proclaim open Wars he having other Nations besides the Isaurians to assist him himself marching to the Battel the Bishop of Apamia being his Assistant but Longinus was defeated the Isaurians foyled the heads He is defeated His and Theodorus heads sent by John the Scythian and stuck upon Poles of Longinus and Theodorus sent by John the Scythian to Constantinople stuck upon Poles beyond the Water over against Constantinople at Sica which pleased the Citizens and was a goodly shew to them saith the History because Zeno and the Isaurians had heretofore grievously vexed them A second Longinus sirnamed Selinuncius and Indus sent alone Selinuncius one of the chiefest of the Company and Indus were sent alive by John unto the Emperor of which both he and the Made shew of in the Tryumphs Citizens were glad they both were tyed in Chains about their necks and hands and led about the Theatre as is the manner of Tryumphs and throughout the Streets also The Scenetae also a Barbarian People so called because of Cap. 36. The Scenetae invade and destroy Mescpot Phoenicia Palâ—stina their living in Tents were so lifted up that they took Arms against the Romans destroyed Mesopotamia Phoenicia and Palestina but to their own great damage and hurt it tended in the end so that they were constrained to make truce and joyn in Are coâ—stâ—aâ—ned to make peace league with the Romans The Persians also broke their League and under the Conduct Cap. 37. The Persians War also in Armenia Are overcome Dacas builded of Cabades their King came into Armenia took Theodosiopolis besieged Amida which with great toyl and trouble was hardly recovered This Battel being ended Anastatius builded Daras as a bound between the one Countrey and the other walled it about and beautified it with goodly buildings he took away the Tribute called Chrysargyrum which was the Mulct for license The Tribute Chrysargyrum taken away And Chrysotelia set up A selling of the Souldiers Wages for uncleanness but set up Chrysotelia which was something like the Sale of Debentors sometimes here in England a making Merchandize of the Souldiers pay and from the places of Judgment he took away the Tribute and Revenue and appointed The Revenue for the Seats of Judgment removed and Proctors and Attorneys set up through every City Proctors and Attorneys which much reflected upon his reputation and discontented the people Vitalianus also a Thracian rebelled and over-ran Thracia and Cap. 43. Vitalianus rebels in Thracia Marches to Constant Hyspatius sent against him he is betrayed by his own Souldiers taken alive ransomed Cyrillus sent against Vitalianus Fights him A doubtful Battel Cyrillus seemed to have the upper hand Vitalian turns again takes Cyril Marches towards Constantinople Mydia as far as Odyssus and Anchialus and with a great company of people that had no dwelling place marched towards Constantinople Against him the Emperor sent Hypatius whose own Souldiers betrayed him he was taken alive and ransomed with a great sum of money then Cyrillus made great expedition to engage him who fighting a doubtful field and dangerous so that many began to fly by pursuing the Enemy and calling again his own Souldiers seemed to have the upper hand against whom Vitalianus turning as the Souldiers retreated in spight he took him in Odyssus Unto Sycae he invaded the whole Countrey destroying with Sword and Fire all that came in his way purposing to take Constantinople and to be Emperor his Camp he pitched at Sycae Marinus Syrus went with a great Navy to Maâ—inus Syrus fights him on the Water give him Battel they fight with their Navy about Bytharia where Vitalianus was beaten and put to flight his Souldiers fled also Vitalianus beaten not one of them being to be seen the day after Pilas also in Cappadocia was infested with another sort of Barbarians and about Pilas infested by the Barbarians Rhodas the third time shaken with an Earthquâ—ke overthrown the same time Rhodos on a certain night now the third time was shaken with a wonderful great Earthquake and in a manner all overthrown Great tumults about this time were also at Constantinople because Cap. 44. Great tumults at Constant because of the Emperors adding a Clause to their Trisagium The Priests the Ring-leaders the Emperor had added unto their Trisagium who was crucified for our sakes they thinking thereby or as if the interlacing that clause had been an overthrow to the Christian Religion Macedonius with the Priests were the Ring-leaders unto all this This helped on Macedonius his banishment The tumult was so great that many noble men were in danger of their lives and many great buildings set on fire The people finding a certain rude and A simple Monk put to death on supposition by the Tumult simple Monk in the house of Marinus Syrus struck off his head saying It was by his procurement that the clause was interlaced Then they tyed him to a long Pole and lift him up on high with Lift him upon a Pole and deride him great shouting deriding him and saying Here is he that conspired against the Trinity The Sedition was so great that the The Emperor throws aside the Imperial Scepter Proclaims that he wil be Emperor no longer Emperor not knowing what to do and being so vexed with sorrow threw aside his Imperial Scepter came unto the Theatre sent the Beadles about to proclaim that with good will he would be Emperor no longer that many in no wise were to be preferred to that room for the place alloweth but of one that was to succeed him in the Empire The people hearing of this on a The people hereupon change their minds and are quiet Shortly after he dies sudden changed their minds requesting Anastatius to take the Crown and in so doing they would be quiet Shortly after this stir he departed this life having been Emperor twenty seven years three months and so many dayes Justinus a Thracian succeeded Anastatius by the Pretorian Souldiers Anno. 519. Evagr. lib. 4. cap. 1. Justinus succeeds whose Captain he had sometimes been and so unlooked for he came to the Government there being then many worthy Personages of Anastatius Alliance flowing in wealth and felicity and of very great power It seems Amantius who was a man of very great power and The manner how he attained it chief of the Emperors Chamber seeing no Eunuch could be Emperor wished the Imperial Robe to Theocritus his sworn Brother and imployed Justinus in the distributing a great sum of money to effect it But Justinus whether by bribing the people on his own behalf or gaining the Watch and the Guard by money obtained it for himself and then put Amantius and Theocritus with many others to death Vitalianus seeing by force it was thought it could not be done Cap. 3. He courts and kills Vitalianus he courted with flattery sends for him to
Christ the Light which he saith went or was before the World and all Worlds the Intellectual and Essential Wisdom and the living Word of God who was in the beginning with the Father therefore they thought him a thing or some Imposter in time about that time or but then brought forth or appearing or known in the World when those who pretended to him were nicknamed Christians that is to say in such a year of the Reign of such a Roman Emperor who is without beginning of dayes or end of Life as hath been declared Also they who were called Christians and yet persecuted one another were from the Light Christ the Light which was before the World and so far or whilst as such that is to say persecuting one another knew not that or were not in it which was before the World So they placed things in time the Heathen their gods before him whose Name was Christ and that which one called Christian persecuted another for before that for holding of which or not holding Persecution of the Christians one called Christian persecuted another And here as I said before was the ground of both and of all those who since and at this day persecute others upon account of Religion or the Worship of God their not knowing or not abiding in the knovvledge of him vvho is the Light of the World the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the World which was or went before the World was Who but the Father alone hath as hath been said rightly known For all such judging of things relating unto him in time and thinking of him as they think of themselves think grosly and so put the determination of Truth according to the measure of themselves who a beginning have and must come to an end which is wholly out of the verge of Truth which neither hath beginning nor end So these gross apprehensions both in the Heathen and such as were called Christians is the reason or ground wherefore they call Truth Novelism and so persecute one another because of Truth they are absolutely from that which was before time was by which the World was made in that which is in time which knows not that by which time was and in which time was made which hath a beginning and must end which never could nor can judge of Truth which hath no end as it never had a beginning Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all Generations before the Mounâ—ains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the World even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Psal 90. 12. The Heathens accounted the Christian Religion or Christ and his The ground of the Heathen Persecution and of the Christians and of the Christians persecuting one another Worship an upstart thing the Christians so called that persecuted accounted what they persecuted a thing that was an upstart they laid their Force they put their Penalties their Laws their Death Why they were in that which stood in time that knew not the Light which was before the World was which is the Intellectual and Essential Wisdom the living Word of God which was in the beginning with the Father who alone the Father hath rightly known All things are delivered me of my Father and no man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him Mat. 11. 27. And these persecuted one another about Worship Why Because they saw not the Light they saw not that Light by which all things were made but being in that which is made and seeing with that eye or the eye which is made and not with the Light which was before the World the Principle of God they quarrelled about Religion and the Worship of God and for that shed blood which came not to destroy mens lives but to save them as hath been declared who will have no bloody Sacrifices since he was offered up who by one offering for ever perfected those that are sanctified Heb. 10. 14. So that the reason of all lies here Men not coming to that which was before the World was not knowing or not believing or abiding in that by which all things were made which was before all things and taking upon them to judge of that which was before the World was judge like themselves and prosecute their Judgments with things like themselves and make that which they prosecute like to themselves which is perishing and transitory which they cut off and destroy they count Truth new an upstart Christ Jesus this thing that Novelism they persecute cut off and seek to do it because they see not the Antient of dayes whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his Dominion that which shall never have an end his Dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed Dan. 7. 14. Eusebius addeth Which is before every Creature and workmanship Euseb further account of Christ the Light both of visible and invisible things the first and only Son of God chief Captain of the Celestial Rational and Immortal Host the Angel of the great Counsel and Executor of the great Will of the Father Maker and worker of all things together with the Father which after the Father is the cause and Author of all things which are created the true and only begotten Son of God Lord God and King of all things which are created receiving Dominion and Rule of the Father by the said Divinity Power and Glory All this he calls the Light as aforesaid and withall saith His Generation And his Generation who shall be able to declare For the Father no man hath known but the Son neither at any time have any known the Son but the Father alone which begat him in the words aforegoing So that here he layes the bottom of his History which he calls Ecclesiastical The bottom of his History and of the Truth or relating to the Church or the Worship of God which is the Antiquity unto which he pretendeth against that which rose up against the Christians in that day both by the Jews and Heathens as a thing but of yesterday of young date and not everlasting the same untâ— which answereth now in this that which pretendeth now to Truth as a new thing never heard of before no Antiquity before a few years late past which is everlasting Christ the Light which was before the World was by whom all things were made which was made without whom nothing was made which was made which was with God which was God in whom was Life and the Life was the Light of men which is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the World John 1. 2 3 4 9. Here 's the Antiquity here 's the Antient of dayes here 's the Original the Principle of them that pretend to the Light in this day hitherto pretended he that
