valiant Christians the tenth man of whom when Maximian had caused to be executed for refusing to slay their Fellow-Christians and to offer Sacrifice to his false Gods Mauritius taking the rest of the Legion aside used this Oration unto them as Eucherius Archbishop of Lions relateth in the Acts of their Martyrdom I congratulate your Vertue most worthy Fellow-Souldiers that for the love of Religion the Command of Caesar wrought no fear at all in you You have seen your Fellow-Souldiers in a manner with rejoycing minds to have been delivered up to a glorious death How did I fear lest any of you as it was easie for armed men to do under pretence of Defence should by lifting up his hands give interruption to their most blessed Funerals I had now readie at hand for the forbidding this attempt the Example of our Christ who by the Command of his own mouth Put up thy Sword which was unsheathed by his Apostle teaching thereby that the Vertue of Christian-Confidence is greater than all Weapons here Christ our God did clearly Prohibit our minds and hands that none with mortal hands should resist the Divine Work but rather with ever-continued Religion add a consummation to the work begun Hitherto we have read examples inserted into the Holy Scriptures but even now we our selves have beheld whom we ought to imitate After this Maximian having commanded a second decimation of those that remained among which it is likely that Mauritius suffer'd Exuperius taking the Ensigns of his Legion spake thus My most worthy Fellow-Souldiers I hold as you see the Ensigns of a secular warfare but to those Arms I provoke you not I excite not your Courage and Valour to such wars as these another kind of fight is to be chosen by us It is not by these Swords that you can make your way to the Kingdom of Heaven And then wisheth this Message might be returned to the persecuting Emperour We are thy Souldiers indeed but withal Gods Servants to thee we owe our imployment in the War to him our Innocence from thee have we received the reward of our labour to him we are beholding for the beginning of our life we cannot so follow thee in this though our Prince as to deny God who is our Maker and whether thou wilt or wilt not is thine also As for us even this necessitie of our Life doth not drive us to Rebellion Despair it self which most strengthneth men in dangers hath not been able to arm us against thee Behold we have our Weapons and yet resist not as willing rather to die than overcome and chusing rather to perish innocent than live Traitors If to what thou hast already decreed against us thou wilt add more be it Fire Torture or Sword we are ready for it WE ARE CHRISTIANS and such as our selves we cannot persecute Consider O Caesar the courage of this Legion our Weapons we cast away and thy Executioner shall find our hands unarmed but our breasts armed with the Catholick Faith Kill us down with us without all fear we offer our Necks to be cut off by the Swords appointed to slay us And so they were all cut in pieces and each of them were more than Conquerours obtaining a Crown and Kingdom infinitely more glorious than that of the Roman Empire Now suppose some Dissenting Apostate Chaplain of that noble Army that had rather lose his Religion than his Life and had more hopes to divide the spoils of a Temporal Crown than to trust his Saviour for an entire Eternal one had held forth to them after this manner My dearly beloved Brethren fellow-Souldiers and fellow-Saints we have hitherto hazzarded our Lives under a Pagan and Tyrannical Prince who hath employed us as a Forlorn Hope on all desperate designs purposely to destroy us and though he be drunk with the bloud of our Brethren now spilt before our Eyes yet doth he thirst after ours also having appointed us as so many Sheep for the Slaughter Hearken my beloved the Kings of the Earth ever were and ever will be Enemies to the King of Heaven It is not I but the Spirit of God by David tells you The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed but the same Spirit tells us that notwithstanding he hath set his King upon the holy hill of Sion who shall break the Kings of the Earth with a Rod of Iron and dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel and his Saints shall have the honour of binding their Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Fetters of Iron Moreover Brethren we read how in old time for the sake of his Elect God reproved Kings saying Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm It is true that God hath appointed Government as his Ordinance but he hath not tied us up to Monarchie which all the Wise men of Greece have rejected and called them all by the name they deserved Tyrants And though our Emperours came in upon us by Conquest and Surprize yet we have been governed heretofore by a Senate and sometime the Senate and sometime the Souldiery have cut off their Emperours for their Arbitrary Government and set up others in the room So that if we grant the Office to be from God yet the person appointed to that Office is a Creature of man or a Humane Creature and they that set them up may pull them down for they are appointed to be a terrour to evil-doers and to be the Ministers of God to us for our good But when he is a Murtherer of them that do well as we see by this bloudy Execution on our