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A34335
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The notion of schism stated according to the antients, and considered with reference to the non-conformists, and the pleas for schismaticks examined being animadversions upon the plea for the non-conformists : with reflections on that famous Tract of schism, written by Mr. Hales in two letters to a very worthy gentleman.
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Conold, Robert.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing C5891; ESTC R11683
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38,869
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110
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Antients Pray search the Rolls of Parnassus that we may know whether Apollo have Recorded Bishop Jewel and all the Champions of the Reformation for Fools and Asses for I observe they were all so impertinent as in the controversie with Rome to Appeal very often to the Judgement of the Antient Fathers Learned Chamier in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for antiquity sake I have chosen the Hebrew Title disputing de usu Canonis censures his Romish Adversaries for declining the Judgement of the Antients in that Controversie Dissimulant Adversarii hanc tantam Antiquorum Testimoniorum copiam vehementiam ut solent à solis Radiis oculos avertere quibus lippitudo est incommoda There are two Cases in which we Appeal to the old Catholick Fathers 1. In Controversies of Faith or the great Doctrines of Christian Religion 2. Concerning the Government Custome and Discipline of the Antient Church Now the great Dispute is Whether we may appeal to their judgement in matters of Faith And here I will freely trust you with my Sentiments My Belief of the great Fundamentals and Doctrinals of Christianity is founded upon those Divine Oracles of the Holy Scriptures But my Perswasion is much help'd and establish'd by the universal consent of the old Catholick Church in the same Articles For I consider that the Antients of the first four Centuries liv'd very nigh the time of the first Promulgation of Christianity when the Sense of the Apostolick Age was yet fresh and early And I am hugely confirm'd by observing that the old Greek Fathers and Councils expounded the Creed just as we do for sure they must in reason be suppos'd to understand the Idiom of their own Language and therefore to interpret the Mysteries of the Gospel better than we who are so many Ages remov'd from the first Revelation and are but Forreigners to that Language in which the Gospel was writ There is still a controversie on foot in the Churches to use the Phrase of our Author concerning the eternal Divinity of Jesus the Son of God and the Resurrection of the Flesh is still called in Question Now though my Belief of these two Articles is primarily founded upon the Sacred Scriptures yet that which makes up my Plerophorie is the authority of the Antients For though the Sacred Writings appear very express in those two Articles yet I have seen all those Texts so cunningly evaded by the plausible interpretations of the Socinians that I confess it is great satisfaction to me that the antient Catholick Church did in General Councils maintain those Articles and expound the Holy Text in that sense which we receive I was about to have concluded this with an old sentence of Vincentius Lyrinensis but I consider'd that to prove the authority of the Antients by an antient Author would be false Logick and a gross impertinence and I am very shye of those ill-looking imputations Therefore I will end with the authority of the great Chamier who was but a Modern Divine and of the Reformed Gallican Church and I hope our Appeal to him will be allowed In the controversie De Scripturae interpretatione he discourses of the several helps to a right interpretation of Scripture and among the rest mentions the judgement of the Antients Alter ordo veterum est atque eorum qui nostram aetatem praecesserunt Horum labores nemo pius dubitat Deum extare voluisse ut qui viventes profuerunt Ecclesiae mortus non sint inutiles Juvat ergo valdè quidem juvat sciscitari quid senserint olim boni Patres tum de fidei Articulis tum de singulorum Scripturae locorum interpretatione neque earum Testimonium parvi faciendum multò minus rejiciendum absque graevissimd Ratione etsi non debeant fidei nostrae dominari This learned man was under no temptation as our Author was and therefore expresses his opinion of the Antients with much Reason and Reverence and therefore if I have been guilty of Grossness and Folly in my appeal to Antiquity you see Sir I have very Learned Fools to bear me company 2. Our next Appeal to Antiquity is in the Questions concerning the antient Government and Discipline of the Catholick Church Methinks there should be no dispute concerning the Equity or Reasonableness of our Appeal in this case For all Courts of Justice in a Question concerning an antient custom or practice do constantly pass sentence according to the Testimonies of the most aged men And though we should grant that the antient Fathers were not wise enough to be Judges yet sure their very antiquity makes them the most competent Witnesses of the Government and Practice of the Church in the first Ages of Christianity Sir you see our House of Peers when their Priviledges were questioned by the Commons thought it the most rational Method to determine that controversie by an Appeal to antient Presidents And if our Protesting Lords would be as just to the Church as they are to their own Court and allow the antient Records of the Catholick Church to be as Sacred as the old Rolls of Parliament they would have oblig'd themselves never to alter Episcopal Government For we can shew more numerous and far more antient Monuments to prove the Primitive and continued Jurisdiction of Bishops than their Lordships can produce to assert their peculiar Prerogatives But Sir if you would more clearly understand this necessity or usefulness of appealing to the Antients let me humbly offer this advice I know your Temper is serious and contemplative but I advise you upon this special occasion to compose your mind into an extraordinary Fixation and when you are retired and your eyes shut and your arms folded Then think out of the World all Councils and Fathers Fancy we had no more notice of the Judgement or Practice of the Antients than Origen had of his State of Pre-existence Suppose this present Age of the Church to have no Monument of Christian Antiquity but the Gospels and Epistles in Greek and no skill in that Language but what we learned from Pagan Orators Poets and Philosophers And at my next Visit pray acquaint me with the Result of your thoughts Whether in those considerations you did not fancy a strange Darkness upon the face of Christendome and see a necessity of a New Revelation to interpret the Old Our Author proceeds and tells us He sees no Reason why opinionum varietas opinantium unitas should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why we might not differ in opinion and yet communicate in Sacris The honour of God and Religion have so much suffered by our Divisions that I wish with St. Paul Rom. 15. 6. That we might with one mind and with one mouth Glorifie God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ But since our controversies in Religion are so far multiplyed that there is no hope the Christian World should ever unite in one judgement without the force of a Miracle yet
