of those Countries where the doctrine and rites of it are profest and maintain'd is a very considerable part of the Catholick Church All the Christians of the vast dominions of the Emperour of Moscovy the Cossacks the Inhabitants of Podolia and of the black Russia who are Subjects of Poland the people of Aethiopia in the inner part of Africk lying South of Aegypt of Circassia of Georgia formerly Iberia and of Mengrelia the Colchis of the Ancients and of the Islands of the Mediterranean under the Venetians being of its Communion In all which places it may be justly said to flourish being the establisht Religion and where the Christians are either absolute Lords and Masters or else onely make some acknowledgment to the Grand Signior or Sophy of Persia for their peace and quiet as do those Asiatick Princes who live beyond the Euxine Sea and whose Country reaches towards Mount Caucasus and so are as it were miserably harassed and ground between the two mighty Empires of the East But I am to consider the Greek Church chiefly as it is contain'd in the dominions of the Turks where it is most sadly afflicted For though the Greeks have the free use and exercise of the Christian Religion and are allowed their Churches for the publick Worship of Christ and in Moldavia and Walachia especially which the Turks leave wholly to be inhabited by them under the Government of the respective Princes who indeed are in effect but their Tax-gatherers and who swear Allegeance to the Port and whom they prefer and degrade as their interest or covetousness incline them yet in all other respects they are no other than as Slaves 'T is meerly out of interest and a sense they have of the benefit of their service and not any regard to the last Testament of Mahomet which commands all his followers to shew kindness to the Christians for to That they are strangers it being most probably the invention of some good meaning persons of our Religion who hoped by this pious kind of fraud to take off the Conquerours from that fury and barbarity wherewith their own â—ough temper and the Chapter of the Sword in the Alcoran might inspire them that they admit the Greeks to the favour of enjoying their lives and their Religion together Which they dearly pay for being subject to innumerable arbitrary taxes upon all occasions besides their head mony which is severely exacted every year even of boys if above 14 years of age not to mention either the extortions of the Cadies who suck their very bloud upon every slight miscarriage when they fall into their clutches and oftentimes upon unjust and frivolous avanias or pretensions when they are wholly innocent or the insolencies of the Souldiers who enter their houses in the Country especially and rob and spoil and tyrannize over the poor people these injustices though too much connived at being besides the intent of the Government They are forced sometimes into the wars to doe all the drudgery of the Camp or to serve as Pioneers in working their Mines or to look to their Carriages and the like exposed daily to horrid indignities and injuries against which they have no remedy every rascally Turk making use of his Privilege to triumph over them oftentimes out of zeal to his false Religion but oftener out of wantonness and a proud insolent humour This wretched state and condition of life though it cannot but strike a horrour into the minds of all who enjoy the happiness of freedom and a mild government might be digested well enough and born with some kind of patience if they suffer'd onely in their bodies or in their purses if they were not upbraided with their being Christians if they could be free from either their menaces or invitations of renouncing their Faith and their Saviour if their Children were not ravaged and torn from their arms and bred up in the false and bruitish Religion of Mahomet to be afterwards their plagues and tormentors For to supply their Seminaries formerly as often as the necessity of affairs required though of late years they have forborn to practise it they send forth Officers into the several Provinces of Europe they yielding generally the most hardy and best Souldiers who coming to any Town command the poor Christians to bring their male-children from seven or eight years old and upwards before them If any should dare to conceal them at home or send them away into the woods or upon the mountains they are punished But of these they chuse the best complexion'd and strongest and the most likely to answer the ends of their Collection Some of their Parents indeed out of natural pity and out of a true sense of Religion that they may not be thus robbed of their children who hereby ly under a necessity of renouncing their Christianity compound for them at the rate of fifty or a hundred Dollars as they are able or as they can work upon the covetousness of the Turks more or less Though others to the great shame and dishonour of their Religion Christians onely in name part with them freely and readily enough not onely because they are rid of the trouble and charge of them but in hopes they may when they are grown up get some considerable command in the government After some trial some of the most hardy are taught the use of arms in order to their being Janizaries others that are of a softer but more docile temper are bred up in the studies of the Persian language and fitted for civil affairs and advanced to some place and office about the Emperour's Person the more stupid are sent into the Seraglio to be Cooks Bakers Gardiners Confectioners and such like inferiour servants or else are cut that they may be the better qualified to attend at the women's apartments What a Glorious design would it be and how much for the honour of our Religion if the Christian Princes would unite and enter upon a Holy War and redeem the Oriental Christians from the burthen of this intolerable tyranny and slavery But alas there is little hope of such an Union in this great declension of Christianity when the life and spirit of it seem to be lost and swallowed up in those horrid feuds and factions that disturb the peace of Christendom and expose it to the assaults of the common enemy whenever he shall be at leisure to attaque it and when interest seems wholly to govern and influence all Publick Councils However the Bishops of Rome who then exercised an entire and absolute dominion over the consciences of all of their Communion might have private designs of their own in Publishing their Crusades and putting the several Princes of the West upon the recovering the Holy Sepulchre out of the hands of the Sarazens yet this ought not to diminish from the glory of their piety and generous Courage who undertook those long painfull and hazardous Voyages This we may
Bishoprick of Damalon Rhodus New Patras in Thessaly Aenus Drystra Tornobus under which are the Bishopricks of Lophitzus Tzernobus and Presilabe Joannina a City of Aetolia formerly called Cassiope under which the Bishopricks of Bothrontus Bella Chimarra and Drynopolis Euripus Arta the same with Ambracia a City of Epirus Monembasia the same with Epidaurus a City in Peloponnesus under it the Bishopricks of Elos and Marina Rheon and Andrusa Nauplium Phanarion and Neochorion Sophia Chios now called Scio. Paronaxia Tria Siphnus Samos Carpathus now Scarpanto Andros Leucas These eight are Islands in the Archipelago Varna near the Danube Old Patras under which the Bishopricks of Olene Methona and Corona Proconnesus Ganus and Chora In the same Paper that was put into my hands these Bishopricks were added Media towards the Euxine Sozopolis not far from Adrianople Praelabus somewhere toward the Danube Capha in the Cimmerian Bosphorus a City of Tartaria Praecopiensis Gotthia in the same Country Bindana near Sophia Didymotichum Litiza Bysia Selybria Zychnae in Macedonia Neurocopus Melenicus Beroea Pogogiana in Illyricum Chaldaea Pisidia Imbrus Myra Santorina an Island near Melos Aegina Walachia for this I suppose is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Moldavia are four Bishopricks as in Candia there were lately three under the Metropolitan of that Island Several of the Bishops mentioned in the Catalogue being freed from the Jurisdiction of the Metropolitans to which they formerly belonged and so become in respect of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free and independent and onely subject to the Patriarch are called by way of distinction Archbishops as he of Samos for instance who before was under Rhodes and so of the rest The Archbishops which have Suffragans under them still or had formerly at least being generally called Metropolites But of the Metropoliticall and Episcopal Sees thus much Considering the Poverty of the Greek Church and the scanty provisions made for such as enter into holy Orders there being no rich Livings to invite them to doe so it must onely be a principle of Conscience at first that makes them willing to take up that holy Calling which deprives them of all other ways and means of getting a subsistence For the Clergy must be content with their allowance and not think to better their condition by busying themselves in any Secular employment as being altogether inconsistent with their holy Profession But custome and long use make things most troublesom and difficult to be born easy at last It is accounted a good Preferment if in a Country-village the poor Priest can make in the whole year forty Crowns out of which he pays a proportion to his Bishop For there being no Lands belonging to the Church besides the small allowance agreed upon at first by him and the people they pay him so many Aspers for Christening their Children giving them the Sacrament upon extraordinary occasions Burying their dead and performing other Funeral rites and the like And on the great Festivals they present him with mony or what is mony-worth that he may expresly mention their names or their relations whether alive or dead when he comes to that part of the Liturgick-service in the celebration of the Sacrament where such Commemorations are used as believing such a Recommendation made by the Priest at that solemn time to be of great force and efficacy Marriage does not hinder any person if he be not otherwise unqualified from being put into holy Orders not in such a one obliged to live from his Wife But the general practice of the Church is against Marriage after Orders So that if any Priest once married should marry a second time much more if a Priest not before married should enter into this state they are liable to censures and as if the character imprinted upon them when they were made Priests were by this act rased out they are esteemed as meer Laicks and accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or flagitious persons and transgressours of the Laws and Canons of the Church They have a distinct Habit from the people which is black wearing a Cassock and having a Felt-cap upon their heads of the same colour over which they throw a kind of Veil which hangs down behind their back if they be Kaloirs and are permitted by the Turks to wear their Hair long and over their Shoulders Which the other Greeks of late years presuming to imitate the chief Vizir Achmet upon his return from Candia fearing that it might be of ill effect and consequence if this Innovation were any longer indulged commanded them under a grievous penalty to shave their heads as formerly which they with haste and trembling submitted to well knowing that such orders were not to be dallied with They are in great veneration among the people every-where who have a just opinion of the necessity of their Order and of the dignity of their Function that they are set apart by God for his more immediate Worship and Service and that without their Ministery the Christian Religion would soon be at an end in Turky and salute them always by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Father giving them Respect where-ever they meet them and oftentimes kissing their hands and then putting them to their foreheads which is one of the greatest signs of Reverence in that part of the world Next to the Priests are the Deacons of which there are great numbers belonging to the Bishops who are never advanced to the Priesthood and Subdeacons which assist in the service of the Church and Readers whose office is in the great Church to reade the Scripture to the people But of these inferiour Orders I shall have occasion to say somewhat hereafter I shall onely adde thus much of the superiour that they are never conferr'd together and at the same time but there is to be necessarily the interposition of a day at least And therefore if upon a Capriccio of the Grand Signor any simple Kaloir should be design'd to be Patriarch he is to be advanced by degrees and not immediately placed in the Patriarchal Chair till after some little time The strict and severe course of life which the Religious lead is greatly admired by the Greeks as the height of perfection in this world and what equals them to Angels Of which sort are great numbers in Greece and the Lesser Asia which follow the Rules and Constitutions of S. Basil the Great as those do of S. Antony who live upon Mount Sinai and Libanus and are dispersed up and down Aegypt from the Desart to the Red Sea The name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Kaloir the Greeks in their ordinary discourse mightily humouring this pronunciation was at first I suppose appropriated to the old men of the Order but now it lies in common among all and is the general name by which they are called They have their Convents in several By-places out of the publick roads or
