Priviledges all States that profess Christianity are bound by that profession to settle upon the Church I shall shew in its proper place but whatever they are the Church cannot challenge them by it's Original Charter So that if any Church shall be so presumptuous as to pretend to any such Power which way soever it comes in whether directly or indirectly by vertue of our Saviour's Commission that is not only a Contradiction to the Nature of Christianity but an Atheistical Abuse put upon the whole Design of the Institution But as to pretend to any such Power from our Saviour only over Subjects is no less then Blasphemy against him so to pretend to it over Soveraigns doubles the Blasphemy by adding the Sin of Rebellion to that of Impiety and utterly destroys not only the Being and Constitution of a Christian Church but of all humane Societies So that how many Marks soever there may be of a true Church this alone is an infallible Note of a false one And therefore every Church that refuses to disclaim any Temporal Power over Princes renounces the Christian Faith and forfeits all the Rights and Priviledges of a Christian Church but if it should be so vain as openly to claim any such power it bids open defiance to our Saviour and quits him and his Religion to follow Mahomet So that there is no one thing in the World can so effectually unchurch a Church as its claiming any Temporal Authority to it self especially over Soveraign Powers And this I doubt will light very severely upon the Bishops of Rome ever since the Hildebrandine Apostacy viz. That the Pope as Vicar of Christ has a power of deposing Soveraign Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance this they have own'd whenever they durst and put in practice whenever they could and would never be brought upon any Terms to condemn it which Doctrine certainly is the greatest unkindness that they can do themselves and the worst thing that their greatest Enemies could desire to object against them and if any thing can prove his Holiness to be Antichrist this is the thing because it is an utter Subversion of the whole State of Christianity and makes our Saviour a false Christ by making him a Temporal Messias and placing him in the head of an Army to subdue the Princes and Nations of the World into subjection to himself I am sure for this very reason does the Learned Cardinal Baronius make Mahomet the Type of Antichrist because he promoted his Religion over several parts of the World by force of Arms Quod armorum potentia tot provincias nullo fermè negotio per suos posteros ejusdem sectae homines subjugasset He would have done well to have applyed this Censure nearer home and then he would not have justified all the Rebellious Popes in their violencies and outrages that they acted against Soveraign Princes and yet no man has done it with more diligence then himself as I shall prove when I come to consider his Performance Neither will this Charge of Apostacy light only upon the Church of Rome but upon every Church that maintains a right of resistance to Soveraign Powers upon a pretence of Christian Religion whatsoever for that is still to take to themselves such a power against their Prince by our Saviours Authority which is the same direct contradiction to the Nature of the Christian Faith and the same sort of Apostacy from Christianity to Mahumetism putting a Scymeter into our Saviours hand and under his pretended conduct waging War against their lawful Soveraign and that is the greatest dishonour that they can bring to their Master or themselves And yet we shall find some other Churches aś much guilty of this Apostacy both in Doctrine and Practice as that of Rome and though Rome and they stand at the greatest distance of Enmity out of Jealousie of one another who should carry the prize yet they both fully agree in this fundamental Antichristian Principle But this Charge will come home in its proper place at present we must take this Article of faith all along with us No Temporal Authority in the Church unless from the grant of the State §. III. But then secondly it must be granted too that the Power of Princes how great soever in Church matters supposes the Spiritual Authority of the Church that was as much settled by our Saviour without any dependency on the Authority of the State as the Authority of the State was settled by the Providence of God before there was any such thing as a Christian Church in the World So that it is undeniably evident from its original Constitution that the Church subsists no more upon the State as to its proper Power then the State upon the Church For as the Christian Church came into the World after the Civil Government of States was entirely settled in it so did the World come into the Church after its Government was as entirely fixed within it self And therefore as Christianity by its coming into the World ought no manner of way to abate the Civil Power of the State so neither when the Powers of the World come into the Church ought they to diminish any thing of that Authority that it enjoyed by Divine Commission before they came into it For they are received into it upon the same terms with all other Proselytes of the Christian Faith that they submit themselves to it as our Soviour's own Institution So that as our first point is That all Sovereign Princes have or ought to have an Imperial Supremacy over all Ecclesiastical Persons and in all Ecclesiastical Causes Our second is That this Supremacy which is the highest Power that can be on Earth is no Ecclesiastical but a Civil Supremacy For beside that it would be a dishonour to degrade a Sovereign Prince to the Priestly Office The Ecclesiastical Power is purely Spiritual and that is a Power that was never challenged by any Prince nor directly given by any Man though it is so by plain and undeniable consequence by all that disown an Inherent Authority in the Church from our Saviour's own Commission but only Mr. Hobbs who as he made the Prince his own Priest made him his own God too Now these two Principles laid together clear up the Nature and Title of the Supremacy of Sovereign Princes That it is none of that Spiritual Power that is lodged in the Church but a Temporal Supremacy over all the Spiritual Power of it within his own Dominions And now if these two Principles that are as certain as Christianity it self were but calmly attended to they would perfectly silence all the clamours of both the extreme Parties in this Controversie Those of the Church of Rome must cease their noise that we make the King a Bishop by acknowledging his Supremacy in all Ecclesiastical Causes and over all Ecclesiastical Persons when upon this State of the Question such a Supremacy over all things and persons within their Dominions
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
declared against the great Arian Assertions especially of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Sum of all that Heresie that he should be charged not only for an Heretick but a Prevaricator Though the hardest piece of disingenuity is his turning Eusebius his ingenuous confession into guile and falshood but with what justice or candor I dare leave the Reader to judge from the words themselves as I have oâ—ted them above that give as far as I can discern as prudent and rational account of the true State of the Controversie as any that we have upon Record But Petavius has met with his own Measure for after all the pains that he has taken against the Arian Heresie he stands vehemently suspected of Treachery to his own Undertaking Sandius is very proud of his company and lays no small stress upon the assistance of his Authority And though this Rhapsodist whoever he was was apparently a thing of no judgment yet others that want not understanding complain That he has done the Doctrine of the Trinity no great kindness by his defence of it but has betrayed the constant Tradition of the Church about it and it is what I have often heard objected by some that would be learned Men in common Discourse though upon what ground I cannot devise unless it be that some Men pass their censures upon Books only by skimming over Indexes and Contents of Chapters instead of perusing the Books themselves for I am sure no Man that has Examin'd Petavius his performance upon this Argument can ever suspect him of a design to betray his cause that he has defended with so much Judgment Learning and Industry but so it is that some Body turning over the heads of the Chapters finds a Catalogue of Fathers before the Council of Nâ—ce that held different Opinions from the Catholique Rule Saltem loquendi usu as he speaks from thence it is shrewdly insinuated that he leaves them under suspition of Arianism which is so far from being true that he had before-hand cleared them from all such suspition as to the substance of the Doctrine and proved the constant Tradition of it through all Ages of the Church from the Apostles And sums up his Evidence of the whole matter in this one positive Assertion Omnes in eo Scriptores illi conveniunt esse unum Deum unamque Deitatem non autem plures Deos aut Deitates Deinde tres esse qui Divinitatem illam habent quique singula quâ nomen ipsum obtinent Dei quâ proprietates ut Groeci Philoâ—ophi nominant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae nulli alteri quà m soli ac verè proprieque dicto Deo tribuuntur Sic in eo rurfus congruunt ut unum de tribus fontem originem caeterorum constituant eumque patrem nuncupent illius qui proximè ab hoc numeratur appellaturque filius qui genitus ab illo dicitur ac tum Deus est tum homo pro Nativitate duplici quarum una seculis est anterior omnibus ab solo patre Deo Altera in tempore sola itidem ex Matre foeminâ Haec fere de Deo ac Trinitate profiteri sigillatim illos reperies idque alios aliis clarius ac disertius eloqui Quae si sola considerentur ex iis reliqua deinceps necessariò sequuntur quae de hoc mysterio post Nicaenam Synodum in Ecclesia sancita sunt post vehementes ac diuturnos conflictus ad convincendos ac refutandos Arianos aliosque religionis hostes idonea sunt ex sese Now if all the Fathers agreed as he says they did in this Confession of Faith it is impossible to charge them with the least suspition of Arianism only because some of them Platonised too much in some Forms of Expression and when he says as he does once that they were of the same Opinion with Arius it is when he makes Arius not of the same Opinion with himself and thinks him a Genuine Platonist but if he were that was not his proper Heresie the peculiar poison whereof consisted in this That the Son of God was created 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as Sozomen declares and Petavius too no Man ever affirm'd before Arius so that if he were a Platonist he might be in another Error but that was not Arianism and if any of the Ancients might seem to come too near him in some Platonick Expressions yet they are all clear by Petavius his account from all suspition of Arianism This I thought good to interpose in behalf of Petavius that so learned a Man might not be loaded with such a disingenuous surmise for no other reason that I can see then that he has deserved better of his Argument then any other Writer whatsoever excepting only the great Athanasius himself But to return to Constantine and the Nicene Council after the Condemnation of Arius the other Controversie concerning the time of Easter was easily decided the very same day and all Churches are commanded to observe the Festival in the same form and time And here the difference that St. Athanasius has observed between these two Decrees of the Council is very observable That when they Enact concerning the Paschal Controversie they say it seems good to the Council c. And set down the day of the Month and the year of the Council in which it was Enacted thereby intimating that the way of observing Easter became Obligatory by the Authority of their Decree But when they set down their Faith they neither say it seems good nor add any date but express it in this Form that so and so the Catholique Church believes thereby declaring That it is not a New but an Apostolical Faith and therefore to be received by all Christians And this is seconded by a Rescript from the Emperor and recommended partly as a thing fit and decent that the practice of almost the whole Catholique Church should over rule the Customs of particular Churches and in pursuance of this general Decree it was farther Enacted That on all Sundays in the year and on all days from Easter to Whitsontide Christians should every where pray not kneeling but standing a Custom that had been practised in the Church from the Beginning and 't is reckoned by the Fathers among their immemorial Traditions as a Symbol of our Saviour's Resurrectâ—on at that time which being not observed by those Churches who kept Easter after the manner of the Jews thereby to distinguish themselves from other Christians the Custom therefore of standing is here injoin'd to be observed uniformly in all places and so the Council expresses the intent of their Decree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all things may be performed with Uniformity in all Dâ—ocesses But the main thing that the Emperour enforces its Practice with is the Divine Authority of the Councils determination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore matters standing thus it is requisite that
that when the banisht Bishops were restored to the Exercise of their Function by the Decree of the Council he restored them too to the possession of their Bishopricks by his Imperial Rescript The first Synod at Milan was wholly Western and under the Jurisdiction of the Emperour Constans where they had all free liberty both of debating and determining as they pleased So that hitherto all Powers Priviledges and Jurisdictions in the Church were preserved as far as the Emperours were concern'd but after the death of Constans the overthrow of Magnentius and the murther of Gallus when Constantius run mad either through guilt or insolence we read of nothing but Fury and Tyranny For in the year 355 when Gallus was murthered he summons or rather musters a Council at Arles for the Condemnation of Athanasius commands the Bishops to subscribe it and banishes Paulinus of Trevers for refusing the Subscription In the same year meets the second Council at Milan and that for the same purpose in which Eusebius of Verselles Liberius of Rome and at last Hosius of Corduba are sent on the same Errand after Paulinus for the same Offence In the year 357 follows the Council of Sirmium where as we have seen all things were carried by Force Then comes the Council of Ariminum in the year 359 where a Council of near 400 Bishops are compelled to subscribe and submit to the pleasure of Valens and his fifty Men. The Council of Seleucia came to the worst end of all being only a contest between the Eusebians and Acacians who finding themselves over-numbred appeal to the Emperor and are received by him draw up a new Creed in which they not only cashiere the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as they phrased them all other Exotick words And this indefinite Faith is imposed upon all Christian Bishops by an Imperial Rescript upon pain of banishment by which the Acacians outed the Eusebians and so got themselves into the best and fattest Preferments In the year 360 comes the last Conventicle of Antioch in which Meletius Bishop of Antioch was deposed for asserting the Nicene Creed and that against the Publick Faith of the Emperour given him under Hand and Seal for his Security These were wild actings in the Church but they all followed the Magnentian and Gallian madness and that is the excuse that is made for him by Athanasius himself that after that he was not himself but was entirely govern'd by other Men that as he expresses it had no more brains in their Skuls then in their Toes But before this time of outrage and distraction he kept up that reverence and regard that is due to that Authority that our Blessed Saviour has committed to his Church Nay even after this loosing himself and his understanding by getting the whole World he kept up that respect to our Saviour's Institution as at least to Warrant all his irregular Proceedings by a shew of its Authority For though he endeavour'd to carry all things by force and violence yet he never attempted any thing without a pretended Council This was the Interval of time in which the Ancients complain of his invading the Power of the Church and as it were by these wild Practices thrusting himself into the Evangelical Priest-hood Thus was it in the year 355 immediately after the mad Council at Milan when the Dialogue between the Emperour and Liberius Bishop of Rome pass't in which Liberius insists upon that one Proposal that the Emperour would be pleased to call a free Council and not over-aw it by his own Sovereign Power Let there be an Ecclesiastical Synod Summon'd but not to Court where neither the Emperor himself nor any of his Lords or Judges commands by threatning but where the fear of God alone determines all things And for sticking to this Proposition and refusing to act in an Ecclesiastical Sentence till it was granted he is sent into banishment In the same year and upon the same occasion it was that the wise Hosius gave him that famous advice Tibi Deus Imperium commisit nobis quae sunt Ecclesiae concredidit Et quemadmodum qui tuum Imperium malignis oculis carpit contradicit ordinationi divinae Ita tu cave ne quae sunt Ecclesiae ad te trahens magno crimini obnoxius fias neque enim fas est nobis in terris Imperium tenere neque tu thymiatum sacrorum potestatem habes Imperator God has committed the Empire to you the Church to us and as he would rebel against God that should malign your Authority so take heed left by drawing the Affairs of the Church to your self you prove guilty of the same Rebellion for as it is a sin in us to challenge any temporal Authority so know O Emperor that you have not the power of the holy Function This was plain dealing and but necessary at that time when he had made so foul an inrode upon the Jurisdictions and Liberties of the Church and overborn all its Divine Authority by Military force and sury So that his meaning was not as the Romanists would have it to cut off the Emperor from all interposing in Church Affairs because he that had been so much employed in them under Constantine could not think it unlawful in it self But though that be no fault but a duty yet to use his Authority with meer force and violence to destroy the Judgment of the Governors of the Church by compulsion in matters of Faith and to take upon himself the determination of them as he had in effect done and that in contradiction to the Authority of a General Council was such a bold contempt of our Saviour's Institution and such an Invasion of the rights of his Kingdom that the good Bishop could do no less then threaten it with the Terrors of the last day About the same time St. Hilary address't his Apology in behalf of the Catholicks to the Emperor where among divers other abuses that he Petitions to be redress't this is none of the least Provideat decernat Clementia vestra ut omnes ubique Judices quibus Provinciarum administrationes creditae sunt ad quos sola cura solicitudo publicorum negotiorum pertinere debet à religiosa se observantia abstineant neque posthac praesumant atque usurpent putent se causas cognoscere Clericorum innocentes homines variis afflictationibus minis violentià terroribus frangere atque vexare That was the deplorable State of the Church at that time that the Emperor's Prefects and Officers took upon them a Power of Summoning the Orthodox Clergy to their Tribunals to give an account of their Faith and to banish them if they refused compliance with the Emperor's Will and not only so but to take the Accusations of their Enemies against them and right or wrong and without any regard to Justice or understanding the merit◠of the Cause inflict upon them their own Arbitrary punishments This just
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
