Catholick Church of that Age. The whole Collegium of Catholick Bishops that is St. Cyprian's Term gave their Communicatory Letters not to Novatian but Cornelius and received none to their own Communion on the Communicatory Letters of Novatian but only on those of Cornelius And that upon this same common Principle that Cornelius being once validly Bishop of Rome Novatian could never be a Bishop of that same District without the Death or Cession or Deprivation of Cornelius and that supposing him no Bishop of that place to which he was consecrated he could be no Bishop at all So far they were then from our late Fancy of a Bishop of the Catholick Church without a particular District Had they thought so they might have ratified Novatian's Acts as a Bishop because he had received his Power from Bishops though not as Bishop of Rome Comparing the Catholick Church to a Fanum or Temple he was Profanus as not being in the Temple nor having a Right to enter into it Comparing it to the House in which the Passover was to be eaten by the Jews he was Foris not in that House in which alone the Passover was to be eaten These were the Notions of St. Cyprian and were by him and his Colleagues understood of the Catholick Church in general when they all supposed Novatian out of the Catholick in general by being out of that particular Church of Rome of which he had formerly been a Member Just as in ordinary Excommunications they also always supposed that he who was by any Act of obliging Authority deprived of his Right to his own particular Church had also lost his Right thereby to all the particular Churches in the World And they also supposed Novatian to have cast himself out of his own Body by assuming to himself the name of a Head of that Body which already had a Head and could have no more than one And these Notions and this Language of St. Cyprian were supposed and owned universally by the whole Body of the Catholick Bishops of his Time when they acted consequently to them and took them for the Measures by which they either granted or refused their own Communion Nor is it to be thought strange that these Notions should be received and received universally not as the Opinions of private Persons but as the publick Doctrine and Fundamental to the Catholick Communion as practiced not only in that early Age of St. Cyprian but as derived from the Apostles themselves and the very first Originals of Christianity For these were not as private Opinions usually were only the result of private Reasonings they were received as the Fundamentals of Christianity which were not as new Revelations generally were from the like Notions received among the Jews and among them received not as private Opinions but as publick Doctrines and Fundamental to the then practised Sacrifical Communion of the then peculiar People and only thence deduced as other things also are in the Reasonings of the New Testament to the Case of the new Mystical Peculium and their new Mystical Sacrifices The Language of erecting Altar against Altar in St. Cyprian is derived from the like earlier Language received among the Jews concerning the Samaritan Altar of Manasses against the Jerusalem Altar of Jaddus that is of a High Priest against a High Priest when God had appointed but one High Priest in the whole World and Him only at Jerusalem And it is also plain that the Body of the Jews did look on such Schismatical High Priests and all their Communicants as cut off from the Body of their Peculium and consequently from all their publick Sacrifices and all the Privileges consequent to them Why should we therefore think it strange that the Apostolical Christians should have the like Opinion of them who set up themselves as opposite Heads of their Mystical Sacrifices 18. But this is not all It is further as notorious 3dly that all who any way professed themselves one with Novatian were for that very reason of their doing so taken for divided from the Catholick Church as well as he was with whom they were united Here also the reason was very evident that he who professed and by publick Profession made himself one with a Person divided must by the same Analogy of Interpretation profess himself divided and by that very profession actually divide himself also by making himself one with the Person suppos'd to be divided Nor was this reason more evident than universally aknowledged in the Discipline of that Age. All such Vniters with the Schismatick were refused to be admitted to Communion not by particular Bishops only as the Case would have been if the Opinion had been singular but by all the Bishops of one Communion in the World 19. Not only so But it is also as notorious 4thly from the Practice and Discipline of that Age that all whom they looked upon as united with Novatian they consequently looked on as divided from themselves To be sure in the first place those who had any hand in his pretended Consecration which were principally and particularly reflected on by Cornelius in his Epistle to Fabius of Antioch Nor would his People be receiv'd to Communion by any Catholick Bishop on the Communicatory Letters of Novatian and they could expect none from Cornelius whilst they were divided from him Thus all his Subjects came to be involved as well as himself But that which was highest of all was that even Bishops were supposed to have divided themselves from their Brethren if they communicated with him that is if according to the custom of that Age they either gave communicatory Letters to him or receiv'd any to their own Communion on the like Communicatory Letters received from him This appear'd plainly in the Case of Martian of Arles who was on this very account denied the Communicatory Letters of his Brethren and would no doubt have appeared also in the Case of Fabius of Antioch if he had proceeded so far And this does plainly suppose that such Bishops also had cut themselves off from Catholick Communion by their own Act. Especially according to St. Cyprian's Principles who makes every Bishop in his own District supreme and accountable to none but God and therefore obnoxious to no superiour Jurisdiction And by this means it also appeared to have been more than a private Opinion in that Age when even no Bishop could be permitted in the Communion of his Brethren if he dissented from them in this particular Thus to make application to our present Case all the Bishops will be involved who Communicate either with the Principal Schismaticks or the Schismatical Consecrators And this will also take in by the same Principles all Communicants with such Bishops For when the Bishop was refused Communion the effect of such refusal was that none should thence forwards expect to be received to the Communion of those who had refused him on his Communicatory Letters and no other Communicatory
restore the old Terms which may be done without any thing that can properly be called Concession These things if they will grant us we shall all return into their Communion with Joy and they vvill also have reason to partake in our Joy for our having vindicated their sacred Rights against future Encroachments But the least we can ask or they can grant is to gratifie us in the matter of our present Dispute That they vvill not invade nor maintain injurious Possessions that they vvill not by doing so cut themselves off by their ovvn Act from Communion with us The End of the Second PART The CANONS in the Baroccian Manuscript omitted by Mr. Hody 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 31 Canon of the holy Apostles instead of the 32. If any Presbyter contemning his own Bishop shall hold a separate Meeting and erect an opposite Altar having nothing wherewith to charge the Bp. in Matters of Piety and Justice let him be deposed as an ambitious Affector of Government for he is an Vsurper So also as many of the Clergy as shalt join with him shall be deposed and the Laicks excommunicated but all this after the 1st 2d and 3d Admonition of the Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 6 th Canon of the Synod of Gangra If any Man hold a private Meeting out of the Church and despising the Church shall presume to perform the Offices of the Church the officiating Presbyter not being thereunto licensed by the Bishop let him be anathema 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 5 th Canon of the Synod of Antioch If any Presbyter or Deacon despising his own Bp. hath withdrawn himself from the Church and set up an Altar in a private Meeting and shall disobey the Admonitions of the Bp. and will not be persuaded by him nor submit to him exhorting him again and again he is absolutely to be deposed and ought no longer to he treated as a curable Person neither as one who can retain his Honor and if he shall persevere to make Tumults and Disturbances in the Church he is to be turned over as a seditious Person to the secular Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 15 th Canon of the same Synod If any Bishop accused of any Crimes be condemned by all the Bishops of the Province who have all with one accord denounced the same Sentence against him such a one by no means ought to be judged again by others but the concordâ—nt Sentence of the Provincial Bishops ought to remain firm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 10 th Canon of the Synod of Carthage If any Presbyter being puffed up against his own Bp. shall make a Schism let him be anathema 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 13 th Can. of the Synod of Constantinople The Devil having sown the Seeds of heretical Tares in the Church of Christ and seeing them cut up by the Sword of the Spirit hath betaken to himself a new way and method viz. to divide the Church by the Madness of Schismaticks But the holy Synod being also willing to obviate this Strategem of his has decreed as follows If any Presbyter or Deacon under pretence of accusing his own Bp. of any Crimes shall presume to withdraw from his Communion and not mention 〈…〉 in the holy Prayers of the Liturgy Clergymen not excusable for appearing in a Cause so destructive of the Interest of Religion in general and of their own Function in particular without Reasons very evident and convincing The Author of this Manuscript too low to pass for an Evidence of the Facts mentioned by him He knew nothing of the later part of the History of Nicetas Choniates