them joying and tryumphing at their end as if she had been invited to a Wedding Dinner and not to be cast among wild Beasts after scourging after buckling with wild Beasts after the broyling of her body as it were in a Frying-pan at length she was wrapped in a Net and tumbled before a wild Bull which fanned and tossed her with his Horns to and fro yet had she no feeling of all these things her mind being fixed and wholly set upon the conference she had with Christ and in the end she was beheaded the Pagans themselves pronouncing That never any Woman was heard of among them to have suffered so many and so great torments Neither did their rage and cruelty against the Christians so cease for the barbarous Gentiles being provoked by a wicked Fiend saith the History could not quiet themselves but that their furious rage practised another kind of malitious spight upon the dead Carkasses neither were they pleased in that they were overcome and void of natural feeling and sence but proceeded further like bruit Beasts both President and People were furiously provoked prosecuting them with like hatred that the Scripture may be fulfilled He that is wicked let him be wicked still and he that is just let him work Righteousness still The Bodies of those that were choaked in Prison cast to dogs for as many as were choaked up with the noysome sent of the Prison were thrown to be devoured of Dogs and a continual watch set day and night that none of them should be buried And gathering together the Reliques of the Martyrs Bodies some undevoured by Beasts some And guarâ—ed of them to be devoured unburnt by fire partly torn and partly burned with the Heads and stumps of others uncovered with earth they committed them for the space of many dayes to the custody of Souldiers others fretted and fumed snatching at them with the gnashing of their Teeth seeking further revengement of them others derided and scoffed them magnifying their Idols as cause of this our calamity and such as were of a milder nature and somewhat sorrowed at our suffering upbraided us and said Where is their God and what profited them this Religion which they Others said Where is their God prefer before their lives And such was the variable and devilish disposition of the Infidels to our great sorrow because we were not permitted to bury the dead bodies of the Martyrs neither stood the night in any stead to us for that purpose neither would money perswade the Keepers nor our Prayers move them but they kept the bruised Carkasses of the Saints as if some great Commodity grew unto them by keeping them unburied To be short after that the bodies of the blessed Saints had been every kind of way spitefully and scornfully intreated The stumps of their bodies lying six dayes unburied are burnt and the Ashes cast into the River Rhodanus lest they should rise again or that their God should help them The French sustain lying whole six dayes unburied at length they were burned to Ashes the Ashes also they gathered and scattered in the River Rhodanus which passed by so that no Jot or Relique thereof should longer remain upon Earth This they did to the end they might overcome God and hinder the reviving of the Saints lest that as they said there should be any further hope of the Resurrection whereof say they the Christians being fully perswaded bring amongst us a strange and a new Religion they contemn punishment and hasten themselves chearfully unto death Now let us see whether they can arise and whether their God can help and deliver them from our hands Thus far of the Sufferings of the French under this Emperor out of the Sufferers own Writings which though it be a little prolix and so may seem somewhat besides the intent of this Discourse yet being so pertinent and of so circumstantial a nature I thought it convenient to give the Reader a relation thereof that in the instance of these he may see how grievous the persecution was and how inhumane on the one hand and on the other how the Lord sustained and carried them through like noble Conquerors In the other places the persecutions were not so great nor the inhumanities so long and terrible to flesh and blood but he made them easie and caused those to overcome who were faithful unto the greatest Persecutions him Besides these of cruel Torments and Death they were exercised with Exile as well as Death Exile from their Houses Booths and common Market-places and not only so but every one of them were charged not to shew his face with the weakness also of many who through fear of torments fell from the Faith who notwithstanding many of them came on again and confessed The fallings of many for fear Exeâ—cise the French themselves what they were viz. Christians and died constant in the Faith though the enemy wrought by their first stepping aside no small disadvantage and these were divers of the Ethnicks their own Servants whom those terrible Spectacles of grim Beasts and torments made to start and to accuse their fellow Christians falsly as using the feastings of Thiestes and the incests of Oedipus with divers others which themselves They are falsly accused of disordeâ—ed conversations say may neither Godly be thought upon neither with modesty uttered neither without impiety be believed Through the egging on and perswasions of the Souldiers these things were feigned and reported of them which was the wile of the Devil in all Ages where he cannot otherwise thereto make Truth to suffer and the followers thereof that his Instruments may have something to pretend to sober men that they are not such as he knows them to be and which they are and sober people take them for but on the contrary such as they are themselves who so force the report that they may seem worthily to put them to death wiping off thereby the opinion of their sanctity so far as he is able that neither may their sufferings sink into the hearts of others neither take with them so as to turn them to the Truth but having removed them by such reports out of the Opinion of the Sober he might have also an influence on them to give them sufferings which proved something to these Servants of the Lord for these reports being bruited abroad every body they write was moved and incensed against them insomuch that they who for familiarity sake used moderation before now were exceedingly moved and mad with them Then was say they the saying of our Saviour And thereby cast out of the minds of the most sober fulfilled The time will come when every one that slayeth you shall think that he doth therein God good service Then suffered say they again the holy Martyrs such torments as tongue cannot express and Satan also provoked them with all might possible that they might utter some blasphemy There were certain
travel in blood and persecution and to stop the issue of blood which for a long time for the most part had infested the Christians they could not be content to be at rest but differing in some things amongst themselves they knew not how to bear one another but being unsensible of the hand that had so wrought for them at least not so as they should be they began to impose one upon forcing forms of Faiths with torments and the Sword another and to force their several Faiths with torments and the Sword which wrought sore destraction and trouble among them and shamed the Christian Religion which is not a Law of blood or as seeking to enforce it self by the destroying of mens lives but a Law of Peace endeavouring by distilling not by coertion to preserve and save In the dayes of Constantine free liberty was given to all men Constantine gives freedom of Religion to all to use what Religion they pleased as by repeating the particular Constitutions and Edicts which here I shall omit I could shew at large so that there was liberty now of complaints and Synods called to refute at least take off the opposition of the contrary but when that Emperors succeeded which leaned to this or that But as succeding Emperors leaned to this or that Faith the contrary came to be persecuted Party or confession of Faith or Opinion then force of Arms or carnal extremities were exercised towards those who were of the contrary disposition banishment torments death It s sore to remember all the particulars and indeed besides my A lamentaâ—ion for the Divisions and the reasons purpose for rather would my eye run down with tears when I view them over that such a reproach through such their doings should rest upon the Christians then to give an account of them but seeing that the things are past silence and oblivion so many Histories speaking at large of them which cannot be called in nor taken out of the memories of men and seeing that they are Wherefore they are now mentioned of use as to this Generation or present Age what hath been wrote in the former that they may see at what door the enemy then came from the Heathen into the Christians and so may learn to beware by the consequences And lastly in regard it suits my purpose and the particular I am upon to shew or give instance how in all Ages and among all sorts of men when Religion became National and was required by Laws of men or imposed what were the consequences I shall as briefly as I can give some instances even among the Christians to this particular and the rather because the instance hath particular relation to this Age in which I write or the present Generation Maxentius the Tyrant and Maximinus being gone and the Cap. 11. The Introduction to the ensuing Relation of the Christians difference and suffering one by another whole race of Maximinus cut off his Children Kindsfolks and the chiefest favourers of the persecution in particular Paucetius his greatest favorite and Culcianus who shed the blood of multitudes in Egypt and Theotecnus aforesaid who set up the Image of Jupiter at Antioch and wrought that later and sore persecution together with the Prophets and Priests of that Idol who confest before they were executed that by Inchantments the Oracle of that Idol was produced being first diversly tormented by Lycinnius This Edict reversed his Monuments and his Pictures were overthrown and defaced and he declared by publick Edicts to have been the chief and most deadly enemy the most impious the most ignominious and a Tyrant that was abhorred before the Face of God and the Heathen confessing diversly The the only Euseb lib. 10. Cap. 1. Cicilianâ—s Bishop of Carthage and the Bishops with them begâ—n the Tragedy in Africa true God was the Defender of the godly Christians The enemy being shut out at this began to enter at the other door as I have intimated A difference fell out between Cicilianus Bishop of Carthage and the Bishops with him the one siding against the other in Africa which occasioned Constantine to summon a Synod of Bishops to meet at Rome for the hearing and reconciling thereof Cap. 5. A Synod at Rome appointed thereabouts at which something being attempted and the judgement given by the other party not being acquiessed in but after the rising of the Synod the difference increasing instead of being ended amongst them a second Synod he called at Orleance in France Who ending not the difference a second Synod is called at Orleans in France As a scourge hereunto Lycinnius Cap. 8. comes forth a persecutor He falls upon the Christians Cashires such as were Souldiers of Place and Dignity Commands no relief to be given to the Prisoners to the end it might be determined as a scourge or rebuke unto which dissentions or the differences that then arose among the Christians Lycinnius aforesaid who being Emperor and together with Constantine had wrote with Constantine enjoying the liberty of the Christians comes forth and fell upon the Christians under his Dominion who never did him evil practising the same things upon them as those had done whom for so doing he had cut off First He banished them from his Court then the Souldiers he deprived and spoiled of their Honour and Dignities who would not sacrifice commanded no charity to be given to them that were in Prison and in Fetters no not by their Kinds-folks and punished with the like penalties of the relieved those Throws down some of their Meeting-places shuts up others who were the relievers of the Imprisoned and Fettered he overthrew some Meeting-places of the Christians to the Pavement and others he shut up his flattering Presidents to gratifie him Bishops are tormented and their bodies minced and cast into the Sea The good Roman Laws revoked Barbarians introduced A short Catalogue of his other abominable wickednesses tormented some of the Bishops whose bodies being cut into many small pieces as Butchers use to do their meat were cast into the Sea for food for Fishes He revoked sundry good Laws of the Romans brought in barbarous and cruel Laws unjust and unlawful and cruel deceits sundry Taxes of Gold and Silver surveys of Land gainful penalties on the Lands of those which were deceased long before and devised abjurations for them who had done no evil and making away of noble and honest Personages whose youthful and tender Wives he delivered to his Servants to be contumeliously and shamefully handled Many Wives Virgins and Maidens he abused shamefully though he was now stricken in years Constantine made War against him seeing things Constantine fights him and Anno. 367 overthrows him and with his Son Crispus rules the Empire come to this pass who practised against Constantine overthrew all Chrisopolis a City of Bithinia So the Christians from those persecutions had rest and Constantine with his Son
Page 22. reproof as so many Mephibosheths their Master teaches them to go uprightly but they still shew their lame leg and shame their Master as if a man might be a Christian and yet be the vilest person in the World doing such things for which the Laws of men have provided both smart and shame and the Laws of God have threatned the intollerable pains of an unsufferable and never dying damnation And in his measure of the Evangelical Righteousness he saith It must at least be so much that is as the Scribes and Pharisees We must keep the Letter of the whole Moral Law We must do all that lies before us all that is in our hand the outward work must Page 24. be done and it is not enough to say My Heart is right but my Hand went wrong a right Heart alone will not do it or rather the Heart is not right when the Hand is wrong for once for all let us remember this That Christianity is the most profitable the most useful and the most bountiful institution in the whole World and the best definition Page 25. I can give of it is this It is the Wisdom of God brought down among us to do good to men Christian Religion is something that is not seen it is the hidden Page 29. man of the heart * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is God that dwells within True Christians are men who as the Chaldee Oracle said †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hos 2. 