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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	city_n	great_a	people_n	1,556	5	4.4120	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49120	The history of the Donatists by Thomas Long ...	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1677 (1677)	Wing L2971; ESTC R1027	83,719	176

come to advance Idolatry and Superstition that they had brought Images which they intended to set upon the Altars and would command the People to Worship them Whereas those Statues were sent rather as a token of the Emperor's favour it being a Custome of those Emperors to send their Effigies into those Countries under their Dominion to which they could not come in Person and the Christian Emperors had provided by their Edicts that Cultura excedens hominum dignitatem supremo numini reservaretur Onely a civil respect was to be yielded to them and Divine Worship to be reserved to God alone And the event proved them lyars for when those peace-makers came and communicated with the Catholicks Nil tale visum est nil viderunt Christiani Oculi quod horrerent There was no change or innovation in the Publick Worship but the same decency and order was observed as formerly and those Images proved to be onely imaginations of their own brains The Second Nicene Council calls these Images of the Emperor's Laurata Iconas which being sent to great Cities the People went out to meet them with Acclamations to the Emperor whom they did honour and not the painted Image Thus also they accused Marcellinus as if he had been corrupted by Bribes and Presents from the Catholicks to incline him to their Cause And Honorius the Emperor was said to be seduced by Evil Counsellors though he acted by the known Laws of his Ancestors And as to false accusations they gave such proof of their faculty in contriving them that St. Augustine at the Conference at Carthage hearing them contrary to evident truth to charge Felix and Mensurius for Traditors and to alledge that Optatus had written that Cecilian was condemned by Miltiades and that Constantine had imprisoned him at Brixia tells Cresconius that he wondred how the Donatists could have any Bloud in their Bodies and not blush at the mentioning of such things And as to St. Augustine's particular they gave him no other Character but of a contentious Sophister that was rather to be avoided than confused and to be dealt with as a Wolf upon no other provocation but because as St. Augustine said they had rather cover a bad cause with wicked slanders and excuses than to end it by fair disputations and inquiry after truth And this is the reason saith he that Cresconius Me fecit causam cum defecisset in Causa fell so foully on my Person when I had fairly overthrown his cause Leave off such subterfuges saith he I am but one Man It is the cause of the Church not my own that is now in question what my conversation is is known to those among whom I live we are now to inquire into the cause of the Church Optatus complained of the like Calumnies long before Nullus vestrum est Opt. p. 69. qui non suis tractatibus convitia nostra miscet lectiones Dominicas incipitis tractatus vestros ad injuriam nostram explicatis Profertis Evangelium facitis absenti fratri convitium idem p. 81. nec voluntatem bonam vis habere nec pacem They wrested and tortured the Scripture to make it speak against their Brethren There is not one of you that doth nor fill up his Sermons with slanders You begin to read the Scriptures and expound them to our injury and disgrace You have neither Peace nor Good will Turba gravis paci placidaeque inimica quieti Of their Cruelty What St. Cyprian Epistle 49. observed of Donatus was true of these In ipsa persecutione alia nostris persecutio fuit St. Augustine in the Psalm which he wrote against the Donatists saith more Quod persecutor non fecit ipsi fecerunt in pace They that were prodigal of their own Lives could not be sparing of other Mens No sooner did any of the People flie from the Catholicks to the Donatists but they were of another spirit clean contrary to what the Gospel inspires good Christians withall This made the Lyon as mild as the Lamb but among the Donatists not only Men but Women of Sheep became Wolves of faithful perfidious of patient furious of peaceable contentious and of modest impudent Optatus p. 99. says they were pragmatici crudeles busie and diligent in exercising Cruelty Episcopi vestri multas caedes propria manu perpetrarunt Many of their Bishops did with their own hands shed that Blood for the sparing of which Christ shed His. Under Constantine and other good Emperors they did not make such havock of the Churches as they would they were then awed by a greater Power Epist 48. But St. Augustine tells them Nulla bestia mansueta dicitur quod neminem mordet cum dentes ungues non habet The Lyon or the Bear do not lose their Natures when they lose their Liberty or their Pawes and Teeth and that their intentions were alway cruel their actions manifested as soon as they got liberty and their power was increased under Julian Quae caedes à vobis factae postquam Julianus Basilicas tradidit What Murthers did they not commit when Julian restored the Churches and gave them power They forced the Catholicks from their Habitations and Churches into the Mountains or into Places of strength and there assaulted them with as much fury as the most barbarous Enemy they slew the Bishops at the Altars and those Churches which Dioclesian had spared were by the Donatists razed to the ground they were Interfectores Prophetarum Murtherers of the Prophets and built Monuments to those that murthered them And this did animate them to slay the Catholicks with a rage that reached up to Heaven they were taught that they did God good service in it When Men think their Passions to be warranted from Heaven and that they act by a Commission from God they think themselves obliged by their greatest hopes and fears to act them to the highest as St. Paul did before his Conversion But such a furious zeal is without knowledge For the Wisdome that is from above is first Pure then Peaceable c. How far the Donatists were from this temper the many Massacres made by them do demonstrate it was a sport to them to shed Bloud for as Optatus says they did Vivum facere Homicidium make Men dye often starving some to death cutting off the Hands and Fingers of others putting out the Eyes of others with Lime and Vineger Deturbatos bonis dignitatibus Opt. p. 99. vivere in poenam quasi sibi ipsis superstites sinitis The very mercies of these wicked Men were cruel Yea they persecuted them after Death denying them Burial and exposing their dead Bodies to the Beasts and Fowls of the Ayr Vt terreatis vivos male tractatis mortuos negantes funeribus locum cum mortuis litigatis Clarius a Priest being ready to perform the solemnity accustomed at the Funerals in the Village of Subbulia was forbid by his Bishop who was a Donatist and so did insepultam