relating to Constantinople Which yet he must have known as a publick Officer of the Church of Cp. if he had liv'd near him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 25. Anastas de Jejux Deipar p. 435. Tom. 3. Coteler Mon. Gr. Eccl. fol. 243. fol. 212 225 230. The use of the publick Ecclesiastical Rhâ—tor This Office very antient in the Church of Cp. perhaps from the first Foundation of it by Constantine the Great L. V. c. 22. Vid. etiam Sozom. l. 7. c. 19. L. VII c. 36. L. VII c. 37. This Discourse seems to have been written by the Ecclesiastical Rhetor of the Church of Cp. then in Office when the Schism happened that occasioned it Not by Nicephorus Callisius Coteler Nâ—t ad 3 Vol. Mon. Gr. Eccl. p. 645. Niceph. H. E. xvi 19 20 25 26 32. Ibid. 35. Ad finèm Cap. 1. L. 1. Nicephorâ— This Author no competent Witness of the Matters mentioned by him Our Adversaries way of Reasoning in this Case is neither conscientious not prudent See the instances produced by the Author of the Vnreasonableness of a New Separation upon the Account of the Oaths 1. Non-adherence to unjustly deprived Bishops will signify nothing to our present Case unless the Persons who did not adhere to them did believe them unjustly depriv'd 2. Nor unless they did believe them invalidly deprived that is by an incompetent Judicatory as well as unjustly 3. Nor unless the Bishops so deprived did insist on their Right and challenge Duty as ours do 4. Nor unless such Non-adherence was thought justifiable by Principles and with regard to Conscience 5. Nor is it easie to gather Principles from Non-actions Such are not chalenging Right on the Bishops part or not adhering to them on the Subjects part 6. Nor do the Instances here produced prove the Sense of the Catholick Church but of the Greek especially of the Constantinopolitane Church Nor even of that Church in the first and earliest Ages The Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the earliest Ages may for what appears from this Collection be on our side and indeed is so 1st The whole Church then owned noâ— Power in the secular Magistrate for depriving Bishops as to Spirituals not even as to their particular Districts Thence it follows 2dly that Antibiâ—hops consecrated in Districts no other way 〈◊〉 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 * Epist. 57. ad Antonianum in the Oxon Edition of St. Cyprian And 3dly that all who profess themselves one with Antibishops so divided from the Church were in consequence to the same Principles themselves divided also St. Cypr. Epist. 43 Edit Oxon. And 4thly that all who were United with Novatian and by consequence divided from the Church of the Roman District were in the Discipline of that early Age looked upon as themselves divided also from the Catholick Church And 5ly that all who were on these Principles thought divided from the visible communion of the Catholick Church were also on the same Principles thought deprived of all the Invisible benefits of Church Communion Vid. St. Cyp. de
Judgment and Opinions of the Persons concerned in these Instances And yet if this Point were gained it would not suffice for our Adversaries purpose For it is farther considerable sixthly That the Instances here collected rise no higher than the Fourth Century and extend no farther than the Greek Church and therefore cannot pretend to argue the Sense of the Catholick Church nor of those Ages which are most to be regarded not onely for their Antiquity but their Integrity also Suppose therefore we should so far gratifie our Adversaries as to give them leave to believe that all was proved that is so much as offered at in this Collection and proved as solidly and as pertinently to their Cause as themselves can either pretend or wish This would certainly be a great Favour indeed the uttermost they can hope for with regard to this Collection yet still they must not pretend by this Collection to one single Instance that may signifie the sense of the Western Church or consequently of the Catholick Church in any one Age Still we are left a liberty for any thing is said here to challenge the Doctrine of the Church as signified by her behaviour at the first and ancientest Instances of Schism as making for us And this we can do with greater Certainty and Evidence than our Adversaries can pretend to in their more Modern Cases 16. We can say that even in the Age of St. Cyprian which is the ancientest we know of that an Antibishop 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 Tradirion 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 withal 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 Vnity 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 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 of 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 17. This therefore being so that our present Bishops are by the Principles of St. Cyprian's Age as obliging Bishops in Conscience to the Clergy and Laity of their respective Jurisdictions it will thence be as notorious 2dly that the Antibishops of those same Jurisdictions are by the same Principles to be taken for no Bishops at all 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 whoever 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 former Head It was then a Principle that Secundus was Nullus which will as much invalidate the Consecrations of the present Antibishops as it did that of Novatian This is a Principle so universally acknowledged wherever there can be but one that it needs no Authorities to recommend it No Man can convey the same thing twice and therefore if there be two Bonds for the same thing to several Persons the 2 d can never be thought obliging but by supposing the Invalidity of the 1 st So also in all Monarchichal Districts none can suppose an Antimonarch's Title good till he has shewn that the first Monarch's Title is not so Thus this Principle needed no Authority and yet it had all the Authority of the whole
find them received where nothing could have been received universally that had been an Innovation In so short a time it was hard to bring in Variations from the Primitive Rule and harder yet that all the Churches could have been unanimous in them if they had been Variations as Tertullian reasons in his Prescriptions especially when there was no Vniversal Authority received over the whole Catholick Church that could induce them to it From the Time of Trajan the Succession of our Saviour's Family failed in the Church of Jerusalem to which all particular Churches paid a deference From the Time of Hadrian there could be no pretence for that Church above others when it consisted not of Jews but Greeks and Romans What was there therefore that could make them unanimous in Variations and Variations of such Importance as this had been They had then no General Councils And the absolute Supremacy of particular Bishops in their proper Districts is by none maintained more expresly and more zealously than by St. Cyprian with particular regard to all other Powers that in later times have pretended to oblige Bishops that is to Councils and the Bishop of Rome This Catholick Communion grounded on the common Interest of all the Bishops to have all their Acts of Discipline in their particular Dictricts ratified over the whole World might have brought in other things that were consequential to these common Interests But there was nothing antecedent that can be imagined that could have brought in this Catholick Communion of those times among such a multitude of absolute and independent Societies as the Churches were then if it had not been brought in from their very first Originals And yet these Notions we were speaking of were Fundamental to that Catholick Communion it self as managed in those earlier Ages Let them therefore make their uttermost advantage of those Instances which our Adversaries call Precedents in later Ages This is however plain If they be not found inconsistent with these earlier Instances they can make nothing for their purpose If they be yet none can doubt but that later Deviations how numerous soever are to be over-ruled and concluded by the Precedents of these first and earliest Instances not so much as mentioned by their Author 23. Yet after all though we should admit that this Author had been successfull in all that he has attempted we may yet justifie our adherence to the deprived Bishops and our Separation from their opposite Altars and justifie it too by the Doctrine of their own Author For 7thly Even he permits a Separation where Orthodoxy is concerned and expresly excepts this Case from the number of those which he pretends to confute An Heretical Bishop he calls a false Bishop a false Teacher and tells us that they who separate from such do not divide the Vnity of the Church by Schism but endeavour to free the Church from Schisms and Divisions These are his own Words in the Conclusion of his Discourse I easily foresee this Charge will seem new and surprizing to our Adversaries and yet I cannot see how they can secure themselves against it St. Augustine observes that Schisms generally end in Heresie That is the natural consequence of defending it as our Adversaries do by Principles A single Act of Vndutifulness to Superiors will in course pass away with those who are guilty of it so that Posterity will not be concerned in it But when it is defended by Principles it turns into false Doctrine and Doctrine of that pernicious Consequence that the Church is obliged to take notice of it as she will be faithful to her Trust in securing her Body from the like Divisions for the future Thus the Donatists took the first occasion for their Schism from the pretended personal Faults of Caecilian and his Ordainers This whilst it was a particular Case went no farther than that particular Schism But when it turned into a general Doctrine that personal Faults were sufficient to justifie Separation then it laid a Foundation of frequent Schisms as often as any Criminals got into Places of Trust and either Evidence was wanting or themselves too powerful to be contested with Then it concerned Ecclesiastical Governours to condemn this Doctrine that encouraged even Men of Conscience to divide designedly and frequently And when that Doctrine was thus condemned by the Church and was notwithstanding maintained by the Donatists as a Principle on which they subsisted as