Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A61414
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An abstract of common principles of a just vindication of the rights of the kingdom of God upon earth against the politick machinations of Erastian hereticks out of the Vindication of the deprived bishops, &c. / by a very learned man of the Church of England.
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Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.
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1700
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Wing S5414; ESTC R22791
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30,071
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36
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there are any other Inducements to keep them in it besides those of Conscience Only it may perhaps be fit to be consider'd whether it be prudent to trust such Persons with the Management of the Government of the Church who have no Obligation of Principles or Conscience to maintain it as an independent Society or to suffer for it that is indeed who are never likely to maintain it in that very Case which was most in our Saviour's and the Apostles View that is of a Persecution But when they actually divide that Communion which they were never obliged in Conscience to maintain if they took the utmost Liberty their Latitudinarian Principles would afford them and when their lax Principles are the very grounds of their dividing the Communion without any remorse of Conscience for doing so when they are hereby emboldned to do those things which inevitably cause a Breach from those who cannot follow them in these very Principles This is the Case wherein these Principles are Characters of a distinct Communion and therefore by the Reasoning now mentioned become Heretical Especially the Principles being withall false not only in the Opinion of those from whom they have divided themselves but also of our earliest purest Ancestors even those of the Apostolical Age it self Yet I deny not but that in this Case of Heresie there is also regard to be had to the Momentousness of the Opinion it self Whoever sets up or abets a Communion opposite to that of the Church on account of Opinions is as I have shewn in the Judgment of the Primitive Church an Heretick and is the more not the less so if the Opinions be also frivolous But for such Opinions the Church would never have driven him out of her own Communion if himself had been pleased to have continued in it Her Judiciary Censures ought no doubt to be confined to Opinions Fundamental and of great Importance especially if an internal Assent be required and that under pain of Excommunication CHAP. IV. That the Church of Christ is a Society independent on any of the Powers of the World and its Spiritual Rights derived immediately from a higher Authority subject to none of them according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the earliest Ages EVEN in the Age of St. Cyprian which is the ancientest we know of that an Anti-Bishop was set up against a Bishop in the same See it is 1st very notorious that they then owned no such Power of the Secular Magistrate to deprive Bishops of their purely Spiritual Power and that the Church as a Society distinct from the State subsisted on their not owning it even as to a Deprivation of their particular Districts and Jurisdictions It is notorious and as notorious as any one Tradition of the Catholick Church in those Ages not excepting that of the Canon of the New Testament it self that Christians then and not only then but in all the former Persecutions that had been from the times of the Apostles to that very Age did own themselves bound to adhere to their Bishops when it was notorious withall that those Bishops were set up and maintained against the Consent of the Civil Magistrate It is as notorious also that this Adherence of theirs was not only Matter of Fact which is all our Adversaries pretend here but a Duty owned by them as obliging in Conscience and as the result of Principles This appears not only by the unquestionable Sincerity of the Christians of those Ages who were generously influenced by no Considerations but those of Conscience not only by their Suffering those severe Penances imposed on them in order to their recovering the Bishop's Communion even when the Magistrate was against him which no other Considerations could recommend but only those of Conscience but from the Principles themselves insisted on in the Reasonings of St. Cyprian Such were these That all hopes of Pardon of Sin of the Holy Ghost of Eternal Life on Performance of Duty were confined to the visible Communion of the Church that their visible Communion with the Church could not appear but by their visible Communion with the Bishop as the Head of that Church and the Principle of its Unity that who that Bishop was to whom any particular Person owed his Duty was not then any otherwise distinguishable but by the visible Districts in which themselves lived and to which he was therefore supposed to have a Title whether the Magistrate would or no. It is also as notorious that these Reasonings were not then the sense of private Persons but the received sense of Christians in general and indeed Fundamental to that Catholick Communion which was then maintained where-ever there were Christians Not only every particular Christian of a Diocess did thus assure himself of his Right to Ecclesiastical Privileges by his Communion with the Bishop of that particular District but he was intitled also to Communion with all the other Bishops of the World and consequently with the Catholick Church in general by the communicatory Letters of the Bishop of his own particular District For it was by the mutual Obligation all Bishops of the World had to ratifie the Acts of particular Districts that he who was admitted a Member of one Church was intitled to the Communion of all and that he who was excluded from one was excluded from all others also because no other Bishop could justifie his Reception of a Christian of another Jurisdiction to his own Communion if he had not the communicatory Letters of his own Bishop Thus it appears that the Obligation even of particular Districts without Consent of the Magistrate was then Catholick Doctrine Whence it plainly follows that this Lay-deprivation which is all that can be pretended in the Case of our present Bishops is in the Principles of the Catholick Church in St. Cyprian's Age a perfect Nullity and consequently that in regard to Conscience at least our present Bishops are still Bishops and Bishops of those particular Districts as much as ever and the Obligations of the Clergy and Laity in those Districts as obliging to them now as ever And it thence follows 2dly that Anti-Bishops consecrated in Districts no otherwise vacated than by the Power of the Secular Magistrate are by the Principles of that earliest Catholick Church no Bishops at all but divided from the Church It is plain that Novatian was disowned as soon as ever it appeared that Cornelius was canonically settled in Fabian's Chair before him and disowned universally so universally that who-ever did not disown him was for that very reason disowned himself This is as clear as any Particular mentioned in our Adversaries Collection But we do not satisfie our selves with that It is also further as notorious that he was disowned by Principles obliging them in Conscience to disown him and those again not private Opinions but Principles also Fundamental to the Correspondence then maintained in the whole Catholick Church as the other were that we mentioned under the