lies at the bottom of all this witty Authors folly and Philosophy it must be confessed that there can be no Ecclesiastical Power over the Christian Church either in the Clergy or any Man else because upon it there is neither Christian Church nor Christian Religion and then it is certain that there can be no Power over nothing So vain are all the Attempts against that Authority that our Blessed Saviour has granted to the Apostolical Succession that it cannot be removed by any other Principles then what directly overthrow Christianity it self upon those Terms it must be parted with but upon no other And though Mr. Hobbs speaks out more boldly then his Neighbours yet all the followers of Erastus and all that will own â— certain Form of Government establisht in the Church by Divine Right cannot avoid the Church of Leviathan And therefore to proceed with him as Fore-man to speak for all the rest it is evident that beside the Authority by which the Apostles and their Successors act every act that they are enabled to by their Commission is in its own Nature and as such an Authoritative Act. First such is the power of Preaching and Teaching i. e. the power of publishing the Laws of the Gospel to all Nations and requiring all Mens Obedience to them under the sanction of the greatest Rewards and Penalties And if Mr. Hobbs can affirm that exacting Obedience upon such terms be no piece of Authority it is in vain either to reason with himself or any other Man of his Kidney or Understanding But he proves it to be so because The Apostles were Preachers and Preachers are Cryers and Cryers have no right to Command Among the many bad qualities in this Author's way of writing his contempt of other Mens understandings is none of the least for if he had not a very low Opinion of their intellectual Abilities he could never have presumed to impose upon them by such childish pretences And the truth of it is he talks not as if he discoursed to Men but to Magpies Parots and Jackdaws that are to learn to chatter his Dictates by Rote For is it not a strange grossness of Confidence that when our Blessed Saviour came from God to publish a new Law to the World and enforce it with the severest Penalties and when he gave the same Commission to his Apostles that himself had received from his Father to publish this Law to the World though they do it with all this Authority to infer that they do it with none at all because when they declare their Message they open their mouths as Cryers do when they make Proclamations and so the original Word signifies any kind of publick Declaration And what if it were the proper term for the Cryers Office it may for all that in common Speech be applyed to any other way of Publication it will be hard to find out any one word in the World so severely stinted to its original Import However every School-boy could have inform'd the old Philosopher that this word is not so confin'd and that it is not is evident from the very passage it self because the Apostles that are said to Proclaim or Cry the Gospel to all Nations do not make a simple Proclamation but require Obedience to what they publish under the most forcible obligation of Rewards and Punishments And such Proclamation as that whatever the term Proclaiming may signifie in its naked sense brings with it as much Authority as it is possible for Government to put in practice But he farther affirms in proof of no Authority in the Church That the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our School-Masters and not our Commanders But beside that this is an Arbitrary Assertion of his own devising to assign them the Office of School-Masters for the Scripture no where does so The Authority of a School-Master is some Authority for though he have not the Power of the Sword he has that of the Rod and that is as effectual for his purpose among Boys as the other among Men. So that there is no Logique in the Argument neither can I believe so witty a Man to have been so weak as to have brought it for that purpose but rather because he thought the comparison was a witty slur upon Christianity as if it were as childish and contemptible an Office to instruct men in it as it is to teach Boys and Children their Elements of Speech That is a shrewd hint though the next comparison is much more poinant That our Saviour compares Preaching to Fishing i. e. to winning Men to Obedience not by coertion and punishing but by perswasion and therefore our Saviour calls not Apostles hunters of Men but fishers of Men. Now though his endeavour to prove that there is no Authority in the Officers of the Church because they have no Civil Authority is altogether vain and trifling because he only presumes what no Man will grant him that there is no other Authority in the World yet here his way of demonstration is somewhat more then usually pleasant viz. That they were endued with no power of Coertion because our Saviour has constituted them not his Huntsmen but his Fishermen Where I think it would require the Acuteness of Mr. Hobbs's wit to make it out why there is less Coertion in Fishing then in Hunting especially in Net-fishing which was their former Trade to which he knows our Saviour there alludes when this mighty difficulty is cleared up I may come to understand the force of the Argument but till then I must confess it is above my reach But hitherto it is evident that notwithstanding all this Gentleman 's Grammatical Demonstrations from Cryers School-Masters and Fishers that the Commission granted to the Apostles and their Successors to preach the Gospel did not only carry proper Authority in it but the highest sort of Authority because enforced with the greatest Rewards and Penalties and that every man knows is the very Life and Soul of all Power The next branch of their Commission is to Baptize in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and though the Philosopher would here make himself merry not only with the Sacrament but with the Holy Trinity in whose Name it is Administred yet after all his pains to prove it no Authority he fairly confesses That it is an Authority either to Baptize or refuse to Baptize because Baptism is the Sacrament of Allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God But certainly if they have Power to grant or deny them this Sacrament i. e. to receive them into the Kingdom of God or shut them out of it if there be any such thing as Power in the World there cannot be a greater then this And consequent to this Authority he says is the Remission and Retention of Sins or the Power of Loosing and Binding and for this I must confess he gives a pertinent reason for so he is
forced to do sometimes meerly by the truth of things against his own petulant design For seeing to Baptize is to Declare the reception of Men into Gods Kingdom and to refuse to Baptize is to declare their Exclusion it followeth that the Power to declare them cast out or retained in it was given to the Apostles and their Substitutes and Successors And so it does unavoidably for they being received upon certain conditions those that received them upon promise of performing those Conditions must have a standing and perpetual Power to judge of their performance and accordingly either to continue them in the Church or Kingdom of God or cast them out But would not one take the Man to be bereft of his Wits that should rave and talk of nothing but the Authority and Power of these Acts whilst he is eagerly disputing against their being Acts of Power and Authority Such is the inconsistency of Mr. Hobbs's rovings and how can he help it whilst he would make the Testimony of the Gospel to destroy Christianity it self for that is the folly of his undertaking in the Leviathan that he would make the Christian Faith appear a forgery and prove it so by the Scriptures A contradiction so round as could never have met in any Mans head that had not squar'd the Circle and Demonstratively proved from one and the same Topick there must and that there must not be a God Both which he hath confidently undertaken and in his opinion perform'd and I believe may sooner do it then prove the greatest Acts of Power in the World to be no Acts of Power at all But after Mr. Hobbs has in spight of himself granted all that Authority to the Church that he would deny and that the Church can demand his next work is to render it useless and ridiculous For first he would place it in the People but that I shall not at present dispute with him or any other that deny the distinct Power of the Church for whether it be in the People or not is all one to their Assertion that it is no where and the Seat of it is another question that supposes its being somewhere Only by the way it is observable how Mr. Hobbs through his whole Book shelters his Prophaneness under the then Reigning Principles of Independency and the truth is that wild Confusion of things is a fit Protection for all sorts of folly and wickedness For when the Rabble are made Supreme Judges in any Cause as they are by the Independent Principles of all Causes both in Church and State that is breach wide enough for the Trojan Horse to enter and leaves the Government of both at the mercy of all manner of Madness and Sedition For the whole mystery of the project concludes in this to leave every Man at liberty to do what he pleases without being accountable for his actions to any Superiours and that is in express terms to abolish all Government and even break up Families themselves But though it be advantage enough to subvert the Government it is much more to invert it For all Resolution of Government into the People sets the Feet upon the Head and the part govern'd above the part governing And the result of it when reduced to practice is to set up one Great and Royal Slave as a mark for the Insolence of the Multitude And whenever they are put upon it by Ambitious Men to challenge their original Soveraignty if the Prince have the ill luck to fall into their hands they will be sure to treat him with a more haughty barbarity then they would any other ordinary Person thereby to shew the greatness of their native Power And the wretch that durst be so impudent as to spit in his Sovereign's face perhaps would have scorn'd to have offer'd the same Indignity to a fellow-subject that had been but a common act of Power and only an affront to an equal but to offer so great an indignity to a Sovereign Prince was truly becoming one that understood the native greatness of his own Birth-right being by the original right of Nature a more absolute Prince then the greatest Monarch in the World of the Peoples Creating So that upon these terms of putting the Supreme Power into the Hands or the Heads of the People 't is to tell the Subjects that no Man has any Right or Power to Govern them but as themselves think good to be Govern'd that is in a word that they are under no Government at all But secondly Mr. Hobbs is not content with setling this Sacred Power in the prophane Rabble unless he make it more idle and ridiculous as a Power of no use and effect in it self because says he Excommunication which is the only Penalty by which it abets it self is of no effect upon an Apostate having nothing of Damage or Terrour in it not of Terrour because of his unbelief nor of Damage because in times of Persecution he is return'd thereby into favour with the World And in the World to come is in no worse Estate then they which never believed It is an hard task to struggle against common Sense it forces a Man in every breath to choak himself with swallowing his own words Thus here by Excommunication he tells us That a Man is put into an Estate wherein his sins are not forgiven and so excluded the Kingdom of Heaven As great a punishment as can be inflicted upon humane nature if there be any punishment in Hell and yet according to Mr. Hobbs it is none at all if Men will not be afraid of it But whether they will or will not if Christianity be not a Lye which though he believed not he could not suppose for the Discourse if it be any thing proceeds all along upon that supposition the punishment is the same in it self and has naturally the same effect And if some Men at present are so hardy as to despise it as some are to out-brave all the punishments of this World till they over-reach them yet when it comes to be actually inflicted they feel its smart as severely as the more timerous and cowardly Offenders But when he subjoins that it can be of no effect in the World to come because it puts them into no worse Estate then they had been in if they had never believed Is not that a Condition bad enough When by his belief he obtain'd Remission of his Sins and a Right to the Kingdom of Heaven and when by his Apostacy he is returned back into a State of Condemnation And is the difference of these two States so small that the loss of one should be no Damage and the suffering of the other no Punishment But beside this the State of Apostacy is much worse then that of Infidelity because Apostates sin more or less against the Convictions of their own Conscience and that is the highest Aggravation of all sins whereas Men may remain in Infidelity through negligence â—â—r want
Christian but was antecedently and inseparably annex'd to the Sovereign Power And therefore 't is but a vain distinction that Mr. Hobbs makes of the Ecclesiastical Power of Princes before and after the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns When before it they have all a right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace that being inseparably annex't to all Sovereign Power and after it they have no more as Sovereign Princes And then if the Ecclesiastical Power rested in the Apostles and their Successors before the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns it must do so ever after for they could not lose that Power that was left them by our Saviour any other way but by his own actual transferring it to another which he having not done it continues as and where it was first setled So that Sovereigns as Christian as they lose no Power they gain none their Power is in both Cases Supreme from the nature of Sovereignty But beside all this because they have a right to judge of all things as far as they concern the Civil Peace it is an inference that only becomes Mr. Hobbs's Principles to conclude that this gives them a power of judging what is fittest to promote the Salvation of their Subjects Souls in the World to come And yet that is the true and proper Province of Ecclesiastical Power so to guide and govern the Church in this World as to bring the Members of it to Heaven hereafter And that is somewhat more then meerly to provide for the Civil Peace and therefore a right to that cannot give any right to this especially when it is by express Commission settled in another order of Men. All True Religion is indeed very serviceable to the Interests of Peace and Government and so far it concerns the Civil Power as such to abett its force with Civil Laws But then it has a much farther prospect into the World to come and the care of that is committed by our Saviour to a particular Order of Men Consecrated to that Office How this Power comes not to interfere with the Civil but is subject to it will be shewn in the next place but our present business is only to assert its Right And that is so apparent from the whole design and nature of Christianity that it cannot subsist without it For if our Saviour enacted the Christian Law and founded the Christian Church not by Civil but Divine Authority if he Instituted the Apostles and their Successors to govern it then their Right of Government stands upon the same bottom with the truth of Christianity And if it be true that the Christian Church was planted in the World by Divine Authority it is as true that they have a right to Govern it by the same Authority This is so undeniable to common Sense that Mr. Hobbs has no way to avoid it but by denying our Saviour's own Supremacy at present in that his Kingdom is not to begin till after the Resurrection But beside the falshood and the wickedness of the Assertion whereby Christianity is made of no force or use in this World in that no Man can be obliged to obey its Precepts because our Saviour has not power to make it Law till he enters upon his Kingdom and that is not till after the end of the World Beside this I say who could think that any Man that reads the Gospel could be so extravagantly foolish as to dream that it was not intended for present Obligation and that no Man is bound to obey any part of it before the day of Judgment when that day is appointed on purpose for the distribution of Rewards and Punishments according to Mens discharge of their Duty towards it Mr. Hobbs would in my Opinion have asserted with much more modesty that God Almighty had sent his Son into the World upon a sleeveless Errand though that is as rank Blasphemy as can be vented then with so much formality go about to prove out of the Holy Scriptures themselves that his coming into it is to no purpose because it takes no effect whilst the World lasts This is to fasten upon the Almighty such another piece of folly as his Politiques have run himself into in another Case when he tells the World that the serious belief of Religion is necessary to Government and yet that all Religion is nothing but an Artifice of State and then it is really no Religion nor can be seriously believed and so can do no service to Government So here he makes God himself to send his Son into the World to publish a Law by Obedience to which Men may purchase to themselves a State of Salvation in the World to come and yet at the same time makes the same God to declare that this Law for the publication whereof he sent his Son into the World is of no force in this World to which it was publisht and that no Man whilst he lives is under any obligation of Obedience to it Upon this supposition would not any Man conclude that our Saviour might very well have spared all his pains and not have been in so much hast and put himself to so much trouble for Enacting a Law to no purpose but rather to have deferr'd its publication to the next World in which it was to Commence its Use and Obligation But the true Consequence of this Evasion is a clear Demonstration of the distinct power of the Christian Church when there is no way to take this away but by abrogating our Saviour's own Authority For if all Ecclesiastical Power be in the Civil Sovereign then he has none and so Mr. Hobbs to be consistent with his Principle says he has not while there are Civil Sovereigns in the World But if he have any he has power to Depute what Officers he pleases and by virtue of their Deputation they have a Power as independent upon the Sovereign Power as that Authority from which their Power is derived So that to take away the distinct Power of the Church as it was settled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors is in plain terms to deny his Power as well as theirs For if they had a right to it at first by his Grant and if his grant be of any Validity they have the same for ever So dangerous a thing is it if Men would seriously consider to disown the Authority of the Church it is no less then renouncing our Saviour's own Authority And I am confident no Christian Prince would ever accept of any Supremacy of Power upon such terms and yet if he challenge to himself though but a share of that Power that our Saviour has left to the Apostolical Succession he must plainly invade that original Authority in our Saviour himself from whom they hold it So thaâ—â—hough we could suppose any Prince so prophane as Mr. Hobbs would make all Princes yet we cannot imagine any Man so impudent as to take up his Supremacy upon no better terms then
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
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