Fellow-Souldiers he is the Devils Minister not Gods and in resisting we fight not against him but the Devil that is in him Besides that which this Tyrant intends is such an arbitrary Act of his own that the great Senate whose Counsel and Authority he hath rejected are afraid of the like cruelty and would be glad to be restored to their Authoritie Let us therefore be no longer Servants of such men but stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Hath not he made us his First-born higher than the Kings of the Earth Are not we a Royal Priesthood and have not the Saints a promise that they shall inherit the Earth The Gentiles may permit Kings to exercise Lordship over them but it ought not to be so with us 'T is in vain to expect till the Emperours become Christians we Christians must make our selves Emperours at least we may divide the Empire among us and set up Christ alone to rule as King in the midst of us in a HOLY COMMON-WEALTH And now is the time or never If we should tamely submit to the Tyrants Sword our Religion which is bound up in our Lives will perish with us and the Generations yet unborn will curse us Did not Moses slay the Egyptian that assaulted his Brother and were not the
with a stout mind for this is the property of good men to do their duty and to be of a good hope and to accommodate themselves to what ever fatal necessity shall impose p. 218. And as men of true valour and magnanimity are seldom cruel he expressed a natural clemency in all his actions those against the Christians towards his later end only excepted which yet I cannot perceive to be executed but upon some great provocations by the rash and ungovernable among the vulgar sort of Christians Of which the Historians of that time given many instances But all these vertues were sullyed with that one vile act of his in becoming an Apostate from the best Religion after that he had professed it for Twenty years together and attained a competent knowledge therein His Vices AS his Vertues were great so were his Vices and that which was most predominant was his levity and unsetledness of mind For having been false to his Redeemer he was never true to any of his false Gods He was so displeased with Mars the God of War that he solemnly vowed never to sacrifice to him more He was talkative to excess and boasted of his own Atchievements Popularity and vain-glory being that which he especially aimed at Marcellinus who was a Heathen a great friend and observer of his actions says l. 25. c. 6. That he was rather Superstitious than a devout observer of any Religion He offered costly Sacrifice rather to honour himself than his Gods and though given to Divinations yet contemned such as boded ill So resolute and self-willed he was in the business of Persia that against all good advice and ill presages he cast himself away He shewed himself unmerciful in this one Edict that he forbad the Professors in Rhetorick and Grammar to teach Christians lest they should wound the Heathen by their own darts Among his Edicts those are especially noted which he set forth against the Christians As first his forbidding the Children of Christians to be brought up in the knowledge of Philosophy lest as is noted by Socrates they might be better enabled to confute the Heathen Sophisters 2. His forbidding Christians to bear any Office in his Guards or Government in his Provinces 3. His Edicts for seizing the Christian Churches and imposing Mulcts on such as would not Sacrifice to his Pagan Gods As for Sanguinary Laws our Author observes that he enacted none Greg. Nazianzen who knew Julian hath sufficiently recorded his Vices in his Stelliteuticks from whence our Author hath taken his History But as I would not believe all as truth which some deliver in Panegyricks of their Heroes so neither all that is said in such Orations against Professed Enemies Of his Works ALthough we might wish that Julian had never known Letters because of those virulent Satyrs which he wrote against Christianity yet the Poison wherewith his Writings do abound having excellent Remedies prepared against the venome of them by the Learned Fathers of that Age such as Greg. Naz. and St. Cyril there being also some remarkable passages concerning History and Christianity interspersed they may be read with some benefit by Learned Men. He says of himself in an Epistle to Ecdicius Praefect of Egypt in which he desired him to send the Books of George an Arian Bishop of Alexandria Some delight in Horses others in Birds others in wild Beasts but I from my Childhood have been a great lover of Books His proficiency in variety of Learning will appear by what is now extant although it is supposed that he wrote many things before he was Caesar that are now lost as several Orations sent to Iamblicus the loss whereof he bewayls in an Epistle to him yet extant My opinion is that Julians Vices were real and deep rooted that he had but the umbrage and appearance of Vertue which he therefore retained that he might make them serve his Pride Popularity and vain-glory After he came to be Caesar he redeemed what time he could for his study dividing the night into three parts one for sleep another for his Books and the third for his Military Affairs and usually he would pen one of his Orations in that part of the night Suidas gives this account