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
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
St. Cyprian is as express for Passive Obedience join'd with Loyal Prayers as any of his Predecessors Nemo nostrum quando apprehenditur reluctatur necâ—â—se adversus injustam violentiam vestram quamvis nimius copiosus noster sit Populus ulciscitur Innocentes nocentibus cedunt insontes paenis cruciatibus acquiescunt None of us when he is apprehended resists and though our numbers are great and considerable we do not think of revenging our selves against your unjust Oppressions the Innocent submit to the Guilty and sit down quietly under Pains and Tortures And then a little after this he adds That though we are treated thus barbarously yet we cease not to pray for the expulsion of your Enemies for seasonable Rains for removing or abating publick Calamities begging of God day and night with the greatest importunity for your peace and safety that are our Persecutors And in this time they were so tender of doing any thing offensive to the Civil Government or any way contrary to their Commands that they judged it not lawful for a Christian that was banisht for his Religion to return into his own Country without the leave and warrant of Authority So that St. Cyprian reckoning up in his Epistle to the Confessors in the Decian Persecution divers scandals that some of them had given to the Christian Church particularly of some that lived in continual Debauchery and Uncleanness either from their very Baptisme or their Confession next to these he tells them Alius in eam Patriam unde extorris factus est regreditur ut deprehensus non quasi Christianus sed quasi nocens pereat Another returns back into his Countrey from whence he had been commanded into Banishment where if he be apprehended let him know that he suffers not as a Christian but as a Malefactor From all which passages it is evident beyond all contradiction that it was the unanimous sense of all the most eminent Doctors of the ancient Church that nothing was more contrary to the whole frame and constitution of Christianity then resistance to the Civil Government in any case whatsoever and that in case of Persecution and Oppression for it Passive Obedience was their indispensable duty which upon any provocation to violate any way was judged no less a Crime then renouncing the Christian Faith It were easie to have collected a vast number of passages out of the Writings of the Ancients to the same purpose and divers such Collections have been made by Learned Men but I have selected these peculiar passages out of my own little observation because they do not only give us their Opinion but the ground upon which they build it from the reason and the nature of their Religion and that gives it a perpetual and unalterable Obligation in all times and cases and how various soever the Affairs of the World may be yet this duty can never be alter'd by any change of circumstances because it is as unchangeable as the nature of our Religion so that as long as Christianity lasts it must for ever equally oblige all Christians under all circumstances and in all conditions Neither do they teach the Doctrine of Non-resistance meerly as Doctors of the Christian Church as it is a Law of their Religion but as Philosophers or men that understood the Interest of Mankind and the Original of Government For the reason which they unanimously alledge for it is this that all Governments in the World are every where fix't by the Providence of the Supreme Governor of it and for that reason they take it to be their Wisdom as well as their Duty peaceably to acquiesce in the settled and establish't Government how ill soever administred and leave the punishment of its ill-administration by particular persons to him from whom they received their Authority Now this Doctrine of Non-resistance or Submission being so universally taught and that upon such unalterable principles and reasons one would think it enough to set it above all manner of exception or evasion And yet such is the perverseness of the several Anti-Christian Factions of Christendom that they break through all these Restraints into all the licentiousness of Rebellion But this they do with that impudence against the common sense of Mankind and that violence to their own Consciences that they would have done much more prudently to have wholly slighted and rejected the Authority of the ancient Lacrymists then admitting it to make so poor and dull a mistake from its obligation For they all agree in this one slender and inconsistent Plea that this Doctrine was only suited to their present necessity because they then wanted power to make resistance That is to say in one soft and friendly word that they were a Race of the rankest Knaves and Fools that ever appeared among Mankind That when our Saviour had strictly forbid it as inconsistent with the nature of his Religion and the Fundamental Doctrine of the Cross. That when the Apostles reinforced the same precept with all the earnestness and all the motives in the World particularly out of duty to God and their Religion And that when the whole succession of Christians from their time to After-ages profess'd and practiced the same duty upon the same Principles To tell us after all this that 't is all Hypocrisie and Dissimulation nothing but a Primitive Jesuitical Trick to blind their Governors with fine Stories of the unlawfulness of taking up Arms in their own defence when the only reason of it was that they had no Arms to take up and that it was nothing but sufficient strength and ability to resist that kept them off from actual Rebellion This is such a contradiction to all their avowed Protestations to the Notoriety of the matter of Fact itself to all their Apologies and to their own defiance of so durty a surmize as amounts to no better account then giving them all the open Lye and for that reason I think it would have been much better to have at first once for all trampled upon the Authority of such tame Creatures then to shift it off with such a senseless and shameless Evasion And upon that account I suppose it was that it was at last forsaken in our late Rebellion and new pretences devised in its stead but of such a daring boldness and blasphemy against Heaven itself that they would sooner affright a wise man to hear them then puzzle a Fool to answer them and those are the prophane Pleas of the Independants to justifie his Majesties Murther viz. New Discoveries and Revelations from Heaven it self It seems the Villany was so horrid in itself that nothing less could bear out their confidence in committing it then the immediate Authority of God himself And thus they are not ashamed to tell us That the Doctrine of Non-resistance was not a seasonable priviledge for that age and therefore not discover'd because it would have hindred the birth of Antichrist whose coming into the World
as any other Ceremony whatsoever Now the Bishop being with this great care and caution admitted to his Trust he was consider'd in a treble capacity first in relation to his own Diocess secondly to the Bishops of the Province thirdly to the Catholick Church Within his own Diocess he had the Supreme Government for every Diocess though it be but a Member of the Catholick Church is yet a distinct Society of it self and ordinarily Govern'd by a Jurisdiction within it self and that was by the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters in which he enjoyed such a Supremacy that no act of the Presbyters could be valid without his Consent and Authority and yet his Supremacy was so confin'd that he could as little act without the concurrence of his Presbyters as they without his Now this Episcopal Superiority acting only in conjunction with the Presbyters was the most proper method that could have been contrived to prevent confusion on one hand and Tyranny on the other For where a Body of Men act in an equality of Power without some real Authority above them nothing can be expected but perpetual Factions and Animosities And on the other side a Power purely Monarchical without any Associates in the Government may easily if it please degenerate into Tyranny and when it does so has nothing to restrain it and though Tyranny be an ugly thing in Civil Government yet in the Ecclesiastical it is far more indecent because Church Power is founded upon the profession of Meekness and Humility But though the Bishops ever associated the Presbyters in Authority with them from the time of the Apostles yet I imagine that there are no Footsteps of any Divine Command requiring it though its early practice may prove it an Apostolical Custom and Tradition but if it was it was for any thing we know their own voluntary act as becoming the modesty of Christian Governors But the Jurisdiction of the Church being thus seated in the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters matters were so effectually ordered that their Acts were not only valid within their own Precincts but in the Catholick Church all the World over Thus it is Enacted that if any Clergy-man or Lay-man excommunicate or any way unfit to be received shall be received in another City i. e. according to the Language of those times in another Diocess without commendatory Letters both he that receives him and he that is received shall be excommunicate