insolentiae tuae agere vel serò paenitentiam caeperis si Deo Christo â—jus plenissimè satisfeceris communicationis tuae poterimus habere rationem manente tamen apud nos divinae censurae respectu metu This was a singular Severity in so gentle a Person as St. Cyprian who allowed full Restitution to all other Offenders but in this case he does it with an If. And in plain truth the Nature of the Crime deserved it for it is an Eternal Subversion of the Peace of the whole Church if the Pride or the Peevishness of one single Man may be suffer'd to censure and condemn the practice of the whole Catholique Church For though this pique of Pupianus lay only against St. Cyprian yet he being as he tells him in Communion with all the Bishops and Churches through the whole World though the blow were aim'd at him singly it lighted upon all and the whole Church was equally involved in the Censure Which was then thought such a piece of Luciferian pride that it was by him placed next to the unpardonable Sin The passages in St. Cyprian to this purpose are innumerable and there is scarce an Epistle in which he does not expresly declare the Unity of the Catholique Church to lye in the Concord and Agreement of the Episcopal Colledge that was a Succession to the Apostolical between whom the Government of the Church was equally divided yet so as to agree all together in one Catholique Communion This is a thing so easily to be understood that I cannot but stand amazed to find Men of Sense Learning and Ingenuity pretend to be so dull as not to be able to comprehend how the Unity of the Church should be reduced to practice by way of external Policy when all the Lines of it are so plainly traced out in the Universal practice of the Primitive Church and particularly in the Writings of St. Cyprian It were easie to give a much larger account of it by transcribing almost all the Records of the Christian Church the chief Affairs whereof were all along transacted by this way of Epistolary Correspondence And therefore the best way of attaining knowledge in Ecclesiastical matters is not by following set and form'd Histories so much as by consulting particular Epistles in which we have a distinct account from time to time of the true Springs and Motions of all the publique Transactions of the Christian Church § 14. But because this Argument of Unity and Communion by way of external Polity in the Church is become a Controversie among some learned Men of our own Church though what I have already discoursed in general be more then enough or at least as much as is in it self needful to state the Case yet unless I assoil some particular Arguments that are at this time on foot notwithstanding all that I have said I shall leave some Readers under the power of great prejudices and those prejudices being maintain'd by the deserved Reputation of some good and learned Men they are not to be easily removed not otherwise then by particular Confutations The two great Men at first engaged in this Controversie are Mr. Thorndike and Dr. Barrow Men of equal value both for Modesty Learning and Piety Mr. Thorndike is peremptory for the necessity of one United Government in the Catholique Church The Dr. granting it to be a thing very desirable and in some rare cases practicable as when all Christendom was almost confin'd within the Roman Empire cannot conceive any Necessity of it or Obligation to it But with all due Reverence to the memory of so great and so good a Man I must make bold to say That however it comes to pass he answers neither his usual Acuteness or Ingenuity in this performance Probably it might have been an imperfect work and an Essay upon the Argument by way of exercise to himself or if he were serious and the discourse were the result of his own Judgment it will appear when I come to consider his way of discoursing it that he had by no means weighed the matter as he ought that he did not comprehend the Arguments that he undertook to answer that he was not consistent with himself but expresly asserts the Opinion that he endeavours to oppose Of all which unusual inconsistency in so Acute a Man I can give no other Reason then that his great Zeal against the Unity of the Catholique Church by way of Papal Monarchy Transported him so far as to make him forget that obligation to Unity and Communion that lyes upon all Churches under their several distinct Governments But whatever was the ground of his mistake his reasons only concern us and here to proceed Methodically I shall in the first place set down his Adversaries Arguments and his Replies upon them and then his own Arguments with my Answers to them And first he begins the dispute with an intimation of the want of perspicuity in his Adversaries Writings and this I know is a popular Objection and very much in the mouths of some Men who will by no means allow him to be an intelligible Writer though for what reason I cannot imagine unless that it is convenient for themselves that he should not be understood for if once Men were convinced of the true Constitution of any one Church by Divine Authority that would forever destroy all indifferency or pretended moderation between the several different Parties among us And if the Church of England be constituted by Divine Right then all that separate from it are both Heretiques and Schismatiques and all that join with it as the right Church and not meerly as the Church in possession are obliged to declare them so and endeavour to have them cast out of all Ecclesiastical Communion If indeed the difference were only about Rites and Ceremonies there might be some room for good nature but when the contest is about the Essential Constitution of a Christian Church as it was Established by our Saviour and his Apostles those that separate from it nay that endeavour with all their might to destroy it as our present Schismatiques do cannot but incur the utmost displeasure and severity of all honest Men that sincerely love it In such cases as these it is a contradiction to talk of terms of Accommodation And that is the reason why some Men that would keep fair with all Parties are so afraid of the Plea of Divine Right for the Church of England for if that be setled they are thereby obliged and determin'd positively to declare against the Schiâ—â— of all other different Parties And not to do it is to partake of their Sin and in effect to join with them in it for not to be for the true Church is to be against it our Saviour will accept of no such lukewarm and perfidious moderation In short Men that Communicate with the Church of England not as founded upon Divine Right proceed upon no other ground then that it is
the Church at present in Possession so that whatever Party has the luck to get uppermost that is the Church of England and then be it Popery Presbytery or Independendy we are Schismatiques if we separate from it For if there be no Ecclesiastical form of Government settled by Divine Law then none of these can be in themselves unlawful because nothing can be so but as it is against the Law of God for where there is no Law there is no Sin and therefore it is but a very mean piece of Service to the Church of England to assert the Lawfulness of her Constitution for if that be all and if it be not necessary too as establisht by Divine Right so are all other forms then all the difference is that the State has thought good to annex the Ecclesiastical preferments to this way but setting them aside the Separatists are as much the Church of England as our selves and if the State should be pleased to settle all the Emoluments of the Church upon Presbytery or Independency yes or Popery it self then all that is pleaded for the Lawfulness of the present Church of England will be as pleadable against it for the Church Triumphant So fatal and pernicious to the Being of a Christian Church is this Principle that takes away all Divine Right it blows up the very Foundations of the Church that can stand upon no other bottom then the Authority of God and lets Men loose from all other Obligations to Communicate with any Church then meerly those of courtesie and civility for the only reason it can lay upon them is to Communicate with the Church they live in is to do it for convenience and peace sake rather then to be troublesom otherwise they are lefâ— by the Law of God to be of what Church they please or if they please of none at all for if there be none by Divine Law they cannot be obliged to Communicate with any But of the ill Consequences of this fatal Principle I shall give a particular account in the Conclusion of this Design when after I have made good the true State of the Church I shall be able to convince all the different Parties of their Deviations from it and amongst the rest I doubt this Sect of Men will be found the most guilty of any of perfidiousness against the Catholique Church for they disown any such thing in all times and places and that is an offence of a more heinous Nature as well as larger Extent then when committed only against the particular Church of England Though the greatest aggravation of it is That it is taken up precariously without ground or shadow of Reason in defiance to all the Records of the Christian Church and that all its Pleas pervert them with more folly and grossness then the Romanists pretences for Papal Supremacy as will be shewn in due place In the mean time to return to our Learned Author and his complaint of Mr. Thorndike's obscurity that was taken up by him from a vulgar Opinion and that was first started by others chiefly to prevent the force of his Arguments for the Divine Right of Ecclesiastical Power It must be granted that there are some things in his Epilogue to the Church of England that cannot but create some difficulty to the less skilful Reader As first the very careless and uncorrected Impression of it whereby such a multitude of faults have escaped or rather passed through the Press as cannot but very much disturb and perplex the Sense especially when the mistake is committed as it very frequently is in the Particles of Argumentation whereby the plain coherence of the discourse is often lost and inverted both which being added to the obscurity of the stile it self which though it is intelligible enough to an attending Reader yet must be acknowledged somewhat dark and involved as usually happens to over-thoughtful Men and that seems to have been the case of this Learned Man his former Writings upon the very same Subject being much more plain and perspicuous But the thing that most of all puts the ordinary Reader to a â—oss is his frequent and large digressions for being a compleat Master of Ecclesiastical Learning he could not confine himself to his proper Argument but upon every turn runs out into other Subjects And the method of the connexion not appearing the common Reader loses the design of the whole To give an instance or two his chief Arguments for the Unity of the Catholick Church being taken from the Unity of Baptism and the Lord's Supper beside making out his Conclusion he enters into large Discourses concerning the Use and Necessity of Baptism against the Socinians and the presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharist and the Sence of the Church about it in all Ages against the Church of Rome and by that time the less diligent Reader has travell'd through these long Digressive Controversies he forgets the first Conclusion of the Unity of the Church from the Unity of right to these two Sacraments in it But if the Reader would distinguish between the direct Course and Tenor of the Discourse it self and these occasional Salleys the whole Method of proceeding would appear plain and perspicuous enough to an ordinary understanding And for the proof of this I shall only refer him to his first Book upon this Argument which was the substance and groundwork of his other larger Treatises And that is his discourse of the Right of the Churches in a Christian state In which keeping close to his Argument he has stated this and all other matters that he tâ—eats of with that clearness and coherence of Reason that whoever will be at the pains to run through that little Book can never complain of any Obscurity in his following Writings Thus in his first Chapter he lays the Foundations of the one Catholick Church upon the right of holding publick Assemblies for the Worship of God by Divine Authority upon which he infers the power of the Keys and from thence the power of granting Baptism which suppose a settled Authority of taking into or casting out of the Society of the Church and unless those that are taken in are taken into the whole Society and those that are cast out are cast out of the same they are of no effect to the purpose to which they are design'd For unless a Man that is baptised in a particular Church have a right of Communicating with the whole Christian Church if he change his Habitation he must leave his Christianity behind him or his right of holding publick Assemblies in the Church And unless a man that is Excommunicate in a particular Church be thereby cast out of Communion with all other Churches it is but changing his Habitation and he that was cut off as a corrupt Member from the Body of Christ shall elude the just Sentence of the Church and not withstanding his Excommunication have as full a right to all Christian Priviledges as if
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
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
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
taken into Protection by the first Christian Emperours knowing how much it will endear the Church of England to Your Majesties Royal Care and Kindness when you discern its exact conformity to the first Constitution in all things but its Suffering And now I cannot pray for more happiness to Your Sacred Majesty then they comprised in a Collect for their Heathen Emperours under all the Storms and Outrages of Persecution That Almighty God would grant You a Long Life a Quiet Reign an Undisturbed Family Valiant Armies Faithful Councellors and Loyal Subjects That all things may fall out as successfully as Your Royal Heart can desire That Your Empire may ever increase and flourish And that the Lineal and Legal Succession of Your Royal Family may inherit Your Imperial Throne through all Succeeding Ages Which is the daily Prayer of Your Majesties Most Humble and Dutiful Subject S. P. The Contents § I. THE Introduction representing the seeming difficulty of the Argument from the niceness of the Controversy it self from the partiality of the Writers engaged in it and from the just jealousy of Superiours about it and yet nothing more easy to determine to the Satisfaction of all Parties concern'd and particularly to the advantage of Soveraign Powers Pag. 1. § II. Christianity supposes the power of Princes Our Saviour disclaims all Temporal Authority and all exemption from it to those that have it To pretend to any such thing by any grant from him is to renounce him and turn Mahumetan Christ as he is Head of his Church is subject to Sovereign Powers pag. 10 § III. The Power of Princes over the Church supposes the Power in the Church it is no Spiritual but a Civil Power over the Spiritual to deny the Authority of the Church in all Ages is to take away our Saviours own Authority all the several branches of his Commission to the Apostles proved against Mr. Hobbs to be Authoritative pag. 34. § IV. No Church-Power but what is conveyed from the Apostles by Ordination The Supremacy of Princes is the same whether Heathen or Christian Princes neither gain nor loose any Power by their Christianity Mr. Hobbs that he may destroy the present Power of the Church is forced to take away our Saviours own Power over it in this present World pag. 56. § V. The danger of a competition between these two Powers wholly avoided by the Churches Power being founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross. The Doctrine of the Cross explained pag. 65. § VI. The Rights of Sovereign Princes secured and improved by divers particular Laws of the Christian Institution The folly of limiting the obligation of these Laws to such Governours as govern by Law demonstrated against Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Baxter pag. 77. § VII Submission to the worst of Princes proved much wiser and much more advantageous to the Interest of the Subject then the liberty of Resistance or Rebellion in any case whatsoever Barclay's Concession of its being lawful in any case shewn to be an inlet to the subversion of all Governments in all cases pag. 109. § VIII Those that are trusted by our Saviour with the Government of his Church are tyed by him to a particular and exemplary submission to Civil Authority They are not forbidden the exercise of power but the haughty and insolent use of it The Church of England consists not in its Laws but in its Authority to Act Laws pag. 126. § IX The Primitive Churches practice of Passive Obedience No Canons against Rebellion because it was then never committed The Church careful to secure all mens civil Rights Canons to secure the Rights of Masters over Servants The Doctrine of Universal submission taught in the Greek Church by Policarp Justin Martyr Athenagoras Theophilus Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria p. 140. § X. The same Doctrine taught and practised in the Latin Church by Irenaeus Tertullian Minutius Foelix St. Cyprian It was not lawful for Christians that were banish't for their Religion to return home without leave of the Government To say this Doctrine was then taught because they wanted strength is to call them Knaves and Villains The blasphemy of the Independants in justifying their Treason by pretending to Inspiration from Heaven This done by John Goodwin and J. O. pag. 153. § XI The strictness of Government in the Church kept up to the height all this Interval notwithstanding their entire submission to the power of the Empire The necessity of a Legislative Power to the Being of a Church The Government and Discipline of the Primitive Church exemplified from the Apostolical Canons pag. 169. § XII The State of the Primitive Church collected into one view out of the Writings of St. Câ—prian with an account of the birth growth and death of the Novatian Schism His first Principle of Unity is the duty of Communion with the Bishop in every particular Church pag. 198. § XIII His second Principle of Unity is the Obligation upon all Christian Bishops to keep up correspondence and Communion among themselves pag. 227. § XIV Mr. Thorndike's Notion of the Unity of the Catholick Church by way of External Polity vindicated against the Objections of Dr. Barrow and the Doctors Treatise concerning the Unity of the Church confuted pag. 236. Part. II. § I. THe Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Power under the Reign of Constantine the Great in the Cause of the Donatists and Arians An account of the History of the Donatists from their beginning to the Council at Rome under Melchiades pag. 265. § II. A Chasm discovered in Optatus from the Council of Rome till after the Council of Arles The Sentence of the Council of Arles against the Schismaticks Their Illegal Appeal to the Emperour His resentments of it The Forgery of Ingentius against Foelix of Aptung discovered Constantine's Sentence against them at Milan without accepting their Appeal pag. 285. § III. Constantine's Proceedings against them But forced to grant them Liberty of Conscience upon his War with Licinius Their insolence upon it Their Case parallel with our present Schismaticks pag. 300. § IV. A Character of Donatus the Great and his Circumcellians Their behaviour towards the Emperour's Commissioners Their Flatteries of Julian pag. 307. § V. Their divisions and subdivisions among themselves Their Outrages and siding with Gildo the African Rebel Their disingenuity publickly exposed both by the Emperour and the Church The Imperial Laws against them and their great Efficacy Liberty of Conscience again granted them upon the Invasion of the Goths pag. 316. § VI. An account of the Conference at Carthage before Marcellinus The Donatists design in procuring his Murther The Faction forever broke by the effectual execution of Laws against them under Honorius p. 333. § VII The History of Arianism from its beginning to the end of the Nicene Council Eusebius of Caesarea and Petavius vindicated from suspicion of the Heresie Eusebius of Nicomedia and his Faction no Arians p. 348. § VIII After the Council
