Christian Religion they could have no ground or provocation to persecute it because it was not only by its Laws but by its very Constitution in the first place tender of all the Rights of Civil Government but if notwithstanding that they were resolved to proceed against them they had nothing more to say or do for themselves then to lay down their Lives with all possible meekness in submission to their Royal Will and Pleasure and hoped they would not take it for any piece of stubbornness or affected disobedience that they would not Renounce their Faith nor quit their hopes in the Kingdom of Heaven out of compliance with their Commands when they saw them so much in good earnest as to be ready to lay down their Lives out of pure submission to their Authority Such a competition as this cannot be avoided upon the supposition of the real Truth of Christianity but then upon supposition of its Nature it is impossible that it can be any way prejudicial to Civil Government to which by its obligation to peaceable suffering under it it cannot avoid to discharge its whole duty of subjection to it If it be said that though this is the real state of Christianity in it self it cannot be expected that its Professors should be so perfect and so free from passion but that they may be provoked to resistance by Oppression To this it is easily answered that how much soever the Christian Religion allows for other infirmities of Flesh and Blood this is open defiance and contradiction to it so that the Man that pretends to Christianity and yet can be prevail'd upon by any Temptation to entertain one thought of it is a Villain a Cut-throat a Traytor and a Rebel not only against his King but his Saviour And therefore whenever Princes are encountred with any pretences whatsoever of disturbance upon the account of Religion for that very reason alone they ought to cut them off as the most incorrigible and most unpardonable sort of Traytors And if they are Christians themselves and have any kindness for the honour of their Religion to make such shameless pretenders to it the Examples of their utmost severity it is the very top of all Blasphemy as well as Rebellion In short there can be nothing more evident then this that Christianity it self as it is founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross can never do any harm to Civil Government so if it be ever abused and prophaned to such designs they that do it are the worst of Villains that deserve the utmost punishment that can be inflicted upon them in this life and will be sure to meet with it in the life to come And that I think is all that it is possible for any Law to do to deterr those that it would oblige from offending against it by all the Penalties that God or Man can inflict §. VI. But secondly beside this general Doctrine of the Cross that cuts up the very Roots of all resistance to Lawful Powers there are great numbers of particular Laws peculiar to this Religion that lop off all its Branches and Pretences by advancing the Reverence that is due to Authority and requiring from all that profess any Obedience to that a more accurate Obedience and Subjection to their Governors then their Governors could have obliged them to by their own Authority So that of all Men the Christian must be the best Subject by his very profession so far is he from being brought under any probable Temptation of disrespect to his Superiours by his Christianity that by that be his Governours what they will Caligula's Nero's or Domitian's he is bound by a new obligation under no less penalty than the Divine displeasure to give them the highest honour and the lowest subjection It were an endless work to enumerate all passages in the Holy Scripture to this purpose it being more frequently and more earnestly urged then any other duty because as Mr. B. very well observes in his Book of the Lawfulness of Rebellion Every Man is naturally selfish and proud and apt to break the bounds that God hath set us and to be Kings and Laws to our selves This Rebelling disobedient disposition therefore should be first resisted and subdued as a greater Enemy to the Peace of Nations then the faults of Princes are And therefore I shall alledge one or two of the most pregnant Texts against it to shew both the Impudence and Impiety of those Men and himself in particular who dare Reconcile any Pretence to Christianity with the least disrespect to Sovereign Powers And whilst they lay claims to greater Holiness and Purity then their Neighbours are putting continual slights and affronts upon their Governours and whenever they can gain an opportunity by the assistance of the Rabble blush not with all their demureness to wrastle with them for their Supremacy Which is such a rank piece of Blasphemy such a bare-faced appearance of Antichrist Mahomet and Hildebrand as no good Christian can sufficiently abhor nor any wise Magistrate sufficiently punish Though the greatest affront of all is to the Holy Scriptures themselves for when they have so clearly and severely forbidden all Resistance to Supreme Powers when the Rules that they have given in this case are so absolute and universal to prevent all Evasion when beside the great Authority of the Command it self they enforce it by its own wisdom and reasonableness in a word when it is tyed upon us by all the strongest Obligations both of Power Interest and Ingenuity after all this to escape the force of a Law so carefully Enacted is to pass an open slight upon the Wisdom of the Legislator himself But to make these very Precepts that were given on purpose to cut off all pretences of Resistance so many Warrants and Commissions given to Subjects for raising Rebellion against their Sovereigns as has been done in our Age exceeds all the Impiety of Men nay of Devils too in all former Ages For what can be more clearly and fully express'd then St. Paul's Discourse to the Romans chap. 13 Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that now are are ordain'd of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation c. Here is no Restriction no Reservation 't is the Catholique Duty of all Mankind and stands upon such reasons as equally effect all And first from the Original of all Authority It is from God It is not said because those in Power were either the best or the wisest Men but be the Men what they will they have their Authority from God himself and for that reason he requires subjection to them as to himself and therefore looks upon all resistance to these his Vicegerents as an affront to the Authority of his own Commission Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And then no
wonder if the Judgment of God follow upon it And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation But though this Argument from the Divine Original of Government be so strong an enforcement of this Duty yet the Apostle goes on to tye it harder and that is from its End the Good of the Subject For he is the Minister of God to thee for good And common Sense will tell us that submission to the worst Princes is much more the Interest of the Subject then Rebellion against them So that how much harm soever a Tyrannical Prince may bring upon a Common-wealth he does it more good though it were only by being a Bar against the Miseries of War and Confusion And common experience will confirm the Wisdom of St. Paul's Argument that be the Governors the worst that can be and so they were at that time yet their Government in spite of their own folly and wickedness is highly beneficial to the Common-wealth and in that every private mans Interest and Property is comprehended Now from both these Premises the conclusion is unavoidable Wherefore ye must needs be Subject not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake That is not only for fear of the King and his Laws but out of sense of duty to that God by whose Authority Kings Reign and who has bound upon our Consciences the duty of Subjection to them Now one would think it impossible for Men to escape from the obligation of so clear a Law and so it is till they lay aside the natural Sense and Ingenuity of Mankind and then indeed Mens Consciences are arm'd against all Conviction and so it happens among us that as once much learning made this great Apostle mad so now much Reliligion makes him a Fool. For so we are told that we must not think that he would be so silly as to abett the Wickedness of Tyrants Non ut Neronem aut Tyrannum quemvis alium supra omnem legem paenam constituendo crudelissimum unius Imperium in omnes mortales constabiliret that he would not set up Nero or any other Tyrant above all Law and Punishment and establish the cruel Dominion of one above all And therefore we must distinguish between the King's Person as a Man in Concreto to express it in Mr. Rutherford's words though it is the Sence of all the Monarchomachists and as a King and his Office in abstracto the Person may be resisted though not the Office because if the Person govern not by Law and Justice he ceases to be a Lawful Power But to what purpose is it for God to make Laws if Men may evacuate their force by such Metaphysical Nothings For how can we submit to the Office of a King but by submitting to the King himself If the Office it self could Govern without him then it might be the safest way to stick to the Abstract but seeing it cannot subsist without the Concrete he that commands to submit to the Office commands us to submit to the Man in whom it is or he commands us nothing So that this is really no better then prophane trifling with the Word of God when we are in plain and express terms commanded to make no Resistance to our Governors to get loose from so useful a Law by such childish and senseless Trifles as plainly contradict the Law it self For whereas the only design of such Laws is to preserve the Peace of humane Societies by such evasions as these all Men are left at liberty to disturb it as they please notwithstanding all the Laws in the World that ever were or ever can be made against it And therefore I would advise these Men that can cheat and lullaby their own Consciences with such Rattles as these either to lay aside their Metaphysicks or their Religion because such niceness and subtilty makes it a thing of no Use in the practice of the World For if there were no such Laws at all Men would be under no greater restraint from the Sin then they are now by the most effectual Laws that it is possible for God himself to lay upon them Men that can use such abusive and prevaâ—icating shifts to escape their plain Duty are arrived either to too great Prophaneness or too high Enthusiasm to be admitted to the Rights of common Christianity They serve their Saviour just as they do their Prince they obey him in abstracto and Rebell against him in concreto they submit to his Laws when themselves think it convenient but when they do not they then cease to be his Laws This is the unavoidable result of these thin and precarious distinctions that Religion if Men will shall be of no use or force in the practice of the World But secondly this is down-right Childrens play and make all Laws whatsoever ridiculous when it leaves it to those who are commanded absolute submission to judge when submission is sit and when not Do but once allow that Liberty and after that all the Laws injoyning this Duty can never command any thing For after they have commanded all that can be commanded every Man will be as much at liberty to do what he pleases as he was beâ—ore being sole Judge of the fitness of his Subjection But if he be Judge of that he is not bound and if he be bound he is not Judge but is absolutely bound In our present case what can the Apostles Command signifie when he peremptorily and indefinitly requires subjection to the Higher Powers i. e. say these Statesmen to all Powers that govern by Law and none else This makes the Subjects the Supreme Judges of the Government not the Governors themselves for by it whatever these do or Command it is of no Authority then as the Subjects judge it Legal and if they do not they are at liberty to Resist and Rebel And if this be so St. Paul would deserve to be laughed at for being so serious in enforcing a Law that can never bind whilst he commands Subjection or Non-resistance to higher Powers when the Subjects after that have full Power in themselves to determine to what higher Powers they will or will not resist Such Non-sence lyes at the bottom of all Rebellion for if Men are at all bound to submit to their Governours they are bound to submit to all if not to all then not to any because the Power of Resistance is by this poor Republican Principle at last wholly left to their own Judgment and then they are subject to no Authority but themselves and their own Wills But thirdly if a King ceases to be the higher Power or to be a Lawful King whenever he does not act according to Law or whenever his Subjects shall apprehend so how is it possible there should be any settled Government or Society among Mankind when it is so plainly impossible but that there must be miscarriages as long as Kings are Men and much more misapprehensions of the Government as long as the People
taken into Protection by the first Christian Emperours knowing how much it will endear the Church of England to Your Majesties Royal Care and Kindness when you discern its exact conformity to the first Constitution in all things but its Suffering And now I cannot pray for more happiness to Your Sacred Majesty then they comprised in a Collect for their Heathen Emperours under all the Storms and Outrages of Persecution That Almighty God would grant You a Long Life a Quiet Reign an Undisturbed Family Valiant Armies Faithful Councellors and Loyal Subjects That all things may fall out as successfully as Your Royal Heart can desire That Your Empire may ever increase and flourish And that the Lineal and Legal Succession of Your Royal Family may inherit Your Imperial Throne through all Succeeding Ages Which is the daily Prayer of Your Majesties Most Humble and Dutiful Subject S. P. The Contents § I. THE Introduction representing the seeming difficulty of the Argument from the niceness of the Controversy it self from the partiality of the Writers engaged in it and from the just jealousy of Superiours about it and yet nothing more easy to determine to the Satisfaction of all Parties concern'd and particularly to the advantage of Soveraign Powers Pag. 1. § II. Christianity supposes the power of Princes Our Saviour disclaims all Temporal Authority and all exemption from it to those that have it To pretend to any such thing by any grant from him is to renounce him and turn Mahumetan Christ as he is Head of his Church is subject to Sovereign Powers pag. 10 § III. The Power of Princes over the Church supposes the Power in the Church it is no Spiritual but a Civil Power over the Spiritual to deny the Authority of the Church in all Ages is to take away our Saviours own Authority all the several branches of his Commission to the Apostles proved against Mr. Hobbs to be Authoritative pag. 34. § IV. No Church-Power but what is conveyed from the Apostles by Ordination The Supremacy of Princes is the same whether Heathen or Christian Princes neither gain nor loose any Power by their Christianity Mr. Hobbs that he may destroy the present Power of the Church is forced to take away our Saviours own Power over it in this present World pag. 56. § V. The danger of a competition between these two Powers wholly avoided by the Churches Power being founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross. The Doctrine of the Cross explained pag. 65. § VI. The Rights of Sovereign Princes secured and improved by divers particular Laws of the Christian Institution The folly of limiting the obligation of these Laws to such Governours as govern by Law demonstrated against Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Baxter pag. 77. § VII Submission to the worst of Princes proved much wiser and much more advantageous to the Interest of the Subject then the liberty of Resistance or Rebellion in any case whatsoever Barclay's Concession of its being lawful in any case shewn to be an inlet to the subversion of all Governments in all cases pag. 109. § VIII Those that are trusted by our Saviour with the Government of his Church are tyed by him to a particular and exemplary submission to Civil Authority They are not forbidden the exercise of power but the haughty and insolent use of it The Church of England consists not in its Laws but in its Authority to Act Laws pag. 126. § IX The Primitive Churches practice of Passive Obedience No Canons against Rebellion because it was then never committed The Church careful to secure all mens civil Rights Canons to secure the Rights of Masters over Servants The Doctrine of Universal submission taught in the Greek Church by Policarp Justin Martyr Athenagoras Theophilus Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria p. 140. § X. The same Doctrine taught and practised in the Latin Church by Irenaeus Tertullian Minutius Foelix St. Cyprian It was not lawful for Christians that were banish't for their Religion to return home without leave of the Government To say this Doctrine was then taught because they wanted strength is to call them Knaves and Villains The blasphemy of the Independants in justifying their Treason by pretending to Inspiration from Heaven This done by John Goodwin and J. O. pag. 153. § XI The strictness of Government in the Church kept up to the height all this Interval notwithstanding their entire submission to the power of the Empire The necessity of a Legislative Power to the Being of a Church The Government and Discipline of the Primitive Church exemplified from the Apostolical Canons pag. 169. § XII The State of the Primitive Church collected into one view out of the Writings of St. Câ—prian with an account of the birth growth and death of the Novatian Schism His first Principle of Unity is the duty of Communion with the Bishop in every particular Church pag. 198. § XIII His second Principle of Unity is the Obligation upon all Christian Bishops to keep up correspondence and Communion among themselves pag. 227. § XIV Mr. Thorndike's Notion of the Unity of the Catholick Church by way of External Polity vindicated against the Objections of Dr. Barrow and the Doctors Treatise concerning the Unity of the Church confuted pag. 236. Part. II. § I. THe Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Power under the Reign of Constantine the Great in the Cause of the Donatists and Arians An account of the History of the Donatists from their beginning to the Council at Rome under Melchiades pag. 265. § II. A Chasm discovered in Optatus from the Council of Rome till after the Council of Arles The Sentence of the Council of Arles against the Schismaticks Their Illegal Appeal to the Emperour His resentments of it The Forgery of Ingentius against Foelix of Aptung discovered Constantine's Sentence against them at Milan without accepting their Appeal pag. 285. § III. Constantine's Proceedings against them But forced to grant them Liberty of Conscience upon his War with Licinius Their insolence upon it Their Case parallel with our present Schismaticks pag. 300. § IV. A Character of Donatus the Great and his Circumcellians Their behaviour towards the Emperour's Commissioners Their Flatteries of Julian pag. 307. § V. Their divisions and subdivisions among themselves Their Outrages and siding with Gildo the African Rebel Their disingenuity publickly exposed both by the Emperour and the Church The Imperial Laws against them and their great Efficacy Liberty of Conscience again granted them upon the Invasion of the Goths pag. 316. § VI. An account of the Conference at Carthage before Marcellinus The Donatists design in procuring his Murther The Faction forever broke by the effectual execution of Laws against them under Honorius p. 333. § VII The History of Arianism from its beginning to the end of the Nicene Council Eusebius of Caesarea and Petavius vindicated from suspicion of the Heresie Eusebius of Nicomedia and his Faction no Arians p. 348. § VIII After the Council
