pretence of Electing a new Bishop of that Diocess and having chosen one Paulus a very ill man and a known Traditor they proceed to the deposition of Caecilian But before they can pass sentence against him they were first obliged to clear themselves of the Crime But upon Examination of every particular Person they all Convict one another of Guilt and absolve one another by mutual consent This being done they adjourn to Carthage summon Caecilian to appear before them but he refuses they being only a Combination of his profess't Enemies and upon it they immediately depose him for his Obstinacy and put Majorinus who was Chaplain to Madam Lucilla in his place and send their Encyclical Letters to all the Bishops in Africa to signifie that they had renounced Communion with Caecilian and all his Adherents as Traditors And this being done the people were told that Caecilian was no Church-Officer that under him they could have no true Sacraments nor enjoy any means of Salvation but were in the same forlorn condition with Pagans and Idolaters But with themselves were the pure Gospel Ordinances and all that were Members of their Church were made Holy without spot or wrinkle Amongst them the most forward of the Faction was Donatus à Casâ Nigrâ who being the first that set up a Conventicle gave name to the Schism And he having a Natural Faculty of Canting and Insinuating into the Affections of the Rabble soon inveigled so great a number into his Party that they forsook their private Meetings and built publick Churches and there inveighed openly against the Idolatry of Caecilian and the Catholicks for that is the custom of all Fanaticks to improve every thing into Idolatry bemean the miserable state of all that would not leave that to joyn with them and scare the People with perpetual Alarms of certain ruine and destruction if they will not come out of Babylon By these Arts they prevail every where and the Schism is on a suddain spread all over Africk so as not only to enflame the Church but to endanger the publick Peace About which time Constantine having vanquish't Maxentius he thereby added Italy and Africk to his Government and for the encouragement of Christianity in Africa he sends Caecilian large sums of Money to be distributed by him among the Clergy of the three Provinces and grants them immunities from all publick Burthens And about the same time the Donatists finding themselves over power'd by the Catholicks present Anulinus the Pro-Consul with a Petition of Appeal to the Emperor and though afterward when they found themselves check't by the Civil Government their great Clamour was Quid Christianis cum Regibus Aut quid Episcopis cum Palatio What have Christians to do with Kings or Bishops with the Court Yet they were as St. Austin justly upbraids their dis-ingenuity the first Christians that ever fled from the Judgment of the Church to the Civil Government Though as for this first Appeal this is to be said for them that they did not Appeal to the Emperour 's own Judgment but only Petition'd him That he would be pleased to appoint them Judges of the Cause in the Church of France because that Church having wholly escaped the Persecution the Bishops of it would be more unconcern'd and impartial Judges of the Cause of the Traditors Whereas themselves were so divided and engaged at home that it was not possible to have any fair determination in Africa And though the Request hitherto was not very unreasonable yet the Emperour was highly displeased at it out of that tender care and solicitude that he ever had for the Peace and Concord of the Christian Church But however for once he Commissions three French Bishops together with Melchiades Bishop of Rome to hear the Cause who calling fifteen other Italian Bishops to their Assistance undertake its judgment in order to which Ten Bishops of each Party are commanded from Africa to attend the Council at Rome Where three days are spent in Examination of Witnesses but the Donatists bringing no proof against Caecilian himself the Council declare him innocent And whether Faelix who Ordain'd him were a Traditor or not they would not enter into the Enquiry as altogether remote from the cause of Caecilian because though he were to be deposed by the Canons of the Church yet till those Canons were put in Execution by the Sentence of the Church all the Acts of his Office were good and valid But on the other side Caecilian plyed the Donatists so home with their own Weapon of Accusation and their foul dealings at Cirta and the briberies of Madam Lucilla that they were forced to quit the Council And yet that was so moderate in the Sentence against them that it Excommunicated none of them but only Donatus à Casis Nigris that was found guilty of divers other foul Crimes and the Author of all this mischief But the rest were invited to return to the Unity of the Church and offer'd the continuance of of whatever preferments they had in it though they had been Ordain'd by Majorinus or any others in a State of Schism §. II. But here happens such an unfortunate halt in the Story as leaves Learned Men at an utter loss what chase to follow and every one takes his own way so as that by the great variety of Opinions they have run the whole matter into confusion All which is occasioned by a Chasm in Optatus his History for here it breaks off and skips over the whole Transaction of the great Council of Arles and hearing at Milan Of which it is certain that Optatus could not be ignorant who has so accurately described all the less material parts of the Story and as Baronius argues very well Tot tantaque Concio toto Orbe a tam celebri Episcoporum conventu facta ab Imperatore Edictis publicis definita in Donatistas nequaquam Optalum proeteriisse potuerunt Things so many and so great done in so famous a Council of Bishops known all the World over and publick Edicts made by the Emperor against the Donatists could not possibly be altogether unknown to Optatus And therefore this part of the story must needs have been lost either through injury of time or the fraud of the Donatists which is most likely for there was not any one Ancient Book whose Copies were so corrupt and confused as this of Optatus as Baldwin justly complains But which way soever it came to pass this part of the story being lost and so the Transactions that hapned some years after as the Appeal of the Donatists from the Council of Arles to Constantine at Milan and his detaining Caecilian at Bress immediately following in this place they are supposed to have been done at this time though they hap'ned not till after the Council of Arles Thus Baronius having procured from Petrus Pithaeus Constantine's Letter to the Catholique Bishops upon the Donatists Appeal to himself after the Sentence
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
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
judicium neque nunc sibi praepositum Episcopum cogitantes quod nunquam omnino sub antecessoribus factum est cum contumeliâ contemptuPraepositi totum sibi vendicent ought we to expect from the divine displeasure when some of the Presbyters forgetting both the Gospel and themselves neither regarding the future Judgment of God nor the Authority of their Bishop Challenge what was never done under our Predecessors the whole Power of the Church to themselves to the reproach and contempt of their Bishop These are very severe words and the Crime it seems was look't upon as a thing so horrid at that time that it was till then without Precedent And therefore for the prevention of any further mischief and scandal he writes at the same time an earnest Letter to the People themselves to warn them against the disorderly Actings of his Presbyters But in his Epist. 17. next Letter considering the sickly Season of the year he gives power not only to the Presbyters but to the Deacons to grant Absolution in case of Sickness by vertue of this hisCommission for the Deacons had no Authority of their own to do it and therefore what they did was valid purely by vertue of his Deputation and the validity of Ecclesiastical ministrations depends not upon the outward Act but theAuthority by which they are warranted But it happened that about this time Celerinus a Confessor at Rome writes to Lucianus a Confessor at Carthage to grantAbsolution to some women that had fallen in the Persecution but had made ample satisfaction for it by their eminent Hospitality to the Confessors Upon this Lucianus with the rest of his Brethren Epist. 22. with great heat and rashness grant their peremptory Absolution and signifie their resolution to St. Cyprian with a threatning if he refused to joyn with them that they would not communicate with him To such a wild abuse was the customary priviledge of meer intercession grown that they came at last to supersede and over-rule all the Episcopal Authority Upon this St. Cyprian writes a peremptory Epistle to his Clergy commanding Obedience to his former Orders Epist. 26. to restore no man to the Church till it first pleased God to restore peace to it Instâ—tur interim Epistolis c. And the mischiefs of this licentious Practice to the Subversion of the Peace and Discipline of the Christian Church he represents in an Epistle to the Clergy of Rome That this did but expose the Bishops to the hatred Quae res majorem nobis conflat invidiam ut nos cùm singulorum causas audire excutere caeperimus videamur multis negare quod se nunc omnes jactant à Martyribus Confessoribus accepisse Denique hujus seditionis Origo jam cepit c. and envy of the People that when they would make particular enquiry into every mans case they would seem to the People to defraud them of that favour that was bestowed on them by the Martyrs which had been already the cause of some Seditions in his Province c. And they in an Eloquent Epistle Epist. 30. written by Novatian himself as St. Cyprian informs us in his Epistle to Antonianus approve his Judgment and declare themselves peremptory in his Opinion and so do Moyses and the Confessors then Epist. 28. 