an opposite Communion it then became a Character of a Party to maintain it and from that time forward the Donatists were reckoned among Hereticks as well as Schismaticks For this was the true Notion of Heresie in those Ages as contradistinct from Schism Both of them supposed a Division of Communion or tended to it But that Division was called Schism which only broke the Political Vnion of the Society without any difference of Principles as when Thieves or Robbers transgress their Duties without any pretence of Principles authorizing them to do so So whilst Resentment alone was the reason that made Subjects separate from the Communion of their Ecclesiastical Governours or whilst Ambition alone made any to invade the Office of his Bishop and to erect an opposite Communion this was Schism properly so called as contradistinct from Heresie But when the Schism is patronized by Doctrines and justified as well done and consistently with Conscience such Divisions besides their being Schismatical were Heretical also in the sense of the Ancients and such Doctrines as Characteristical of a distinct Communion were properly called Heresies On this account the same Doctrine of the Original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters was no Heresie in St. Hierome who notwithstanding kept Communion with the Bishops of the Jurisdictions he lived in and yet was Heresie in Aâ—erius when upon account of that pretended Identity he presumed to pay no more Duty to the Bishops of the respective Jurisdictions than he would have done to single Presbyters This is the most agreeable account of the Heresies not only in Philastrius but in other more judicious Collectors of Catalogues of Heresies And it is very agreeable with the Notion of that Term among the Philosophers from whom the Christians derived it All Notions that were proper and characteristical to particular Schools among them made Heresies not those which were received in Common among them Answerably whereunto those Differences only of Opinion made Heresies in the Church which were the Notes of different Communions not those which went no farther than Speculation 24. I am very well aware how surprizing this will be to those who upon Popular Opinions have been used to believe no Opinion Heresie that was not against Fundamentals But if they will for a while lay aside their Prejudices they will possibly find this as slightly grounded as many other Popular Opinions are The very distinction between Fundamentals and Non-Fundamentals is not that I know of ever taken notice of by the Primitive Christians either in the same
deprived and consequently that the Sees are vacant in Conscience If it should prove otherwise the Clergy and Laity of those some jurisdictions will still be obliged in Conscience as much as ever to adhere to their Canonical Bishops till they be Canonically deprived and to disown such Intruders as are put over them not only without any Canonical Procedure but without any Authority also that can oblâ—ge in Conscience The only Principle therefore on which they can pretend that their Rival Bishops have lost their Right as to Conscience must be the Power that even the Lay-Magistrate has to deprive Bishops even with regard to Conscience If therefore they will defend their Schism by Principles it will be necessary that they defend this Principle also without which it is not possible that it should ever be defended They have no Ecclesiastical Judicatory Just or Unjust that they can so much as pretend in this Case And the defending this is that which will increase their Guilt and will add to their Charge of Schism the aggravation of Heresie also For in order to the asserting such a Right as this to the Secular Magistrate it will be necessary to assert that the Authority of the Church even as to Spirituals is in Conscience the Right of the Civil Magistrate If it should not be so then the Subjects of the respective Dioceses may still be at liberty in Conscience to adhere to their deprived Bishops And if they may they must because then all their former Obligations in Conscience will still hold as obliging as ever For it is impossible that those anteceâ—ent Obligations in Conscience to adhere to their spiritual Superiors can be dis-annulled or diminished by a Power that can pretend no Right in such Matters with regard to Conscience But if we grant this Power to the Magistrate this will perfectly overthrow the Church as a Society distinct from the State and perfectly disable it to subsist as a Society in a time of Persecution For when the Magistrate persecutes it it cannot then subsist as a Society without a Government and a Government obliging in Conscience and not derived from the persecuting Magistrate But if the Right of that spiritual Government be in Conscience the Magistrate's Right it must be an invading the Magistrate's Right to pretend to it when he expresly forbids it And if so how can spiritual Governors in such a Case pretend to it How can they pretend to a Right that is none of their own consistently with Conscience How can their pretending to it with ill Consciences oblige their Subjects to adhere to them on account of Conscience Nay how can it even excuse them in Conscience for not adhering rather to him whose Right it is supposed to be and that even in Conscience No Necessity whatsoever can excuse a Sin much less lay an Obligation in Conscience on Subjects to abett it least of all lay an Obligation on God to ratifie such Acts of Authority as must be supposed no better than Vsurpations And yet all Acts of Ecclesiastical Authority in a time of Persecution can signifie nothing if they be not such as may oblige in Conscience and such as God as well as Men is obliged to ratifie Thus it had been Sin in the Romans to set up Cornelius as plainly they did not only without the Consent but against the Will of Decius It had been Sin in him and not in him only but in all the Bishops of his Age to pretend to any Districts in the Roman Empire It had been Sin in them to exercise Authority in Districts not belonging to them Thus the Church had been perfectly dissolved as a Society at least within the Roman Empire unless we can suppose a Notion of a Society without Governours without Districts without any lawful Exercises of Authority And yet the Bishops of those Ages never thought themselves obliged in Conscience to go out of the Roman Empire to retrieve the Power which is pretended to belong to them as Bishops of the Catholick Church And very probably it had signified nothing to have done so They could have gone into no civilized inhabited Countreys but they must have expected Magistrates who could pretend to the same Right as well as Deâ—ius and who were as much disposed as he to use their Right to the prejudice of the Christian Religion What therefore would our Adversaries have advised the Christians of those Ages to have preserved themselves in a Society Would they have had them retired into unoccupied wildernesses But how could they make Societies there where there were no numbers of Subjects requisite to make a Society Plainly therefore the Catholick Church had then been dissolved as Societies if these New Principles had been maintained in those earlier Ages And these same Principles do still put it as evidently in the Power of the Civil Magistrate to dissolve the Church as a Society within his own Dominions For how can a Church continue a Society where Bishops are in Conscience deprived of their spiritual Authority and where Subjects are also absolved from their Obligations in Conscience to obey them And this is also a dissolving the Catholick Church as to such as live in such Dominions and as to any Benefits they can derive from the Catholick Church also For Subjects of particular Districts are no otherwise received into the Catholick Church than as they derive a Right to Communion with all Churches in the World by their being admitted Members of the Churches of their particular Districts And they are also deprived of their Right of Catholick Communion when they are Excommunicated by the lawful Authority of their particular Districts I cannot therefore see how our Adversaries can excuse themselves herein from erring Fundamentally if the Church's being a Society be admitted for a Fundamental 29. If there be degrees of Fundamentals I should think the Fundamentals concerning the Church as a Society to be of the greatest consequence and therefore Fundamental in the Highest degree The Church is indeed obliged to keep the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are the Expressions by which our Adversaries themsâ—lves I believe conceive the Articles themselves call Fundamental to be signified But she is obliged to keep them as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Trust committed to her How so by avoiding Disputings by stopping the mouths of Hereticks by rebuking them with all Authority bâ— rejecting and avoiding not their Doctrines only but their Persons also when they prove incorrigible Now these things plainly suppose Governors investâ—d with spiritual Authority and a Communion from whence incurable Hereticks are to be rejected So that in order to the keeping these oâ—her Fundamentals the Church as a Society is supposed antecedently as a Condition that alonâ— can qualifie her for having such a Trust committed to hâ—r This Noâ—ion therefore as antecedent must be Fundamental to those other Fundamentals and therefore Fundamental in a higher sense than those things