only Arius two Bishops and two Presbyters stood to the Arian Cause All the following troubles proceeded from the revenge and malice of the Nicomedian Eusebius His Plot against Athanasius by Ischyras and the Meletian Evidences The brutish and barbarous proceedings against him at the Council of Tyre pag. 370. § IX By what Stratagem the banishment of Athanasius and the Restitution of Arius was procured The fabulous reports of Philostorgius and Sandius Constantine's innocence clear'd as to the sufferings of Athanasius and the Charge of Arianism pag. 390. § X. Of the division of the Empire between the Sons of Constantine The Controversie under Constantius not managed between the Catholicks and Arians but the Catholicks and the Eusebians pag. 409. § XI The mystery of the crafty Proceedings of the Council of Antioch against Athanasius discovered his Absolution at Rome Pope Julius his Letter and Eusebius his death pag. 421. § XII The sufferings of Paul of Constantinople from the Eusebians An account of the Councils of Sardica and Philippopolis The craft of the Eusebians in dividing the Council pag. 441. § XIII The Issue of both Councils Athanasius his triumphant Restitution By what Calumny his second banishment was procured The wild Proceedings of Constantius at the Council of Milan pag. 451. § XIV The banishment of Liberius and Hosius The black Characters of the Ring-leading Eusebians Particularly describing the wickedness and cruelty of St. George of Alexandria pag. 465. § XV. The Photinian Heresie The Council of Sirmium against it It s right time stated against Petavius Made up of Eusebians Of the forged Creed of Valens in the name of the Council Of the Council of Ancyra Hosius vindicated from subscribing the second Sirmian Creed The ground of St. Hilary's mistake about it His Book against Constantius proved to be spurious Pope Liberius vindicated from Heresie but not from disingenuity pag. 476. § XVI Of the Anomaeans A Character of Aëtius Of the Conference at Sirmium and the reconciling Creed Of the Council of Arimnium Of Valens and his Conventicle Of the fraud and force put upon the Council pag. 502. § XVII Of the Council of Seleucia and the breach between the Eusebians and the Acacians The Emperour over-reach't by the Acacians Of the Banishment of the Eusebians Of the Acacian Council at Antioch Of the Fanatick Sects of the Massalians and Eustathians pag. 519. § XVIII The Power of the Church own'd though oppress 't by Constantius The great difference of his Reign before and after the Conquest of Magnentius All Councils before Free all after forced His ill Actings excused as proceeding from mistake not malice His great kindness to the Christian Church The Reigns of Constantine and Constantius compared Of the signal Loyalty and Passive Obedience of Athanasius pag. 533. § XIX Of the Reign of Julian his great zeal for Paganism His design to destroy Christianity by Liberty of Coâ—science The Church not only preserved but settled by the free use of its own Authority Of the Actings of St. Athanasius and St. Hilary for its settlement The Apostates fury against Athanasius for it The baseness of his Persecution The Passive Obedience of the Christians under it pag. 562. § XX. The gross impertinency of alledging their example to warrant Resistance supposing its truth It s horrible falsehood proved from the whole History of his Reign and their behaviour towards the Imperial Beard clear'd of all blame pag. 578. Errata PAge 33. Line 9. for a read any p. 42. l. 17. for a r. no. p. 80. l. 17. for effect r. affect p. 84. l. 22. for make r. makes p. 97. l. 2. for domini r. dominii p. 153. l. 9. for imminent r. eminent ibid. l. 25. for ought r. ought not p. 157. l. 4. for Castrian r. Cassian p. 163. l. 22. before sufficient strength insert want of p. 190. l. 29. for and r. as p. 241. l. 23. blot out is p. 254. l. 13. for Colledges r. Colledge p. 262. l. 25. for verity r. unity p. 272. l. 29. after sacrifice insert to p. 277. l. 19. after they insert are p. 294. l. 28. for factions r. fictions p. 306 l. 2. for whola r. whole p. 369. l. ult r. sanctions p. 392. l. 27. for the desired r. desired the. p. 410. l. ult for intrigue r. interregnum p. 470. l. 18. for ill-bred r. ill breed p. 491. l. 13. for in r. as p. 494. l. 23. for ferced r. forced p. 529. l. 24. for Photians r. Photinians p. 533. l. 7. for our r. once p. 537. l. 13. for lying r. flying p. 588. l. 4. insert though before they had PART I. SECT I. UPon the Dissolution of the Roman Tyranny under which all Christendom had groan'd for many Ages infinite were the disputes and controversies that were immediately every where raised about the true Constitution of the Ecclesiastical State and Government Some ouâ— of an over-vehement loathing of their late Bondage were out-ragious for its utter Abolition so as to leave every man to his own liberty and folly too to teach and practise what himself pleases in matters of Religion without being accountable to any Superior Ecclesiastical or Civil for any misdemeanours therein Others are as fierce to have all Ecclesiastical Officers though immediately Commission'd by our Saviour for the Government of his Kingdom through all Ages stript of all manner of Authority in the Christian Church and all Government of Religion vested only in the Civil Magistrate Others again were neither for its utter Extirpation nor confining the whole exercise of its Jurisdiction to the Secular Powers but for dividing it into its several Provinces assigning some part of it to the Clergy and some to the Civil State Because Religion being Instituted chiefly for these two great ends viz. The advancement of the present Peace and Welfare of Mankind in this World and their safe Conduct and Passage to the State of Bliss and Happiness in the World to come so far as it relates to the present quiet of humane Society it is but fit and necessary it should be subject to the Authority of the Supreme Powers over them whose proper Duty Trust and Office it is to provide for the settlement and preservation of the Publick Peace And therefore seeing that Religion has a prime and over-ruling influence upon that so as either to establish or disturb it by its good or bad management it concerns them in the first place to encourage such Doctrines and Principles as in their own nature tend to the Peace and Quiet of Government and to root out such false Notions as incline or induce men to any Turbulent and Seditious practices under any pretences or mistakes of Religion And if any such there be or if any such there have been nay if any such there can be it cannot be denyed by the boldest Libertines but that in such cases the Supreme Magistrate must be allowed power to defend himâ—â—lf and his Government against their Errors or Follies by
the force and execution of present Laws and Penalties But then as the Christian Religion aims at the future happiness of the Souls of men its Conduct and Government is left to a peculiar Order of men to whom its Founder has entrusted the care of Souls and for which they are accountable to him alone For seeing the Kingdom that he establisht was altogether different in its Constitution from worldly Empire Seeing he appointed Officers void of all Secular Power to preside over it by virtue of his own immediate Authority And seeing he has engaged a peculiar Providence to be assistant to them in the Government of his Church through all Ages the case is plain to all Men that believe his Institution that all Ecclesiastical Power whatever it is that concerns the welfare of Mens Souls in the World to come is entirely vested in the spiritual Guides and Governors of the Church It being therefore so manifest past all contradiction that in all Christian States there are and must be from the Nature both of Government and Christianity two distinct Powers the only difficulty will be so to determine the Bounds of â—â—ch that they neither interfere in the exercise of their Jurisdiction nor any way incroach upon each others Authority An undertaking that has been often attempted by learned Men but generally with that vehement biass and partiality either way that has made it a Controversie not for truth but interest For it being chiefly managed by Divines and Canonists in behalf of the Church and by Statesmen and Lawyers in behalf of the Common-wealth each Party have not so much endeavour'd to assign the real Bounds of Truth as to propagate their own Empire and Dominion And for this reason is it that the Writers of the Church of Rome so eagerly and universally advance the Ecclesiastical Power the omnipotent Soveraignty of which they settle in the Pope alone as to raise it above the Power of all Sovereign Princes and all the Powers of the Earth Neither are they content to make it Superior to all their Authority but swell it to that exorbitant Greatness till they swallow up all Empire into its Jurisdiction And for this very reason the learned that have generally opposed themselves to these high and wild pretences have as generally run into the other Extreme so as to take all Ecclesiastical Authority not only from his Holiness and his Court but from all Ecclesiastical Officers to whom it was consign'd by our Blessed Saviour to the utter destruction of any such thing as a Christian Church So that in this Partial and in reality Prophane way of managing this great Controversie they contend not about the true and just grounds of each Province but both fight for the possession of the whole In which way of waging War no other event of it can be expected then of that irreconcileable fewd between Hannibal and the great Scipio that either Rome or Carthage must be destroyed and the Empire of one intirely subdued to the Dominion of the other And though some very few have treated of these things with somewhat more temper and moderation so as to acknowledge some kind of Bounds to their respective Jurisdictions yet they scarce ever set and determine them with that Justice and Equality that the security both of Government and Religion requires but apparently warp to their own side as they incline to or depend upon the interest of the Civil or Ecclesiastical State And therefore that is the great and only advantage that I can ensure to my self above those many so very much more learned Men that have labour'd in this weighty Argument that I know my self to undertake it without being engaged by any prejudice or biassed by any Interest or hired by any Reward then purely the discharge of a good Conscience without which the highest pleasure and satisfaction that humane life can afford were not a tolerable thing but with it an ordinary State of life with health is a present Paradice and state of Happiness So that how much soever I come behind others and I am sensible of a very great distance in the advantages of Wit and Learning yet I shall give place to no Man in freedom and integrity of Judgment And that alone I am sure is enough to make me Master of my Argument for if Men would only consider the Nature of the thing it self and abstract it from interest and prejudice that alone would bring them into a right understanding of it But when instead of looking directly upon their Object as they ought they labour to squint and pervert their own Eye-sight it is their own sault that they lose its natural representation And this is the very thing that fills the World with so many disputes to so little purpose because Men in their Enquiries will not follow the guidance of things themselves whereas if they would but be pleased to do so the truth of every thing is as clear and visible to a diligent Enquirer as Light it self There is not any one Argument that is thought more intricate obscure and difficult then this that I am now undertaking and therefore it is for the most part baulkt by the Wise Men of the World as a point too touchy to be handled especially because such great and powerful interests are engaged in the Contest and they are sure to be jealous as they ought to be of their own Prerogatives and will hardly so much as endure to have them touched much less fetter'd and confin'd So that this dispute is not only supposed difficult but dangerous in that it is thought so hard a matter for the Undertaker not to incur some way or other the displeasure of his Superiours by his best and most honest performance And yet after all this wariness and wisdom if Men would but state the thing only as that states it self there is scarce any one Controversie that can be more safe or more easie then its determination For things are so wonderfully order'd by the wise Providence of God in settling Christianity in the World that by determining the power of the Church and State as they are determin'd by his own original Settlement both Parties may have their own utmost demands and particularly the Civil Power more then otherwise it could have demanded And I doubt not but before I have done to give satisfaction to the highest Pretenders either way especially on the side of the State without any invasion of the Churches Power To assign an inherent and independent Power in the Church distinct from that of the State and immediately derived not from the Prince but our Saviour and that I am sure is as much as the highest claims to Ecclesiastical Power can with any modesty or without rank dishonesty challenge But then this being granted I shall demonstrate That there is as full and unabated Supremacy in Sovereign Powers over all manner of Ecclesiastical Authority as if it had been entirely derived from their own special
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
appear at first view are clearly scatter'd by one very easie and obvious consideration And that is that the Christian Church as it is endued with no Temporal Authority or Power of the Sword so all the Authority that it has is founded upon the Cross of Christ and that obliges all that own it to a more entire and resign'd submission to Civil Government then Men could have been brought under by any other way without its Institution So that the Erection of our Saviour's new Kingdom within the Kingdoms of the Earth upon the Doctrine of the Cross is so far from defrauding Sovereign Princes of their Ancient Authority that it is its greatest improvement and inforcement but especially it makes the Power of Christian Sovereignâ— more absolute then all other Powers that are not Christian and even to these it raises their Soveraignty higher then it was before over all their Christian Subjects by binding them to a stricter Allegiance then their own Laws and of all other Christians those that have the highest Authority in the Church are obliged by their very Office to the most humble peaceable and absolute submission to the worst of Governments All which considerations render Christianity the most easie of any Religion in the World for compliance with the peace and quiet of Government And first as for the Notion of the Doctrine of the Cross it is singular to Christianity For all other Religions both of Jews and Gentiles had some Worldly interest twisted with them but our Saviour to avoid all mixtures of Hypocrisie abstracts his Institution from all considerations unless of the World to come And therefore first Erects his Kingdom not only without any Promise of any advantages of this life but to let his followers know what they were to trust to by the Principles of his Religion with a certain assurance of the loss of all the comforts of life and at last life it self So evident is it from the original Constitution of the Christian Church that it is so far from giving Men any claims of Worldly Interest that meerly as they are Christians they are obliged whenever they are called to it to renounce them all And this Doctrine lying at the Foundation of Christianity our Saviour was careful to settle it in the first place When he gives his Disciples their first Commission to preach the Gospel to all Nations that is the first Condition that he teaches them to require of all Proselytes He that taketh not up his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me i. e. He that takes not up his Religion upon condition of taking up the Cross too is no true Christian. By which expression of taking up the Cross is signified the under-going of all kind of Calamities of which the Cross was the greatest being the most shameful and most painful punishment that was used at that time And therefore Plato in his Description of a perfect good-Man that nothing shall fright out of his Duty and Conscience says of him that when he has suffered all miseries he will endure to be Crucified too So that the meaning of our Saviour's words is plainly this Let no Man expect any Worldly profit by following me and therefore not pretend that I gave him any ground for it but on the contrary such is the nature of my Institution that whoever will undertake it it must be upon no less condition then this that he be willing and ready to suffer all manner of Persecutions for it even the scandalous death of the Cross it self So plain is it that Christianity when it meets with any Opposition is to maintain it self by nothing but suffering to use no weapon but the Cross and Men that are indispensably obliged to such an absolute submission are sufficiently tyed up if any such thing be possible from creating any disturbance to the Civil State for what greater security can be contrived against that then that Men should be bound by the first Principle of their Religion with meekness and cheerfulness to resign up their Lives to the pleasure of the Government So it is in the case of Christianity they have nothing to plead but their own innocence and if that will not satisfie they have no Authority from our Saviour to upbraid the Power that condemns them and Remonstrate to the Justice of the Court but instead of that are obliged to undergo its Sentence as he did with all manner of meekness and silence Here is no disputing the Commands of Princes whether right or wrong nothing but absolute submission to their most unjust and illegal Proceedings much less any opposition to their most unwarrantable Commands nor any weapon of defence but laying down their Lives after their great Masters Example in submission to the Government This is the true and honest state of the Christian Church that every Man be faithful to the Laws of his Religion and if he suffer for it he shall be compensated with those Rewards that his Religion Promises and that is compensation enough for all that he can suffer in this World and if he take it not up with this condition it is not the Christian Religion that he takes up for it is no Christian Religion without the Cross. And so our Saviour has all along stated the matter upon all occasions And it being so stated it is easie to understand how in cases of the greatest competition both Powers so prevail at the same time as to attain both their respective Ends. For by it the Civil Power must over-rule as to all effects of this life and when it is to be thus gently submitted to in its most unjust Decrees that is a full security of the Peace and Quiet of this World and that is the proper end for which it was instituted And the Spiritual Power attains its effect as to the World to come i. e. the salvation of the Souls of Men by their Conscientious Loyalty to their Saviour and his Laws and that is all that it aims at and that every Professor of it ought to pretend to This is so plain and evident in the whole practice of the Primitive Church that one would wonder that any Man should ever dream that true Christianity could any way interfere with Civil Government For when the Powers of the World at that time particularly the Governors of the Roman Empire being under a mistaken apprehension that the new Christian Religion aim'd at Innovation in Government endeavour'd by all the methods of Cruelty to stop its progress the Christians who were all bound openly to profess their Faith and some of them to propagate it in publick notwithstanding all that bloody opposition that was made against it went on in their work without creating any the least disturbance to their Governors unless what they gave themselves by their own needless outrage against them For all that they did in their own defence was only to declare that how much soever they were displeased with the