And if any Clergy-man shall quit his own Diocess without his Bishops leave he shall be degraded from his office And the Bishop that shall receive such an one in his Clerical Capacity shall be excommunicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Master of confusion or an enemy to the peace and unity of the Catholick Church No Clergy-man that is excommunicate by his own Bishop shall be absolved by another as long as that Bishop lives And no Clergy-man of what Order soever not a Bishop himself is to be so much as relieved without commendatory Letters No Bishop is to ordain in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition There is no Flight or Appeal from one single Bishop to another but if any man thought himself aggrieved by his own Bishop he had power of Appeal to the Bishops of the Province who were to assemble twice a year in Council to Debate Matters of great weight in the Church especially to review the Acts of Government in every particular Diocess of the Province that if they found any wrong Judgment they might reverse it or if any harsh or too severe they might mitigate it Here is all the care in the World taken to preserve the Efficacy of the Discipline in every Church and it was so religiously observed in the Primitive times that I do not remember one instance of its being violated till the time of the Constantinopolitan Usurpation And it is reckoned among the many other strange Enormities of Dioscorus by the Council of Calcedon in their Epistle to the Emperours Valentinian and Marâ—ian in which they give an account of the reasons of his Deposition viz. That he had received several Persons legally excommunicate by his single Authority in contempt of the Holy Canons which command that those that are excommunicate by one be not received into Communion by another And in pursuance of the foremention'd Apostolical Canons to preserve the Authority of every Bishop within his own Jurisdiction it was afterward decreed by the Nicene Council that there shall be no redress no nor complaint against the Sentence of the Diocesan Bishop unless it be at the meeting of the Provincial Synod And it is said that at the motion of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople for prevention of Frauds and Cheats in Canonical Epistles such an artificial form was contrived by the Council as was impossible to be counterfeited The form is extant in Gratian Distinct. 73. it is somewhat remarkable and very well worth the perusal But it is plain that they confined every Bishops power within his own Circuit and every Clergy-man to his own Bishops Jurisdiction And all the following Councils stick close to the same principles of Discipline though the African Bishops were more strict then other Churches in this as well as all other points of Government no Travelling among them without dimissory Letters And if any Bishop carried a complaint to any Forraign Church he stood ipso facto excommunicate to all the African Churches But lastly beside this form of Provincial Government in which all matters of common concernment were determined by the major Vote of the Episcopal Synod and by which all the Diocesses within the Province were united and cemented into one Communion there was a common tye of Government between the Bishops of several Provinces in whose Concord consisted the Unity of the Catholick Church so much talked of by the Ancients And this was chiefly kept up by Communication of Synodical Letters which was not an Arbitrary correspondence but an indispensable duty of every Church to every Church so that whatever Bishop neglected it he was for that reason cast by all others out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and by this device every Act of Discipline in every Church was of force in all Churches all the World over and whoever was taken in a Member of one Church had a right from it to communicate in all Churches and whoever was cast out of the same stood excommunicate to the whole Christian World And this was done with all security and expedition by setling the power of correspondence in every Province upon the Metropolitan and by the mutual intercourse of Metropolitans all the general Affairs of the Church were transacted And therefore upon the choice of a new Metropolitan it was the custom to signifie his Election to all the rest that they might know to whom to direct their corresponding and communicatory Letters Thus the Synod of Antioch that deposed Paulus Samosutenus in
he had never been proceeded against This is the main stress of his Argument upon this Subject which he farther shews by the power of inflicting and abating Pennance that is connected with the Authority of Excommunication or inflicting Censures And the force of this Argumentation is so evident and unavoidable that I must confess my self not a little surprised how it was possible that our Learned Adversary could any way baulk or shift the Evidence of its Conviction Especially when himself saw so clearly that an Ecclesiastical Unity of Government in the Church is absolutely necessary to its preservation for though he founds it only upon the Confederation and consent of Churches and not any divine Command yet he founds that Consent upon its necessity to the Peace of the Church This course says he was very prudential and useful for preserving the truth of Religion and Unity of Faith against Heretical Devices springing up in that free age for maintaining Concord and good Correspondence among Christians together with an Harmony in Manners and Discipline for that otherwise Christendom would have been shatter'd and crumbled into numberless Parties discordant in Opinion and Practice and consequently alienated in affection which inevitably among most men doth follow difference of Opinion and Manners so that in short time it would not have appeared what Christianity was and consequently the Religion being overgrown with differences and discords must have perished Now is not this a very fair concession for one who is labouring only to prove that this Unity of Government among several Churches is not necessary to the Church when without it Christianity must have certainly perish't But this dropt from his own natural sense and ingenuity that could not but acknowledge the Evidence of so clear a truth But though it was an utter subversion of his whole design yet it seems he was so intent in the pursuit of the Argument that he had undertaken that he overlook't even his own thoughts when they stood in his way And now after this it is so easie to overthrow every particular part of his discourse that were it not for his Authority it would be needless But because by reason of that it must be done I shall do it with all possible brevity First then the name of Church is attributed to the whole body of Christiaans which implyeth Unity And this he confesses it does but determines not the kind or ground thereof there being several kinds any whereof may suffice to ground that comprehensive Appellation But this by his own Confession is most apparently false for it determines it self to that kind that consists in an Unity of Government and the ground of that determination of it is its necessity to the Peace and Welfare of the Church and therefore without this kind of Unity no other sort will suffice to ground the Appellation because without it there can be no other Unity this is necessary to all other sorts and therefore without it they are not capable of that name But to deal plainly the Argument is not here sairly represented for Mr. Thorndike does not argue merely from the name of the Church but from the nature of the thing to which the name is applied the Church being a Society or Body Politick which is the first thing to be either proved or supposed in this dispute and that being made out then upon that supposition the Argument is very clear that one Church is one Society And therefore when the name Church is frequently given in Scripture not only to particular Churches but to the whole Catholique Church that must be one Society united under one Government for without Government there is no Society and therefore one Society founds one Government Now the Argument being thus laid its force lyes in the nature of things not an empty name and it makes its own way by its own reasonableness Especially when we consider the Bond of this Society viz. The Communion in Divine Offices to which every Member of the Catholick Church having a right the right of all must consist in that one Communion and that one Communion cannot subsist without one Government so perspicuously does the Unity of the Catholick Church infer and inforce an Unity of Government in it The next Argument and Answer are to the same purpose viz. from our Belief of the Holy Catholique Church from whence Mr. Thorndike infers its Political Unity but our Author says it may as well be understood of any other kind of Unity But to that it is easily answered that as long as it is a Society and so must all multitudes of men if they are not riots it cannot be understood without this Unity And therefore it is not precariously assumed and obtruded as is pretended but warrants it self by the reason it brings along with it that determines it to this special kind of Unity But he adds the genuine sense of the meaning of this Article may be our profession to adhere to the Body of Christians