the Party to make one if even that might have been reconcilable with any Rules of Ecclesiastical Discipline And Joseph also was dead at least had expresly abdicated before Georgius Cyprius was set up in whose time we suppose our Author to have written So that neither of the Schismaticks had Bishops to head them And then I shall easily grant and grant upon the Principles of St. Cyprian and the Church of his Time that in a Case of Separation of Subjects from Bishops the Charge of Schism can never lie against the Bishop directly indirectly it may as an Vnion with a rightfull Bishop does make the Accusation of Schism chargeable against another Bishop unjustly pretending to the same Jurisdiction Or as the onely Bishop of a particular District if he cut himself off from the Episcopal Collegium does thereby make it impossible for them to hold Communion with him who would hold Communion with the whole Catholick Church and with the Episcopal College But where there were no Bishops with whom they could maintain Communion whilst divided from the Communion of the Bishop of their particular District there no Charge of Schism could be brought against such a Bishop neither directly nor indirectly And therefore the onely pretence such Dividers can have for defending themselves and laying the blame on the Bishop must be not by charging him with Schism but Heresie Thus our Author may be rightly understood to allow no excuse for Separation in the Persons with whom he had to deal but onely that of their Bishop's being a Heretick 29. And now our Author's Sense being rightly explained we are so far from being concerned in what he says as that indeed we need no other Principles but his to charge our Adversaries with the Schism of the present Separation Whilst we have Bishops and those unexceptionable to head us we can wave the Charge of Heresie and yet insist upon that of Schism against our present Intruders But I cannot for my Life foresee what the Clergy and Laity of the deprived Diocesses can say for themselves for deserting their Bishops whose Title was formerly owned by themselves by this their Author's Principles What is the Heresie they can charge their Bishops with Yet that is the onely Cause here allowed them to excuse their Separation and it is indeed the onely Charge that can be brought by Subjects against their Incumbent directly As for an indirect Charge in favour of other Bishops our Adversaries Case is exactly the same with that of the Studites or Arsenians and they cannot pretend to it They have no other Bishops to whom they can plead an Obligation against their old Incumbents It is plain their antecedent Obligation lies in favour of their deprived Fathers They cannot deny them to have had once a good Right to their Duty and they can give no reason allowable by their Author how they might lose it neither that of notorious Heresie nor the other of Synodical Deprivation They cannot deny but their new Invaders found the Diocesses possessed by just Acknowledgments of Right in their Predecessors and those acknowledgments ratified by Vows of Canonical Obedience in the Clergy and of the Duty incumbent on them as Members of such owned Societies in the Laity also Thus it cannot be difficult to determine where the Duty is still rather obliging that the indirect charge of Schism lies against the Intruders for erecting Altars against Altars already possessed not against the Possessors who were put in vacuam possessionem as the Law calls it by an unquestionable lawful Authority Will they therefore pretend the greater obligation lying on them to own the Episcopal College than to own any particular Bishop This they might have pretended if any Synodical Deprivation of persons Authorized to Act in Synods had gone before That might indeed have cut off the Incumbents from their Vnion with the Episcopal College and continued the Invaders in their Vnion with the same College and so have obliged all as they are bound to prefer their Vnion with the College before their Vnion with any particular Bishop to withdraw from the Communion of the Incumbents Now even this very charge lies in favour of our Brethren and against our Adversaries Our deprived Fathers must still be supposed to retain their Vnion with the College till there be some Act of the College to deprive them And so the Invaders of their jurisdictions must by their doing so not only divide themselves from the Bishops whose Right is invaded by them but from the whole Episcopal College also This would have appeared clearly as to Fact if the old practice of Communicatory Letters had still been observed The Invaders could not have been received to Communion by any other Bishop of the whole World without the Communicatory Letters of the Incumbent not Synodically deprived and if any particular Bishop had done otherwise even that Bishop had by his doing so cut himself off from his Vnion with the whole Episcopal College Thus we see how this Precedent of condemning these Encroachments of the Studite Monks does not in any wise affect Vs but our Adversaries 30. Our Author next observes that for 26 years together during the Reigns of Leo Armenus Michael Traulus and Theophilus till Theodora managed Affairs during her young Son Michâ—el's minority the Patriarchs were all Iconoclasts His account no doubt begins from the year 815. and the second of Leo Armenus wherein Theodotus Melissenus the first Iconaclast Patriarch was brought in upon the expulsion of Nicephorus And it ends with the expulsion of Joannes or Jannes as they call him for his conjuring practices by Theodora in the year 842. in the beginning of her Administration of Affairs That space was not full 27 years for Theodotus Melissenus was brought in April the 1st and John was expelled not long after the 30th of January on which Theophilus died The design of this Observation is only to take notice how it would affect the Constantinopolitane Succession long before the times of Arsenius and Joseph if even such deriving Orders from Hereticks were rigorously enquired into for such the Iconâ—clasts were esteemed by our Author But this is not the Question for which we are concerned at present 31. His next Example is therefore in the Case of Ignatius and Photius But to judge exactly how far either of them had Right our Author should have distinguished the times and the several degrees by which this Dispute proceeded The first Deprivation therefore of Ignatius I take to have been on November 23. 858. precisely And here was indeed no Synod though I know the Synodicon published by Pappus and Justellus pretends one But Pope Nicholas in his 10th Ep. where he gives an account of his Roman Synod owns nothing in the Deprivation of Ignatius but the Violence and Terror of the Emperor plainly therein reflecting on the Vncanonicalness of it Again his words in his Ep. 13. to Ignatius himself are these ab Imperials Potentia absque
A VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops c. PART I. Shewing That though the Instances collected in the Baroccian MS had been pertinent to the Editors Design yet that would not have been sufficient for Obtaining their Cause 1. THat the Laity should be favourable to Mistakes derogatory to the sacred Power cannot be thought strange in an Age wherein they generally use so little diligence to inform themselve or to receive Information from those who are qualified to inform them concerning the Rights of the Clergy Their own Interests are alone sufficient to make them partial in affairs of this nature though they were more sincerely influenced by Considerations of Religion than we generally find them but that Clergymen should also â—avour them in Encroachments on their own Function that they should professedly patronise Doctrines tending to lessen the Esteem of that greatest and most valuable of all Authorities wherewith God has honoured and instrusted none but them that they should make it depend on the pleasure of the Magistrate which was designed for greater and more noble Ends than the Magistracy it self that they should put it in his power to destroy the very being of the Church as a Society by a secular Deprivation that they should not onely own but teach That none are obliged to adhere to themselves in such a Case wherein the Magistrate is against them no not so much as in regard of Conscience that they should by this means make the greatest and most momentous Concerns for Souls subordinate to worldly carnal Politicks and the far less weighty Interests of worldly Prosperity and of particular Societies that they should hereby make it least capable of subsisting under a Persecution which was the Case most obvious in the view of our B. Saviour and his Apostles and therefore most particularly provided for if they took care for any thing beyond their own time These things I say would not be very credible if they were not very notorious One would think none who valued the general good of Religion and the Catholick Church and the Souls of Mankind before the temporal Prosperity of any particular State and it is hard to conceive how any good Man can doe otherwise could even wish such Opinions true though his Wish alone were sufficient to make them so How then is it agreeable that Clergymen of all Men should be the most favourable and zealous Advocates for such Opinions so manifestly destructive of those greatest Interests which they of all men ought best to understand and to be most zealously concerned for How is it agreeable that they of all men cannot be content to let the Memory of ill Precedents dye but that they must allarm us with future Fears of having them acted again by not only abetting but also justifying them How is it agreeable that they should do this in a Prospect such as ours is of a Laity so little concerned for the good of Religion and the Church when even they who have any Principles have such lax ones and so very little obliging them even in Conscience to venture any thing for any particular Communion That their preferring their worldly Concerns depending on the Pleasure of the Magistrate before the greater Concerns of Souls and Eternity is the true Cause of it is not to be believed while there are any Reasons that might induce them to it Yet little Reasons cannot in Equity excuse when the Consequences ought to be so very valuable on that very account of Mens being either good or religious But this advantage our Adversaries have that their Cause is like to suffer nothing by ill Management when it is in the hands of such able Advocates Let us therefore see whether all they say will amount to Reason and to Reason sufficient to excuse them 2. They pretend and pretend with great Confidence That nothing can justifie our Adherence to even unjustly deprived Bishops if the Successors be not Hereticks That this is so they appeal to an antient Greek MS. of Instances collected to their hands before any prospect of our present Case They pretend from this Collection that neither the Bishops themselves who were unjustly deprived made any Separation nor any Subjects of such Bishops on account of any obligation of Conscience to adhere to them Hence they collect that these things being the sense of the antient Church as often as any such Instances appeared ought also to be our sense