Grant and Commission And that certainly is as high a Prerogative as any Prince can care to demand to have a Sovereign Power over all the Powers within his own Dominions So that whether they are derived from his Authority or not they shall be as entirely Subject to it as if they had subsisted by no other Charter And that is as high a Supremacy as Mr. Hobbs himself has been pleased to challenge for Sovereign Princes when he took away all Power from the Church to vest it in them for though it is a very gross prophaneness in him to allow no Authority for Religion it self then as it is enjoyn'd and made Law by them yet that Authority that is in the Church by Divine Right is as absolutely Subject to their Dominion as it could have been had it been establisht as Mr. Hobbs contends only by their own Authority And this State of the Controversie if it can be made good I am certain will satisfie all Parties that can claim any share or degree of Government in Church or State but most of all the Supreme Powers to whose Soveraignty all Power whatsoever it is or whencesoever derived is indispensibly Subjected As for the Jurisdiction of the Church as settled by Divine Right and nothing else I have discoursed of that in former Treatises and proved that it is immediately derived from our Saviour himself and settled unalienably by him upon the Apostles and their Successors the Bishops forever so that here I must suppose the Constitution of the Christian Church within it self and all that I am bound to do at present is That supposing its distinct and independent Authority for granted to explain how it accommodates and submits it self to the Civil State and comes under the common obligation of all good Subjects to true Allegiance and Loyalty to the Sovereign Prince §. II. And here the first and chiefest thing to be consider'd is That Christianity supposes the Power of Princes Civil Government being settled in the World from its beginning by the general Providence of God and antecedently to our Saviour's particular Institution And therefore as the first thing that our Saviour openly declared when he enter'd upon his Office was the erection of his own new Kingdom so the next thing that he took care to instruct his Subjects in was that this his Kingdom was no Kingdom of this World So that from thence it is evident that he left the Government of the Kingdoms of this World in the same posture in which they had ever stood be ore he came into it And therefore there could be no alteration much less abatement of the Civil Government any where upon the score of his Authority otherwise the Institution of his Kingdom had been a breach upon the Ancient Rights of those Sovereign Powers in whose Dominions it was erected which was the first thing that our Saviour whilst himself conversed upon Earth was careful to avoid This therefore is to be set down in the first place as the Fundamental Article of his Religion that neither himself nor any of those that he has deputed for the Government of it challenge any Temporal Power to themselves or any exemption from the Authority of those that have it Neither is this to be lookt upon only as a positive duty but it is necessary in it self from the nature and the design of Christianity which was to settle a pure Religion in the World by the strength of its own truth and goodness without any help of worldly power or mixture of worldly interest as I have elsewhere shewn at large from the whole story of its first settlement And therefore agreeable to this great Observation it is very remarkable That our Saviour himself whilst he convers'd upon Earth did not only never challenge any kind of Civil Authority to himself but seiz'd all occasions to defie and disclaim it as absolutely inconsistent with his Commission Thus John 6. 15. When the People supposing him to be that Temporal Messias that they expected would have forced him to take the Kingdom upon himself he immediately withdrew into a Solitude to shift their importunity And Luke 12. 13 14. When one solicited him only to take upon him the Authority of an Arbitrator he perfectly disavows it as if he were solicitous not to give them the least pretence of Objection against him for his intermedling with the Civil Government And yet he might lawfully have done â—t according to the received custom of the Jews at that time for in the Babylonish Captivity to avoid the scandal of Contention before Heathens they referred all their Controversies to the Rabbies and Doctors of the Law and such an one this Jew supposed our Saviour to have been as appears by his giving him their proper Title of Master and whoever refused to stand to their award he was Excommunicated their Society as a scandal to the Jewish Nation And this priviledge of being their own Judges among themselves was granted to them by the Romans and for a long time continued by the Christian Emperors themselves And therefore though our Saviour might have undertaken this Office by the allowance and permission of the Civil Government yet to avoid all suspicions of any such imputation he protests against it as unbecoming his own Office and Person And the case is the very same as to the Woman taken in Adultery Joh. 8. 3. of whom he declares that he had no such Authority as they imagin'd to pass any Sentence upon her according to their Law so that if she were not legally condemn'd before they brought her before him she was at liberty for any such Power that he had to pass Sentence upon her But the most remarkable passage for his disclaiming all Earthly Power is in his Examination before Pontius Pilate Joh. 18. 36. to whom he freely confesses that he is a King but to prevent his jealousie or mistake he both immediately declares that his Kingdom is not of this World * and clearly explains what he means by it For If my Kingdom were of this World then would my Servants fight that I should not be deliver'd to the Jews From which words we understand his evident meaning when he professes that his Kingdom is not of this World that it is not endued with any power of the Sword So that for any of his Officers or Subjects to make any resistance to the Civil Power by the Sword in defence of his Kingdom is to destroy the very nature of itâ— Constitution that consists in this that it is to be govern'd by the power of Truth and is distinguisht from the Kingdoms of this World in that it is a Kingdom without the power of the Sword And therefore for any Officers in it to pretend to any such Power by virtue of any Authority or Commission from him is at oncâ— both to dethrone and renounce his Kingly Power because it is a contradiction to his whole design in the World to have
lies at the bottom of all this witty Authors folly and Philosophy it must be confessed that there can be no Ecclesiastical Power over the Christian Church either in the Clergy or any Man else because upon it there is neither Christian Church nor Christian Religion and then it is certain that there can be no Power over nothing So vain are all the Attempts against that Authority that our Blessed Saviour has granted to the Apostolical Succession that it cannot be removed by any other Principles then what directly overthrow Christianity it self upon those Terms it must be parted with but upon no other And though Mr. Hobbs speaks out more boldly then his Neighbours yet all the followers of Erastus and all that will own â— certain Form of Government establisht in the Church by Divine Right cannot avoid the Church of Leviathan And therefore to proceed with him as Fore-man to speak for all the rest it is evident that beside the Authority by which the Apostles and their Successors act every act that they are enabled to by their Commission is in its own Nature and as such an Authoritative Act. First such is the power of Preaching and Teaching i. e. the power of publishing the Laws of the Gospel to all Nations and requiring all Mens Obedience to them under the sanction of the greatest Rewards and Penalties And if Mr. Hobbs can affirm that exacting Obedience upon such terms be no piece of Authority it is in vain either to reason with himself or any other Man of his Kidney or Understanding But he proves it to be so because The Apostles were Preachers and Preachers are Cryers and Cryers have no right to Command Among the many bad qualities in this Author's way of writing his contempt of other Mens understandings is none of the least for if he had not a very low Opinion of their intellectual Abilities he could never have presumed to impose upon them by such childish pretences And the truth of it is he talks not as if he discoursed to Men but to Magpies Parots and Jackdaws that are to learn to chatter his Dictates by Rote For is it not a strange grossness of Confidence that when our Blessed Saviour came from God to publish a new Law to the World and enforce it with the severest Penalties and when he gave the same Commission to his Apostles that himself had received from his Father to publish this Law to the World though they do it with all this Authority to infer that they do it with none at all because when they declare their Message they open their mouths as Cryers do when they make Proclamations and so the original Word signifies any kind of publick Declaration And what if it were the proper term for the Cryers Office it may for all that in common Speech be applyed to any other way of Publication it will be hard to find out any one word in the World so severely stinted to its original Import However every School-boy could have inform'd the old Philosopher that this word is not so confin'd and that it is not is evident from the very passage it self because the Apostles that are said to Proclaim or Cry the Gospel to all Nations do not make a simple Proclamation but require Obedience to what they publish under the most forcible obligation of Rewards and Punishments And such Proclamation as that whatever the term Proclaiming may signifie in its naked sense brings with it as much Authority as it is possible for Government to put in practice But he farther affirms in proof of no Authority in the Church That the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our School-Masters and not our Commanders But beside that this is an Arbitrary Assertion of his own devising to assign them the Office of School-Masters for the Scripture no where does so The Authority of a School-Master is some Authority for though he have not the Power of the Sword he has that of the Rod and that is as effectual for his purpose among Boys as the other among Men. So that there is no Logique in the Argument neither can I believe so witty a Man to have been so weak as to have brought it for that purpose but rather because he thought the comparison was a witty slur upon Christianity as if it were as childish and contemptible an Office to instruct men in it as it is to teach Boys and Children their Elements of Speech That is a shrewd hint though the next comparison is much more poinant That our Saviour compares Preaching to Fishing i. e. to winning Men to Obedience not by coertion and punishing but by perswasion and therefore our Saviour calls not Apostles hunters of Men but fishers of Men. Now though his endeavour to prove that there is no Authority in the Officers of the Church because they have no Civil Authority is altogether vain and trifling because he only presumes what no Man will grant him that there is no other Authority in the World yet here his way of demonstration is somewhat more then usually pleasant viz. That they were endued with no power of Coertion because our Saviour has constituted them not his Huntsmen but his Fishermen Where I think it would require the Acuteness of Mr. Hobbs's wit to make it out why there is less Coertion in Fishing then in Hunting especially in Net-fishing which was their former Trade to which he knows our Saviour there alludes when this mighty difficulty is cleared up I may come to understand the force of the Argument but till then I must confess it is above my reach But hitherto it is evident that notwithstanding all this Gentleman 's Grammatical Demonstrations from Cryers School-Masters and Fishers that the Commission granted to the Apostles and their Successors to preach the Gospel did not only carry proper Authority in it but the highest sort of Authority because enforced with the greatest Rewards and Penalties and that every man knows is the very Life and Soul of all Power The next branch of their Commission is to Baptize in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and though the Philosopher would here make himself merry not only with the Sacrament but with the Holy Trinity in whose Name it is Administred yet after all his pains to prove it no Authority he fairly confesses That it is an Authority either to Baptize or refuse to Baptize because Baptism is the Sacrament of Allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God But certainly if they have Power to grant or deny them this Sacrament i. e. to receive them into the Kingdom of God or shut them out of it if there be any such thing as Power in the World there cannot be a greater then this And consequent to this Authority he says is the Remission and Retention of Sins or the Power of Loosing and Binding and for this I must confess he gives a pertinent reason for so he is