31. in Prison at Rome to whom St. Cyprian at the same time writ about the same matter Upon this he writes to the Lapsi themselves that had received Absolution without his Authority to let them know that whatever was done without the Bishop was void and good for nothing The Ordination of Bishops and the Succession Per temporum successionum vices Episcoporum Ordinatio EcclesiaeRatio decurrit ut Ecclesia super Episcopos constituatur omnis actus Ecclesiae perâ—eosdem Praepositos gubernetur Cùm hoc itaque divina lege fundatum sit miror quosdam audaci temeritate sic mihi scribere voluisse ut Ecclesiae nomine literas facerent Quando Ecclesia in Episcopo Clero in omnibus stantibus sit constituta of the Church run together hand in hand through all times and ages so as that the Church is built upon the Bishop and every act of the Church is authorised by the Bishops seeing therefore this is establish't by the Will of God I cannot but stand amazed at the bold rashness of some i. e. Lucianus the Confessors that dare write to me that they may give Letters of pardon in the name of the Church when the Church is made up of the Bishop the Clergy and the faithful Layity Novatus the first contriver of theSchism seeing himself and his Party thus universally run down sets Faelicissimus in the head of it by his boldness and impudence to keep up the sinking cause though Baronius is here so far mistaken as to make An. 254. N. 32. Faelicissimus the first Founder of the Schism notwithstanding St. Cyprian has so expresly given that honour to Donatus together with the occasion of his Quarrel which was nothing else then a design to escape the Discipline of the Church to which he knew himself so obnoxious that he could no other way avoid it but by raising Tumults St. Cyprian after a very severe Character of his wicked temper of Mind thus tells the Story plainly This is the Novatus that first sowed the Idem est Novatus Epist. 53. qui apud nos primum discordiae schismatis incendium seminavit qui quosdam istic ex fratribus ab Episcopo segregavit qui in ipsâ persecutione ad evertendas fratrum mentes alia quaedam persecutionostris fuit Ipse est qui Faelicissimum Satellitem suum Diaconum nec permittente me nec sciente suâ factione ambitione constituit Seeds of Schism and Discord among us that separated the Brethren from their Bishops that in the very time of Persecution became another Persecution himself to subvert the minds of our Brethren It is he that made Faelicissimus the Hector his Deacon without my knowledge or permission by Faction and Ambition And after this account of the Author he lets us know the occasion of the Schism That beside many other scandalous Enormities committed by him Not long before the breaking out of this Uterus uxoris calce percussus Abortione properante in paricidium partus expressus Hanc Conscientiam criminum jampridem timebat propter hoc se non de Presbyterio excitaritantùm sed communicatione prohiberi pro certo tenebat urgentibus fratribus imminebat cognitionis dies quo apud nos causa ejus ageretur nisi persecutio antè venisset Quam iste voto quodam evadendae lucrandae damnationis excipiens haec omnia commisit miscuit ut qui ejici de Ecclesiâ excludi habebat judicium Sacerdotum voluntariâ discessione praecederet quasi evasisse sit paenam praevenisse sententiam Persecution he had so wounded his Wife by a kick
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
mankind must be United in one Political Body because they are all bound to observe the same Lawes of Justice and Humanity To make short of it so they are all Kingdoms and Common-wealths are as much bound to mutual Justice as private Persons under one and the same Government And if any Prince violate this Law by Invading his Neighbours Rights he is or ought to be looked upon by Gods natural Law that equally provides for the good of all as an Enemy and Traytor to the Society of Mankind and it is the duty as well as interest of all other Princes not only to oppose his attempts but to the utmost of their power to proceed against him as an Enemy to Humane Society and endeavour his Extirpation out of it This upon the supposition of that one Law of Nature that provides for the wellfare and happiness of all mankind is an unavoidable consequence so is it upon supposition of Unity ofFaith that all that are bound to it must be under one common Government But because the World is ill-Govern'd it is an unhappy way of arguing to make that a Precedent that the Church should be so too Arg. 4 God has granted to the Church certain Powers as the Power of the Keys a Power to Enact Laws a power to Excommunicate a Power to hold Assemblies and a power to ordain Governours But to all this it is answered that these Powers are granted to particular Churches not to the whole as distinct from the parts They are granted to both to every particular Church over its own Members and to the whole Church over every particular Church and whether as such it be distinct from all its parts is a dispute too Metaphysical for me to undertake but as consisting of them all it has a Power over every one and if there were no such Power common to all it were in vain to grant any of these powers to each particular Church because without that these would be utterly defeated of their Force and Efficacy for example supposing a power in a particular Church to punish an Offender by Excommunication unless the force of that Excommunication reach to other Churches it loses its effect for notwithstanding that he has a Right to Church-Membership in all the Churches through the whole World beside And then he is as much cast out of the Church as à ny man would be out of England that is driven from any one Village So that from the right of exercising Discipline in each particular Church the consequence is unavoidable to infer the same common power in the Church Catholick And that by our Authors leave was St. Cyprian's Inference Not merely from these common Grants to infer this right in particular Churches but to infer the same power in every part over it self and in the whole over every part And St. Cyprian is so perpetually beating upon this Argument that I cannot enough wonder how it is possible that this learned Man should here so foully mistake him as if he had confined the exercise of all Ecclesiastical Discipline to each particular Church But the falsehood of it I have sufficiently shewed above And beside what I have already alledged there is one pregnant passage in his Epistle to Steven Bishop of Rome against Marcian Bishop of Arles to this purpose Idcirco frater charissime oopiosum corpus est sacerdotum concordiae mutuae glutino atque unitatis vinculo copulatum ut si quis ex collegio nostro haeresin facere gregem Christi lacerare vastare tentaverit subveniant caeteri quasi pastores utiles misericordes oves dominicas in gregem colligant Therefore most dear Brother is the body of the Priesthood so large combin'd together by the cement of concord and bond of Unity that if any of our Colledges shall attempt to raise Heresies and Schisms the rest ought to come in and as watchful and tender Pastors reduce the Lords Sheep to his Flock Every Bishop was to watch over his own Flock but the whole Body or Colledge of Bishops over every Bishop and therefore the power lodged in them all was but one common power seated in the Catholick Church so far was St. Cyprian from dreaming of the consinement of its exercise to particular Churches As for the following Arguments and Answers they are to the same purpose with these I have already examined and are for the most part repetitions of the same and run into the same principles that all Unity is nothing but either Unity of Faith or voluntary Agreement both which are already so often proved to be no Unity without an Unity of Government that to avoid being tedious I shall say no more but proceed to examine our Learned Author 's own Arguments and in them he is more unhappy then in his Answers for they are so many very good Arguments against himself First then This being of so great weight would have been declared in Holy Scripture And so it is and nothing more so to any man of common sense I will challenge all the World to shew me any one thing more earnestly enjoyn'd and frequently recommended then the preservation of Unity among Christians and then if without an Unity of Government no other could be possibly preserv'd as our Author has proved from common sense and common experience that must be the thing principally commanded by all those injunctions But such arguings as these suppose all men very great Blockheads as if they were not able to understand any thing unless it were beaten into them whereas the Scripture supposes Mankind endued with common sense that can apply general Laws to particular cases without being guided like Beasts every step they take And thus our Saviour having instituted the Society of his Church and established Governors in it when he enjoins them to be careful to preserve Unity no Man can be so dull as not to understand that he thereby requires them to make use of all means of obtaining it but especially such as are necessary to its preservation in all Societies And therefore whether this Unity of Government be injoin'd in express words in Scripture I will not concern my self to enquire because 't is as clear there to all Men of common Sense as if it were so injoined and that is enough But Secondly There appears no such thing in the Apostolical practice What did not the Apostles keep Unity among themselves Did they not Govern the Church as much as they could by common consent Did not every particular Apostle give an account of his own Churches to the whole Colledge Did they not advise together upon Emergent Controversies And was not every Man concluded by the Vote of the whole Council It is strange to me to see it affirm'd that they observed no such Polity in founding Christian Societies when there is no one thing more observable in their whole History then their great care to maintain Peace Love and Unity among all Churches and that
is the very establishment of this Polity for a duty or obligation common to several Societies supposes one Government common to them all to which every Society is accountable for the discharge of its Duty Every passage that recommends Union among the Members of that Body of which Christ is Head is an express Command to this Duty for he is Head of the Catholique Church and the Catholique Church is his whole Body and therefore particular Churches are only Members of it and therefore as such they are obliged by such Precepts to keep the Unity of the whole If our Learned Author mean that this Communion was not establisht between all Churches in the Apostles time I will grant it because it was impossible that it should till the settlement of Christianity in the World was brought to some perfection and till then such a Confederation in Discipline could not be established in all places For some of them travelling into remote Parts and Founding Churches there such distant Churches could not keep up any common Discipline among themselves for want of convenient Correspondence But as far as this design could be put in practice it was pursued by the Apostles keeping Peace and Unity among all Neighbour Churches But Thirdly The Fathers make the Unity of the Church to consist only in the Unions of Faith Charity Peace not in this Political Union First suppose they do yet if a Political Union be necessary to preserve those other Unions that must be implyed in them But Secondly What Fathers make it to consist only in those Unions Does any Father affirm that there is no other Union in the Church but only of Faith Charity and Peace that were to the purpose but because they sometime speak of those Unions to conclude that they affirm that there is no other only shews a miserable scantiness of proof and yet beside this the chief Passages that he alledges out of them refer