who profess a Veneration for Antiquity And were these things so as they pretend they would perhaps be considerable to excuse the Practice of our present Adversaries But all these things are justly questionable and far from that Evidence which their Cause requires and themselves pretend to All they say is resolved into this MS. and this will do nothing for their purpose The Author whoever he was is much too young to be admitted as a Witness of most of the Facts enumerated by him especially considering we have Authours of the earlier times to speak for themselves Nay he has not pretended to be a Witness on his own Credit He has been particularly carefull to tell us his Authors most of which are extant to this very day As therefore his Credit is nothing for things so much earlier than his own Age so neither is there any need we should depend on his Credit when we can have immediate recourse to his original Authors themselves It is called an antient MS. and yet pretended no elder than the 13th Century But sure the ingenious English Prefacer cannot think Antiquity of so low a date as that is to be that Antiquity which we profess to imitate or pretend to alleadge Yet neither can he prove his Author a competent Witness even for that low Antiquity All that appears from his quoting Nicetas Choniates is onely this That he could not be elder than that Century in which the Author lived who was quoted by him But neither doth it thence follow that he lived in the same Age nor can it thence be determined how long he lived after him This mention of Nicetas will bring him down below the Year 1205. where Nicetas ends his History Nicetas himself lived some while after But our Author refers to his History as an Authority as being elder than the Traditions of the Age he lived in He neither pretends to remember the things for which he quotes him nor to have received any Informations concerning them from the relation of any old Men who could remember them But where Nicetas fails him he shews himself perfectly ignorant of the Affairs of that Age which was concerned in the History written by Nicetas Nicetas mentions no Successor in the See of Constantinople between Cosmas Atticus and Theodosius Our Author therefore takes Theodosius for Cosmas's immediate Successor Nicetas does not mention the Synods nor the Abdications that were in the Cases of the Patriarchs deposed in the time of Isaacius Angelus therefore our Author supposes there were none Nicetas
Letters could be hoped for whilst they continued in Communion with him 20. And then 5thly It is also as notorious on the same Principles of St. Cyprian's Age that such Schism from the visible Communion of the Catholick Church was also supposed to deprive the Person so divided of all the invisible Benefits of Church Communion God was supposed obliged to ratifie in Heaven what was done by those whom he authorized to represent him on Earth He avenged the Contempts of his Ministers and would not be a Father to those who would not own his Church for their Mother by paying her a Filial respect They were not to expect any pardon of their Sins They could not hope for the Holy Ghost who dissolved the Vnity of the Spirit They were uncapable of the Crown of Martyrdome whatever they suffered in the state of Separation This is the result of many of St. Cyprian's Discourses on this Argument And indeed it is very agreeable with the Design of God that they who cut themselves off from the Peculium should by their doing so lose all their pretensions to the Rights and Privileges of it Not only so but that they should also incur all the Mischiefs to which they were supposed liable who had lost their Right of being Members of the peculiar People Accordingly as they believed all Persons at their first admission into the Church to be turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God so upon their leaving the Church or their being cast out of it by the judicial Act of their Superiours they were supposed to return into the state of Heathens to lose the Protection of those good Spirits who minister only to the Heirs of Salvation and again to relapse into their former condition of Darkness and being consequently obnoxious to be infested by the Devil and his Powers of Darkness And that this was so appeared by several ordinary Experiments in those earlier Ages not only of the Apostles but that also of St. Cyprian who has many Examples of it in his Book de Lapsis And this confinement of the Spiritual Privileges of the peculiar People to the External Communion of the Church as it was Fundamental to their Discipline so it was rational consequently to their other Principles God was not thought obliged to confer those Privileges but by the Act of those whom himself had authorized to oblige him But Dividers were supposed not to belong to that Body to which the Promises were made and ambitious Intruders into other Men's Offices could not in any Equity pretend to have their Acts ratified by God from whom they could not be supposed to receive any Authority when they did not receive it by the Rules and Orders of the Society established by him These things were then believed and believed universally Indeed nothing but an universal Belief of them would have maintained that Discipline which was then observed in the Church could have obliged them generally to suffer as they did then the severest Inflictions from the Magistrate rather than incurr the much more feared Displeasure of their Ecclesiastical Superiours When we are also of the same Mind and alike influenced by Principles and Regard to Conscience then indeed and then alone we may pretend to be a Posterity not degenerous from the great Examples of those glorious Ancestors Then it will not be in the Power of Acts of Parliament to drive us from our Principles and bring a Scandal on our Religion Then where our Bishops follow Christ we shall follow them and it will not be in the Power of the Worldly Magistrate or the Gates of Hell it self to prevail against our Church and to dissolve the Vnion between us Then Magistrates themselves will be more wary of involving Consciences on occasion of their little Worldly Politicks at least they will not pretend Religion and the Religion of that very Church which suffers by them for doing so May we live at length to see that happy day However it will hence appear how impossible it will be to excuse our Adversaries present Case from Schism if it be tried by that Antiquity which we do indeed profess to imitate and alledge 21. Now in this Case I am discoursing of I have purposely selected the Instances of St. Cyprian's Age rather than any other not only because they are the ancientest indeed the first we know of of one Bishop's invading another's Chair not vacant but because we have withal in him the most distinct account of the Sense of the Church in his Age of such Facts and of the Principles on which they proceeded in condemning them He had occasion given him to be so distinct by two Schisms one of his own Church in Carthage where Felicissimus was set up against himself another that I have principally insisted on of Novatian set up against Cornelius in Rome On these Occasions he has written one just Discourse besides several Epistles But these Principles were not singular and proper to that Age they descended lower and are insisted on by Optatus and St. Augustine in their Disputes with the Donatists whenever they dispute the Question of their Schism without relation to their particular Opinions 22. And now what can our Adversaries gain though we should grant them all they can ask concerning their Collection till they be able to disarm us of these earlier Authorities neither mentioned nor perhaps so much as thought of by their Author Till they do so we have all the Advantages against them that our Cause does need or we desire They give us a bare Collection of Facts without any other Evidence of the Principles on which they were transacted than the Facts themselves We give them here a contrary Fact of Persons of unquestionable Sincerity to Principles and not only so but the Principles themselves on which they proceeded acknowledged by the Persons themselves They give us Facts of the Greek Church only We give them one wherein the sense of the whole Catholick Church appeared not of the Greeks alone but of the Latines also They give us those of Modern of Barbarous of Divided Ages wherein the great Bodies of the Eastern and Western Churches were divided in Communion the Eastern Churches particularly within which their Instances are confined into Nestorians and several subdivided Sects of Eutychians who yet if they had been more unanimous were otherwise no very competent Witnesses of Apostolical Tradition not only in regard of their Age but their Corruptness their Vnskilfulness their Credulity We here have given them the sense of the Church in an Age wherein her Testimony is every way unexceptionable wherein she had certain means of knowing the Truth and withal valued it as it deserved Even there we find the Principles now mentioned universally received and universally received as the grounds of that universal Catholick Communion which she had received by an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles to that very Time Even there I say we