of enquiry which though a fault is by no means so disingenuous as acting against knowledge But as for this Case of Apostates in time of Persecution upon whom Mr. Hobbs says Excommunication could have no effect of Terrour If indeed the Providence of God had not given them sufficient evidence of their Faith I will grant it to be true not only of that but of all the other Threatnings of the Gospel But if God have given sufficient motives of belief as if the Gospel be not a cheat he has if it be all Mr. Hobbs's dispute is without bottom a Man's Apostacy is no Fence against the Reflections of his own Conscience For though it is in his Power to deny his Faith for fear of Persecution yet it is not in his Power to disbelieve it So that upon such a Man the Sentence of Excommunication by which he is cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven lights with as much Terrour as upon any other Believer And there is nothing more evident in the History of the Primitive Church then the Efficacy of this Sentence upon such Offenders For the greatest part of those that fell in time of Persecution were by this means alone recover'd to the Church brought to sue for pardon and undergo very severe Penances as a satisfaction for the Scandal But to what purpose do I put my self to the trouble to prove these things when all Mr. Hobbs's discourse upon this Argument runs upon this supposition as if Christianity were but a trivial and indifferent thing that might or might not be believed as Men variously fancied or were casually inclined And upon that supposition I will freely grant it to be of as little effect as he would have it But if the Providence of God hath given us such a Demonstrative Evidence of the Divine Authority of this Religion that no Man who inquires into it can wink against its Light without doing violence to his own Convictions then whether Men will or no it will be a perpetual Terrour to their Consciences And that this slight Opinion of the Evidence of Christianity though upon what slight and indeed ignorant pretences I have elsewhere shewn is the bottom of Mr. Hobbs's meaning is too manifest from his next branch of the Supremacy of Sovereign Powers which indeed is neither better nor worse then bare-faced Blasphemy And that is the Power of making Scripture Law i. e. Obligatory But if that be the state of the Christian Religion that it is not at all material whether a Man regard it or not for any Obligation or Authority in it self Mr. Hobbs is not to be blamed unless in point of Prudence for all those irreverend abuses that he has been pleased to put upon it But if it be made Law by the Command of God as it is if it be not all imposture in pretending falsly to his Authority then whatever the Sovereign is pleased to make of it Mr. Hobbs and all his Followers that will allow it no obligation but from Man stand Convicted of the most manifest Treason and Blasphemy against the Sovereign Lord of all and this part of Ecclesiastical Supremacy of making Scripture Law that they give to Kings they take away from God himself After all this rank prophaneness it is almost needless to consider his last branch of Ecclesiastical Power viz. the Right of Ordaining and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers not only because it is of the same Nature and derived from the same Divine Authority with all the other particulars of the Apostolical Commission but because himself grants it in general by placing it in the People For if it be any where that is enough against himself that denies all manner of Power in the Church but most of all because he has confessed and no Man can deny it the whole truth of the matter both against the Hobbist and the Independant too viz. That the Apostles conveighed their Authority to their Successors whom themselves Deputed and Ordained by Imposition of hands and if so this Power of constituting Successors resided in them alone because no Man could be constituted an Officer in the Church but by their Imposition of hands or those to whom by it they Transmitted their Power So that whatever interest they might permit the People in their Choice or Nomination of their Officers the whole power of Constituting them in their Office and Authority lay in themselves alone §. IV. But Mr. Hobbs having hitherto treated of the Power Ecclesiastical as it stood before the Conversion of Kings and Men endued with Sovereign Civil Power and after his rate of Demonstration proved it to be no Power at all whilst vested in the Pastors of the Church he comes now to prove that it is lodged in Civil Sovereigns upon their Conversion to the Christian Faith and that when it comes to them it becomes true and proper Power But before I consider his small Arguments I cannot understand why that which was no Power before becomes Power now There can be but one reason for it and that is too obvious in all Mr. Hobbs's Writings viz. Because it is now abetted with the Penalties of this life whereas before it was only abetted with the Penalties of the life to come so that the plain English of the Assertion if spoken out is this that there are no penalties at all but in this life and then I must confess that the power of the Church can be no Power till complicated with the Civil Power But the man that discourses upon such Principles as these has nothing to do with the Christian Religion or any thing relating to it But secondly Which way came this Power into Civil Sovereigns Our Saviour left it to his Apostles and they delivered it down by Imposition of Hands to others who were to conveigh it in the same manner of Succession through all Ages how then came Civil Sovereigns by it If any were Ordain'd to it they had it by virtue of their Ordination not their Right of Sovereignty if they were not which way could they become possessed of a Power that was never derived to them in the way of Ordination which is the only way in which it can be conveighed and therefore if they have it not that way they can never have it any other As for the Principle upon which he founds this Power of the Civil Sovereign though it be true in it self yet it is no proper reason for what he would infer from it viz. That the Right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil This is undoubtedly true that they are the proper Judges of what conduces to the peace and quiet of Government but then this Power is common to Heathen as well as Christian Soveraigns they are all equally concern'd and obliged to take care of the Publick Peace so that this Power does not accrue to the Civil Sovereign by his becoming
Christian but was antecedently and inseparably annex'd to the Sovereign Power And therefore 't is but a vain distinction that Mr. Hobbs makes of the Ecclesiastical Power of Princes before and after the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns When before it they have all a right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace that being inseparably annex't to all Sovereign Power and after it they have no more as Sovereign Princes And then if the Ecclesiastical Power rested in the Apostles and their Successors before the Conversion of Civil Sovereigns it must do so ever after for they could not lose that Power that was left them by our Saviour any other way but by his own actual transferring it to another which he having not done it continues as and where it was first setled So that Sovereigns as Christian as they lose no Power they gain none their Power is in both Cases Supreme from the nature of Sovereignty But beside all this because they have a right to judge of all things as far as they concern the Civil Peace it is an inference that only becomes Mr. Hobbs's Principles to conclude that this gives them a power of judging what is fittest to promote the Salvation of their Subjects Souls in the World to come And yet that is the true and proper Province of Ecclesiastical Power so to guide and govern the Church in this World as to bring the Members of it to Heaven hereafter And that is somewhat more then meerly to provide for the Civil Peace and therefore a right to that cannot give any right to this especially when it is by express Commission settled in another order of Men. All True Religion is indeed very serviceable to the Interests of Peace and Government and so far it concerns the Civil Power as such to abett its force with Civil Laws But then it has a much farther prospect into the World to come and the care of that is committed by our Saviour to a particular Order of Men Consecrated to that Office How this Power comes not to interfere with the Civil but is subject to it will be shewn in the next place but our present business is only to assert its Right And that is so apparent from the whole design and nature of Christianity that it cannot subsist without it For if our Saviour enacted the Christian Law and founded the Christian Church not by Civil but Divine Authority if he Instituted the Apostles and their Successors to govern it then their Right of Government stands upon the same bottom with the truth of Christianity And if it be true that the Christian Church was planted in the World by Divine Authority it is as true that they have a right to Govern it by the same Authority This is so undeniable to common Sense that Mr. Hobbs has no way to avoid it but by denying our Saviour's own Supremacy at present in that his Kingdom is not to begin till after the Resurrection But beside the falshood and the wickedness of the Assertion whereby Christianity is made of no force or use in this World in that no Man can be obliged to obey its Precepts because our Saviour has not power to make it Law till he enters upon his Kingdom and that is not till after the end of the World Beside this I say who could think that any Man that reads the Gospel could be so extravagantly foolish as to dream that it was not intended for present Obligation and that no Man is bound to obey any part of it before the day of Judgment when that day is appointed on purpose for the distribution of Rewards and Punishments according to Mens discharge of their Duty towards it Mr. Hobbs would in my Opinion have asserted with much more modesty that God Almighty had sent his Son into the World upon a sleeveless Errand though that is as rank Blasphemy as can be vented then with so much formality go about to prove out of the Holy Scriptures themselves that his coming into it is to no purpose because it takes no effect whilst the World lasts This is to fasten upon the Almighty such another piece of folly as his Politiques have run himself into in another Case when he tells the World that the serious belief of Religion is necessary to Government and yet that all Religion is nothing but an Artifice of State and then it is really no Religion nor can be seriously believed and so can do no service to Government So here he makes God himself to send his Son into the World to publish a Law by Obedience to which Men may purchase to themselves a State of Salvation in the World to come and yet at the same time makes the same God to declare that this Law for the publication whereof he sent his Son into the World is of no force in this World to which it was publisht and that no Man whilst he lives is under any obligation of Obedience to it Upon this supposition would not any Man conclude that our Saviour might very well have spared all his pains and not have been in so much hast and put himself to so much trouble for Enacting a Law to no purpose but rather to have deferr'd its publication to the next World in which it was to Commence its Use and Obligation But the true Consequence of this Evasion is a clear Demonstration of the distinct power of the Christian Church when there is no way to take this away but by abrogating our Saviour's own Authority For if all Ecclesiastical Power be in the Civil Sovereign then he has none and so Mr. Hobbs to be consistent with his Principle says he has not while there are Civil Sovereigns in the World But if he have any he has power to Depute what Officers he pleases and by virtue of their Deputation they have a Power as independent upon the Sovereign Power as that Authority from which their Power is derived So that to take away the distinct Power of the Church as it was settled by our Saviour upon the Apostles and their Successors is in plain terms to deny his Power as well as theirs For if they had a right to it at first by his Grant and if his grant be of any Validity they have the same for ever So dangerous a thing is it if Men would seriously consider to disown the Authority of the Church it is no less then renouncing our Saviour's own Authority And I am confident no Christian Prince would ever accept of any Supremacy of Power upon such terms and yet if he challenge to himself though but a share of that Power that our Saviour has left to the Apostolical Succession he must plainly invade that original Authority in our Saviour himself from whom they hold it So thaâ—â—hough we could suppose any Prince so prophane as Mr. Hobbs would make all Princes yet we cannot imagine any Man so impudent as to take up his Supremacy upon no better terms then
appear at first view are clearly scatter'd by one very easie and obvious consideration And that is that the Christian Church as it is endued with no Temporal Authority or Power of the Sword so all the Authority that it has is founded upon the Cross of Christ and that obliges all that own it to a more entire and resign'd submission to Civil Government then Men could have been brought under by any other way without its Institution So that the Erection of our Saviour's new Kingdom within the Kingdoms of the Earth upon the Doctrine of the Cross is so far from defrauding Sovereign Princes of their Ancient Authority that it is its greatest improvement and inforcement but especially it makes the Power of Christian Sovereignâ— more absolute then all other Powers that are not Christian and even to these it raises their Soveraignty higher then it was before over all their Christian Subjects by binding them to a stricter Allegiance then their own Laws and of all other Christians those that have the highest Authority in the Church are obliged by their very Office to the most humble peaceable and absolute submission to the worst of Governments All which considerations render Christianity the most easie of any Religion in the World for compliance with the peace and quiet of Government And first as for the Notion of the Doctrine of the Cross it is singular to Christianity For all other Religions both of Jews and Gentiles had some Worldly interest twisted with them but our Saviour to avoid all mixtures of Hypocrisie abstracts his Institution from all considerations unless of the World to come And therefore first Erects his Kingdom not only without any Promise of any advantages of this life but to let his followers know what they were to trust to by the Principles of his Religion with a certain assurance of the loss of all the comforts of life and at last life it self So evident is it from the original Constitution of the Christian Church that it is so far from giving Men any claims of Worldly Interest that meerly as they are Christians they are obliged whenever they are called to it to renounce them all And this Doctrine lying at the Foundation of Christianity our Saviour was careful to settle it in the first place When he gives his Disciples their first Commission to preach the Gospel to all Nations that is the first Condition that he teaches them to require of all Proselytes He that taketh not up his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me i. e. He that takes not up his Religion upon condition of taking up the Cross too is no true Christian. By which expression of taking up the Cross is signified the under-going of all kind of Calamities of which the Cross was the greatest being the most shameful and most painful punishment that was used at that time And therefore Plato in his Description of a perfect good-Man that nothing shall fright out of his Duty and Conscience says of him that when he has suffered all miseries he will endure to be Crucified too So that the meaning of our Saviour's words is plainly this Let no Man expect any Worldly profit by following me and therefore not pretend that I gave him any ground for it but on the contrary such is the nature of my Institution that whoever will undertake it it must be upon no less condition then this that he be willing and ready to suffer all manner of Persecutions for it even the scandalous death of the Cross it self So plain is it that Christianity when it meets with any Opposition is to maintain it self by nothing but suffering to use no weapon but the Cross and Men that are indispensably obliged to such an absolute submission are sufficiently tyed up if any such thing be possible from creating any disturbance to the Civil State for what greater security can be contrived against that then that Men should be bound by the first Principle of their Religion with meekness and cheerfulness to resign up their Lives to the pleasure of the Government So it is in the case of Christianity they have nothing to plead but their own innocence and if that will not satisfie they have no Authority from our Saviour to upbraid the Power that condemns them and Remonstrate to the Justice of the Court but instead of that are obliged to undergo its Sentence as he did with all manner of meekness and silence Here is no disputing the Commands of Princes whether right or wrong nothing but absolute submission to their most unjust and illegal Proceedings much less any opposition to their most unwarrantable Commands nor any weapon of defence but laying down their Lives after their great Masters Example in submission to the Government This is the true and honest state of the Christian Church that every Man be faithful to the Laws of his Religion and if he suffer for it he shall be compensated with those Rewards that his Religion Promises and that is compensation enough for all that he can suffer in this World and if he take it not up with this condition it is not the Christian Religion that he takes up for it is no Christian Religion without the Cross. And so our Saviour has all along stated the matter upon all occasions And it being so stated it is easie to understand how in cases of the greatest competition both Powers so prevail at the same time as to attain both their respective Ends. For by it the Civil Power must over-rule as to all effects of this life and when it is to be thus gently submitted to in its most unjust Decrees that is a full security of the Peace and Quiet of this World and that is the proper end for which it was instituted And the Spiritual Power attains its effect as to the World to come i. e. the salvation of the Souls of Men by their Conscientious Loyalty to their Saviour and his Laws and that is all that it aims at and that every Professor of it ought to pretend to This is so plain and evident in the whole practice of the Primitive Church that one would wonder that any Man should ever dream that true Christianity could any way interfere with Civil Government For when the Powers of the World at that time particularly the Governors of the Roman Empire being under a mistaken apprehension that the new Christian Religion aim'd at Innovation in Government endeavour'd by all the methods of Cruelty to stop its progress the Christians who were all bound openly to profess their Faith and some of them to propagate it in publick notwithstanding all that bloody opposition that was made against it went on in their work without creating any the least disturbance to their Governors unless what they gave themselves by their own needless outrage against them For all that they did in their own defence was only to declare that how much soever they were displeased with the
