his own And it must have been a wonderfull chance if any Scribbles of a Librarian could have light on so fit a place and so apposite to the precedent design of another Author who thought not of them He that can believe it may next believe the Epicuraean Hypothests That the World was made by such a casual Concurrence of undesigning Atoms All that is pretended to the contraâ—â— is only that this Collection of Canons follows the Summary subjoined to the former Collection But this is too conjectural a Proof to be opposed to the Evidences now mentioned yet How do they know but that this very Summary is the Author 's own It is in as large a Hand as the rest of the Discourse itself it is not in red Letters as the like Summary is in the Fragment of Philippus Sideâ—es in this same MS. where it was added by the Librarian And it is not unusual for Authors to add Arguments and Abstracts of their own Works so did Pliny to his Natural History so did Gellius to his Noctes Attioae so has the Anonymous Chronologer under Alexander Severus so has Gildas and Nennius in the later and more barbarous Ages and What should make the Librarian think that fit to be done in another Man's Work that might not also make the Author himself think so too But for our present purpose I am not concerned whether this Summary was drawn up by the Author or the Librarian if the Librarian thought fit to insert it into the Text as plainly he has done this was the properest Place for it before any other part of the Discourse intervened that was upon another Argument not of Facts but Canons 11. Thus I have shewn that our Author was neither obliged by the Occasion of his Writing nor could consequently to his own Principles design to give us a Collection of Precedents for withdrawing Obedience on a Lay-Deprivation or for a Cession in a Person so invalidly deprived And now methinks this might excuse me from descending to a particular Examination of the Facts produced by him which our Adversaries are pleased to call Precedents For what if in the History of so many Centuries as are here accounted for there might be found some Instances wherein Christian Emperours were partial in favour to themselves and chalenged more Power than did really belong to them And what if Christian Bishops for Peace sake submitted not waving the Right but bearing the Injury What and if the Clergy and Laity did sometimes as they do now fail in their Duty of adhering to them It is yet sufficient for our present purpose that this was no design'd Collection of such pretended Precedents that therefore if any of these Facts should prove so that was beside the Meaning of the Author that his Authority ought not to be concerned for them that neither his Judgment nor the Judgment of the Eastern Churches can ever recommend such Facts for Precedents which were so disagreeable to their Rules and Canons If therefore our Adversaries will make Precedents of those Facts which were condemned by this Author by the Doctrine of those very Churches where they were committed this is plainly reasoning otherwise than they can justifie by any Authority For what Authority can it be that they will insist on for making such Facts pass for Precedents Is it that of the Eastern Church But her Doctrine will not allow our Adversaries to disown our deprived Bishops or to set up Antibishops against them on account of such Lay-Deprivations Is it the Authority of this Collector But he owns these Doctrines for the Doctrines of his own Church which are so inconsistent with our Adversaries Practices Or Is it lastly the Authority of the Princes themselves who were concerned in the Facts here enumerated But it is certain Princes doe many things which they never do so much as pretend to justifie by Principles And yet it is withall certain that no other Facts but such avowed ones ought in reason to pass for Precedents and for knowing what they do avowedly justifie no better Expedient can be found than to appeal to the Doctrine of the Church that was owned and protected by them which they took for the Guide of their Consciences Thus it will come to pass that if any of the Facts here mentioned should prove for our Adversaries purpose yet seeing they could not be well done as to the Consciences of the Persons concerned our Adversaries must not presume them well done but prove them so independently on the Persons before they can make Precedents of them and reason from them as Authorities and then what will they gain by this celebrated Collection when it will leave them to the Tryal of the Merit of their Cause as much as ever 12. However to gratifie them as far as we may let us now descend to Particulars The first is that of Meletius who was set up in the Throne of Antioch while Eustathius his Predecessor was yet living yet he was owned as Bishop of Antioch by St. Basil and St. Chrysostome But Eustathius was deposed by a Synod perhaps of Bishops secretly favouring Arius but not as yet declared an opposite Communion The Synod indeed charged him with Sabellianism but it was no otherwise than as they who favoured Arianism used to charge the Catholicks in general nor did the Catholicks understand it otherwise The chief Pretence of depriving was a Crime of Life False indeed it was but of that the Synod was to judge though they judged corruptly His onely Remedy had been to have appealed to another Synod but that he did not think fit to try Yet till he did so the Throne was fairly vacated and he could pretend no Right in Opposition to Meletius who was also set up by an Ecclesiastical Authority The Canons of Antioch made after his Deprivation but before the Translation of Meletius and urged afterwards against St. Chrysostome and since received into the Codes and Canons of the Vniversal Church allowed him no Remedy but that of another Synod and that a more numerous one than that which had deprived him Had he so much as attempted it otherwise he had been cut off by that same Canon not onely from all hopes of Restitution but from being admitted to a Tryal of the Merits of his Cause I will not now call in question his being alive after Meletius was set up because it is expresly attested by Socrates and Sozomen and among others by Nicephorus in his MS. Catalogue of Patriarchs especially so remarkable Passages in History depending on it that of the Banishment not onely 〈◊〉 â—imself but of Evagrius whom he had consecrated Bishop of 〈…〉 by the Emperour Valens This had been enough for our purpose though the synodical Deprivation had not been chargeable against him that he lay hid even after the liberty he had of returning from his Exile by the Edict of Julian that he did not appear to chalenge his Right that they of Antioch did
A VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops c. PART I. Shewing That though the Instances collected in the Baroccian MS had been pertinent to the Editors Design yet that would not have been sufficient for Obtaining their Cause 1. THat the Laity should be favourable to Mistakes derogatory to the sacred Power cannot be thought strange in an Age wherein they generally use so little diligence to inform themselve or to receive Information from those who are qualified to inform them concerning the Rights of the Clergy Their own Interests are alone sufficient to make them partial in affairs of this nature though they were more sincerely influenced by Considerations of Religion than we generally find them but that Clergymen should also â—avour them in Encroachments on their own Function that they should professedly patronise Doctrines tending to lessen the Esteem of that greatest and most valuable of all Authorities wherewith God has honoured and instrusted none but them that they should make it depend on the pleasure of the Magistrate which was designed for greater and more noble Ends than the Magistracy it self that they should put it in his power to destroy the very being of the Church as a Society by a secular Deprivation that they should not onely own but teach That none are obliged to adhere to themselves in such a Case wherein the Magistrate is against them no not so much as in regard of Conscience that they should by this means make the greatest and most momentous Concerns for Souls subordinate to worldly carnal Politicks and the far less weighty Interests of worldly Prosperity and of particular Societies that they should hereby make it least capable of subsisting under a Persecution which was the Case most obvious in the view of our B. Saviour and his Apostles and therefore most particularly provided for if they took care for any thing beyond their own time These things I say would not be very credible if they were not very notorious One would think none who valued the general good of Religion and the Catholick Church and the Souls of Mankind before the temporal Prosperity of any particular State and it is hard to conceive how any good Man can doe otherwise could even wish such Opinions true though his Wish alone were sufficient to make them so How then is it agreeable that Clergymen of all Men should be the most favourable and zealous Advocates for such Opinions so manifestly destructive of those greatest Interests which they of all men ought best to understand and to be most zealously concerned for How is it agreeable that they of all men cannot be content to let the Memory of ill Precedents dye but that they must allarm us with future Fears of having them acted again by not only abetting but also justifying them How is it agreeable that they should do this in a Prospect such as ours is of a Laity so little concerned for the good of Religion and the Church when even they who have any Principles have such lax ones and so very little obliging them even in Conscience to venture any thing for any particular Communion That their preferring their worldly Concerns depending on the Pleasure of the Magistrate before the greater Concerns of Souls and Eternity is the true Cause of it is not to be believed while there are any Reasons that might induce them to it Yet little Reasons cannot in Equity excuse when the Consequences ought to be so very valuable on that very account of Mens being either good or religious But this advantage our Adversaries have that their Cause is like to suffer nothing by ill Management when it is in the hands of such able Advocates Let us therefore see whether all they say will amount to Reason and to Reason sufficient to excuse them 2. They pretend and pretend with great Confidence That nothing can justifie our Adherence to even unjustly deprived Bishops if the Successors be not Hereticks That this is so they appeal to an antient Greek MS. of Instances collected to their hands before any prospect of our present Case They pretend from this Collection that neither the Bishops themselves who were unjustly deprived made any Separation nor any Subjects of such Bishops on account of any obligation of Conscience to adhere to them Hence they collect that these things being the sense of the antient Church as often as any such Instances appeared ought also to be our sense who profess a Veneration for