14. are cloathed with a great deal of mind I will speak unto their Heart To preach the Gospel saith he where the Spirit is the Preacher and the Heart is the Disciple and the Sermon is of Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Our Service to God must not be in outward works and Scenes of Religion it must be something by which we become like God solemn Prayers and the Sacraments and the Assemblies of the Faithful Page 31. and Fasting dayes and Acts of external Worship are the Solemnities Page 32. and Rights of Religion but the Religion of a Christian is in the Heart and Spirit And this is that by which Clemens Alexandrinus desired the Righteousness of a Christian * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the parts and faculties which make up a man must make up our Religion but the Heart is Domus Principalis it is the Court of the great King and he is properly served with Interior Graces and Moral Virtues with a humble and a good Mind with a bountiful Heart and a willing Soul and these command the Eye and give Law to the Hand and make the Shoulders stoop but anima cujusque est quisque then he is within A mans Soul is the man and so is his Religion and so ye are bound to understand it No external action can purifie the Soul because its Nature Page 33. and Operation being Spiritual it can no more be changed by a Ceremony by an external Solemnity than an Angel can be carressed with sweet meats or a mans Belly be filled with Musick or long Orations The Sum is this No Christian does his duty to God but he that serves him with all his heart and although it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness even the external also yet that which makes us gracious in his eye is not the external it is the love of the heart and the real change of the mind and obedience of the Spirit That 's the first great measure of the Righteousness Evangelical Our Righteousness must be the purification and the perfection of the Spirit A Christian must not look upon a Woman to lust after her he must hate sin in all dimensions and in all distances and in every Angle of its Reception To abstain from all appearances of evil Charity vaunteth not its self And upon this Saint Basil saith That Ecclesiastick Persons and so every Christian in his proportion ought not to go in splendid and vain Ornaments every thing that is not wisely useful or proportioned to the state of the Christian but ministers only to vanity is a part of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a vaunting which the charity and grace of a good Christian does not well endure it is no wonder if Christianity be nice and curious it is the cleanness and the purification of the Soul and Christ intends to present his Church to God without spot or wrinkle or any such thing N. B. or any such thing if there be any irregularity less than a wrinkle the Evangelical Righteousness doth not allow it And certain it is he is dull of hearing who understands not the Voice of God unless it be clamorous in an express and a loud Commandment proclaimed with Trumpets and Clarions on Mount Sinai A willing and an obedient ear understands the still Voice of Christ and is ready to obey his meaning at half a word and that is the Righteousnesse Evangelical The Righteousness Evangelical must be like Christ's seamless Coat Page 44. all of a piece from the top to the bottom it must invest the whole Soul Misma Dumah Massah said the Proverb of the Rabbins it is this and it is the other and it must be all it must be an Universal Righteousness not a little knot of holy Actions scattered in our lives and drawn into a sum at the day of Judgment but it must be a state of holiness To be zealous for God and for Religion is good but that will not Page 45. legitimate cruelty to our Brother The Righteousness Evangelical is another kind of thing it is a holy conversation a God-like life an Universal obedience a keeping nothing back from God A Sanctification of the whole man and keeps not the Body only but the Soul and the Spirit unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus These are such things saith he a little before which if a man will stand to defend possibly a modest reprover will be more ashamed than an impudent offender Page 40. Page 49. Among the Hebrews the Trees of the Lord did signifie such trees as grew of themselves and all that are of God's planting are such as have a vital principle within and grow without constraint I do not know how to give a fuller expression to the Principle of the People called Quakers and indeed the whole of them are very full as much as in so many words can well be exprest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one said it of the Christians They obey the Laws and by the goodness of their lives exceed the Laws And certain it is no man hath the Righteousness Evangelical if he resolves alwayes to take all his liberty in every thing that is meerly lawful or if he purpose to do no more than he needs must that is no more than he is just commanded for the reasons are plain The sum of all is this The Righteousness Evangelical is Page 67 68. the same with that
in Gods Kingdom therefore herein I may not hear you for if you cannot suffer any man should usurp authority where you have to command how do you think God should suffer you to thrust him from his Seat and to set your self therein The Puritans so called in their Answer to the Admonition to the Parliament in King James his time page 109. say The Papists nor others neither constrainedly nor customarily communicate in the Mysteries of Salvation And in their supplication printed 1609. pag. 21. c. they write much for Tolleration The Papists so called are quoted in a Book intituled Persecution for Religion condemned c. printed 1615 and 1620. and reprinted 1662. wherein are also many of the things aforesaid I say they are quoted to have written in a Book of theirs about that time published relating to the Oath of Allegiance c. then put viz. in the dayes of King James after this manner Moreover the means which Almighty God appointed his Officers to use in the Conversion of Kingdoms and People was Humility Patience Charity c. saying Behold I send you as Sheep in the midst of Wolves Mat. 10. 16. He did not say I send you as Wolves among Sheep to kill imprison to spoyl and devour these unto whom they were sent Again vers 7. he saith They to whom I send you will deliver you up to Councels and in their Synagogues they will scourge you and to Presidents and Kings shall you be led for my sake He doth not say You whom I send shall deliver the people whom you ought to convert unto Councels and to put them in Prisons and lead them to Presidents and Tribunal Seats and make their Religion Felony and Treason Again he saith vers 12. When ye enter into the House salute it saying Peace be unto this House He doth not say Ye shall send Pursevants to ransack and spoyl the House Again he saith John 10. The good Pastor giveth his life for his Sheep The Thief cometh not but to steal kill and destroy He doth not say The Thief giveth his Life for his Sheep and the good Pastor cometh not but to steal kill and destroy c. The same Book viz. Persecution for Religion condemned c. saith of Stephen King of Poland that he should say I am King of Men not of Consciences a Commander of Bodies and not of Souls And that the King of Bohemia had thus written viz. Notwithstanding the success of the latter times wherein sundry Opinions have been hatched about the Subject of Religion may make one clearly discern with his eye and as it were touch with his finger that according to the verity of holy Scripture and a Maxime heretofore held and maintained by the Antient Doctors of the Church That mens Consciences ought in no sort to be violated urged or constrained and whensoever men have attempted any thing by this violent course whether openly or by secret means the issue hath been pernicious and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest Kingdoms and Countreys of all Christendom c. And further saith that Book he saith So that once more we do protest before God and the whole World that from this time forwards we are firmly resolved not to persecute or molest or suffer to be persecuted or violated any person whatsoever for matter of Religion no not they that profess themselves to be of the Roman Church neither to trouble or disturb them in the exercise of their Religion so they live conformable to the Laws of the States c. William Greenhil of this day in his Exposition on the 11th of Ezech. page 424. saith You know who said In the things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of Light and Reason He is of the Independants so called And Epictetus that famous Philosopher in his Dissertations collected by Arrians Book 1. Chap. 14. thus saith a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When ye have shut your Gates and made darkness within that is to say are retired do not say that ye are alone for ye are not alone but God is within and your genius or the Principle of God what need have they of light to see to do as much as to say God and the Principle of him see what you do And Aristotle to add no more in the 5th Book of Ethicks chap. 8. saith b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man acts justly or unjustly as he acts freely but when constrainedly he doth neither justly nor unjustly but by accident And so I have done with Alexander Henderson and these Doctors and the Book and Papers of the late King and these sayings of the Antient having through all convinced in their very words or their very words holding forth the Principles of the People called Quakers as I have in the words of others in preceding Generations if so be that yet men will reflect or take a view of Truth as it looks through their own Glass though they will not take it in anothers I shall now bring it through the Protestant Religion or that on which the name Protestant is grounded and some few more instances of the Ages that are past and so conclude this my long yet necessary tract of these things which are so eminent and fit to be considered John Milton in his Treatises of the power of the Civil Magistrate in causes Ecclesiastical hath excellently pitched the bottom of this matter It cannot be denied saith he being the main foundation of our Protestant Religion That we of these Ages having no divine Rule or Authority from without us warrantable to one another as a common ground but the Holy Scripture and no other within us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that Scripture as warrantable only to our selves and to such whose Consciences we can so perswade can have no other ground in matters of Religion but only from the Scriptures And these being not possible to be understood without this divine Illumination which no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be at any time for certain in any other it follows clearly that no man or body of men in these times can be the infallible Judges or determiners in matters of Religion to any other mens Consciences but their own And again saith he with good cause therefore it is the general consent of all sound Protestant Writers That neither Traditions Councels nor Canons of any visible Church much less Edicts of any Magistrates or Civil Session but the Scripture onely can be the final Judge or Rule in matters of Religion and that only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself Which protestation saith he made by the first publick Reformers of our Religion against the Imperial Edicts of Charles the fifth imposing Church Traditions without Scripture gave the first beginning of the name Protestant and with that name hath ever been received this Doctrine which prefers the
the Body selling for Bond-men and Bond-women Banishment upon pain of Death and Death it self after the most exquisite and various manners that can be thought of as Ages and Generations have proved of which I am by and by to speak and give witness And the reason hath bin because being gone from that of God in them by and in which they should vvorship him and every one in their ovvn particulars vvhich is near vvhose Injunction as it is in Spirit so is the Worship and the Punishment of not so vvorshiping they are in nothing but vvhat is outvvard themselves and knovv no more of God than vvhat themselves think which being indeed nothing at all that is so far and as they are gone from that or worship or compel thereunto otherwise than that their Worship is like their Godd which is as themselves These things thou hast done and I kept silence Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such â— one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Psal 50. 21 22. and being as themselves their punishment is as themselves which is outward corporeal as man is not in the Spirit So every one that makes a Worship makes a Godd and every one that worships not God in Spirit and in Truth makes a Worship and confounded be all they that serve graven Images that boast themselves of Idols worship him all ye Godds Psal 97. 7. And the Enemy is in all this who as I have said being far from God himself endeavours to put man as far as himself he removes him from having respect to and minding that of God in him to look afar off well knowing that if he can but once do that he shall never know God and then he can easily perswade man to be as God and to give Laws how he indeed as God may be worshipped and to torture and torment the Bodies of those who worship God as he will be worshipped or who cannot worship God as man would have him worshipped For he that would drive a man from the Measure of God in himself to worship God as he pleaseth drives a man from God and instead of God sets himself up to be worshipped and himself being set up or he having set up himself to be worshipped he takes revenge and punishes those who will not worship what himself sets up and so falls into the predicament of Nebuchadnezzar and of all those who because of Worships not conforming to their Laws of Worship have caused men to suffer as the Histories now to be made mention of give instance And here lest I should seem too prolix and fill a Volumn with that which a lesser space may serve to give evidence to what I have in hand I shall principally confine my self to what Eusebius Pamphilius Socrates Scholasticus and Evarius Scholasticus in their Ecclesiastical History have set down and touched at for near the first six hundred years after the death of him who is Lord and King and lives for ever And here I shall be as short as well I may that in a thing of this consequence I may convince what I have here asserted to this and the Ages that shall succeed to the end that as the wise man said it may appear that as to God and his Worship and Worshippers and what they have received who have worshipped him in Spirit and in Truth from them who have held up the Ecles 1. 9. Form without and not knowing and not from the Power of God there is no new thing under the Sun but as they did of old so in this day the same they receive from such as are in the Form who know and are in the Power of God and how that which hath held up the Form and hath prescribed Laws and Constitutions Creeds and Governments by which God should be worshipped have stained the Earth with blood and with the most horrible torments and sufferings most exquisite have wrung out of every Age this confession That destruction and violence is in their Paths and the way of Peace they have not known And this one thing hath proved that man was in all this or rather the Devil in man who having set up himself as God destroyes as he can all those who will not fall down and worship him which is not the Religion of God the Wisdom which is from Above which is first pure then peaceable Jam. 3. 17. gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie nor the Worship of him who saith He came not to Luke 9. 3â— destroy mens lives but to save them And here I shall take upon me no affected Stile nor strain any thing beyond what they speak in themselves but as the Spirit of the Lord of whom I am moved this to undertake shall lead and give me to whom be the glory of his own working who is God over all blessed for ever Amen Eusebius in his first Book of Ecclesiastical History Chapter the first Eus lib. 1. c. 1. taking upon him to speak of the Divinity and Humanity of Christ the Lord and treating of the Antiquity of the Christian Religion and the Name of Christ which the Heathen in that day thought a very Novelism who worshipped Images and Idols such things which they made to themselves who sacrificed to Devils not to God as it was said of Jeroboam He ordained him Priests for the high Places for the Devils and 2 Chron. 11. 15. Deut. 32. 17. for the Calves which he had made And by Moses They sacrificed unto Devils not to God to Godds whom they knew not to new Godds who came newly up whom your Fathers knew not and which he forbad to Israel when he said They shall no more offer their Sacrifices unto Devils after whom they are gone a whoring This shall be a Statute unto them said the Lord by Levit. 1. 17. 7. Moses throughout their Generations I say he speaking of the Divinity and the Humanity of Christ and treating of the Antiquity of the Christian Religion and the Name of Christ which the Heathen in that day counted a Novelism brings him in thus This Light saith he going before the World and all the Worlds the Intellectual and Essential Wisdom and the living Word of God being in the beginning with the Father who but the Father alone hath rightly known Implying that they took upon them that which they did not understand who did undertake to speak of him and his descent and beginning of dayes who is from everlasting also of his Religion and the Age and Antiquity thereof who knew him not much less his Religion This was the ground of all the most cruel and Heathenish persecutions of the Christians and of the then called Christians one of another of which he and the aforementioned treat they knew not