of his Writings First his Book call'd the Caesars containing a short and sharp account of them all from Augustus to his own time Secondly his Saturnalia and discourse of Three figures Thirdly his Misopogon written against the Antiochians and another Tract shewing the original of Evils another against Heroclitus shewing how to live Cynically and many Epistles of several sorts of which 63 are now extant He wrote his Misopogon to revenge himself upon the Antiochians who had abused him in words calling him Monkie Goats-beard and Butcher for killing so many Bulls for Sacrifices and that which most provoked him was the Impress upon some Coyn viz. A Bull lying upon his Back upon the Altar which the Antiochians interpreted to signifie that the World was turned up-side-down by Julian For these reasons he upbraids them with their Intemperance and their fondness of Plays and Theatres Secondly for their Religion which he calls Impiety though they worshipped God and Christ instead of Jupiter and Apollo Thirdly the iniquity of their Magistrates who countenanced the avarice of the Rich to the impoverishing of the People For these things he blames them speaking as of himself And when he comes to apologize for himself he confesses that his life was void of all Pleasure that he was too religious and severe in Judicature for which he prays their pardon imputing these faults to his Master by whom he was taught from his youth to live temperately religiously and justly and that he had spent his youth amongst the Gauls a rough and warlike people ignorant of delicacies The sum of this accusation we have in this Syllagism He that lives contrary to the manners of other men is deservedly accused by them Julian liveth contrary to the manners of the Antiochians in contemning Pleasures and restraining Impiety and Injustice which they allow and defend Therefore he 's justly accused by them To which if we add one Syllogism more you have the sum of that whole Book viz. He that bestows benefits upon ungrateful men is a Fool. Julian hath bestowed benefits on ungrateful men in commending cherishing and increasing the Antiochians Therefore he is a Fool. Concerning his account of the Caesars Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History lib. 3. c. 1. says That he blamed every one of them not sparing Marcus the Philosopher And Zonaras in his third Tome observes his ingratitude to Constantius blaming him for his prodigalitie feigning that Mercury asking him what was the propertie of a good King he should answer To have and to consume much The Books now extant are these 1. His Orations in praise of Constantius the Emperour and of Eusebia his wife 2. In praise of the Sun and of the Mother of the Gods Against unlearned Dogs To Heraclius concerning the Sect of the Cynicks and a Consolatory Oration at the departure of Salust His Caesars his Misopogon and sixty three Epistles besides that to Themistius and the Athenians But the most pestilent of all his Works were those which he wrote against the Christian Religion which are mentioned and answered by St. Cyril Bishop of Alexandria in Ten Books consisting of 362 Pages in the sixth Tome of his Works set forth in Greek and Latine by Johannes Aubertus printed at Paris 1638. to which for his full satisfaction I refer the Reader THE CONCLUSION IT appears by what hath been said That Julian was a perfidious and detestable Apostate A malicious and subtile Persecutor who designed much more against the Christians than God permitted him to practise But as there is an open and declared Apostacie and Opposition of the Truth by professed Enemies so is there a secret and real revolt from the Truth and persecution of its Disciples by some that profess themselves Friends to the same And in our own Age we have known some not only of the Roman but other Perswasions who may be parallel'd with and in some circumstances exceed Julian For Julian being a Great Prince had the unhappiness of being bred in forein Countries among subtile Pagans who tempted him to their impieties in his youth There are some who have had their whole Education among learned and sincere Professors of the Christian Faith and yet revolt from it Julian for Six years together faithfully served the Emperour in his Wars to the great hazard of his Life Others even in times of peace study to involve their Prince in unnatural Wars to the endangering of his and their own Lives Julian had a power to have executed his malicious designs but was restrained Others live under a just power and enjoy Protection and Peace yet their perverse Wills admit of no restraint Julian employed his Wit in writing against his Christian Subjects Others employ theirs in writing against their Christian Governours He wrote Panegyricks of a Constantius who had contrived his death Others write Satyrs and Libels against their Princes to whom they owe their Lives In a word the greatest aggravation of Julian's Apostacie was that he had been a Lecturer of the Holy Scriptures the truths of which he renounced and wrote against them And there are some who have been long in the Order of Priesthood that have so far revolted from their Profession as to write point-blank against the plain and most necessary practical duties of the Holy Scriptures And whether Julian or such as these be the greater Apostates I leave to the Judgement of the Impartial Reader FINIS