Elements of Bread and Wine that they are sanctified and consecrated and become the Body and Bloud of our Saviour by the power and operation and descent of the Holy Spirit upon them can no more infer a substantial change in the one then in the other There is no mention made of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any Liturgy Creed or Prayer the word being wholly new and altogether unknown till the latter end of the last Century when it was first used as I hope I may pardonably conjecture by Gabriel Archbishop of Philadelphia in his Treatise of the Seven mysteries who though otherwise a zealous defender of the Rites of the Greek Church yet living at Venice and not unacquainted with the niceties and subtilties of the Latine School-men might easily be wrought upon to bring in this new word in a way of compliance with the Doctrine of Rome of which Jeremias Patriarch of Constantinople who made him Archbishop seems to be utterly ignorant For he far more agreeably to the rules of modesty and truth in his Declaration of the Faith of the Greek Church in the matter of the Sacrament in his Answer to the German Divines says onely thus much that the Catholick Church believes that after the Consecration the Bread is changed into the very Body of Christ and the Wine into his very Bloud by the Holy Spirit without defining more particularly the nature and manner of the Change Nor do I find that this word began to be of common use at least in the publick and authentick Writings of the Church for several years after For the two Synods that were held at Constantinople on purpose to condemn and anathematize the Confession of Faith published by that great man Cyrillus Lucaris Patriarch of that See the one under his immediate Successour Cyrillus of Berrhoea in the year 1638. the other under Parthenius in the year 1642. seemed to abstain religiously from the use of it each of them onely declaring that the Elements by the blessing of the Priest and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them became the true Body and Bloud of Christ Afterward indeed in the year 1643. there was a Confession of Faith made in the name of the Eastern Church in the way of Question and Answer in the lesser Russia approved of by Parthenius and the three other Patriarchs and several Metropolitans though not published till the year 1662. wherein together with this new word they establisht the doctrine of Transubstantiation After these words the Prayers above mentioned there presently follows a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transubstantiation and the Bread is changed into the true Body of Christ and the Wine into his true Bloud the Species which appear onely remain and this according to the Divine dispensation But if we reflect upon the state and condition of the Greek Church at that time and consider by what arts and by whose assistence Cyrillus Lucaris was first deposed by the Turks and afterwards strangled and his ingratefull Successour advanced into his throne it will cease to be a matter of wonder to us that this man who had studied Philosophy in his younger days under the Jesuits at Galata and was wholly governed by them whose end too was as dismall as his Predecessour's he being banisht to Tunis and there by order of the Port strangled and the rest of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Latinizing Bishops should renounce the Faith of their Ancestours and determine thus boldly And how they have been wrought upon since in the Synodus Bethleemitica to come up more fully to this and several other Tenents of the Roman Church shall appear hereafter The Romanists are now aware that there is no hope and likelihood of reconciling Greece by blustring and force and therefore they betake themselves to closer arts and methods of subtlety the Greeks bred up in the College of that Nation at Rome especially after they have finished a course of study being sent into Turkie upon a design of working an Union and of reducing their Countrymen from the scandal and guilt of Schism and Heresy who are permitted to dissemble their Communion and oftentimes are advanced to great Dignities in the Church to whom being men of great eloquence and wit and learning and policy I believe these Alterations are chiefly to be ascribed In the mean time let the Zelots of the Roman Church triumph that the present Greeks declare absolutely for them we need not envy them a victory which they have gained by such base and treacherous Arts not to say Bribery But however this is one great argument that the opinion of Transubstantiation is wholly new among them that they have not much studied the point but heedlesly take it upon trust with an implicite faith For when their Bishops and Priests are urged with the horrid and monstrous consequences of it fully made out from Scripture and Philosophy they stand amazed and return no other answer but this that it is a great Mystery and not to be disputed 'T is certainly a great an holy a venerable Mystery this we most readily and heartily acknowledge but how much better had they consulted the honour of the Christian Religion and the peace of the Church had they not proceeded so boldly and blindly to such a peremptory definition The Greeks use Leavened bread in the Sacrament which practice of their Church they defend with great fierceness as if our B. Saviour had clearly and in express terms forbad the use of Azymes For so they interpret the words of the Institution that Christ said of Bread not of Azyme that it was his Body as if there could be no Bread truly and properly so called without a mixture of Leaven in it But that which they most rely upon is an imagination that our Saviour in the celebration of the Passeover anticipated the usual time of the Festival and kept it a day before which they think may be proved from S. John 18. chap. v. 28. and chap. 19. 14. that is Lunâ decimâ tertiâ or the thirteenth day of Nisan at the evening and consequently that he used leavened bread And some of the Greek Writers who managed this controversy formerly were so ridiculously impudent as to assert that there was a piece of that very leavened bread which our Saviour at his last Supper consecrated reserved among other Reliques in the Chappell belonging to the Emperour's palace in Constantinople at what time that City was taken by the Latines While they urge the necessity of using Leavened bread in the Sacrament with an intemperate not to say an unreasonable zeal against the Latines whom they therefore reproach with the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Azymites and aggravate as a horrid and grievous defect and fault the quality of the Bread whether leavened or unleavened being in it self a matter of small moment and meer indifference and no way essential to the Sacrament the Schism upon the
runs thus Thou O Lord remit pardon and forgive the Sins committed by thy Servants again Be pleased to absolve thy Servants according to thy word again Do thou pardon as being our good and gracious God again Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ pardon all these Sins which thou hast confest before him to my Meanness and those which thou hast forgotten again Thou O Lord pardon this thy Servant all those Sins which he hath committed by me thy poor unworthy Servant and be reconciled to him and unite him to thy Holy Church again God pardon thee by me who am a Sinner that is by my Ministery and sometimes very briefly in the vulgar language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be thou pardoned or absolved Out of this great variety it is most clear and evident that the sentence of Absolution is not pronounced by the Priest who is the onely Minister of this sacred Rite in his own proper person much less judicially but onely in the way of supplication or deprecation So that we may here justly conclude this form My Meanness absolves thee or the other which is more plain and express I absolve thee from all the Sins which thou hast confest before God and before my Vnworthiness or the third I pardon all thy Sins to be upstart and novell and borrowed from the Latines whom they love to imitate in most things This authority of the Church in inflicting and relaxing Censures is generally esteemed sacred venerable and divine and consequently of great efficacy and does very much conduce as I have intimated before to the preservation of the Christian Religion among them For fear of these Censures they are not onely affrighted from the commission of those Sins which would bring a scandal upon their holy Profession this argument prevailing more with slavish and degenerous minds then considerations of modesty or the loveliness and agreeableness of Vertue to humane nature but from running to the Turkish Judges for justice For they look upon the person to be in a most desperate condition and as undone for ever in the other world who dies unabsolved from the sentence of Excommunication that was canonically past upon him Such great power has the dread and reverence of Ecclesiasticall Authority over this querulous and contentious people If any person happen to die before the Excommunication be taken off the general belief is that his body feels the sad effects of it in the grave and quickly becomes black the bloud no way clotted or dried up notwithstanding its stagnation and all the parts remaining entire in their natural posture without the least alteration and this for ten or twelve months after or longer except that the skin hardens and swells like a drum whence the person is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that this is caused by the Devil 's entring into it Stories pass current among them of the walking of their Ghosts especially in the night-time not onely in the Church-yards but in the Streets and knocking at the doors of the houses and calling them by their names The Greeks are so timorous and superstitious herein that they will not answer any one in the dark at the first call though they know his voice never so well for fear it should be this Spirit for then they look upon themselves as dead men and fall into an irrecoverable melancholy This opinion is so rooted