Antiquity And were these things so as they pretend they would perhaps be considerable to excuse the Practice of our present Adversaries But all these things are justly questionable and far from that Evidence which their Cause requires and themselves pretend to All they say is resolved into this MS. and this will do nothing for their purpose The Author whoever he was is much too young to be admitted as a Witness of most of the Facts enumerated by him especially considering we have Authours of the earlier times to speak for themselves Nay he has not pretended to be a Witness on his own Credit He has been particularly carefull to tell us his Authors most of which are extant to this very day As therefore his Credit is nothing for things so much earlier than his own Age so neither is there any need we should depend on his Credit when we can have immediate recourse to his original Authors themselves It is called an antient MS. and yet pretended no elder than the 13th Century But sure the ingenious English Prefacer cannot think Antiquity of so low a date as that is to be that Antiquity which we profess to imitate or pretend to alleadge Yet neither can he prove his Author a competent Witness even for that low Antiquity All that appears from his quoting Nicetas Choniates is onely this That he could not be elder than that Century in which the Author lived who was quoted by him But neither doth it thence follow that he lived in the same Age nor can it thence be determined how long he lived after him This mention of Nicetas will bring him down below the Year 1205. where Nicetas ends his History Nicetas himself lived some while after But our Author refers to his History as an Authority as being elder than the Traditions of the Age he lived in He neither pretends to remember the things for which he quotes him nor to have received any Informations concerning them from the relation of any old Men who could remember them But where Nicetas fails him he shews himself perfectly ignorant of the Affairs of that Age which was concerned in the History written by Nicetas Nicetas mentions no Successor in the See of Constantinople between Cosmas Atticus and Theodosius Our Author therefore takes Theodosius for Cosmas's immediate Successor Nicetas does not mention the Synods nor the Abdications that were in the Cases of the Patriarchs deposed in the time of Isaacius Angelus therefore our Author supposes there were none Nicetas
Catholick Church of that Age. The whole Collegium of Catholick Bishops that is St. Cyprian's Term gave their Communicatory Letters not to Novatian but Cornelius and received none to their own Communion on the Communicatory Letters of Novatian but only on those of Cornelius And that upon this same common Principle that Cornelius being once validly Bishop of Rome Novatian could never be a Bishop of that same District without the Death or Cession or Deprivation of Cornelius and that supposing him no Bishop of that place to which he was consecrated he could be no Bishop at all So far they were then from our late Fancy of a Bishop of the Catholick Church without a particular District Had they thought so they might have ratified Novatian's Acts as a Bishop because he had received his Power from Bishops though not as Bishop of Rome Comparing the Catholick Church to a Fanum or Temple he was Profanus as not being in the Temple nor having a Right to enter into it Comparing it to the House in which the Passover was to be eaten by the Jews he was Foris not in that House in which alone the Passover was to be eaten These were the Notions of St. Cyprian and were by him and his Colleagues understood of the Catholick Church in general when they all supposed Novatian out of the Catholick in general by being out of that particular Church of Rome of which he had formerly been a Member Just as in ordinary Excommunications they also always supposed that he who was by any Act of obliging Authority deprived of his Right to his own particular Church had also lost his Right thereby to all the particular Churches in the World And they also supposed Novatian to have cast himself out of his own Body by assuming to himself the name of a Head of that Body which already had a Head and could have no more than one And these Notions and this Language of St. Cyprian were supposed and owned universally by the whole Body of the Catholick Bishops of his Time when they acted consequently to them and took them for the Measures by which they either granted or refused their own Communion Nor is it to be thought strange that these Notions should be received and received universally not as the Opinions of private Persons but as the publick Doctrine and Fundamental to the Catholick Communion as practiced not only in that early Age of St. Cyprian but as derived from the Apostles themselves and the very first Originals of Christianity For these were not as private Opinions usually were only the result of private Reasonings they were received as the Fundamentals of Christianity which were not as new Revelations generally were from the like Notions received among the Jews and among them received not as private Opinions but as publick Doctrines and Fundamental to the then practised Sacrifical Communion of the then peculiar People and only thence deduced as other things also are in the Reasonings of the New Testament to the Case of the new Mystical Peculium and their new Mystical Sacrifices The Language of erecting Altar against Altar in St. Cyprian is derived from the like earlier Language received among the Jews concerning the Samaritan Altar of Manasses against the Jerusalem Altar of Jaddus that is of a High Priest against a High Priest when God had appointed but one High Priest in the whole World and Him only at Jerusalem And it is also plain that the Body of the Jews did look on such Schismatical High Priests and all their Communicants as cut off from the Body of their Peculium and consequently from all their publick Sacrifices and all the Privileges consequent to them Why should we therefore think it strange that the Apostolical Christians should have the like Opinion of them who set up themselves as opposite Heads of their Mystical Sacrifices 18. But this is not all It is further as notorious 3dly that all who any way professed themselves one with Novatian were for that very reason of their doing so taken for divided from the Catholick Church as well as he was with whom they were united Here also the reason was very evident that he who professed and by publick Profession made himself one with a Person divided must by the same Analogy of Interpretation profess himself divided and by that very profession actually divide himself also by making himself one with the Person suppos'd to be divided Nor was this reason more evident than universally aknowledged in the Discipline of that Age. All such Vniters with the Schismatick were refused to be admitted to Communion not by particular Bishops only as the Case would have been if the Opinion had been singular but by all the Bishops of one Communion in the World 19. Not only so But it is also as notorious 4thly from the Practice and Discipline of that Age that all whom they looked upon as united with Novatian they consequently looked on as divided from themselves To be sure in the first place those who had any hand in his pretended Consecration which were principally and particularly reflected on by Cornelius in his Epistle to Fabius of Antioch Nor would his People be receiv'd to Communion by any Catholick Bishop on the Communicatory Letters of Novatian and they could expect none from Cornelius whilst they were divided from him Thus all his Subjects came to be involved as well as himself But that which was highest of all was that even Bishops were supposed to have divided themselves from their Brethren if they communicated with him that is if according to the custom of that Age they either gave communicatory Letters to him or receiv'd any to their own Communion on the like Communicatory Letters received from him This appear'd plainly in the Case of Martian of Arles who was on this very account denied the Communicatory Letters of his Brethren and would no doubt have appeared also in the Case of Fabius of Antioch if he had proceeded so far And this does plainly suppose that such Bishops also had cut themselves off from Catholick Communion by their own Act. Especially according to St. Cyprian's Principles who makes every Bishop in his own District supreme and accountable to none but God and therefore obnoxious to no superiour Jurisdiction And by this means it also appeared to have been more than a private Opinion in that Age when even no Bishop could be permitted in the Communion of his Brethren if he dissented from them in this particular Thus to make application to our present Case all the Bishops will be involved who Communicate either with the Principal Schismaticks or the Schismatical Consecrators And this will also take in by the same Principles all Communicants with such Bishops For when the Bishop was refused Communion the effect of such refusal was that none should thence forwards expect to be received to the Communion of those who had refused him on his Communicatory Letters and no other Communicatory
find them received where nothing could have been received universally that had been an Innovation In so short a time it was hard to bring in Variations from the Primitive Rule and harder yet that all the Churches could have been unanimous in them if they had been Variations as Tertullian reasons in his Prescriptions especially when there was no Vniversal Authority received over the whole Catholick Church that could induce them to it From the Time of Trajan the Succession of our Saviour's Family failed in the Church of Jerusalem to which all particular Churches paid a deference From the Time of Hadrian there could be no pretence for that Church above others when it consisted not of Jews but Greeks and Romans What was there therefore that could make them unanimous in Variations and Variations of such Importance as this had been They had then no General Councils And the absolute Supremacy of particular Bishops in their proper Districts is by none maintained more expresly and more zealously than by St. Cyprian with particular regard to all other Powers that in later times have pretended to oblige Bishops that is to Councils and the Bishop of Rome This Catholick Communion grounded on the common Interest of all the Bishops to have all their Acts of Discipline in their particular Dictricts ratified over the whole World might have brought in other things that were consequential to these common Interests But there was nothing antecedent that can be imagined that could have brought in this Catholick Communion of those times among such a multitude of absolute and independent Societies as the Churches were then if it had not been brought in from their very first Originals And yet these Notions we were speaking of were Fundamental to that Catholick Communion it self as managed in those earlier Ages Let them therefore make their