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cause_n	effect_n	original_a	sin_n	2,906	5	6.4801	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36461	The triumph of Christianity, or, The life of Cl. Fl. Julian, the Apostate with remarks, contain'd in the resolution of several queries : to which is added, Reflections upon a pamphlet, call'd Seasonable remarks on the fall of the Emperor Julian, and on part of a late pernicious book, entituled, A short account of the life of Julian, &c.	Dowell, John, ca. 1627-1690.	1683 (1683)	Wing D2057; ESTC R8708	83,984	256

burning upon an Altar dissipates Thunder and Prayer averts the anger of Heaven Qu. V. If Christianity hath such an innate purity and glory how comes it to pass that Christians should so violently persecute Christians IF such an Intrinsick worth be in Religion how comes it to pass that Christians are so cruel to Christians that no sort of men prosecute one another with greater violence and hatred than Christians do 'T is a sad Character that Ammianus Marcellinus gives of Christians No Tygers nor Wolves so cruel as Christians to Christians Those most dreadful Persecutions raised by Christians against Christians those instruments of cruelty wherewith Christians have Tortured Christians are sad Evictions of this truth To which I Answer that though the matter of Fact be confessed yet Religion cannot be judged culpable It prompts not to anger but meekness not to Revenge but forgive not to Fierceness and Cruelty but to Humanity and Sweetness It urges not War and Blood but Health and Peace the Master that Christians serve is the Prince of Peace the Gospel which is the Rule of their Lives is the Gospel of Peace and the future happiness to which they are invited is a peaceable Habitation Justin Martyr had a great contest with Crescens a Cynick Philosopher who acted a Philosopher in his garb and demeanor when otherwise he was one that hunted after Praise indulged his Pleasures and immoderately heaped up Riches he practised those Vices which were different from the Virtues which are the ornaments of a true Philosopher This Crescens slanders Christ him Justin confutes and proves him to be vicious and ignorant this charge in his Apology he profers to make good Crescens perceiving how he was bafled endeavoured to procure the death of Justin for which he thus reprehends him That He who perswaded others to despise Death should himself fear it and he who exhorted to a Patient and joyful enduring of Death by reason it puts the Soul into harbour opens the Prison-door whereby the Soul is at Liberty and enjoys a Blessed Immortality yet endeavours to inflict death upon me as the greatest evil I may say the same of Christians how absurd is it for them who believe a life Eternal a future retribution future torments for which the quality and nature far surmount the Spanish Inquisition Ravilliac's Tortures or the dreadful miseries which Moses one of Scanderbeg's Lieutenants endured in Fifteen days flaying should persecute Christians with the most feral cruelties which Policy and Malice can invent or execute This can't be imputed to our Religion which for Meekness Peace Amiableness and Love is preferable to all the Religions in the World 'T is this Religion which calls to endure to suffer for Righteousness-sake to fry Ten thousand Faggots with our Flesh to Purple as many Axes with our Blood rather than sin That same Religion cannot prompt its Professors to such bloody actions We will confess these things have given a great reason to complain of many Professors of so excellent a Religion These actions are no reproach to Christianity 1st It must be granted the Vices of most men are not a just reproach of humane nature What Murthers what Fires what Blood what devastations have been by men caused against men upon no account of Religion Those Wars managed with so great success by the Romans that no Empire of the World ever did or is ever in any probability to attain those they never commenced on the account of Religion they revered the Tutelar gods of every Country and therefore at the besieging of a City that they might the more easily conquer it they did avocare Deos yet what murthers and the sad effects of War they themselves were the causes of 't is notoriously known Pompey did glory that he was the occasion that Eleven hundred Thousand men were destroyed Tamerlane that in the Torrent of his Victories he should be the cause of the death of Eight hundred Thousand What cruelties have been acted by men upon men the Histories of all Ages will attest All these ascertain that there is an Original Sin but yet does not reproach humane nature indeed Mr. Hobs saith that the State of nature is a state of War and that all persons are equal And Spinosa who is