Cap. 2. Meetings in their Church-yards Then in instigating Petitions to have the Christians banished his Dominions about under a pretence to hinder their Meetings in what the History calls the Church-yards Then he sets malitious men on work to desire of him that no Christian might be suffered to live in his Dominion it was not six whole months after the former Edict that he began these things and thereby gave an occasion of outward wreck to the Christians who but a little before had such occasion by the said Edict of Joy and Rejoycing that the incredulous Heathen are said to be much dismayed and wondering at the marvellous strangeness of so great a change cryed The Heathens confess to the God of the Christians Cap. 1. Cap. 3. Theotecnus conspiracy in raising false reports on the Christians his cruelty and erecting an Idol to Jupiter and an Oâ—acle saying out That the God of the Christians was the great and only true God By Theotecnus Lieutenant of Antioch he began this conspiracy who that is to say Theotecnus fell upon the Christians imprisoned whom he could find devised means wherewithal to accuse them and of many was the cause of their deaths and at length erected the Idol of Jupiter as the God of Friendship with certain inchantments and sorceries feigning to the Emperor what strange things the Oracle seemed to utter and being a flatterer seeing what pleased the Emperor raised a wicked spirit against the Christians and said God so commanded that God commanded that the Christians should be banished the Christians should be banished out of the City and Liberties thereof for that they were Rebels and Traytors to the Crown This wicked man Theotecnus having done these things of his Cap. 4 Other Magistrates follow his example own accord all the other Magistrates inhabiting the Cities of his Dominions premulgated the like and when as the Presidents throughout the Provinces saw this pleased the Emperor they egged the Subjects to do the like and the Tyrant very promptly Whereby Persecution grew hot saith the History consented by his Rescript unto their Ordinances so that again the heat of persecution was blown against the Christians and Idol Priests were ordained by the Decree of Maximinus Idol Priests set up throughout every City and Village and moreover high Priests which specially excelled in Polices and passed others in all things who also were zealous followers of their Religion and bestowed great labour about the service of them whom they worshipped by reason of which the Emperors Superstition and Idolatrical mind was again as it were fresh incensed against them And that I may utter the whole in a few words saith the Historian he brought all his Dominion both Magistrates and All are brought to practise cruelty upon them inferior Subjects to practise every kind of mischief for his sake against us and so thought they requited him fully and should have great favour as many as desired to obtain any benefit at his hand if they oppressed them with slaughter and executed certain new mischiefs against them Certain forgeries of wicked blasphemies of Pilate and Jesus Forgeries of Blasphemy of Pilate and Jesus ordered to be taught in the Schools instead of Theams to initiate the Children against the Christian Religion The antiquity of the slanders cast upon private Meetings by the Heathen Slanders forced to be feigned on the Christians by extremity of torment The drift and end in raising those slanders he also caused to be dispersed among the Provinces and delivered to School-masters to commit to memory by the Lads instead of Theams And by force of threats of torments a Captain of Damascus constrained certain infamous Women to say That themselves were sometimes Christians and so had been privy to the wicked and lacivious Acts which the Christians committed among themselves at their solemn Meetings on the Sundayes as saith the History which wicked slanders he caused to be Registred and Coppied and sent to the Emperor who also commanded the same to be published every where in every place and City Which things I make mention of to shew how it hath been the Artifice of the Devil in all Ages to raise slanders on those who had fear towards God and in that drew near to worship him that so the most bruitish persecution he might draw upon them by such as honoured not God nor feared before him seeming to enforce thereby that it was not for Religion sake or Holiness they persecuted them but for wickedness And how the Devil had his Priests and high Priests for the worships of the Heathens through whom they were held up and who wrought the Testifiers against them the worshippers of the true God no small suffering incensing and bearing through the Magistrates and chief in Authority yea the Emperors against them as hath been demonstrated But the just Hand of the Lord overtook this Captain who in Cap. 6. The end of the Captain that by torment forced those false suggestions The Persecution encreases many notable men put to death a while after this wicked deed procured his own death with his proper hand and suffered punishment due for his malitious desert But the Persecution went on and became very grievous by reason of these things and the Presidents cruelty stirred it up so that divers notable men which excelled among the Christians were put to death of which number there were three in Emissa Three at Emissa in Phaenicia put to death a City in Phaenicia who of their own accord professed Christianity and were delivered to be devoured of ravening Beasts Also Silvanus an antient Bishop and Peter of Alexandria two that excelled all Bishops beheaded Silvanus a Bishop far striken in years was put to death and Peter of Alexandria who is said to excel all others of the Bishops for his vertuous life and godly exercise of Preaching was beheaded by the commandment of Maximinus and Lucianus after he had And Lucianus an Elder after he had delivered the Emperor an Apology in defence of the Doctrine he had taught delivered to the Emperor an Apology in defence of the Doctrine which he taught being brought from Antioch of the Church in which place he was an Elder and a man of great repute to Nicomedia where the Emperor resided upon which he was cast into Prison and shortly after executed It will not be amiss before I close up the dayes and finish the The later persecution by Maximinus far greater than his former rehearsal of the cruel Persecutions of this Maximinus who is said in short space to have exercised so great tiranny and cruelty towards the Christians that the latter persecution seemed far greater then the former to give a touch of a new practise used in those his dayes and the Contents of one of his Edicts and the consequence thereupon in the Judgement of God openly reproving what he wickedly had assigned and falsly said of the prosperity of
Concord for he would by no means communicate with he called Arians so being exiled he leads his life at Trevere in France The thirtieth year of Constantines Reign was expired while Peace ensued not among the Câ—ristians though Constantine had past thirty years of his Reign Arius returning sets Alexandria on fire The Emperor sends for him to Constantinople Thither he comes these things were a doing yet he saw no peace among rhe Christians Arius with his company returning to Alexandria set the whole City in an uproar for they were not onely distasted with the return of Arius but the banishment of Athanasius The Emperor understanding as the History saith of the perverse mind and corrupt purpose of Arius sends for him again to Constantinople to render an account of the tumult and sedition he had raised afresh The City being divided into two parts one for the Nicene Creed the other for Arius Alexander then governed the Alexander Bishop of Constantinople holds disputation with him He layes aside quirks of Logick and seeks by Prayer to overcome Church who a little before succeeded Metrophanes in the Bishoprick of Constantinople held disputation with Arius and laying aside the quirks of Logick is said with continual Fasting and Prayer and Tears many dayes and nights to have fled for aid to the Lord and on his bare knees before the Communion Table called also the Altar of â—â—e Church called Peace having lock't himself in to have besought the Lord in these words Grant I beseech thee O Lord that if the Opinion of Arius be true His Prayer and his Obtestation therein concerning him and Arius as to the determination of the matter The Emperor demands of Arius to sign the Nicene Creed He doth it He puts him to his Oath He swears to it by Equivocation The Equivocation The Emperor requires Alexander to receive him into Communion I my self may never see the end of this set Disputation but if the Faith I hold be true that Arius the Author of all this mischief may receive due punishment for his impious desert Arius being come to Constantinople the Emperor demands of Arius to sign the Nicene Creed he subscribes it chearfully he puts him to his Oath he swears it also his juggle is said to be this he wrote his own Opinion in a piece of Paper the same he carried under his arm in his bosome coming to the Book he takes his Oath That he verily believed as he had written The Emperor believing he had dealt plainly commanded Alexander Bishop of Constantinople to receive him to the Communion It was on a Saturday saith the History the day after Arius looked to be received into the Church and Communion of the Faithful but vengeance saith it lighted forthwith upon his lewd and bold Vengeance overtakes Arius enterprises when he had his leave and departed out of the Emperors Hall he passed through the midst of the City with great pomp and pontificiality compassed and attended with the Faction and Train of Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia that waited upon him as soon as he came nigh Constantines Market for so was the He is taken ill suddenly in the street place called where there stood a Pillar of Red Marble sudden feat saith the History of the heinous faults he had committed took Arius and withal he felt a great lask Sirs saith Arius is there any draught or jakes nigh When they told him there was one in the back side of Constantines Market he got him thither strait then he was taken with faintness and together with his excrements he voideth his Guts a great stream of blood followeth after the slender and small bowels slide out blood together with the Spleen and Liver gushed out and immediately he dieth And dieth miserable and with a remarkable hand of Judgment like a Dog saith the History And the Jakes was then to be seen when the History was wrote and that Passengers were wont as they went by to point their fingers thereat in remembrance of the miserable end of Arius Which saith the History being done terror and astonishment amazed the mind of Eusebius His followers are amazed The Emperor cleaves the more to the Nicene Creed as confirmed as he said Cap 26 by the testimony of God himself The Emperor falls sick the next year makes his Will trusts the Priest therewith that perswaded him to tenderness to Arius and dies his Confederates that followed him And that the Emperor clave the more unto the Christian Religion and said that the Nicene Creed was ratified and confirmed to be true by the testimony of God himself and rejoyced exceedingly at the things which then came to pass The next year being the 65th of his Age he sailed to Helenopolis for his healths sake where his sickness more and more encreased he got him strait to Nicomedia where after a certain time he was baptised in which he is said to have greatly rejoyced made his last Will and Testament wherein he had appointed his three Sons their particular Inheritances trusteth the Priest which was the occasion of Arius his return from exile as aforesaid with charge to the Priest to deliver it into no mans hands but to his Son Constantius whom he had made Emperor of the East and died having reigned one and thirty years Yet neither with Arius nor the death of Constantine was there Anno. 348. Socrat. lib. 2. cap. 2. Discord ends not with Constantine nor Arius Constantius Constantines Son leans to the Arians by means of the Priest that Constantine entrusted his Will withal who also brought Arius in respect with Constantine an end of the troublesome discord that was among the Christians For the Priest aforesaid unto whose charge Constantine committed the trust of his last Will and Testament having possessed Constantius therewith and with the Arian Heresie as it was called and Constantius being pleased therewith as he was with the disposition of his Father to him of the Government of the East that Opinion came to vent it self again and to bear head for it had entred into the Empress and the Chamberlains and the Emperors Guards and every where almost as the History relates it the Opinion had entrance and controversies throughout the East and plain questions would not serve the turn but open contention tumult and stir but in the West in Illyrium and other Countries Contention tumults stirs grew high thereabouts The Western parts clear they held to the Nicene Council or the Faith as it was called of one Substance which by no means they would suffer to be abbrogated And Eusebius of Nicomedia waited for an opportunity through these tumults when some or other should be put into the place of Athanasius to accomplish his purpose there But Athanasius once more goes to Alexandria upon Constantine the youngers Letters through means of Constantine the youngers Letters who was also Caesar who governed the Western Parts which he wrote to Alexandria
Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 1 Cor. 8. 5 6. And all are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. And For this purpose the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. And Great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3. And if he were not the Son of God then is your Faith vain and ye are yet in your sins For He became the Author of Eternal Salvation to as many as obey him yea even to as many as believe in his Name Heb. 5. 9. And if he be not God how can his Name be believed in for the Name of God is Power and how can that which hath not power be the Author of Eternal Salvation and what obedience due where there is no power These things are manifest Now to return to the History The Emperors Edict was for the Council to meet at Millain Cap. 29 The Council is at Millain from the East many Bishops came not because of the length of the way Three hundâ—ed Bishops of the West came The East Bishops require Sentence against Athanasius The Western decline it Make their Speech whither very many Bishops from the East could not come because of the length of the way but of the Western there were to the number of three hundred Being come together the Bishops of the East in the first place require that Sentence by their general consent should be pronounced against Athanasius thinking thereby to stop all gaps for his return to Alexandria The Bishops of the West perceiving that the Bishops of the East bent all their might to enact a Decree against Athanasius for no other purpose but to overthrow the true Faith they stood up and cried That in so doing the Christian Religion should be cancelled by the means of their deceitful and fraudulent Treachery That the Crimes laid to Athanasius his charge were false reports and meer slanders and that they had invented such things to deface the true and Catholick Faith When they had ended these loud Speeches the Council The Council ends broke up The Emperor understanding this commanded them forthwith The Emperor banishes the West Bishops Summons another general Council to Exile and Banishment determining to summon another general Council thinking thereby to bring them into Unity and Concord which upon better consideration he laid down perceiving it very hard to accomplish by reason of the long Journeys from the East unto the West so he divides them into two parts the Divides the Council Those present to meet aâ— Ariminum the East at Niâ—omedia Neither agree amongst themselves Bishops then present to meet at Arminium in Italy the Eastern at Nicomedia in Bythinia yet he prospered not in his purpose for neither Council agreed among themselves but was divided into several Factions A new Schism also arose among the Eastern at Selencia a City of Isauria Leontius that preferred Aetius aforesaid to be Deacon being also dead Eudoxius Bishop of Germanicia a City in Syria who was then at Rome thought it high time for him to return feigns a pretence to the Emperor and gets a Pasport and through the interest of the Emperors Chamberlains creeps into the Bishoprick of Antioch then seeks to restore Aetius Leontius getting into the Bishoprick of Antioch seeks to restore Aetius but prevails not again summons a Council of Bishops to make him Deacon but could not prevail At Ariminum the Eastern Bishops letting pass the business of Athanasius without mentioning Ursacius and Valens aforesaid who were observed still to lean to the stronger and surer side first Arrians then Nicenians now Arrians again having others that joyned with them affirmed That all forms The East Bishops lay by all preceeding forms of Faith to be cancelled and establish the Latin Paper-form of Faith now turned into Greek which was made at Sirmium and called in with some additions Observations here-upon of Faith laid down in times past were thenceforth to be cancelled and that the new form of Faith published at Sirmium a little before at the Council there was to be confirmed and gave forth a sheet of Paper which they had in their hands to be read The second Creed written before at Sirmium and suppressed there as I said before was also read at this Council See what divisions here is about forms of Faith and how their Languages like Babel are divided whilst they seek to bring that into Form which is everlasting and so make a Law to worship it What a do and clutter there was about the Creed containing the clause of one Substance I have shewed before up and down now this and now that and then it must not be at all but omitted I mean that clause as hath been declared and now all forms of Faith But what is now produced must be cancelled and that which themselves sought to suppress the Copies of must now be read being translated out of the Latin into the Greek it being before in Latin and not so well liked of So whilst men go about in the wisdom that perishes And their confusion to bring forth that which men have nothing to do to force or compel or enjoyn see what confusion they bring forth and the consequences thereof blood and torment and fierce persecution Behold how the Lord laughs them to scorn and hath them in derision and how their folly they bring forth and hath left it for after Generations to see and consider Substance Substantia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek and Latin of the same Sustantia and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latin Greek for the English word Substance what a do it made in the World as to the Creeds word Substance what a do it made I have in part manifested for to speak all would seem endless I do but touch at things that in a series I may bring something reasonable to serve my purpose which as the end will produce is of weight and yet to many I may seem overlong though upon due consideration I hope I shall be excused and that seeing these things having not been before so produced and the thing unto which I bring them being of greatest weight that can be thought of in the World and even in the things that men hold that it may be manifest how they run against the Lord whilst they run against us in point of Worship and forcing of Religion which the whole series of History gives to understand I say I hope I shall be excused as not having done amiss in bringing things thus together in the series of History I say what ado the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Substantia the Greek and Latin of the word in English called Substance have made in the World I have in part manifested and how through disagreement it must be left out Now here 's a Creed after the
things to be like unto the Father Therefore the year following they there Assembled Euxojus then governing the Church there and there the Emperor then made his aboad See how as Tertullian before asserted unless man please God shall not be God which he used to the Heathen or took up as to them but now is verified among the Christians many of them present at this Council calling in question such things as they had decreed in times past they affirm That the clause of likeness by the Council And abandon the clause of likeness as not once to be named again of Ariminum and that held at Constantinople is quite to be abandoned and not once to be named again See what changes and Observations hereupon alterations are here and as I have intimated men like the wind turn every where when they have lost that which gives weight to the Winds by their going about to determine of him the clause of one Substance before must go out after all the First The clause of one Substance wanderings to and fro and terrible destractions made by reason thereof Now that of likeness must be abandoned also but when Now that of Likeness must be abandoned do they put it but then when there is not the thing it self of which the Likeness and Substance is abandoned near unto which Aetius drew as aforesaid Whither will not man run when he is turned from God from the Subjectum quo that which gives the first Principle of seeing and knowing of which the Philosophers in their Ethnicks speak where men must make a stop and begin if they will have the rovings of their minds stayed and stopt as I have elsewhere shewed But this Generation cloak their business See the visitation to the Universities c Horrible blasphemy no longer but pronounce with open mouth That the Son was altogether unequal and unlike the Father not onely in Substance but also in Will And before it was answered He was like him in Will when it was demanded Wherein he was like him in all things if he be not in Substance So from Substance they come to Will and from Will they come to Nothing as by and by will appear for as Arius dreamed He had his being of Nothing and Arius his blasphemy so God cannot be said to have for he hath his being of himself from Generation to Generation of old even from Everlasting So such as appertained to Aetius entangled themselves also in the Aetius followers fall in with the Decrees of this Council snares of this Opinion Therefore besides that the Arians were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth that they affirmed the Son to be unlike the Father there were of the Antiochians who defended the Faith of one Substance and then were divided in the aforesaid cause of Miletius called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying that they had affirmed the Son of God to have had his being of nothing When they were demanded Wherefore they constantly affirmed in their Creed that the Son was God of God and now durst presume to say that he was unlike the Father and had his being of nothing They used this falacy Whereas we affirmed the Son to be of God we meant it in The Falacy of the Miletians in point of the Sons likeness to the Father that sence that the Apostle wrote where he said That all things were of God therefore the Son is of God inasmuch as he is included in the word All And for this cause we laid down in our Creed the clause according to the Scriptures And so they shuffle and cut and Conclusions therefrom equivocate with matters of Faith and the things of the highest import as to God and yet upon this falacious or on such falacious Foundations as these which are abominable amongst men would they have mens Faith as to God bottomed and pitch't and destroy all them who will not take it to be so build upon it Georgius of Laodicea was the Author of this equivocal answer Cap. 36. Georgius of Laodicea the Author of the falacy aforesaid The Sect of the Appolinarians and their blasphemy and yet this was not all for another sort crept up who are called Appolinarians from Appolinarius the Father and the Son the one whereof was a Priest and the other a Reader the one teaching Grammar the other Rhetorick They held That God the Word took manhood according to the order of Incarnation without Soul Again recanting the same they affirmed That he took Soul yet not the Mind or Reason which is accounted the highest part of the Soul But that God the Word was shut up included and comprised in man in place of the mind So whirling round not knowing where they are nor whereof they affirm I have set down these things as I find them in the History that The reason of these Quotations so the Reader may take notice into what confusions contradictions ridiculousnesses and vanities men run when they would determine of Faith and God not knowing the Principle of God and enjoyn the same the Appolinarians so called hold in other things the Creed containing the clause of one Substance Well these cruel Divisions and Persecutions because of Faith The Judgments as the Consequences and Doctrines in relation unto God had as I was but even now observing and do mind to carry it along in the progress of this Discourse as that which is necessary and to my purpose and a thing worthy of or fit to be duly considered their rebukes from Not only the Persians but the French put Cap. 37. the Romans to it the Lord for not only did the Persians proclaim War against the Romans but Julianus Caesar had much ado with the Barbarous Nations in France of whom when he got the upper hand his Souldiers proclaimed him Emperor Constantius hearing of this Constantius hearing that Julianus was pâ—oclaimed Emperor by the Soldiers in France is troubled marches against him from Antioch was wonderfully troubled and disquieted in his mind so that the grief thereof brought him into a dangerous Disease whorefore being first baptized of Eudoxius he made expedition from Antioch to give him Battle and coming as far as Mopsus Wells between Cappadocia and Silicia by reason of the great thought and sorrow conceived in his mind of his unlucky Affairs as the History tearms it he fell into an Appoplexie and thereof presently Dies in the way of an Appoplexie died in the forty and fifth year of his life having reigned thirty and eight years that is to say thirteen together with his Father and twenty five after the death of his Father Constantius being dead Julianus succeeds him who being Socrat. lib. 3. cap. 1. Julian the Apostate how he was bred up both a Philosopher a Christian and a Pagan brought up in the Christian Religion by the disposition or appointment of Constantius yet he had a secret inclination
men preferred him unto this Dignity Ambrose being thus chose Bishop the Citizens of Millain who aforetime were at discord among themselves thenceforth imbraced Peace and Unity The City at quiet After the aforesaid stir was ended the Emperor Valentinianus Cap. 26. Valentine marches against the Sarmatians having raised great power made expedition against the Sarmatians who had assaulted the Roman Dominion they supposing themselves too weak to engage such a power sent Ambassadors to the They send Ambassadors to him He despises them as Abjects Emperor to joyn with them in League to establish a Peace between them He perceiving that they were but Abjects Rascals as the Historian termed them demanded Whether the rest of the Sarmatians were such as they When they had answered Yes O Emperor thou seest the chief of the Sarmatians before thee The Emperor He vext that the Romans should be infested by such a base people Burst forth into passionate words was so incensed thereat that breaking out into vehement Language he said The Empire of Rome hath ill luck to fall into my hands under whose reign so beggerly and so abject a kind of Barbarians could not be quiet and content themselves with safety within their own bounds but they must take Armor and rebel against the Roman Empire and so boldly proclaim open War And straining himself so with his extream speaking he opened every Vein in Opens his Veins breaks his Arteries dies his body and broke the Arteries asunder upon which there gushed out such a stream of blood that he died in the Castle commonly called Bergitium he lived fifty and four years and reigned thirteen Valentinianus being thus dead the same day at Acanicum the Anno. 380. His Son Valentine the younger proclaimed Souldiers of Italy proclaimed Valentinianus the younger so called after his Fathers Name who was of very tender years Emperor This the other Emperors took very much to heart not The other Emperors offended because chosen by the Souldiers not by them Yet gave their consent because he was Brother to the one and Brothers Son to the other but because he was appointed without their consent unto whom belonged to create him Emperor but both gave their consent that he should be Emperor Valens still continuing at Antioch and having little War with Cap. 27. Valens being quiet from Wars troubles the Christians Torments them with new devices Themistius the Philosophers Oration in their behalf quiets him the Barbarous Nations who kept themselves within their bounds still pursued those that held the Faith of one Substance and ceased not daily to invent new devices and strange torments wherewith he might plague them till the Oration of Themistius the Philosopher aforesaid somewhat mittigated him who admonished