to this Political Union His first Instance of the Church of Rome's refusing to receive Marcion to Communion because he was Excommunicated by his own Father the Bishop of Sinope a small Diocess in Pâ—ntus is the most remarkable Precedent of this Unity of Discipline that he could have pitched upon in all the Records of the Ancient Church for if they were â— bliged not to admit him into Communion in one Church when he was Excommunicate in another then they were under some Law of Government common to both how else should the Church of Rome be obliged to put in execution a censure of the little remote Church of Synope And yet too without this obligation the Discipline of the Church would be utterly defeated for what had become of that if it had not been of force at Rome and every where else as well as at home And of the same nature is the known and famous case of Synesius who when he had Excommunicated Andronicus and his Companions requires of all Bishops in the World not to receive them to Communion under pain of Excommunication as dividing that Unity of the Church which Christ has appointed Though this was only for the greater caution for though he had not given this notice they were all obliged under the same penalty of Excommunication not to admit them to Communion without their Bishop's Certificate or Communicatory Letters and as long as that rule was observed which was till the time of the Usurpation the Discipline of every particular Church was without any trouble effectual in all Churches all the World over But to return to Marcion the reason says our Author why the Roman Church refused Communion to Mercion when he was Excommunicated by his Father was because his Father and they were of one Faith and one Mind And let it be the reason if he pleases for what can follow thence then that Unity of Faith obliges to Unity of Discipline And that too is expresly enough infer'd in the following words which he has omitted We cannot i. e. we ought not to act contrary to our fellow Minister But after all we need only refer this whole matter to our Learned Author 's own decision who has given his judgment of it in these words It is a rule grounded upon apparent Equity and frequently declared by Ecclesiastical Canons that no Church shall admit into its Protection or Communion any Persons who are Excommunicated by another Church or who do withdraw themselves from it And this he proves by the Canon of the African Fathers against Appeals to Rome by the proceedings against Marcion by St. Cyprian's repulse of Maximus and Novatian and Cornelius of â—aelicissimus by the punishment of Dioscorus who was deposed for it and by the Mandate of Synesius to all Christian Churches against Andronicus And what can we desire more then this That as this Rule was a standing Law of the Christian Church so it was grounded upon apparent Equity and such Laws are Obligatory all the World over because their Violation is apparent Iniquity in short it was no Arbitrary Rule but such an one as was its own obligation by its own intrinsick Goodness and Usefulness As for our Authors Passages out of Tertullian they do him as little Service as this Precedent of Marcion For they expresly assert this Unity of Discipline in the Catholique Church We are one Body by our agreement in Religion our Unity of Discipline and our being in the same Covenant of hope What can be more evident then that he makes the Unity of the Christian Body to consist in an Unity of Discipline as well as of Faith And to the same purpose are all his other Passages out of the Ancients that from the Unity of Faith in all Churches infer this Unity of Discipline as is obvious to any one that will but peruse them The Fourth Argument is only a Repetition of the two first and therefore is already consider'd And so is the fifth viz. That this Unity could not comport with the Apostolical State of the Church when Christian Churches were founded in such distant places as could not with convenience correspond That is to say it was not reduced to practice till it was practicable and that I must acknowledge it was not in all places till after the Apostles but as far as it could be obtain'd it was carefully observed from the beginning The Sixth Argument taken from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or liberty of particular Churches to govern themselves I have answered in the foregoing Discourse by shewing its Consistency with its Subjection to the Catholique Church because as our Learned Author here very well observes The Peace of the Church was preserved by Communion of all parts together not by the subjection of the rest to one part But the truth is in prosecuting this Argument he has not only answered that but all the rest by confessing the absolute necessity of this Political Verity so that without it Christianity must have perished by referring the judgment of the
against them at Arles and divers other Papers relating to that Council because in Optatus they immediately follow the Council of Rome he has thrust them in there to the great confusion of the story as if they had been done immediately after that Council when they ought to have been placed after the Council of Arles And this is evident enough from the words themselves that immediately follow the Sentence of Melchiades Sufficit ergo Donatum tot Sententiis esse percussum Caecilianum tanto judicio esse purgatum tamen Donatus appellandum esse ab Episcopis credidit Ad quam Appellationem Constantinus Imperator sic respondit ô rabida furoris audacia sicut in causis Gentilium fieri solet Appellationem interposuerunt Now beside that this Answer of Constantine is certainly known to have been made upon their Appeal from Arles the Tot Sententiae against Donatus here mentioned could not be till after the judgement of that great Council for before that there was but one Sentence against him viz. by the small Council at Rome and therefore these Appeals from so many Judgments and so great a Judicature as Optatus speaks of must have been after the Council of Arles And that puts an end to the dispute among Learned Men when the Donatists first Appeal'd to the Emperor from the Episcopal Judgment whether after the Council at Rome or not till after the Council at Arles Baronius Binius Petavius Labbè and others will have the first Appeal to have been from the Council at Rome because it immediately follows so in Optatus But this is confuted by Valesius a Man learned and curious with many pregnant passages out of St. Austin expresly attesting that the Donatists only complain'd against the first Council at Rome but Appeal'd from the second at Arles And their different behaviour towards these Councils is every where so carefully remarked by him that the Testimonies cannot be avoided But then the Learned Man knows not how to bring off Optatus but by leaving him under an enormous mistake of Memory applying that which was done after the Council of Arles to the Council of Rome or by some defect and corruption in the Copies which he only suspects without assigning any ground or reason for his suspition But if he had only a little consider'd that the whole Story of the Council of Arles is omitted in the Books of Optatus and that this Passage of the Appeal to Constantine relates to divers Sentences which could not be till after the Sentence at Arles he could not but have easily seen where lay the defect of the Copies To which might be added that this defect reaches not to the Council of Arles alone but to some part of the Council of Rome for whereas that consisted of a double Sentence the Absolution of Caecilian and the Condemnation of Donatus the latter part is wholly wanting in Optatus and immediately after the Sentence of Absolution follow the words Sufficit ergo Donatum tot Sententiis esse percussum c. From all which it is put past all doubt where lyes the breach of the Copies and how far it extends viz. From the absolving Sentence of Caecilian at Rome to the Appeal of the Schismaticks from the Council at Arles And this being observed the story runs smoth and clear that has hitherto been so confused and involved as to be thought to report the same Appeal from both Councils though it is evident that it can agree but to the last Now this one difficulty being overcome our Passage after it will be easie and pleasant all the rest of the story lying in its due and proper order And what effect the Sentence of the Council at Rome had upon the Schismatiques we have a distinct account in the Emperors own Letter to AElasius or rather AElianus his Praefect of Africa For whereas we might reasonably have expected that they should have acquiesced in the Authority of so fair so grave and so gentle a Sentence they return home exasperated with rage and swoln with insolence raise new Tumults perpetually tease the Emperor with fresh Tales and Complaints against Caecilian and represent him as utterly unworthy of any Office in the Christian Church And when the Emperor replies that this was all in vain with him because the whole business had been so fairly determin'd by fit and unexceptionable Judges they cry out That their cause had not a legal Tryal that the Council was packt that the proceedings were clancular and the Judgment partial The Emperour such was the clemency of his Nature and his tender care of the Peace of the Church condescends to their importunity and Summons the famous Council at Arles of a much greater number of Bishops and more unknown to each other as coming out of the distant parts of Christendom to review the Decree of the Council at Rome This Council meets in the year 314 where the Schismaticks repeat their old Stories against Caecilian but without any other proof then Popular Report raised by themselves and therefore were not only condemn'd by the Council but rejected with scorn and derision And to prevent the like attempts of Forgery for the time to come they make Canons to suppress that general way of Accusation as Canon the 13th they Ordain That no Man shall be Convicted of having been a Traditor by bare Testimony but by publick Acts and Records and if any Man from that time be so Convicted that then he shall be degraded from his Holy Orders but if before his Conviction he have Ordain'd any that his Crime shall be no prejudice to the validity of his Ordination And Canon the 14th they Decree That whoever falsely Accuse their Brethren as the Schismaticks had Caecilian and Faelix should not be received into Communion even at the hour of death which was the severest Sentence in the Christian Church This shameful overthrow makes great numbers of the Schismaticks quit the Faction and reconcile themselves to their Bishop But the more stubborn and Seditious are not ashamed to Appeal as it is their first Appeal in the Council it self to the Emperor and this is signified by the Council to him by Letter to know his farther will pleasure From whence it is evident that the Emperor himself was not present in Council as 't is commonly supposed and Baronius Binius and most of the Roman Writers are so civil to him as to excuse his presence though a Lay-man because the controversie was not about any matter of Faith but a particular matter of Fact concerning Caecilian And it is agreed among them that of all such matters Lay-men are as competent Judges as Bishops But however that may be and what Right Sovereign Princes have of sitting in Council whatever the matter of Debate may be I shall discourse in its proper place It is certain here that the Emperor was not present in Council because they signified their proceedings to him by Letter which if he had been