prosecute more largely when I come to shew the Grounds and Reasons upon which this Duty of Universal Subjection is founded and these I shall demonstrate from the Use the Nature and the Original of Government that cannot subsist but upon its supposition And then I shall take an account of all the republican and antimonarchical Principles and shew that all their Hypotheses concerning Government first contrived by the Common-wealths-men of Greece stand upon no firmer bottom than meer fable and poetry and in particular that their fundamental Principle of deriving all Government from the People is built upon no wiser supposition then this That the World was once peopled with Men and Women that sprung out of the Earth both without a Creatour and without Parents And then in the last place shew that the Hildebrandinists of all Sects Bellarmine Suarez Mariana Lessius Becanus Boucherius and others on the Papal side Buchanan Junius Brutus Rutherford Mr. B. and other of the Presbyterian side all agree in this one Principle of deriving the Government from the People and make it the last pretence of all their pleas for resistance upon what account soever In the mean time I proceed upon the Authority of the Scriptures §. 8. That is the second advantage that the Christian Religion brings along with it for the security of Civil Government viz. the many Laws that it has injoyn'd to bind Subjects to an entire and absolute subjection The third is this That those that are entrusted with highest Authority in the Church are most severely forbidden to challenge to themselves any temporal power or dominion and strictly commanded to exercise their own jurisdiction with all manner of meekness and humility towards their Inferiours and an exemplary submission to their Superiours And this is a new Tye upon them beside all the former obligations from the nature of Christianity the doctrine of the Cross the Precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles in common to them with all other Christians to an entire and unreserved subjection Thus when our Saviour had constituted the Apostles supreme Governours in his Church he beats them all off from all Thoughts of worldly pride and ambition and instructs them to exercise their Power though it were so very great with that complyance and condescention as if they had in reality none at all For all our Saviour's Precepts to his Apostles to avoid domination relate wholly to the manner of exercising their Authority and not to the Authority it self as the Enemies to the Christian Church would force them to imply For that the Apostles were vested with true and proper Power is evident both from their Office all the Acts whereof we have shewn to be Authoritative and from our Saviour's own immediate Grant in which he expressly declares That he leaves to them and their Successours the same Power that himself had received from his Father So that if he had any real Authority at all so had they too and if they had none neither had he And therefore those several Texts that are usually alledged to take away the Power of the Church cannot be understood of any thing but the manner of its exercise without any pride or haughtiness and with all manner of gentleness and condescention to those that were under their Authority And if we take an Account of the particular passages themselves they will force us to take them in this sense and no other Thus when they were contending among themselves our Saviour calls them to him and tells them The Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise Authority upon them but it shall not be so among you But whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief or Ruler among you let him be your Servant even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Which words though they are alledged by Grotius in the Book of his Youth de Imperio against all manner of Authority in the Church beside that of perswasion which is none at all Yet in his Notes upon the Gospels he clearly shews the Vanity and the Falsehood of that Interpretation And no wonder when it is done so expressly by the Words themselves in which our Saviour shews his Apostles how they may observe this Rule by following his Example Now it is plain says he that it cannot be said of him that he had no Authority when he says of himself that he had all Power in Heaven and Earth and therefore it cannot refer to the Being of Authority it self but to its kind and the manner of using it That as he notwithstanding the greatness of his Dignity behaved himself rather like a Servant than a Lord and instead of imperious commanding his Subjects condescended to the lowest Offices towards them thereby to endear them to himself and the gentleness of his Government so should all Pastours and Governours in the Christian Church not insult and domineer over their Flocks not govern them with an arbitrary Power or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tyrannical dominion as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it nor enslave them to their own interest and insolence as the Roman Prefects did the Provinces particularly the Governours or Ethnarchs of Judaea who as Josephus informs us were known by the particular Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactours But to treat them with all gentleness and to be so far from using them like Slaves that they should rather behave themselves to them like Servants i. e. in short to mix nothing of Arrogance with their Authority And that truly becomes the Person and Dignity of a Christian Prelate as St. Chrysostom paraphrases upon it to be affable and courteous to be kind and gentle to be familiar and condescending to the meanest Persons this gains him respect with all Men and makes his Authority much greater then it would be without it Men will much more readily obey a Superiour that obliges more then he commands Whereas on the contrary says he if a Bishop be proud and surly or if rough and peevish or if when he ought to reprove he scold and braul or if when he should command he huffs or domineers or if he affect to be troublesome to his Inferiours and shew the greatness of his Power by nothing else then being pert and vexatious he justly exposes himself to the contempt of all Men loses the respect due to his Person and the Reverence due to his Place Nothing so odious or despicable as a Clown in any Authority but in Church Authority it is so offensive that the indignity of it is not to be express't it is so wide a contradiction to the Place and Office Now the sense of this Text being thus stated as it is by this Eloquent Father it fixes the meaning of all the rest thus when St. Peter exhorts the Pastors not to Lord it over God's heritage where it is all one whether
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
of the Primitive Church where we shall find the whole matter so fairly and so easily accorded that it is next to a miracle how it should ever be made so great a difficulty in these later times But it hapned in this as it did in most other things at the time of the Reformation that men saw themselves wrapt up they knew not how in woful Errours and Corruptions but did not and indeed as the World then stood could not immediately discover the true original state of the Church as it was at first setled by our Saviour and his Apostles and received into protection by Constantine and the Christian Emperours So that though they had Eye-sight enough and God knows very little would serve their turn to discern the follies and abuses of Rome they were at a loss how to fix the right Reformation and for want of the ancient Records of the Church that lay buried in dust and rubbish at that time could make but slow improvements in it So that before the true state of the Church could be clearly and fully discover'd most of them were setled in some way or other and after any new settlement it is very difficult to make any Alteration and therefore they continue in their first posture to this day But the Church of England at the very first Attempt resolving to reform it self by the Example of the Primitive Church and having the good fortune to retain the Apostolical form of Episcopal Government in subordination to the Royal Power set it self in a right way to Reformation And so as the state of things came to light by degrees brought its work to some competent Perfection For the Reformation of the Church after such an inveterate degeneracy must needs be a work of so great bulk and difficulty that it is an unreasonable thing to expect that it should be finisht at the first stroke So great a design as that must be a work of time and consideration to be reviewed and amended as the Master-Workmen shall find most convenient So as that they who had a Power first to begin it have an inherent right when ever they think fit to take an account of their own Work and if they find any flaws mistakes or defects in it to make them up by an after-care So that there must be a constant Power residing in the Church to enact or abolish Laws as it judges most serviceable to the present state of things And that is truly and properly the Church of England the Governours of it acting under the Allowance of the Sovereign Power by its establisht Laws and Constitutions with a constant power residing in themselves and their Successours to enact new Laws as they shall judge most beneficial to the Edification of the Church And it is a very crude notion of the Church of England as common as it is that it is to be found in its Canons Articles and Constitutions for that is only the Law and dead rule of the Church of England but the Church properly so call'd consists in its living Authority as setled by our Saviour by which these Laws were at first enacted and are or ought to be still executed and may in some cases be alter'd And that is the great difference between the Law and the Authority of the Church that one is alterable and the other is not The Authority of the Church may make new Laws and cancel old ones but that lasts the same for ever So that for men to talk of this or that Church without a particular form of Government setled in it by our Saviour's own Commission is to turn the Christian Church into a Chimaera and imaginary state of Fairies But as for the Church of England according to the design of its Reformation it consists of a National Synod of Bishops together with a select Convocation of Presbyters representing the whole Body of the Clergy in subjection to the Sovereign Power and in communion with the Catholique Church all the World over as far as it can be attain'd And this is contrived so agreeably to the Primitive Platform the Interest of Government the Nature of Christianity that there is little else defective in it then the honesty and the confidence to own it self and put its own Constitution into effectual practice But of that I shall discourse in its proper place §. 9. At present for the practice of the Primitive Churches Government within it self and as it related to the Civil State it must be consider'd in the two Periods before and after the Conversion of the Empire and by comparing the true face and posture of things in these two so different states we shall have an exact description of the Rights of the Church in all estates and conditions whatsoever But most of all of its easy complyance with the Rights of Civil Government in Christian States and of the safest way for Christian Sovereigns to govern and protect the Church within their Dominions without invading its inherent and unalienable Authority And then last of all I shall compare that Royal Supremacy that is acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England in Causes Ecclesiastical with the sense of the Ancient Church concerning the Authority of Emperours and with the Practice of Christian Princes in the Exercise of this Authority And by shewing their compleat Agreement shall from that Topick distinctly prove that we have in this as well as in other matters attain'd a good degree of Reformation First as for the Period of time before the Conversion of the Roman Empire there are two things to be consider'd first their behaviour towards the Civil Government whilst it supprest and persecuted the Christian Faith Secondly the exercise of their own Authority within themselves From both which it will appear that the Church as a Society founded by Christ challenged a Jurisdiction distinct from and Independant upon the Civil State and that this Jurisdiction was so far from interfering with or abating of the Sovereignty of Princes that it bound them to the strictest Allegiance and Subjection to the most inhumane Persecutors And the Story of this Interval whilst the powers of the Church and the World were separate and indeed as much as it was possible opposite will set before us a much clearer State of the Nature and Extent of the two Jurisdictions then we can have from the Practice of Christian States in which the two Powers concurring in the same Acts of Government it is not altogether so easie to discern their distinct influences but will withal give us the fullest Character of true Christian Loyalty from their practice under the hardest usage and severest persecutions But most of all from their Principles upon which they founded their Obligation to their Practice and when it appears upon what grounds and reasons they submitted to the utmost cruelty of the Civil Government that will prevent the common shift made by all Factious Parties against the Authority of their Example
confusions yet I know not by what blind and unhappy fate it is become a popular and a reigning principle among us All Innovators lay it at the bottom of their new Projects of Reformation it is the fundamental Principle of Grotius as well as all other Erastians Legislativam Potestatem jure divino non competere ecclesiae that the Church has no Legislative Power by Divine Right At present to say nothing to the falshood of the Proposition itself yet methinks Grotius who was so well acquainted with the Records of the ancient Church of all men should not have said it when it was so constantly both challenged and put in practice and that not only all the time before the Emperors became Christians but after But he was then a young man and the Book is written with great rawness and betrays lamentable want of consideration It is the very Foundation of all Independency that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governours of the Church upon the Members of it but what is clearly revealed in the word of God And that there is no other Rule of Unity then that rule prescribed by our Lord himself which is so far from truth so inconsistent with the Being of a Church that it is a meer contradiction to the Nature and the use of Government whose proper Office it is to make Provisions for the Peace and good Order of the Society upon all occasions by the common rules of Prudence and Discretion and such things it is necessary to leave to the judgment and determination of Men because their convenience and usefulness is alterable with change of times and circumstances and therefore must be left to the liberty of the Governors of the Church to impose or remove them as they shall judge most suitable to the present State of things This was the standing rule in the Primitive Church that points of Faith were unalterable and when they were once determin'd by the Judgment of the Catholick Church they were never after that to be debated but as for all Laws of Discipline they were alterable with change of times and circumstances And to name one for all Regula quidem fidei says Tertullian una omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis Hac lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis The Rule of Faith is always the same this alone is unchangeable and unreformable But as this remains forever so matters of Discipline and Government admit the Novelty of change and amendment So that next to the Fundamental Charter of being a Church this is the grand Principle of its Government that its Governours be endued with an Authority of imposing some things that are not required in the Word of God because the Church must be govern'd as all humane Societies are i. e. by men of common sense that have Wit enough to judge what is fit to be done upon any emergent cases and whose Authority is sufficient to oblige the Members of the Society to their Decrees and without it there could neither be Church nor Government So that this principle is so little suited to the state of Church-Purity as the Schismatiques pretend that it is only set up as an impregnable pretence for everlasting Schisms and Divisions For it was never started or so much as thought of till t'other day when the Puritan Faction for want of something more material to object against the Constitutions of the Church were forced at last to make this their main quarrel that they were not préscrib'd in the Word of God And as long as they were resolved to stand to that Exception they were secure in their Schism for it is an Objection not against the particular Constitutions of this Church but the practice of the Universal Church and the exercise of any power in all Churches of the World and therefore it being so good a Fund for Confusion it is for that reason so carefully nursed by the Independant Faction at this day it is the result of all J. O's Books about Schism because it makes all peace and settlement an impossible thing when there is no such rule of worship or discipline as is pretended by attending to which the Unity of the Church is to be preserved and therefore to refer us to a means of Peace that is not in being is to leave us remediless And if the Church may not make occasional Provisions to restrain some mens extravagancies and to settle good order all men are let loose to all the follies in the World and it will look more like a Bedlam than a Christian Church In short it serves to no other purpose then to be an everlasting pretence of Sedition when it takes away not only from the Church but from theCivil Government too all Authority of making any Laws for the settlement of Religion And yet this very Principle of Confusion this Darling of Independency this bulwark of all Schism is crept into the Church of England it self or some pretenders to it and is laid down by our Reconcilers and Peace-makers as the first Rule of Accommodation between the Church of England and the present Dissenters Though if it were admitted the different Parties would be so far from being taken into the Bosom or the Peace of the Church that it would only widen the differences and harden them in their Schisms For first the contest is not primarily about unscriptural Impositions but about divine Commands they contend that their Form of Church Government is of God's Institution and that the form now establish't in England is an humane Government set up against it and destructive of it this is the whole design of Mr. B's Treatise of Episcopacy and this has ever been the main controversie from the beginning of the Schism whether the Episcopal or the Classical Government were set up by our Saviour in the Christian Church for Men were not so unthinking in those days as to imagine he should set up the Society of his Church without setling any Government in it and therefore it is but an imperfect a partial and a treacherous account of the Separation to state the controversie only in Ceremonies when the main controversie has been from the beginning to this very day about a matter of Divine Right and therefore to take no notice of that in the History of the Schism is to intimate that as to that part of the controversie neither had the better of the other but they both equally contended about what never was and that all the blame of the Separatists is their refusing to submit to some lawful Impositions But that reaches not their cause the ground of their Separation is pretended Divine Law they must be beaten out of that or they must be let alone But secondly this Principle of accommodation by rejecting unscriptural Conditions of Communion would be so far from reconciling the Dissenters to the Church that it would only give up the Churches Cause
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
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-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
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
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