and to maintain Charity and communicate in holy Offices with them and to be willing to observe the Laws and Orders Establish't by the Authority or consent of Churches This is very true and very false for if we are under no Obligation to all this then all this meaning is Non-sence and all these kinds of Unity are nothing for if we make this profession of our own free choice and accord then we may choose whether we will do all this or no and it is all one whether we adhere to the body of Christians in Charity Communion and Obedience to the Laws of the Church or whether we refuse it for if it be no duty by vertue of Obligation then it may be left undone as well as done But if all Christians and all Churches are obliged to it then indeed 't is true but then are they United under one Common Government and the making and keeping of this Profession is not voluntary but it is bound upon them by the indispensable Laws of Christianity 3. The Apostles delivered one Rule of faith to all Churches the embracing of which was a necessary condition to admission into the Church therefore Christians are combin'd together in one political Body But it is answered First That from hence can only be infer'd That Christians should consent in one Faith Yes but an obligation to consent in one Faith makes them one Political Body for what if any Church forsake this Rule are they not punishable for it by other Churches If they are they are then combined together in one Political Body If they are not then there is no remedy against Schisms and Heresies and beside that there may be as many different Faiths as Churches and therefore if all Christians are obliged to an Unity of Faith and if they cannot be so without an Unity of Government then the consequence is very strong from the Unity of one to infer the Unity of the other But Secondly By this reason all
Religion and Loyalty OR A Demonstration OF The Power of the Christian Church within it Self The Supremacy of Sovereign Powers over it The Duty of Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance to all their Commands Exemplified Out of the Records of the Church and the Empire from the Beginning of Christianity to the End of the Reign of JULIAN By Samuel Parker D. D. Arch-Deacon of CANTERBURY LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three-Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 1684. AN ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY FROM THE Primitive Church SIR THe whole Christian World being both Alarm'd and Amazed at the late Barbarous Conspiracy against the Sacred Lives of Your Majesty and Your Royal Brother And Your Majesty having upon that Occasion been over-whelm'd with numberless Addresses and Protestations of Loyalty from Your dutiful Subjects of the Church of England I thought it not improper or unseasonable to consult the Records of the best and purest times of our Religion for Precedents of this Loyal Practice and after an Accurate Diligent and Impartial Enquiry I dare in their Names declare to Your Majesty and all the Christian World their infinite abhorrence of all Treasonable and Rebellious Attempts against all Sovereign Powers whatsoever as the rankest contradiction to their Christian Faith and the boldest Blasphemy against their own Sovereign Lord. So that though Your Majesty were as much an Enemy as You are a Patron and Protector of the Church whoever shall at any time or upon any pretence offer any Resistance to any of Your Royal Commands must forever renounce his Saviour the four Evangelists and the Twelve Apostles to join with Mahomet Hildebrand and the Kirk set up the Pigeon against the Dove the Scimeter against the Cross and turn a Judas to his Saviour as well as a Cromwel to his Prince And this Sir in those days was thought so far from flattering Divinity that if they had not own'd and asserted it with their last drop of Blood under the worst of Tyrants they had judged themselves Traytors both to their Prince and to their Lord. And this Doctrine of entire and unreserved Submission was then so Catholique so Universally Taught and Practiced that Christian Rebellion was a Sin altogether unknown in those days It was the only Sin for which the Laws of the Church never appointed any Punishment because it was the only Sin that was then never actually committed And though they had too frequent and sad Occasions to enter their Protestations against it that was never done to correct any miscarriages among themselves but to rectifie the misapprehensions of the Roman Emperours Who being possest with too just a Jealousie that all Alterations in Religion tended to Innovations in Government they thought themselves obliged in Duty and for the honour of their Lord to represent to their Majesties That the erecting of his Kingdom in the Empire was so far from shaking their Thrones that it was and ever would be their strongest Security And when they had done this they had nothing more to do then to submit themselves to their Royal Pleasure and lay their Lives at their Royal Feet And this Sir they did with that Candour Frankness and Ingenuity so without all reserves and limitations that the slander that some Men have dasht upon their Memories is as false as foul that all their Pretended Loyalty was nothing but Hypocrisie for want of strength to raise and pretence of Law to Warrant Rebellion But some Men are so ignorant that they cannot understand the Doctrine of the Cross because its Superscription was written in Latin Greek and Hebrew and were they not as great Strangers to the Primitive Records as to the Primitive Religion they could never have had the confidence to fasten a surmise so false upon so clear an Integrity when beside giving us their own Opinions they have left behind them the Eternal and unalterable Reasons upon which they were grounded and these are of equal force in all Ages and under all Governments And this unkind Calumny is so very unjust that their spightful and most implacable Enemies who spared not to asperse them with all the vile things that could be believed durst never charge them either with any Overt-acts or secret designs of Disloyalty And as for the Laws though no Subject were ever more thankful for good Laws or more tender of their preservation then themselves yet when they had them they were neither so ungrateful nor so uncivil as to turn them upon the Government and make them so many Bulwarks and Sconces for Rebellion They thought it a very scurvey complement to invite Princes to protect their Religion by telling them That whilst they were pleased to Persecute it Christians were under an entire Submission to their Will and Pleasure but when they had once own'd and protected it by Law that then their Christian Subjects were warranted to Rebel against their Sovereign Authority by a Commission from their own Imperial Rescripts As soft and simple Lachrimists as they were they were wiser then to give Julian so much advantage to justifie his Apostacy when by it he recover'd the Imperial Crown to himself and his Successors that Constantine had pawned to his Christian Subjects by taking up the Christian Faith And whenever there was any misunderstanding between the Emperour and his Laws they thought it their duty that were subject to both to leave the Contest to be adjusted between themselves And if the Prince were at any time undutiful to his own Laws and so unhappy as to incur their displeasure whatever Power the Laws had to Execute themselves upon him they were satisfied that the Subjects had none And as they embraced this Principle of unlimited Submission as one of the greatest duties of their Religion so they have farther declared in all their Writings that setting aside all tyes of Duty and Conscience they would have done the same upon Principles of Interest and Prudence And tho they had lived under the worst of Princes and themselves had been the worst of Men they would have paid the same submission for the purchase of their own ease and safety that they thought themselves to owe out of duty to God and his Laws These Sir were the Doctrines that they taught both as Divines and Philosophers as Men that understood this World as well as Christians that believed the World to come And though to avoid being too bold and tedious I have here only presented Your Majesty with the Subscriptions of all the most Reverend Fathers of the Church for the first Three hundred and sixty three Years yet if Your Majesty think it worth Your Royal Acceptance I am ready to produce not only the hasty Votes but the Hands of all Christian Bishops and Doctors for above a Thousand Years with a Nemine Contradicente But beside the demonstration of the Primitive Loyalty I have here humbly presented Your Majesty with the true State of the Primitive Church as it was left by our Lord and his Apostles and
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
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