him not to marvel that the Christians varied among themselves in Religion that if Christianity were compared with the infinite Opinions reigning among the Heathen Poilosophers for there were above three hundred Opinions and great dissentions about Rules and Precepts whereunto every Sect necessarily addicted themselves it would seem but a very small thing and that God would set forth his Glory by the Diversity and Discord in Opinions to the end that every one might therefore the more stand in awe of his Majesty because it was not easie for every one to Afterwards he puts none to death know him perfectly So that afterwards he put none to death though he yet punished the Clergy with Exile or Banishment so Yet he baâ—iâ—â—es the Clergy till he was stopt upon occasion of the Goths long till his mischievous enterprizes were stopped upon such an occasion as followeth The Goths beyond Istrum by reason of civil Wars were divided Who being divided among themselves One party got the upper hand The other prays Valens help He orders it they prevail and become Christians in recompence among themselves into two parts Athanaricus seemed to get the upper hand Phritigernes thereupon sought aid of the Romans Valens commanded his Souldiers in Thrace to aid the one side against the other The Souldiers foiled Athanaricus which occasioned many of the Goths to imbrace the Faith of Christ for Phritigernes to requite the Emperors courtesie imbraced his Religion and perswaded his Subjects unto the same Ulphilas also Vlphilas their Bishop gets the Scriptures Translated into the Gotthick Letters Both Factions thereby became Christians but Arrians The subdued side persecuâ—es Bishop of the Goths having got the Gotthick Letters translated the Scripture into that Tongue so that as well those of the Faction of Athanaricus as of Phritegernes imbraced the Christian Religion but it was that of the Arrians because of the Emperor who was one himself These Athanaricus tormented grievously as if his Countrey Laws and Ordinances were corrupted thereby so that divers of them suffered Martyrdom Now saith the Historian Many put to death and suffâ—red not as Arius eâ—bracing the Christian Faith Arius because he could not withstand the error of Sabbellius the African fell from the right Faith saying That the Son of God was but lately created But these men received the Christian Faith with simplicity of mind sticked not to spend their lives in But in simplicity of mind the quarrel One thing more concurred in the wisdom of God quite to The Goths coming to Unity are overâ—un by the Hunni they flie to the Romans Valens receives them the onely thing in which he shewed himself clement Le ts them inhabit in Thracia Embraces them as his Guard extinguish persecution with Valens the Goths coming to Unity among themselves were over-run with the Hunni They flie to the Romans and protest Loyalty and Subjection Valens commanded not foreseeing the consequence that they should be received courteously and in this one thing onely shewed himself clement he appointed them certain Countries to inhabit in Thracia thinking himself happy for their coming supposing thereby to have alwayes ready an exercised Army on all occasions and that the Barbarians Guard would be a greater terror unto the Enemy then the Roman Souldiers Hence it came to pass that the Neglects the Romans old Souldiers Roman Souldiers were neglected to be exercised in feats of Arms and set at nought and the old Weather-beaten Warriors and valliant Captains laid aside and fourscore Crowns required for every Souldier that was pricked and mustred in every Village was required This he did when first he released them of their Tribute and which was the Original cause that the Roman Affairs prospered not a long time after But the Goths forgetting the The Goths over-run the Countrey kindness done them took Arms against the Romans over-ran and spoiled the Countrey When Valens heard of this he thought Valens hereupon forbears banishing the Nicenians Turns against the Rebels The persecution ceases it high time for him to leave exiling the true Christians and to turn himself unto these Rebels by this means the heat of Persecution kindled
against the Christians was wholly quenched What wayes are here brought about in the Wisdom of God to bring to pass and what Judgements brings he over men ere they will cease their hands from persecuting those whom they should let free as to their Conscience to God Furthermore that it may appear that by other wayes then one More Judgments following Valeus the Hand of the Lord was stretched out against Valens for his cruelty to his Brethren And so to give yet more evidence of the revealed Judgements of God and his Vengeance Who ordaineth his Arrows against the Persecutors and so to shew how he makes that an opportunity of Reconciliation the running in division against which is a cause of punishment I shall produce one instance of reputation and weight even answerable to this case whilst yet Valens is to be discoursed of as not having breathed out his last When the Emperor had left Antioch the Saracens who before Cap. 29. The Saracens war with the Romans under Mavia their Queen as a scourge And had like to over-ran them were fellow-Friends and in league with the Romans took up Arms against them under the Government of Mavia whose Husband a little before had departed this life and had like to over-ran all the Provinces of the Romans that lay towards the East had not the same hand stopt them who raised them up as a scourge unto Valens through such an opportunity as this of the Saracens There was one Moses who led in the Desart a Monastical The making of Moses a retired man amongst them a Bishop is her Proposition of Peace or retired kind of life and is said for his zeal to Religion his constant Faith and working of strange Miracles to be famous amongst them Mavia demanded this Moses to be her Bishop and so she would lay down Arms and be in league with them The Roman Captains accept thereof He is sent from the Wilderness to Alexandria to be so made He refuses to be made by the Bishop Lucius His Speech The Roman Captains accept hereof and laying aside all delayes command it to be done Moses hereupon is taken from the Wilderness and sent to Alexandria to be made Bishop and being come to be made Bishop he refuseth to receive Orders from him and after this sort reasons with him I think my self unworthy of the Priestly Order yet if it be for the profit of the Common-Wealth that I be called unto the Function truly thou Lucius shalt never lay hand upon my head for thy right hand is imbrued with slaughter and bloodshed When Lucius said again That it became The Bishop reproves him not him so contumeliously to revile him but rather to learn of him the Precepts of Christian Religion Moses answered I am not come to He replies and gives the reason of his refusal because of his Persecution And shews what the true Principles are of Christian Religion reason of matters of Religion but sure I am of this That thy horrible practises against the Brethren prove thee to be utterly void of the true Principles of Christian Religion for the true Christian striketh no man revileth no man fighteth with no man for the Servant of God should be no fighter but thy deeds in exiling of some throwing others to wild Beasts burning of some others do cry out against thee yet are we surer of the things we see with our eyes then of those we hear with our ears He having uttered these and such like words his He is brought to a Mountain and made Priest by the Exiled The Wars cease Friends brought him to a certain Mountain where he was made Priest of such as were exiled So the War with the Romans ended and Mavia married her Daughter to Captain Victor And Antioch being left by Valens the persecuted found comfort and Cap. 30. Peter bringing Letters from the Bishop of Rome the people thâ—ust out Lucius and place Peter in his Rome He dies in a shoâ—t time Timothy succeeds Peter being come from Rome with Letters from Damasus confirming both the Religion of Moses and the Creation or making of Peter Bishop of Alexandria The people thrust out Lucius who got him to Constantinople Peter being in his place after a little time died whom his Brother Timothy succeeded Valens being come to Constantinople found the people in great Cap. 31. Valens coming to Constantinople finds the people in heaviness because of the Goths They reflect upon and reprove him heaviness the Goths who had overrun Thracia having set upon the Suburbs of that City and there was no power prepared to repel them such a plague came upon the Empire for the persecution the Barbarians for so the Romans called the other Nations being come nigh the Walls the people of Constantinople were wonderfully sorry they lament their case and steping to the Emperor charged him with entertaining in his own Dominion such as now were ready to cut his own throat they blamed him for withstanding them no sooner they condemned him for proclaiming open War no sooner as they ran at tilt and were exercised in such Warlike Pastime they all with one consent ran unto the Emperor and cryed out against him that he had set such exercises at naught and said Give us Armour and we our selves will deal with them Thus was this persecuting Emperor He boils in anger and is plagued Leaves the City with threats what he would do when he returned plagued and boyling in anger at their exclamations left the City not without threatnings That if he returned again safe he would plague the City partly because they reviled him partly for the Treason of Procopius and lay it even with the ground and turn it into Arable Land for the Plough to pass through the Bowels thereof But he never returned for though his marching forth made the He returns not The Goths retreat to Adrianople He joyns Battel and is slain The manner how diversly reported Anno. 381. Goths to retreat as far as Adrianople a City of Thracia lying on the confines of Macedonia yet there as he joyned Battel he was slain in the fiftieth year of his Age after he had reigned thirteen years with his Brother and three years after his decrease Some say he was burned to Ashes in a certain Village whitherto he fled which the Goths set on fire others that the Horse having yeelded without any great fighting he threw off his Imperial Robe and thrusting himself among the throng of Footmen was there slain and his body lay there unknown And this was The end of the Persecutor and the vengeance that overtook him who pretended to Christ yet tore the Christians the end of this wicked Persecutor whom vengeance met with at last though he seemed to prosper a long time in his persecuting of the Christians to whose Master he as well as they pretended whom yet he tore in pieces and destroyed which now came to be
spoken I shall mention no more In Alexandria there was a Woman whose name was Hypatia Cap. 15 A third Tragical Scene in Alexandria Hypatia a Woman and the most eminent Philosopher of her time the Daughter of Theon who so profited in profound Learning that she excelled all the Philosophers of her time and not onely succeeded in Plato's School the which exercise Plotinus continued but also expounded to as many as come to her the Precepts and Doctrine of all sorts of Philosophers wherefore many that gave themselves to the study of Philosophy flocked to her from every Countrey Moreover for her grave courage of mind her modest and matron-like behaviour she sticked not to present her self before Princes and Magistrates neither was she abashed to come into the open face of the Assembly wherefore great envy and spight of mind arose against her being had in admiration and reverence of all Women for her singular modesty and because Suspected to influence the difference between the Bishop and Orestes Is set upon by a Reader rude Company Carried to a Church she conferred oft and had a great familiarity with Orestes so that she was charged by the people as the cause why the Bishop and Orestes were not become Friends At length one Peter a Reader of that Church having a company of rude persons with him watched her coming from some place or other pulled her out of her Charriot haled her into the Church called Caesareum stripped Stript stark naked tormented with sharp shells till life departed Her body quartered And burnt to Ashes Cyril and the Church of Alexandria stained with this blood Christians ought to be no fighters by the Historians judgment her stark naked razed the skin and rent the flesh of her body with sharp shells until the breath departed out of it then they quartered her body brought them to a place called Cinaron and burned them to Ashes This heinous offence saith the Historian was no small blemish both to Cyril and the Church of Alexandria For saith he the professors of Christian Religion should be no fighters they ought to be far from commiting of murther and bloodshed This was done the fourth year of Cyril's Consecration the tenth Consulship of Honorius and the seventh of Theodosius in the Ember dayes The Jews also were not without their devises in this day of Cap. 16. The Jews come on with a 4th Tragedy They deride Christ Crucifâ—â— a Child wickedness and mischief who at a certain place called Inmestar between Chalcis and Antioch in Syria at their Interludes and Playes derided Christ Jesus and those that believed in him After this sort they took the Child of a Christian and nailed him to Deride scourge him till breath departed a Tree and set him on high when they had so done first they deride and laugh at him then like mad men they scourge him as long as breath remained in his body This gave occasion of great contention between them and the Christians and the Emperor hearing thereof wrote to the Lieutenant and Magistrates of that Province to make diligent search for the Authors of so great a mischief and to punish them severely They are punished in earnest therefore the Jews for that shameful Act which they had committed in jest were plagued in earnest The Persians also drew a line of blood and cruel torments over Cap. 18. A fifth Scene of blood acted by the Persians upon the Christians of tâ—at Nation with great extremity those of that Nation who in the time of Isdigerdes King of Persia were become Christians whose Son Baratanes succeeded him through the perswasion of the Magicians and Southsayers being forced thereunto vexed the Christians out of measure and punished them with divers torments after the manner of Persia through the extremity of which they fled unto the Romans for They fly for succor to the Romans succor praying them to pitty their case and not to suffer them in that measure to be so lamentably oppressed whom Atticus Bishop Atticus of Constantinople receives them The Emperor determines their relief of Constantinople courteously received and wrought with the Emperor so that what through that and other particulars of difference that lay between them he intends to stand to their relief especially seeing he had sent to demand the fugitive Christians of the Emperor and denyed those whom he had lent for the Gold-Mines to return and also had stopped