their zeal yet for what they never understood nor enquired Insomuch that the Leaders and Writers themselves that followed after were utterly ignorant of the Nature and the Rise of the Quarrel as Optatus plainly proves that Parmenian himself was though he was the Metropolitan of the Schism And in the Conference at Carthage under Honorius when they were only put to it to shew in what they differ'd from the Catholicks and upon what grounds they divided the Party was so amazed and surprized with their own want of Pretence that they were utterly vanquisht only because they could not tell what they would have But of the Progress of this Schism we shall account afterwards as for its Birth â—â— sprung from no better Original then Pride and Peevishness supporting it self with a bold and bottomless Lye Some few persons had in pursuance of their own private Piques and Passions set up a Faction against their Bishop and then to justifie themselves load him with all the foul Stories that they could invent no matter whether true or false that is all one to the Rabble who easily run away with any thing that is Factious or ill-natur'd and if they can but once get in numbers enough to make up a Faction all Factions are Snow-Balls The Story is this upon the death of Mensurius Bishop of Carthage Caecilian was chosen by the Majority of Votes to succeed against the competition of Botrus and Celesius and received his Consecration from Faelix Bishop of Aptung and some of the Neighbour Bishops of the same Province but from none of Numidia which Optatus says was done by the contrivance of the Competitors presuming to carry the Plurality of Votes but St. Austin says it was done in complyance with an immemorial custom that the Bishop of Carthage was always ordain'd by the Bishops of his own Neighbourhood but because he brings no proof of his Assertion I am afraid it is one of his bold and lavish sayings when he is in hast or distress for next to St. Jerom his loose and fluent way of Writing has occasion'd more mistakes in the Records of the Church then any other of the Ancients and men that are so voluminous and write so quick cannot avoid stumbling into multitudes of hasty and careless slips And therefore the Authority of Optatus is here rather to be followed that the disgust was taken by the Numidian Bishops because they were not call'd to the Consecration this is made the more probable by the peculiar state of the African Church for though other Provinces were Govern'd by their own Provincial Synods by whom their own Metropolitans were ordain'd yet this Church notwithstanding that it consisted of three Provinces Africa properly so call'd Numidia and Mauritania as they reckoned up in the Council under St. Cyprian about rebaptizing Hereticks kept so close a Communion among themselves as if they had been but one Province And we find them all along not acting apart but all together as one Common-Council And that I guess to be the Sense of the words in St. Cyprian's Epistle to Cornelius Latiùs fusa est nostra Provincia habet etiam Numidiam Mauritanias duas sibi coherentes Where the mention of the Mauritaniae duae is supposed by the Learned to have crept into the Text out of some Marginal Notes and so it must have done for there was no such division of that Province that we ever read of till Constantine's new division of the Empire and therefore the true ancient reading must have been this habet etiam Numidiam Mauritaniam sibi coherentes but take which reading we will St. Cyprian's plain meaning can be no other then this That beside his own peculiar Province of Africk properly so called of which Carthage was the Metropolis he had two other Provinces Numidia and Mauritania inseparably annex't to his Communion by which means he tells Cornelius that he was able to do him so great service in Africk So that the words are not to be understood as they commonly are as if he had been the Metropolitan of those three Provinces but that he was Metropolitan of that Province to which the two other were United in a particular Communion But to let pass these Critical Conjectures Caecilian is no sooner entered upon his See but he demands of the Presbyters of his Church the Goods that he found delivered to them in an Inventory left by his Predecessor Mensurius But they having embezell'd the whole Treasury of the Church and finding themselves in danger to be call'd to a severe reckoning joyn Faction with his defeated Competitors and conspire to renounce Communion with him To this Lucilla a Rich a Proud and a Factious Lady joyns her self her Zeal and her Money out of revenge to Caecilian who whilst he was a Presbyter had reproved her for some affectedness and singularity in devotion and that sort of People if once they are any way disobliged are of all others the most implacable and therefore St. Jerom puts her in his Famous Catalogue of Female Hereticks Simon Magus had his Helena Nicholas the Father of uncleanness a whole Regiment of Gossips Marcian sent a woman before him to Rome to prepare the minds of the People for receiving his Imposture Apelles had his Philumine Montanus by Prisca and Maximilla debauches the Women first with Gold and then with Heresie And to come nearer our own time Arius that he might deceive the World inveagles the Emperors Sister and Donatus that he might gain Proselytes to his Schism in Africk is assisted by the wealth of Lucilla These were the Amazons and the Penthesileas of their several Sects and by them we may see that it has ever been the Policy of all Impostors to put their main strength in their Female Forces knowing their Cause to be better maintained by noise and talk then sense and reason I remember Livy somewhere tells us that the Romans in times of great Pestilence and Mortality when they burnt their dead bodies not in single Urns but in vast Heaps and Piles were careful to intermix the womens bodies with the men as being more unctuous and combustible in themselves and so more apt to conveigh the fire to the other Corpses that otherwise would have burnt but slowly without them This is the very practice of the Incendiaries of the Church in all Ages when they would enflame the men into a Combustion they always first set fire on the women and when they would burn down the House they thrust the Firebrand into the Thatch that both easily takes Fire it self and certainly conveighs it to the solid Timber But to proceed in our History The party being thus cemented together by Ambition Covetousness and Revenge they write to Secundus Primate of Numidia to the otherBishops of that Province that were not invited to the Election and Consecration of Caecilian to depose him as having been ordain'd by a Traditor They met at Cirta afterwards call'd Constantina upon
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
measure of Peace and Unity Insomuch that great numbers of the Circumoellians themselves as St. Austin tells us were reduced Epist. 48. to Sobriety and here it is that he professes that though hitherto he had been an enemy to all Penal Laws in matters of Religion yet now he was quite baffled out of that Opinion not so much by Arguments as Examples and particularly of his own City that though it had been almost swallowed up with the Faction yet it was now so reduced to the Catholick Unity by the fear of these Imperial Laws that in a short time it so universally detested the Schism as if it had never had any footing or entertainment there How many says he that were engaged in the Party by Education and never consider'd upon what grounds they separated from the Church being awakened by these Laws to examine into the Nature of the Schism found nothing of moment enough in it for which they should expose themselves to so great Damages these were without difficulty made Catholicks How many that only followed the Authority of their Guides and understood not the difference between the Church and the Donatists How many that had been abused with Stories and false Reports of the Catholicks how many that thought it indifferent with which Party they sided give God and the Emperor thanks for frighting them out of their sloath and stupidity And that says he is the most proper use of Penal Laws to awaken men to a sight of their Error in which they have been detain'd by meer carelesness or wantonness and in all Schisms an affected Petulancy is ever the strongest Ingredient And so things continued in a quiet posture till the death of Stilicho in the year 408 but upon that the Heathens and Donatists that were all along one Party against the Catholicks raise a Report that the Laws against them were made and contrived Aâ—gust Ep. 129 ad Olimpium Comitem A Courtier whom he informs of the whole Business purely by the design of Stilicho without the Emperors consent and therefore as if their Authority had dyed together with their Author they break out into their old Out-rages against the Catholicks Which coming to the Emperors knowledge he immediately dispaches a Rescript to Curtius the Prefect of Rome De Hareticis leg 43. declaring that it was his Imperial Will that all the Laws against the Donatists Heathens and Hereticks should continue in full force strictly requiring him and all his Officers to put them in effectual Execution And this was followed by another Rescript to Donatus Prefect of Africa who obey'd it with that rigour that St. Austin was forced out of his meer good nature to write to him to spare their lives Ex occasione terribilium Judiâ—um ac legum ne aeterni judicii paenas Epist. 129. incidant corrigi eos cupimus non necari nec disciplinam circa eos negligi volumus nec suppliciis quibus digni sunt exerceri Sic ergo eorum peccata compesce ut sint quos paeniteat peccavisse Quaesumus igitur ut cum Ecclesiae causas audis quamlibet nefariis injuriis appetitam vel afflictam esse cognoveris potestatem occidendi te habere obliviscaris Upon occasion of the dreadful Laws and Executions against them we cannot but desire lest they should fall into everlasting punishment that they may be chastised but not kill'd that Discipline may be exercised upon them but that they may not be punish't with the utmost Justice that they deserve and therefore so correct their sins that they may not be past the State of Repentance And we beseech you that when you hear the causes of the Church though you will find it assaulted and oppressed with intolerable injuries forget then that you have the power of life and death But still the Emperour De bâ—reticis legib 45 46. proceeds with more vigour and the year following injoins the strict Execution of these Laws to his Officers and Judges under severe Penalties to themselves of loss of Place Fines and Banishment with a farther reserve of his displeasure And here he comes so close to the Schismaticks as not only to banish their Preachers but every one that shall but talk or dispute in behalf of the Schism And so by this means things continued quiet once more till the Invasion of the Empire and sacking of Rome by the Goths when Attalus sent an Army against Heraclian the Praefect for the Conquest of Africa and if he had Succeeded in it he had been compleat Master of the Western Empire In this streight either for fear that they should join with the Enemy or because they grew insolent in their demands as they did to Constantine in the time of the Licinian War the Emperor grants them liberty of Conscience for some time But being quit of the danger by the speedy Overthrow of the Goths in Africk he immediately dispatches a Rescript at the Request of the African Fathers who were already highly sensible of the mischiefs of this Liberty to the same Proconsul to reverse De hereticis l. 51. his former Decree that had been extorted from him by the necessity of the times and now probably being afresh incensed by their fawcy behaviour in his affliction makes the Schism it self Capital or to be punished paenâ proscriptionis sanguinis For before this time none were to be put to death but those that had deserved it by their Tumults Disorders and Infurrections but now the very frequenting their Meetings was forbidden under no less Penalty §. VI. But being now resolved to put an end to the trouble that they had given him from the beginning of his Reign he resolved in the first place to try if it were possible to do any good upon them by a friendly Conference which as himself says he did by the perswasion of the African Bishops and it was chiefly devised by St. Austin to undeceive the People For their Leaders still persisted to abuse them with old Tales and Stories notwithstanding that they had been so shamefully exposed an hundred years since but that was beyond the memory and by consequence the knowledge of the People and therefore St. Austin concluded that the most effectual way to reduce them was to let the People know what was done in Constantine's time in the Synods of Rome and Arles and before the Emperour himself at Milan and the shameful discoveries of their Forgeries about Caecilian and Faelix of Aptung by Ingentius the Notary and Nundinarius the Deacon And this he doubted not would make them see through the whole Cheat that had been put upon them from the beginning and forever expose the impudence and dishonesty of their Leaders Quod verò ante centum fermè annos Majores nostri cum iis Donatistis egerant jam populorum memoria non tenebat haec igitur necessitas compulit at saltem Gestis nostrâ Collatione confectis eorum contunderemus inverecundiam
the Rescript against the Donatists that was his whole and sole Commission And he pursued it so effectually that about thirty of their Leaders finding that there was no way left of being conceal'd and resolving neither to quit their Churches nor go into Banishment agree to murther themselves and so dye Martyrs and some of them burnt themselves with that mad resolution as put Dulcitius to a stand who therefore out of meer tenderness writes to St. Austin to know what he would advise him to do with such desperate people And he though he had ever been importunate to save their lives now returns this frank Answer That it is no great matter if the small handfull of Banditi who put the whole Woâ—ld into disorder perish by their own hands and when they are gone thâ— World will be at quiet And â—o ended this boisterous Schism that had wasted the Church of Africa for more then an hundred years For Baldwin and Baronius place the Ordination of Chaplain Majorinus from whence the Schism commences in the year 306 but Valeâ—ius more truely in the year 311 and it was in the year 414 in which they are rooted out of Africk by Dulcitius And though some small scatterings of it continued many years after even to the time of Gregory the Great as we find by somâ— of his Epistles which was near 200 yearâ— after this time yet after this time it was never considerable and we hear very little of them either in the Records of the Church or the Imperial Laws They are but once mentioned in a Law of Theodosius the next Emperour but then it is in a List of the whole Rout of Hereticks that ever were in which the same Penalties are inflicted upon all that were Executed by Honorius against the Donatists And it is observable that the Imperial Laws ever after followed the same method being convinced of its necessity by the experience of the thing it self so that though the Coercive Power of the Prince in abetting the Church had been own'd and used all along yet it seems not to have been throughly understood till after this experiment of Honorius upon the Donatists And thus have I shewn in this one Instance the natural Progress of Schism How little Leaven leaveneth the whole Lump so that a National Madness may be no more aâ— bottom then a Malt-house Conspiracy thirty or forty ill-natur'd men put all Africk into a distraction for above one hundred years and when they were removed out of the way those many thousands that were drawn in to follow their Frenzy were restored to their natural sense and sobriety So that if as small a number as those few that were so desperate as to destroy themselves aâ— last had been banisht at first all that trouble that this Schism gave the Empire had been certainly prevented and that is all that any Prince can â— gain by his kindness to such men thaâ— if he will not punish them at first they themselves will force him to do it at last §. VII As for the Arian Controversie though it were at first but a private dispute in the School of Alexandria that was then the only Christian University in the World yet it soon over-run the whole body of the Christian Church if we may believe St. Jerom who speaks thus of it Arius in Alexandria una scintilla fuit sed quia non statim oppressa est totum Orbem ejus flamma populata est And indeed it spread so suddainly that its motion was not so much like Fire as Lightning all the World was all in a flame in an instant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Socrates from which and the like passages Sandius according to his usual dullness and ingenuity infers that the whole World was become Arian and indeed St. Jerom gives some countenance to it by his lavish expression of totus orbis but he is so full of his whole Worlds every where as proves nothing more then that he was very much taken with the Grandeur of the Phrase neither does he apply it to the Reign of Constantine as this ignorant pretender to History does but of Constantius what strength it then had we shall see when we come to that time but under the Reign of Constantine as great Commotions as it occasion'd in the Christian Church it spread not much farther then some few of the Clorgy beside Women of the Church of Alexandria as will appear by the Progress of the Story which runs in order after this manner Arius and his Complices were upon Conviction Canonically proceeded against and cast out of the Church by their Metropolitan and Provincial Synod not only for the Heresie of their Opinion but the scandal and looseness of their lives as himself informs us in his Epistle to Alexander Bishop of Constantinople and beside his Epistles to divers particular Bishops he signified the Excommunication of the Arians by an encyclical Epistle to all the Bishops of the Catholick Church in the beginning whereof he excellently describes that Unity of Discipline that was then preserv'd in it Whereas we are taught in the Holy Scriptures that the Body of the Catholick Church is one that thereby we may keep the bond of Peace and Concord the more firmly it is but agreeable to this that we should communicate with one another by Letters that all may know what is done by every one that so we may all suffer and rejoyce together By which last Phrase the Ancients usually expressed the agreement of Discipline in all Churches in allusion to St. Paul's expression to the Church of Corinth in the Case of their incestuous Offenders This was the Custom of all Churches at that time though that dull Fanatique Arian Sandiâ—s represents it as done out of meer design and artifice to asswage the known displeasure of divers Bishops both against himself and his Opinion and not out of any regard to the Rules of Ecclesiastical Discipline of which this slovenly Historian seems to have had no sense or knowledge But this being done Arius instead of submitting to his Ordinary as he ought to have done by the Laws of the Church or appealing at least to a greater Council for relief against abuse of Discipline shelters himself under the Patronage of a Great and Powerful Prelate at that time Eâ—sebius of Nicomedia who contrary to all the Laws of the Church immediately receives him into Communion which by no means he ought to have done though Arius had been wronged For if that liberty be once admitted in any Case it breaks down the Bounds of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and therefore an Appeal from one Provincial Synod to another was never allowed of in the Primitive Church but in Cases of Grievance the only Appeal that lay was to greater Synods composed out of several Provinces so that when Arius took Sanctuary under Eusebius and he protected him against the Censure of his own Metropolitan and by his own Authority controlled