himself is Deposed and Anathematised as one that destroyed the Order of the Church and disturb'd the Peace of Christian Empire and compass't the Death of a Catholique Prince and abetted a perjured Usurper and subverted the Peace of the World And the same Sentence was ratified five years after in a Council at Mentz though all in vain for they got nothing by it but the Name and the Brand of Schismatiques But what bloody work has been made in Christendom by the Principles of this Termagant Pope from that time to this will make up a Volume of it self when we come to those times But to return to the state of the Primitive Church though there are no examples of any affront or violence offer'd to the Civil Magistrate in it yet there are numberless Instances of their quiet and peaceable Submission and that too upon Principles of Duty and Obligations of Conscience Thus was it bravely said of St. Polycarp and worthy the greatness and wisdom of the Martyr to the Pro-Consul at his Tryal We are Commanded Sir to give all due and decent honour to Princes and Magistrates so far as we can do it without doing wrong to our own Consciences They were bound to comply with and submit to the Will of their Governours in all things but Sin and that by the Laws of their Religion But the most magnificent Account of this is to be seen in the Christian Apologists who in the very heat and flame of Persecutions when if ever Men should be exasperated into Passion Glory and Triumph in their great Zeal and Loyalty to those very Princes by whom they were persecuted Just in Martyr is so confident as to Petition the Emperours to punish all such as profess't Christianity and yet lived not according to the Laws of their Religion and then immediately adds As for our parts we are the most forward of any Subjects to pay Taxes and Contributions to the Emperour as we are Commanded by our Master to give unto God the things that are God's and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's And therefore we worship God alone but cheerfully serve them in all other things as well knowing them to be Sovereign Princes over Men and withal praying for them that God would add Wisdom to their Imperial Dignity This is our Practice and Profession and if notwithstanding this you will proceed against us we shall be no losers being assured that every Man must after death give an account of his own Actions and then our Rewards shall be proportion'd to our Sufferings And after the same manner and with the same confidence does his Scholar Athenagoras conclude his Eloquent Oration to the Emperours when he had shewn the Innocence of the Christians in all other particulars when he had wip't off all Calumnies and when he had represented their Piety their Honesty their Temperance their Sobriety he adds And now great and worthy Sirs lend me your Royal Ear who think you are more likely to obtain the things that they pray for then Persons so qualified and yet we daily poure forth our Prayers for the prosperity of your Government and that the Son may according to right succeed the Father in the Empire and that your Government may ever increase and flourish in short that all things may fall out as successfully as your hearts can desire which will be a benefit also to our selves that living under your Reign a quiet and peaceable life we may readily obey your Commands That was the sum of all their Apologies and it was suited to the Nature of their Religion as it stood founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross we are obedient to all your Commands that are not contrary to the true worship of God and the Laws of our Religion there we crave leave to be excused and if that offend you we can but suffer for it which we are ready to do with all manner of meekness and submission as being assured of an â—ternal Reward for a short calamity Theophilus Antiochenus in his Address to his Friend discoursing of the Folly and Vanity of giving Divine Worship to the Emperours he tells him That it is a much greater honour to them not to worship but to pray for them I will worship that God from whom Caesar received his Authority But you will say why not Caesar too Because he was not set up to be worshipt but to be paid that proper honour that is due to Caesar for the King is not the Deity but ought to remember that he is advanced by God to that height of Dignity not to be worshipt by his Subjects but to do them Justice for this end the Divine Majesty placed him in the Imperial Throne and therefore as Caesar will not suffer any of his Subjects to usurp the Caesarean Title because it belongs to him alone neither let himself challenge that worship that is proper and peculiar to the Divine Majesty And therefore O Man honour the King honour him I say by loving him obeying him and praying for him and by so doing you will do the will of God for this is the Sum of the Divine Law my Son honour God and the King and be not disobedient or refractory to either of them This was the true state of the Case in his time to shew all manner of respect and honour to Sovereign Princes as such only in Subordination to God so as to obey them in all things but when their commands interfer'd and then indeed they choose to obey God in the first place still preserving in all other things the same honour and duty to their Prince And after the same manner Origen answers Celsus when he asks him why the Christians cannot worship and appease the Emperours because says he there is only one God that ought to be worshipt the Lord of all and he is best appeased with devout Prayers but the favour of Princes is not to be courted by such mean and dishonourable obsequiousness as is inconsistent with true Piety or such servile Flatteries as are unworthy a generous man and one that esteems magnaâ—imity to be the greatest of Vertues but as far as our Piety to God will permit we are not so frantick that we should wilfully exafperate the displeasure of Kings to deliver us to torments and death for we are so taught in our Books let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but is of God therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God And these words are to be understood in their plain and natural sense And their Sense is so very plain that it is impossible to fasten any other Sense upon them beside their own With all these imminent Doctors of the Church agrees the Answer of that pious and resolute Prelate Dyonysius of Alexandria in his Examination before AEmilianus Prefect of Egypt that we worship one God the Maker of all things and who bestowed the Empire upon their
are many Pastors yet we â—eed but one Flock and we are all bound to fold and cherish all the Sheep that Christ has purchased with his Blood and Passion By which and the like passages which are very frequent in his Writings nothing less can be understood than the Obligation of all particular Churches to mutual Concord for the preservation of Peace and Unity in the Church Catholique And agreeable to this Doctrine was his practice through the whole course of his Government to give an account of his proceedings to Foreign Churches for their Judgment and Approbation and by that means a stricter Unity of Discipline was at that time kept up in all Christian Churches then in any other Age. Thus when he had cast Faelicissimus and his Associates out of the Church of Carthage they could never after it get footing in any other Church And when Cornelius had cast Novation out of the Church of Rome though he made many bold and plausible Attempts to insinuate himself into divers other Churches yet he could never meet with entertainment in any but found himself doom'd to the Fate of Cain to be a Vagabond all the days of his Life This Correspondence of Discipline is the subject of the greatest part of St. Cyprian's Epistles Thus he wrote to the Church of Rome to give an account of his Discipline and Diligence Necessarium duxi has ad vos literas facere quibus vobis actâ—s nostri Disciplinae Diligentiae ratio redderetur And then gives a particular Account of all his Proceedings in the Case of the Lapsi and the illegal Pardons of the Martyrs and Confessours Lest says he our Resolutions that ought to be uniform and agreeable in all things should be dissonant in any The very same that is done in his Epistle to Caldonius in which he tells him That he had sent the same Account to divers other Churches and desires him to conveigh it to as many Bishops or Collegues as he could That the same Resolution and Agreement in all things might according to our Lords Command be preserved in all Churches Ut apud omnes unus Actus una consensio secundùm Domini proecepta teneatur And again in his Epistle to the Clergy of Rome he informs them of the disorderly Proceedings of Lucianus and other Confessors in giving Absolution without his consent and desires their farther assistance assuring them That their former concurrence with him had supported him against that old dead weight of Envy and saved him a World of Trouble Laborantes hic nos contra invidiae impetum totis fidei viribus resistentes multùm sermo vester adjuvit ut divinitùs compendium fieret And when in another Epistle to them he had caution'd them against Privatus an Heretical Bishop they return him thanks for his great care of the Unity of the Christian Church a duty say they equally incumbent upon us all Omnes enim nos decit pro corpore totius Ecclesioe cujus per varias quasque Provincias membra digesta sunt excubare And so when the African Bishops had agreed to make an abatement of the rigour of Discipline toward the Lapsi upon the foresight of a new approaching Persecution they acquaint the Church of Rome with their Resolution by a Synodical Epistle But the most eminent correspondence at this time and about this business was that