same Imperial Laws that were made against themselves in Execution against their Brethren And what but t'other day was Tyranny and Persecution in the Catholicks is in themselves Law and Justice And so they go on to load one another with all the foul Stories and ill Language that they were wont to bestow upon the Catholiques and their Sentences of Excommunication are more fierce and heavy than any that were ever denounced by any other party of Christians Some were fatal cutting off all power of Absolution The most gentle were limited to a certain time after which the Decree was irrecoverably pass'd upon them and so they proceeded cursing and damming each other till every Sect spawn'd a new Litter of Vipers to eat out its own Bowels And so they crumbled on till they had made the Church no bigger than it was at first a small grain of Mustard Seed For every Party confin'd the Kingdom of Heaven to its Conventicle This dividing humour of theirs is very well described by St. Austin The Faction of Donatus is crumbled into very small parcels all which little particles condemn this much greater part of Primianus for allowing the Baptism of the Maximianists And every part eagerly contends that they alone retain the true Baptism and that there is no other any where neither in all the World over which the Catholick Church is spread nor in the larger nor the lesser parts of the Faction of Dcnatus but in themselves alone that are least of all But as fierce as they were against each other they were always one united Body against the Catholique Church and upon all occasions of Disturbance or Sedition in the State they were a form'd Body against the Government as will appear by numberless Instances in the next Reign of Arcadius and Honorius under whom they vented their utmost fury and they on the other side resolved to quell and break them and at last by strict Laws diligently executed so took down their stomach and their stubbornness that the Faction dwindled into an inconsiderable rout and was never able to attempt any disturbance either in Church or State They being under no greater restraint in the time of Theodosius the Great then the forfeiture of Ten Pounds and the Execution of that Law being either stifled or hamper'd by the Emperors Officers that commonly divert such Mulcts to their own gain and the damage of the Prosecutor grew so bold in their out-rage against the Catholicks as to offer violence to their Clergy at Divine Service which insufferable Indignity the young Emperors Arcadius and Honorius resented with that just indignation as to publish a Rescript in the year 398 to Theodorus Praefect of Africk requiring him to bring such Offenders to Capital Punishments and if they at any time offer'd to make any Tumultuary resistance not to stand upon forms of Law but to fall upon them with the Military Power And this Law as severe as it may appear was but seasonable and indeed necessary as St. Austin tells the Donatists when they complain of Severity You have no reason to complain of us for the Gentleness of the Catholicks had always forborn the Execution of such Laws had not your own Preachers with their Circumcellians by their barbarous Cruelties and Outrages against us made them necessary for our own security For before those bate Laws of which you complain came into Africa they waylaid our Bishops upon the Road they beat our Clergy most barbarously put intolerable abuses upon the Laicks fired our Houses our Churches With great numbers more of particular Out-rages that he recites there and up and down his other Writings as the murther of Restitutus and Innocentius Presbyters of Hippo putting out the Eyes of some cutting off the hands and pulling out the Tongues of others And as for St. Austin himself they continually watched for his life and exhorted the People to kill him as they would a Wolf to preserve the Flock and assure them that God would forgive all their Sins how great soever for so good a piece of Service And this they did to him in requital of all his kindness towards them who all along interceded with the Governors to spare their lives till at last being convinced by Experience that they abused all mercy and would be reduced by nothing but the greatest Severity he changed his mind as he declares in his Epistle to Vincentius in which he excellently discourses the necessity of the Epist. 48. thing that the Civil Magistrate should restrain the stubborn with Penal Laws About this time happened the War with Gildo the African Rebel a Man infinitely Debauch'd and barbarous in his Manners and a bitter Enemy to Christianity with him the Donatists and Circumcellians join and serve in his Rebellion against the Emperor according to the constant practice of all Schismaticks whenever there is an opportunity to turn Rebels And particularly there was one Optatus a Bishop of the Party so remarkable in the Army for fighting and forwardness that he was surnamed Gildonianus and after ten years Rebellion lost his life in the Service But when Gildo was at length overcome the Donatists bated nothing of their wonted insolence and the Emperor Honorius to whose particular Government Africa appertained being incensed with continual complaints of their disorders resolves by any severity to break the Faction And first he exposes their knavery to all the Christian World by which he hoped at least to take down their confidence and preserve the People from being any more deluded by their fair pretences And therefore in the year 400 he sends forth the forementioned Decree to his Praefect in Africk to be publish'd in all places concerning the Transactions of the Donatists with Julian and his Rescript on their behalf that De Hâ—reticis leg 37. thereby the World might see the constancy of the Catholicks to their Principles and the falshood and treachery of the Donatists to their Religion And this was done either upon one or both of these Occasions either as Baronius most probably thinks that the Donatists persisting in their old Clamours as Petilian had lately done against the Catholicks For instigating the Civil Magistrate Quid autem vobis est cum Regibus seculi quos nunquam Christianitas nisi invidos sensit against them who had nothing to do with the Church or Religion Upon which pretence the Emperor thought good to rebuke their Confidence by exposing their flatteries and foul tamperings with Julian and joining with an Apostate in his design to overthrow Christianity Or else as Gothofred conjectures Honorius enacting such severe Laws against the Donatists they upbraided his Cruelty with the Clemency of Julian as if they found more mercy from Julian though an Enemy an Heathen and an Apostate than from a Christian and Catholick Prince And therefore Honorius lets the World know the Mystery of the kindness between them and Julian and by what base flattery and dirty Arts
was collected before the Council of Calcedon and have ever since been received both by the Eastern and Western Churches till Baronius and the late Romanists endeavoured to bring them into disgrace for the Affront that they had given to Pope Julius in rating of him so severely for intermedling with their Affairs For thô that transaction is one of the main passages that they insist upon to make out the Authority of the Popes Universal Pragmaticalness yet there is scarce a fuller Testimony against it extant in the Records of the Church For when he takes upon him to act out of his Province in giving Absolution to Athanasius they charge him with a violation of all the Laws of the Christian Church and tell him that when Novatus was condemn'd by his Predecessors the Eastern Church would never receive the Schismatick to Communion and therefore challenge him how he dares make so bold with the Discipline of the Christian Church as to reverse any of their Decrees and they afterward proceed so high in the Quarrel as to Excommunicate his Holiness for his uncanonical Presumption and to signifie their Sentence against him by an Encyclical Epistle to all the Bishops of the Christian World which no doubt is a very likely thing if his universal Supremacy had been then as well known and as much talkt of as these Men would make us believe when as it is not in the least challenged or any way intimated by Julius so is it denyed by the Eastern Bishops as an utter overthrow of the known Discipline of the Christian Church And whereas he cited them to appear before the Council at Rome that was by virtue of their own voluntary Appeal when they had refer'd themselves and their Cause to that Council for it was summon'd only at their Request and importunity Now after all this that was done purely to gratifie themselves first wholly to baulk and decline the Council and then whilst it was Sitting and the Cause depending that they had put to reference to pass Judgment upon it themselves was such a piece of foul dealing as is not to be endured in common Conversation And that is the very thing that Julius himself charges upon them in Answer to their objection against him for intermedling with their Affairs not that they affronted his Supremacy but that when they had put him to the trouble of summoning a Council and while the matter was under Examination they should put such a slur upon it as meerly to steal away the cause that themselves had seem'd so much concern'd after so many Contests to refer to its final determination And in truth the whole business was so involved by the Craft of Eusebius from the time of the Tyrian Council that Athanasius which way soever he turn'd to clear his Innocence found himself insnared by the Canons themselves For as he was deposed in Council so he could not be Canonically restored but by Council and that is it they press upon him notwithstanding the Emperour's Restitution in that though he had power to call him from banishment yet he had none to take off the Censure of the Church And the Plea had held good if there had not been so much and so exorbitant Villany at the bottom though by it we may see by laying one ill Action for a Foundation what a vast Pile of Dishonesty may be built upon it For granting the Sentence of the Tyrian Council to be good as it would have been had it not been so enormously base Athanasius was which way soever he moved catch't in the Canons and therefore in all his Pleadings he is so wise as to refer his whole Cause to the Acts of that Council