uttermost advantage of those Instances which our Adversaries call Precedents in later Ages This is however plain If they be not found inconsistent with these earlier Instances they can make nothing for their purpose If they be yet none can doubt but that later Deviations how numerous soever are to be over-ruled and concluded by the Precedents of these first and earliest Instances not so much as mentioned by their Author 23. Yet after all though we should admit that this Author had been successfull in all that he has attempted we may yet justifie our adherence to the deprived Bishops and our Separation from their opposite Altars and justifie it too by the Doctrine of their own Author For 7thly Even he permits a Separation where Orthodoxy is concerned and expresly excepts this Case from the number of those which he pretends to confute An Heretical Bishop he calls a false Bishop a false Teacher and tells us that they who separate from such do not divide the Vnity of the Church by Schism but endeavour to free the Church from Schisms and Divisions These are his own Words in the Conclusion of his Discourse I easily foresee this Charge will seem new and surprizing to our Adversaries and yet I cannot see how they can secure themselves against it St. Augustine observes that Schisms generally end in Heresie That is the natural consequence of defending it as our Adversaries do by Principles A single Act of Vndutifulness to Superiors will in course pass away with those who are guilty of it so that Posterity will not be concerned in it But when it is defended by Principles it turns into false Doctrine and Doctrine of that pernicious Consequence that the Church is obliged to take notice of it as she will be faithful to her Trust in securing her Body from the like Divisions for the future Thus the Donatists took the first occasion for their Schism from the pretended personal Faults of Caecilian and his Ordainers This whilst it was a particular Case went no farther than that particular Schism But when it turned into a general Doctrine that personal Faults were sufficient to justifie Separation then it laid a Foundation of frequent Schisms as often as any Criminals got into Places of Trust and either Evidence was wanting or themselves too powerful to be contested with Then it concerned Ecclesiastical Governours to condemn this Doctrine that encouraged even Men of Conscience to divide designedly and frequently And when that Doctrine was thus condemned by the Church and was notwithstanding maintained by the Donatists as a Principle on which they subsisted as an opposite Communion it then became a Character of a Party to maintain it and from that time forward the Donatists were reckoned among Hereticks as well as Schismaticks For this was the true Notion of Heresie in those Ages as contradistinct from Schism Both of them supposed a Division of Communion or tended to it But that Division was called Schism which only broke the Political Vnion of the Society without any difference of Principles as when Thieves or Robbers transgress their Duties without any pretence of Principles authorizing them to do so So whilst Resentment alone was the reason that made Subjects separate from the Communion of their Ecclesiastical Governours or whilst Ambition alone made any to invade the Office of his Bishop and to erect an opposite Communion this was Schism properly so called as contradistinct from Heresie But when the Schism is patronized by Doctrines and justified as well done and consistently with Conscience such Divisions besides their being Schismatical were Heretical also in the sense of the Ancients and such Doctrines as Characteristical of a distinct Communion were properly called Heresies On this account the same Doctrine of the Original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters was no Heresie in St. Hierome who notwithstanding kept Communion with the Bishops of the Jurisdictions he lived in and yet was Heresie in Aâ—erius when upon account of that pretended Identity he presumed to pay no more Duty to the Bishops of the respective Jurisdictions than he would have done to single Presbyters This is the most agreeable account of the Heresies not only in Philastrius but in other more judicious Collectors of Catalogues of Heresies And it is very agreeable with the Notion of that Term among the Philosophers from whom the Christians derived it All Notions that were proper and characteristical to particular Schools among them made Heresies not those which were received in Common among them Answerably whereunto those Differences only of Opinion made Heresies in the Church which were the Notes of different Communions not those which went no farther than Speculation 24. I am very well aware how surprizing this will be to those who upon Popular Opinions have been used to believe no Opinion Heresie that was not against Fundamentals But if they will for a while lay aside their Prejudices they will possibly find this as slightly grounded as many other Popular Opinions are The very distinction between Fundamentals and Non-Fundamentals is not that I know of ever taken notice of by the Primitive Christians either in the same
Thus much at least will follow that there is no subverting it as a Society without subverting it also as a Sect because those very Doctrines which make it a Sect do also consequently oblige it to be a Society For my part I believe those Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which all who believe any Fundamentals proper to the Christian Religion as revealed by God do reckon among Fundamentals not to have been revealed for Speculation only but purposely to oblige Men to unite in it as a Society The Vnity in Trinity which is the principal thing insisted on in the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in the Scripture was purposely to let Men see the Extent of the Mystical Vnion to which they were intitled by the External Vnion with the visible Church that by partaking in the Orthodox Communion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by St. John they had also a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Father and the Son 1. John 1.3 For it was manifest they must also partake of the Spirit because he who had not the Spirit of Christ was none of his It was therefore supposed that by partaking of the Trinity we are made one Mystically and that by being united visibly to the Church we are intitled to that Mystical Vnion So whoever is united visibly to the Church is thereby if he be not wanting to himself in due Conditions united also Mystically to the Trinity and that whoever is divided externally from the Church is thereby also disâ—united from this Communion and Vnion with the Trinity And what more prevailing Inducements could be thought of to oblige Men to keep in a Society So also the design of the Incarnation was by Christ's taking upon him our Body and our Flesh to make us also one Body and one Flesh with him thereby to entitle our Bodies to a Resurrection but then our being one Body and one Flesh with him depended on our being Members of the Church which is called his Body his Flesh his Bones We were to be baptized into this one Body and become one Body by partaking of one Bread Which plainly shew that all the benefits of the Incarnation are derived to us by our partaking of the Sacraments and therefore by our adhering inseparably to them who alone are authorized by God to administer them Thus plain it is that those very Fundamentals of our revealed Religion as revealed are revealed and designed for this purpose of making the Church a Society How can therefore our Adversaries make these Doctrines Fundamental if this be not Fundamental also that the Church was by God designed to be a Society 27. This at least is certain that we are intituled to all the Benefits of our Religion by our owning the Church not only as a Sect but as a Society also and that though we believe all its Doctrines as it is a Sect yet if we be divided from it as a Society that Belief alone will not secure us a Title to any of the Benefits of our Religion Excommunicates however Orthodox in their Opinions were never suppos'd in the Discipline of the Church to have any actual Title to the Benefits of Religion if they persisted wilfully in that state of Excommunication The same I have already observed concerning the Case of Schismaticks on the Principles of the early Age of St. Cyprian Hence therefore it appears that this Notion of the Church as a Society whatever it be in it self is at least Fundamental as to us in order to our partaking of any of the Benefits of Religion That is indeed it is Fundamental to all intents and purposes that we can think worthy our Enquiry Without this the other Notions if any be will never be beneficial to us So that whatever those other Notions may be in order of Reasoning yet this Notion of the Church as a Society must be Fundamental to them in order to their being beneficial that is as far as we have any reason to concern our selves for them These things ought certainly to be taken for Fundamental as to the Discipline and Censures of the Church She ought certainly to be most concerned for those things that are most influential on the Interests of Souls and those are so whose Belief is most beneficial and their Dis-belief most hurtful to those most valuable Interests I cannot therefore see why she should not think Doctrines of this kind Fundamental and reckon them among those Fundamentals on which she ought to lay out her principal Care If therefore she ought to excommunicate for any Errors at all certainly she ought in the first place to do it for Errors so destructive of all Obligation to her Communion it self and of her Authority of Excommunicating that is indeed so destructive to all that power she has either for the preservation of Truth or the prohibition of Error in general And if she ought not to inflict her Censures at least these highest of them for any Errors but those which are Fundamental it will plainly follow that Errors of this kind must be reckoned for Fundamental ones Our Adversaries would have Errors in Fundamentals punished and punished as a Spiritual Crime by a purely Spiritual Authority but they do not in the mean time seem to be aware how Fundamental this very Notion of the Church as a distinct and spiritual Soceity is to its having any Authority or Power to punish so much as spiritually All they can do as a Sect is only to reason with Hereticks concerning their Errors and all the means to reduce them are those reasons which can no farther prevail with them than as they may seem convictive in the Judgment of the Hereticks themselves But on that account they stand on even Terms with the Hereticks whose Reasons ought likewise to take place with the Ecclesiasticks so far as they also are in Conscience convinced by them A true Authority and a Power of punishing refractory Persons by excluding from Communion do Fundamentally suppose a spiritual Society over which they are to exercise this Authority and from which Delinquents are to be excluded by spiritual Censures and Excommunications How can they therefore avoid reckoning those Errors from being Fundamental ones as punishable by a spiritual Authority which ruine Fundamentally that very Authority by which such Errors are to be punished which destroy the Society on which that Authority is grounded Fundamentally 28. If hâ—râ—fore Errors that destroy the very Being of the Church as a Society be Fundamental I cannot for my part fore-see how our Adversaries can exâ—uâ—e their Anti bishops and all that own them by Principles from erring Fundamentally Their being Bishops supposes such Doctrines as if they be once admitted make it impossible for the Church to subsist as a spiritual Society whenever the State is pleased to persecute it They cannot Possibly be supposed Bishops of those Dioceses to which they are consecrated till it first be supposed that their Predecessors are validly