greater Soloecism of an Emperour of the world awed and terrified with the fear of a kicking But it will not do No the Proverb hinders it None so blind as he that will not see It might have been done easily enough if you had not committed a Soloecism your self in translating the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Brought but had kept the righter sence of that word which Billius the learned Interpreter of Gregory Nazianzen translates immiserat he sent or which your Elias Cretensis useth concitabat he stirred up or compelled to go against that Church which if the Emperour had been in person he need not to have done And therefore I suppose Gregory Nazianzen meant it of the Captain of the Archers that demanded the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not pro imperio by virtue of a Mandamus or Commission from the Emperour for sure the Emperour himself needed no such Commission Nor is it probable that the Emperour himself would in his March against Persia trot up and down from one Church to another for you say he had assaulted many others to make a seizure of them Nor is it a Soloecism to say the Emperour seized those Churches which another did seize by his command Our Author I suppose was led into this errour by taking the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth induco to lead or introduce whereas the Interpreters that render it immitto or concito being better Grecians than himself understand it to be from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which every Lexicon will give him such a sence as that without a wresting of it it must refer to the Captain of the Archers But we are come to the end of this Tragi-comedy The Emperour kept himself in a whole skin the Bishops Anger vented it self some other way and all was husht and calmed But certainly our Author who hath first begun this Quarrel between the Emperour and the Bishop is much to be blamed whether he did it ignorantly which is the best construction that his Friends can make or else maliciously which appears by forsaking the Translations of Billius and Cretensis and preferring another that might favour his designe And I challenge him to be as big as his word and make satisfaction for this base Coinage And that you may not be guilty of such a wilful mistake for the future I shall give you this Token to be worn as a Frontlet on your brow That from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Instigator P. 44. Here you have a description of one of the Lachrymists of old c. How far this Bishop was a Lachrymist we shall see hereafter It were fitter for the Wit of a Julian than the Piety of a Christian to deride the Prayers and Tears of those ancient Christians Whatever Garlands and Trophies Nazianzen or Basil erected for that old Bishop are now pulled down by the hands of a young P who represents him as a Hector and a Striker expresly contrary to our Saviour's Example and St. Paul's Injunction You adde p. 44. And now I know no more than the Pope of Rome what to make of all this what they meant by it or on what Principles they proceeded I question not the Principles of those in whom you have instanced it sufficeth me that you say it was done in a fit of boiling anger But when speaking of the Principles of such as offer violence to their lawful Emperours you say you know nò more than the Pope of Rome I say it is pity that you should know or divulge half so much For what you have suggested concerning these pretended Violences offered by Primitive Christians to their lawful Emperours hath a very malign influence on the present Age and for this and other such Reasons as I said I would rather lose my right hand than be the Author of them But if you know their Principles as well as the Pope of Rome you know he holds it lawful to depose or kill any Prince whom he shall judge and Excommunicate as a Heretick or Tyrant and he can teach you to distinguish between resisting Julian and resisting the Devil that was in him That the King is Vniversis minor and that the people who gave him his power may resume it c. You say p. 45. none of those Bishops had ever been in Scotland nor had learnt to fawn upon an Apostate and a mortal Enemie to Religion Parcius ista For though some may think you are reflecting only on a Popish Successor yet others considering you speak of Julian who was now a lawful Emperour may stretch this line too far Scotland indeed hath been glutted with the bloud of their Kings whereof about Thirtie have sussered violent Deaths I acquit those Bishops from confederacie with Scotland they never contributed to the destruction of any I wish I could do so by the Presbyterians Yet I perceive you know how to yoak the Popes Bull and the Scotish Heifer together and with them to make large Furrows on the backs of Kings There was I remember for above Forty years since a great Correspondence between Rome and Scotland who then communicated their Principles to each other and though none of the old Bishops were acquainted with them yet some late Presbyters have espoused them and can on all occasions for the disturbance of our English Nation talk as Whiggishly as ever Knox or Buchanan did But they are so disingenuous as to conceal the names of their good Teachers from whom they learned to distinguish not