be divided into two parts yet both inherit their own share in solidum and so if two Men be bound for the same Debt if they are bound each Man in partem they are obliged to pay but half share but if they are obliged in solidum either of them is bound to pay all And this is St. Cyprian's State of Episcopacy that though many share the Authority yet every Bishop has as full possession of his own share within it self as if there were no other Seeing as he elsewhere expresses it a Parcel of the Flock is allotted to the care of its particular Pastor which every one is bound to guide and govern and to account to God for the discharge of his Episcopal Office Neither was this his singular Notion but the unanimous and settled Sense of the Ancients Thus the Author of Clement's Institutions brings in the Apostles Writing after this manner to all Christian Bishops We being all gathered together have written to you this form of Catholique Doctrine For the Confirmation of you to whom is entrusted the Catholique Episcapacy of the Church This was the entire Sense of all Ignatius his Epistles which suppose the full Jurisdiction of every particular Church to be placed in the Bishop and his own Clergy So Tertullian It is necessary that so many great Churches should be that one and first derived from the Apostles from whom all are derived and therefore they are all but one and yet several Apostolical Churches So all the Ancient Canons inhibit every single Bishop even the Metropolitan to intermeddle in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition Neither is this Supremacy of Power in every Bishop any abatement of the just Rights of Metropolitans For in the Primitive Church as I have shewn in a former Treatise Metropolitans had no Power over inferiour Bishops but in conjunction of the Synod of the Province So that it was the Synod not the Metropolitan that had the Superiour Power over every single Bishop And it is evident that he was as liable to the Sentence of the Synod as the meanest Bishop of the Province as appears from the case of Paulus Samosatenus and Metropolitans considering their number were as often censured and Deposed as other Bishops And this is the reason of St. Cyprian's so earnestly disclaiming the Title of Episcopus Episcoporum because though his own Metropolitical Jurisdiction were of great extent yet as a single Bishop he had no Superiority over any other Bishop no Authority to punish his Misdemeanors to receive Appeals from his Sentence or to order and rectifie any thing within his Diocess All such Power was to be exerted only in Synodical Conventions in which he had the Honour and Authority of Presidency but the Jurisdiction was seated in the Body of the Council without whose concurrence had he presumed to do any thing more then any other Bishop his least punishment had been certain Deposition This was the real State of things in the Ancient Church and Metropolitans never took upon them any Power over their Collegues or Brother-Bishops by their own single Authority till after the Papal Usurpation neither then did they challenge it as Metropolitans but as Legates to the Pope and that was one of the highest branches of the Usurpation But before that time the Governours of the Church were not more watchful against any one thing then that one Bishop should not claim any power over another Now this Principle being first laid That the whole Episcopal Authority is vested in every Bishop the next that is consequent upon it is That whoever separates from the Communion of his Bishop or sets up another against him is a Schismatick and this was the Subject of almost all his Epistles concerning the Restitution of the Lapsi or such as fell in time of Persecution For they according to the Ancient Discipline of the Church were not to be received into Communion but by these degrees First they were to Petition to be admitted to Penance and that upon confession of their fault was granted and then having undergon the Penance imposed they made a publick Confession of their Crime before the Congregation and upon that they received Absolution by the Imposition of the hands of the Bishop and Câ—ergy and after that they were admitted to the Holy Eucharist or Full-Communion But instead of this solemn severity of Discipline some of his own Presbyters had been so rash as without the consent of their Bishop to give them entire Absolution and admit them to entire Communion This was the opening of that unhappy Schism that afterward created so much trouble both to himself and the Church of God For when these Presbyters had so illegally restor'd those Enormous offenders they prevail'd by their Importunity upon the good Nature of the Martyrs and Confessors to intercede for their Restitution it being an Honour and Prerogative allowed them in the ancient Church to admit Sinners more easily to repentance upon their Request because they had by the constancy of their sufferings compensated for the scandal that the others had given by their Fall But instead of interceding for their admission to Penance these well meaning men move St. Cyprian for their complete Absolution without it to which he replies that they who had with so much courage and devotion kept the Faith of our Lord ought to be as â—areful of keeping his Law and Discipline †Epist. 16. per totum But yet he is willing to excuse them not only because they did it out of ignorance of the Laws of the Church and out of modesty being meerly overcome by the importunity of others but because they proceeded no farther than only to intercede with him in whom they acknowledge the Power and Authority of granting Absolution whereas the Presbyters had subverted all the Order of the Church by presuming upon it without him These slighting that dignity and respect which the Martyrs Hi sublato honore quem nobis beati Martyres cum confessoribus servant contemptâ domini lege observatione quam iidem Martyres Confessores tenendam mandant ante extinctum persecutionis metuÌ„ ante redituÌ„ nostruÌ„ ante ipsum pene MartyruÌ„ excessum communicent cum lapsiis offerant Eucharistiam tradant Confessors care fully observed despising the Law of God which those Good Men required to be kept before the fear of Persecution is over before our Return before the very consummation of the Martyrs themselves communicate with and give the Eucharist to the Apostates And therefore at the begining of this Epistle in which he so candidly excuses the Martyrs he reproves the rashness and disorder of the Presbyters with more then usual warmth and vehemence of Expression What Punishment Quod enim periculum non metuere debemus de offensâ domini quando aliqui de Presbyteris nec Evangelii nec loci sui memores sed neque futurum domini
cause to St. Cyprian and by acknowledging a double relation or capacity in every Bishop one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Church and that is all the Political Union we contend for But Seventhly This Political Unity does not accord with the nature of the Gospel because it would bring too much Worldly State and Grandeur into the Church as appears by the Papal Monarch And that is true a Monarchical Unity would naturally bring in a Worldly Kingdom but not such an Unity as consists in the Communion of all Parts together and not in the Subjection of the rest to one part as our Author expresses it or as Mr. Thorndike often repeats it That not the infinite Power of one Church but the Regular Power of all is the mean provided by the Apostles for attaining Unity in the Whole This is the state of the Question between us and therefore all our Authors flourishes about the Papal Tyranny are nothing but flourish because it is so far from being that Catholick Unity that we own that it is the whole design of this work to prove that it is a most execrable and impudent subversion of it The 8th and 9th Arguments proceed upon the same Supposition of a Papal Monarchy The tenth upon its no Necessity against our Authors own confession The 11th and 12th because such an Unity was never in fact attain'd If he means in full perfection no more was ever any Government and therefore it is not to be required in this World but if he means that it was never put in practice so as in good measure to attain its end the whole History of the Church down to the Papal Usurpation contradicts it as appears by the whole Series of this Discourse This is all that this learned Man has alledged upon this Argument and from it the Reader I hope is sufficiently satisfied how little that has to alledge for it self for he was a person of that comprehensive mind that he never omitted any thing pertinent to his design was never in debt to any cause that he undertook nor ever fail'd that but when that fail'd him and therefore when we see so great a man able to say so little in defence of this uncatholick Assertion that is the strongest proof that we can have and perhaps stronger then any we could have had without it that it is utterly indefensible PART II. SECT I. HAving in the former Part of this Discourse set down the practice of the Church both as to the Exercise of its own Jurisdiction within it self and its entire subjection to the Civil Powers whilst it subsisted meerly upon its own Charter without any Assistance or Protection from them We are now arrived at a new state of things as they stood under Christian Emperors And here we shall find that the Government and the Constitution of the Church continued as it had ever been within it self and that the Christians when the Empire was on their side own'd the same kind of Subjection and that upon the same Principles of Duty to the Civil Government that they had ever done in the times of Persecution and when I have made good both these it will make up a compleat Demonstration both of the unalienable Power of the Church within it self and of the Sense of the Catholique Church unanimously condemning all resistance against the Civil Government in any case but most of all in the case of Religion Under Constantine the Great it is not to be doubted but that they were forward enough in their Loyalty and Obedience to his Government for all Men are for the Government when the Government is for them and therefore this part of the Enquiry concerning the Peaceable behaviour of Christians under his Reign is wholly superseded because if they did their Duty they had no motive or temptation not to do it submission to his Government being no less their Interest then their Duty and therefore it was no matter of Praise or Vertue in them if they own'd and honour'd that Power that was their peculiar Deliverance and Protection So that this side of the Controversie I shall altogether wave in this place and only consider the Ecclesiastical State of things under his Government where I once intended to have Exemplified the due Exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church from his Example First As a Sovereign Prince Secondly As a Christian Sovereign And that First In matters of Faith and Christian Doctrine Secondly In matters of Discipline and Christian Government and here particularly First Of his Power in Summoning Councils as Supreme Governor of a Nâ—tional Church Secondly Of that Obligation that he brings upon himself by becoming a Christian First To abet the Power of the Church with his own Secular Authority Secondly To endow it with a Revenue for the maintenance of the Service of God and those that attend upon it But upon more mature deliberation I thought it much more adviseable to forbear all such Reasonings and Discourses till I had first set down the whole matter of Fact as things stood not only under his Reign but all the Succeeding Emperors where we shall find Precedents enough to make up a Demonstration of all the fore-mentioned Principles But because this is the first Instance of Uniting Church and State into one Body and because this Wise and Prudent Emperor seems to have exerted his Power in both exactly according to the Rules both of Religion and Government I shall the more curiously consider the management of Affairs under his Reign whereby will be fully exemplified how this Union may be reduced to practice without any Diminution of either Power or Confusion of one with another and that will plainly demonstrate wherein consists the Original Rights of the Church in a Christian State and the due Exercise of the Supremacy of Christian Kings over all Ecclesiastical Persons Rights and Powers Now because the Supreme Power in all Government is the Legislative Power and is the thing most disputed in this Controversie I shall shew that he was so far from annexing this Power in the Church to the Imperial Crown that he expresly asserted its inherent Right and Protected it in its Exercise within it self with all his zeal and ability In that whenever he had a mind to have any Ecclesiastical Laws Enacted he never presumed to do it by his own Authority which he ever declared would have been no less Crime then to invade the Power of God himself but always referred the matter to the Bishops in Council and by their Canons he framed his Ecclesiastical Laws but never made any without or against them And that is a full and clear acknowledgement of that antecedent Authority that they enjoyed by our Saviour's appointment when he constituted the Apostles and their Successors Supreme Governors of his Church to the End of the World So that in all Changes and Revolutions of things their Government must remain unalterable and indefeasible and whatever Assistance
Religion and Loyalty OR A Demonstration OF The Power of the Christian Church within it Self The Supremacy of Sovereign Powers over it The Duty of Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance to all their Commands Exemplified Out of the Records of the Church and the Empire from the Beginning of Christianity to the End of the Reign of JULIAN By Samuel Parker D. D. Arch-Deacon of CANTERBURY LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three-Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 1684. AN ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY FROM THE Primitive Church SIR THe whole Christian World being both Alarm'd and Amazed at the late Barbarous Conspiracy against the Sacred Lives of Your Majesty and Your Royal Brother And Your Majesty having upon that Occasion been over-whelm'd with numberless Addresses and Protestations of Loyalty from Your dutiful Subjects of the Church of England I thought it not improper or unseasonable to consult the Records of the best and purest times of our Religion for Precedents of this Loyal Practice and after an Accurate Diligent and Impartial Enquiry I dare in their Names declare to Your Majesty and all the Christian World their infinite abhorrence of all Treasonable and Rebellious Attempts against all Sovereign Powers whatsoever as the rankest contradiction to their Christian Faith and the boldest Blasphemy against their own Sovereign Lord. So that though Your Majesty were as much an Enemy as You are a Patron and Protector of the Church whoever shall at any time or upon any pretence offer any Resistance to any of Your Royal Commands must forever renounce his Saviour the four Evangelists and the Twelve Apostles to join with Mahomet Hildebrand and the Kirk set up the Pigeon against the Dove the Scimeter against the Cross and turn a Judas to his Saviour as well as a Cromwel to his Prince And this Sir in those days was thought so far from flattering Divinity that if they had not own'd and asserted it with their last drop of Blood under the worst of Tyrants they had judged themselves Traytors both to their Prince and to their Lord. And this Doctrine of entire and unreserved Submission was then so Catholique so Universally Taught and Practiced that Christian Rebellion was a Sin altogether unknown in those days It was the only Sin for which the Laws of the Church never appointed any Punishment because it was the only Sin that was then never actually committed And though they had too frequent and sad Occasions to enter their Protestations against it that was never done to correct any miscarriages among themselves but to rectifie the misapprehensions of the Roman Emperours Who being possest with too just a Jealousie that all Alterations in Religion tended to Innovations in Government they thought themselves obliged in Duty and for the honour of their Lord to represent to their Majesties That the erecting of his Kingdom in the Empire was so far from shaking their Thrones that it was and ever would be their strongest Security And when they had done this they had nothing more to do then to submit themselves to their Royal Pleasure and lay their Lives at their Royal Feet And this Sir they did with that Candour Frankness and Ingenuity so without all reserves and limitations that the slander that some Men have dasht upon their Memories is as false as foul that all their Pretended Loyalty was nothing but Hypocrisie for want of strength to raise and pretence of Law to Warrant Rebellion But some Men are so ignorant that they cannot understand the Doctrine of the Cross because its Superscription was written in Latin Greek and Hebrew and were they not