between Cornelius Bishop of Rome Dionysius of Alexandria Fabian of Antioch and Cyprian of Carthage by whose Concord and Conduct the fury both of the Schism and Schismatiques was at last utterly vanquish't And it was this breach of the Unity among Christian Bishops that was the great Aggravation and Enormity of the Sin of Novatian as it is represented by St. Cyprian in his excellent Epistle to Antonianus Cùm sit à Christo una Ecclesia per totum mundum c. When there is but one Church in the whole World divided into many Parts and one Episcopacy diffused all over by the numerous Concord of many Bishops this Man slighting the Command of God and the setled Unity of the Catholique Church endeavours to erect an humane Church sends his new Apostles through divers Cities to lay the Foundations of a new Institution And whereas there had been of a long time Bishops venerable for Age Orthodox in Faith proved in Tryals proscribed in Persecutions Ordain'd in all Provinces and every City yet he dares presume to set up over them his own False-Bishops as if he resolved to vanquish the whole World meerly by his stubbornness and by the propagation of Discord to tear in pieces the whole Union of the Ecclesiastical Body That was a plain dissolution of the Unity of the Catholique Church the dividing the Body of Christian Bishops in whose Concord and Agreement the true Catholique Unity consisted But the most remarkable Discourse in all St. Cyprian's Writings upon this Argument is his severe Epistle to Florentius or Pupianus an African Bishop who took upon himself to disclaim Communion with St. Cyprian by his own single Authority notwithstanding that St. Cyprian was in the Communion of the Catholique Church Ecclesiae universae per totum mundum nobiscum Unitatis vinculo copulatâ—â— And therefore when the one Catholique Church cannot be rent nor divided but is united and combin'd together by the Cement of the Episâ—opal Concord He charges Pupianus with casting himself out of the Communion of the Catholique Church by denying to Communicate with St. Cyprian with whom all other Bishops communicated And withal tells him That his Crime is so great that he can scarce be restored upon Repentance and Satisfaction and that for his own part he dares not do it without some express Commission from God himself I shall begg advice from God whether you shall be restored after having made satisfaction and that he will be pleased to let me know by some sign and intimation of his Will whether he will ever permit such an one as you to he received into the Communion of his Church And this is the thing that St. Cyprian means by a Bishops making himself Episcopus Episcopi with which he here particularly charges Pupianus when one Bishop presumes by his single Authority to judge another Which was in those days justly esteem'd the most unpardonable breach of Catholique Communion For upon that pretence he might if he pleased disclaim and condemn every Bishop of the Christian World And therefore though any other Offender that stood Excommunicate even by a Council of Bishops might be admitted to the peace of the Church upon satisfaction yet in this case St. Cyprian doubts whether Pupianus his Repentance will be ever accepted Insomuch that if upon it he should be received into the Communion of the Church his Absolution must not be peremptory as in other cases but so as still to refer him to the fear and danger of the Judgment of God Si temeritatis saperbiae
cause to St. Cyprian and by acknowledging a double relation or capacity in every Bishop one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Church and that is all the Political Union we contend for But Seventhly This Political Unity does not accord with the nature of the Gospel because it would bring too much Worldly State and Grandeur into the Church as appears by the Papal Monarch And that is true a Monarchical Unity would naturally bring in a Worldly Kingdom but not such an Unity as consists in the Communion of all Parts together and not in the Subjection of the rest to one part as our Author expresses it or as Mr. Thorndike often repeats it That not the infinite Power of one Church but the Regular Power of all is the mean provided by the Apostles for attaining Unity in the Whole This is the state of the Question between us and therefore all our Authors flourishes about the Papal Tyranny are nothing but flourish because it is so far from being that Catholick Unity that we own that it is the whole design of this work to prove that it is a most execrable and impudent subversion of it The 8th and 9th Arguments proceed upon the same Supposition of a Papal Monarchy The tenth upon its no Necessity against our Authors own confession The 11th and 12th because such an Unity was never in fact attain'd If he means in full perfection no more was ever any Government and therefore it is not to be required in this World but if he means that it was never put in practice so as in good measure to attain its end the whole History of the Church down to the Papal Usurpation contradicts it as appears by the whole Series of this Discourse This is all that this learned Man has alledged upon this Argument and from it the Reader I hope is sufficiently satisfied how little that has to alledge for it self for he was a person of that comprehensive mind that he never omitted any thing pertinent to his design was never in debt to any cause that he undertook nor ever fail'd that but when that fail'd him and therefore when we see so great a man able to say so little in defence of this uncatholick Assertion that is the strongest proof that we can have and perhaps stronger then any we could have had without it that it is utterly indefensible PART II. SECT I. HAving in the former Part of this Discourse set down the practice of the Church both as to the Exercise of its own Jurisdiction within it self and its entire subjection to the Civil Powers whilst it subsisted meerly upon its own Charter without any Assistance or Protection from them We are now arrived at a new state of things as they stood under Christian Emperors And here we shall find that the Government and the Constitution of the Church continued as it had ever been within it self and that the Christians when the Empire was on their side own'd the same kind of Subjection and that upon the same Principles of Duty to the Civil Government that they had ever done in the times of Persecution and when I have made good both these it will make up a compleat Demonstration both of the unalienable Power of the Church within it self and of the Sense of the Catholique Church unanimously condemning all resistance against the Civil Government in any case but most of all in the case of Religion Under Constantine the Great it is not to be doubted but that they were forward enough in their Loyalty and Obedience to his Government for all Men are for the Government when the Government is for them and therefore this part of the Enquiry concerning the Peaceable behaviour of Christians under his Reign is wholly superseded because if they did their Duty they had no motive or temptation not to do it submission to his Government being no less their Interest then their Duty and therefore it was no matter of Praise or Vertue in them if they own'd and honour'd that Power that was their peculiar Deliverance and Protection So that this side of the Controversie I shall altogether wave in this place and only consider the Ecclesiastical State of things under his Government where I once intended to have Exemplified the due Exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church from his Example First As a Sovereign Prince Secondly As a Christian Sovereign And that First In matters of Faith and Christian Doctrine Secondly In matters of Discipline and Christian Government and here particularly First Of his Power in Summoning Councils as Supreme Governor of a Nâ—tional Church Secondly Of that Obligation that he brings upon himself by becoming a Christian First To abet the Power of the Church with his own Secular Authority Secondly To endow it with a Revenue for the maintenance of the Service of God and those that attend upon it But upon more mature deliberation I thought it much more adviseable to forbear all such Reasonings and Discourses till I had first set down the whole matter of Fact as things stood not only under his Reign but all the Succeeding Emperors where we shall find Precedents enough to make up a Demonstration of all the fore-mentioned Principles But because this is the first Instance of Uniting Church and State into one Body and because this Wise and Prudent Emperor seems to have exerted his Power in both exactly according to the Rules both of Religion and Government I shall the more curiously consider the management of Affairs under his Reign whereby will be fully exemplified how this Union may be reduced to practice without any Diminution of either Power or Confusion of one with another and that will plainly demonstrate wherein consists the Original Rights of the Church in a Christian State and the due Exercise of the Supremacy of Christian Kings over all Ecclesiastical Persons Rights and Powers Now because the Supreme Power in all Government is the Legislative Power and is the thing most disputed in this Controversie I shall shew that he was so far from annexing this Power in the Church to the Imperial Crown that he expresly asserted its inherent Right and Protected it in its Exercise within it self with all his zeal and ability In that whenever he had a mind to have any Ecclesiastical Laws Enacted he never presumed to do it by his own Authority which he ever declared would have been no less Crime then to invade the Power of God himself but always referred the matter to the Bishops in Council and by their Canons he framed his Ecclesiastical Laws but never made any without or against them And that is a full and clear acknowledgement of that antecedent Authority that they enjoyed by our Saviour's appointment when he constituted the Apostles and their Successors Supreme Governors of his Church to the End of the World So that in all Changes and Revolutions of things their Government must remain unalterable and indefeasible and whatever Assistance
