Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59468	The principles of the Cyprianic age with regard to episcopal power and jurisdiction asserted and recommended from the genuine writings of St. Cyprian himself and his contemporaries : by which it is made evident that the vindicator of the Kirk of Scotland is obligated by his own concession to acknowledge that he and his associates are schismaticks : in a letter to a friend / by J.S.	Sage, John, 1652-1711.	1695 (1695)	Wing S289; ESTC R16579	94,344	99

Might they not have chosen one at every Meeting according to the Principles of Parity Farther What need of so much Parade about the Election of a Moderator of a Presbytery as was then about the Election of a Bishop Why the People chose him according to the Principles of those who think that St. Cyprian was for Popular Elections What was the People's Interest How was it their Concern who was Moderator of the Presbytery What was his Influence De jure at least in the Government of the Church more than the Influence of any other Member of the Presbytery Nay is it not confessed that as Moderator he was no Church-Governour at all That he had no Iurisdiction over his Brethren That his Power was only Ordinative not Decisive To be the Mouth of the Meeting not to be their Will or Commanding Faculty To keep Order in the Manner and Managing of what came before them not to determine what was Debated amongst them Why then were the People so much concern'd about him What Benefits or what Harm could redound to them by ones being Moderator of the Presbytery whatever he was Besides as I have shewed before as Moderator of the Presbytery he had relation only to the Presbytery At least he had none directly immediately and formally to the People What pretence then could the People have to Interest themselves in his Election Nay say as I am apt to think it ought to be said I am sure the contrary cannot be made appear from St. Cyprian that he was not chosen by the People but only in their Presence and the same Argument will take place as is obvious to any body Farther yet What need of Convocating so many from the Neighbourhood for managing the Election of a Moderator E. g. for the Presbytery of Rome If a Bishop in St. Cyprian's time was nothing but a Presbyterian Moderator then the Bishops convocated for managing the Election of a Moderator were Moderators too And so by consequence Sixteen Moderators of other Presbyteries met at Rome to constitute a Moderator for the Roman Presbytery And might not the Presbytery of Rome have chosen their own Moderator without the Trouble or the Inspection of so many Moderators of other Presbyteries Once more What Necessity nay what Congruity of a new Imposition of Hands of a new Ordination a new Mission for constituting One a Moderator of a Presbytery And this too to be performed by none but Moderators of other Presbyteries Thus e. g. it behoved Six Moderators to meet at Capsis to Ordain a Moderator for the Presbytery of Capsis and Sixteen at Rome to Ordain a Moderator for the Presbytery of Rome And after he was Ordained it behoved Novatianus to be at so much pains to get together Three Moderators to Ordain himself an Anti-Moderator Who can think on these Things without smiling But perhaps you may think I have insisted on this Argument more than enough and therefore I shall leave it and proceed to other Considerations To go on then A Bishop in St. Cyprian's time thus Elected Ordained and Possessed of his Chair did bear a double Relation One to the particular Church over which he was set and another to the Church Catholick an integrant part whereof the particular Church was of which he was Bishop The consideration of each of these Relations will furnish us with fresh Arguments against our Author's Hypothesis I shall begin with the Relation he bore to his own particular Church And FIRST The first Thing I observe about him in that regard shall be That he was the Principle of Unity to Her Whosoever adhered to him and lived in his Communion was in the Church a Catholick Christian. Whosoever separated from him was out of the Church and a Schismatick He was the Head of all the Christians living within his District and they were One Body One Society One Church by depending upon him by being subject to him by keeping to his Communion He was the Sun and they were the Beams he was the Root and they were the Branches he was the Fountain and they were the Streams As St. Cyprian explains the Matter This is a Point of great Consequence especially considering that it is the Foundation of the Apologist's