in their minds that there is no perswading them to the contrary They will tell you of matter of fact how several graves have been opened and the bodies found undissolved though I could not hear of the success of the experiment notwithstanding my diligent enquiry But I found the Priests equally credulous not so much out of design to keep the poor people in awe of the Church-censures as out of weakness being led away with the same popular errour The Bishops accordingly in their Briefs when they forbid any thing to be done threaten the transgressours that they shall be separated from God and cursed and deprived of the use and benefit of the Sacrament and after death their bodies shall swell and be undissolved And this latter is inserted in the sentence of Excommunication to adde to the horrour and terrour of it At the same time they will tell you that as soon as the Dead person has been absolved at Constantinople by the Patriarch or by the Bishop of the Province the body though buried in some of the Islands in the Arches or at what great distance soever immediately corrupts and dissolves and crumbles into ashes This indulgence is procured and granted to the Dead and read over his grave with several Prayers to the same purpose They have the same fearfull apprehensions of an evil Spirit called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they pretend to be let loose the twelve days of the Christmas-Solemnity and possess Children born within that space during which time also the little Boys and Girls dare not go abroad in the night-time for fear of meeting this Hobgoblin but hasten home before Sun-set The Turks seem to be infected with the like Superstition for they will scarâ—e venture to Sea till after the waters are blest by the Christians that is till after the Twelfth day the Festival of the Baptism of our Saviour when that Ceremony is performed grosly imagining that in their voyage they shall be met and sunk by a brazen Ship They usually also fright their Children with stories of Apparitions and Spectres which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word properly denotes any thing drest up in an odd ridiculous shape and habit All clandestine Espousals are severely forbidden and therefore they are never lawfully done but before witnesses and sometime to ratify and confirm them the more before a Priest At such time they go to Church and standing before the middle door of the Chancell the Priest having made the sign of the Cross upon their heads delivers lighted Tapers into their hands and descends with them into the body of the Church where after some Collects he produces two Rings the one of gold the other of silver which before had as it were been consecrated by being put upon the Altar and gives the former to the Man and the latter to the Woman repeating these words thrice The Servant of God such a one espouses the Servant of God such a one in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost now and for ever Amen Which form mutatis mutandis he turning toward the Woman uses as often Immediately after the Paranymph or Bride-man takes the Rings from off their fingers and makes an exchange the Priest then joyning their hands And this is done as well that the Woman might not too much resent the inferiority of her condition represented by the Ring of the less noble metall as to signify that she is to be admitted into an
and Blasphemies of the Turks who being stupid and dull are guided wholly in their judgments of things by a gross fancy and reject with a brutish kind of pride and scorn whatever is raised though never so little above the reach of Sense it is no slight argument of the truth of the great Articles of the Christian Religion against the subtle contrivances of a party of men in Christendome who under a pretence of sober reason undermine the foundations of it that the Christians of the East do still retain with all imaginable constancy and firmness of assent the entire profession of the Mysteries of Faith as they were believed and acknowledged in the first Ages They retain exactly the Catholick Doctrine concerning the most Holy and undivided Trinity and the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God according to the Constantinopolitan Creed which they onely retain in their Liturgies and Catechisms this being but an Exposition of the Apostles Creed more at large which is the true reason why the Apostolicall form came anciently to be omitted among them As to that of S. Athanasius they are wholly strangers to it They are content with the profession of Faith as it is laid down there without troubling themselves with curious and nice distinctions which oftentimes in stead of explaining confound and obscure the Mystery Yet with a becoming zeal they condemn the madness and impiety of Arius Nestorius Paulus Samosatenus and the other Haeresiarchs whose Opinions if any one be known to favour in the least they presently excommunicate him and do not restore him to the Communion of the Church till he has renounced his Heresy with tears and given other ample satisfaction Indeed as to the manner of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit the Greeks vary from the Latines and from the Churches of the Reformation and by what we may judge from the reluctancy and unwillingness of the Bishops after all attempts of Reconciliation the difference herein is like to be perpetual They object with a great deal of bitter passion that the Bishops of the Roman Church have not dealt honestly in this matter for that without consulting them and without regard to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus which forbad such Additions under the penalty of an Anathema they have inserted the words Filióque into the Constantinopolitan Creed For the justification and proof of this Charge they appeal to the Writings of the ancient Fathers to Acts of Councils to Ecclesiasticall History to the faith of the best and most authentick Manuscript Copies nay to Rome it self where that Creed was engraven on two silver Tables hung up in S. Peter's Church by the command of Pope Leo the Third where this Addition is wanting This was hotly disputed by the Greeks in the Council held at Florence and no one argument or point of controversy have they maintained or do still maintain with greater variety of learning or subtilty At present I shall content my self with one or two irrefragable testimonies Cyrillus Lucaris who afterwards fell a sacrifice to the malice and revenge of the Jesuits in the Epistle he wrote to Vytenbogaert out of Walachia when he was Patriarch of Alexandria saith Ipsa i.e. Ecclesia Graeca Spiritum Sanctum à Filio essentialiter internè quoad esse procedere negat The Greek Church denies that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son essentially and internally and as to his subsistence And so afterward when he was advanced to the Patriarchall throne of Constantinople in his Confession of Faith which brought upon him all that envy and mischief which afterwards befell him chap. 1. The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father by the Son Which form of words he very wisely and warily thought fit to use in compliance with the ancient Writers of his Church as it was proved in the Council of Florence by Isidorus Bishop of Russia and Bessarion of Nice and Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus from the authorities of S. Maximus and S. John Damascen and several others This being so expresly asserted by Cyrillus I cannot sufficiently wonder at the rashness and disingenuity of the Assessors of the second Synod held against this good man at Constantinople under Parthenius who most unjustly censure and condemn him for maintaining against the Sentiments of the Catholick Church the eternal and substantial procession of the Holy Spirit as well from the Son as the Father Lastly they declare in their Confession that the Holy Spirit proceedeth eternally from the Father as the fountain and principle of the Deity according to what our Saviour teaches us saying When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testify of me S. John 15. 26. The great argument made use of by Phatius and other Writers both ancient and modern is briefly summ'd up by Cyrillus The Greek Church does therefore deny the procession of the Spirit from the Son quòd veretur nè dicendo à Filio ut à Patre duo asserat in Divinis principia existentiae Spiritûs Sancti quod esset impiissimum fearing lest they should assert and introduce two distinct Principles of the existence of the Spirit of God in the Deity which they look upon as an horrid impiety But to prevent all unjust suspicions as if they entertain'd any evil or heterodox Opinions about the Third Person of the glorious Trinity they declare fully against the Heresy of Macedonius and the rest of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and most readily acknowledge the Holy Spirit to be of the same substance with the Father and the Son to be God from eternity proceeding from the essence and nature of the Father without beginning and to be equally adored Likewise they acknowledge that He is the Spirit of the Son and that He is sent poured out and given by the Son But this they refer to the temporary mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and upon all the Faithfull So that they neither confound the Persons of the Holy Trinity nor take away the Personal Relations and Proprieties of the Son and Spirit forasmuch as the manner of Generation whereby the Son subsists is distinct from the manner of the Procession of the Holy Spirit From these premisses it will fully appear that the Greeks are most unjustly accused by some of the Roman Church in the height of their intemperate zeal as deserters of the Catholick Faith and as guilty of Heresy in a necessary Article of Faith for that the difference herein is rather verbal then real and lies not so much in the substance of the Article as in the way and manner of expressing themselves To justify this their imputation they with an equal rashness are not afraid to assert and that as boldly as if they had been admitted into the Secrets of God that the Holy Spirit has sufficiently shewed his anger from Heaven