deprived and consequently that the Sees are vacant in Conscience If it should prove otherwise the Clergy and Laity of those some jurisdictions will still be obliged in Conscience as much as ever to adhere to their Canonical Bishops till they be Canonically deprived and to disown such Intruders as are put over them not only without any Canonical Procedure but without any Authority also that can oblâ—ge in Conscience The only Principle therefore on which they can pretend that their Rival Bishops have lost their Right as to Conscience must be the Power that even the Lay-Magistrate has to deprive Bishops even with regard to Conscience If therefore they will defend their Schism by Principles it will be necessary that they defend this Principle also without which it is not possible that it should ever be defended They have no Ecclesiastical Judicatory Just or Unjust that they can so much as pretend in this Case And the defending this is that which will increase their Guilt and will add to their Charge of Schism the aggravation of Heresie also For in order to the asserting such a Right as this to the Secular Magistrate it will be necessary to assert that the Authority of the Church even as to Spirituals is in Conscience the Right of the Civil Magistrate If it should not be so then the Subjects of the respective Dioceses may still be at liberty in Conscience to adhere to their deprived Bishops And if they may they must because then all their former Obligations in Conscience will still hold as obliging as ever For it is impossible that those anteceâ—ent Obligations in Conscience to adhere to their spiritual Superiors can be dis-annulled or diminished by a Power that can pretend no Right in such Matters with regard to Conscience But if we grant this Power to the Magistrate this will perfectly overthrow the Church as a Society distinct from the State and perfectly disable it to subsist as a Society in a time of Persecution For when the Magistrate persecutes it it cannot then subsist as a Society without a Government and a Government obliging in Conscience and not derived from the persecuting Magistrate But if the Right of that spiritual Government be in Conscience the Magistrate's Right it must be an invading the Magistrate's Right to pretend to it when he expresly forbids it And if so how can spiritual Governors in such a Case pretend to it How can they pretend to a Right that is none of their own consistently with Conscience How can their pretending to it with ill Consciences oblige their Subjects to adhere to them on account of Conscience Nay how can it even excuse them in Conscience for not adhering rather to him whose Right it is supposed to be and that even in Conscience No Necessity whatsoever can excuse a Sin much less lay an Obligation in Conscience on Subjects to abett it least of all lay an Obligation on God to ratifie such Acts of Authority as must be supposed no better than Vsurpations And yet all Acts of Ecclesiastical Authority in a time of Persecution can signifie nothing if they be not such as may oblige in Conscience and such as God as well as Men is obliged to ratifie Thus it had been Sin in the Romans to set up Cornelius as plainly they did not only without the Consent but against the Will of Decius It had been Sin in him and not in him only but in all the Bishops of his Age to pretend to any Districts in the Roman Empire It had been Sin in them to exercise Authority in Districts not belonging to them Thus the Church had been perfectly dissolved as a Society at least within the Roman Empire unless we can suppose a Notion of a Society without Governours without Districts without any lawful Exercises of Authority And yet the Bishops of those Ages never thought themselves obliged in Conscience to go out of the Roman Empire to retrieve the Power which is pretended to belong to them as Bishops of the Catholick Church And very probably it had signified nothing to have done so They could have gone into no civilized inhabited Countreys but they must have expected Magistrates who could pretend to the same Right as well as Deâ—ius and who were as much disposed as he to use their Right to the prejudice of the Christian Religion What therefore would our Adversaries have advised the Christians of those Ages to have preserved themselves in a Society Would they have had them retired into unoccupied wildernesses But how could they make Societies there where there were no numbers of Subjects requisite to make a Society Plainly therefore the Catholick Church had then been dissolved as Societies if these New Principles had been maintained in those earlier Ages And these same Principles do still put it as evidently in the Power of the Civil Magistrate to dissolve the Church as a Society within his own Dominions For how can a Church continue a Society where Bishops are in Conscience deprived of their spiritual Authority and where Subjects are also absolved from their Obligations in Conscience to obey them And this is also a dissolving the Catholick Church as to such as live in such Dominions and as to any Benefits they can derive from the Catholick Church also For Subjects of particular Districts are no otherwise received into the Catholick Church than as they derive a Right to Communion with all Churches in the World by their being admitted Members of the Churches of their particular Districts And they are also deprived of their Right of Catholick Communion when they are Excommunicated by the lawful Authority of their particular Districts I cannot therefore see how our Adversaries can excuse themselves herein from erring Fundamentally if the Church's being a Society be admitted for a Fundamental 29. If there be degrees of Fundamentals I should think the Fundamentals concerning the Church as a Society to be of the greatest consequence and therefore Fundamental in the Highest degree The Church is indeed obliged to keep the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are the Expressions by which our Adversaries themsâ—lves I believe conceive the Articles themselves call Fundamental to be signified But she is obliged to keep them as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Trust committed to her How so by avoiding Disputings by stopping the mouths of Hereticks by rebuking them with all Authority bâ— rejecting and avoiding not their Doctrines only but their Persons also when they prove incorrigible Now these things plainly suppose Governors investâ—d with spiritual Authority and a Communion from whence incurable Hereticks are to be rejected So that in order to the keeping these oâ—her Fundamentals the Church as a Society is supposed antecedently as a Condition that alonâ— can qualifie her for having such a Trust committed to hâ—r This Noâ—ion therefore as antecedent must be Fundamental to those other Fundamentals and therefore Fundamental in a higher sense than those things
can be whose security is superstructed upon it And accordingly the Damage to the Publick in subverting these Notions of the Church as a Society iâ— proportionably greater than that which follows from the denial of other particular Articles which are commonly taken for Fundamental He that denies one of the other Articles may yet believe all the rest and zealously defend them and that by Principles too â—gainst all other Hereticks But he that denies the Church as a Society invested with a spiritual Authority does as effâ—ctually contribute to the ruine of all the other Fundamentals at once as he does to the ruine of a Hâ—use who subvers the Foundations of it It brings in impunity for Heresie â—n general and suffers Hereticks still to hope as well in their separate Sects as if they were in 〈…〉 Communion Iâ— lâ—aves them destitute of even any Presumptions that might oblige them â—o judge in Favour of the Church's Doctrine as the safest Error if it should prove one It does by this meanâ— reduce the trial of the Cause to the Reasons themselves and their native Evidence and putâ— it in the Power of assuming Men to pretend greater Evidence than either they have or they really believe And thingâ— being reduced to his pass it is more God's Providence than the security of Principles that hinders any Heretick who disputes any one of the other Articles from questioning all the rest 30. I am sorry our Adversaries Case affords Maâ—ter for so heavy Accusations But they may by this time understand how naturally the Cause affords it if we will judge impartially as we must do if we will judge either solidly or justly if we will judge as no doubt the Righteous Judge of all the World will at the Day of the General Judgment And what can our late Brethren either of the Clergy or Laity say for bringing things to this melancholy Prospect Neither is the Chaâ—ge â—light to which they have made themselves obnoxious by this Unhappy Schism nor is the Evidence slight by which this Charge may be â—roved against them And yet they have wholly been the Aggressors in â—his whole Affair We are exactly where we were exactly where they left us So little can they pretend that we have contributed to this Division We hold the same Doctrines that we did that themselves did formerly We adhere to the same Bishops themselves have owned for Bishops till now Nor are we otherwise divided from them than as they have divided themselves by erecting New Altars against the Altars themselves have hitherto acknowledged Lovers of Unity would be as much grieved for Breaches in the Mystical Body as living Members when by any violence they are divided fâ—om the Body Natuâ—al The litâ—le concern the Harlot shewed for the controverted Infant was to Solomon an Argument that she was not the Mother of it And how comes it to pass they can divide themselves from us with so little remorse if ever they were living Members of our common Mystical Body Do they not tempt us to reason as St. John did thaâ— they never were ours by Principles when they can so easily leave us Have they lost all Reverence for their so lately celebrated Fathers Have they lost all Brotherly Love and Compassion to their Brethren And all for no other Crime than Constancy to our Common Principles And can they still pretend a Zeal to our Common Religion for doing so These