and that at last got him the Victory by making known their Villany But granting them Valid his Restitution by the Emperour was Canonically void as to any exercise of his Episcopal Function and that was the point that they urged to the Emperour Constantius in order to his Second banishment but fearing lest if he should make enquiry into the whole matter all their Forgeries should come to light they carry their Cause a great way off as far as Rome and that with a mighty shew of fair dealing and ingenuity on their part that they were so far from desiring any partial Judgment that they would refer it to Judges utterly unconcern'd and therefore send it into the other Empire And now when this was done with so much plausibility Eusebius all on the suddain huddles up a Council at home and dispatches the business before the Council at Rome could publish their Sentence and by that trick he very artificially ensconst himself and his Cause in a new Quarrel that would engage one half of the Christian Church on his side For now it was become the Quarrel of the Eastern Church against the Western because when they had sentenced a Cause at Antioch what power had they to reverse the Decree at Rome This must be an Invasion of the Liberties of the Oriental Church and no less then an Attempt to bring them into subjection to the Western Bishops and thus were they all drawn in by this Crafty Man to back his own Quarrel And therefore it is observable that this Cause was ever after managed by this very pretence and it was the very Complaint of the Eusebian Bishops that parted from Sardica and sat at Philippi against the Sardican Council that they endeavour'd to introduce a new Law that the Eastern Bishops should be subject to the judgment of the Western And thus by this Artifice did this subtle man remove his Tyrian Villany out of the sight and then he might go forwardwithout fear or danger for nothing else but the discovery of that could ever expose himself ruine his Cause and defeat his Malice But the most cunning Stratagem of all was that at the same time that they proceeded with so much seeming Christian Severity against Athanasius they either Enacted or Ratified so many excellent Laws of Discipline that yet were but so many Snares to Athanasius and his Friends after his Tyrian deposition especially the fifth eleventh and twelfth In the fifth it is decreed that if a Presbyter refuse to Communicate with his Bishop he shall after three Admonitions be deposed forever and be punisht by the Civil Magistrate as a Seditious Person a very good Canon in it self but at that juncture of time it was only a Rod for the Orthodox Clergy of Alexandria who the Eusebians too well knew would peremptorily refuse all Communion with their new Bishop Gregory that was thrust upon them by this Council and a Military Force in the place of Athanasius their true and lawful Bishop In the eleventh and twelfth Canons all Appeals from Ecclesiastical Censures to the Emperour are strictly forbidden under pain of Deposition and it is farther provided that if any Bishop be Synodically deposed he is not to be restored but by a greater Synod of Bishops This reach't Athanasius to the
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
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
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
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 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
viz. that they submitted for want of strength to make resistance because it will shew that they thought themselves obliged to suffer any thing from the Government rather then resist by the most Sacred and indispensable Laws of their Religion And first as for their Patience and Submission under all kinds of Cruelties and Oppressions it is so remarkable so entire so without reserve or exception that if it were possible the height and glory of their practice exceeded the Gallantry of their Masters Precepts And though they were eminent for all other Vertues yet in this of patience cheerfulness and magnanimity under sufferings they out-did themselves It was the hight and perfection of all their goodness it was the wonder and astonishment of their Enemies and the glory and if any thing could be so the very boast of their Religion Numberless are both the Instances of this Practice in the Records of the Church and the Assertions in the Writings of the ancient Doctors of it to own and justifie their Obligation to it But to transcribe them would be an endless work and would take up the greatest part of the Records of the first three hundred years that are for the most part employed about these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eusebius stiles them these peaceable Wars of Martyrs and Confessors It is enough that in all that time there is not one instance of any Christians making any forcible defence or joyning in any Sedition against their Governors Though if there had been any miscarriages in that kind that could have been no objection against the truth of the Doctrine it self which is to be taken from the general Practice and Sense of the Church not from the irregularities of a few private persons And yet so far was it from that that to me it looks like Wonder and Miracle that among all the Primitive Christians who lived under Pagan and persecuting Emperors till the time of Constantine the Great which takes in the Interval of three hundred and forty years there should not be one instance of any one Christian that either taught or practised the Doctrine of resistance in any case whatsoever but that on the contrary they unanimously both taught and practised the Duty of Passive Obedience as one of the greatest and most indispensable Laws of their Religion And first as for the publick Records the Canons and Laws of the Church the case is the same here as that of Parricide in old Rome the Crime was so unknown and so unsuspected that no Provision was made against it For among all the Canonical Decrees and Censures of the Ancient Church which were all enacted to restrain some present miscarriages there is not one to be found that forbids or punishes the Sin of Resistance to Lawful Superiors The Christians of the Primitive Church were so firmly fix't in their Duty here by our Saviour's and his Apostles Precepts and by the constant Instructions and Unanimous Sense of their Pastours and Teachers that they supposed that they could not make any resistance to the most unjust violence of their Persecutors without renouncing Christianity it self And that is the reason why this Crime was then never restrained by Ecclesiastical Censures because it was then never committed And though there are scarce any other Sins for which the Church has not appointed proper Penances because they were some time or other put in practice yet the sin of Rebâ—llion was the only Crime for which it had no Penance because there never was any one instance of it to give any â—ccasion for a Law against it Nay so far was the Church from doing any thing prejudicial to the Rights of Sovereign Powers that it was careful and tender of the Interests of Families in pursuance of its Fundamental Principle that Christianity was to make no alteration in any Civil Rights whatsoever And therefore in the 82 Apostolical Canon it is provided That no Servant be admitted into Holy Orders without his Master's consent because as they give the reason of the Law that would be a subversion of Families And for that reason it was made one of the Articles framed against St. Chrysostom by his Adversaries in the Synod under the Oak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he had Ordain'd other Mens Servants before they were set at liberty And in the third Canon of the Council of Gangra it is Decreed That whoever teaches Servants to forsake their Masters upon the account of Religion be Anathematised This Synod of Gangra was assembled against a particular Sect of Fanatiques in Armenia that under the pretence of a more refin'd and spiritual Religion became perfect Ranters and Levellers and so subverted all Rights both Sacred and Civil as they are excellently described in an Epistle of the Bishops of the Synod to the Bishops of Armenia prefixt to their Canons and among the many other disorders into which these wild Enthusiasts â—an themselves this was one that they taught Servants to run away from their Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the pretext of Godliness which as well as all their other absurd Principles is here justly and as Zonaras observes in pursuance of the Apostolical Doctrine Anathematifed These are all the Canons that I know of in the Ancient Church that concern Mens Civil Rights so rarely were they invaded or violated among the Primitive Christians but the first Canons that I meet with against Rebellion were the three Anathema's of the Council of Toledo in the year 633 When the Romans being driven out of Spain by the Goths and they being settled in the peaceful Government of the Country after the death of Cinthilas who first obtain'd the Crown and the Peoples consent to it Sisinandus his Son summon'd this Council in the first year of his Reign to Anathematise all Persons that should any way attempt any thing against his Crown Life or Dignity But this was meerly contrived for the security of his Government against the Romans and to preserve his new Subjects from Revolting to their old Masters and was not made to condemn the Doctrine of Resistance as if it had been taught at that time but to abet their Oath of Allegiance and for that reason the Anathema upon the Offender is founded upon the sin of Perjury The next passage that I remember to provide against all Rebellion is the fragment of a Synod held by Alexius Patriarch of Constantinople under the younger Constantinus Porphyrogenneta who began his Reign in the year 975. In which all defections from or insurrections against the Emperour are Anathematised and so is the Priest that gives absolution to any Rebels before they return to their Duty and Allegiance The occasion of this Law I know not but whatever it was I know no other of the same nature till the Hildebrandine Apostacy whose barbarous proceedings against the Emperour Henry the Fourth were immediately censured and condemned by a Council of Thirty Bishops assembled at Brixia in the year 1080 and