onely between Julian and the Devil in him but between Charles Stuart and the King that they might destroy him in a double capacity first as a King and then as a Man And if as you say the Laws of our Land do not allow any one to imagine violence to their lawful Emperour And if as Bracton says fama apud graves bonos viros is a proof of Treason I fear an Indictment may lie against the Author of Julian's Life for that Not having the fear of God before his Eyes but being moved c. It is therefore a most profane and Reproachful inference with which you conclude Chap. 6. That in that Age the best Prayers and Tears were those that contributed most to Julian 's destruction An Answer to our Author's CHAP. V. Of their Devotions And first of their Psalms THis was indeed the Devotion of our late Times to begin with a Psalm not regarding the Scriptures or as much as the Commandments Creed or Lords Prayer and then to preach in their Prayers and pray in their Preaching or if you will in our Authors Language to say their Prayers backward In their Devotions you say p. 45. It might be expected we should see the flights of their self-denying and suffering Religion and one may expect they should lay aside their annimositie against Julian though he were their Ememie and for that reason pray the harder
if not Gratia Dei as our stile hath it yet Decreto ac Dono Divino when Pilate himself who condemned Christ had his power given him from above I wondered to read this in a man that had shewed much diligence and reading as to matters of Law in his Treatise concerning the Bishops Right thus to faulter and prevaricate in asserting p. 36. that Kings have no Charter from God And my wonder is yet increased when I read his confident conclusion That these two places could not be reconciled by any other interpretation but his own I am much inclined to think that Mr. Hunt knew a better way of reconciling these Scriptures onely finding no other offering themselves willingly to serve his Hypothesis he thought to press this of St. Peter to it Now the designe that he drives is against the Succession p. 42. which says he is of a Civil nature not established by any Divine Right and the several limitations of the Descent of the Crown must be made by the People in conferring the Royal Dignitie and Power Had Mr. Hunt talked at this rate in Cromwel's days when he was about to make himself a King it had been tolerable but to talk thus in a Kingdom so long continued in a Legal Succession and so well constituted that nothing but such new suggestions are like to disturb it needeth Pardon though he expects Praise for it In other things I thought Mr. Hunt an ingenuous and bold man that spake his own Sentiments as if he were in Civitate libera and I would willingly have excused him upon that account here or as a man labouring under the common fate of such as meddle with matters out of their Spheres for seldom meet we with such Blunderers as Divines when they attempt the work of Lawyers and States-men or Lawyers when they invade the Office of the Divine But none of these things can be pleaded in Mr. Hunt's excuse for no doubt he had consulted with such Divines as wrote in the time of the Late War at least such as had a hand in that War and yet survived The Assemblies Annotations were at his hand and I suppose he would have consulted them or such as they were i. e. no great friends to Kingly Government Hear then what they say on the words Ordinance of man By Ordinance is meant the framing and ordering of Civil Government called the Ordinance of man not because it is invented by or hath its original from men for all power is from God Rom. 13.1 2. though sometime he useth men as means to derive Power or Government to such or such a person or persons that so they might be the more willing to yield Obedience but because it is proper to men or because it is discharged by men And on the word Supreme they note There is therefore no other Supreme on Earth above the King in his Dominions Pareus is another common Author and one whom Mr. Hunt probably would have consulted about this Opinion above others he having written such things against the power of Kings as deserved to be committed publickly to the flames 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apellatio ad Deum primum autorem nos revocat The word Creature recalleth us to the consideration of God who is the Prime Author of Magistracie for though Magistrates are said to be created that is ordained by men yet their first Creator properly is God alone Thus he in the Appendix to his Comment on Rom. 13. Dubio 3. And there he teacheth you plainly how to reconcile St. Peter with St. Paul whom you make to contradict each other The Apostle says he calls Magistracie a humane Ordinance not causally as it is devised by men and set up at their pleasure but subjectively as it is administred by men and objectively as exercised about the government of humane Societies or lastly in respect of the end as constituted of God for the benefit of men Calvin and Beza and generally all the Modern Expositors say the same and whoever reads the words following where this Ordinance of man is divided to the King as Supreme and to Governours sent by him must needs acknowledge that the Apostle speaks not of the thing but the persons Omni personae omni principatui cui nos