his Successor Achillas and then Alexander whom they prosecuted even into the Emperour's Courts and being thus versed and practised in Contriving Plots they now hook in Athanasius doing nothing strange to their old wickedness and though their Calumnies against their former Bishops proved ineffectual yet now at last they had their end by the assistance of the Eusebians With whom these Good Men as Mr. Baxter very prudently and feasonably for the Credit of his Party observes joyn'd Interest notwithanding that they knew them to be Arians just as if the Nonconformists at this time should seek by the favour of the Papists to be delivered from the silencing and destroying Prelates upon condition of Common Liberty the cases are not much unlike You may safely take his word for it and for the reality of the matter of Fact too and it is one of the fairest Confessions of Presbyterian Integrity that I have met with though it is not the only Knavish Plot against the Church of England that Mr. B's indiscretion has betrayed as will appear in its due place little to the reputation of some mens honesty who have been very busie without any Authority from their Superiours to Trim and Plot away every thing of the Church of England but its Revenues But the Plot being laid against Athanasius they first tell a blind Story of a kind of Nags-Head Ordination that he was privately ordein'd by no more then six or seven Bishops against the Vote of the Provincial Synod and the Suffrage of the People But this was right Mareotick dulness and was soon contradicted by all the Bishops of Egypt and all the Inhabitants of Alexandria who were so far from opposing his Election that they had almost run themselves into Tumults to hasten his Consecreation Then Stories are told of his Arbitrary exactions of Money from the People but Macarius one of his Presbyters happening to be present at the Tale informs the Emperor that it was nothing but an usual Collection to repair and adorn the Church Upon this Macarius is not long after Accused of Conspiring with Athanasius to send Money to Philumenus that was to murther the Emperor but they both appear at Constantinople and so satisfie him of their Innocence and the absurdity of the Accusation in that they had never known nor seen the Man for in former times Men that were Strangers to each other were not wont to enter into such Plots that if discover'd must certainly cost them their lives and therefore the Emperour being assured that they were no familiar acquaintance with the Traytor does not only acquit them but sends them home with commendatory Letters But these defeats instead of abating the impudence of the Eusebians do but more exasperate their rage and therefore they now resolve to stab home Eusebius having gotten a new Evidence fit for the purpose one Ischiras a debauch't pretended Priest that had foâ—ged his Holy Orders whom Athanasius in his lâ—st Visitation had deposed and forced to fly the Country he repairs to Eusebius and offers him his Service as an Evidence he receives him as a true Presbyter into his protection and gives him the promise of a Bishoprick if he will swear home against Athanasius he immediately Swears that Athanasius had Assaulted his Church though he never had any in an Hostile manner and that either himself or his Presbyter Mâ—cariâ—â— for he would not be positive as to Persons had in their rage overturn'd the Communion Table broke in pieces the mystical Cup so they call'd it to make it appear more terrible and burnt the Bibles But all this would proceed no farther then Deposition and therefore he adds that Athanasius had with his own hands murthered Arsenius a Bishop and shews a Man's hand that was cut off by Athanasius when the Fact was done and Arsenius himself being of the Confederacy was to abscond by consent till Athanasius was dispatched out of the way But so it happened very unfortunately that Ischyras his Conscience it seems Perjury in that Age was not grown to its full assurance misgave him so that he confessed the forgery of the whole Plot in a Letter to Athanasius himself subscribed in the presence of a great number of Clergy but the Caufe had been referred by the Emperor to Dalmatius the Governor of Egypt and before the Tryal Athanasius had the good luck to find out the murthered Arsenius and had him forth-coming at the Tryal and though at first he pleaded ignorance of himself and denyed himself to be the Man and would have sworn himself out of himself yet being Convicted by a cloud of Witnesses he confessed the Conspiracy and upon the shame of so clear a Conviction for modesty had not then quite left the Earth both he and John a Ring-leading Bishop among the Miletians confess all the Villany beg Athanasius his Pardon and the Communion of the Catholick Church This the good Man could not but think enough to secure his Innocence against the like attempts forever and therefore with all hast he dispatches away his faithful Presbyter Macarius to acquaint the Emperor with all that had passed and upon the information Constantine breaks up the Court clears Athanasius and by his Letters to Alexandria declares the Villainy of the Meletians And here the Plot slept for near two years before Eusebius durst revive it but having with great pains and promises recover'd his Evidence he and his Party insinuate to the Emperor That Athanasius had taken off Bishop John by great sums of Money and had so threatned the poor Meletian Nonconformists for so Mr. B. calls these plotting Schismaticks that they durst not appear to give in their Evidence against him That the shew of Arsenius was all a rank cheat and that the Person that appeared in his stead was hired by Athanasius and attested only by a few of his own Combination The Emperor is both tired and amused with all this intrigue and therefore summons a Council at Tyre to find out the bottom of these Plots and unravel the whole Information on both sides Where Athanasius accompanied with the Bishops of his Province appears with that boldness and security that became his Innocence for though flying Stories may gain credit among the multitude whilst they are no more then Stories yet when they are brought to a publick Examination before Judges though themselves be Parties they so visibly â—â—â—â— their own folly that few Men have confidence enough to protect and support their falshood And so it happened here for Dionysius who was appointed President to see that all things were fairly carried was himself of the Eusebian Faction and the Bishops that sat were of Dionysius and Eusebius his own packing and yet for all that the Plot was lost in the management and came to nothing and indeed so defective and unfortunate was it in its Evidence that no disingenuity in the Judges could piece it up The Counterfeit Priest Ischiras is re-produced and in hopes of his
his Tyrian Judges he immediately summon'd them at so just and modest an Appeal And then Athanasius might easily have cleared himself had they not surprized and overwhelm'd him with a new Accusation attested by his own best friends for the Witnesses that they produced of his threatning to hinder the Transportation of Corn to Constantinople were some of those that had appeared most eminently in his defence at the Tyrian Council This was an Evidence that could not be withstood nor is it to be avoided but by one of these two ways Either that Athanasius being vext out of all Patience by so long a Train of base usage and knowing his great and popular interest at Alexandria might in some suddain and extravagant Passion have bolted out some such threatning which though it were a very high Crime in the Emperours Esteem no less then Treason against his own Royal City yet its Enormity consisted in its great rashness and indiscretion and this to me seems very probable if we consider his Great Spirit his Cholerick Constitution and his Infinite Provocation or else that his Friends were since the Council taken off by the Briberies and Flatteries of the Eusebians But if it were so the Emperour could have no Evidence for it neither indeed have we any ground to surmise it was so and therefore the thing being so fully attested by Athanasius his own Friends it was as fair a Testimony as could be given in any Case no wonder then that it raised the Emperours displeasure so high that he would hear no more when it endanger'd the Peace of the Empire and the ruine of his own City that could not possibly subsist without the constant supplies from Alexandria To all which we may add the Emperour's impatient desire of Peace and Concord in the Christian Church as it is visible through his whole Reign and of this Athanasius was all along represented to him as the only Obstacle and therefore Sozomen leaves it doubtful whether the Emperour banisht him because he believed the Accusations against him or because it would be a means of setling Concord among the other Bishops the whole Quarrel being about him and as his Enemies represented it meerly raised and kept up by him and therefore when Anthony the Famous Monk of AEgypt interceded for his Restitution the Emperour returns in Answer that Athanasius was a proud and provoking man and a Ring-leader of Discord and Sedition for these were the Crimes says the Historian that his Adversaries chiefly objected against him because the Emperour of all men in the World most hated men of that temper And therefore because John the Meletian Bishop was the head of the other Faction he sent him into banishment too supposing that when the Leaders were out of the way the Schism would dye of its own accord Now if we lay all these things together we shall have no reason to lay any hard usage or foul dealing to Constantine in this whole affair and they that best understood it altogether acquit him as we have seen from the Council of Alexandâ—ia from Athanasius himself and from Constantine the younger And Theodoret pleads in his excuse agreeable to what we have observed above of his easiness to be imposed upon by men that pretended well That he was apparently circumvented in the whole transaction by trusting to the honesty of some Bishops that hid their Malice and Wickedness under great shews of Piety And therefore it is but a rash conclusion of St. Jerom and Lucifer Calaritanus that Constantine before his Death turn'd Arian When his zeal for the Nicene Faith was so evident through all the Actions of his life when the Eusebians themselves by whom he was deceived were great pretenders against the Arian Heresie and when he would not be reconciled to Arius till he had upon Oath profest the Catholick Faith and when himself was careful to tye on the Obligation of the Oath with all possible severity telling him if your faith be right your Oath is good but if Heretical and yet you have sworn know this that God will judge you from Heaven All which is very far from looking any thing like Arianism but St. Jerom was an hasty man and abounds too much with these harsh and heedless censures and Lucifer Calaritanus though he were a Catholick was a very peevish man and out of meer peevishness turn'd Schismatick from the Catholicks and is the firstCatholick Christian that I can find upon Record that ever spoke rudely and indecently of a Sovereign Prince as he did of Constantius before his Apostacy from the Church For immediately after his Restitution he utterly forsook its Communion because the Catholicks admitted the Arian Clergy into it upon Repentance and is so stubborn in his Schism that to keep it up he forsakes his Bishoprick in Sardinia flies into Africa the Soil of Schisms as well as Monsters and there joyns Faction though not Communion with the Donatists for though they never communicated with each other yet they United Interests against the Catholicks And therefore his rudeness to the Emperour Constantius and his Calumny of Constantine though done by him whilst a Catholick proceeded from his Spirit of Donatism that was discovered by his after-Actions And now having thus far set down the true Story of the Arian Contâ—oversie under this Emperour as to matter of Fact and from it exemplyfied both the Authority and Duty of Christian Princes in the Government of the Church I shall forbear making any remarks or reflections upon it till I have given an Historical account of the exercise of the same power by his Successors in the following Ages of the Church whereby we shall find that the example of this Great Prince was set up as the best Standard of Government that those Princes that were most careful to discharge their Conscience towards the Church and most prudent in the exercise of their power over it propounded his example to themselves for the Pattern of their Reign and that those swerved more or less from the right Rule of Government who forsook his Method to set up new Politicks of their own devising from whence we shall not only exemplifie the right and wrong exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church but withal discover the several Grounds and Reasons upon which the power of Princes though not Ecâ—lesiastical comes to be so far interessed in matters of the Church as to be superiour to its own proper power and that I hope is sufficient to settle this Argument §. X. After the death of Constantine the Great the Empire is divided between his three Sons and that as 't is most commonly supposed upon the Authority of Eusebius by his last Will and Testament though if we consult the passage it self it is only a loose expression fitted to a Panegyrick rather then an History and so are all his four Books of the Life of Constantine and amounts to no more then this That he left
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
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
able by himself alone to keep up the Orthodox Faith against all the Power of the Emperor And therefore he is Summon'd to Court and courted to join in the Condemnation of Athanasius but he satisfied the Emperor so well by his reasons to the contrary that he is dismist with all Civility but by the importunity of the Eunuchs who feared that this escape would make an ill Precedent he is immediately followed with a furious Epistle commanding him to comply or to expect the fortune of his Companions to which the good old Man nothing daunted returns a bold but yet a civil Answer lays before the Emperor at one view the whole Train of Villany against Athanasius that had been so often proved and then leaves it to himself to consider whether it became his Majesty at that time of the day to suffer himself to be made a Tool by such Perjur'd Wretches as Valens and Ursacius and so in short he denies all compliance and defies his threatnings and upon it he is immediately seized and conveyed to Sirmium and there kept in custody till the meeting of a Council in that City the year following And though the fury of the Emperour 's or rather his Eunuchs Persecution in these European Parts is here somewhat interrupted by the Incursions of the barbarous Nations into Gaul yet he rages so much the more fiercely in AEgypt especially at Alexandria sending Syrianus with some Legions of Soldiers to murther Athanasius who besets his Church in the night where the People were then Assembled and are commanded by Athanasius in the Name of God to depart quietly and himself by a kind of Miracle makes his escape through the body of the Soldiers that had encompassed him at the Altar but he being fled and lying conceal'd in the Deserts Constantius is prevail'd with to put that Learned Divine as he calls him George into his Room but what a notorious Villain he had ever been is already described but now being got into Authority he commits all manner of outrages in the City makes divers slaughters in the Churches themselves imprisons Virgins Widows and Orphans seizes on the Orthodox Christians by night and throws them into Goal ejects all Bishops throughout AEgypt and Lybia that refuse to subscribe the Condemnation of Athanasius and of these some he banishes others he imprisons in short he sweeps all away before him like a Land-flood and bears away all the Orthodox Clergy out of their Possessions in the Church Athanasius reckons up no less then Ninty Bishops ejected in AEgypt whereof Sixteen were banisht But the worst of all is still behind their Bishopricks are sold to Heathens Soldiers or any Chapmen that would bid most Money for them and so all ill Men of what Profession or Religion soever or rather of none at all crowded into the Party for the purchase of a Bishoprick and so was the whole Church put into the hands of wicked and debauch't Men who could do no service in it but in the way of out-rage and cruelty and in short the sury of this Persecution through all Africk is described by Athanasius not only to have equall'd but exceeded any of the Heathen Persecutions both for rudeness and cruelty But still himself was the Man aim'd at in it all great rewards are promised by publick Edicts to the Man that shall slay him and blood-hounds are sent out into all Parts to scent out his Form but by a great wonder of Providence he lyes undiscovered all the time of Constantius And in this retirement he did himself and the World that right as to write those two excellent Discourses in his own Vindication viz. his Epistle to the Monks and his first Apology to Constantius in both which he has with that clearness of Reason and evidence of Record laid open the wickedness of the Eusebians in the contrivance of all his Troubles from the time of the Council of Nice to that very day that it is not so properly an History as a Demonstration for he has related nothing that he has not proved by undeniable Records And the truth of it is he is the only valuable Historian of his own Actions for all the Historians are so confused in their account of him that as they are not to be at all trusted when they differ from him so are they very little to be relied upon in any Report that is not vouch't by his Authority §. XV. Thus far has this long Controversie been carried on between the Eusebians and the Abâ—ttors of the Nicene Faith but now the Arian Cause is again brought upon the Stage in another guise by Photinus Bishop of Sirmium who revives the old exploded Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus that differs from Arianism only in this one Circumstance That it affirms the Son of God not to have been Created till the time of his Nativity whereas Arius will have him to have been the first-born of all Creatures yet they both agree in the main Poison of the Heresâ—e That he was a Being Created out of Nothing and then it is not much material in it self how soon or how late it was brought to pass But yet however this new-vampt Hypothesis appearing more bold and tending to bring down the Son of God into the same rank with every ordinary Son of a Woman whereas Arius allowed him great share in the Creation of the Universe and an eminency of Power and Dignity over all other Creatures This therefore alarms all Parties Catholicks and Eusebians and a Council is call'd at Sirmium for its Condemnation And here the Learned Petavius is as over-nice to disturb the plain History of this Council as I have shewn Valesius to have been in reforming the History of the Council at Rome and the Absolution of Athanasius For as he there took a great deal of pains to make but one Council of two so has our Learned Jesuite here to make two of one For though there is mention of no more then one in all the Ancient Records of the Church yet he has lately found out another that he says has hitherto lain buried under the ruins of St. Hilary's Fragments but alas they are so imperfect and confused that nothing can with any assurance be built upon their single Testimony much less upon remote inferences from them which yet is all the light that this Learned Man is able to strike out of that Rubbish Neither indeed is it tanti to spend so much Learning upon such a lean and barren Enquiry for whether there were two or one Sirmian Councils they were call'd upon the same Errand and as I shall prove were of the same mind and what that is we sufficiently know by the Records of that which he would have to be the second whereas the most that we can know of the first beside this is only that there was such a Council and if that be all I cannot see what Temptation the Learned Man could have to be so proud of his
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