the Arian Doctrine but their whole fury was bent against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Athanasius And knowing the invincible courage of the Man they first set upon him with Calumnies and Accusations not doubting but that if they could by any means remove him and some few of his Friends out of the way that they might easily overcome the Word But this they durst not attempt during the Reign of Constantine who would never endure to hear of any the least change of the Nicene Faith and therefore says Zozomen though they were always heaving at the Nicene Faith they durst never openly reject the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they knew the Emperours mind in that matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But after his death they grew strangely impatient of it and drew in Constantius who had been otherwise a very great Prince to wast his wholeReign in a tedious War against it insomuch that he summon'd no less then 14 Councils in less then twenty yearsfor its removal in all which the Arians were anathematised variety of Creeds composed agreeing in allthings with that of Nice save only the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as will appear when we come to his Reign But as for the Story of the Arian Controversie under Constantine after the time of the Nicene Council it is strangely perplexed by an unusual confusion among the Historians themselves for though they all agree in the substance of the Story yet they all differ as to time and order but their mistakes are easily rectified by Athanasius his own Account who has in his Apology all along set down the exact order and succession of things and that is all that is his own in the Apology for he was so modest that he would not have his Narrative trusted upon his own Authority but has justified every part of it by Testimonials from other men publick Records and the Letters of his Enemies under their own hands so that the whole Story being its own Evidence needs no other voucher though it be in all it s more materail passages attested by all other Historians And therefore I shall by his help set down the Progress of the whole Business with all the accuracy that I can because it is one of the foulest trains of Villany upon Record and was the meer contrivance of that wicked men Eusebius of Nicomedia a man of great Power and Authority at that time whence he acquired the Sirname of Great which Sandius says he acquired by his great power of working Miracles but this Collector is through his whole Rhapsody his own Author for though he is every where Prodigal of his Quotations yet those few that are truly alledged and they are very few or that are at all to the purpose and they are much fewer relate only to the general Story as it may be told by all Parties but his own particular remarks for his own cause are the Fables of his own pure invention Thus here it would have been a considerable advantage on his own side if Eusebius had been so highly favour'd of Heaven as to be endued with a power of working Miracles and therefore he tells his simple Reader so though no body ever told him so but alas that Ambitious Prelate was so far from being eminent for any good Qualities that he was only a Prodigy of Vice and Wickedness neither was he in all this Contest acted by any zeal that he had for Religion but meerly by an Atheistical spite and malice And he seems to be one of them that after Constantine embraced Christianity came into the Church not for Religion butPreferment And he invaded that so greedily as not to stick at the most scandalous and open violation of the Canons neither was he so much a Bishop as a Courtier always insinuating himself into the favour of Great Men and fawning upon the Emperour himself but especially courting his Sisten Constantiâ— by whose zeal he was well awane if he could gain her to his side he might compaâ—s his ends And it was his great interest in Constantine's Court that gave him the power and opportunity of doing so much mischief in the Church And we shall find that he was not wanting to improve it to the utmost where his Malice and Revenge were concern'd especially against Athanasius whose affront he could never forgive he having when but a young Deacon in the publick Council encountred and overcome so great a Prelate and all that Train of Dependent Bishops that his Greatness drew after it So Powerful a Prelate to suffer all this Disgrace from so mean a Person as a poor Deacon and chiefly by his means to be brought upon his knees and forced to publick Submission was an indignity so intolerable to his Proud Spirit that neither the Deacons own Blood nor the Blood of all his Friends was sufficient to satiate his unquenshable Revenge And therefore all the forged Accusations against him were of Crimes the Punishment whereof was Capital such as Murther Rapes and Treason as the Bishops of Egypt observe in their Synodical Epistle so that they impute it to the great Clemency of Constantine that when his Enemies sought nothing but his death he appeased and prevented their malice by his banishment The wholeStory runs thus Eâ—sebius having regain'd the Emperour's favour after his return writes to Athanasius for the Restitution of Arius To which he replyes That the Ring-leaders of Heresies are not so easily to be reconciled to the Church as the deluded followers that the Church was always wont to punish them with greater and longer severities and withal that himself was not at all satisfied of thâ— sincerity of Arius his Repentance and therefore would not as yet hear of any motion for his Restitution This Eusebius immediately seizes as a fit Handle for his design and away he goes to the Emperour tells him that Athanasius keeps up Discord in the Church for his own private Picques and Animosities so that though Arius desired his Absolution upon repentance yet he contrary to his duty and all the Laws of the Church refused it Upon this Constantine writes a very threatning Letter to Athanasius commanding the Restitution of Arius upon pain of deposition and banishment to which Athanasius returns such a satisfactory Answer as made the Emperour desist from interposing any farther in it Eusebius therefore finding himself defeated tampers with the Meletian Schismaticks of Egypt to make a Plot against Athanasius They were a sort of People that lived in the Boggs and Marshes of Mareotis where one Priest served ten or more Parishes much resembling our wild Irish for dulness and stupidity and they are thus described by the Bishops of the Council of Alexandria To be men void of faith Schismaticks and Enemies to the Church neither was this their first practice in this Trade but they were old and experienced Plot-makers they had conspired against their Holy Bishop Peter the Martyr and after him they Accused
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
the word that he had always in his mouth all the misfortune was that he fell into ill hands and by their advice endeavour'd it the wrong way His high Opinion of the honesty of some ill Church-Men was the Principle that exposed him to all that abuse that was put upon him all his life time It was his confidence in Eusebius and his Partisans that did drive him into that unhappy course that he took for the attainment of his desired Peace All their advice was Oracle to him and made him both deaf and blind to all other information But otherwise setting aside this unhappy oversight of being over-rul'd by ill Men he seems to have been so far from all thoughts of robbing the Church of its own inherent rights that he thought he could never shew it kindness enough by heaping continual favours of his own upon it he granted it more Priviledges and greater Immunities then any other Emperor and whereas his Father Constantine only exempted Ecclesiasticks from all Personal burthens in the Common-wealth he has in divers Rescripts freed them from all manner of Taxes and Impositions whatsoever and a very little time before his death he publisht an Edict to Establish the perpetual security of all his former Grants with this reason at the end of it as it were his dying words Gaudere â—nim gloriari ex side semper volumus scientes magis Religionibus quà m Officiis Labore corporis vel sudore nostram rempublicam contineri i. e. as Gothofred paraphrases it We freely grant all these Immunities to the Ministers of Religion as knowing that the Publick Weal will lose nothing by all their exemptions from its service but