the Romans Marchandize War is proclaimed so that League was broken and War was proclaimed and the The Persians are beaten again and again and a third time Cap. 20. Persians through the wonderful hand of the Lord who was near them in their straits were again and again overcome and the Persians being yet again overcome upon the refusal of a tender of Peace by perswasion of his Souldiers who were called a certain number of them Immortal who would needs make one attempt more upon the Romans ere they accepted thereof and multitudes were Prisoners many of whom died for Famine and the rest were like so to do Accasius Bishop of Amida gathered his Acacius Bishop of Amida and his Clergy Cap. 21. Redeem the Persian Prisoners with their Cups Dishes Plate Jewels Clergy together upon the commiseration of their lamentable state there being seven thousand that were in this condition said Our God hath no need neither of Dishes nor of Cups for he neither eateth nor drinketh these be not his necessaries Wherefore seeing this Church hath many precious Jewels both of Gold and Silver bestowed of the free will and liberality of the Faithful it is requisite that the captive Souldiers should therewith be redeemed and delivered out of Prison and Bondage and that they also perishing with Famine should be with some part thereof refreshed and relieved Which his Clergy consenting unto and the Treasury being cast and translated he turned it into money and not only paid Turned into money Cloath and send them home which so took on the King of Persia that he lent for Acacius The War turns into Peace and the utter ceasing of Persecution The Saracens under Alamundarus promising great things to the Persians therewith the Ransom-money but supplyed them with necessaries and to carry them home which so took with the King of Persia that he desired earnestly to see Acacius whom the Emperor commanded thither The issue of these Wars procured a Peace and the quite extinguishing the persecution of the Christians in the Kingdom of Persia It is said That in these Wars the Saracens coming to assist the Persians under Alamundarus a valiant Captain who promised not only to beat the Romans but to take in Syria and Antioch being in a sudden fear of the Romans approach that though the Romans were not near them For fear of the Romans ran into Euphrates 100000. drowned they ran into the River Euphrates where an hundred thousand with their Armes were drowned Nor
Dioscorus who succeeded Cyril in the Bishoprick Cap. 10. of Alexandria was Moderator through the working of Chrysaphius Governor of the Pallace for the hatred he bore to Flavianus whom the Council before Eutyches had charged with the forging of the Records which concerned him but being searched it was found otherwise and the Records were confirmed at the Council Now at this Council Elpidius having acquainted them with the command of Theodosius which was this Such as in time past gave Sentence of Eutyches the most virtuous Abbot good leave have they to be present at the Council but let them be quiet and their voices suspended My Will is That they wait for the general and common Sentence of the most holy Fathers seeing that such things were aforetime decided by them are called in controversie Dioscorus and the Bishops with him restored Eutyches Eutyches restored Flavian and Euseb deposed four Bishops more excommunicated and deposed two removed The Council ends whom the other Council had degraded unto his former dignity and Flavianus and Eusebius they deposed they excommunicated and deprived also four Bishops more and two more they removed so this Council broke up This kind of contrary work one Council undoing what the Cap. 11. The Historian constrained through these contradictions to apologize for the Christian Faith to the Heathen His whole History a continuation of the rehearsal of the Division other had done and concerning Faiths and Creeds varying and changing as aforesaid put the Historian eftsoons to Apologize for the Christian Faith because of these things with the Heathen among whom his History could not but come which in this Chapter he endeavours Yet the whole series of his Book holds forth little less than the continuation of such division and contradiction which shews the fruit and consequences when men undertake to determine of him whom they cannot comprehend The natural consequence of imposing Religion who should let alone things of that nature which is too high for them and if they have Faith have it to themselves that is to say in such freedom and liberty unto every man that they seek to impose no more on another man than they would have imposed upon themselves in that which is contrary Theodosius decreed Nestor condemned by the Emperor to perpetual exile and accursed him He yet boasts of the Emperors good will Nestorius to perpetual exile and pronounced him therein to be accursed being moved thereunto no doubt saith the Historian by the instinct of the Holy Ghost yet Nestorius elsewhere boasted That the Emperor bore him intire and singular good will We Decree moreover saith the rehearsal of the said Decree Cap. 12. Another Decree against Nestor and his Favourers Cod. de sum trin fid cath tit 1. l. 3 sancimus found in the Code of Justinian the third Law of the first Title that whosoever doth imbrace the wicked Opinion of Nestorius and give ear unto his lewd Doctrine if they be Bishops that they be banished the Holy Churches if Lay persons they be accursed Other Laws also he made in the behalf of Religion Many things ran up and down in this Generation for as the Many opinions ran up and down in this day and superstition times drew off the dayes of the Apostles or were at a greater distance from them so superstition folly as well as confusion and division entered in among the Christians To give one instance for many In these times there was one Simeon a man famous and Cap. 13. One instance for all Simeons living in a Pillar upon pretence of the Angelical Life The particulars thereof of renown as the History saith for a godly man he in pretence of imitating in life the trade of the Angelical Powers withdrew himself from worldly Affairs forced Nature which of her self leaneth downwards and followed after lofty things being placed as it were in the midst between Heaven and Earth he sought conference with God he praised him together with the Angels he lifted the prayers of men up to Heaven and offered them to God he brought the goodness of God from Heaven to Earth and made the World partaker thereof Thus saith the History a ridiculous kind of Superstition by placing himself in a Pillar high from the Earth and scarce two Cubits wide to think that this brought him nigher to the Angels and to accomplish that which thereof hath been quoted by the History and all this as I have intimated springs from the ignorance of the Principle of God in man by and in which and as that revealeth him man only can know God I should write very much if I should be particular in what is said of this man and what reckoning was made of him whilst he lived and how his body being dead was worshipped and carried His dead body adored and carried up and down as Reliques about in pieces as Reliques The people of Antioch desired of the Emperor Leo who desired the Body that they might have it for a fortified Wall to their City and so exprest it because the anger of the Emperor had caused the Wall to be pulled down so much they put of preservation in a dead Carkass Gregory Bishop of that Church and Philippicus required That the Reliques of the Saint for the speedier execution of his martial Affairs in The Reliques of the dead required for the expedition of Martial Affairs the East should be sent unto him such blind superstition was amongst them at that day First A singular humour and fantastical imagination they hold forth as the height of Religion then the Carkass of the humorists they adore as Religion they say he lived six and fifty years nine years in a Monastery seven and forty years in Mandrya ten of which in a very narrow Room An account of his life and of the Iron Chain about his neck seven in a very strait Pillar and thirty years in a Pillar of forty Cubits they speak of the Iron Chain that hung about his Neck and with it the Corps so renowned saith the History of all men and for induring so great hardness and misery was honoured with Divine Praises and yet in the same Chapter he quotes the Religious men of the Desart to have sent a Messenger unto him to And the message of â—â—e Monks to require him to give an account of his so living demand of him What he meant by that new-found and unknown kind of life and wherefore he forsook the wonted Trade the steps and traces of the Saints which went before and devised unto himself a forreign and unknown way and moreover to have exhorted him by the Messenger to come down from his Lodging and to follow the Holy And to come down Fathers which were his Predecessors and to have given the Messenger in charge that if he saw him yeeld and come down he should license him to go on in his own way for they perswaded
in the life time of the late King Charles whose Chaplain he then professed himself to be when those called the Synod were sitting at Westminster and had consulted the Directory and Catechisme his words in a Printed Book of three Sermons preached by him at Dublin in Ireland out of the first of which these are taken are these Speaking from that Scripture Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5. 20. Which is the Text from which he preached and in particular of the Law of Moses in or according unto which stood the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees which must be exceeded he saith When Christ brought life and immortality to light Evang. Righteous Page 3. through the Gospel and hath promised to us things greater than all our explicite desires bigger than the thoughts of our hearts then saith the Aposile (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then we draw near to God and by these we are enabled to do all that God requires and then he requires all that we can do more love and more obedience then he did of those who for want of these helps and these Revelations and these Promises which we have but they had not were but imperfect persons and could do but little more than humane Services Christ Page 4. hath taught us more and promised to us more than ever was in the World known or believed before him and by the strengths and confidence of these thrusts us forwards in a holy and wise Oconomy and plainly declares that we must serve him by the measures of a new love to do him honour by wise and material glorifications be united to God by a new Nature and made alive by a new Birth and fulfil all Righteousness to be humble and meek as Christ to be merciful as our Heavenly Father is to be pure as God is pure to be partaker of the Divine Nature to be wholly renewed in the frame and temper of our mind to become people of a new heart a direct new Creation new Principles and a new Being to do better then all the World before us ever did to love God more perfectly to despise the World more generously to contend for the Faith more earnestly for all this is but a proper and just consequent of the great promises which one Law-giver came to publish and effect for all the World of Believers and Disciples The matter which is here required is certainly very great for it is to be more righteous than the Scribes and Pharisees more holy than the Doctors of the Law than the Leaders of the Synagogues than the wise Princes of the Sanhedrim more righteous than some that were Prophets and High Priests than some that kept the Ordinances of the Law without blame men that lay in Sackcloth and fasted much and prayed more and made Religion Page 6. and the study of the Law the work of their lives This was very much but Christians must do more they did well and we must do better their Houses were Marble but our Houses must be gilded and fuller of glory but as the matter is very great so the necessity of it is the greatest in the World it must be so or it must be much worse unless it be thus we shall never see the glorious Face of God Here it concerns us to be wise and fearful for the matter is not the question of an Oaken Garland or a circle of Bayes and yellow Ribbond it is not a question of Money or Land Page 7. nor of the vainer rewards of popular noise and the undiscerning suffrages of the people who are contingent Judges of good and evil but it is the great stake of life eternal We cannot be Christians unless we be righteous by the new measures The righteousness of the Kingdom is now the only way to enter into it for the Sentence is fixed and the Judgment is decretory and the Judge infallible and the Decree irreversible for I say unto you said Christ Unless your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom I have put these things together as they lie in the Bishops own order and words that I might not seem by dis-joyning them to vary his sence whilst I repeat his words In what follows I shall be more short In speaking of the Scribes and Pharisees wherein the Righteousness did consist and wherein it fell short of the Evangelical Righteousness which he saith is required he saith It was a great innocence if they Page 15. did not rob the poor then they were righteous men but thought themselves not much concerned to acquire that godlike excellency a Philanthropy and love to all mankind Again in the conclusion of such his discriminations of them he saith Page 18. Page 19. This was the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and their Disciples the Jews which because our Saviour reproves not onely as imperfect then but as criminal now calling us unto a new Righteousness the Righteousness of God the Law of the Spirit of Life to the Kingdom of God and the proper Righteousness thereof It concerns in the next place to look to the measures of this And as for these measures he saith Ibid. As for this in my Text it is indeed our great measure but it is not a question of Good and Better but of Good and Evil Life and Death Salvation and Damnation for unless our Righteousness be Page 20. weighed by new weights we shall be found too light when God comes to weigh the actions of all the World and unless we be found more righteous than they we shall in no wise that is upon no other tearms in the World enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Now concerning this we shall do very much amiss if we take our measures by the manners and practises of the many who call themselves Christians for there are as Nazianzen expresses it the old and the new Pharisee I wish it were no worse among us and that all Christians were indeed righteous as they were it would not be just nothing but I am sure that to bid defiance to the Laws of Christ to laugh at Religion to make merriment at the debauchery and damnation of our Brother is a state Page 21. of evil worse than that of the Scribes and Pharisees And yet even among such men how impatient would they be and how unreasonable would they think you to be if you should tell them Then there is no present hopes or possibility that in this state they are in they can be saved But the World is too full of Christians whose Righteousness is very little and their iniquities very great And now adayes a Christian is a man that comes to Church on Sundayes and on the week following will do shameful things being according to the Jewish Proverbial