Opinion of the great merit of Caelibacy was one of the first Superstitions that invaded the Christian Church and was in every Age more busie and forward than any other though I do not find that it could ever obtain the force of Law in the Eastern Church till the Council in Trullo in the year 691 by whom Bishops and no other are forbidden to cohabit with their Wives after Consecration and as that is the first Canon of this kind so is it a flat contradiction to the Apostolical Canon And though the Council endeavour to excuse it yet they do but the more grosly entangle themselves by their own Apology and instead of defending their fault confess it For when they have made the Canon they tell us that they do not intend thereby to contradict the Apostolical Canon when the very making of it is an express contradiction to it And in the very next Canon they condemn the Church of Rome for prohibiting marriage to Priests and Deacons and make good their Decree from this very Canon that equally allows it to all Orders But above all commend me to Gratian upon this Argument who when he has in two whole Chapters recited several Ancient Canons of the Church against this Superstition especially those severe ones of the Council of Gangra and last of all this last mention'd Canon in Trullo in which the marriage of Presbyters and Deacons is expresly warranted he begins his next Chapter with this general Assertion Servanda est ergò continentia ab omnibus in sacris ordinibus constitutis And then proves it by the Decrees of later Popes injoining Caelibacy as a Duty of Piety to all Orders of the Clergy But if they can thus confidently justifie their Innovations out of the Ancients by concluding contrary to their own avowed and express Sense I confess they may make good any Cause though I should think it would be much more adviseable to let fall such a Cause as can be no better way defended Another remarkable Law that was Enacted during this Interval by meer Ecclesiastical Authority was the exclusion of all voluntary Eunuchs from Holy Orders And that was made upon occasion of the Heresie of the Valesians who thought themselves bound to this severity against themselves by too rigid an Interpretation of some passages of our Saviour especially that of St. Matthew's Gospel 19. 12. And the same Canon was afterward renewed in a Synod at Alexandria against Origen upon the same account and after that by the great Council of Nice upon occasion of the fact of Leontius who being a Presbyter and very much delighting in the conversation of a young Virgin by name Eustolia and being upbraided with the scandal of using so much freedom with her to prevent that without losing her Society he made the same attempt upon himself that Origen had done for which he was deposed by the Council though afterwards he was contrary to the Canon or rather in defiance to the Council promoted by the Eusebian Faction with whom he sided to the great See of Antioch But hereby we may see the necessity of a Legislative Power in the Church without which there would be no means to restrain all the wild Conceits and Extravagancies that Superstition can blow into Mens fancies So exorbitant a Principle is it so inconsistent with the Peace and preservation of the Church so absurd so foolish and contrary to the Common Sense of Mankind that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governors of the Church but what is expresly imposed by the Word of God There are many more Examples in this Interval both of the settlement of that Polity in the Church that I have above described and of divers wise and prudent Laws made upon particular Occasions but to avoid being too tedious and yet to do the work effectually I shall confine my self to the Writings of St. Cyprian in whose time the State of the Church was brought to perfection and who I may be bold to say understood it as well as any Writer of the Christian Church either before or after his own time and who has stated the whole matter with the greatest clearness and strength of Reason and reduced it to practice with the most unblameable prudence and wisdom and therefore I shall give a more particular and exact account of his Sense of the Government and Unity of the Catholick Church both for the enlightening of some Mens minds who pretend to be so dull that they cannot understand how it should be govern'd in way of external Polity and for a proof of the exact agreement of the Church of England in its design'd Model of Reformation with this Ancient State of the Christian Church This is made much more easie at this time by the late labour of a very learned Prelate of our own in digesting his Writings that had hitherto lay not a little confused into their due and exact order of time For when we certainly know at what time and upon what occasion every discourse was written it must needs make it much more easie and much more useful then otherwise the discourse could have made it self For that Unity is a very desirable thing is agreed on all hands the only dispute is wherein it consists Some will have it to be only an Union of Faith and Charity others of External Polity so as that all Christians are some way or other United under one Government And these we may subdivide into two Parties Either those that place the Unity of the Catholick Church in a Subjection to one single Monarch Or those that set up an Obligation to a Political Unity among all Churches under several Governments So that though every particular Church or Diocess have Supreme Government within it self as to all things that concern its own State yet it is accountable to the Catholick Church i. e. to all other Churches for the Peace of the whole For though a Church may be at Unity within it self yet if it do any thing injurious to the peace of Government in any other Church it becomes Schismatical to the whole Body of the Catholick Church presuming as much as in it lies to overthrow the Discipline of all other Churches This as I take to be the true State of the Controversie so to be St. Cyprian's sense of it §. 12. And the first Principle that runs through all his Writings and lies at the bottom of all his Notions concerning Church Unity is that there is but one Episcopacy setled in the Church by Divine Appointment distributed among the several Bishops of the Catholique Church every one retaining the whole Power within his own Bishoprick as he expresses it like a Lawyer Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every one holds his own share with full Title and Possession For the word in solidum is a Law-term denoting a Plenitude of Title so that though an Estate
Cornelius was lawfully Elected and Consecrated before Novatian and therefore that that alone was enough to null the Title of Novatian Et cum post primum c. And seeing when there is one Bishop there cannot be another whoever pretends to be second after a first who ought to be alone is not the second but none at all And though he gives a large Account of Cornelius his Vertues and the Vices of Novatian yet the Principle that he relyes upon is the Priority of Cornelius his legal Ordination after which for any other man to thrust himself upon what pretence soever into the same Bishoprick is really to thrust himself both out of the particular Church that he invades and out of the Catholick Church against which he Rebels because by the Rules of both one Church is not capable of receiving two Bishops But the Martyrs being reduced and the Schismaticks scatter'd and every where rejected St. Cyprian sets himself to bring the War to a Final Issue and for that end summons a Council at Carthage to settle the Case of the Lapsi forever whereas he informs Antonianus it was after mature debate determin'd with true Ecclesiastical Moderation Scripturis diu ex utrâque parte prolatis c. The Scriptures bâ—ing alledged and urged on either side we temper'd and pois'd the matter with an healing moderation that neither the hope of Restitution should be wholly denyed the Lapsi lest despair should drive them into utter Apostacy nor that the censure of the Church should be so loosned that the Offenders should be lightly admitted to Communion but that upon due Penance and Humiliation every mans particular cause and circumstances being examin'd he should be accordingly treated Which Decree being certified by a Synodical Epistle to Rome Cornelius at the Petition of St. Cyprian as Labbe according to the manner of the Romanists expresses it allows his Confirmation And for the proof of it alledges St. Cyprian's words to Antonianus in which he declares Cornelius his Compliance with the Authority of his determination so that instead of giving force to his Authority he only followed it And as if the number of Ac si minus sufficiens â—piscoporum Numerus in Africâ videbatur etiam Romam super hac re scripsimus ad Cornelium Collegam nostrum qui et ipse cum plurimis Coëpiscopis habito Concilio in eandem nobiscum sententiam pari gravitate et salubri moderatione consensit Bishops in Africa were not sufficient we writ to Cornelius our Collegue at Rome who calling a Council of a great many Bishops approved our Judgment with equal Wisdom and wholsome moderation The Schismatiques being thus utterly routed at Rome they fly back into Africk and there associate to set up another Bishop against St. Cyprian and agree upon Fortunatus which being done Faelicissimus with a Guard of rude and desperate Fellows posts to Rome signifies the Election of their new Bishop to Cornelius and demands Communion with him but is rejected with all manner of scorn and disgrace Upon this they huff and domineer and scare the old Bishop with their lowd threatnings and lowder Lyes particularly that this business was transacted by the concurrent Vote of five and twenty Bishops this puts Cornelius to a stand and hearing nothing all this while of it from St. Cyprian writes to him to know the whole state of the matter who returns him a large and pathetical Narrative of it where he states the whole matter with that Epist. 