they will say are our Opinions But Lovers of Unity would be afflicted for Violations of it whoever were the Occasions of it Lovers of Unity would not willingly grieve their Brethren much less would they do that which even in the Opinions of their Brethren might occasion a Breach of Unity if there were otherwise no great Necessity for doing it Least of all would they do it when they knew those Principâ—es to be Principles of Conscience anâ— of a Conscience firm and stedfast to the true Publick Spiritual Interests of the Church So far they must be from accepting Promotions when they must be purchased at so dear a Rate as that of a Publick Schism But I wish these Opinions of ours were no more than Private Opinions I hâ—s now appâ—ared that they were the sense of the whoâ—e Catholick Church in those Agâ—s which all ought to reverence who will pretend to Reformation and which is to be the Standard of Catholick Unity Yet let them regard us as little as they please methinks at least they should have some regard to the Publick Inâ—erests even of their own Church And yet both the Intruders and their Consecrators proceed on those Principles that put it in the Power of a Popish or Schismatical Prince to dissolve it when they please They cannot justifie what they do without supposing a Vacancy in the Sees to which the new Promotions are made nor can they suppose such a Vacancy without allowing the validity of a State deprivaâ—ion even with regard to Conscience Suppose therefore a Popish Prince with a Popish Parliament should turn their Principles against themselves and deprive all our Bishops with one Act of State I cannot see what these Fathers can pretend to secure their Chuâ—ch as a Society and as a Communion in opposition to them They must then no longer pretend to Dioceses in England They must not pretend to any obligation of their Protestant Clergy and Laity to stand by them even in Conscience They must therefore never pretend to Communions â—n those Dioceses which are plainly Exercises of spiritual Authority in them Nor can they then justifie or even excuse any Assemblies for Religion when forbidden by the Civil Magistrate who is only supposed by these Principles to have also the Right to that spiritual Authority by which alone they can be justified And are these the ways to secure our Religion against Popery No open Persecutions whatsoever can ever ruine us so effâ—ctually as these Doctrines will if ever we receive them Doctrines of our own will break our Union among our selves more than any of our Adversaries open Violences 31. Thus I have shewn that our Author 's Reasoning is not concluding for our Adversaries purpose though his Matters of Fact had been as pertinent â—s our Adversaries conceive them to be I now proceed to the Examination of the Matter of Fact themselves and shall endeavour to shew that even they are not pertinent to our Adversaries Case A VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops c. PART II. Shewing That the Instances collected in the Anonymous Baroccian MS. are indeed not pertinent to the Editors Design for vindicating the Validity of the Deprivation of Spiritual Power by a Lay-Authority 1. THE Use that our Adversaries make of this Collection of Instances which they call Precedents is to shew that our present Bishops are obliged to acquiesce in their unjust Deprivation and that their present Clergy and People are not obliged to stand by them if they think fit to insist on their Right and
scandalous this Case of breaking Faith was in the antient Cases of Arsacius of Constantinople and Flavianus of Antioch not onely to discredit their Persons but to justifie a Separation from them though I do not think that Case alone sufficient to justifie it where the Scandal was not injurious to a better Right than that of him who was in possession But in the Case before us I cannot imagine what they can pretend to avoid this Canon I do not urge these Canons as Laws particularly obliging us by whom they were never particularly and explicitly received Yet if I did urge them as obliging without explicite Reception perhaps the particular Reasonableness of the Canons themselves would bear me out in it The Law of Nations obliges all particular civil Nations though it be not taken into their Codes of written Laws and therefore not ratified by express Reception The Reasonableness of the Things themselves and their Necessity for Maintaining Correspondence are alone sufficient to oblige all Nations who will correspond with others and correspond justly So the Case is here The securing Subordinations already received and settled are so much the Interests of all Churches and these Expedients are so manifestly necessary for maintaining those Subordinations that they do as little need explicite reception to make them obligatory in particular Churches as the Laws of Nations do to make them also obligatory to particular Nations For my present Design it 's sufficient that these Canons do at least express the Sense of the Eastern Church and of this Collector who produces and owns them as Authorities Hence at least it follows that that Church and this Collector owned no Validity in Deprivations of Bishops that were not synodical when without this they account all refusals of Duty schismatical whatever other Deprivations could be pretended in favour of such Refusals How was it then possible for this Collector to plead Precedents for even excusing Duty on such Deprivations which he did not think sufficient to excuse them How could he call Facts of this kind Precedents and reason from them to a Church which had by her Rules and Canons so expresly condemned them 10. But Mr. Hody did not think this latter part where the Canons are to belong to the Discourse published by him Nor will I charge him with any designed Disingenuity in suppressing them though they make so manifestly against the Cause espoused by him I onely desire that his Omission may not prejudice them who shall be pleased again to consult the MS. The Thing it self gives no occasion that I can see for suspecting it to belong to any other Author The Hand is manifestly the same with that of the Part already published and this Hand is manifestly different from those which are either before or after It follows also without any new Title without any Footsteps of any that had once been legible but now defaced and grown illegible without any the least convenient distance left for a Title if the Author had intended one But these things are not unusual with the unskilfull Librarians where notwithstanding the Works themselves so injudicially connected are very different I grant it nor would I insist on these things if there were any great Evidence in the Matter itself to the contrary but unless we will allow our selves a liberty of breaking off arbitrarily and unaccountably and leaving out whatever displeases us in Manuscripts we must at least allow these things to pass for Presumptions where there is no contrary Evidence And that is all that need be granted us in this matter The subject Matter of this Appendix is so far from affording Arguments for suspecting it as part of another Work that it adds rather farther Evidence that it was really from the same Author and with the same Design The Canons are to the same purpose of opposing the Schisms now mentioned as well as the Historical Precedents Both of them together do clear the sense of the Church as well from her written Laws in Words as from her unwritten ones of Custome and matter of Fact And what could be more proper than to join these two together Indeed the Facts alone would not be so argumentative without the Canons for they are not bare Facts but approved Facts that are fit to be admitted as Precedents And what Facts are approved by the Church we can most securely judge by their conformity to her written Laws Besides this was the Custome of the Ecclesiastical Rhetors to give in their Evidences of both kinds concerning the Questions wherein they were consulted So Troilus the Sophist mentions a Canon as well as Examples relating to the Case of Translations if he were the Author of that Collection made use of by his Disciple Socrates as I believe he was So here in the same MS. in the Collection fitted to the Case of Germanus of Adrianople intruded into the Throne of Arsenius besides the Collection of Troilus there are added many more Instances and express Testimonies out of the Decretals of the Popes Callistus and Anteros which in the Discipline of that Age were equivalent to Canons It should seem that during the time the Latines possessed Constantinople some Latinizing Greek translated Isidore Mercator's Forgeries which from that time were taken for Law in the Greek Church as they had formerly been in the Latine This is I think the first time we find them mentioned by the Greeks We do not find that their Canonists who wrote a little before ever take any notice of them not Zonaras nor Alexius Aristenus nor Balsamon yet Balsamon does mention the Donation of Constantine which I believe was translated from the same Collection of Isidore's Forgeries a sign that even then the Greeks began to look into them But methinks the latter end of the Canons of our Appendix should put this Matter out of doubt There it is explained and limited what had been so often inculcated in the former Discourse concerning the Liberty which had been allowed of Separating in the excepted Case of Heresie Our Author here produced his Authority for what he had said as to that Case that his Auditors might understand that in a Case of so great importance he did not presume to give them any singular Opinions of his own but that he instructed them in the received and allowed Doctrine of the Church of Constantinople to which they were all related Withall he thereby warned them of the Cautions necessary in the Practice of that Doctrine that they might not break the Peace of their Church in the Case then proposed Who sees not how naturally this coheres with the former part of his Discourse It is indeed so natural that I once thought them to be the Author 's own Words till I was convinced of my Mistake by comparing them with the Canon itself from whence he took them But it was somewhat better for his purpose that he should express his Sense in this matter rather in his Church's Words than