obliged to take notice of it as she will be faithful to her Trust in securing her Body from the like Divisions for the future Thus the Donatists took the first occasion for their Schism from the pretended Personal Faults of Caecilian and his Ordainers This whilst it was a particular Case went no farther than that particular Schism But when it turned into a general Doctrine that Personal Faults were sufficient to justifie Separation then it laid a Foundation of frequent Schisms as often as any Criminals got into Places of Trust and either Evidence was wanting or themselves too powerful to be contested with Then it concerned Ecclesiastical Governours to condemn this Doctrine that encouraged even Men of Conscience to divide designedly and frequently And when that Doctrine was thus condemned by the Church and was notwithstanding maintained by the Donatists as a Principle on which they subsisted as an opposite Communion it then became a Character of a Party to maintain it and from that time forward the Donatists were reckoned among Hereticks as well as Schismaticks For this was the true Notion of Heresie in those Ages as contradistinct from Schism Both of them supposed a Division of Communion or tended to it But that Division was called Schism which only broke the Political Vnion of the Society without any difference of Principles as when Thieves or Robbers transgress their Duties without any pretence of Principles authorizing them to do so So whilst Resentment alone was the reason that made Subjects separate from the Communion of their Ecclesiastical Governours or whilst Ambition alone made any to invade the Office of his Bishop and to erect an opposite Communion this was Schism properly so called as contradistinct from Heresie But when the Schism is patronized by Doctrines and justified as well done and consistently with Conscience such Divisions besides their being Schismatical were Heretical also in the sense of the Ancients and such Doctrines as Characteristical of a distinct Communion were properly called Heresies On this account the same Doctrine of the original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters was no Heresie in S. Hierome who notwithstanding kept Communion with the Bishops of the Jurisdictions he lived in and yet was Heresie in Aaerius when upon account of that pretended Identity he presumed to pay no more Duty to the Bishops of the respective Jurisdictions than he would have done to single Presbyters This is the most agreeable account of the Heresies not only in Philastrius but in other more judicious Collectors of Catalogues of Heresies And it is very agreeable with the Notion of that Term among the Philosophers from whom the Christians derived it All Notions that were proper and characteristical to particular Schools among them made Heresies not those which were received n common among them Answerably whereunto those Differences only in Opinion made Heresies in the Church which were the Notes of different Communions not those which went no farther than Speculation I am very well aware how surprizing this will be to those who upon popular Opinions have used to believe no Opinion Heresie that was not against Fundamentals But if they will for a while lay aside their Prejudices they will possibly find this as slightly grounded as many other popular Opinions are The very distinction between Fundamentals and Non-Fundamentals is not that I know of ever taken notice of by the Primitive Christians either in the same or in equivalent Terms And if a Person will needs make a Breach on account of an Opinion it rather aggravates than diminishes his Guilt that the Opinion is of little consequence His own Will is more concerned in it that is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he is therefore more a Heretick and as Hereticks were more self-condemned Tit. 3.2 if even in his own Opinion the Matter for which he separates be not of any considerable Importance Even a Truth and a Truth that has great Evidence of its being so may make a Heresie if it be no way conducive nor disadvantageous to the good of Souls and yet the Person who maintains it will by no means endure Communion with those who are of another Mind He might have more pretence of Zeal tho' Mistaken if the Mistake on the Church's side did indeed concern Souls and seemed at least of dangerous consequence to them When he has not even that to pretend for himself who can impute his breaking on such accounts to any other Original than an assuming Imperiousness of Temper and a love of Contention which we generally acknowledge to be the principal Ingredients of Heresie Certain it is that such a Breach for Opinions tho' true yet of no consequence is highly culpable and destructive to that Vnity which Christ designed for his Church and the more culpable for that very reason that the Opinion is of little consequence Yet it cannot properly be called Schism which is only a Breach like those which fall out frequently in Secular Affairs when Men fall into Parties on account of a Temper ungovernable or ambitions without any proper difference of Opinion and Doctrine And it being no Schism what can we call it in the Discipline of the Church if it be not Heresie These Opinions therefore which are not otherwise Heretical on account of the Nature of the Opinions themselves do then begin to be Heretical when they begin to be characteristical of distinct Communions And that they do not only when Men designedly separate from others on that very account because they are not of the same Opinions but also when they venture on such Practices on account of their singular Opinions wherein others cannot communicate with them for that very reason because they cannot join with them in those their singular Opinions Then plainly the differing in such Opinions makes a difference of Communion unavoidable and therefore the Opinions themselves in such a Case as this is are Signals of different Communions which will come under the charge of Heresie as contradistinct from Schism in the Notion now described of the Primitive Church Thus had S. Hierome proceeded as far as Aerius in the Practice of his Opinion concerning the Original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters and had thereupon broken himself off from his Duty to the Bishop of the Diocese and by that means either made or countenanced a Schism which he had never countenanced but on account of this Doctrine of his which he held in Common with the Aerians that Doctrine had been Heresie in him as well as the Aerians So also Opiuions do then begin to be Treasonable when they are actually productive of Treasonable Actions Thus Latitudinarian Opinions in the Church do always weaken or dissolve the Obligation in Conscience to maintain the Church as a Society in a time of Persecution from the Civil Magistrate yet till that Case fall out and when Interest lies on the Church's side they often still keep one Communion who are for such Opinions and may continue in it while