Argument our Author's Answer to which I am examining and therefore give me leave to handle it somewhat fully And I proceed by these Steps I. There was nothing St. Cyprian and the Catholick Bishops his Contemporaries valued more reckoned of higher Importance or laid greater Stress upon than the Unity of the Church And there was no Sin they represented at more Heinous or more Criminal than the Sin of Schism In their reckoning Unity was the great Badge of Christianity God heard the Prayers that were put up in Unity but not those that were performed in Schism Christian Peace Brotherly Concord and the Unity of People in the true Faith and Worship of God was accounted of greater value by them than all other imaginable Sacrifices Nothing afforded greater Pleasure to the Angels in Heaven than Harmony amongst Christians on Earth It were easie to collect a thousand such Testimonies concerning the Excellency of Unity But as for Schism and Schismaticks how may it make Men's Hearts to tremble when they hear what hard Names and what horrid Notions these Primitive Worthies gave them and had of them Schism to them was the Devil's Device for subverting the Faith corrupting the Truth and cutting Unity Christ instituted the Church and the Devil Heresie or Schism for both then went commonly under one Name Schism was reckoned a greater Crime than Idolatry it self And St. Cyprian proves it by several Arguments Firmilian affirms it also So doth Dionysius of Alexandria in his notable Epistle to Novatianus He tells him He ought to have suffered the greatest Miseries rather than divide the Church of God That Martyrdom for the Preservation of Unity was as Glorious as Martyrdom for not Sacrificing to Idols Nay more Because he who Suffers rather than he will Sacrifice Suffers only for saving his own Soul But he that Suffers for Unity Suffers for the whole Church Schismaticks had not the Spirit Were forsaken of the Spirit Held not the Faith Had neither Father Son nor Holy-Ghost They were Renegadoes Apostates Malignants Parricides Anti-Christs False Christs Christ's Enemies Blasphemers The Devil's Priests Retainers to Corah Retainers to Iudas Villainous and Perfidious Aliens Profane Enemies Were without Hope Had no Right to the Promises Could not be saved Were Infidels Worse than Heathens Self-Condemned were no more Christians than the Devil Could but belong to Christ Could not go to Heaven The hottest part of Hell their Portion Their Society the Synagogue of Satan Their Conventicles Dens of Thieves They were Destroyers of Souls Their Preaching was poysonous Their

such is no Church Governour at all A Bishop in St. Cyprian's time as such was Chief Pastor Iudge Head Master Rector Governour of all the Christians within his District A Presbyterian Mod●rator as such has no direct immediate formal Relation to the People but only to the Presbytery He is the Mouth and keeps Order in the manner and managing of the Affairs of the Presbytery not of the Church or rather Churches within the Bounds of that Presbytery But a Bishop in St. Cyprian's time was quite another thing His Prelacy whatever it was related to the Laity as well as to the Clergy St. Cyprian's e. g. to as many Christians as required the subordinate Labours of at least Eight Presbyters Cornelius's to as many as required the subordinate Labours of Forty Six To a Body of Christians in which besides Forty six Presbyters Seven Deacons Seven Sub-Deacons Forty two Acolyths Fifty two Exorcists Lectors and Door-keepers there were more than Fifteen hundred Widows and poor People who subsisted by Charity And besides all these a mighty and innumerable Laity as himself words it These Things I say might be sufficient in all Reason to confute our Author's Notion But then this is not all for let us consider II. How a Bishop in St. Cyprian's time was Promoted to his Chair to that sublime Top of the Priesthood as he calls it And we shall easily collect another Demonstration against our Author's Notion For by the Principles of those Times it was plains I. That there could be no Lawful nor Allowable Promotion of One to a Bishoprick which had been Possessed before unless there was a Clear Canonical and Unquestionable Vacancy It was a received Maxim then That there could be but one Bishop at once in a Church When a See was once Canonically filled whosoever else pretended to be Bishop of that See was not a second Bishop but none at all in St. Cyprian's Judgment Nay he was so far from reckoning of him as another Bishop that he deemed him not a Christian Innumerable are his Testimonies to this purpose