Lector and Theophanes tell us expresly It was indeed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Bishops then in Town whose Authority though it was questioned for the greatest Affairs as appears in the 4th Action of the Council of Chalcedon and the Dispute of Maximus with Pyrrhus yet was often made use of in such occasions as these and was by the Canons of the Church sufficient and obliging till a greater number of Bishops could be persuaded to restore him Till he could get such a Number to do it it was the Duty of Euphemius to acquiess in the Deprivation and to communicate with his Successor and it will be our present Bishops Duty also to doe so when this can be proved to be their Case And indeed I know no other Evidence of his communicating with his Successor but that he did not set up a Communion against him 16. In the Case of Macedonius the Emperour's Rage did somewhat precipitate him he had him forcibly seized and sent immediately into Banishment without so much as the Formality of a Tryal The rather so because he feared the People would not endure it such a Zeal they had for Macedonius and the Cause defended by him Afterwards he bethought himself and got an Assembly that did his business for him They took upon them at the same time the Persons of Witnesses and Accusers and deprived him absent and in exile and when they had done so they notifie the Sentence to him by Bishops and a Presbyter of Cyzicus So Theophanes tells the Story No doubt it must have been a Synod that proceeded after the receiv'd way of Synods in notifying their Sentence by ecclesiastical Persons However our Author says that he communicated with his Intruder Timotheus So he might possibly interpret Macedonius's Exile and submitting to it as he seems to have done that of Euphemius in relation to the Case of Macedonius In this case certainly it neither could have been true nor could he have any good Testimony for him to believe it so When the Bishops came to notifie the Sentence to him Macedonius asked them whether they owned the Council of Chalcedon And when they durst not answer him positively he asked again Whether if the Sabbatians and Macedonians had brought him the like Sentence they would think him obliged to acquiesce in it Is not this a plain Exception against their Authority as Hereticks for not receiving that Council and a Protestation against their Sentence as null and invalid and a disowning any Obligation in Conscience to submit to it And what needed Timotheus to fly into that Rage against the Name and Memory of Macedonius if what our Author says had been true that Macedonius owned any Communion with him Why should this same Timotheus refuse to officiate in any sacred Place till he had first defaced the Pictures if he found any of Macedonius Why should he prosecute Julianus only for being his Friend How came it to pass that when the Emperor sent forth his Edict for subscribing the Condemnation of Macedonius together with the Synodical Letters concerning the Consecration of Timotheus the more constant Adherers to the Council of Chalcedon would subscribe neither of them and even the weaker would not subscribe the Deprivation of Macedonius which notwithstanding in consequence subverted the Succession of Timotheus Why should Timotheus bring up the use of the Nicene Creed more frequently than Macedonius had done purposely to draw odium upon Macedonius if there had been Communion between them as our Author would persuade us What needed then all those Persecutions and Violences against the followers of Macedonius but only to force them to the Communion of Timotheus Why did Juliana as an Assertor of the Council of Chalcedon refuse the Communion of Timotheus if it was not manifest that the difference was such as broke Communion Why should the Praefect of the Studite Monks refuse to receive Consecration from him who had condemned the Council of Chalcedon if it had not been notorious that he had condemned the Council and was therefore an Heretick and of another Communion from them who owned that Council in defence of which Macedonius had been banished He did indeed to please them Anathemize those who had Anathematized that Council but when the Emperor expostulated with him concerning it he pretended to mean his Anathematism against those who received the Council So true he was to his Heresie One would admire whence it was that our Author came by that good Opinion he had of this Timotheus as if he also had been a Catholick and the 3d Catholick Bishop of Constantinople who had been deprived by Anastasius Neither of these things were true nor affirmed by I believe any one good Historian Our MS. Catalogue of Patriarchs by Nicephorus Callistus has either Marginal or Interlineal Censures of the Patriarchs whether Orthodox or Heretical in all likelihood according to the received Opinions of the Time and Church where these Observations were made There in an interlineal Note over the place where he speaks of Timotheus we find him called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is of no great consequence to our purpose whether this Note was from Nicephorus himself or some Constantinopolitane Librarian either way it will shew the received Opinion of the Modern Constantinopolitanes So also in the Iambicks concerning the Patriarchs published before the I Volume of the Byzantine Historians Timotheus is with some Indignation called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which we see how unworthily our present Rhetor expressed himself on this occasion even with reference to the sense of his own Church The only occasion of his Mistakes that I can think of is that he injudiciously followed the Authorities of Flavian of Antioch and Elias of Jerusalem as related by Cyrillus Scythopolitanus his Author and a very good one in these Matters That Author says indeed that those two Patriarchs assented to the Synodical Letters for Timotheus though they would not to the other Letters that came with them concerning the deprivation of Macedonius This I suppose gave him occasion for his good Opinion of Timotheus that those great Men afterwards such Sufferers in the same Cause as yet rejected not his synodical Letters Our Author was very well aware that if they owned the Communion of an Heretical Successor their Examples must have been faulty and could not be pleaded as Precedents by his own Principles and it seems he was not aware how notorious it was that this was indeed the Case of Timotheus But their Behaviour herein was exactly the same with the Behaviour of those whom Theophanes censures as weak so far he is from our Author's Opinion in making it exemplary And it is plain Macedonius and Timotheus differed not only as Rivals of the same See but also as Heads of different Communions How then was it reconcilable to any Principles to own Timotheus without disowning Macedonius Only the receiving Timotheus might as for
time of these Synods or Meetings rather of the same Synod will best appear from the time of the arrival of the Popes Legates The Letters Pope Nicholas sent with his Legates going to Constantinople bear date Septemb. 25. Indict 9. So it must have been the latter end of the year 860. before those Legates could finish their journey And when they had reached Constantinople they were 100 days there before they could be prevailed on to ratifie the Deposition of Ignatius so contrary to the instructions they had received from him that sent them This must necessarily bring it to the beginning of the year 861. before the 18th of March Nicholas had received the news of their prevaricating and wrote again what he thought fit upon that occasion But when the Suffrages of a Council were once gained what Arts soever they were that were used to gain them Photius had then some appearance of Right till Ignatius could relieve himself by Another and a Greater Council That was a lawful way allowed him of recovering it by the very Canons However Photius could in the mean time plead this Canon hence produced by our Author in favour of himself which before he could not that none ought to separate from himself thus Synodically settled nor to joyn with Ignatius thus Synodically condemned till himself were condemned and Ignatius resettled by a greater and more numerous Synod And to add the greater Authority to their own Synod they boasted of the same numbers that was in the Council of Nice as Pope Nicholas observes in his Answer to them This was a plausible Artifice â—o the Superstition of that Age. 33. Pope Nicholas therefore no doubt made all the interest he cou'd to get a Synod that he might oppose to this Synod of Photius He knew his Authority alone would never be admitted for it without a Synod and such a Synod as the Canons required And though he allowed no Superstition for the number yet the Antiochian Canon which by this time obtained in both the Eastern and Western Churches required that the Synod that must restore Ignatius must at least be more numerous than the Synod that deprived him No Synod therefore could serve his purpose but such a one as must have had more than 318 Bishops This I suppose made it some time before he could condemn Photius or restore Ignatius with such a Synod Anastasius tells us it was in the 11th Indiction That must have been either in the end of the year 862. or the beginning of the year 863 Till then at least how good soever his Title was yet the guilt of Schism had been imputable to Ignatius if he had made a Separation or intruded himself into his own Throne before a Synod had restored him Nay by the Antiochian Canon he had forfeited all pretensions of having the Merit of his Cause considered if he had challenged any Duty from his Clergy and People before a Council had restored him But when Pope Nicholâ—s had restored him in the Roman Synod and deprived and anathematized Photius with them who lookâ—d upon that Restitution as an Act of Superiour Authority Ignatius wâ—s then restored to his full Right and Photius was deprived even of that Right â—o which a Canonical settled possession had intitled him And from that time forward if Ignatius had â—â—â—â—enged the Obedience of his Clergy and Laity and withdrawn them from the Obedience of Photius the guilt of the Schism had notwithstanding not been imputable to him but â—hotius But these Principles do not even in that Agâ— seem to have been the sense of any more than the concerned part of the Western Church The Council of Constantinople when they decreed that Constantinople should be next to Rome did never seem to â—nderstand it of pâ—oper jurisdiction but only of Precedency in place Afterwards â—he Council of Chalcedon decreed equal Priviledges to the same Sâ—e because it had an Emperor and a Consul and a Senate which were no more consistent with a subordinate jurisdiction in the Bishops than in the Emperors the Consuls and the â—enates None ever pretended at that time â—hat the Emperors the Consâ—ls and the Senates of new Rome were properly subject to the Emperors Consuls and Senates of old Rome in regaâ—d of jurisdiction And the Canon concerning Appeals made in that same Council oâ— Chalcedon waâ— uttâ—rly inconsistent with any such jurisdiction that allows to recourse for such Appeals beyond the See of Constantinople I know very well Pope Leo's Legates disowned both these Canons and so have the Latine Collectors generally who reckon no more than 27 Canons as made in that Council But the 16th Action of the Council shewed that they were the genuine sense of the Council and at least of the Eastern Empire and the Eastern Churches And so it descended down to the times of Ignatius and Photius of which we are discoursing By the judgment therefore of the Eastern Bishops of those times who were the most competent Judges of that Eastern Dispute and by the other Canons of the Church which required that Judgments concerning matters of Fact