as great Strangers to the Primitive Records as to the Primitive Religion they could never have had the confidence to fasten a surmise so false upon so clear an Integrity when beside giving us their own Opinions they have left behind them the Eternal and unalterable Reasons upon which they were grounded and these are of equal force in all Ages and under all Governments And this unkind Calumny is so very unjust that their spightful and most implacable Enemies who spared not to asperse them with all the vile things that could be believed durst never charge them either with any Overt-acts or secret designs of Disloyalty And as for the Laws though no Subject were ever more thankful for good Laws or more tender of their preservation then themselves yet when they had them they were neither so ungrateful nor so uncivil as to turn them upon the Government and make them so many Bulwarks and Sconces for Rebellion They thought it a very scurvey complement to invite Princes to protect their Religion by telling them That whilst they were pleased to Persecute it Christians were under an entire Submission to their Will and Pleasure but when they had once own'd and protected it by Law that then their Christian Subjects were warranted to Rebel against their Sovereign Authority by a Commission from their own Imperial Rescripts As soft and simple Lachrimists as they were they were wiser then to give Julian so much advantage to justifie his Apostacy when by it he recover'd the Imperial Crown to himself and his Successors that Constantine had pawned to his Christian Subjects by taking up the Christian Faith And whenever there was any misunderstanding between the Emperour and his Laws they thought it their duty that were subject to both to leave the Contest to be adjusted between themselves And if the Prince were at any time undutiful to his own Laws and so unhappy as to incur their displeasure whatever Power the Laws had to Execute themselves upon him they were satisfied that the Subjects had none And as they embraced this Principle of unlimited Submission as one of the greatest duties of their Religion so they have farther declared in all their Writings that setting aside all tyes of Duty and Conscience they would have done the same upon Principles of Interest and Prudence And tho they had lived under the worst of Princes and themselves had been the worst of Men they would have paid the same submission for the purchase of their own ease and safety that they thought themselves to owe out of duty to God and his Laws These Sir were the Doctrines that they taught both as Divines and Philosophers as Men that understood this World as well as Christians that believed the World to come And though to avoid being too bold and tedious I have here only presented Your Majesty with the Subscriptions of all the most Reverend Fathers of the Church for the first Three hundred and sixty three Years yet if Your Majesty think it worth Your Royal Acceptance I am ready to produce not only the hasty Votes but the Hands of all Christian Bishops and Doctors for above a Thousand Years with a Nemine Contradicente But beside the demonstration of the Primitive Loyalty I have here humbly presented Your Majesty with the true State of the Primitive Church as it was left by our Lord and his Apostles and
habitual course of their Lives do such things for the disturbance both of Church and State as are plainly inconsistent with any sense or design of integrity I know pride and passion may Transport Men into strange actions but then those are as great Crimes themselves as any that they can hurry them into But that they should carry Men that mean honestly into such a constant course of life as no Charity can reconcile with any Principles of Integrity is the thing that I say lies beyond my comprehension Thus in our particular Case of Non-resistance which is one of the greatest Cases of Conscience in the World thô there is not nor cannot be a clearer Precept in all the Bible then this of St. Paul's against all manner of Resistance to Sovereign Princes yet has this unhappy Man so stated the bounds of due Obedience and lawful Resistance from its Authority as in the result of all not only to evacuate all its Obligation but to make it the very Warranty from Heaven of all Popular Rebellions Thus he tells us plainly that all resistance is not here forbidden though the Apostle says in express terms that whoever resists shall be damn'd and that I think is all Resistance For there is a Resistance contrary to Subjection and that is forbidden And there is a Resistance not contrary to Subjection and that is not forbidden Now he that can Reconcile Resistance and Subjection together may at the same time be a Rebel and a good Subject especially as Mr. B. has stated it For having distinguisht between Resistance lawful and unlawful he makes it lawful in so many Cases and unlawful in so few as makes it so in all Thus Thes. 340 he says That if a Prince Command his Subjects beyond his Limits resistance in such a case is not to resist the Power but the Will of a private Man The very same Assertion with Rutherford's that if he govern according to Law we are bound to submit but if he exceed those bounds that the Law has left him then Resistance and Rebellion are no sins Such a wilful blindness is it in these Men that that they cannot see the middle way of subjection that lies between Obedience and Resistance for when I cannot Obey I can and ought to Submit but Resist I cannot without Rebellion And that is the Subjects Duty in all unlawful Commands though he cannot obey he can be quiet and peaceable nay he can do any thing to remove or redress the Grievance but resist the Government When a Kingdom is blest with good Laws it concerns Subjects to be tender of their Preservation by all fair and regular means but if they once Rebel against their Prince in defence of their Laws they lose both by the Dissolution of the Government for when that is gone and it is certain that all Rebellion aims at its destruction the Laws lye dead and can do them no Service And therefore there is no one Law so beneficial to the Subject as the Fundamental Law of Sovereignty that it is irresistible the security of the publick Government is the last security of every Man's Liberty and Property But if it be once invaded we are immediately in a state of War and then no Man can have any thing that he can call his own But of that when I come to discourse of the Reason and the Wisdom of Non-resistance here it is enough to observe that these Men are so perverse as to acknowledge no middle way between actual Obedience and actual Rebellion whereas the peculiar design of these Precepts is to fix our duty when we cannot obey in Submission or Nonrestance But here Mr. B. has a subtle Notion that will baer out his Innocence though he wade up to the Knees in Blood and to the Elbows in Rebellion and that is That not obeying is the first and chiefest resisting and therefore if one be Lawful so is the other and then whenever we cannot Lawfully Obey we may Lawfully Resist An admirable Notion this to set all the World on fire to make no difference between meer Non-obedience and cutting of Throats for that I take it is making some kind of Resistance yet by Mr. B's Principle bare not obeying is more so being The first and chiefest act of Resistance What cannot these Men break their Consciences to that can out of the duty of Passive Obedience infer the Obligation or at least the Lawfulness of actual Resistance because forsooth Passive Obedience is the first and chiefest act of actual Resistance I pray God deliver his Church from such Apostate Divines and his Anointed from such Rebel Subjects But now are we come to the very Fort-Royal of the Presbyterian Rebellion Thesis 352. If a Nation that is as he all along explains himself its representative Body wrong their King it is not Lawful for him to right himself by War because it is against the Common Good of which the Representatives are the only Judges by Thesis 356 357 358 367. That is to say that supposing the Parliament of Forty One had offer'd the King all those Injuries and Indignities that he so justly complained of yet when he went about to recover and assert his Soveraignty by force of Arms it was fighting against the Common Good and Representative Body of a Nation in which all Men are bound to Resist him because they are all bound by nature to defend the Common Good How helpless and deplorable is the condition of poor Princes when they are wrong'd they may not defend themselves whilst their Subjects may not only take away their Swords but tye their Hands and if they please to disable them forever cut them off too for the Common Good This is Fourty One true blew and I think a cast beyond it But what has a King no Remedy No none at all against the Representative Body of a Nation Methinks he might Dissolve them No says he That is but to betray the Trust of the Common-wealth Is there then no Remedy to ease themselves Yes yes If their injury be too great to be born they may lay down their Crowns at pleasure Crowns are â—ot like Lands that Men hold primarily Jure Domini They are not primarily the matter of Propriety Government is a means to Publick Good When any Man's possession of the Crown does cease to be a means to the Publick Good and this without the Peoples injury it is then his Duty to resign it and no injury to be deprived of it for the means is no means when it is against the End If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessary to their Welfare it is no injury to him Thank you good Mr. B. this is right Presbyterian courtesie to Kings to grant them leave to rid themselves of the Trouble of their Crowns and to revenge themselves too of their Rebellious Subjects by depriving them of a
prosecute more largely when I come to shew the Grounds and Reasons upon which this Duty of Universal Subjection is founded and these I shall demonstrate from the Use the Nature and the Original of Government that cannot subsist but upon its supposition And then I shall take an account of all the republican and antimonarchical Principles and shew that all their Hypotheses concerning Government first contrived by the Common-wealths-men of Greece stand upon no firmer bottom than meer fable and poetry and in particular that their fundamental Principle of deriving all Government from the People is built upon no wiser supposition then this That the World was once peopled with Men and Women that sprung out of the Earth both without a Creatour and without Parents And then in the last place shew that the Hildebrandinists of all Sects Bellarmine Suarez Mariana Lessius Becanus Boucherius and others on the Papal side Buchanan Junius Brutus Rutherford Mr. B. and other of the Presbyterian side all agree in this one Principle of deriving the Government from the People and make it the last pretence of all their pleas for resistance upon what account soever In the mean time I proceed upon the Authority of the Scriptures §. 8. That is the second advantage that the Christian Religion brings along with it for the security of Civil Government viz. the many Laws that it has injoyn'd to bind Subjects to an entire and absolute subjection The third is this That those that are entrusted with highest Authority in the Church are most severely forbidden to challenge to themselves any temporal power or dominion and strictly commanded to exercise their own jurisdiction with all manner of meekness and humility towards their Inferiours and an exemplary submission to their Superiours And this is a new Tye upon them beside all the former obligations from the nature of Christianity the doctrine of the Cross the Precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles in common to them with all other Christians to an entire and unreserved subjection Thus when our Saviour had constituted the Apostles supreme Governours in his Church he beats them all off from all Thoughts of worldly pride and ambition and instructs them to exercise their Power though it were so very great with that complyance and condescention as if they had in reality none at all For all our Saviour's Precepts to his Apostles to avoid domination relate wholly to the manner of exercising their Authority and not to the Authority it self as the Enemies to the Christian Church would force them to imply For that the Apostles were vested with true and proper Power is evident both from their Office all the Acts whereof we have shewn to be Authoritative and from our Saviour's own immediate Grant in which he expressly declares That he leaves to them and their Successours the same Power that himself had received from his Father So that if he had any real Authority at all so had they too and if they had none neither had he And therefore those several Texts that are usually alledged to take away the Power of the Church cannot be understood of any thing but the manner of its exercise without any pride or haughtiness and with all manner of gentleness and condescention to those that were under their Authority And if we take an Account of the particular passages themselves they will force us to take them in this sense and no other Thus when they were contending among themselves our Saviour calls them to him and tells them The Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise Authority upon them but it shall not be so among you But whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief or Ruler among you let him be your Servant even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Which words though they are alledged by Grotius in the Book of his Youth de Imperio against all manner of Authority in the Church beside that of perswasion which is none at all Yet in his Notes upon the Gospels he clearly shews the Vanity and the Falsehood of that Interpretation And no wonder when it is done so expressly by the Words themselves in which our Saviour shews his Apostles how they may observe this Rule by following his Example Now it is plain says he that it cannot be said of him that he had no Authority when he says of himself that he had all Power in Heaven and Earth and therefore it cannot refer to the Being of Authority it self but to its kind and the manner of using it That as he notwithstanding the greatness of his Dignity behaved himself rather like a Servant than a Lord and instead of imperious commanding his Subjects condescended to the lowest Offices towards them thereby to endear them to himself and the gentleness of his Government so should all Pastours and Governours in the Christian Church not insult and domineer over their Flocks not govern them with an arbitrary Power or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tyrannical dominion as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it nor enslave them to their own interest and insolence as the Roman Prefects did the Provinces particularly the Governours or Ethnarchs of Judaea who as Josephus informs us were known by the particular Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactours But to treat them with all gentleness and to be so far from using them like Slaves that they should rather behave themselves to them like Servants i. e. in short to mix nothing of Arrogance with their Authority And that truly becomes the Person and Dignity of a Christian Prelate as St. Chrysostom paraphrases upon it to be affable and courteous to be kind and gentle to be familiar and condescending to the meanest Persons this gains him respect with all Men and makes his Authority much greater then it would be without it Men will much more readily obey a Superiour that obliges more then he commands Whereas on the contrary says he if a Bishop be proud and surly or if rough and peevish or if when he ought to reprove he scold and braul or if when he should command he huffs or domineers or if he affect to be troublesome to his Inferiours and shew the greatness of his Power by nothing else then being pert and vexatious he justly exposes himself to the contempt of all Men loses the respect due to his Person and the Reverence due to his Place Nothing so odious or despicable as a Clown in any Authority but in Church Authority it is so offensive that the indignity of it is not to be express't it is so wide a contradiction to the Place and Office Now the sense of this Text being thus stated as it is by this Eloquent Father it fixes the meaning of all the rest thus when St. Peter exhorts the Pastors not to Lord it over God's heritage where it is all one whether