novem minimae particulae sunt panis decima B. Mariae Matris Domini quas post aquae vini in calice infusionem ab uno Pane oblato sumptas penès Eucharistiae Panem ponimus ad significandum jam beatam esse sortem Sanctorum qui ut Membra Capiti Christo conjuncta unà in coelesti gloria triumphant By which he supposes onely the Blessedness of the Saints to be designed that as the Particles are placed near the Bread that is consecrated so they as the Members of the Body Mysticall joyned to Christ as to the Head triumph together with Him in the Heavenly glory But besides this they say a particular Mass for the Dead which does not differ from the form used at other times but that there is a peculiar Epistle and Gospell and the dead persons for whose benefit it is intended are particularly mentioned each having a single Particle offered up in his behalf But a general Mass for the Dead is solemnized on the Saturday before Pentecost which day is sacred to the Memory of All Souls While they seem to reject with so much caution a Purgatory they are faln into the Errour of Origen about the Redemption of the Souls of the wicked from Hell For they thus boldly determine Certainly many Sinners are freed from the Chains of Hades not upon the account of any Repentance or Confession made in those infernal regions but for the good Works and Alms of the living for the Prayers of the Church made in their behalf and chiefly for the sake of the unbloudy Sacrifice which the Church daily offers up for the living and the dead Again The Sacrifices the Prayers and Alms which are perform'd by the living greatly comfort and benefit the Soul and free it at last from the bonds of Hades Though to salve this they say such persons as are freed went out of the world with good dispositions and were prevented by death from completing their Repentance and procuring the Favour of God So Patriarch Jeremias explains himself Three times that year their Friends die they celebrate their Exequies the third the ninth and the fortieth day and repeat the same Prayers for the peace and quiet of their Souls I omit the Howlings of the Women really concerned at the Funerals of their Husbands or of their Slaves and of persons hired to act their parts in this most extravagant scene of Grief This being a relique of an old Custom used in the days of their Heathenish Ancestours and not falling properly within the comprehension and compass of my design The Greeks have so great prejudice to all engraven Images and especially if they are emboss'd and prominent that they inveigh severely and fiercely against the Latines as little or less then Idolaters and symbolizing with the very Heathen applying that of the Psalmist Psal 135. v. 16 17 18. They have mouths but they speak not eyes have they but they see not c. But as for the Pictures whether in colours or printed of our Saviour and of the Saints they account them sacred and venerable These they reverence and honour by bowing and kissing them and saying their prayers before them With these the Partition that separates the Bema or Chancell from the Body of the Church is adorned At set times the Priest before he enters into it makes three low Reverences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Image of Christ and as many before that of the Virgin Mary and he does the like in the time of Celebration and oftentimes perfumes them with his Incense-pot Upon some of the great Festivals they expose to the view of the people upon a Desk in the middle of the Quire a printed Picture of that day's Saint done in Christendom whither upon their approach they bow their body and kiss it with great devotion This practice they defend from the Authority of the Seventh general Synod which is the Second held at Nice and from this vain and idle pretence that they worship the Saint in the Image which represents him by the help of which they presently have an Idea of him in their mind and that they worship the figure and representation not with the worship of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relatively which is all they have to say for their gross and scandalous behaviour herein to the great prejudice of the Christian Religion among the Turks who are too gross and dull to understand these subtil and nice distinctions which they alledge in defence of this Worship But I intend onely a Narrative and not a Confutation A great part of their Worship consists in external Adoration which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which they make two sorts the greater which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bowing the body very low almost to the ground and the less with a little inclination of the head and knee This they doe when they come into the Church or when they are in sight of a Church or Chappell either upon land or sea repeating these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord or God be mercifull to me a Sinner or else onely these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes forty times sometimes a hundred times together out of an excess of Devotion crossing themselves all the while The custom of praying toward the East is still practised and held sacred and inviolable among them and of the two they had rather turn their backs upon the Church then upon that point of the Heavens when they are at their Devotions and because the Altar is in the Eastern-most part of the Church they worship toward that They seldome sit in the Church except when quite tired by their long standing there being no accommodation of Pews or Benches there except a few Stalls in their greater Churches And they do as seldom kneel except perchance on the day of Pentecost or some such solemn time herein being wholly swayed and governed by the custom and practice of the Country the frequent reverences and inclinations they make with their body serving in stead of Genuflexion They have a peculiar manner of crossing themselves which is with the two Fingers of their right hand and Thumb closed to denote as they tell you the mystery of the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity in one Essence They first sign their forehead then the lower part of their breast then their right shoulder and then their left saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy God holy and powerfull holy and immortal have mercy upon us or some such ejaculation as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Lord Jesu Christ thou Son and Word of God have mercy upon me but more especially the short forms above mentioned They keep their Culpacs or Caps on their heads in the Church except at the
1671. Two Patterns of Goodnesse and Charity one of Job in the midst of his Honour and Wealth the other of the Widdow of Sarepta in the Extremity of her Poverty In two Sermons by David Stokes D. D. A censure upon certain passages contained in the History of the Royal Society as being destructive to the Established Religion and Church of England by Henry Stubbs Physician in Warwick the second Edition with additions 1671. His Replyes to Glanvil More c. 1671. A Collection of Sermons upon several occasions by Tho. Pierce D. D. Dean of Sarum 1671. His Correct Copy of some Notes concerning Gods Decrees His Decad of Caveats to the People of England being a 2d Vol. of Sermons to which is added an Appendix for Conviction of the Atheist the Infidel and the Setter up of Science to the prejudice of Religion 1679. A Sermon Preached in Lent Assizes at Alesbury Mar. 8. 1671. being Ash-wednesday by A. Littleton D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Maj. The Attique antiquities in seven Books the three first by Fra. Rous the four last by Za. Bogan The Eighth Edition 1675. A Sermon of the Credibility of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion With an Appendix to the same by Tho. Smith Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College Propositions concerning Optic-Glasses with their naturall Reasons drawn from Experiments At the Theater 1679. Of the Benefits of our Saviour Jesus Christ to Mankind At the Thea. 1680. The Ends of Christian Religion justified in 10. Sermons by R. Sharrock L. L. D. 1673. Moxon of the Globes Celestial and Terrestrial the 3d. Edition 167â— Joan. Buridani Quaestiones in octo Libros Politicorum Aristotelis Porta Mosis sive Dissertationes aliquot R. Mosis Maimonidis nunc primum Arabicè prout ab ipso Authore conscripta sunt Latine editae una cum Appendice Notarum Miscellan Opera studio E. Pocockii Ling. Hebr. Arab. in Acad. Oxon. Professoris Historia Dynastiarum Arabice Auth. Gregorio Abul Pharagio Edit Intâ—rpret continuat per E. Pocock L. Hebr. Arab. Profess in Acad. Oxon. Idea Trigonometriae demonstratae Item de Cometis inquisitio in Bulliadi Astronomiae Philolaicae Fundamenta Authore Setho Ward nunc Ep. Salis Savili Oratio coram Eliz. Regina Britannia Rediviva Musarum Acad. Oxon. Epicedia Acad. Oxon. in obitum Hen. Ducis Glocestriensis Epicedia Acad. Oxon. in obitum Mariae Principis Arausionensis Academiae Oxoniensis Notitia Edit 2 da. 1675. Dissertationes quatuor Quibus Episcopatus jura c. contra sententiam D. Blondel Aliorum Auth. H. Hammond S. Theolog. D. Oxonium Poema per J. Vernon ex Aede Christi De anima Brutorum quae Hominis vitalis est exercitationes duae Authore Tho. Willis M. D. Professore Sedlaiano 1673. Pharmaceutice rationalis sive diatriba de Medicamentoram operationibus in Corpore humano pars 1a 2a vol. 2. Auth. T. Willis M. D. 1674. 75. De Causis Remediisque Dissidiorum quaeorbem Christianum hodie affligunt exercitatio Theologica Authore Tho. Smith S. T. B. Col. B. Mar. Mag. Oxon. Socio 1675. Examen Censurae sive Responsio ad quasdam Animadversiones antehac ineditas in Librum cui titulus Harmonia apostolica c. per Geor. Bullum Anglicanae Eccl. Presbyterum Accessit Apologia pro Harmonia ejusque Authore contra Declamationem Thomae Tullii S. T. P. in libro nuper Typis evulgato quem justificatio Paulina c. inscripsit per eundem 1676. Catalogus plerorumque omnium authorum tam antiquorum quam recentiorum qui de Re Heraldica Latinè Gallicè Italicè Hispanicè Germanicè Anglicè scripserunt Interspersis hic illic qui claruerunt in Re Antiquaria jure civili ea saltem parte quae HERALDRIAE facem accendit c. A Tho. Gore Armig. 1680. IN OCTAVO DR Hammond's Practical Catechism with the reasonableness of Christian Religion A View of the threats and punishments recorded in the Scriptures Alphabetically composed with some Observations upon several Texts by Zachary Bogan of C. C. C. in Oxon. The Mirth of a Christian Life and the sorrows of a wicked Life by the same Author Fides Apostolica or a Discourse asserting the received Authors and Authority of the Apostles Creed together with the grounds and ends of Composing thereof by the Apostles the sufficiency thereof for the Rule of Faith c. by George Ashwell B. D. Gestus Eucharisticus a Discourse concerning the Gesture at the receiving of the Lords Supper A Treatise of the preservation of the Eye-sight by Dr. Baily The Circles of Proportion and the Horizontal Instrument c. Both invented and their use written by W. Oughtred Aetonensis The natural Mans blindness in 3. Sermons on Rom. 7. 7. by H. Hurst Essays and Observations on the Humours of the Age Discovered and Characterized by W. Masters A. M. late Fellow of Merton College Ovid's Invective against Ibis translated into English Verse by J. Jones Schoolmaster in Hereford 2 d. Edition A plain and profitable Catechism with a Sermon on Ex. 23. 2. by Mr. James Bacon published by Dr. Henry Wilkinson A Divine Theater or a Stage for Christians a Sermon at C. C. in Oxford by John Wall D. D. Shepheard of Sincerity and Hypocrisie with a Tract annexed to prove that true Grace doth not lie so much in the Degree as in the Nature of it By a Reverend Divine Downham of Christian Liberty Homer à la mode a Mock Poem upon the first and second Books of Homer's Iliads 2 d. Edition Christian Liberty rightly stated and enlarged in a brief Vindication of the Lawfulness of Eating things strangled or Meaâ—s confected with Blood by W. Roe The Nullity of the Romish Faith or a Blow at the Root of the Romish Church being an Examination of their Fundamental Doctrine concerning the Churches Infallibility by Matthew Pool late Minister of the Gospel in London 1671. the 4 th Edition The Origine of Forms and Qualities according to the Corpuscular Philosophy Illustrated by Considerations and Experiments by the Hon. Robert Boyle Esq Fellow of the Royal Society 1671. the 2 d Ed. Hydrostatical Paradoxes made out by new Experiments for the most part Physical and easie 1666. Tracts about The Cosinical qualities of things Cosmical Suspicions The Temperature of the Subterraneal Regions The Temperature of the Submatine Regions The Bottom of the Sea To which is Prefixt an Introduction to the History of particular Qualities 8 o 1. vol. New Experiments of the Relation betwixt Flame and Air and about Explosions with an Hydrostatical Discourse in Answer to Dr. More Of weighing water in Water of the Levity of Bodies under Water Of the Airs spring on Bodies under Water Of the Differing Pressure of Heavy Solids Fluids 1673. in one vol. Tracts of the saltness of the Sea Of a staticall Hygroscope and its Uses Of the force of the Airs moisture Of the Natural and Preter-natural state of Bodies Of the positive Nature of