59. clearness and strength of reason with that evidence of proof with that fulness of Testimony that vanquisht the Faction forever for after that time we hear very little of this sullen Schism And the Fundamental Principle upon which he insists is the Divine Institution of his own Episcopal Superiority Heresies and Schisms arise from no other Fountain Neque enim aliunde Haereses obortae sunt aut nata sunt Schismata quà m inde quòd Sacerdoti dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus sacerdos et ad tempus Judex vice Christi cogitatur cui si secundùm magisteria divina obtemperaret fraterni tas Universa nemo adversum sacerdotuÌ„ collegium quidquaÌ„ moveret nemo post divinum judicium post populi suffragium post coepisco porum consensum Judicem se jam non Episcopi sed dei faceret then because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest at a time is thought to preside in the Church as Christ's Vicegerent To whom if the whole Brotherhood would obey according to the divine commands no man would move Sedition against the Colledge of Priests no man after the Sentence of God the good liking of the People the consent of the Bishops would take upon him to judge not the Bi shop but God him self That was his case that when he had been Canonically Elected and Constituted in the See of Carthage his own Presbyters should presume to out him of his Bishoprick that he held for his life by Dâ—vine Authority And therefore to Travel no farther into this Controversie though the Schismatiques according to the restless Genius of such Men made some faint sallys to save and redeem themselves we plainly see that this was the first Article of St. Cyprian's Unity of the Christian Church the Unity of a Bishop in every Diocesan Church and the dutiful and regular Communion of all its Members with him § 13. The second grand Article and that which has a more diffusive influence upon the Peace and Unity of the Church is the obligation upon all Christian Bishops to preserve Concord and Communion among themselves And as the former unites every Christian to some particular Church so this unites every particular Church to the Body of the Church Catholique And this is that which St. Cyprian and the Ancients intend by the Catholick Church viz. All Churches in the World united into one Body by the Concord of Bishops in the same Rules of Discipline and Government And this is his meaning in those several Passages in which he makes every Church both a perfect Church within it self and yet only a Member of the Church Catholique as in the formention'd Passage in his Book De Unitate Episcopatâ—s â—nus est cujus a singulis in solidâ—m pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every Bishop possesses his own share with plenitude of Power And in his 56 Epistle A Christo una Ecclesia per totâ—m orbem in multa membra dâ—visa Christ has founded one Church dispers'd through the whole World in many Districts or Divisions And in the same Epistle Episcopatus unus Episcoporum multorum concordi numer sitate diffusus There is but one Episcopacy spread every where by the Concord of all Bishops And in the 68th Epistle Etsi Pastores multi sumus unum tamen gregem pascimus oves universas quas Christus sanguine sâ—o passioâ—â— qâ—aesivit colligere fovere debemus Though we
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
reprimeremus Audaciam Seeing it was beyond the memory of the People what was transacted almost an hundred years since with the Schismaticks necessity compelled us that producing the matters of Fact at our Conference we should rebuke their strange boldness and immodesty To this purpose Marcellinus a Man eminent both for Wisdom Learning and Piety and the same to whom St. Austin dedicates his Books De Civitate Dei though a Secular Judge is sent into Africa with a Commission to preside at the Conference and that he might do by the Laws and Custom of the Church because the Controversie was not about either a matter of Faith or rule of Discipline but only a matter of Fact Neither had he the Office of a Judge about that so much as an Inquisitor but was by his Commission only to Examine the publick Records and that was all that he undertook and perform'd In March in the year 411. he Summons both Parties to meet at Carthage in the June following and grants to all Donatists that would obey his Summons the free use of their Churches and provides all things necessary or useful for their Journey The whole number of Donatist Bishops in all 159 enter Carthage in a full Body with all the shews of Pomp and Ostentation and this being their full strength at that time it shews how their Party had shrivel'd away under this Emperor's Laws against them For in their Council at Bagaia where the Maximinianists were condemn'd by the other Donatists were present four hundred and sixty Bishops and yet now all their Force cannot make a third part of that number But when they came to Carthage they would not meet in the usual house of Convocation that they call'd the Synagogue of Satan and therefore met in the Gargilian Baths And before they enter'd upon the Conference the Catholicks endeavour to Court them with all manner of Civility and Condescention if by any means to prevail upon them to have some sense of the Peace and Unity of the Christian Church But all in vain they were resolved to persist in their Peevishness and therefore when they came together instead of fair and ingenuous Discourse they only endeavoured to spin out time with trifling and pettifogging Tricks For whereas the Catholiques first propounded for quicker dispatch to separate the particular matter of Fact concerning Caecilian's being Ordain'd by a Traditor from the general matter of Right concerning their present Separation from the Church Because that was only Personal and carried nothing in it that concern'd the cause of the Church it self at so great a distance of time and therefore they would freely grant tho nothing could be more false that Caecilian and Faelix were guilty of all their Indictment But that being granted they affirm'd that it was no sufficient reason for them at that time of the day to separate themselves from the Catholique Church though it had so many years past Communicated with them But the Donatists resolve to insist upon the old Nags-head-story and wholly baulk the matter of Right for here they knew that they could wrangle and amuse the People and this was not only their standing Artifice but as Baldwin observes 't is the last shift of all Schismatiques when they are bafled to throw dirt So Petilian served St. Austin so the Pelagians so the Manichees but he would not be drawn from his Cause by such foolish divertisements and still answer'd them all Quod ad mores nostros pertinet quemadmodum vivamus in promptu est eis cum quibus vivimus nunc de Catholico agitur Dogmate c. As for my Life and Conversation it is known to those with whom I live but our business is about Christian Truth that is the cause not I if you have any thing against me in God's Name Indict me according to Law but otherwise it is a base and helpless shift when you are Convicted by Argument to betake your selves to idle Tales and Slanders for that is the last Machine of all Hereticks And therefore 't is no wonder that the Schismaticks stuck so long at this point for to Persons of that Kidney Calumny is much dearer then their Opinion And it was a long while before Marcellinus with all his Art and Temper could bring them out of this Hold but being at last forced out of it they in the next place wrangle about matters that they pleaded ought to be preliminary to the Conference And first they cavill'd and excepted against the time viz. That the time limited by the Emperour's Summons was past to which cavil they are Answer'd That the Meeting was adjourn'd to the present time by their own Consent Then they except against Marcellinus and the Form of proceeding viz. That Ecclesiastical matters ought not to be determin'd after the manner of the Secular Courts but by the Holy Scriptures To this Marcellinus replies both that he does not take upon himself the Office of a Judge and withal that things should be determin'd by the Rule of Scripture as they desired And beside this the Catholick Bishops satisfie them by exhibiting the Injunctions that they had given to those Bishops that were to manage the Conference that they had taken sufficient care of that matter But then this the Donatists turn'd into a new Cavil that they would not trust their Cause to a few Mens management but would be all Speakers which they knew could not be done in so great a Multitude without turning the whole business into Tumult and Confusion And therefore it is with much ado over-ruled that Seven of each Party should manage the Conference of whom St. Austin and Petilian were the chief of each side But in the next place the Mandate of the Catholicks to their Commissioners being signed by 286 Bishops the Donatists object that there were not so many present and pretend that to encrease the number they had set down false names and therefore require that every Bishop should answer to his own name But all this trifling being at last past through Marcellinus with Hat in hand desires the Company that they would be pleased to take their Seats but the Donatists insolently refuse his Civility grumbling out among themselves that of the Psalmist Odi Ecclesiam Maligâ—antium cum impiis non seâ—â—bo Then the Instrument of the Donatists to their Commissioners is read which consists all of Accusation against the Catholiques both as Traditors and Persecutors and here they are immediately snapt in their own â—nare having subscribed many Names to it of Men that were not in Being and among the rest of one that upon the discovery they now pretended dyed on the way though before they had declared that it was drawn up after they came to Carthage and that was all the Event of the first days Conference that they ensnared themselves in two or three grand Falshoods The second Conference was spent in the same trifles and cavils with the first and so came to
perswaded the Emperor who but just now over-awed them by force of Arms to resign his Empire silly wretch as he was into their hands and lay down his Sword at their Feet and that they return'd it back to him only upon condition to defend their Faith The Council being ended the Emperour writes to several Churches particularly that of Alexandria to submit to the determination of the Council because the unanimous Decree of so many Bishops could be no less then the Judgment of God himself in that it cannot be doubted but that the Concord of so many Holy Men was the immediate effect of Divine Inspiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus had this prophane Heresie been for ever quell'd by the Authority of this Council had it not been supported by the pretended moderation of the Eusebians and their various carriage in the Debate is the most observable thing in all the Transactions of this Council The whole Controversie was reduced to the word Consubstantial which the Eusebians at first refused to admit as being no Scripture Word but without its admission nothing else would satisfie the Council and good reason they had for it because to part with that Word after the Controversie was once raised would have been to give up the cause for it was unavoidable that if the Son were not of the same Substance with the Father he must have been made out of the same Common and Created Substance with all other Creatures and therefore when the Scriptues give him a greater Dignity of Nature then to any created Being they thereby make him of the same uncreated Substance with the Father so that they plainly assert his Consubstantiality though they use not the Word But when the Truth it self was denyed by the Arian Hereticks and the Son of God thrust down into the rank of created Beings and defined to be a Creature made out of nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence they were call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was time for the Church to stop this Heresie by such a Test as would admit of no Prevarication which was effectually done by this word and as cunning and shufling as the Arians were they were never able to swallow or chew it and therefore it was but a weak part of the Eusebians to shew so much Zeal against the word when they professed to allow the thing for if our Saviour were not a meer Creature he must be of the same uncreated substance with the Father because there is no middle between created and uncreated Substance so that whoever denyed