divina dispositio subdi voluit saith Bede on that place Dr. Hammond's Paraphrase I think is beyond all exception because it perfectly reconciles the sence of St. Peter with that of St. Paul for by every Ordinance of man he understands every Heathen Governour every mortal Prince And his learned Notes do evince the truth of his interpretation which being too long to insert I refer the Reader to them and shall onely give you his Reason which is this That the Gnosticks who had so early troubled the Church taught that Christian Servants and Subjects were not bound to obey their Heathen Masters and Magistrates whereas the Apostle enjoyns them to obey both not onely if they be good and gentle but also if they be froward if they be unbelievers We may not make our Libertie a cloak for Ambition or Rebellion and pretend to vindicate our Countrie when we intend to enslave it As Antiochus who brought a great Armie into Greece pretending to deliver it when it was in a condition of Freedom and Prosperitie And thus the Lacedemonians endeavouring to free themselves from one Tyrant made way for Thirtie to domineer over them But Mr. Hunt's demand is what Scripture we have for the Kings Charter I answer That Saul had a Charter 1 Sam. 8. for God chose him and how far it extended read there and Skiccard de Jure Regum apud Hebraeos And after God had rejected Saul who had first rebelled against God yet he hath the Title and the Reverence of the Lords Anointed given him by David still And God himself calls Cyrus his Anointed though a Heathen And Daniel acknowledged of Nebuchadnezzar The God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power strength and glorie Dan. 2.27 These then had it not from the People Pilate himself though an Inferiour Magistrate had his Charter owned and submitted to by Christ himself And when it is said in the Old Testament By me Kings reign Prov. 8.15 and in the New even of the Roman Emperours such as Nero and Claudius that they are ordained by God and that our Obedience is due to them for the Lords sake and for Conscience sake He must be an Ignoramus or worse that can see in Scripture a Charter for the Peoples rights and power even to resist their Prince and none for the Prince to vindicate his Authoritie over the People It would be irksome to the Reader to relate what is obvious in Heathen Writers concerning the Original of Kingly power Nature did at first find out a King saith Seneca And Aristotle says That by nature not onely the Father hath rule over his Children but also the King over those that are within his Kingdom This is the Government that
God himself erected from the beginning giving to Adam a Patriarchal which is tantamount to a Monarchal power This he granted to Israel and continued to the coming of Christ To this power in the Romans Christ and his Apostles submit themselves and command every Soul to follow their examples and all the Primitive Christians did so till the Pope of Rome to the great scandal of Christianitie invaded the Thrones and usurped the power of their lawful Emperours Gregory the Seventh Pope Vrbane and Paschal were the first that stirred up Subjects against their Princes and the Son against his Father We are taught saith Polycarp to yield Obedience to all Principalities under God except in things destructive to our Souls Therefore do as you please cast me to wild beasts or the fire which is not to be compared to that eternal fire prepared for the ungodly In the Constitutions of Clemens it is declared a hainous sin to resist the Prince and the Councils for 1200 years taught no other Doctrine And when those Popes first turned Rebels and proceeded so imperiously as to Excommunicate the Bishop and Church-men of Liege for adhering to the Emperour and stirred up Robert Earl of Flanders to destroy all that Clergie they wrote a most excellent Epistle declaring That they never had heard of any such Doctrine or Practice from any of the Fathers and that they had observed fearful Judgments of God falling on such as did rebel against their Princes And so it fell out for all the Popes great Instruments Radolphus and Herman and Egbert were cut off and gave the World magnum Documentum a severe Caution not to rise up against their Princes no not for the sake of an Infallible Pope This was the sence of the Primitive Fathers Irenaeus proves it by Scripture and concludes By whose command they are born men by his command they are made Princes So Tertul. Inde Imperator unde homo inde potestas unde Spiritus It is God saith Origen who setteth up Kings and removeth them and in his own time raiseth up such a one as is useful to the State Contra Celsum Theophilus Bishop of Antioch I will honour the King not adoring him but praying for him knowing that by God the King is ordained So Athenagoras of Aurelius and his Son Commodus says They had received the Kingdom from above St. Basil also on Psal 32. The Lord setteth up Kings and removeth them and there is no power but what is ordained of God And to conclude with Greg. Nazianzen concerning the Power of the Governor of his Province Orat. 17. to the Citizens of Antioch That together with Christ he did rule the people committed to his charge that from him he had received the Sword and was to be accounted as the Image of God So S. Chrysostom And if we reverence those Officers that