Thus much at least will follow that there is no subverting it as a Society without subverting it also as a Sect because those very Doctrines which make it a Sect do also consequently oblige it to be a Society For my part I believe those Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which all who believe any Fundamentals proper to the Christian Religion as revealed by God do reckon among Fundamentals not to have been revealed for Speculation only but purposely to oblige Men to unite in it as a Society The Vnity in Trinity which is the principal thing insisted on in the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in the Scripture was purposely to let Men see the Extent of the Mystical Vnion to which they were intitled by the External Vnion with the visible Church that by partaking in the Orthodox Communion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by St. John they had also a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Father and the Son 1. John 1.3 For it was manifest they must also partake of the Spirit because he who had not the Spirit of Christ was none of his It was therefore supposed that by partaking of the Trinity we are made one Mystically and that by being united visibly to the Church we are intitled to that Mystical Vnion So whoever is united visibly to the Church is thereby if he be not wanting to himself in due Conditions united also Mystically to the Trinity and that whoever is divided externally from the Church is thereby also disâ—united from this Communion and Vnion with the Trinity And what more prevailing Inducements could be thought of to oblige Men to keep in a Society So also the design of the Incarnation was by Christ's taking upon him our Body and our Flesh to make us also one Body and one Flesh with him thereby to entitle our Bodies to a Resurrection but then our being one Body and one Flesh with him depended on our being Members of the Church which is called his Body his Flesh his Bones We were to be baptized into this one Body and become one Body by partaking of one Bread Which plainly shew that all the benefits of the Incarnation are derived to us by our partaking of the Sacraments and therefore by our adhering inseparably to them who alone are authorized by God to administer them Thus plain it is that those very Fundamentals of our revealed Religion as revealed are revealed and designed for this purpose of making the Church a Society How can therefore our Adversaries make these Doctrines Fundamental if this be not Fundamental also that the Church was by God designed to be a Society 27. This at least is certain that we are intituled to all the Benefits of our Religion by our owning the Church not only as a Sect but as a Society also and that though we believe all its Doctrines as it is a Sect yet if we be divided from it as a Society that Belief alone will not secure us a Title to any of the Benefits of our Religion Excommunicates however Orthodox in their Opinions were never suppos'd in the Discipline of the Church to have any actual Title to the Benefits of Religion if they persisted wilfully in that state of Excommunication The same I have already observed concerning the Case of Schismaticks on the Principles of the early Age of St. Cyprian Hence therefore it appears that this Notion of the Church as a Society whatever it be in it self is at least Fundamental as to us in order to our partaking of any of the Benefits of Religion That is indeed it is Fundamental to all intents and purposes that we can think worthy our Enquiry Without this the other Notions if any be will never be beneficial to us So that whatever those other Notions may be in order of Reasoning yet this Notion of the Church as a Society must be Fundamental to them in order to their being beneficial that is as far as we have any reason to concern our selves for them These things ought certainly to be taken for Fundamental as to the Discipline and Censures of the Church She ought certainly to be most concerned for those things that are most influential on the Interests of Souls and those are so whose Belief is most beneficial and their Dis-belief most hurtful to those most valuable Interests I cannot therefore see why she should not think Doctrines of this kind Fundamental and reckon them among those Fundamentals on which she ought to lay out her principal Care If therefore she ought to excommunicate for any Errors at all certainly she ought in the first place to do it for Errors so destructive of all Obligation to her Communion it self and of her Authority of Excommunicating that is indeed so destructive to all that power she has either for the preservation of Truth or the prohibition of Error in general And if she ought not to inflict her Censures at least these highest of them for any Errors but those which are Fundamental it will plainly follow that Errors of this kind must be reckoned for Fundamental ones Our Adversaries would have Errors in Fundamentals punished and punished as a Spiritual Crime by a purely Spiritual Authority but they do not in the mean time seem to be aware how Fundamental this very Notion of the Church as a distinct and spiritual Soceity is to its having any Authority or Power to punish so much as spiritually All they can do as a Sect is only to reason with Hereticks concerning their Errors and all the means to reduce them are those reasons which can no farther prevail with them than as they may seem convictive in the Judgment of the Hereticks themselves But on that account they stand on even Terms with the Hereticks whose Reasons ought likewise to take place with the Ecclesiasticks so far as they also are in Conscience convinced by them A true Authority and a Power of punishing refractory Persons by excluding from Communion do Fundamentally suppose a spiritual Society over which they are to exercise this Authority and from which Delinquents are to be excluded by spiritual Censures and Excommunications How can they therefore avoid reckoning those Errors from being Fundamental ones as punishable by a spiritual Authority which ruine Fundamentally that very Authority by which such Errors are to be punished which destroy the Society on which that Authority is grounded Fundamentally 28. If hâ—râ—fore Errors that destroy the very Being of the Church as a Society be Fundamental I cannot for my part fore-see how our Adversaries can exâ—uâ—e their Anti bishops and all that own them by Principles from erring Fundamentally Their being Bishops supposes such Doctrines as if they be once admitted make it impossible for the Church to subsist as a spiritual Society whenever the State is pleased to persecute it They cannot Possibly be supposed Bishops of those Dioceses to which they are consecrated till it first be supposed that their Predecessors are validly
can be whose security is superstructed upon it And accordingly the Damage to the Publick in subverting these Notions of the Church as a Society iâ— proportionably greater than that which follows from the denial of other particular Articles which are commonly taken for Fundamental He that denies one of the other Articles may yet believe all the rest and zealously defend them and that by Principles too â—gainst all other Hereticks But he that denies the Church as a Society invested with a spiritual Authority does as effâ—ctually contribute to the ruine of all the other Fundamentals at once as he does to the ruine of a Hâ—use who subvers the Foundations of it It brings in impunity for Heresie â—n general and suffers Hereticks still to hope as well in their separate Sects as if they were in 〈…〉 Communion Iâ— lâ—aves them destitute of even any Presumptions that might oblige them â—o judge in Favour of the Church's Doctrine as the safest Error if it should prove one It does by this meanâ— reduce the trial of the Cause to the Reasons themselves and their native Evidence and putâ— it in the Power of assuming Men to pretend greater Evidence than either they have or they really believe And thingâ— being reduced to his pass it is more God's Providence than the security of Principles that hinders any Heretick who disputes any one of the other Articles from questioning all the rest 30. I am sorry our Adversaries Case affords Maâ—ter for so heavy Accusations But they may by this time understand how naturally the Cause affords it if we will judge impartially as we must do if we will judge either solidly or justly if we will judge as no doubt the Righteous Judge of all the World will at the Day of the General Judgment And what can our late Brethren either of the Clergy or Laity say for bringing things to this melancholy Prospect Neither is the Chaâ—ge â—light to which they have made themselves obnoxious by this Unhappy Schism nor is the Evidence slight by which this Charge may be â—roved against them And yet they have wholly been the Aggressors in â—his whole Affair We are exactly where we were exactly where they left us So little can they pretend that we have contributed to this Division We hold the same Doctrines that we did that themselves did formerly We adhere to the same Bishops themselves have owned for Bishops till now Nor are we otherwise divided from them than as they have divided themselves by erecting New Altars against the Altars themselves have hitherto acknowledged Lovers of Unity would be as much grieved for Breaches in the Mystical Body as living Members when by any violence they are divided fâ—om the Body Natuâ—al The litâ—le concern the Harlot shewed for the controverted Infant was to Solomon an Argument that she was not the Mother of it And how comes it to pass they can divide themselves from us with so little remorse if ever they were living Members of our common Mystical Body Do they not tempt us to reason as St. John did thaâ— they never were ours by Principles when they can so easily leave us Have they lost all Reverence for their so lately celebrated Fathers Have they lost all Brotherly Love and Compassion to their Brethren And all for no other Crime than Constancy to our Common Principles And can they still pretend a Zeal to our Common Religion for doing so These they will say are our Opinions But Lovers of Unity would be afflicted for Violations of it whoever were the Occasions of it Lovers of Unity would not willingly grieve their Brethren much less would they do that which even in the Opinions of their Brethren might occasion a Breach of Unity if there were otherwise no great Necessity for doing it Least of all would they do it when they knew those Principâ—es to be Principles of Conscience anâ— of a Conscience firm and stedfast to the true Publick Spiritual Interests of the Church So far they must be from accepting Promotions when they must be purchased at so dear a Rate as that of a Publick Schism But I wish these Opinions of ours were no more than Private Opinions I hâ—s now appâ—ared that they were the sense of the whoâ—e Catholick Church in those Agâ—s which all ought to reverence who will pretend to Reformation and which is to be the Standard of Catholick Unity Yet let them regard us as little as they please methinks at least they should have some regard to the Publick Inâ—erests even of their own Church And yet both the Intruders and their Consecrators proceed on those Principles that put it in the Power of a Popish or Schismatical Prince to dissolve it when they please They cannot justifie what they do without supposing a Vacancy in the Sees to which the new Promotions are made