gain greater blessings from their Prayers and Devotions then they could have contributed to it by any other way of Attendance And this very thing is all along upbraided to him by the counterfeit Hilary in his Book against him that whilst he pretended so much kindness to the Christian Church and Clergy he by his ill Government betrayed the one and oppress 't the other Auro reipublicae Sanctum Dei honoras vel detracta templis vel publicata Edictis vel exacta paenis Deo ingeris Osculo Sacerdotes excipis quo Christus est proditus Caput benedictioni summittis ut fidem calces convivio dignaris ex quo Judas ad proditionem egressus est censum capitum remittis quem Christus ne Scandalo esset exolvit Vectigalia Caesar donas ut ad negationem Christianos invites quae tua sunt relaxas â—t quae Dei sunt amittantur So that it is evident from his Story and the Confession of his Enemies that he was a true lover of the Christian Church and a zealous Promoter of Religion and only miscarried by following the advice of the Eusebians which they gave him for their own ends and with what grosness they abused him all along we have seen through every Stage of his life And this is the ground of those high Commendations that are given him by Gregory Nazianzen because he was of himself a true lover of Religion and designed nothing but the Peace and settlement of the Church though under that plausible pretence his good nature and integrity were imposed upon by wicked Men to compass their own wicked designs against the true peace of the Catholick Church And that was the folly and misfortune that they drew him into not to acquiesce in the Authoritative determination of the Church in so great a Council as that of Nice which had he done it had continued in the same Peace and Tranquility in which his Father left it But when instead of that he endeavoured to remove the setled Foundation as it was laid by the true and proper Builders it is no wonder if the whole Fabrick fell upon his own head and buried his whole Reign under its Ruins And it is very likely that his impatience under so awkerd a Burthen when he could not clear himself of it put him at last upon those angry courses that he took to obtain his Will And as at last it perplext so it debaucht his Government for till the Conquest of Magnentius he seem'd to have behaved himself like a wise and able Prince but had not leisure to attempt much less perform any thing great by reason of his perpetual attendance upon this Controversie And that may be a warning to all Princes That when a Controversie of Religion is once laid by a fair and legal decision to beware how they suffer it to rise again lest it prove too strong and stubborn to submit to a second Exorcism However by the different behaviour of these two Princes in interposing in the Controversies of the Church and the different event of their actings in it we have before our Eyes clear examples of right and wrong methods of Government Constantine when he found a Faction in the Church settles peace by the Authority of the Church without putting any restraints upon it and what that determin'd he first made a Law to himself and then to his Subjects and would never after permit it to be call'd in question and by this means he quell'd a dangerous Faction and freed himself from any direct disturbance from it all his own Reign But his Son Constantius on the contrary not acquiescing in the Canonical determination of the Church broke down all the Banks of Government and let in that Inundation of Dispute that overwhelm'd his whole Reign But being sensible of the trouble that he had brought upon himself by having once dismantled the Churches Authority he thought to help himself out by retrieving its force but still the more he strugled the more he entangled himself because instead of setling things by fair and free Councils and unless they are so they are no Councils of Christs Officers but meer Executioners of the Princes Commands himself ever endeavour'd to over-rule all the Councils that he call'd either by fraud or violence And then no wonder when they were so hamper'd if they were not able to attain the end of their Institution And that was the fatal miscarriage of his Reign his garbling the Authority of Councils turning them into Courts of Guards and abetting forty or fifty Seditious Men against the whole Body of Catholick Bishops otherwise if they had been permitted the free exercise of their own proper Authority all things had been carried with that gravity and decency that became the Christian Church as we see by the great Councils of Sardica and Ariminum that had effectually setled the Nicene Faith had not the Emperor cut asunder their Decrees with his Sword and set up an Eusebian Rump in defiance and opposition to the whole Council And therefore whereas some Men are pleased to upbraid the Churches Authority with the miscarriages of these Councils under Constantius they might have been pleased too to consider that the main Body of Christian Bishops discharged their duty with entire faithfulness and
upon any pretence whatsoever but especially of Religion is an utter Stranger to the Catholick Church §. XIX And now are we Arrived at a strange and surprizing Revolution of things under the Reign of Julian who no sooner came to the Crown then he endeavour'd by all the ways of fraud and force to destroy the Establish't Religion of the Empire in order to the Reduction of the old Paganism and Idolatry And considering the shortness of his Reign he was a fiercer and more outragious Enemy to the Christian Church then any or indeed all the ancient Persecutors put together And yet notwithstanding all the wildness of his fury they think themselves obliged by the Fundamental Laws of their Religion to pay him the same duty of Loyalty and Allegiance that they payed to the Christian Emperours But the History of his Reign has of late been made the Subject even of popular discourse and that will in a great measure prevent me in this part of my undertaking the Trifle of Julian having received sufficient Correction and much more then it deserved and I doubt the Jest is now spoil'd and the jolly Doctrine prevented from being popular by its unhappy Application But notwithstanding that I shall proceed in my old Method to shew first how the Church took care to Govern and preserve it self by its own Authority against all the Apostates Opposition and by the right and effectual exercise of it was too hard for all his Politicks against it And Secondly what a tender and a religious sense of Duty and Loyalty they profest and practised towards him in spight of his unparallel'd Provocations Of which I shall endeavour so to discourse as not to repete or interfere with other Mens Observations As for the first it is highly observable that when the Apostate came to the Empire he was all on fire for the destruction of Christianity out of it for though he had suppress't his Apostacy all the time of Constantius yet his zeal was perpetually boiling in his Breast and impatient to burst into open Liberty And therefore the very first moment of Opportunity that it had to discover it self it broke forth as Gregory Nazianzen often compares it like fire from its confinement He immediately commands all the Heathen Temples to be opened and the Sacrifices to be brought to the Altars solemny renounces his Christianity and purges away his Baptism with the Blood of Sacrifices is immediately install'd into the old and abrogated dignity of Pontifex Maximus and officiates at the Heathen Rites in his own Person So that tho the former Emperours took it to themselves only as a Title of Honour he ridiculously takes the Office too and acts all the Phantastick Postures and Pageantries of the Heathen Priests And the fury of his zeal swell'd so high that nothing less would serve his turn then to be created a Priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries because those were esteemed the most sacred and recondite part of their Religion And then he goes on every where to re-edifie and adorn the Heathen Temples and to place Heathen Priests in them And having thus in the first place taken all speedy care for the re-settlement of his own Religion his next thought is how to contrive the utter extirpation of the Galilaeans as he always stil'd the Christians in contempt and derision The best and most obvious Policy that he could pitch upon for that was to bring confusion into the Church For which purpose he grants Liberty of Conscience to all Factions calls back all the banish't Bishops particularly Athanasius Eusebius of Verselles and St. Hilary restores all the Hereticks particularly Aetius whom he invites to Court and returns all their Churches to the Novatian Schismaticks and what mighty endearments there were between the Apostate and the Donatists we have seen above in their History Now from an uncontroll'd licentiousness granted to such a vast variety of quarrelsome People he doubted not to make the Church contemptible to all the World by turning it into a Counter-scuffle For he look't upon the Christians as the most contentious Sect in it usually saying that no wild Beasts were so fierce against men as Christians were against one another And this Character of the contentiousness of Christians among themselves he could not but take up from his Observation of the Cruelty and merciless