would be a lesser crime than Pride Schism or obstinate disobedience Our Author reflects again upon the Paschal Schism in these words We may plainly see the danger of our Appeal to Antiquity for Resolution in controverted points of Faith and how small Relief we are to expect from them for if the Direction of the chiefest Guides and Directors of the Church did in a point so Trivial so mainly fail them can we without the imputation of great Grossness and Folly think so poor-spirited Persons competent Judges of the Questions now on foot between the Churches Pardon me I know what temptation drew that note from me Now Sir you may perceive that the Author was very sensible that there was some such guilt in this passage as would stand in need of pardon And therefore if you dare adventure the scandal of giving pardon to a man after he is dead you may remit this guilty passion of Mr. Hales for my part I have charity for him because he tells us that this expression was drawn from him by some vehement Temptation And you know that a very great Apostle under a Temptation denyed the Son of God and if this Good man in such a Hurricane Renounced all the Fathers of the Church this should plead for our compassion What that particular Temptation was that occasioned this Ecstasie he was not pleas'd to acquaint us and therefore I cannot determine but give me leave to conjecture I find Mr. Hales had the ill Destiny to be a member of the Belgick Synod and he informs us in his Epistles that it was sometimes his Province to refute the Arguments of the Remonstrants Hoste absente Now perhaps observing that those poor-spirited Antients would not be pressâ—d into the States service but were all of a different opinion from that Synod who knows but this unlucky contradiction and his conversing too much with Dammannus might put him into an unwary heat and make him Reprobate all Antiquity Our Church has so much Reverence for the Antients as in her publick Articles to own the Authority of the first four General Councils and King James himself would never impose upon us the Novel Decrees of Dort I confess Sir ever since I understood Greek I have had the Grossness and Folly as Mr. H. interprets it to have more value for the Judgement of St. Cyril of Jerusalem St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Chrysostome than for the opinion of Bogermanus Sybrandus Beza or Gomarus I have been so silly as to think the Antient Catholick Council of Nice that was but three Centuries remov'd from the Apostles did merit more Authority and esteem in the Christian Church than that partial and Modern Assembly of Dort And I cannot yet alter my Perswasion But I would gladly quit my self from those ugly imputations of Grossness and Folly I must therefore examine the Arguments of Mr. Hales by which he invalidates the Authority of the Antients First He accuses them for Poor-spirited Persons Indeed they never were so daring as to be so bold with the Attributes of God as the Dutch Professors were in the Synod of Dort or as Beza was in Geneva but yet these poor-spirited men had the Resolution to be Martyrs for the Name of Jesus and that Sir I should think is a very divine and noble piece of Gallantry Besides some of them left to the World their Golden Remains excellent Monuments of their Prety and Learning as worthy as our Authors Secondly But his great Argument against Appealing to the Judgement of the Antients is their indiscretion about that trivial matter of the observation of Easter The Churches of the East and West were not without some plausible reasons for their different observance of that Festival and though they will not amount to a substantial Apology for that Controversie yet they will something help to lessen the vastness of the Indiscretion for the Eastern Church had been taught by the Apostles an innocent complyance to the Jews in those Quarters that they might not scandal them by a sudden and total departure from all the Mosaical Rites and Observances and therefore the Christians in the East governed them by St. Pauls Rule of complaisance to the Jews they so far became Jews as to celebrate their Easter Festival upon the fourteenth Month when the Jews observ'd their Paschal And though I confess that Reason was out of force in two or three Centuries yet Sir you know Custom has a Great Empire upon wiser creatures than Beasts of Burden and therefore it was no Prodigy of imprudence nor any Divine Judgement if they were so tenacious of an Antient custom that had a very innocent and Apostolick Foundation The Western Church being at a great distance from Palestine was never oblig'd to that complyance to the Jews But being left to their Christian Liberty and assured by an infallible Oracle That our Lord arose from the Dead upon the first day of the Week therefore they judged it most apposite and rational to celebrate the Anniversary Feast of the Resurrection upon a Dies Dominicus This appear'd so reasonable to that excellent Prince Constantine the Great that with great Resolution he oppos'd the Jewish complyance of the Eastern Christians and in his General Epistle concerning the Transactions of the Council of Nice he disswades the Christian Church from that custom Itaque nihil vobis commune sit cum infestissima Judaeorum Turba Domini Percussoribus And besides his Imperial Ratification of the Canon of Nice he inforces a General Uniformity in the Observation of Easter by a very plausible Reason in the same Epistle Unam esse Catholicam suam Ecclesiam voluit cujus tametsi partes in multis variisque sunt dispersae locis uno tamen spiritus hoc est Divino Arbitrio fovetur Consideret porro sanctitatis vestrae solertia quam grave sit indecorum per eosdem Dies alios quidem jejuniis intentos esse alios verò vacare conviviis All I design by this is to shew that there was so much Plausibility on each side that there was something in the case more than Trifle and not such monstrous Grossness and Folly as our Author represents But grant this Controversie to be trivial and the Antients indiscreet in the manage of it yet I cannot discern the Logick of his conclusion that therefore they are not to be appeal'd unto in any controversie of Religion The sense of this Argument amounts to thus much Because the wisest and most learned men have sometimes their mistakes and indiscretions therefore their Judgement is never to be regarded in any matter of moment I fancy the World would find vast inconveniencies by such a consequence Sir I request you to lend me your Italian Boccaline for the Conventions of Parnassus have now as much Authority as the four first General Councils and sure there will not be so much Grossness and Folly in Appealing to the Sentence of Apollo as in consulting the Judgement of the poor-spirited