such as this was should be decided in the same place where the matter of Fact had happened the Synod by which Ignatius was to be relieved must have been another and that a greater Synod in the same Constantinople and till he could get such a Synod on his side himself had been responsible for the Schism that must have followed on his claiming his Right Nay the Antiochian Canon made him forfeit his Right if he claimed it in such a way as this was And it is plain by the Pope's Letters to the Emperor Michael that the Emperor did not allow the Pope's Authority in this Case nor do we find that Ignatius made any stir upon it till he was restored Conciliarly in the same place where he had been deprived This seems therefore to have been the state of that Dispute if Nicholas proceeded by way of proper Jurisdiction if he had proceeded on the Principles of the Primitive Church on the supposition of Equality then he could no otherwise have obliged the Eastern Bishops than as the Bishops or Provinces that sided with him were more numerous than those that were against them For this is all that had been reasonable in that case that where Peace was absolutely necessary and yet could not be had without Cession on one part there it was also necessary that the smaller part should rather yield to the greatest But whether Empire had more Bishops or Provinces is needless now to determine The rather because it does not seem to have been thought on or insisted on in the Disputes of that Age. It is sufficient for our purposes that in the sense of the Eastern Bishops and by the Rules of the Eastern Discipline which Ignatius was to stand by this Roman Synod was no competent Authority and therefore left both him and Photius in the same condition wherein it found them
But by the Schism we have reason to believe that the numbers of the Synod that consented were less than of those who had never consented from the beginning otherwise they had been concluded by the Synodical Act. Or else the only reason that could be for excepting against the Synodical Suffrages must have been that the Emperor's Authority was thought too influential on those publick Meetings Every way it appears how little the Secular Power was regarded even in those late times of Isaacius Angelus when his Authority tho' seconded by a Synod for applying the Dispensation to Dositheus was not thought sufficient to oblige an absent Majority dissenting from them even with regard to Conscience when even in such a Case as this the Cause was at last over-ruled by those that separated and carried for them This plainly shews how little these practices of Isaacius were approved of by the generality of the best Judges of his own time when they durst express their thoughts concerning them with any freedom It was in all likelihood the unpopularness of these Invasions of the Liberties of the Church that gave his Brother Alexis a great advantage against him which ended in his Deprivation Even Nicetas himself from whom our Author takes these things does not mention them without a severe Censure How then could our Author reason from them as Precedents How could he pretend the Authority of Nicetas for a reasoning so different from the Sentiments of Nicetas 46. It was therefore no such admirable matter if it had been true if there had been no Separation between these five Patriarchs of this Reign succeeding each other in so short a time It is not true that they were deprived purely at the Emperor's pleasure It is not true that their Places were invalidly vacated All of thâ—m were either deprived Synodically or abdicated There is no need to dispute how unjustly or corruptly the Synods proceeded in depriving them nor how unwilling themselves were in their Abdication Even an unjust Synodical Sentence was by the Canons sufficient to vacate their Places till they could be remedied in another and a greater Synod which none of them ever had And even an involuntary Abdication if Formally and Canonically made was sufficient to cut them off from any pretensions to their former Rights They had therefore in these cases no pretence left to vindicate their Rights by a Separation or to question the validity of the Acts of Successors who were brought into Sees so validly vacated And why should it be thought so admirable that they did not make disturbances where they had by the Canons no tolerable pretence to do so Why should they be thought Precedents for our present Holy Fathers who are neither deprived Conciliarâ—y nor have made any even involuntary Abdication 47. Thus upon the whole it has appeared that our Author's Instances as they were never designed so neither do they make for our Adversaries purpose Our Adversaries pretend that unjustly deprived Bishops never vindicated their Rights by a Separation And we confess we cannot make the contrary Observation that unjust Possessoâ—s were always so modest and so resigned to the Church's Peace as willingly to surrender the Vsurpations Will they therefore make them Precedents in this particular So indeed they may if they can have the Consciences if they can find in their Hearts to do so But are they not in the mean time ashamed to tell us that good Bishops have been willing to part with their Rights rathâ—r than they would break Communion when their own Fathers will rather break Communion than make Restitution It were easie here to retort all Mr. Hody's Exhortations upon his own Intruders I am sure he can give no Arguments why good Men ought to surrender Rights for Peace sake but what will proceed more cogently for surrendering Vsurpations But we have many new Topicks that we can justly use to his Fathers which he cannot pretend to use to ours We have the Right and Duty which was owing from his to ours before the encroachment and which his own reasoning does not pretend not to be owing still We have their Sacred Vows of Canonical Obedience for securing that Right and Duty where no Worldly Power can force them to it which no other Power in the World can dispence with but that for whose Interest they were imposed We have the dreadful imprecations implied in all such Oaths as an obligation for performance Methinks our adversary Bishops should tremble at the consequence if God should no otherwise help them than as they have performed their Duties to their respective Ordinaries and their Metropolitane Their great Plea of the Publick Good we can beter pretend than they if they will allow that the Eternal interests of Souls and of Religion are more to be valued in a Publick Account than Worldly Politicks And this is methinks a concession for which we need not be beholen to any who own themselves Christians And certainly it is more for the publick good of the Church that Subordinations should be preserved than that any particular person should be made a Bishop by offering violence to them It is more for the publick good of Religion that the Glorious Passive Doctrines of the Church should be maintained in opposition to Worldly Interests than that they should seem prostituted to serve them It is more for the publick good of Religion that the Credit of the Clergy should be maintained than that they should enjoy the benefits of Worldly Protection It is more for the publick good of Religion that the Independency of that Sacred Function on the State should be asserted by challenging their Rights than that by yielding them the Lay-Power should be owned to have any Power of depriving us of the comfort of Sacraments in a time of Persecution It were easie also to shew that the Doctrines and Practices in defence of which our Holy Fathers have incurred this Deprivation are more for the Interest even of the State even of the Civil Magistracy than those which are likely to obtain upon their Cession Even the State cannot subsist without Obligations of Conscience and the Sacredness of Oaths and these can signifie nothing for the security of any future Government if they must signifie nothing for the time past It is not for the Interest of the Publick to secure ill Titles in their Possession and thereby to encourage the frequency of ill Titles and frequent Subversions of the Fundamental Constitutions and all the Publick Miseries that must follow on such Changes especially in a Settlement where all the care has been taken that was possible to preserve it by obligations of Conscience And certainly Mr. Hody will not say that our invalidly deprived Fathers are obliged to submit to the wrong that is done them where there are not publick considerations that may make amends for the private injuries But if Mr. Hody will needs live rather by Precedents than Rules yet where will he find
all those violences to Ignatius's person to force him to sign a form of Abdication if he abdicated willingly and thought himself obliged to do so because his Adversary was not a Heretick Why then did Photius in his two Synods deprive and excommunicate and anathematize him Why did he endeavour to reordain the persons ordained by Ignatius And when the Emperor would not endure that why did he use the Art Nicetas tells us of of seeming at least to do it by buying Sacerdotal Habits and sending them already blessed as Presents to the Parties concerned if he were so well satisfied as our Author would perswade us of his Predecessor's Ordinations This Photius did upon his restitution to the See after Ignatius's death when there was no danger from Ignatius that might exasperate him when there was no apparent reason but Principles of Conscience that might induce him to it But the World has been sufficiently inured to believe hard things concerning Photius Perhaps Ignatius the Holy Ignatius behaved himself with more temper and more agreeable to our Author's fancy He would in all likelihood have done so if he had been of our Author's Opinion But if we will chuse rather to learn matter of Fact from History what he did do than from fancy what we may think he ought to have done as no doubt we ought to do how much soever he differed from Photius in other things yet he was perfectly of his mind in this and seems no less to have Rivalled him in his Zeal in it than he did in his Chair His unwillingness to resign as our Author and our Adversaries would have had him done has been already observed Photius indeed pretended he did resign and Hadrian's Eighth General Council seems to speak suspiciously when they tell us that if he had done so he was notwithstanding not oblig'd to stand to it It is certain he did not stand to it and if ever he did yield that it was fear not our Adversaries Opinions of Charity and Conscience that made him do so that made him think himself obliged to do so so far from that that as soon as his Conscience was at liberty to hear sedate reasonings he thought himself obliged to do the contrary This brought upon him those Deprivations Excommunications and Anathematisms in the Synods of Photius And can we still believe that there was no breach of Communion on the part of the Ignatians What needed then those violences which they were freed from as soon as they could be prevailed on to Communicate with Photius Why do