endeavoured to continue the Schisme There were many imprisoned and condemned for Murther and Robberies committed in that Tumult wherein Restitutus and Innocentius were slain for these St. Augustine mediates and obtains Pardon But the Donatist Bishops return in great discontent and report among the People that they were not permitted to speak with that liberty and freedome as they ought And Petilian who went off from the Conference before it was ended having lost his Voice by raving and passion pretended afterward that he was dissatisfied with the partiality of Marcellinus and therefore he perswaded the rest to Appeal from his Sentence pretending that they had been kept as Prisoners and were not suffered to prosecute their Arguments and that Marcellinus was corrupted and pronounced the Sentence at Midnight which was contrary to Law And St. Augustine going afterward to Mauritania was challenged by Emeritus one of the Donatist Bishops who undertook to defend the Conference in a Personal disputation which St. Augustine agreed to and hath given us a particular account of it But as St. Augustine saith Hoc proprium Donatistis eandem cantilenam canere It was their custome to inculcate the same Arguments again which had been often confuted many Years before There being no reformation among the Leaders of the Faction who continue several Tumults Cruelties and Murthers Thirty of their Bishops were condemned to be banished who met together and resolved rather to cast themselves over the Precipices as the practice of the Circumcellians was and to dye Martyrs for the cause And some did destroy themselves in Wells and by throwing themselves from the Rocks In so much that Dulcitius who was joyned with Marcellinus in the Government of Africa advised with St. Augustine what was most fit to be done with those obstinate Persons that still seduced the People and what counsel St. Augustine gave him we read in the 61. Epistle Furiosus error paucorum non debuit tot populorum salutem impedire Proculdubiò melius est ut quidam suis ignibus perirent quam pariter sempiternis ignibus Sacrilegae dissentionis ardeant universi That the error of a few distracted Persons should not be permitted to involve all the People in confusion and ruine and that without doubt it was better that such as were Incendiaries should dye in the flames which they had kindled than that all the People should still suffer in the fires of sacrilegious Dissention Thus I have given you a Summary of the History of these dangerous Persons for full an Hundred Years and might pursue it yet farther but considering how troublesome and unsafe it may be to follow them too nigh I shall desist and only add some Reflections upon the Faction And first Of their several Sects The Luciferians as the most moderate shall have precedency These were so called from Lucifer Calaritanus Bishop of Sardinia who in the Nicene Council was a zealous Defender of the Catholick Faith against the Arians for which he was banished while they had the power He is commended for it by Athanasius Hilarion and St. Hierome When the Arians were suppressed he was recalled and restored to his Bishoprick but perceiving that many of the Arians were on very easie conditions admitted to the Catholick Communion and made capable of Ecclesiastical Dignities he was much dissatisfied and denyed to hold Communion with the Church for being so charitable to those new Converts He therefore lays the Foundation of his Schisme in Sardinia where the Catholicks solicite him by all gentle and rational means not to divide that Church whose Faith and unity he had so strenuously asserted but finding that he was not only resolutely obstinate but indefatigably industrious to propagate the Schisme the Catholicks thought fit to suspend him and to dissipate his adherents Whereupon he transports himself into Africa whither great numbers of his perswasion follow him and joyn themselves to the Donatists but kept themselves as a distinct Faction in this respect that they did not rebaptize as the Donatists generally did but their Pride and contempt of the Catholicks was in a short time equal to that of the Donatists St. Augustine commends them for not renouncing their Baptism but condemns them as much for cutting themselves off from the Catholick unity and much urgeth that known Axiom Extra Ecclesiam non est salus Oratio de obitu Satiri St. Ambrose writing to his Brother Siricus who espoused this Schisme doth thus acquaint him with the danger of it Non est fides in Schismate cum enim propter Ecclesiam passus est Christus Christi corpus sit Ecclesia non videtur ab his Christo exhiberi fides à quibus evacuatur ejus passio corpus distrahitur There is no true faith in Schism for whereas Christ suffered for his Church and that Church is his Body it doth not appear that true faith in Christ is in them by whom his Passion is frustrated and his Body divided for Christ gave his Natural Body for the preservation of his Mystical Body the Church Saint Hierome therefore comparing these Donatists with the Novatians calls them both Non Ecclesiam Christi sed Antichristi Synagogam These Luciferians stood as independent on the Donatist Congregations or any of the other Factions which were generally Anabaptistical For they did not only Rebaptize the adult that came over to them but refused to baptize Children contrary to the practice of the Church as appears by several discourses of St. Augustine The most desperate Sect of all were the Circumcellians who were as so many Hectors to fight for the Donatists on all occasions These were the Zealots which did abound in every faction and pretended to higher dispensations than their Brethren for they believed that they were inspired by God to act and suffer extraordinary things which they were ready to attempt as often as their Brethren or their own lusts did prompt them thereunto They met sometime in lesser and sometime in greater Numbers either as Robbers to abuse and plunder all that were not of their own Perswasion Slaves would rob their Masters and Debtors would force their Creditors to deliver up their Obligations and had the perfect Principles of Levellers holding that none had right to any of their Possessions but by partaking of the same Faith and Profession with themselves Dominium fundatur in gratiâ was their Maxime Or else they would meet in great Numbers well armed and able to affront the chief Armies of the Emperor And were often the Aggressors provoking the Roman Souldiers to their own destruction Thus they set upon Paulus and Macarius who were sent with Presents to the Church of Carthage from the Emperor Constans who being assisted by the Proconsul slew great Numbers of them These were animated by their Leaders who were generally Donatist Bishops and called Sanctorum Duces Captains of the Saints and were animated by a Perswasion that as many as suffered a violent Death in defence of the