nor can they suppose such a Vacancy without allowing the validity of a State deprivaâ—ion even with regard to Conscience Suppose therefore a Popish Prince with a Popish Parliament should turn their Principles against themselves and deprive all our Bishops with one Act of State I cannot see what these Fathers can pretend to secure their Chuâ—ch as a Society and as a Communion in opposition to them They must then no longer pretend to Dioceses in England They must not pretend to any obligation of their Protestant Clergy and Laity to stand by them even in Conscience They must therefore never pretend to Communions â—n those Dioceses which are plainly Exercises of spiritual Authority in them Nor can they then justifie or even excuse any Assemblies for Religion when forbidden by the Civil Magistrate who is only supposed by these Principles to have also the Right to that spiritual Authority by which alone they can be justified And are these the ways to secure our Religion against Popery No open Persecutions whatsoever can ever ruine us so effâ—ctually as these Doctrines will if ever we receive them Doctrines of our own will break our Union among our selves more than any of our Adversaries open Violences 31. Thus I have shewn that our Author 's Reasoning is not concluding for our Adversaries purpose though his Matters of Fact had been as pertinent â—s our Adversaries conceive them to be I now proceed to the Examination of the Matter of Fact themselves and shall endeavour to shew that even they are not pertinent to our Adversaries Case A VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops c. PART II. Shewing That the Instances collected in the Anonymous Baroccian MS. are indeed not pertinent to the Editors Design for vindicating the Validity of the Deprivation of Spiritual Power by a Lay-Authority 1. THE Use that our Adversaries make of this Collection of Instances which they call Precedents is to shew that our present Bishops are obliged to acquiesce in their unjust Deprivation and that their present Clergy and People are not obliged to stand by them if they think fit to insist on their Right and
not know that he was in being to chalenge it This had made the Throne itself a Derelictum this made Meletius a Possessor bonae Fidei and sufficiently excused all who paid Duty to him Undoubtedly Lucifer Calaritanus who set up Paulinus in opposition to Meletius whose return from Exile was then expected would never have done it if he had any thoughts or hopes of the Return of Eustathius Eustathius was not onely as orthodox as Meletiuâ— himself but was free from the Charge brought against Meletius that of an Arian Ordination Meletius therefore being thus secured against the Title of Eustathius nothing could then be pretended against him but his receiving his Power from Arians But their Heresie was 〈◊〉 so manifest when he was broughâ—â—nto Antioch by them all that 〈◊〉 required from him was to subscribe the Creed of Selencia drawn up Sept. 27. 359. the year before he was translated to Antioch and that expresly condemned the Anomaeans and laid aside both Words that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unscriptural Nor did the Catholicks so much insist on the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they could otherwise be satisfied that no ill sense was intended in avoiding it This was the onely Reason that could make any orthodox Person join with the Arians in bringing him to Antioch who otherwise owned no Communion with them when they once declared themselves And as soon as they who brought him to Antioch owned themselves Anomaeans as they did soon after Meletius never prevaricated but protested openly against them And why should that be made an Exception against him that he was made Bishop by them who after they had made him so declared themselves Arians This was looked on as a rigour in Lucifer by his Fellow â—onfessor Eusebius Vercellensis and Athanasius and the generality of the Catholick Church And if he was guilty of no incapacitating Heresie at his first coming in if he owned the Catholick Faith publickly before the Consecration of Paulinus and had been a Confessour for it if even those who gave him his Orders had not yet declared themselves Arians nor a distinct Communion when they gave them what Reason could there be to question his Title before Paulinus was set up against him If there was none the other Consecration being into a fâ—ll See must have been schismatical Thus we see how agreeable it was to the Canons and Discipline of the Church that St. Basil and St. Chrysostome should own the Communion of Meletius in opposition to Paulinus It does not appear that ever they did so in opposition to Eustathius Yet even in this Case it is observable that all those Catholicks who never from the beginning communicated with Meletius and who joined with Lucifer and Paulinus 〈◊〉 him owned other Reasons besides Heresie sufficient to justifie theâ—â— â—â—â—paration from him They did not they could not charge him with that after 〈◊〉 had publickly declared for the Nicene Faith they never charged him as we can our present Intruders with Injury to any other Person whom they supposed to have a better Title to his Throne neither to his Predecessor Eustathius nor much less to Paulinus who was consecrated after him The onely thing they charged him with was the Original Invalidity which they supposed in his Consecration by those who afterwards declared themselves for Arianism And could they believe a lawfull Power necessary to confer a Title and not as necessary to take it away Rather Laws are favourable to Possessours and require more to take away an Office than to keep one in Possession whom they find so They therefore who were so difficultly reconciled to Meletius's being Bishop purely on account of the original Want of Authority in them who made him so must by the same parity of Reasoning much more have disliked the Deprivation of our present Bishops on account of 〈◊〉 Want of Authority as to spirituals and to Conscience in them who have deprived them However 〈◊〉 a clear Instance against our Adversaries and against the Collector himself of Catholicks who owned and owned by Principles that Orthodoxy alone without a good Title was not sufficient to excuse communicating with him whose Title was thought deficient For this was their Opinion concerning this Case of Meletius that he was indeed orthodox onely having an original Defect in his Title they thought themselves on this very acccount obliged to forbear his Communion How could they then have thought it safe to communicate with Bishops ordainâ—â— into Seeâ— not otherwise vacated than by an originally invalid Lay-Deprivation of their Predecessors 13. The next Case is 〈◊〉 of St. Chrysostome It is indeed the first in the Summary subjoined to it probably because it was the first in the Church of Constantinople for the use of which this Collection was originally designed Or perhaps rather because that other Case of Meletius was produced onely as another Evidence of the Opinion of the same St. Chrysostome This is the Case which the Author is largest upon as deserving the particular consideration mentioned in the Introduction to it The reason I have now given because it seems to have been most of all insisted on by the Arsenians as most apposite to the Instance for which they were concerned But 1. This Deprivation was synodical and by two different Synods the former that ad Quercum that deprived Saint Chrysostome for not pleading but questioning their Jurisdiction upon an Appeal the other that of the following year which denied him the Liberty of Pleading upon the 〈◊〉 of Antioch for coming in again not without a Synod but by one 〈◊〉 they pretended less numerous than that which had deprived him formerly So far is this from our present Case And 2. Even as to the abetting this holy Person 's Case as to the Inâ—ury done him by an otherwise competent Authority far the greater part of the Church was concerned against the Design of this Collector if to the Eastern Joannites 〈◊〉 the unanimous Consent of all the Western Churches They separâ—â—ed from the Communion of his Deprivers notwithstanding their ackâ—â—wledged Orthodoxy and that not onely while Saint Chrysostome was living but after his Death also till an honourable amends was made to his Memory This how clear soever it was against our Author's general Remark in his Preface and elsewhere yet he neither denies nor pretends to answer aâ— if he were conscious to himself he could not do it Onely he prevents a farther consequence drawn from it by the Arsenians for unravelling all the Orders derived in a Succession from the â—njurious Intruders after the Person was dead who had been injured by the 〈◊〉 This also is none of our 〈◊〉 wherein the injured Bishops are 〈◊〉 yet even concerning that very Case he words his Observation â—o as to own that they might if they pleased have called in Question â—he present Orders derived from the Intruders He says indeed that the Church did