miscall easiness of temper and misguided and ill-managed zeal but in the meantime do not the Infidels inlarge their conquests and gain ground continually and advance their half Moons where the Cross before was placed Where have we recover'd for several scores of years so much as a village or slight fortification from them except perchance one or two in Dalmatia The poor Christians in those parts of the World are in a desperate and remediless condition as to any help and assistance they may receive from us who have not that compassion for them which their condition deserves And indeed all they have to doe to make their condition tolerable is to flatter their Imperious Patrons and scrape a little mony together to buy their favour and good will For long slavery continued for several years has broken their spirits and quite alter'd their tempers and taken them off from the natural courage and vigour and love of liberty wherewith their Ancestors were inspired They are content not to say well pleas'd with their slavish condition of life they dare not entertain any generous thoughts of revenge they are afraid to venture though there were probable hopes of gaining their liberty by it They are so overaw'd and stupified and lost to all sense of honour that they have abandon'd all thoughts and hope of a change which uses to be the poor and miserable comfort and support of the distressed 'T is sad to consider the great number of wretched people who turn Turks some out of meer desperation being not able to support the burthen of slavery and to avoid the revilings and insultings of the Infidels some out of a wanton light humour to put themselves into a condition of domineering and insulting over others or of wearing a pair of yellow shoes which is the peculiar finery and gallantry of the Musulmans the Christians and Jews wearing either red or black though the Greeks belonging to the Christian Ambassadours relying upon their protection presume to doe otherwise a miscarriage which has sometimes been complain'd of by the Turks and severely punish'd with drubbing some to avoid the penalties and inflictions due to their heinous crimes and to enjoy the brutish liberties that Mahomet consecrated by his own example and recommended to his followers These are the great and tempting arguments and motives of their Apostasy meer considerations of ease pleasure and prosperity or else of vanity and guilt for it cannot be presumed that any through conviction of mind should be wrought upon to embrace the dotages and impostures of Turcisme By these Accessions the Turkish Empire and Religion are chiefly supported the Renegado Christians being to be met with every where the natural Turks not having such numerous issues as in the Ages past whether this happens by their laying restraints upon themselves as to the number of women to avoid expence and charge or by some other natural or supernatural cause I know not would sensibly diminish but for these supplies and that of Christian slaves most of which change their Religion who are yearly brought into their Country by the Tartars or taken as prize by themselves in the time of War And indeed considering the great confusion in which the Lay-Christians are especially the poorer sort how destitute of all helps of Learning there being no publick Schools among them how ignorant of the grounds of Religion to what grievous temptations their Poverty and Persecution do continually expose them how unacquainted with the Holy Scripture how little instructed in the doctrine of Christianity not one in twenty being able to reade and Sermons being very rarely preach'd and oftentimes in the learned Greek and those onely in the Patriarchal Church at Constantinople or where the Metropolitans or Bishops make their residence and at particular times as at Christmas or Lent c. the povidence of God is to be admired that there is yet any Christianity left in the East and that the number of Apostates is not greater and that Mahometanism has not yet prevailed in these Countries as absolutely as it has done all along the coasts of Africk and up the Main land from the Syrtes beyond Tripoli Eastward to the furthermost points of Barbary West where a Christian is not to be found unless in the English or Spanish Garrisons or Slaves seiz'd upon by the Pirats the very refuse and dregs of all mankind and carried into their Ports to the great scandal and shame of Christendom which suffers those Canaglia not onely to live but to live in triumph Next to the miraculous and gracious providence of God I ascribe the preservation of Christianity among them to the strict and religious observation of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church this being the happy and blessed effects of those antient and pious Institutions the total neglect of which would soon introduce ignorance and a sensible decay of Piety and Religion in other Countries besides those of the Levant This certainly is the chiefest preservative of Religion in those Eastern Countries against the poison of the Mahometan superstition For Children and those of the most ordinary capacities know the meaning of these holy Solemnities at which times they flock to Church in great companies and thereby retain the memory of our Blessed Saviour's Birth dying upon the Cross Resurrection and Ascension and keep up the constant profession of their acknowledgment of the necessary and fundamental points of Faith as of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and the like And while they celebrate the sufferings and martyrdoms of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and other great Saints who laid down their lives most joyfully for his name and underwent with unwearied and invincible patience all the Torments and Cruelties of their Heathen Persecutors they take courage from such glorious examples and are the better enabled to endure with less trouble and regret the miseries and hardships they daily struggle with The chief sixt and unmoveable Festivals are placed in this order in their Menology or Calendar SEPTEMBER They begin their year the first day of this month VIII The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of God XIV The Exaltation of the Holy Cross XXVI The migration or death of S. John the Evangelist OCTOBER VI. S. Thomas Apostle IX S. James the Son of Alphaeus Apostle XVIII S. Luke Evangelist XXIII S. James the Brother of our Lord and Bishop of Jerusalem XXVI S. Demetrius Proconsul and Martyr pierced through with lances at Thessalonica by the command of Maximian NOVEMBER VIII Archangels Michael and Gabriel and all Angels XIII S. John Chrysostome XIV S. Philip Apostle XVI S. Matthew Apostle XXI The Entrance of the Blessed Virgin into the Temple at Jerusalem S. Luke Chap. 2. XXX S. Andrew Apostle DECEMBER VI. S. Nicolas Bishop of Myra in Lycia and Confessor under Dioclesian and Maximian XII S. Spiridion Bishop and Confessor under Maximian having had his right
in the Islands of the Arches that they may the better enjoy their solitude and devotion and are indeed not onely in their Retirements but manner of life divided and separated from the rest of the world And indeed their innocency and strictness of life have procured them such an esteem among the Turks otherwise barbarous and insolent as that they seldome give these poor men any trouble who abandoning all secular business give up themselves wholly to the severe exercises of Religion and having neither will nor power to doe the least injury to others deserve well of all by their incessant prayers for the peace and prosperity of mankind There are three degrees of them according to their age and standing and the progress they have made in the Ascetick discipline to the highest of which they advance and proceed in due order The Novices upon their first admission into the Monastery are immediately shaven and oblige themselves by vow to continue in this state of Religion all their lives long to lead a chast life and to be obedient to their Superiours and to all the rest of their Brethren in Christ and willingly and chearfully to undergo all the mortifications and severities of a Monastick life for the Kingdom of Heaven After they have compleated their Novitiate in stead of the course Hair-cloath they have worn hitherto they put on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Coat which they call the lesser Habit and hereby become compleat Monks But the holy and Angelicall or Divine habit as they variously word it is reserved for such as are more eminent in piety and austerity of life Hence they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as are admitted to put on the great Habit which is onely a Hood thrown over their heads and shoulders Some of these I have observed to have a little square piece of cloath sewed in the inward side of their Caps or else worn next to their hearts under their woollen Shirts upon which is the figure of a Cross with these letters at each side IC XC N. K. that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ overcomes which they look upon as an holy Amulet to preserve them from evil and mischief At the time of their being Profest new names are usually given them examples of which we have frequently in the Writers of the Byzantine History Thus the Emperour Manuel Comnenus upon his receiving the Habit was called Matthew and so his Wife the Emperess Mary when she became a Nun was called Xene and so Joannes Paleologus was called afterward Joasaph The chief Seat of these Religious is upon Mount Athos which is indeed the principal Seminary of the Greek Church which is hence usually supplied with fit persons to succeed in the vacant places and Dignities to the acceptance of which some have been forced out of their Cells I am most assured that Kaloirs bred up here have a greater fame and reputation for piety and learning then any others throughout the Empire Upon which account it is known by no other name among the Greeks then that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Holy Mountain and the Turks in way of compliance with the fame that passes generally of that place call it Sheicher dâg or the Mountain of Priests or Religious Here are about one and twenty or two and twenty Monasteries whereof several belong to the Bulgarians and one peculiarly to the Russians They who speak most moderately say there may be in the whole about four thousand constantly resident no Woman of what quality soever being permitted to come among them or indeed to set her foot within sight of any of these Religious houses whereof such as are near the Sea-shore are fortified to prevent the Robberies of the Pirates who sometime land and doe mischief But not having been my self upon Mount Athos for reasons mentioned in other Papers I forbear writing any thing upon hear-say but refer the Reader to the description of it written by the Archbishop of Samos who lived severall years there in the vulgar Greek and translated into French at Paris and published in English almost two years since at London The behaviour and employment of the Kaloirs is generally the same in all Monasteries They are exceeding industrious painfull and severe in their lives and seem to keep up the credit of the first Institution and fall not short of the great examples of some of their Predecessours so much admired in the Ages past They are strict and diligent in their publick Devotions at the appointed hours both of day and night The spare time from their Devotion they employ in the necessary business of the Convent each according to his quality for every one has his employment The Monks who are not in holy Orders are some of them Mechanicks and understand Iron-work or Building others look to the Fields and Vineyards that are about their houses others make their Cloaths and the like Such Convents which lie toward either of the Bays at the end of the Isthmus of Mount Athos or are upon the Bosphorus or in any of the Islands maintain Boats which they put to Sea in to take Fish Though sometimes for want of fit persons in the lesser Monasteries especially they provide themselves with such things as they want with their money but with some kind of regret scarce caring to be at any expence for any thing that may be procured by labour and industry The Priests and Deacons among them are by reason of their character and function exempt from all such servile employments and by way of distinction from such Ecclesiasticks as are not profest and so not under the obligation of any Rule or Vow are called the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The leisure-time they enjoy after they have performed their Offices is spent in reading or collating or transcribing old Greek books or else in visits according as their Superiour shall direct and as civility or business shall require Notwithstanding this good husbandry and parsimonious way of life in an ill year when their corn and vines are blited they are not able to subsist and are forced to send out some of their number to beg the charity of others in order to their relief But this is done very seldome and onely when a real necessity urges We may justly suppose those who have renounced the pleasures and delicacies and vanities of the world not to be over-curious and nice in their Diet. They never touch any kind of Flesh or Fish that has bloud in it Their chief food is Shell-fish Olives Beans and Pulse Onions Melons Raisins and what their Fields and Gardens afford With this dry diet they make hearty meals and enjoy good health and find the happy effect of moderate and thin feeding in a lasting vigorous old age Their Bread is course and hard being