Hobs Unvailed says expresly that men are formed to destroy one another as greater Fishes to devour the smaller Theol. Polit. Cap. 13. A fulsome similitude he uses to explain a notorious untruth There is no such estate of nature nor is it possible to conceive such an equality amongst persons for if the Original of man be by Creation then by the Successive generation the question is determined if we suppose men to be born by the prolifick power of Egyptian slime and the benign influence of the Heavenly bodies yet experience acquaints us there is no such equality naturally Think we the understanding of every Grecian was equal to the vast Wit of Aristotle the valour and conduct of every Scythian to that of Tamerlain the eloquence and parts of every Roman could parallel those of Cicero whose Wit equalled the Roman Empire No Fictions may be admitted which serve to explain the Phornomena's of the Heavenly Bodies but to admit such Fictions which destroy Justice under the pretence of giving the true nature of Justice explaining it is a most notorious absurdity and not to be endured Vertue and Goodness are not fictitious though such feral and Bloody actions have been perpetrated by Men yet it doth not conclude that mortals are divested of all humanity or that there are no Laws wrote on the Breasts of men which may be fairly read in the just lives of many excellent persons As Cruelties acted by men upon men reproach not humanity so the persecuting Spirit of some Christians do not justly cast an imputation on Christianity its self 2. It will not be amiss to enquire when this persecuting and bloody spirit invaded the Breast of Christians It must be acknowledged that during the first Ten Persecutions no such spirit appeared There was great divisions many Heresies yet the true Church maintained its self by holiness of Life patient suffering of Tortures and an excellent discipline The only allurements to Christians were a future glory and terror Eternal punishments but when the Emperors became Christians that restless Enemy of Mankind and the great opposer of Christ Jesus imploy'd all his Arts to make Christians act upon Christians those cruelties Pagan Emperors did In the Empire of Constantinus the great Arrius was raised up by Satan to disturb Christianity he colouring what some former Hereticks had not so clearly broached declared in the Church of Alexandria that Christ was not true God coessential with the Father Whence sprung those first Persecutions of Christians against Christians but on the Arrian account Under Constantius the Great no Persecutions were moved His Son Constantius to whom he gave his Empire of the East was prompted though not by his own nature but his Court-Parasites who

the Prefect performs the Emperors command by a fine trick without the knowledge of the Citizens sends him into Banishment and then takes Macedonius into his own Coach and carries him into the Church the people were disconted the multitude was so great that what by the throng and the Sword of the Soldiers a passage was made for him to the Throne by the Corps of One thousand Three hundred and Fifty When possessed of that See what cruelties did he not exercise banishments confiscation of estates were but lighter punishments those that would not communicate with him he Imprisoned some he Tortured Women and Children he caused to be severely Scourged he forced the mouths of those that would not communicate with him to be opened and his Mysteries to be put into them he caused Eggs to be heated and cast upon the Breasts of Women he made the Breasts of other Women to be put between burning Plates and seared off he acted such Cruelties upon the Christians that were unheard of to the Heathens with an excessive pride without the consent of the Emperor he removed the Corps of Constantine the Great out of the Church in which he was inter'd into the Church of Acasius the Martyr This fact was endeavoured to be hindred by the Orthodox Christians of whom he killed many the Floor of the Church and Street adjoyning flowed with the Blood of them Were these sanguinary Acts the product of Religion No but of pride and his temporal Interest Qu. VI. Wherein the Christian Graces have a real preferency to the Pagan and Philosophical Vertues IT will not be unworthy to discuss this Great Question Wherein the Graces and Lives of Christians are superior to the Actions and Vertues of the Heathens Julian against whom these Papers are chiefly design'd was a Prince conspicuous by many excellent endowments Amongst the Heathens there were many Philosophers and Statesmen Orators Generals and Princes eminent in their singular qualifications Is Valour a Virtue Many were patient in bearing Calamities and none more daring in undertaking great actions