behaviour of the Eusebians towards the Orthodox under his Predecessor that indeed exceeded the salvageness of all wild Beasts But supposing them never so tame nothing less then everlasting confusion could be expected from such an unbounded licentiousness As Sozomen observes that it was not done out of any kindness but that the Church might destroy it self by mutual discord and Civil War And yet alass so far was he from attaining his ends that his malice was utterly defeated by the wisdom of the good Bishops for they being now freed from that violence and oppression that was put upon the Discipline of the Church by Constantius with his Prefects and Eunuchs and so being at liberty to exert that power that was settled upon them by our blessed Saviour they effectually restored that Peace and Concord to the Church which they could never compass under the oppressive Reign of Constantius put an end to the vexatious Arian Controversie establish't the Nicene Faith over all the Christian World and prevented new Schisms and Factions that were at that time breaking out in the Christian Church For after the death of George the Saint who was barbarously Murthered by the Heathens for affronting their Religion or rather robbing their Temples as 't is attested both by Ammianus Marcellinus and all the Christian Historians but most expresly by Julians own Letter to the Alexandrians where he bespeaks the Actors as true Worshippers of the Gods and blames them for having committed so cruel a Riot out of an over warm zeal for their Religion yet Philostorgius and Sandius have the Grace to say That the Fact was committed by the Followers of Athanasius and that they were set on by himself though he were then absent out of the City After this Athanasius returns to Alexandria where he is no sooner come then he calls a Council for resettling the State of the Catholick Church that had been interrupted by Constantius his fierce and long Oppression of it And at this Council the Famous Eusebius of Verselles was present as he return'd from his banishment in the higher Thebais though the Roman Writers will have it that he came as the Popes Legate without any Authority for it but their own bold Assertion and on the contrary he was so far from coming with any Commission from Rome that he came from a quite distant part of the World and only took in Alexandria in his way And now here the first question is as in all other Persecutions concerning the Lapsi or those Bishops that had joyn'd with the Arians or Eusebians in any of Constantius his Councils whether upon their
Pretence and will rather forfeit their Understanding then not gratifie their ill-nature how else could any Man be so transported out of his common Sense from one miscarriage to warrant our imitation of it against the constant sense of the Church for so many Ages And yet with what joy and greediness has this poor trifle been embraced as a new discovery dropt from Heaven and how confident are we that the Primitive Christians were no such softly fools as they have been hitherto represented as to preach and practise that Sheepish Doctrine of Passive Obedience Which only shews how ready some Parties of Men among us are for seizing any pretences for Resistance and Rebellion Otherwise certainly if Men would Judge impartially and without Faction of this mighty work the whole Mystery of it is no more then this that an Industrious Searcher into the Records of the Church has at last found out one instance in which some Christians failed of their Duty to their Prince A great performance this worthy the applause and admiration of this learned Age and therefore to deal civilly with it I care not though I grant the truth of the Assertion but then I must crave leave to let them know that this is the only instance of this kind that hap'ned in Eleven hundred years For that is the thing that I have undertaken to maintain That from the beginning of Christianity down to the time of Pope Gregory the Seventh who was the 159th Pope and succeeded not till the year 1073 no one Christian of the Western Church no not a Pope or taught or put in practice the Doctrine of Resistance to Sovereign Princes or disown'd the duty of Passive Obedience under the worst of Persecutors and after this much good may this little Story of Julian do them For they cannot but see what a mean and foolish design it is to set up one single Tale as a proâ—f of the Sense of the Primitive Christians when it stands all alone and is contrary to the declared Sense of the Catholick Church for so many Ages So that they gain so little advantage to their Cause by this admired Performance that it proves the most unlucky Argument that could have been contrived against it For this is a demonstration to all the World that there is in all the Records of the Church but one Precedent of Christian disrespect or disobedience to persecuting Princes And that is but a single exception to its universal practice and if it be it confesses its own Enormity from it So that methinks Men that design'd to preach up Resistance and Rebellion from the Precedents of the Primitive Christians should rather have taken any other method to abuse the People then by telling them this single Story of Julian For hereby they are brought to understand that they have no more then one Tale for their Cause and that if it were true it is controuled by the universal practice of all Churches in all Ages and that I think is as much as any reasonable Man can desire to shame and bafle the Assertion Especially when it is so evident that Christians before this time were become in a great measure like other Men because when Christianity became the Religion of the Empire and the darling of Princes all Men would equally embrace it for present Advantage and Preferment And in these circumstances bad Men will be sure to appear as forward in their Zeal as the best Christians and generally to outstrip them in outward Appearance So that if at that time there had been any Christians found guilty of disloyalty towards their Prince what wonder is it when such Numbers came into the Church not for any love of the Religion but for other ends and designs of their own And such Men were as effectually loose from all the Obligations of Christianity as if they had never own'd it And therefore the true Sense of Christians ought not to be taken from their practice after it had been the thriving Religion for then it was made a Trade but from their Professions in such times when they had no other Motive to embrace it but it self for then it is certain that all that did so were in good earnest It being then so evident that the Christians through all Ages down to Constantine profess't and practiced the duty of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience to all Princes without reserves and exceptions as an indispensible Law of their Religion that is a clear full and unanswerable declaration of the Sense of the Primitive Church in this matter however any might fall into a contrary behaviour in times of ease and prosperity For then it is impossible but that there would be many in the Church that were not of it as we have shewn above from the complaint of Eusebius and others how the Credulity of Constantine was abused by pretended Converts to the great dishonour of his Government and Oppression of his People And yet I think no Man could think it reasonable to upbraid Christianity with their Scandals and if Julian found multitudes of such Men in the Church when he came to the Empire what wonder would it be if Men that were in reality no Christians made any unchristian Attempts against him So that granting our Apostates the truth of their Plea from the behaviour of Christians towards Julian this one thing utterly barrs their Conclusion that this was the avowed practice of Christians at that time when at the time that he came to the Empire there were as many in the Church that were not as that were Christians But because it is to be supposed that the Counterfeits fell off with the Apostate I will allow the Plea that if the Christians who persevered in the Faith committed any of those disloyal and Seditious pranks that the Apostates charge upon them that then the blame shall lye at the Church door And yet so as not to make a Precedent for imitation because it is a single Enormity both from the plain Laws of the Religion and the universal Practice of all its Professors and after that it is a very impertinent way of arguing to draw any Conclusion from such an Example And yet secondly as impertinent as it is it is much more false for there is not any one instance of any one Christian in all his Reign that ever made any resistance to any one of his Commands And then whatever they did beside to affront him that is nothing to warrant the practice of Resistance and shews that in whatsoever hatred and contempt they held his Person yet notwithstanding that they thought themselves bound in duty to an entire Submission to his Government And therefore of their ill manners and uncourtly behaviour towards him I shall discourse by it self because that concerns not the Argument of Resistance and shall at present only shew that they were so far from putting any such design in practice that they all expresly disclaimed and defied it as utterly inconsistent with the
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