the Greeks universally hold them so necessary and essential to the Sacrament that unless they are entirely and distinctly pronounced they think that it is not so much the Sacrament of Baptism which is celebrated as a ludicrous imitation or heretical and profane abuse of it They never use the same water a second time but if two or three Infants are to be baptized at the same time so often they empty and fill the Laver. But the water which has been made use of for this or the like sacred purpose is not thrown away into the street like other common water but poured into a hollow place which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Altar where it is soaked into the earth or finds a passage Soon after a Prayer or two being interposed the Priest proceeds to anoint the newly-baptized Infant lately covered with its Mantle and Swaddling-cloaths for in the Greek Church Chrismation is inseparable from Baptism and though reckoned as a distinct Mystery as indeed it is is in a manner a necessary appendage and complement of it according to the 48. Canon of the Council of Laodicea which orders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the baptized persons to be anointed with the heavenly Chrism Which Chrism as Matthaeus Blastares explains it out of Zonaras and Balsamon whose words for the most part he retains being sanctified by Prayer and the invocation of the Holy Spirit sanctifies the persons anointed with it and makes them partakers of the heavenly Kingdom of Christ unless impenitence and impiety of life afterwards alienate and render them unworthy of it Confirmation among the Greeks consists of this one single Rite and is therefore called by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnguent or Chrism or joyntly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the unguent of Chrism and peculiarly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Seal or Obsignation This being practised onely upon Infants newly baptized and that without Imposition of hands this material part of the Rite having been for several Ages neglected by the Greeks and not reiterated and repeated when they are adult and grown up some Zelots of the Roman Communion making no distinction between the mysticall Rites of the Christian Religion neither making allowances for different customs and usages which seldom keep at the same stay but alter and vary in the whole or in part at least as if every punctilio and circumstance in the Ceremonial part were essential hereupon have objected the want of it to the Greeks and maintain with great zeal and fury that they have no such thing as Confirmation among them These differences have been carried on with great animosities on both sides and have helped to make the Schism irreconcileable the Greeks upon the reproaches made them by the Latines that the Chrismation used by their Priests is unlawfull and a meer usurpation of Episcopal right and power growing more and more obstinate as may be seen from the Encyclicall Epistle of the Patriarch Photius who does as sharply reflect upon the Roman practice fomenting and keeping up the controversy which had been started long before with great heat For that he was not the first who by his wit and power introduced the present custom among his Greeks as some have imagined I could demonstrate by undeniable testimonies if it were agreeable and proper to mix controversies in this present Compendium and Narrative This Anointing and Obsignation is made upon the forehead eyes nostrills mouth ears breast hands and feet the Priest repeating these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit Amen Which form they derive from the Assessors of the Council of Constantinople held in Trullo and thus explain as if the Priest had said at large With the anointing of this holy Ointment thou art sealed and confirmed in the graces of the Holy Spirit which thou receivest for confirmation of thee in the Christian Faith The reason of which form is assigned in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Confession As the Holy Spirit formerly descended upon the Apostles in the shape of fire and poured upon them his Gifts in like manner when the Presbyter anoints the baptized person with holy Oyl the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are poured out upon him from above And to this they apply the words of S. Paul 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. Now he which establisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us in God who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts But as for the anointing part they quote no higher authority then the writings which bear the name of Dionysius Areopagita Though this Oyl be used by Presbyters in the performance of this Rite yet it is onely blest and sanctified and made fit for use by the Patriarch or Bishops as is expresly asserted by Gabriel Philadelphiensis and in the Catecheticall Confession and in the Bethleemitick Synod This is done on Thursday in the Holy week They are wonderfull curious in the composition of it it being made up of Storax Balsam Cassia Myrrh and the decoction of twenty several Drugs Seeds and Plants added to and mixed with Wine and Oyl a Catalogue of all which Ingredients you may find in the Euchologion This is afterward distributed and put into round bottles or vialls either glass or glazed over called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Alabasters in allusion to the Alabaster box of ointment which S. Mary Magdalen brake and poured upon our Saviour's head When they deny the reiteration of this Rite it is with an exception of one particular case for when Hereticks or Apostates sensible of their errours and impieties are re-admitted after just proofs of a hearty and sincere repentance into the bosome of the Church they are confirmed again after the same manner as when they were first Christned by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the holy Faith which they now profess And herein they follow the 7. Canon of the Council above-mentioned But this is scarce ever practised of late it being death for a Renegado to renounce Turcism and embrace Christianity Before I mention the Rites and Ceremonies used at the celebration of the holy and august Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Lord it will be necessary to premise somewhat concerning their Liturgick Books The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though in the general it is used of Prayer or any part or office of the sacred ministery of Religion is restrained to this great and tremendous Mystery called sometime for distinction-sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the holy sacred and divine Liturgy or Ministration and the Priest from this principal and eminent prerogative of his Function being set apart to offer up this commemorative Sacrifice is peculiarly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Liturgist as well as
of imminent danger of death grounding their belief of an absolute necessity of this Sacrament also upon the words of our B. Saviour S. John ch 6. v. 53. Verily verily I say unto you Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud you have no life in you If it be objected against them that these words are not to be understood of a Sacramental manducation and that the custom which they retain seems to be so far from being necessary that it is scarce proper and justifiable Children not possibly having any actual Faith or understanding of these Mysteries they will appeal for their justification to the universal practice of the Church in the Primitive times for several Ages wherein the communicating of Infants was lookt upon as a necessary and essential point of the Christian Religion That there may be a provision made at all times for the necessities of Sick and Dying persons that they may not depart out of this world without the comfort and support of this heavenly Viaticum they take care that a sufficient quantity of Bread be consecrated for this purpose on the Thursday of the Holy week which being broken into little Particles and sufficiently tinged and moistned in the consecrated Wine they take out of the Chalice and dry them in a small dish put under a pan of coals and then put them into a Pix or Box to be reserved This Box whether of silver or wood is put up into a silken case the better to defend what is inclosed from cobwebs or any thing that may defile it and is hung up usually behind the Altar against the wall with a Lamp or two for the most part burning before it Upon occasion the Priest taking out one or more of the Margaritae carries them to the houses of such as are sick who desire to communicate but they are first dipt and moistned in common Wine which is done upon a double account either that by this vehicle the little Particles may the better pass into the stomach or else that the Particles of the consecrated Wine which were dried up and condensed by the heat of the fire may this way be excited I hope it will not be unacceptable to the pious Reader if I make a little Digression and shew the antiquity and original of this practice So great was the Faith and Zeal and Piety of the first Christians that they in all probability every day received the Blessed Sacrament which evidently set forth before their eyes Christ crucified in the chiefest and most remarkable passages and circumstances of his Death They continued stedfastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diligent and assiduous in the Apostles doctrine and in communication perchance of the several gifts of Bread and Wine among other things especially for the uses of the Sacrament and the Agapae or Love-feasts which followed and in breaking of bread and prayer that is in receiving the Sacrament and in joint and publick devotion This was done partly out of the great love and affection which they bare to our B. Lord and Saviour who shed his dearest Heart-bloud for us and partly out of obedience to his blessed will who therefore was pleased to institute and command it that it might be a perpetual Memorial of his precious Death untill his coming again for they did not think it a meer matter of indifferency whether they received the Sacrament or no as many in this degenerous Age are apt to deceive and flatter themselves and partly out of a deep sense they had of the many Benefits flowing from a worthy Participation of it For being convinced by the most satisfactory way of proof