the Legates of three Eastern Patriarchs boast that they had never owned nor communicated with him from the beginning if it had not been notorious that the firm Ignatians had from the beginning not owned his Communion Why then did Ignatious immediately upon his restitution excommunicate not only those who had been Ordained by Photius but those also who had ever so much as Communicated with him Is it not plain from hence that Ignatius's Party did separate That he himself exacted it as Duty from them that they should do so and so was accessary to the Separation That he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 use the Summum Jus of enquiring into the Ordinations of Photius And what will then become of our Author 's general Observation that none was ever known to do so Why did the Ignatians still forbear the Communion of Photius even after the Death of Ignatius if they had not been used to do so before when they had more pretence for it If Ignatius had not persisted in that same mind even to his very Death Besides our Author was not aware that the Dispute at length came to that which he thought Heresie at least which he was bound to think so by the Doctrine of his Greek Church in that Age wherein he made his Collection I mean Photius started the Dispute concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son Then he must have thought them obliged by Principles to separate and could never argue from their Actions as Precedents if they were not agreeable to Principles It is very true that Photius's Doctrine was not thought Heretical then This appeared even in the Latine's Eighth General Coumcil Some desired to be excused from anathematizing him on that account that they thought none ought to be anathematized but Hereticks And the Council it self though it obliged them still to anathematizi him yet did not do it upon account of any Heresie wherewith they thought him chargeable However this makes his Case more opposite to our purpose because it is notwithstanding sure that Ignatius did not therefore think himself obliged to yield to him What can be clearer to this purpose than the words of Ignatius as he is personated by Theognostus one who was very well acquainted with his mind Had this Adulterer says he been of the Church I would willingly have yielded to him But how shall I make an alien from Christ a Pastor of the Sheep of Christ Plainly therefore he thought Schism as well as Heresie a sufficient reason of challenging his Right against him And Photius was charged with Schism antecedently to his being set up against Ignatius for joyning with Gregorius Syracusanus who had been Excommunicated by Ignatius So little do these instances make for the design of our Author 37. Nor are they much more pertinent to the design of our Adversaries None of these Deprivations were any farther regarded than as they were Synodical I mean they were not till then thought sufficient to disoblige their charge from their obligations to adhear to them Bardas and Photius did both hope at first to extort an Abdication from Ignatius But when they found they could not succeed that way they never thought themselves secure till they got him deprived Synodically So it was also in the Deprivation of Photius after he had been Synodically confirmed Though it was in favour of one who had a better antecedent Right yet the Emperor Basile excuses himself from having any hand in it otherwise than as he excuted the decree of Pope Nicholas's Synod whereby Photius had before been deprived and excommunicated So he tells us in the Synod that he had done nothing in it by his Imperial Hand or Power For it was not says he the work or contrivance of my Imperial Station that our most Holy Patriarch should return to his own Throne But long before the most Holy and Blessed Pope Nicholas having fully informed himself concerning the Case of Ignatius had decreed Synodically that the Right of his own Throne should be restored to him and with the whole Roman Church had anathematised all such as should resist that Decree and Sentence Here therefore being before informed of these things and dreading the Judgment of the promulgated Anathema we thought it necessary to obey this Synodical Judgment of the Roman Church and for this cause we restored him to the Possession of his own Throne
So far were even Princes in that Age from pretending any Right to intermeddle in such matters without the Leave nay without the Authority of the Church to warrant them in it and so little were they then ashamed to own themselves Executioners of the Church's Canons in Affairs properly relating to the Church's Right None who is in earnest with Religion can in the least doubt but that the interests of Religion are incomparably both Nobler and Greater than the interests of any Worldly Politicks Even the Secular Magistate himself cannot deny but that his Soul which is benefitted by promoting the interests of Religion is of more importance even to him than his Secular Empire And why then should poor Mortals be ashamed to own their obligation to make their Worldly Power subservient to ends so undeniably Nobler and Greater than those of their Worldly Power But so trifling are the Reasonings of those who call this being Priest-ridden when they are examined seriously that it is no wonder they should look upon it as a principal Art of recommending them by Bantering and avoiding Seriousness 38. Our Author's next instance is in the next and last Deprivation of Photius which he tells us was by Leo Sapiens in favour of his own Brother Stephanus substituted in his stead Yet the Successor being also Orthothodox he observed that no Schism followed upon it And indeed we do not find any matter for a Synodical accusation objected to Photius by the Prince himself who is said to have deprived him not any of those immoral practices wherewith he had been formerly upbraided by his exasperated Adversaries Much less does any Synod appear that gave judgment against him upon such allegations nor could he pretend as his Father Basile had done that he only executed a former Synodical Deprivation for fear of the Anathemâ— he might incur if he did not do so Photius had now no Rival who could pretend a better Tittle in favour of whom those Synodical determinations had been made And he had since been restored in a General Synod later than that which had deprived him and wherein all the defects were supplied which had been objected formerly Here he had the Suffrages of the Eastern Patriarchs Not only so but even of the Papal See it self which had before been most implacable against him I know Baronius fancies that there was afterwards a breach between Pope John and him Nor is it unlikely that John did indeed resent the retaining Bulgaria from him the recovering of which was the principal inducement which had brought him to that condescendence This I take to have been the reserved Case when he afterwards disowns his confirming what his Legates had done if they had in any thing gone beyond the Orders he had given them Nor is it unlikely also but that on occasion of that resentment he might use some threats and hard expressions that might have been so interpreted by the Authors that gave Baronius occasion for this conjecture But there is no likelihood at all that those resentments ever proceeded so far as an open rupture otherwise we should certainly have had some mention of it in so many following Epistles written by John himself afterwards Whatever he thought he seems at that time to have thought it seasonable to suppress his resentments as finding himself opposed by a greater interest than that of Photius Photius therefore does not indeed seem to have been deprived Synodically the reason given for it is That Leo resented what Santabarenus had done against him in his Father's time in making a difference between them and thought Photius the principal hindrance that kept him from his designs against Santabarenus This was a reason in State likely enough to have been the occasion why Leo would endeavour to get Photius deprived But it was not a reason likely to have been owned openly and to have been produced before a Judicatory He could hardly for shame have owned a resentment for things so long past much less could he have charged Photius with favouring Santabarenus when Santabarenus himself had not yet received an open Trial. However it is certain that the Emperor himself was the cause that the place was vacated and in this Historians agree only they do not tells whether it were with his own consent though forced to it by the Emperor or whether the Emperor pretended to do it by his own Authority without any consent of Photius But what the Historians have not informed us of that his great Adversary Pope Stephen the Fourth has and that from the Letter of the Emperor himself who is said to have deprived him By that Letter it appears that the Emperor did not so much as pretend Force on his own part but a voluntary Resignation on the part of Photius So that as yet we have not one instance that ever any Lay-Power did ever pretend to a Power of depriving Bishops as to their Spiritual Authority though we could not have known it in this case had it not been for this occasional mention of it by Pope Stephen The Case may therefore have probably been the same in other examples where we read of Depositions by Emperors where we are not so happy to light on a particular account of them Here there are other circumstances that make it probable that this Cession was voluntary Photius was treated very respectfully even after his Deprivation as appears in the Trial of Santabarenus which would not have been if he had stood out to the utmost so it was this willingness of his Cession that hindered Pope Stephen also from proceeding to his designed severities against him Besides Stephanus his Successor had been his Pupil and Educated under him and therefore unlikely to have accepted of his Office without his leave nor do we find that he ever afterwards endeavoured again to get into it though Stephanus did not long enjoy it And therefore going off willingly he had thence-forward no pretence to disturb his Successors the Schism had been his not theirs if he had gone back from his own agreement and either resumed his Throne or withdrawn the Peoples Duty which had been already quitted by him 39. The next Example is in Nicholas deprived by the same Prince Leo Sapiens for opposing his fourth Marriage Against him Euthymius was set up yet so as our Author says that neither Nicholas himself withdrew from his Communion nor taught the People to do so Nay so that when he was restored to his Throne by Alexander the Brother of Leo he did not so much as question the Orders given by Euthymius because the persons ordained were Orthodox and the person who Ordained them was himself also Orthodox So our Author The time of this Ejection of Nicholas is somewhat intricate It could hardly have been where Baronius places it in the year 901. The surest grounds we have for discovering it is from the Age of Constantine Porphyrogennetus It is certain he was born before his