are chosen by the King though they be wicked though they be Thieves and Robbers not despising them for their wickedness but standing in awe of them for the dignitie of him that elected them much more ought we thus to do in the case of God and the King chosen by him Serm. 1. of David and Saul So that even wicked Princes have a Charter from God So our Saviour said of Pilate Joh. 19.11 Thou couldest have no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 authoritie or power against me except it were given thee from above And St. Paul of the Roman Emperors There is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God and he that resists resisteth the Ordinance of God And that St. Peter says the same though in other words hath been made evident Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as supreme for so is the will of God 1 Pet. 2 13-15 St. Augustine de Civitate Dei l. 5. c. 21. Regnum terrenum dat Deus piis impiis Qui Mario ipse Caio Caesari qui Augusto ipse Neroni c. God gives an Earthly Kingdom both to good and evil Princes He that gave it to Marius gave it to Caius Caesar he that gave it to Augustus gave it to Nero he who gave it to the Vespasians Father and Son most mild and loving Emperours gave it likewise to that most cruel man Domitian And not to recount them all he that gave it to that Christian Prince Constantine gave it to that Apostate Julian These things without doubt that one and true God doth rule and govern as he pleaseth although for secret causes yet not for unjust So the Prophet Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of kings for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power strength and glorie And chap. 5.21 The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will chap. 4. And as God setteth them in the Throne so he rules by them and over-rules them guiding all their actions to his own just and wise ends If all the Princes of the World should conspire they can do no more than what Gods hand and counsel have determined before to be done Acts 4.28 God knows how to effect good and gracious ends even by wicked Kings He made Cyrus an Instrument to build him a House in Jerusalem 2 Chron. 36.23 and calls Nebuchadnezzar his Servant Jer. 25.9 The heart of the King is in the hands of the Lord as the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he pleaseth He can restrain the spirits of Princes as he did Abimelech and not suffer them to touch his People He can cause the wrath of man to turn to his praise He stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to deliver the Jews from the Captivitie of Babylon Ezra 1.1 He made Darius and Artaxerxes instrumental in building and beautifying the House of the Lord Ezra 6.22 and chap. 7.27 Wherefore as the Psalmist says Psal 97.1 The Lord reigneth let the earth rejoyce let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof For though Clouds and Darkness are round about him and we cannot see the reason or end of his Providences yet Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation of his Throne v. 2. Were the Almightie like the Epicureans God that could not intend the affairs of the world without great trouble and therefore retired himself and left all to Chance we might then think it fit to chuse for our selves but when every Choice and every Chance is ordered by the Almightie and wise God when it is said Sam. 18.18 The people had chosen Saul chap. 10.24 it is said The Lord had chosen him And if the Magistrate be chosen by Lot yet as Solomon says Prov. 16.33 The Lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. We may not say therefore as that Prince did 2 King 6.33 when God had sent a Famine in Samaria This evil is from the Lord why should I wait on him any longer much less should we resist the established Ordinance of Heaven
his People Therefore we must take away all pretences of the lawfulness of Resistance or we must grant All pretences to be lawful that the People shall judge so to be Therefore the Scripture hath forbidden resistance in any case as our Law grounded on Scripture and Reason hath also done on any pretence whatsoever It had been enough to oppose Bishop Vsher's sole Judgment against our Author's Bishop Vsher of the power of Princes p. 214. The patience of the Saints was not onely seen in the Primitive Persecutions but continued as well under the Arian Emperours who retaining the name of Christians did endeavour with all their power to advance that damnable Heresie but also under Julian himself who utterly revolted from the very profession of the Name of Christ. Sr. Augustine observed the same on Psal 124. Julian was an Infidel an Apostate and Idolater yet Milites Christiani servierunt Imperatori Insideli Christian Souldiers served this Heathen Emperour When they came to the Cause of Christ they would acknowledge no Lord but him in Heaven but when he said Go forth to fight Invade such a Nation they presently obeyed They were subject to their Temporal Lord for his sake that was their Eternal Lord. The Arian Persecution by Constantius who had also Apostatized from the true Faith was as violent and of much longer continuance than that of Julian yet though the Christians had then as you pretend the Laws on their side they made no resistance I am constrained to repeat this again because I meet with a contrary