experience that the Sacrament was a most effectual instrument of conveying Grace into their Souls that hereby they were strengthened in Grace and Vertue that hereby they held a close Communion with Christ and became one with him and were fulfilled with the Divine Grace and heavenly Benediction and lastly were more and more confirmed and encouraged to undergo all the troubles and torments either of life or death for his Name they were frequent and assiduous in their approaches to the Altar At that time it was made death by the law for the Christians to have their Religious meetings an horrible Persecution raged every-where throughout the Empire they were dragged before Tribunals and sentenced to be burned or crucified or tormented worse All this they beheld with their eyes without shedding a tear without a sigh without regret and trouble of mind rejoycing greatly that they were counted worthy to suffer reproach and death it self for the Name of Christ and that they were thus made conformable to the image of their Saviour and partakers of his Sufferings It was altogether uncertain whether their lives were not to end before the day they therefore daily contemplated Christ in the holy Elements this inspired them with new courage and their zeal became more ardent and vigourous then the flames that consumed them They were indeed oftentimes prevented by the malicious industry of their Idolatrous enemies and pursued to the very Grotta's and Caves and continually hunted out by the Heathen Officers from whose violence nothing could be safe and thus deprived of these happy opportunities In such perplexity of affairs what was to be done They would joyfully lay down their lives for Christ so that they might but first receive Christ in the Sacrament Hereupon it was permitted them to carry away with them some part of the consecrated Bread and reserve it either about them or in their houses that if they were discovered and seized upon and hurried before a Judge and immediately sentenced and dragg'd to execution they might have wherewithall to comfort and strengthen them in their last Agonies This was afterward indulged to Hermites who had retired to the Woods or Mountains and other solitary places scarce accessible to enjoy themselves and their Devotion without the least molestation from company With which kind of life frequent journeyings to Cities and places of resort did no way suit and comport Very few of them being dignified with the Priesthood it seemed very hard and severe that they should be deprived of so comfortable a repast as the Body of Christ is in their recesses and solitudes A mass of consecrated Bread was either sent to them accordingly or else when they thought fit to come and converse with the World for a few hours they carried it away with them upon their quick and speedy return When this custom of reserving the Sacramentall Bread in private hands began it cannot I suppose be exactly stated it is most probable that it might be about the beginning of the Third Century But however this is certain that there being not onely just suspicion but just and full proof that the Holy Bread which was reserved was abused to very evil purposes it was forbid by the Council held at Saragosa the chief City of the Province of Tarragona in
to infuse jealousie into the Turks of his conspiring against their Government and Religion thereby to render him and his followers obnoxious to their implacable rage and cruelty whereby the Christian name and Religion were in great danger of being extinguished in the East A brief account of these Troubles which befell the Greek Church in the beginning of his Patriarchate was written at Galata in Latine in the year 1628. by an eye-witness and printed in 1633. at the end of a little Book entitled Mysteria Patrum Societatis Jesu This Book indeed which containing a declaration of matter of fact states the caâ—e very much to the disadvantage of the Jesuits is rail'd at by Allatius after his usual manner which is an easy way of confutation but there is nothing in it but what I can confirm by an uncontrollable testimony with the addition of several circumstances and particulars which escaped that Authour and this out of a large Relation written by Sir Thomas Row in Constantinople July 1627. at that time Ambassadour at the Port where he arrived 22. December 1621. Of whom I cannot forbear to say this little for I do not pretend to write a full Character out of gratitude to his memory both as a Member of the famous University of Oxon to which upon his return into England he made a noble Present of excellent Manuscripts both Greek and Arabick and by whom Cyrillus presented to King Charles the First that incomparable monument of Piety and Antiquity the Bible in Greek supposed to be written by the hand of Thecla and as having lived sometime in Constantinople where to this day our Nation enjoys the happy effect of his Negotiation that he was a Gentleman of excellent parts and of great honour and integrity and one who served the interests of his Prince and Country in Turkey with great courage and fidelity and with an agreeable success before whose times the affairs of our Merchants were in great disorder and little regard had to the Capitulations and Privileges accorded by the Grand Signor either to our Nation or to any other he having to his immortal reputation recovered the Respect due to Ambassadours which had been utterly lost for several years before by a succession of insolent Vizirs and that he deserved most highly not onely of the Greek Church by his generous protection of it against those who endeavoured as much as in them lay to destroy its very being but of Christendom in general and particularly of Poland which King Sigismund acknowledged with great respect and thanks in a Letter to his Excellency written from Warsaw Sept. 1622. which I have had the good fortune to peruse I shall here give an Extract of it out of Papers now in the possession of the Right Honourable William Earl of Denbigh whose Lordship 's generous favour shewed to me herein I do here as it becomes me most thankfully acknowledge February 1622. The Jesuits who bore Cyrillus a grudge for his former zealous opposition of their Designs as well as present laboured openly by the help and assistence of the French Ambassadour to have him deposed in order to their preferring Gregorius Bishop of Amasia who had submitted already to the Pope and was very willing to truckle under them Cyril's intimacy with the English and Dutch Ambassadours and those under their protection heightned their malice and indeed was the goodly pretence they made use of to justifie their proceedings against him as one tainted with Heresy which forced him in his own defence with the assistence of four Archbishops and the rest of the Clergy assembled in the great Church to excommunicate the ambitious Pretender This Ecclesiasticall Censure made them the more outragious and to effect their purpose better they accuse Cyrillus to the Vizir whom they had gained of a design of delivering up an Island in the Arches to the Duke of Florence whose Gallies used to rove in those Seas Whereupon he was seized deposed and banished to Rhodes and the excommunicated Bishop was advanced to the Patriarchall dignity upon promise of paying twenty thousand dollers a certain summ more or less being usually paid to the Turks from the time of Symeon of Trapezond preferred by Bribery in the nature of an acknowledgment upon every new advancement The Greeks upon this grew discontented and refused to contribute towards the levying this summ and no supplies coming from Rome as were expected Gregorius after ten weeks sitting was willing to give way to Anthimus Archbishop of Adrianople whom they knew to be rich and had prevailed upon to accept of the Resignation He making his Covetousness veil to his Ambition pays part of the promised summ down in hand and the rest being armed with the authority of the Vizir he forces from the Christians in what proportion he pleases * ⎠* The news of this victory which they had gained so basely quickly flew to Rome and the service done the Catholick Cause in the Levant by the French Ambassadour the Count de Cesi was highly magnified and afterwards taken notice of and acknowledged by Vrban the Eighth in a Letter sent to him from Rome dated July 1624. not long after his assumption to the Pontificate in which his Holiness breaks out into very opporbrious languages against poor Cyrillus whose name now grew more and more odious at Rome calling him Son of darkness and Champion of Hell Quid autem Constantinopoli egeris as he complements the Embassadour jampridem plaudens laudibus pietatis tuae Romana Ecclesia audivit Filium illum tenebrarum Inferni athletam Pseudopatriarcham scimus quae calamitates perculerint quantúmque Haeresi vulnus inflictum sit dum venerabilem Patrem Antimum isti Ecclesiae praefici curâsti This triumphing did not long last for Sir Thomas Row having received Orders from King James in favour of the oppressed Greeks to oppose these violent courses of the French Embassadour and the Jesuits happily stept in and countermined them and by his assistence chiefly Cyril obtained his liberty and returned to Constantinople in September following Whereupon Anthimus now grown conscious of his Simony and of having invaded his See waited upon him privately and submitted himself to him acquainting him with his readiness to resign to him as being the rightfull Patriarch This so alarmed the French Embassadour now grown warm in the quarrell as well out of a point of honour as of bigotry that he sends for Anthimus to his house over the water at Pera and what by promises of protection from the Pope and his Master the French King and to spend forty thousand dollers in his defence and what by threats he prevailed upon the weak man to make good and retain his Title and Charge But notwithstanding this encouragement and assurance Anthimus being afraid of the evil consequences of his obstinacy in case Cyril should be restored by a high hand came in the night and humbled himself and begg'd his absolution for the miscarriage he