integrity and that it was only the Emperor and his Court-parasites that were guilty of all the Exorbitancies committed in the Church in his time which he committed so altogether without the Churches consent that by them he oppressed it with all the outrage and violence of Persecution But from this clamour raised against the Authority of the Church upon this account and kept up at this very day with so much confidence for we find it among the doleâ—ul invectives of R. B. against the ancient Bishops in his Book of Crudities we may see what a pleasure and satisfaction it is to men of some tempers to be venting their ill nature against the true old Christian Church But Secondly as the Emperour in all his exorbitant actings own'd and supposed the power of the Church so the Catholicks submitted to all their sufferings under him with the same patience and upon the same Principle that they did to the Heathen Emperours And this is most remarkable in the Case of Athanasius who though he was persecuted and provoked beyond all Patience for the Establisht Religion of the Empire but among infinite other slanders that were loaded upon him is charged with Treason and Disloyalty yet for all this he is nice and punctual in his Obedience to all the Emperours commands even against himself and does with the greatest indignation detest the least thought of disrespect or disloyalty to his Sovereign Lord. Thus when his Enemies had slandered him to the Emperour Constantius for having spoken ill things of him and done ill Offices between him and his Brother Constans he defies the Calumny a thousand times over as only sit to be laid upon a distracted Man and calls God and his Holy Angels to witness how far it was from his thoughts and his Principles to speak the least ill word of a Sovereign Prince And when in the second place they charged him for having held correspondence with the Rebel Magnentius here he professes himself amazed and consounded with the greatness of the Lye and wonders how any man should be so strangely beside himself as to â—eign such an incredible Calumny against him He be such a Beast as to be friend to such a Monster as had Rebell'd against and Murther'd his Royal Master No he would rather dye Ten Thousand Deaths then be guilty of one such Disloyal Though And beseeches the Emperour that he would never entertain such an hard opinion of the Christian Church as if it were possible for Christians but much more Bishops to entertain any thoughts like Disloyalty and invokes the God of Heaven and Earth who gave the Empire to Constantius and to whom alone he could appeal from him as being his only Superiour to clear his innocence from so foul a Calumny And whereas in the third place they object that when the Emperour commanded his departure from Alexandria he refused to obey it To this he answers God sorbid that I should be such a wretch as to slite any of his Majesties Commands No he made Conscience of refusing Obedience but to the Questor of a City much more to his Sovereign Lord the Emperour Then discovers to him how the Eusebians had forged Letters in the Emperours Name for his Banishment and tells him that it was upon the assurance of the Forgery that he refused complyance but otherwise assures him that he is not so mad as to disobey any of his own Commands whatsoever so that if he had been pleased to Command him from Alexandria he would have been gone at the first notice and prevented the Command by the promptness of his Obedience The sense of all which is that it is no less then downright madness for any man that pretends to Christianity to make resistance to any Commands of his Sovereign Prince and this he writes whilst he was forced for the security of his life to lye conceal'd in the Wilderness after he had been persecuted by Constantius with the utmost rancour and a thousand times worse then a Mid-night Robber for above twenty years together and in truth had suffered such things from his hands as never any other Subject did from any Prince For his Case is singular and has nothing like it in Story Constantius his treating of him exceeded the injustice and cruelty of all the Heathen Tyrants and yet after all this prodigious and unparallel'd Provocation not only against the Laws of the Empire but of all Humanity how tender is this great spirited Man of making the least abatement of respect and duty to his Prince However he was pleased to treat him he was obliged by his Religion as he would acquit himself from madness not so much as to entertain a thought of the least resistance to any of his Commands in shortc onsidering the strange usage he had met with from the Emperour through his whole life his Story is the greatest instance and demonstration of a religious Sense of Loyalty that is upon Record It is true that Lucifer Calaritanus bestowed his rude Language upon the Emperour liberally enough but he was a man of a prodigiously fierce implacable nature as appears by the Schism that he made in the Church leaving its Communion rather then be reconciled to any of the Arian or Eusebian Clergy upon their repentance and submission which was such a piece of sowreness and austerity as could not but eat up all Sense of civility and good manners and therefore it is no wonder if a man of such a splenetick temper were so free of his Contumelious Language without respect of Persons especially when his natural rudeness was heightned and emproved by that false Principle that Christian Bishops might treat Heretick Princes after the same rate that the Prophets in the Old Testament did Apostate Princes and by that he answers Constantius his complaint of rudeness and insolence against him Dixisti passum te ac pati a nobis contra monita sacrarum scripturarum contumeliam dicis nos insolentes extitisse circa te quem honorari decuerit quasi quisquam dei cultorum pepercit Apostatis You complain that we have given you contumelious language against the commands of the Holy Scriptures you say that we behave our selves after an insolent manner towards you whom we ought to honour as if any Servant of God were to spare Apostates And then proceeds to a Catalogue of all the prophetick burthens against Apostate and Idolatrous Princes in the Old Testament But I am not at all concern'd to excuse him when he quitted the Catholick Communion and joyned Faction with the Rebel Puritans the Donatists as we have seen above Though this is to be said for him that how far soever he might proceed in foul Language he was so far from making any invitation to proceed to violent Actions that he concludes his whole Book with a passionate exhortation to Patience and Martyrdom So that hitherto the Doctrine of resistance to Sovereign Princes in any circumstances whatsoever or
upon any pretence whatsoever but especially of Religion is an utter Stranger to the Catholick Church §. XIX And now are we Arrived at a strange and surprizing Revolution of things under the Reign of Julian who no sooner came to the Crown then he endeavour'd by all the ways of fraud and force to destroy the Establish't Religion of the Empire in order to the Reduction of the old Paganism and Idolatry And considering the shortness of his Reign he was a fiercer and more outragious Enemy to the Christian Church then any or indeed all the ancient Persecutors put together And yet notwithstanding all the wildness of his fury they think themselves obliged by the Fundamental Laws of their Religion to pay him the same duty of Loyalty and Allegiance that they payed to the Christian Emperours But the History of his Reign has of late been made the Subject even of popular discourse and that will in a great measure prevent me in this part of my undertaking the Trifle of Julian having received sufficient Correction and much more then it deserved and I doubt the Jest is now spoil'd and the jolly Doctrine prevented from being popular by its unhappy Application But notwithstanding that I shall proceed in my old Method to shew first how the Church took care to Govern and preserve it self by its own Authority against all the Apostates Opposition and by the right and effectual exercise of it was too hard for all his Politicks against it And Secondly what a tender and a religious sense of Duty and Loyalty they profest and practised towards him in spight of his unparallel'd Provocations Of which I shall endeavour so to discourse as not to repete or interfere with other Mens Observations As for the first it is highly observable that when the Apostate came to the Empire he was all on fire for the destruction of Christianity out of it for though he had suppress't his Apostacy all the time of Constantius yet his zeal was perpetually boiling in his Breast and impatient to burst into open Liberty And therefore the very first moment of Opportunity that it had to discover it self it broke forth as Gregory Nazianzen often compares it like fire from its confinement He immediately commands all the Heathen Temples to be opened and the Sacrifices to be brought to the Altars solemny renounces his Christianity and purges away his Baptism with the Blood of Sacrifices is immediately install'd into the old and abrogated dignity of Pontifex Maximus and officiates at the Heathen Rites in his own Person So that tho the former Emperours took it to themselves only as a Title of Honour he ridiculously takes the Office too and acts all the Phantastick Postures and Pageantries of the Heathen Priests And the fury of his zeal swell'd so high that nothing less would serve his turn then to be created a Priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries because those were esteemed the most sacred and recondite part of their Religion And then he goes on every where to re-edifie and adorn the Heathen Temples and to place Heathen Priests in them And having thus in the first place taken all speedy care for the re-settlement of his own Religion his next thought is how to contrive the utter extirpation of the Galilaeans as he always stil'd the Christians in contempt and derision The best and most obvious Policy that he could pitch upon for that was to bring confusion into the Church For which purpose he grants Liberty of Conscience to all Factions calls back all the banish't Bishops particularly Athanasius Eusebius of Verselles and St. Hilary restores all the Hereticks particularly Aetius whom he invites to Court and returns all their Churches to the Novatian Schismaticks and what mighty endearments there were between the Apostate and the Donatists we have seen above in their History Now from an uncontroll'd licentiousness granted to such a vast variety of quarrelsome People he doubted not to make the Church contemptible to all the World by turning it into a Counter-scuffle For he look't upon the Christians as the most contentious Sect in it usually saying that no wild Beasts were so fierce against men as Christians were against one another And this Character of the contentiousness of Christians among themselves he could not but take up from his Observation of the Cruelty and merciless behaviour of the Eusebians towards the Orthodox under his Predecessor that indeed exceeded the salvageness of all wild Beasts But supposing them never so tame nothing less then everlasting confusion could be expected from such an unbounded licentiousness As Sozomen observes that it was not done out of any kindness but that the Church might destroy it self by mutual discord and Civil War And yet alass so far was he from attaining his ends that his malice was utterly defeated by the wisdom of the good Bishops for they being now freed from that violence and oppression that was put upon the Discipline of the Church by Constantius with his Prefects and Eunuchs and so being at liberty to exert that power that was settled upon them by our blessed Saviour they effectually restored that Peace and Concord to the Church which they could never compass under the oppressive Reign of Constantius put an end to the vexatious Arian Controversie establish't the Nicene Faith over all the Christian World and prevented new Schisms and Factions that were at that time breaking out in the Christian Church For after the death of George the Saint who was barbarously Murthered by the Heathens for affronting their Religion or rather robbing their Temples as 't is attested both by Ammianus Marcellinus and all the Christian Historians but most expresly by Julians own Letter to the Alexandrians where he bespeaks the Actors as true Worshippers of the Gods and blames them for having committed so cruel a Riot out of an over warm zeal for their Religion yet Philostorgius and Sandius have the Grace to say That the Fact was committed by the Followers of Athanasius and that they were set on by himself though he were then absent out of the City After this Athanasius returns to Alexandria where he is no sooner come then he calls a Council for resettling the State of the Catholick Church that had been interrupted by Constantius his fierce and long Oppression of it And at this Council the Famous Eusebius of Verselles was present as he return'd from his banishment in the higher Thebais though the Roman Writers will have it that he came as the Popes Legate without any Authority for it but their own bold Assertion and on the contrary he was so far from coming with any Commission from Rome that he came from a quite distant part of the World and only took in Alexandria in his way And now here the first question is as in all other Persecutions concerning the Lapsi or those Bishops that had joyn'd with the Arians or Eusebians in any of Constantius his Councils whether upon their
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
he had never been proceeded against This is the main stress of his Argument upon this Subject which he farther shews by the power of inflicting and abating Pennance that is connected with the Authority of Excommunication or inflicting Censures And the force of this Argumentation is so evident and unavoidable that I must confess my self not a little surprised how it was possible that our Learned Adversary could any way baulk or shift the Evidence of its Conviction Especially when himself saw so clearly that an Ecclesiastical Unity of Government in the Church is absolutely necessary to its preservation for though he founds it only upon the Confederation and consent of Churches and not any divine Command yet he founds that Consent upon its necessity to the Peace of the Church This course says he was very prudential and useful for preserving the truth of Religion and Unity of Faith against Heretical Devices springing up in that free age for maintaining Concord and good Correspondence among Christians together with an Harmony in Manners and Discipline for that otherwise Christendom would have been shatter'd and crumbled into numberless Parties discordant in Opinion and Practice and consequently alienated in affection which inevitably among most men doth follow difference of Opinion and Manners so that in short time it would not have appeared what Christianity was and consequently the Religion being overgrown with differences and discords must have perished Now is not this a very fair concession for one who is labouring only to prove that this Unity of Government among several Churches is not necessary to the Church when without it Christianity must have certainly perish't But this dropt from his own natural sense and ingenuity that could not but acknowledge the Evidence of so clear a truth But though it was an utter subversion of his whole design yet it seems he was so intent in the pursuit of the Argument that he had undertaken that he overlook't even his own thoughts when they stood in his way And now after this it is so easie to overthrow every particular part of his discourse that were it not for his Authority it would be needless But because by reason of that it must be done I shall do it with all possible brevity First then the name of Church is attributed to the whole body of Christiaans which implyeth Unity And this he confesses it does but determines not the kind or ground thereof there being several kinds any whereof may suffice to ground that comprehensive Appellation But this by his own Confession is most apparently false for it determines it self to that kind that consists in an Unity of Government and the ground of that determination of it is its necessity to the Peace and Welfare of the Church and therefore without this kind of Unity no other sort will suffice to ground the Appellation because without it there can be no other Unity this is necessary to all other sorts and therefore without it they are not capable of that name But to deal plainly the Argument is not here sairly represented for Mr. Thorndike does not argue merely from the name of the Church but from the nature of the thing to which the name is applied the Church being a Society or Body Politick which is the first thing to be either proved or supposed in this dispute and that being made out then upon that supposition the Argument is very clear that one Church is one Society And therefore when the name Church is frequently given in Scripture not only to particular Churches but to the whole Catholique Church that must be one Society united under one Government for without Government there is no Society and therefore one Society founds one Government Now the Argument being thus laid its force lyes in the nature of things not an empty name and it makes its own way by its own reasonableness Especially when we consider the Bond of this Society viz. The Communion in Divine Offices to which every Member of the Catholick Church having a right the right of all must consist in that one Communion and that one Communion cannot subsist without one Government so perspicuously does the Unity of the Catholick Church infer and inforce an Unity of Government in it The next Argument and Answer are to the same purpose viz. from our Belief of the Holy Catholique Church from whence Mr. Thorndike infers its Political Unity but our Author says it may as well be understood of any other kind of Unity But to that it is easily answered that as long as it is a Society and so must all multitudes of men if they are not riots it cannot be understood without this Unity And therefore it is not precariously assumed and obtruded as is pretended but warrants it self by the reason it brings along with it that determines it to this special kind of Unity But he adds the genuine sense of the meaning of this Article may be our profession to adhere to the Body of Christians and to maintain Charity and communicate in holy Offices with them and to be willing to observe the Laws and Orders Establish't by the Authority or consent of Churches This is very true and very false for if we are under no Obligation to all this then all this meaning is Non-sence and all these kinds of Unity are nothing for if we make this profession of our own free choice and accord then we may choose whether we will do all this or no and it is all one whether we adhere to the body of Christians in Charity Communion and Obedience to the Laws of the Church or whether we refuse it for if it be no duty by vertue of Obligation then it may be left undone as well as done But if all Christians and all Churches are obliged to it then indeed 't is true but then are they United under one Common Government and the making and keeping of this Profession is not voluntary but it is bound upon them by the indispensable Laws of Christianity 3. The Apostles delivered one Rule of faith to all Churches the embracing of which was a necessary condition to admission into the Church therefore Christians are combin'd together in one political Body But it is answered First That from hence can only be infer'd That Christians should consent in one Faith Yes but an obligation to consent in one Faith makes them one Political Body for what if any Church forsake this Rule are they not punishable for it by other Churches If they are they are then combined together in one Political Body If they are not then there is no remedy against Schisms and Heresies and beside that there may be as many different Faiths as Churches and therefore if all Christians are obliged to an Unity of Faith and if they cannot be so without an Unity of Government then the consequence is very strong from the Unity of one to infer the Unity of the other But Secondly By this reason all
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
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