Assertion in Mr. Hunt p. 153. I must remember him saith he out of Socrates Eccl. Hist l. 2. c. 38. when the Souldiers of the Arian Emperour Constantius were by his command sent to enforce them to become Arians they took Arms in defence of their Religion Where I perceive as great a Lawyer as Mr. Hunt is he hath taken honest John Milton into his Consult who says Chap. 44. of the Primitive Christians Idem bellum Constantio indixerunt quantum in se erat Imperio vita spoliarunt That they waged War with Constantius and as much as in them lay spoiled him of his Life and Empire This being said by Milton how notoriously false soever Mr. Hunt is ready to assert the truth of it and makes an offer of as good Authoritie for it as ever Milton did for the Kings Condemnation as will appear by the History This passage refers us to a horrible Relation of the Arian Persecution acted by Macedonius who procured Edicts from that Emperour to force the Christians to the Arian infidelity The History begins chap. 27. Macedonius after the death of Paul Bishop of Constantinople who was banished first and then slain in exile by the Arians Athanasius hardly escaping them enters on those Churches who having great power with the Emperour stirred up as great Wars and Cruelties between the Christians themselves as any that were acted by the Tyrants and he got his impious actings to be confirmed by the Emperours Edicts Presently he proclaims the Edicts in all the Cities and the Souldiers are enjoyned to assist him The Orthodox are banished not onely from their Churches but their Cities Then they constrain the people against their wills to communicate with the Arians and used as great violence as ever any of those used that forced the Christians to the worshipping of Idols applying Whips Tortures and all kind of Cruelties Some were Sequestred of all their Goods others Banished many died under their Torments and those that were to be Banished were slain in the way These Cruelties were practised throughout all the Cities of the East-part of the Empire especially at Constantinople This Persecution when Macedonius was made Bishop was increased more than before of which Socrates in chap. 38 gives a fuller relation p. 142 Edit Valesii That he then persecuted not onely Catholicks but the Novatians also who agreed with the Catholicks in the Consubstantiality Both were oppressed with intolerable mischiefs Agellius the Bishop of the Novatians is forced to flee but many eminent for their piety were apprehended and tormented for refusing to communicate with them and after other Tortures they gagg'd their Moueths with Wood and forced their Sacrament into them which was to those good men the greatest torment of all They also forced the Women and Children to receive their Baptism If any resisted they used Whips Bonds Imprisonment and other cruelties of which it shall suffice to relate one or two instances leaving the Auditors to judge by them of the inhumane actings of Macedonius and his Party Such Women as would not communicate with them they first squeezed their Breasts in a Box and then cut them off some with Iron and others with Causticks of scalding Eggs. A new kind of torment never used by the Heathen against us Christians was invented by these who professed Christianity These things I am informed of saith Socrates by Auxanontes a very old man a Presbyter of the Novatian Church who before he was made Presbyter endured many indignities being cast into Prison with one Alexander a Paphlagonian and beaten with many stripes whereof this Alexander died in prison but Auxanontes lived to endure more torments I have not time to translate the entire History which may be read in that Chapter I shall therefore come to that part of it related to by Mr. Hunt which is thus Macedonius hearing that in the Province of Paphlagonia especially at Mantinium there were such a multitude of Novatians as could not be expelled by the Arian Ecclesiasticks procures four Companies of Souldiers to force them to turn Arians They in defence of their Sect armed themselves with despair as with Weapons and gathering together in a Body with Hooks and Hatchets and what Weapons were at hand met the Souldiers in which scuffle many of the Paphlagonians and neer all the Souldiers were slain This I heard saith Socrates from a Paphlagonian that was in the Fight And he adds that the Emperour himself was offended with Macedonius for this action I should indeed have wondered at the confidence of Mr. Hunt in accusing from this story the Orthodox for arming themselves in defence of their Profession when it was onely a rout of Novatians that were by the Arian crueltie driven to despair that defended themselves against them But I am so transported at another saying of his that I have no admiration of any thing else how false or pernicious soever You shall find it p. 192. of his Treatise concerning the Succession where having suggested that if the D. be not excluded he doth certainly make us miserable and mincing the matter a little saying We exclude onely his Person not his Posteritie he is not afraid to add And we will not entail a War upon the Nation though for the Sake and Interest of the glorious Familie of the STVARTS The speech is so heinous that it cannot admit any aggravation Well may such men as he and his Plagiary seek to