his Consubstantiality could not avoid the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus which yet the Arians themselves professed to defie for if he were a meer Creature it is no matter how soon or how late he was created And therefore Eusebius of Caesarea a wise and understanding Man soon discern'd the folly of this Scruple for though he at first opposed the word Consubstantial in the Council and tendred a Creed without it yet upon farther consideration he easily embraced it because as himself gives an account of it to his Diocess it signifies the same thing as to say that he is of the Father which the Orthodox Doctrine teaches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore he declares that he freely subscribed to it not only for Peace sake but that he might not incur the scandal of Heresie And as for the Anathema's against Arius he says that he readily subscribed them because they were but a just Sentence against his Prophane Novelties without any Authority from the Scriptures from whence proceed all the disturbances of the Church seeing therefore no Scripture uses such expressions as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is by no means allowable that such expressions should be used or taught And so concludes I thought fit to give you this account that you might understand with what judgment I first doubted and then consented for though I was at first offended at some words yet when I had impartially weighed their true meaning I found that they agreed exactly with those expressions that I used in my own Confession of Faith This is a rational and consistent account of his whole behaviour for when he had once said in his Creed That the Son was God of God 't is the same thing as if he had said that he was of the same Substance with the Father And yet notwithstanding this fair and ingenuous Confession of Eusebius and his more full Declaration of his real sense and meaning in his Books against Marcellus with what an unanimous Vote both of Ancients and Moderns is he condemned as a Ring-leader of the Arian Heresie as St. Jerom rashly stiles him But he can spare no Man a good word that had any kindness for Origen and that was the ground of his displeasure against Eusebius I confess that he never could heartily like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it being a new word and not found in Scripture it gave the Arians advantage of exception against the old Truth yet he always declared as expresly against the Arian Assertions as Athanasius himself But of all Writers those of the Church of Rome are most implacable to his Memory for what reason I cannot imagine unless it be that his plain account of the true State and Polity of the Primitive Church is so irreconcileable with the present Grandeur and Power of their Church As for the unkind usage he has met with from Baronius Bellarmine Binius and such like Writers it is not to be wondred at because they treat all other Authors and Records after the same Rate that do not suit their turn so that they are more offended with him as an Historian then as an Heretick and Baronius cannot forbear blabbing out the true ground of his displeasure against him in that he too much betrayed that he bore no good Will to the See Apostolick But as for Petavius a Man of a more free and impartial enquiry who does not make it his business as they do to force the Ancient Records of the Church to comply with its present State but takes things as he finds them for him I say to handle this great Man more roughly then the Italian Parasites looks like an unkindness without Provocation He has taken great pains to prove this by divers looser Passages out of his Books written before the Nicene Council which is by no means ingenuous because himself has confessed That he was not aware of the ill consequences of his own Notions till the Debates of the Council discovered them to him and as for the Passages that he has raked together out of the Books against Marcellus I cannot find that any of them reach his purpose and if any look towards Arianism they are at worst but unwary expressions when the whole design of those Books is levell'd against the Heresie and it is very hard when he has there so often
the Eâ—sebians to be admitted into their Association against his friend and fellow Sufferer Athanasius he boasted of his forwardness in it he over and over tender'd his Subscription against him and all this in humble and submissive Addresses with this Petition at the Tail of all That he might be restored to his Bishoprick nay he condescended so very low as to flatter and fawn upon such vile wretches as Valens and Ursacius All which was an utter forfeiture of all manner of ingenuity for what could be more dirty and dishonest then to join so frankly with such perjur'd Villains in the ruine of an innocent Person only that himself might escape scot-free from their malice So that whereas this Fact of Liberius has been the subject of a long and fierce Contention between the Friends and the Enemies of the present Church of Rome those being much concern'd and puzled to clear him from falling into Arianism because that would utterly spoil their modern Doctrine of Papal Infallibility and these for the same reason labouring as hard to bring him under the guilt of that foul and scandalous Apostacy in my poor Opinion one side might spare their fears and the other their pains for there was nothing of the Arian Heresie in all this Transaction The Creed that he Subscribed could be no other then the first in this Council against Photinus which not only came up fully to the Sense of the Nicene Creed though it wanted the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but declared much more expresly against the Arian Heresie in its 27 Anathema's annexed to it then which there is not a fuller protestation against it upon Record though the first would have been sufficient alone viz. If any Man say that the Son existed out of nothing or out of any other substance and is not God of God or that there was a time when he was not let him be banisht the Catholique Church But as for his delivering up Athanasius into the hands of his Enemies thereby to purchase his own liberty though it was a base and dishonourable action to Sacrifice so brave a Man to his own private Convenience yet that was all it was not disowning the truth much less opposing it he all along stood firm in his defiance to the Arian Faction and with it concludes his very Letter to Valens and Ursacius where after a Protestation of his Integrity in what he had there declared he adds Praevaricatori Anathema unà cum Arianis à me dictum And now having thus clear'd the perplext controversie concerning the Faith of the Sirmian Council and the Subscription of these two great Men to it we may proceed in the Series of our Story §. XVI Valens and his Conventicle having put that impudent Sham upon the Council as to contrive a new Creed that discarded all the bars against Artanism and publish it to the World under the Authority of the Council it self this so gauled Basiâ—ius and the old Eusebians who flatter'd themselves with this conceit that after all their Travels they had now at last settled all things and united all Parties by asserting a likeness though not an Identity in substance against the new Sect of the Anomaeans who were so far from owning any thing like to equality between Father and Son that they held a perfect dissimilitude of Natures â—o endless a thing is Metaphysicks when Men have a mind to be peevish or wanton And here begins the new Controversie as Epiphanius observes of Homousians and Homoiousians against the Anomaeans And indeed it is the first time that I know of that we hear of the different Parties of the Homousians and Homoiousians and if we may rely upon the report of Socrates they never avowedly distinguisht themselves by those two words till after the Council of Seleucia though it is plain that the first occasion of it was given by the Council of Antioch that was conven'd on purpose to contrive a Creed more comprehensive then that of Nice and therefore instead of asserting the Consubstantiality of Father and Son for the satisfaction of all Parties it defines the Son to be The unchangeable Image of the Divinity and Substance of the Father But from the time of the Sirmian Council this new Controversie is carried on both by the Homousians and Homoiousians against the Anomaeans and it was but high time when they began to out-bid the Arians especially when Aetius had about this time vented his new Heresie viz. That the Son was so far from being either of the same or the like Substance with the Father that he was unlike him in all things in which the bold Mechanick went beyond all the former Anomaeans that held only a dissimilitude of Nature but a likeness of Will whereas this new Heretique positively avers an unlikeness both of Nature and Will He was by Trade a Goldsmith in Antioch but being a very pert and conceited Citizen and troubled as Photius expresses it in the description of him with a certain Disease called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intemperance of prating he would needs set up for a thing of Learning and having got a little smattering in Aristotle's Logique the next thing was to be an Heretique too and so first declares for Arius and spends his time in running up and down to dispute with the Divines of the City and at length grew so troublesome and impertinent in all Company that the Pedant was kickt out of Town But having the honour of a publick Affront instead of being out of countenance he grows proud that he should be so considerable as to be at all taken notice of and so resolves to leave his Master Arius and set up a new Heresie of his own and so became the very Muggleton of the Age. His great Admirers Philostorgius and Sandius are so foolish as to tell us strange Stories of his profound skill in Philosophy and all the Learned Languages and yet in the same page tell us again That after he was driven and affronted out of Antioch he fled to Anazarbus in Cilicia and there learnt his Grammar till his School-Master kickt him again out of doors for his sawcy and malepert behaviour towards him after which he wanders up and down to brawl and dispute with all Men of same for Learning and having the misfortune to be once overcome at disputation in the Isle of Sicily he resolved to be short to hang himself had he not been warned by an Angel in a Vision that he should be endued with invincible Wisdom and never more be vanquisht in disputation Upon this he takes heart and repairs to Alexandria to encounter the great Aphthonius the then admir'd Man both for Subtilty and Eloquence and at the very first Rencounter disputes him to death And when the mighty Hero had Conquer'd all the Giants of disputation he grows so generous as to turn Quack and kill of tree-cost And last of all he creeps into Deacons Orders by the help of
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