which the Antients called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To live an Apostolick life that was the measure of Christians the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men that desired to please God that is as Apostolius most admirably describes it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 69. Men who are curious of their very Eyes temperate in their Tongue and of a mortified Body and a humble Spirit pure in their intentions masters of their passions men who when they are injured return honorable words and when they are lessened in their estates increase in their charity when they are abused they yet are courteous and give entreaties when they are hated they pay love men that are dull in contentions and quick in loving kindness swift as the feet of Asahel and ready as the Chariots of Aminadabs True Christians are such as are crucified with Christ and dead unto all sin and finally place their whole love on God and for his sake on all mankind so that it was well said of Athanagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Legat. pro Christianis No Christian is a wicked man unless his life be a continual lie unless he be false to God and his Religion For the Righteousness of the Gospel is in short nothing else but a Transcript of the life of Christ De Mathana Nahaliel de Nahaliel Bamoth said Rabbi Josuah Christ is the Image of God and every Christian is the Image of Christ whose example is imitable but it is the best and his Laws are the most perfect but the most easie and the promises by which he invites our greater services are most excellent but most true and the reward shall be hereafter but they shall abide for ever the threatnings of them that fall short of this Righteousness are most terrible but most certainly shall come to pass they shall never enter into the Kingdom of God that is their portion shall be shame and an eternal Prison a flood of Brimstone and cohabitation with Devils to eternal Ages And if this consideration will not prevail there is no place left for perswasion and there is no use of reason and the greatest hopes and greatest fears can be no Argument or Sanction of Laws and the greatest good in the World is not considerable and the greatest evil is not formidable but if they be there is no more to be said if you would have your portion with Christ you must be righteous by his measures and these are they that I have told you So I have done with this Doctor or Bishop unto whose words I suppose I need not to add seeing that in themselves they hold out what the People called Quakers hold forth as their Principles in as full and large expressions as need to be signified I shall quote one or two particulars more of Alexander Henderson's the great Scotish Minister out of the printed Passages of the Papers that passed between the late King Charles the First and him in reference to Government when the said King was at Newcastle having cast himself on the Scotish Army when he came from Oxford Also something out of the said Kings Papers and his Book to his Son the now King Charles the Second called ΕΙΚΟΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ And then I shall draw towards a conclusion Alexander Henderson in answer to the Kings first Paper dated at Newcastle Alex. Henders Paper 1. Page 6. May 29. 1646. and to that part of it which related to the Kings education settlement in that Religion which he professed the Kings Plea or Allegation on that foot saith I do not wonder nor think it any strange thing that Your Majesty hath not at first given place to a contrary impression I remember that the famous Johannes Picus Mirandula proveth by irrefragable reasons which no rational man will contradict That no man hath so much power over his own understanding as to make himself believe what he will or to think that to be true which his reason telleth him to be false much less is it possible for any man to have his reason commanded by his will 2. It is a true saying of the Schoolmen Voluntas imperat intellectui quoad exercitium non quoad specificationem Mine own will or the will of another may command me to think upon a matter but no will or command can constrain me to determine otherwise then my reason teacheth me Then no man ought to be persecuted for his Religion then no man can be forced into a Religion then no Religion ought to be forced then every one ought freely towards God to exercise his Religion The matters are plain I need not mannage the words any farther to prove this mater The King in his reply to Alexander Henderson's Answer to the Kings Kings Reply Page 17. first Paper saith My taste cannot be guided by another mans palate And as for your Romanorum Malleus his saying which was Grosted of Lincoln whom A. Henderson in his Answer aforesaid to the Kings first Paper calls Romanorum Malleus The Roman Maul or the Maul of the Page 8. Romans or Papists In these words It was a hard saying of Romanorum Malleus Grosted of Lincoln That Reformation was not to be expected Nisi in ore gladii cruentandi i. e unless in the mouth of a bloody Sword It is well you come off it with yet this I may say for it seems to imply as if you neither ought nor would justifie that bloody ungodly saying saith the King which words Yet I may say were adjoyned to the former which he speaks of Grosled as some qualification or further testimony of his viz. A. Henderson's dislike of that bloody Principle which the King takes notice of as aforesaid as that which was to be detested and which he detested and argued against as being his own case as he understood the matters managed against him in that War of which the pulling up of Episcopacy or Bishops Root and Branch and reforming of Religion according to the Word of God Page 20. was part of the Covenant And further the King tells him in the latter end of that his Reply He saith the King speaking of his Father King * King James in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance page 46 47. saith But as I well allow of the Hierarchy of the Church for the distinction of Order for so I understand it so I utterly deny that there is any Earthly Monarch thereof whose word must be a Law and who cannot err in his Sentence by an infallibility of Spirit Because earthly Kingdoms must have earthly Monarchs it doth not follow that the Church must have a visible Monarch too for the World hath not one temporal Monarch Christ is his Churches Monarch and the Holy Ghost his Deputy The Kings of the Gentiles reign over them but ye shall not be so Luke 22. 25. Christ did not promise before his Ascention to leave Peter with them to direct and instruct them in all things but he promised
faileth not nor Conscience as it is undefiled and unseared and hath not been made shipwrack of but answers thereunto it hath been called by great Philosophers by the most venerable names as (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Domestick God or a God within Hieron (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Divine or God the Overseer a Sacred Goad or godly Prick Sophicles A (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God who hath framed to himself a natural Temple in the Conscience Justin Martyr To conclude this of the said Doctor when he hath given his conception Bentevol Vran. p. 189. of the notion of God Which we saith he form in our minds when we think of him This notion saith he when he hath given it is natural that is imprest upon our Souls by that God whose Idea it is men having not learnt it by custom or been forced to the belief of it by any Law What then is it which gives the understanding thereof By what is it natural or how comes it to be so And what nature is it that makes it so and whose impress is it or whence comes it but from himself and what is that which comes from himself but that which is of his own Nature whose Idea or Image it is who is the Son of God the belief of which Law makes not nor forces but nature constrains or rather gives to every man in which every man was made which gives to man to know that in which he was made which is everlasting the Principle of God by and in which man was made which forms this on man and gives him to believe it so that all men believe there is a God and the reason is Because God is in all men who gives them their beings and convinceth them that it is so who is the Nature in which man was produced So all have this because in and by this all were made that which is of him in them gives them the knowledge of this leaves the impress as it makes the man they both stand together because it is the Parent as I may so say or that by which man is which gives the Idea or Impress of him that made him and is as natural as he is who is made Unto which the Doctor saith further It is a Truth profest by all Nations who notwithstanding the difference of their customs the variety of their Laws diversity of Dispositions and hostility of their practices have universally agreed in this as a thing that naturally results from the use of Reason and which even by such as have not spoken very honorably of God hath been acknowledged as a common Prolepsis that is a connate information Which is the same that I have exprest Connate signifying as much as a thing that is born with a thing or things that are brought forth together The Doctor goes on to evince the same thing by father demonstration in what follows Of this I think my self saith he the more assured because no beginning of time can be assigned when the World entertained this belief but that the common Parent of mankind who was made with it and to whom it was confirmed by conversation with God taught it his Children who easily received it because when they arrived to that Age in which they were capable of being taught by others they plainly perceived that it did naturally spring from the free exercise of their own understandings If this were not true saith he I can give no rational account how it came to be generally received by the World it being impossible that by force or fraud any contract should have been made to have necessitated such a common Faith It is also manifest that this is an everlasting Truth deeply engraven in humane Souls since no succession of time hath been able to wear it out though falshood steal the mantle of Truth yet it cannot so conceal it self long for time will pull it off and discover the cheat If it Pag. 190. had been unnatural men would long before this time have rejected it and being alway impatient of Yokes they would not so long have born this which doth oblige them to the strictness of religious observances but they have been so far from abandoning this Truth that they have not subjected it to be dishonoured with disputes and so have declared that this is that great Article of their common Faith in which they all agree And speaking of the Kenapistians or the men of vain Faith who in Bent. Vran. lib. 3. p. 151. that his * A Romance is a kind of Parabolical expression of things under certain names fitted for the purpose unto which it is intended Page 152. Romance among others he reflects upon he thus saith in reproof of them The Kenapistians having thus reposed their hopes of security upon false Principles which what they were he layes down before too long in this place now to repeat contented themselves with a form of Religion and neglected the indispensableness of a holy Life The severities of Godliness were rediculous to them and the practice of Charity Arbitrary They reckoned the examples of the Primitive times inimitable and concluded the desire of goodness sufficient to Salvation In Theoprepia or the state worthy of God which by that tearm he gives to understand they love what these do but profess and do what these only say Flesh is allowed its dominion over the Spirit envy and hatred have banished Love and they have devised a new way to go to Heaven without peace of Conscience which they endeavour to quiet by neglect of examination Or if by chance they find they are not conformable in disposition or practice to holy Rules yet they excuse the business by alleadging That sin is unconquerable in this mortal Body That obedience is impossible That the best things we do are but splendid sins and the worst are but sins They repent as oft as they please Nay they believe That if they do but repent at the hour of death it serves their turn for the sins of their whole life and notwithstanding the greatest causes of despair they may believe and be safe for ever And Page 153. That God was obliged to excuse our disobedience because of the naturalness of sin and that he viz. Tuphlecon i. e. one that is wilfully blind who the Romance pretending to be sick Colax i. e. the flatterer took upon him to cure and for that purpose said thus to him He needed not to doubt of pardon for such faults as he was forced to commit by the irresistable power of tentation That God doth not exact perfection of us because it is impossible that he needed not to trouble himself that he was so bad since God had predestinated him to be no better And in short That he might make one answer for all Objections even of hypocrisie it self That Christ had been obedient for him I must end with the Doctor my old acquaintance and this Discourse Conclusion of the whole having turned through the Histories of the Times aforesaid and the Principles of men both in former and latter Generations of most Professions and through all evinced the thing of which I have declared to the end that seeing things as they stand in their own pretensions and the things they own themselves they may be brought into a little more familiarity friendliness with that which they thought monstrously of looking at a distance but taking a nearer view they may of those things be the better perswaded For my part all may judge I needed not these things as to my own information for I am satisfied and resolved upon that everlasting Truth which I have here asserted and elsewhere viz. The Principle of God in man which is in every man a measure thereof to lead and guide him which is able to lead him into all Truth and to deliver him from evil which will bring him to God And of all that which flows from thence which also may be called Principles because they are the reasons and grounds from whence they have their beings I delight not in prolixity nor would I have been thus long had mine own natural Genius or inclination led me But I have been doing the will of another viz. of the Lord who moved me to this thing and whose will I have done not through constraint neither but of a ready mind that men may see how near that is to them which they think afar off and how natural if that they would but come down unto that in which they were made for whose sakes I have thus written Geo. Bishope Bristol this 12th of the 5th month 1667. THE END