of the Primitive Church where we shall find the whole matter so fairly and so easily accorded that it is next to a miracle how it should ever be made so great a difficulty in these later times But it hapned in this as it did in most other things at the time of the Reformation that men saw themselves wrapt up they knew not how in woful Errours and Corruptions but did not and indeed as the World then stood could not immediately discover the true original state of the Church as it was at first setled by our Saviour and his Apostles and received into protection by Constantine and the Christian Emperours So that though they had Eye-sight enough and God knows very little would serve their turn to discern the follies and abuses of Rome they were at a loss how to fix the right Reformation and for want of the ancient Records of the Church that lay buried in dust and rubbish at that time could make but slow improvements in it So that before the true state of the Church could be clearly and fully discover'd most of them were setled in some way or other and after any new settlement it is very difficult to make any Alteration and therefore they continue in their first posture to this day But the Church of England at the very first Attempt resolving to reform it self by the Example of the Primitive Church and having the good fortune to retain the Apostolical form of Episcopal Government in subordination to the Royal Power set it self in a right way to Reformation And so as the state of things came to light by degrees brought its work to some competent Perfection For the Reformation of the Church after such an inveterate degeneracy must needs be a work of so great bulk and difficulty that it is an unreasonable thing to expect that it should be finisht at the first stroke So great a design as that must be a work of time and consideration to be reviewed and amended as the Master-Workmen shall find most convenient So as that they who had a Power first to begin it have an inherent right when ever they think fit to take an account of their own Work and if they find any flaws mistakes or defects in it to make them up by an after-care So that there must be a constant Power residing in the Church to enact or abolish Laws as it judges most serviceable to the present state of things And that is truly and properly the Church of England the Governours of it acting under the Allowance of the Sovereign Power by its establisht Laws and Constitutions with a constant power residing in themselves and their Successours to enact new Laws as they shall judge most beneficial to the Edification of the Church And it is a very crude notion of the Church of England as common as it is that it is to be found in its Canons Articles and Constitutions for that is only the Law and dead rule of the Church of England but the Church properly so call'd consists in its living Authority as setled by our Saviour by which these Laws were at first enacted and are or ought to be still executed and may in some cases be alter'd And that is the great difference between the Law and the Authority of the Church that one is alterable and the other is not The Authority of the Church may make new Laws and cancel old ones but that lasts the same for ever So that for men to talk of this or that Church without a particular form of Government setled in it by our Saviour's own Commission is to turn the Christian Church into a Chimaera and imaginary state of Fairies But as for the Church of England according to the design of its Reformation it consists of a National Synod of Bishops together with a select Convocation of Presbyters representing the whole Body of the Clergy in subjection to the Sovereign Power and in communion with the Catholique Church all the World over as far as it can be attain'd And this is contrived so agreeably to the Primitive Platform the Interest of Government the Nature of Christianity that there is little else defective in it then the honesty and the confidence to own it self and put its own Constitution into effectual practice But of that I shall discourse in its proper place §. 9. At present for the practice of the Primitive Churches Government within it self and as it related to the Civil State it must be consider'd in the two Periods before and after the Conversion of the Empire and by comparing the true face and posture of things in these two so different states we shall have an exact description of the Rights of the Church in all estates and conditions whatsoever But most of all of its easy complyance with the Rights of Civil Government in Christian States and of the safest way for Christian Sovereigns to govern and protect the Church within their Dominions without invading its inherent and unalienable Authority And then last of all I shall compare that Royal Supremacy that is acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England in Causes Ecclesiastical with the sense of the Ancient Church concerning the Authority of Emperours and with the Practice of Christian Princes in the Exercise of this Authority And by shewing their compleat Agreement shall from that Topick distinctly prove that we have in this as well as in other matters attain'd a good degree of Reformation First as for the Period of time before the Conversion of the Roman Empire there are two things to be consider'd first their behaviour towards the Civil Government whilst it supprest and persecuted the Christian Faith Secondly the exercise of their own Authority within themselves From both which it will appear that the Church as a Society founded by Christ challenged a Jurisdiction distinct from and Independant upon the Civil State and that this Jurisdiction was so far from interfering with or abating of the Sovereignty of Princes that it bound them to the strictest Allegiance and Subjection to the most inhumane Persecutors And the Story of this Interval whilst the powers of the Church and the World were separate and indeed as much as it was possible opposite will set before us a much clearer State of the Nature and Extent of the two Jurisdictions then we can have from the Practice of Christian States in which the two Powers concurring in the same Acts of Government it is not altogether so easie to discern their distinct influences but will withal give us the fullest Character of true Christian Loyalty from their practice under the hardest usage and severest persecutions But most of all from their Principles upon which they founded their Obligation to their Practice and when it appears upon what grounds and reasons they submitted to the utmost cruelty of the Civil Government that will prevent the common shift made by all Factious Parties against the Authority of their Example
to their demands and justifie them in their Schism because they dissent not from her in any matters clearly reveal'd which alone the Church has Power to impose and to charge the Church of Tyranny for daring to impose any other conditions of Communion then what are imposed by Divine Authority An excellent way of accommodation this in behalf of the Church of England to condemn her whole practice of illegal and unwarrantable Usurpation and allow the Pleas of the Dissenters just and reasonable And what is worst of all to take away all Government in the Church for ever and the Church it self too when it is evident from common sense that it can never subsist without a Legislative Authority within it self but that I shall have occasion to discourse of more copiously hereafter when I come to shew what injury is done to the Church of England by these false Principles of accommodation I shall at present content my self with proving it by experience and representing the particular Laws made by the Ancient Governors of the Church from time to time to secure and provide for its own Peace and Tranquility And by it I shall make good these three considerable Points First the great Authority inherent in them and independent on any Civil Power Secondly their great wisdom in the use and exercise of it for by the particulars it will appear that they generally acted upon wise and prudent reasons And thirdly the absolute necessity of it when we shall see by the Example of every age that there is no way of preserving any manner of Peace in the Church without it And to begin with the first Decree made by the Apostles themselves to accommodate the contrary prejudices of Jews and Gentiles If they had obliged the Gentiles to comply with the whole Law of Moses that would have look't like an attempt to bring them under the old intolerable Bondage and tempt them rather to renounce Christianity then submit to such a grievous Yoke And if they had wholly exempted them from the Mosaick Law that would have as much endangered the Apostacy of the Jews thinking that they should thereby have renounced the God of the Law for it was not easie to every capacity to distinguish between rejecting the Law and the Lawgiver And therefore to satisfie and avoid the prejudices of both Parties they agreed To lay no greater burthens then these necessary things that they abstain from Meats offer'd to Idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood Where by things necessary it is plain that they mean things necessary at that time and place for that they were not so in all times and places is evident not only from the direction of their Synodical Epistle to the particular Churches of Syria and Cilicia but from their not imposing the same Decree upon other Churches that were not in the same Circumstances In the Churches of Syria and Cilicia that confined upon Judaea the Jews were very numerous and therefore to avoid offending i. e. tempting them to renounce the Christian Faith it was requisite to make it a standing rule to them at that time that all Christians abstain from the Oblations to Idols and that would wholly prevent their great fear of Idolatry But on the contrary because the Church of Corinth consisted chiefly of Gentiles the same rule was not made peremptory and universal to them but they were left to their own liberty to eat Meats offered to Idols as they judged most consistent with Christian prudence and charity as they are directed by their Ghostly Father St. Paul This is all that I can make of that great Council and though they were endued with the Holy Ghost yet they proceeded by no other Rule then common prudence and discretion And if they had taken the same method that our Schismatiques and Pacificators would oblige the present Church to to search for a determination of this casual dispute in their Masters own Laws I doubt they would have been very much at a loss to have found any thing like such a decree amongst all his Precepts And yet there was as much reason that they should refer all Acts of Government to be determin'd by his own express Decree as that their Successors should refer them to theirs But next to this Apostolical Synod the Apostolical Canons are the greatest and earliest Demonstration of the Legislative Authority of the Christian Church being compiled by their next Successors in the second and third Centuries by which we understand the true settlement of the Church as the Apostles left it for all the Canons relating to Government are no new Laws but only declarations of old Customs so that though they were not Apostolical Laws they were true and early Records of Apostolical Customs and by them the practice of Church-Government was so entirely setled that they were ever after the Rule and Pattern to the determinations of following Councils And most of the chief Canons both General and Provincial were only Ratifications of these old Decrees to recover their just Authority when any of them had been neglected or violated or additional provisions in pursuance of their general design in new particular Cases For which it seems every Age found matter enough to suppress some Mens extravagant and wanton fancies and it was the new rising of Schisms and Heresies that gave occasion to enacting all the Laws of the Church But these Apostolical Canons being as it were the Institutes or Magna Charta of the Ecclesiastical Laws and being withal enacted in this Period of time that we are now in by pure Ecclesiastical Authority I shall give a brief view of them to let the Reader see the exact Model of the Primitive Church as reduced to practice and brought to perfection by the Apostles and their immediate Successors In the first place therefore because nothing has so great an influence upon the welfare of the Church as the setting up good and wise Governors over it great care is taken against rash Ordination of Bishops so that though every Bishop has an inherent Right in himself to conveigh his own Authority to another yet is it here fixt and has remain'd so through all Ages as a standing Law to the Church that every Bishop be Consecrated by three Bishops at least or two in cases of necessity Now though this Rule has been observed and practiced in all Churches over all the World and is so highly useful to the good Government of the Church by not entrusting a matter of such weight to the discretion of a single Person yet I believe it will be a very hard task to find any thing like a clear Precept requiring it in the Holy Scriptures So apparently repugnant is the principle of the Projectors of Accommodation against unscriptural impositions to the very first Law that was made in the Christian Church after the Apostles and if they pleased it might as well be used to take away this prudent Practice
Opinion of the great merit of Caelibacy was one of the first Superstitions that invaded the Christian Church and was in every Age more busie and forward than any other though I do not find that it could ever obtain the force of Law in the Eastern Church till the Council in Trullo in the year 691 by whom Bishops and no other are forbidden to cohabit with their Wives after Consecration and as that is the first Canon of this kind so is it a flat contradiction to the Apostolical Canon And though the Council endeavour to excuse it yet they do but the more grosly entangle themselves by their own Apology and instead of defending their fault confess it For when they have made the Canon they tell us that they do not intend thereby to contradict the Apostolical Canon when the very making of it is an express contradiction to it And in the very next Canon they condemn the Church of Rome for prohibiting marriage to Priests and Deacons and make good their Decree from this very Canon that equally allows it to all Orders But above all commend me to Gratian upon this Argument who when he has in two whole Chapters recited several Ancient Canons of the Church against this Superstition especially those severe ones of the Council of Gangra and last of all this last mention'd Canon in Trullo in which the marriage of Presbyters and Deacons is expresly warranted he begins his next Chapter with this general Assertion Servanda est ergò continentia ab omnibus in sacris ordinibus constitutis And then proves it by the Decrees of later Popes injoining Caelibacy as a Duty of Piety to all Orders of the Clergy But if they can thus confidently justifie their Innovations out of the Ancients by concluding contrary to their own avowed and express Sense I confess they may make good any Cause though I should think it would be much more adviseable to let fall such a Cause as can be no better way defended Another remarkable Law that was Enacted during this Interval by meer Ecclesiastical Authority was the exclusion of all voluntary Eunuchs from Holy Orders And that was made upon occasion of the Heresie of the Valesians who thought themselves bound to this severity against themselves by too rigid an Interpretation of some passages of our Saviour especially that of St. Matthew's Gospel 19. 12. And the same Canon was afterward renewed in a Synod at Alexandria against Origen upon the same account and after that by the great Council of Nice upon occasion of the fact of Leontius who being a Presbyter and very much delighting in the conversation of a young Virgin by name Eustolia and being upbraided with the scandal of using so much freedom with her to prevent that without losing her Society he made the same attempt upon himself that Origen had done for which he was deposed by the Council though afterwards he was contrary to the Canon or rather in defiance to the Council promoted by the Eusebian Faction with whom he sided to the great See of Antioch But hereby we may see the necessity of a Legislative Power in the Church without which there would be no means to restrain all the wild Conceits and Extravagancies that Superstition can blow into Mens fancies So exorbitant a Principle is it so inconsistent with the Peace and preservation of the Church so absurd so foolish and contrary to the Common Sense of Mankind that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governors of the Church but what is expresly imposed by the Word of God There are many more Examples in this Interval both of the settlement of that Polity in the Church that I have above described and of divers wise and prudent Laws made upon particular Occasions but to avoid being too tedious and yet to do the work effectually I shall confine my self to the Writings of St. Cyprian in whose time the State of the Church was brought to perfection and who I may be bold to say understood it as well as any Writer of the Christian Church either before or after his own time and who has stated the whole matter with the greatest clearness and strength of Reason and reduced it to practice with the most unblameable prudence and wisdom and therefore I shall give a more particular and exact account of his Sense of the Government and Unity of the Catholick Church both for the enlightening of some Mens minds who pretend to be so dull that they cannot understand how it should be govern'd in way of external Polity and for a proof of the exact agreement of the Church of England in its design'd Model of Reformation with this Ancient State of the Christian Church This is made much more easie at this time by the late labour of a very learned Prelate of our own in digesting his Writings that had hitherto lay not a little confused into their due and exact order of time For when we certainly know at what time and upon what occasion every discourse was written it must needs make it much more easie and much more useful then otherwise the discourse could have made it self For that Unity is a very desirable thing is agreed on all hands the only dispute is wherein it consists Some will have it to be only an Union of Faith and Charity others of External Polity so as that all Christians are some way or other United under one Government And these we may subdivide into two Parties Either those that place the Unity of the Catholick Church in a Subjection to one single Monarch Or those that set up an Obligation to a Political Unity among all Churches under several Governments So that though every particular Church or Diocess have Supreme Government within it self as to all things that concern its own State yet it is accountable to the Catholick Church i. e. to all other Churches for the Peace of the whole For though a Church may be at Unity within it self yet if it do any thing injurious to the peace of Government in any other Church it becomes Schismatical to the whole Body of the Catholick Church presuming as much as in it lies to overthrow the Discipline of all other Churches This as I take to be the true State of the Controversie so to be St. Cyprian's sense of it §. 12. And the first Principle that runs through all his Writings and lies at the bottom of all his Notions concerning Church Unity is that there is but one Episcopacy setled in the Church by Divine Appointment distributed among the several Bishops of the Catholique Church every one retaining the whole Power within his own Bishoprick as he expresses it like a Lawyer Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every one holds his own share with full Title and Possession For the word in solidum is a Law-term denoting a Plenitude of Title so that though an Estate