consult him But to prevent all sinister interpretations of the Turks he thought fit to doe it openly having first given the Vizir notice of it There was a longer demurr about working at the Press it being very obvious to foresee how liable they were to be accused by the jealous Turkish Cadyes and Imams that is Justices and Priests of printing Books against their Religion The Embassadour would by no means be perswaded by the Patriarch to permit this to be done in his house but advised them to take a house in the neighbourhood promising them his assistence It was impossible that this should escape the knowledge of the French Embassadour and the Jesuits who hearing that the Press was set up and all things ready for their work grew strangely dissatisfied at it as if the design had been chiefly to print Books against the Church of Rome and by publishing Catechisms and Rudiments of Learning spoil the trade of the Jesuits who had set up a School in their Convent and taught Greek Children gratis and by these means oftentimes made Proselytes of their Parents They first tried to win Mataxa by fair means but this way not succeeding they called him Heretick and Lutheran and soon after it was told him that they had designs upon his life which put the poor man into such a fright that he made it his earnest request to the Embassadour that he might be permitted to lie in his house not daring to adventure to stay in the night in his own lodgings where he worked in the day-time for fear of having his throat cut The Patriarch to vindicate himself from the aspersions cast upon him by the Jesuits as if he had introduced new and scandalous Doctrines in the Greek Church sent a little Book to the Press concerning the Faith and Doctrine of that Church which some years before Mataxa arrived he had composed and designed to have sent into England to be printed there and to dedicate to King James but now he inscribed it to his Son and Successour Charles the First of blessed and glorious memory They look'd upon this as such a bold Defiance of Rome and France that they were resolved not onely to destroy the Press but to sacrisice the Authour and Printer to their revenge And having procured a copy of a Book written by Cyril and printed in England in defence of our B. Saviour's Divinity which he chiefly intended against the Jews and finding some few passages in it against the Opinions of the Mahometans they gained a Buffone who was a cunning Rascal and in esteem with the Vizir by promising him twenty yards of Sattin to acquaint him that Mataxa was a Souldier and sent to stir up the Greeks to mutiny that under a pretence of printing Books for the use of Children he had disperst others of a quite different argument and such as opposed the Alcoran meaning this little Book of Cyril's several copies of which he had brought over with him that the English Embassadour protected him that the Patriarch was the Authour and that great numbers were sent into Vkrain to perswade the Cossacks to invade the Empire upon the absence of the Grand Signor who then designed an expedition into Asia The Vizir upon the first notice without examining whether the accusation were true of false or so much as likely which I intimated before to be the rash and heady practice of the Turks sends a Company of Janizaries no less then one hundred and fifty commanded by a Captain to seise upon Mataxa and this at the instigation of the French Embassadour who contrived that the designed assault should be deferred till Twelfth-day having learned that our Embassadour had invited the Venetian Bailo a Roman Catholick but a man of a more mild and Christian temper then the French Count and with whom he maintained a friendly and intimate correspondence notwithstanding their different sentiments in some few poiâ—â— of Religion no way essential to it the Patriarch and several other persons to an entertainment But Mataxa very happily absent at Galata with the Embassadour's Secretary in his return to Pera not knowing that his house was beset passed unknown through the Souldiers being in a hat and though pointed at by some as the man yet others saying that he belonged to the English Embassadour he escaped at last and got into the Palace half dead with the fright he was put into The Captain missing his chief prey binds his Servants rifles his Chests empties the Room and carries all away with him as the goods of a Traitour to the value of seven thousand Dollers The Patriarch lying under the accusation of a Crime so capital and fearing the sad effects of Turkish fury upon the first impressions before the fit is over durst not go home to his own house that night The next day the Book was examined and the particular place in which was the supposed Blasphemy against Mahomet interpreted by two Greek Renegado's in the presence of the Vizir and several Churchmen but no great matter upon their examination could be made of it Cyrillus himself relying upon his innocency appearing the same day against whom several crimes were objected but without the least proof The day following the Embassadour thought fit to demand audience of the Vizir to expostulate the case with him and to satisfy him in several particulars relating to Mataxa which he did with an admirable success the Vizir confessing with shame that he had been over-credulous wondring at the impudence of those who had abused him by false informations and promising to see restored all the goods which had been taken away three days before in that great hurry And to wipe off the prejudice out of the minds of the Turkish Priests he thought â—it and condescended to go soon after to the Mufti to satisfy him also Upon these heinous provocations the Embassadour and the Patriarch were so justly offended the Embassadour for that they endeavoured to ruine his reputation in the Turkish Court and had spoken not onely reproachfully of him which he generously slighted but of the King his Master whom Rossi in a discourse with the Patriarch the day after the Turks had seiz'd upon the Press had called the Head of the Hereticks the Patriarch for that they conspired against his life that they were resolved to shew their resentments upon the Authours and Contrivers of the Plot and prevailed so far notwithstanding the reiterated instances of the French Embassadour as to have Cannachio Rossi and the Jesuits thrown into prison The Turks designed to strangle them as having contravened the Laws of their Government but at the intercession of the English Embassadour chiefly they forbore to execute this bloudy sentence and banisht them and the rest of their Order the dominions of the Grand Signor as disturbers of the publick peace Soon after Sir Thomas Row leaves Turkey succeeded by Sir Peter Wych a Gentleman of great worth and rare accomplishments and every way fit
he should be by Clem. Ellis M. A. late Fellow of Qu. Coll. Oxâ—n The sixth Edition 1679. The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice by way of discourse Meditation and Prayer upon the Nature Parts and Blessings of the Holy Communion by 〈…〉 D. D. The 3 d Edition at the Thea. 1679. A Nomenclator of such Tracts and Sermons as have been Printed or translated into English upon any place or book of the Holy-Scripture now to be had in the Publick Library in Oâ—on by John Vernevill Cross de Febre intermittente Pavâ—â—il Disputat Ethiâ—â— Paradoxa Hydrostatica per Rob. Boyle Origo formarumâ—â— Qualitation c. Cogitationes de S. 〈…〉 Tractatus Novem de Qualitat 〈…〉 c. Clementis Epistolae G. L. 1669. Theses 〈…〉 à Curolo Potter 〈…〉 Smith Element◠〈◊〉 Authorâ— Edvardo Brerewood Roberti Baroni◠〈◊〉 Theâ—log Ancillans De Peccato Mortali 〈…〉 Prolusienes 〈◊〉 in duas partes distribâ—â—â— 1. de Judiciis 2. de Origiâ—e Dominiiservititis c. Tho. Jonâ—â— L. I. D. 〈…〉 〈…〉 Institut Metaphyscae 1675. Bradshaw de Justificatiâ—â—e Issendoorâ—i Cursus Logicus Combachii Metaphysica Minutius Foelix 〈…〉 c. 〈◊〉 Galateus de Moribus Bartholini Enchiriâ—ion 〈◊〉 Q. Curtius Notis 〈◊〉 1672. Pembli Tractatus Tres de 〈…〉 c. 1669. Pharmaceutice Rationaâ—â—â—sive Diatriba de 〈…〉 in Human c. Corpore Authore Tho. Willis M. D. duo Vol. 1674. 1675. Rev. Patris Lanâ— Andrews Epise Winton Preces Privatae Graecè Latinè è Theatro Richardi Gardiner Herefordenâ—â—â— Aedis Christi Oxon. Canon Specimen Oratorium cum Supplemento 〈…〉 1675. M. Antonini Imperatoris de scipso ad seipsum libâ—i XII Gr. Lat. 〈◊〉 Notis illustrati è Theatro 1680. In 24. LIpsâ—â— de Constantica 〈◊〉 de Consolatione Phil â— FINIS a pag. 78. Fol. of the German Edition an 1555. though no place be mentioned in the title page Si Caesarem audirem cum omni suà classe in altum jam provectum cursum ad ipsam Turcarum Regiam Constantinopolim direxisse etsi omnia mihi pericula proponerentur nunquam quiescerem donec eum invenirem ac si jam Hellesponti fauces tenentem conspicerem ut primum conveniendi facultas daretur in haec verba prorumperem Caesar quid parâ—â— quid cogitas c. a pag. 79. b pag. 80. The Eastern Church what and why so called Governed by four Patriarchs a 3. Canon Concilii Constantinopolitani 28. canon Concilii Chalcedonensis Their Jurisdictions Limits and Titles b Histor Ecclesiastic lib. 5. cap. 8. a Vid. actionem 16. Concil Chalcedon 28. canon cjusdem Concil Patriarch of Constantinople b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alexandria a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b This Title of Oecumenical Judge Nicephorus Callistus Hist Eccles lib. 14. c. 34. says has belonged to the Bishops of this See from the time of Cyrillus who presided in the Council of Ephesus Pope Coelestine writing to him to supply his place there Which does not in the least suppose a Supremacy in the See of Rome but onely a Precedence or a Primacy of Order c V. Epist Cyrilli Lucaris tunc temporis Patriarchs Alexandrini ad Johannem Vytenbogaert in Epistol Ecclesiastic pag. 407. d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad finem Codini de officiis officialibus Curiae Ecclesiae C. P. Parisiâ—s 16. 18. pag. 411. 419. Antioch a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jerusalem b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a V. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad finem Codini pag. 419. Prayers made for them b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Histor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 5. cap. 1. pag. 89. Colon. Allobiogum 1615. V. Phransen in histor lib. 1. cap. 6. This is called by Cardinal Bessarion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the letter he wrote to the Governour of the Sons of Prince Thomas Palaeologus in the vulgar Greek published by Meursius Patriarchs of other Sects Extent of the Greek Church Oppression of the Greeks How heightned and aggravated Collection of Christian children A Vnion of Christian Princes desired in order to the freeing the Greeks from the slavery of the Turks A Holy War The Greeks quite dispirited their temper low and mean Renegados The Turkish Empire how supplied by them The causes of the decay of Christianity in the Levant The preservation of the Christian Religion there owing to the strict and religious observation of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church Festivals a XIV The Greeks date this Festival from the times of Constantine and Helena and so seem to confound it with the invention and first discovery of it at Jerusalem by a miracle and derive the reason of its name from the Patriarch Macarius in placing and setting it on high above the Ambo or Pulpit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it might the better be seen and adored by the people But the Latines celebrate the Festival in memory of the Holy Cross brought back out of Persia to Jerusalem by Heraclius A. C. 628. after the victory he had gained over Cosroes which is the account given in the Roman Martyrology but 't is certain it was in use long before and might receive some additional honour from the triumphs and successes of that Emperour * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 13. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Migratio Ita enim planius reddenda erat ista vox de Ecclesiae Graecae hod statu p. 16. licet idem innuebam per translationem nempe ex hâc vitâ in alteram In the Latin Edition I rendred this word by two Latine words translatio seu obitus alluding by the first to the opinion and fancy of several of the Brethren in the Apostle's time who from a mis-apprehension of our B. Saviour's words concerning this beloved Disciple to S. Peter in the 20. Chap. of S. John v. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee concluded that he was not to die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Graecâ Venet. 1621. fl 24. b. which mistake he corrects himself v. 23. and in the Ages following as we learn from Tertullian in his book de Anima and several others Others fancied that when they opened his grave they found no body or relique of it p. 24. a. b. But that he died at Ephesus really and truely and was buried there Polycrates Bishop of that City discourses in a Letter to Victor Bishop of Rome which is preserved by Eusebius in his Church-history lib. 3. c. 31. not to mention other Authours who have confuted this errour about the translation of S. John who onely of all the Apostles survived the last destruction of the City and Temple of Jerusalem when Christ came to take Vengeance upon his Murtherers and lived to the times of Trajan sixty eight years after the Crucifixion of our Saviour according to S. Hierom de Scriptor Eccles in Joanne c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 71. b. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a