But I shall Transcribe only One from Ep. 69. because he fully reasons the Case in it There was a Controversie between Cornelius and Novatianus whether was Bishop of Rome Now consider how St. Cyprian decides it The Church is one says he and this one Chuch cannot be both within and without If therefore the True Church is with Novatianus She was not with Cornelius But if She was with Cornelius who succeeded to Bishop Fabianus by lawful Ordination and whom God honoured with Martyrdom as well as with the Episcopal Dignity Novatianus is not in the Church nor can he be acknowledged as a Bishop who contemning the Evangelical and Apostolical Tradition and succeeding to none hath sprung from himself He can by no means either have or hold a Church who is not Ordained in the Church for the Church cannot be without Herself nor divided against Herself c. And a little after Our Lord recommending to us the Unity which is of Divine Institution saith I and my Father are One and again Obliging the Church to keep this Unity he saith There shall be One Flock and One Pastor But if the Flock is One How can he be reputed to be of the Flock who is not numbred with the Flock Or how can be he deem'd a Pastor who while the True Pastor lives and rules the Flock by a succedaneous Ordination succeeds to none but begins from himself Such an one is an Alien is Profane is an Enemy to Christian Peace and Unity He dwells not in the House of God i. e. in the Church of God None can dwell there but the Sons of Concord and Unanimity Neither was this Principle peculiar to St. Cyprian Cornelius in his so often mentioned Epistle to Fabius insists on it also and in a manner Ridicules Novatianus if not for his Ignorance of it at least for entertaining the vain Conceit that it was in his Power to counter-act it And when Maximus Urbanus Sidonius Macarius c. deserted Novatianus and returned to Cornelius his Communion they made a Solemn Confession That upon the score of that same common Maxim they ought to have look'd upon Novatianus as a False and Schismatical Bishop We know say they that Cornelius was chosen Bishop of the most Holy Catholick Church by the Omnipotent God and our Lord Iesus Christ. We co●fess our Error we were imposed upon we were circumvented by Perfidy and Ensnaring Sophistry For we are not ignorant That there is One God One Christ our Lord whom we have confessed One Holy-Ghost And that there ought to be but One Bishop in a Catholick Church Indeed two Bishops at once of one Church or City were then thought as great an Absurdity as two Fathers of one Child or two Husbands of one Wife or two Heads of one Body or whatever else you can call Monstrous in either Nature or Morality 2. There was no Canonical Vacancy no Place for a new Bishop but where the One Bishop whose the Chair had been was Dead or had Ceded or was Canonically Deposed by the rest of the Members of the Episcopal College Vacancy by Death hath no Difficulties I don't remember to have observed any Instances of Cession in St. Cyprian's time thô there were some before and many after Unless it was in the Case of Basilides who after he had forfeited his Title to that Sacred Dignity by being guilty of the dreadful Crimes of Idolatry and Blasphemy is said to have Laid it down and to have confessed That he should be favourably dealt by if thereafter he should be admitted to the Communion of Laicks We have Instances of Deposition in the same Basilides and Martialis in Marcianus Privatus Lambesitanus Evaristus Fortunatianus and perhaps some more However these Three I say were the only Causes in which there could be a Lawful Vacancy 3. When a See was thus Canonically vacant it was filled after this manner The Bishops of the Province in which the Vacancy was met choosed and ordained One in the presence of the People whom he was to Govern This St. Cyprian with other 36 Bishops tells us was of Divine Institution and Apostolical Observation And that it was the common Form not only in Africa but almost in every Province all the World over I know 't is controverted whether a Bishop in those Times was Chosen by the People or only in the presence of the People But my present purpose doth not engage me in that Controversie 4. But Election was not enough Thô the Person elected was already a Presbyter and in Priestly Order yet when he was to be Promoted to a Bishoprick he was to receive a new Imposition of Hands a new Ordination His former Orders were not sufficient for that Supreme Office Thus e. g. St. Cyprian was first a Presbyter and then Ordained Bishop of Carthage if we may believe