he had never been proceeded against This is the main stress of his Argument upon this Subject which he farther shews by the power of inflicting and abating Pennance that is connected with the Authority of Excommunication or inflicting Censures And the force of this Argumentation is so evident and unavoidable that I must confess my self not a little surprised how it was possible that our Learned Adversary could any way baulk or shift the Evidence of its Conviction Especially when himself saw so clearly that an Ecclesiastical Unity of Government in the Church is absolutely necessary to its preservation for though he founds it only upon the Confederation and consent of Churches and not any divine Command yet he founds that Consent upon its necessity to the Peace of the Church This course says he was very prudential and useful for preserving the truth of Religion and Unity of Faith against Heretical Devices springing up in that free age for maintaining Concord and good Correspondence among Christians together with an Harmony in Manners and Discipline for that otherwise Christendom would have been shatter'd and crumbled into numberless Parties discordant in Opinion and Practice and consequently alienated in affection which inevitably among most men doth follow difference of Opinion and Manners so that in short time it would not have appeared what Christianity was and consequently the Religion being overgrown with differences and discords must have perished Now is not this a very fair concession for one who is labouring only to prove that this Unity of Government among several Churches is not necessary to the Church when without it Christianity must have certainly perish't But this dropt from his own natural sense and ingenuity that could not but acknowledge the Evidence of so clear a truth But though it was an utter subversion of his whole design yet it seems he was so intent in the pursuit of the Argument that he had undertaken that he overlook't even his own thoughts when they stood in his way And now after this it is so easie to overthrow every particular part of his discourse that were it not for his Authority it would be needless But because by reason of that it must be done I shall do it with all possible brevity First then the name of Church is attributed to the whole body of Christiaans which implyeth Unity And this he confesses it does but determines not the kind or ground thereof there being several kinds any whereof may suffice to ground that comprehensive Appellation But this by his own Confession is most apparently false for it determines it self to that kind that consists in an Unity of Government and the ground of that determination of it is its necessity to the Peace and Welfare of the Church and therefore without this kind of Unity no other sort will suffice to ground the Appellation because without it there can be no other Unity this is necessary to all other sorts and therefore without it they are not capable of that name But to deal plainly the Argument is not here sairly represented for Mr. Thorndike does not argue merely from the name of the Church but from the nature of the thing to which the name is applied the Church being a Society or Body Politick which is the first thing to be either proved or supposed in this dispute and that being made out then upon that supposition the Argument is very clear that one Church is one Society And therefore when the name Church is frequently given in Scripture not only to particular Churches but to the whole Catholique Church that must be one Society united under one Government for without Government there is no Society and therefore one Society founds one Government Now the Argument being thus laid its force lyes in the nature of things not an empty name and it makes its own way by its own reasonableness Especially when we consider the Bond of this Society viz. The Communion in Divine Offices to which every Member of the Catholick Church having a right the right of all must consist in that one Communion and that one Communion cannot subsist without one Government so perspicuously does the Unity of the Catholick Church infer and inforce an Unity of Government in it The next Argument and Answer are to the same purpose viz. from our Belief of the Holy Catholique Church from whence Mr. Thorndike infers its Political Unity but our Author says it may as well be understood of any other kind of Unity But to that it is easily answered that as long as it is a Society and so must all multitudes of men if they are not riots it cannot be understood without this Unity And therefore it is not precariously assumed and obtruded as is pretended but warrants it self by the reason it brings along with it that determines it to this special kind of Unity But he adds the genuine sense of the meaning of this Article may be our profession to adhere to the Body of Christians and to maintain Charity and communicate in holy Offices with them and to be willing to observe the Laws and Orders Establish't by the Authority or consent of Churches This is very true and very false for if we are under no Obligation to all this then all this meaning is Non-sence and all these kinds of Unity are nothing for if we make this profession of our own free choice and accord then we may choose whether we will do all this or no and it is all one whether we adhere to the body of Christians in Charity Communion and Obedience to the Laws of the Church or whether we refuse it for if it be no duty by vertue of Obligation then it may be left undone as well as done But if all Christians and all Churches are obliged to it then indeed 't is true but then are they United under one Common Government and the making and keeping of this Profession is not voluntary but it is bound upon them by the indispensable Laws of Christianity 3. The Apostles delivered one Rule of faith to all Churches the embracing of which was a necessary condition to admission into the Church therefore Christians are combin'd together in one political Body But it is answered First That from hence can only be infer'd That Christians should consent in one Faith Yes but an obligation to consent in one Faith makes them one Political Body for what if any Church forsake this Rule are they not punishable for it by other Churches If they are they are then combined together in one Political Body If they are not then there is no remedy against Schisms and Heresies and beside that there may be as many different Faiths as Churches and therefore if all Christians are obliged to an Unity of Faith and if they cannot be so without an Unity of Government then the consequence is very strong from the Unity of one to infer the Unity of the other But Secondly By this reason all
measure of Peace and Unity Insomuch that great numbers of the Circumoellians themselves as St. Austin tells us were reduced Epist. 48. to Sobriety and here it is that he professes that though hitherto he had been an enemy to all Penal Laws in matters of Religion yet now he was quite baffled out of that Opinion not so much by Arguments as Examples and particularly of his own City that though it had been almost swallowed up with the Faction yet it was now so reduced to the Catholick Unity by the fear of these Imperial Laws that in a short time it so universally detested the Schism as if it had never had any footing or entertainment there How many says he that were engaged in the Party by Education and never consider'd upon what grounds they separated from the Church being awakened by these Laws to examine into the Nature of the Schism found nothing of moment enough in it for which they should expose themselves to so great Damages these were without difficulty made Catholicks How many that only followed the Authority of their Guides and understood not the difference between the Church and the Donatists How many that had been abused with Stories and false Reports of the Catholicks how many that thought it indifferent with which Party they sided give God and the Emperor thanks for frighting them out of their sloath and stupidity And that says he is the most proper use of Penal Laws to awaken men to a sight of their Error in which they have been detain'd by meer carelesness or wantonness and in all Schisms an affected Petulancy is ever the strongest Ingredient And so things continued in a quiet posture till the death of Stilicho in the year 408 but upon that the Heathens and Donatists that were all along one Party against the Catholicks raise a Report that the Laws against them were made and contrived Aâ—gust Ep. 129 ad Olimpium Comitem A Courtier whom he informs of the whole Business purely by the design of Stilicho without the Emperors consent and therefore as if their Authority had dyed together with their Author they break out into their old Out-rages against the Catholicks Which coming to the Emperors knowledge he immediately dispaches a Rescript to Curtius the Prefect of Rome De Hareticis leg 43. declaring that it was his Imperial Will that all the Laws against the Donatists Heathens and Hereticks should continue in full force strictly requiring him and all his Officers to put them in effectual Execution And this was followed by another Rescript to Donatus Prefect of Africa who obey'd it with that rigour that St. Austin was forced out of his meer good nature to write to him to spare their lives Ex occasione terribilium Judiâ—um ac legum ne aeterni judicii paenas Epist. 129. incidant corrigi eos cupimus non necari nec disciplinam circa eos negligi volumus nec suppliciis quibus digni sunt exerceri Sic ergo eorum peccata compesce ut sint quos paeniteat peccavisse Quaesumus igitur ut cum Ecclesiae causas audis quamlibet nefariis injuriis appetitam vel afflictam esse cognoveris potestatem occidendi te habere obliviscaris Upon occasion of the dreadful Laws and Executions against them we cannot but desire lest they should fall into everlasting punishment that they may be chastised but not kill'd that Discipline may be exercised upon them but that they may not be punish't with the utmost Justice that they deserve and therefore so correct their sins that they may not be past the State of Repentance And we beseech you that when you hear the causes of the Church though you will find it assaulted and oppressed with intolerable injuries forget then that you have the power of life and death But still the Emperour De bâ—reticis legib 45 46. proceeds with more vigour and the year following injoins the strict Execution of these Laws to his Officers and Judges under severe Penalties to themselves of loss of Place Fines and Banishment with a farther reserve of his displeasure And here he comes so close to the Schismaticks as not only to banish their Preachers but every one that shall but talk or dispute in behalf of the Schism And so by this means things continued quiet once more till the Invasion of the Empire and sacking of Rome by the Goths when Attalus sent an Army against Heraclian the Praefect for the Conquest of Africa and if he had Succeeded in it he had been compleat Master of the Western Empire In this streight either for fear that they should join with the Enemy or because they grew insolent in their demands as they did to Constantine in the time of the Licinian War the Emperor grants them liberty of Conscience for some time But being quit of the danger by the speedy Overthrow of the Goths in Africk he immediately dispatches a Rescript at the Request of the African Fathers who were already highly sensible of the mischiefs of this Liberty to the same Proconsul to reverse De hereticis l. 51. his former Decree that had been extorted from him by the necessity of the times and now probably being afresh incensed by their fawcy behaviour in his affliction makes the Schism it self Capital or to be punished paenâ proscriptionis sanguinis For before this time none were to be put to death but those that had deserved it by their Tumults Disorders and Infurrections but now the very frequenting their Meetings was forbidden under no less Penalty §. VI. But being now resolved to put an end to the trouble that they had given him from the beginning of his Reign he resolved in the first place to try if it were possible to do any good upon them by a friendly Conference which as himself says he did by the perswasion of the African Bishops and it was chiefly devised by St. Austin to undeceive the People For their Leaders still persisted to abuse them with old Tales and Stories notwithstanding that they had been so shamefully exposed an hundred years since but that was beyond the memory and by consequence the knowledge of the People and therefore St. Austin concluded that the most effectual way to reduce them was to let the People know what was done in Constantine's time in the Synods of Rome and Arles and before the Emperour himself at Milan and the shameful discoveries of their Forgeries about Caecilian and Faelix of Aptung by Ingentius the Notary and Nundinarius the Deacon And this he doubted not would make them see through the whole Cheat that had been put upon them from the beginning and forever expose the impudence and dishonesty of their Leaders Quod verò ante centum fermè annos Majores nostri cum iis Donatistis egerant jam populorum memoria non tenebat haec igitur necessitas compulit at saltem Gestis nostrâ Collatione confectis eorum contunderemus inverecundiam
and cancell'd the Acts of another Bishop against his own Presbyter and endeavour'd to engage the Approbation of the whole Church to his irregular actings that was apparently setting up an open Schism in the Christian Church And so Alexander represents it in his encyclical Epistle and loads Eusebius with the violation of the Apostolical Canon viz. the 33d which injoyns that no Clergy-man Excommunicate by his own Bishop be received to Communion by another But Eusebius being a man of a proud Spirit regards it not neither was this his first breach of the Canons having skipt out of one Bishoprick into another which is there severely forbidden and he was the first man that I know of who was guilty of that boldness against that Sacred Law of the Church but instead of desisting from his Schismatical proceedings endeavours to spread the Schism as far as he could and his Letters fly abroad every where to engage the Bishops to his Faction by which means he being then a great Man and a Favourite of the Emperour the Court then residing at Nicomedia all the Bishops in the World were in a moment engaged on one side or other not upon the account of Arius but Eusebius whose Pride and Ambition was the only cause of all this confusion this so alarms Constantine that he dispatches away his great Favourite Osius of Corduba with his Letters to Alexandria if it were possible to allay the heats of both Parties Though Baronius is very earnest in it that Osius was first sent by Pope Silvester as his Legate into the East to Constantine by whom he was arm'd with Letters to Alexandria where he wrought great wonders by vertue of his Legantine Authority And in this the Cardinal is very vehement and often repeats it with extraordinary assurance though there is not the least intimation of it in all the ancient Historians who make not any mention of the Pope in all this business but impute the whole transaction to Constantine's own care and management Now the Scope of the Emperors Letters was to perswade and exhort them wholly to lay aside the Controversie as nice and unnecessary and not of weight enough to deserve a determination Though as Sandius tells the story the Emperour lays the blame of all upon the Bishop but this not only without any Authority but against the express words of the Letter that equally blames them both for their too much curiosity about a vain Question as he calls it And as for the Letter it self I shrewdly suspect it to have been the contrivance of Eusebius of Nicomedia who was very intimate with the Emperour and impos'd upon him all along in this whole Affair I am sure the Scope of the Letter is exactly agreeable with Eusebius his whole carriage in this Controversie which was not to have it determin'd either way but only silenced as an over curious speculation I know indeed that he