auctoribus Haereseos quos Error excusare non poterat poenitentes Ecclesiae sociarentur non quod Episcopi possint esse qui Haeretici fuerant sed quod constaret eos qui reciperentur Haereticos non fuisse After the Return of the Confessors from banishment it was decreed in a Synod at Alexandria That excepting the Authors of the Heresie that no surprise can excuse the Repenting Bishops should be received not that they could be Bishops that had been Hereticks but because it was evident that they that were received had not been Hereticks And as for their depriving the Authors and Ring-leaders of the Heresie forever so as never to be raised above Lay-Communion that was no severity but agreeable to the standing discipline of the Church And in the next place whereas there had been lately started an unhappy Controversie between the Greeks and Latins concerning the Words Hypostasis and Persona because the word Hypostasis being Synonimous with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Greeks profess't the belief of three Hypostases they seem'd to the Latins to own three distinct Substances And the Latins who rejected that word and in lieu of it used the word Persona seem'd not to assert any thing real but a meer relative distinction the word Persona being generally used to denote not the Man himself but his Office and Relation This contest run very high as Nazianzen informs us to the endangering a breach between the Churches and therefore St. Athanasius prudently proposes that both words should be promiscuously used in both Churches and that would effectually take away the Jealousie on both sides and so it did for it silenced the controversie forever and it continues so settled to this very day And lastly whereas some Men cryed up the Confession of Faith presented by the Eusebian Party to the Council at Sardica as if the Council had approved of it they declare that it was utterly rejected by the Council and that it refused to alter any thing of the Nicene Faith These Decrees with some other they draw up in an Encyclical Epistle to the Bishops of the Christian World And after the same manner that Athanasius bestir'd himself for the settlement of the Church in Africa St. Hilary labours for the Restitution of the Church of France where he procures frequent Councils particularly one at Paris to condemn the proceedings at Ariminum and restore the Church to that Ancient State that it enjoyed before Constantius his Invasion upon its Liberties and here they unanimously declared That when they subscribed the Creed of Ariminum in which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was omitted they were meerly over-reach't and take the Sacrament upon it that they suspected no harm and abhorred the consequences that were made out of it by ill Men and therefore desire pardon of the World for what they had been surprised into by meer ignorance and in this they were so unanimous that there was but one dissenting Bishop in all France that is Saturninus of Arles whom they deposed and thus says the Historian was all France purged of Heresie by the Authority of one Man And the same thing was done at the same time in the Eastern Church as appears by the Synodical Epistle of the French-Bishops to the Oriental Bishops which is nothing else then an answer to their Epistle declaring their concurrence with their Proceedings And thus was this Evil Spirit of Arianism that had for so many years possess 't and tormented the Christian Church and that Constantius had in vain taken so much pains to exorciâ—e by his own Authority thus I say it was at last easily cast out by the Power and Efficacy of the Apostolical Rod. But the Apostate finding the Peace of the Christian Church so well setled he grows into a rage to see both his wit and his malice so dexterously defeated and now can dissemble no longer pulls off his Vizor of pretended Kindness and turns open Persecutor And in the first place he flies upon Athanasius who had with wonderful success advanced Christianity in Alexandria and therefore upon pain of death he must immediately leave the City This the Emperor with great fierceness commands both the Citizens of Alexandria and Ecdicius the Prefect of Egypt to put in Execution under the severest Penalties And here he brings off his former seeming Lenity to the Galilaean or Christian Bishops that he had restored from Banishment with this slender sham that he only gave them leave to return to their own Countries but never intended to restore them to the Jurisdiction of their Churches And therefore Athanasius having presum'd to usurp his Episcopal Seat without the Imperial Grant must once more be gone And accordingly he withdraws with this comfort to his friends that were weeping at his departure that it was but a flying shower and would â—oon be over But if he had not made hast it had not only wet him to the skin