Is Justice a Virtue they were diligent hearers of Causes and unbiassed in their final determinations Is Temperance a Virtue They were to a Miracle Abstemious Is Charity a Virtue they were Bountiful and haters of the base sin of Covetousness If a composure of mind by which persons are fitted for admirable Actions If industry and vigorous prosecution of Employments be excellent Ornaments in them they might glory To all which may be added in the Exercise of Religion which is the foundation of Virtue they were very devout To all these they made a great pretence Some of those Eminences must be granted yet to the Question it will with clear Reason and certain Truth be replied That the excellency of Christian Graces and Virtues are superlatively to be prefer'd to Pagan Eminences To evince which these Axioms must be premis'd 1. Bonum ex integra causa Malum ex quocunque defectu An Vniversal concurrence of Causes is required to make a thing good when any deficiency suffices to render it evil One obliquity makes a Line crooked when a continued recital is necessary to constitute a strait Line 2. When Virtues are intense then they are concatenated there is a Conspiration of all Virtues where the degrees are Heroical 3. That the fam'd Philosophers agree in this That there is a true God whose Will is the rule of Virtue 4. That then it must evidently follow That they who worship not the true God are not Virtuous 5. 'T is evidently perspicuous that Virtues must have a respect to their adequate objects He that is Temperate must both eat and drink moderately he that is Just must be so to all persons 6. That to the Constitution Prudence is required If this were not the Guide of the Pagan Virtuosi then it must of necessity follow they were not truly virtuous My Pen shall not be too crabbed nor my sentiments too bold in censuring the state of dead Philosophers What sentence the Divine Power hath passed upon them is known to him only to whom belongs righteousness and forgiveness I am not daring to peep into the dark but confident that the highest pitch of Virtue the severest Pagan arriv'd at is much beneath Christian perfection and the sublime life of Christian Philosophers 1. Let the actions of any person be never so exact and congruous to those Laws which goodness prescribe yet if the end be vain-glory they are not true Virtues Ambition is that deformity which sullies the splendor of the best Conversation in that life which seems to be a mirror to give the liveliest image of Goodness As the purest Chrystal is by breath so that by popular applause is stain'd which vice is infinitely oppos'd by Christian Religion Humility being adopted as a part of it it 's one of its prime constitutions enforced by the example of the Holy Jesus How guilty the Ethnick Philosophers were of this crime is notoriously known They were termed Vanoe glorioe mancipia How trifling was that temper of Demosthenes who was hugely pleased that the murmurs of a Rivulet from him gliding brought to his Ears the noise of a Woman speaking to her Companion This is the very Demosthenes Cic. Tusc Quest lib. 5. And Tully himself that great Orator and Virtuoso and famous Moralist Trahimur omnes glorioe studio optimus quisque maximè glorià ducitur The chiefest aim of the best men he makes to be Glory by Plutarch accused of Ambition and so judg'd by his Friends Crecens by Justin call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And of himself Cicero saith Orat. ad pop before his Banishment Quam virtutis gloria summâ cum laude ad coelum extulit He was infinitely affected with those expressions of kindness which he receiv'd from the Romans after his return from Banishment that he cries out I am come to Rome upon the Shoulders of all Italy As for Julian how vain-glorious he was take it from the Pen of Marcellinus he rejoyced very much in vulgar applause he was an immoderate hunter after praise even from the least things that were His affecting popularity made him to converse with mean and abject persons Christianity commands not to seek the praise of men but of God That he who glorieth may glory in the Lord. The glory which we receive from men is but small imperfect inconstant and makes not the person the better the glorying in God is raised perfect perpetual and makes the person really happy 2. We shall rarely find that there was a Concatenation of all Virtues in Heathen Philosophers and in them their Virtues had not a respect to their adequate objects which is otherwise in Christians In many thousands of them gloriously appear'd a concurrence of all Graces 'T is a Christian Axiom He that offends in one is guilty of all Christian Graces are like a Crown or Circle in which if there be any part taken away that ceaseth to be a Circle From the