is on all hands represented as a Ring-leader of the Arian Faction but it is a mistake that has brought confusion upon the whole History and made the Arian Heresie seem of a much greater extent then it ever was whereas Eusebius and his Party were no less Enemies to the Arians then to the Orthodox and yet it was they that all along made the greatest shew and noise in the Contest And as for the Arian Faction it was wholly supprest by the Nicene Council and all the Tumults that were made after that are owing to the Eusebians who were as forward as the Orthodox to anathematize the Arians but then they must have the Decree of the Nicene Council reverst and what work they made about it we shall see when we come to the Reign of Constantius all whose Persecutions of the Catholicks were meerly raised by these mens wise indiscretion and had it not been for their unseasonable tampering prudence and moderation the Arian Heresie could never have lift up its head more after the Nicene Council But to return to Constantine who finding the Contest too hot at Alexandria to be allayed by the mediation of Hosius and withal the flame too far spread into other Churches to be quench't by one mans industry he resolves upon a General Council to compose this and some other spreading Controversies particularly that concerning the time of Easter which though it had slept ever since Pope Victor began now to raise new heats in several parts of Christendom The Council being met at the time and place appointed he entertains them with an Oration exhorting to Peace and Unity but neither prescribes nor commands any thing only desires them to examine things impartially and by their Authoritative determination of the present Controversies to settle the Peace of the Church forever as appears not only from the Tenour of the Speech it self and the Emperours behaviour in the Council but from the challenge of St. Ambrose to Valentinian si conferendum de fide sacerdoâ—um debet esse ista câ—llâ—tio sicut factum est sub Constantino augustae memoriae principe qui nullas leges ante praemisit sed liberum dedit judicium Sacerdotibus If there be a consultation about the Faith that is the work oâ— the Priesthood as it was managed under the Emperor Constantine of Glorious Memory who prescribed no Laws beforehand but allowed freedom of judgment to the Bishops And the Council being fairly left to the free use of that Authority that thev had received from our Saviour they proceeded as fairly in the Exercise of it And in the first place The Acts of the Council at Alexandria against Arius are produced and the interposition of Eusebius in his behalf inquired into whereby it appear'd which side had actâ—d according to the Laws of the Church and the Arians are after a fair hearing with very little Debate condemn'd by the Unanimous Vote of the Council though Sandiuâ— affirms from no Authority but his own that they would not so much as hear Arius his Arguments much less Examine them But though the Council agreed in the Subscription to the Orthodox Faith yet the Eusebians for a time refused to subscribe to the Anathema against the Arians because they did not think them so bad as they were represented But here again our honest Arian Historiâ—grapher tells us from Eutychius and other Oriental Monuments i. e. Modern and Barbarous Arabick Pamphlets that there were above 2000 Bishops present at the Council and that all exceptingonly 31â— which was the full number of the Council according to all the true Records voted for Arius but that Constantine himself over-ruled the whole business by violence and force of Arms. And then whereas the Emperor to abet the Decree of the Council commands the Arian Books to be burnt and especially Arius his Thaleia upon pain of death and banish't some of the Arians into Illiricum this Sandius is not ashamed to say was done by the Authority of the Council it self and withal that the Bishops
you readily receive this Order as a true divine Command for whatever is agreed on in the Holy Councils of Bishops is to be taken as the Will of God But then it is remarkable that the Emperour only imposes this Decree of the Council by its own Authority and does not back it as he does that against Arianism with secular Penalties for what reasons himself best knew it is enough that it was not needful for by the bare Authority of the Council the controversie was laid asleep forever nor do I remember that after that time we hear of any material Contention about it Now by the whole management of this business the Conclusion is evident that the Emperour thought that Laws Ecclesiastick ought to be made by the Ecclesiastick State and when they were so that they were Valid and Obligatory by their own Authority though himself had power to enforâ—e them with Civil Snactions as he judged it serviceable to the advancement of Religion and the Peace of Government §. VIII And so the Great Council was dismist as well as summon'd by the Emperour with that success he desired in the unanimous Condemnation of the Arian Heresie insomuch that in that great number of Bishops that were there present there were no more then two that refused to subscribe the Decrees of the Council Secundus and Theonas as Eusebius himself informs us both in the life of Constantine and in his Epistle to his Diocess and it is from his Authority that Theodoret corrects the Errour boâ—h of Soorates and Zozomen who set down six Dissenters that is beside those two Eusebius of Nicomedia Theognis of Nicaea Maris of Calcedon and Eusebius of Caesareâ— but though it be true that these were the great Sticklers at first against the admission of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Faith yet is it certain from Eusebius his own account of it that they all at last acquiesced in the determination of the Council and Athanasius is witness of this not only for this Eusebius of Caesarea but his Namesake of Nicomedia And here even Philostorgius himself who is miserably lost thâ—â—â—â— this whole Story and every where betrays his ignorance by his confusion of times places and persons as well as his imperfect and false Relations yet here I say he happens to report the matter accurately enough though his Disciple Sandius who always takes great pains to be in the wrong forsakes both him and all the ancient Historians to follow the imperfect Story of Nicetâ—s who sets down twenty two Dissenters and among them Eusebius of Caesarea But on the other hand St. Jerom tells us and that as he pretends from the very Acts of the Council that not only these Bishops but Arius himself and his two Companions Euzoius and Achillas the last whereof though but a Presbyter Sandius is so ignorant as to take him for the Bishop that was Predecessor to Alexander were upon submission received into the Churches favouâ— but this I take to be one of St. Jerom's hasty slips for as all Authors beside agree that he was immediately banisht so it is very unlikely that if he had recanted and been received into the Church that Constantine should at that time have publisht that severe Rescript against him that his Sect should be call'd Porphyrians i. e. Enemies to the Christian Faith and that his Books should be burnt upon pain of death But beside that is there had been any signs of Repentance in Arius we should certainly have had an account of it in the Synodical Epistle of the Council to the Church of Alexandria whereas on the contrary they bemoan the Calamity into which he had not only cast himself but drawn after him Theonas and Secundus two Egyptian Bishops and tâ—e only two Bishops that stuck to the Arian cause into the same Pit of Destruction And that could be nothing else but banishment as appears from the words immediately following in which they congratulate to the Churches of Egypt their deliverance from those wicked and turbulent men and accordingly the Historians Socrates and Sozomen tell us that Arius was recall'd from banishment not long after the Council and not long after him Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea who had been banisht from their Sees by the Emperous not at the time of the Council with Arius but some time after as is evident from the Emperours own Epistle to the Nicomedians in which he declares the reasons of their banishment viz. That though they had subscribed the Nicene Faith yet after their return home they had received some Arians into Communion that the Emperour had removed from Alexandria for the security of the Peace of that Church and that wasthefault of the Eusebians in this whole affair that though they were not Arians they thought that they might communicate with them as it is evident from the Synodof Alexandria in their excellent Synodical Epistle who do not in the least accuse the Eusebians of Arianism but only of holding Communion with them Not long after the just Banishment of these two trimming Bishops Arius is upon his submission restored into the bosom of the Church but with a peremptory command never to return to Alexandria upon which the banish't Bishops are awakened and encouâ—aged to endeavour their own Restitution in that as they plead in their own behalf when the person really guilty was absolved themselves who had never followed his Heresie but embraced the Decrees of the Council in all things and subscribed the Faith of Con-Substantial could not but be concern'd at least to deâ—â—ver themselves from the very suspicion of that Hereâ—â—e that they never own'd and therefore as they had before subscribed the â—â—â—th of the Council with which they â—â—y the Council was then well satisfied without subscribing the Anathema so now when they were ready to give an entire assent and subscribe even that too as well as the Form of Faith they hope 't it would not only give them complete satisfaction but move them to intercede with the Emperour for their Restitution And that was easily obtain'd from him who was desirous of nothing more then the Peace and Concord of the Church But Eusebius being of an haughty and implacable Spirit Studies nothing but revenge against Athanasius who was the chief man though in an inferiour station that had born down himself and his whole Party in the Council And beside his particular spite against the person of Athanasius his Party could not digest the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates relates and therefore raised a new War about it notwithstanding that they agreed with the Catholicks about the whole Doctrine of the Trinity When both affirmed says he one Godhead subsisting in Three Persons yet I know not how it came to pass they were always contending about it And this we shall find exactly true that after the Council of Nice they never in the least appeared in behalf of
viz. that they submitted for want of strength to make resistance because it will shew that they thought themselves obliged to suffer any thing from the Government rather then resist by the most Sacred and indispensable Laws of their Religion And first as for their Patience and Submission under all kinds of Cruelties and Oppressions it is so remarkable so entire so without reserve or exception that if it were possible the height and glory of their practice exceeded the Gallantry of their Masters Precepts And though they were eminent for all other Vertues yet in this of patience cheerfulness and magnanimity under sufferings they out-did themselves It was the hight and perfection of all their goodness it was the wonder and astonishment of their Enemies and the glory and if any thing could be so the very boast of their Religion Numberless are both the Instances of this Practice in the Records of the Church and the Assertions in the Writings of the ancient Doctors of it to own and justifie their Obligation to it But to transcribe them would be an endless work and would take up the greatest part of the Records of the first three hundred years that are for the most part employed about these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eusebius stiles them these peaceable Wars of Martyrs and Confessors It is enough that in all that time there is not one instance of any Christians making any forcible defence or joyning in any Sedition against their Governors Though if there had been any miscarriages in that kind that could have been no objection against the truth of the Doctrine it self which is to be taken from the general Practice and Sense of the Church not from the irregularities of a few private persons And yet so far was it from that that to me it looks like Wonder and Miracle that among all the Primitive Christians who lived under Pagan and persecuting Emperors till the time of Constantine the Great which takes in the Interval of three hundred and forty years there should not be one instance of any one Christian that either taught or practised the Doctrine of resistance in any case whatsoever but that on the contrary they unanimously both taught and practised the Duty of Passive Obedience as one of the greatest and most indispensable Laws of their Religion And first as for the publick Records the Canons and Laws of the Church the case is the same here as that of Parricide in old Rome the Crime was so unknown and so unsuspected that no Provision was made against it For among all the Canonical Decrees and Censures of the Ancient Church which were all enacted to restrain some present miscarriages there is not one to be found that forbids or punishes the Sin of Resistance to Lawful Superiors The Christians of the Primitive Church were so firmly fix't in their Duty here by our Saviour's and his Apostles Precepts and by the constant Instructions and Unanimous Sense of their Pastours and Teachers that they supposed that they could not make any resistance to the most unjust violence of their Persecutors without renouncing Christianity it self And that is the reason why this Crime was then never restrained by Ecclesiastical Censures because it was then never committed And though there are scarce any other Sins for which the Church has not appointed proper Penances because they were some time or other put in practice yet the sin of Rebâ—llion was the only Crime for which it had no Penance because there never was any one instance of it to give any â—ccasion for a Law against it Nay so far was the Church from doing any thing prejudicial to the Rights of Sovereign Powers that it was careful and tender of the Interests of Families in pursuance of its Fundamental Principle that Christianity was to make no alteration in any Civil Rights whatsoever And therefore in the 82 Apostolical Canon it is provided That no Servant be admitted into Holy Orders without his Master's consent because as they give the reason of the Law that would be a subversion of Families And for that reason it was made one of the Articles framed against St. Chrysostom by his Adversaries in the Synod under the Oak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he had Ordain'd other Mens Servants before they were set at liberty And in the third Canon of the Council of Gangra it is Decreed That whoever teaches Servants to forsake their Masters upon the account of Religion be Anathematised This Synod of Gangra was assembled against a particular Sect of Fanatiques in Armenia that under the pretence of a more refin'd and spiritual Religion became perfect Ranters and Levellers and so subverted all Rights both Sacred and Civil as they are excellently described in an Epistle of the Bishops of the Synod to the Bishops of Armenia prefixt to their Canons and among the many other disorders into which these wild Enthusiasts â—an themselves this was one that they taught Servants to run away from their Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the pretext of Godliness which as well as all their other absurd Principles is here justly and as Zonaras observes in pursuance of the Apostolical Doctrine Anathematifed These are all the Canons that I know of in the Ancient Church that concern Mens Civil Rights so rarely were they invaded or violated among the Primitive Christians but the first Canons that I meet with against Rebellion were the three Anathema's of the Council of Toledo in the year 633 When the Romans being driven out of Spain by the Goths and they being settled in the peaceful Government of the Country after the death of Cinthilas who first obtain'd the Crown and the Peoples consent to it Sisinandus his Son summon'd this Council in the first year of his Reign to Anathematise all Persons that should any way attempt any thing against his Crown Life or Dignity But this was meerly contrived for the security of his Government against the Romans and to preserve his new Subjects from Revolting to their old Masters and was not made to condemn the Doctrine of Resistance as if it had been taught at that time but to abet their Oath of Allegiance and for that reason the Anathema upon the Offender is founded upon the sin of Perjury The next passage that I remember to provide against all Rebellion is the fragment of a Synod held by Alexius Patriarch of Constantinople under the younger Constantinus Porphyrogenneta who began his Reign in the year 975. In which all defections from or insurrections against the Emperour are Anathematised and so is the Priest that gives absolution to any Rebels before they return to their Duty and Allegiance The occasion of this Law I know not but whatever it was I know no other of the same nature till the Hildebrandine Apostacy whose barbarous proceedings against the Emperour Henry the Fourth were immediately censured and condemned by a Council of Thirty Bishops assembled at Brixia in the year 1080 and