it in a Synod of Bishops and Abbats when they made their second separation from Nicephorus and driven from their Monasteries and the City as Theophanes tells us though our Author mention nothing it The Bishops therefore forced them to recant all the Invectives they had used against the Patriarchs not that they thereby intended to defend Joseph but to assert their own Authority as the only competent one in Affairs relating to Communion against these Monastical Invasions St. Ambrose told the Great Theodosius that his Purple did not entitle him to the Priesthood which yet was not more true of the Purple than of the Cowl Thither therefore relates what our Author observes from the Patriarch Methodius that if Theodorus had not recanted he had not been received to Communion He observes farther from the Testament of the same Methodius probably in imitation of the Testament of Nazianzene that he prescribed that whenever the Studites were received as Penitents they should only be received to Communion not to their Sacerdotal Dignity So in the Synodicon drawn upon the occasion of these Schisms and ordered as our Author observes thenceforward to be read in Churches those Invectives against the Patriarchs are not only recanted but anathematized Nay Theodorus was therein declared not to have done well in his Separation and that the Schism was on his part whatever was the occasion of it And the reason is given exactly agreeable to the Principles of Ignatius and St. Cyprian that Tarasius and Nicephorus were the Church Whence it plainly followed that Theodorus and his followers cast themselves out of the Church by their being divided from their Patriarchs This very Synodicon is mentioned in some fragments of this Work of Nicon here referred to and in a Discourse of Anastasius Caesareensis both published by Coâ—elerius And Anastasius is very particular in distinguishing it from the Nomocanon He tells us that it consisted only of three Synods two relating to Faith and the third to Marriages probably all of them relating to this case And thus we understand why our Author excepts only the case of Heresie wherein it might be lawfull to separate from the Bishop He speaks of persons subject to Episcopal Jurisdiction acting by themselves without a Bishop to head them for so did Plato and Theodorus with their Monks And so nothing but Heresie could excuse their Separation from their Ordinary by the Principles of the Catholick Church for the guilt of Schism will wholly be imputable to such Subjects who separate from their Ordinary for any other cause but Heresie 28 And to this Case agree exactly the Canons omitted by Mr. Hody They also speak of Monks and Laity separating from their respective Ordinary without any Episcopal Authority So the Synod called AB expresly by which we understand that the Presbyters and Deacons mentioned in the former Canons in reference to the Case here particularly designed were understood of Monks and such persons destitute of Episcopal Authority And very probably these Encroachments of the Monks on the Sacerdotal Authority were the real occasion for the Synod AB to make that Canon The Monks of Constantinople were at that time admitted into most debates where Religion was concerned We have seen that they made a part in the Synodi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against Eutychius in the time of the Great Justinian and now in the time of Nicephorus against the Schismatical Studites We see they had a part in the electing their Bishop by the opposition Theophanes tells us this same Theodorus with his Studites made in the Election of this same Nicephorus We see they were consulted by Michael Curopolates concerning his War against the Bulgarians and that they over ruled him against his own inclinations on account of the concern Religion was supposed to have in that Affair Nor was it amiss that nothing should be done without the consent at least of so great and so numerous bodies of persons devoted to the service of Religon And this consideration it was that brought the Mitred Abbats also in the West into their Synods and into their Parliaments But then this only gave them in the Original design of it a Power of interposing and interceding like that of the Tribunes among the Romans not of invading the Sacred Sacerdotal Power but among the Romans this Power of interceding being granted first incouraged the Tribunes afterwards to aspire farther to give Laws even to the Senators themselves So it succeeded with these Monks the devotedness of their State made them to be looked on somewhat above the ordinary Laity and some Sacerdotal Acts were indulged them for the Government of their own Members but no doubt at first with the consent of their Ordinaries to whom they were at first all subject Thus they had Power of suspending their own Monks from the Communion Then they challenged the Power of Consignation in the Bishops absence this was done first in Egypt as Hilary the Deacon observes in the Commentaries which go under the Name of St. Ambrose There were the most numerous bodies of Monks most remote from Bishops and therefore the most inclinable to these Sacerdotal Encroachments Thus we see there was occasion for asserting the Sacerdotal Rights against them in the times of the Patriarchs Nicephorus and Methodius For so far the Schism of these Studites continued as appears from the Observations our Author has made from the Writings of Methodius It is also plain that the Monks were the greatest part in the Schism of the Arsenians principally regarded by our Author So it appears from several passages in Georgius Pachymeres He tells us that many of the Monks and Laity divided and kept their separate Assemblies And the Emperor Michael in his Oration against the Schismaticks describes them so as that we cannot doubt but that the Monks were they who were principally intended by him He says they were such as by their course of life had been inured to Corners and Secrecies that they were cloathed in Sackcloth So Joseph in his Oration to Germanus where he perswades him to resign represents the Monks as the principal Adversaries with whom he had to deal on this occasion And the Names mentioned in this Cause are generally either of Monks or Nuns Such were Hiacinthus and Ignatius Rhodius and Martha and Nostogonissa and the Pantepoplene Monks so called from their Monastery were the most violent against Joseph and those who sided with him And now we understand that they were not any Latitudinarian dwindling notions of Schism such as our Adversaries fancy that made our Author allow of no cause but Heresie to justifie a separation These were perfectly unknown even to that lower Antiquity in which our Author lived The Persons he had to deal with were such as had no Bishop to head them Aâ—senius himself was dead now for some years before our Author made this Collection and he hath substituted no Successor nor was there any Bishop of
even a Precedent for his own Case Good Men indeed have been willing rather to part with their own Rights than they would violate the Church's Peace So did St. Gregory Nazianzene so St. Chrysostom so the African Fathers But where will he find a Mediator for Peace on any good account who did as he does who only addressed his Exhortations to the injured Persons to part with their Rights not to their Injurers to restore them How can he hope to perswade those Persons against whom he shews himself so manifestly partial His own Instances of Mediation are all against him Clemens Romanus did not perswade the injured Presbyters but the Schismaticks the Invaders of the Rights of the Presbyters to submit and quit their Interests in the Party that sided with them I know Dr. Owen as well as Mr. Hody has fallen into the same mistake to think they were Presbyters who are here exhorted by St. Clement but it is strange such Learned Men should fall into such a mistake if they had considered any thing of the design of the Epistle The persons with whom he had to deal were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n. 3. which are unlikely Characters of such as were Presbyters by Office They were such as are supposed to oppose the Presbyters in general n. 1.44 47 57. In opposition to them St. Clement insists on the example of Military Subordinations n. 37. Who sees not from hence that they aspired beyond the Rank and Station assigned them in the Church He insists on the Sacredness of the Sacerdotal Function n. 32 40 41 42 43 44 And he warns them particularly that Laicks were to be restrained within the Duty imposed on the Laity n. 40. implying plainly that the Schismaticks were Laicks and had nothing to do with the Sacerdotal Function He makes it such a Rivalling the Priesthood as the Israelites were guilty of when God convinced them of his own Choice of Aaron by the miraculous Blossoming of Aaron's Rod n. 43. This was evidently of persons pretending to the Sacerdotal Office when they had no Right to it He says the Apostles foresaw the same Aemulations for the sacred Office under the Gospel and secured it from being invaded by deriving it in a Succesion out of which it could not be received n 42 44. To what purpose could that Discourse tend but to restrain such Invasions in the Schismaticks he had to deal with supposing withall that they had no pretence to it on account of that Succession It is to the Headâ— of those Schismaticks that this Author speaks in this place n. 5â— Nay in the very words produced by Mr. Hody where the Apostolical Author personates them saying they would do the things enjoyned them by the Multitude so that the Flock of Christ might live in Peace with the Presbyters appointed over them So that in this very place they are opposed to the Presbyters Only the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is unhappily translated Plebs which made Dr. Owen fancy he had got a Testimony for his Lay Congregational Authority and perhaps made Mr. Hody think they were not themselves Plebeians who were to receive the Commands of the Plebs But the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no particular Rank of the Ecclesiasticks but takes in the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Presbyters in opposition to the smallness of the number of the Schismaticks who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n. 47. And as little to his purpose is the other Author produced by Mr. Hody Dionisius Alexandrinus He also addresses his exhortations as became a just Mediator not to Cornelius but Novatian to the Invader not to him who had received the injury If he will therefore be true to his Authorities let him perswade his Vsurpers to do Justice to the persons injured by them They are said to excuse themselves from the odium of the Schism by pretending they were forced into their Chairs But they who had the Spirit of our Ancestors would not have given the occasion for a Schism for any violence St. Cyprian counts it as glorious to die if the Cause should require it for Vnity as for the Faith Nor do our Laws force any to accept of Bishopricks though they indeed force them who are to Elect and Consecrate them and they have had some good Precedents of those who neither would be nor have been forced into Schismatical Thrones God reward then for iâ— Had all followed their examples the Schism at least had been avoided which is that which truly Christian Souls can bear with the least patience But though the first Trial be past Mr. Hody's Dionisius has found an expedient for them yet by whâ—ch they may satisfie the World whether they deal sincerely in pretending unwilliâ—gness That is by now resigning what they tell us they were forced to· 48 May all at length return to a love of Vnity and an abhorrence of carnal Politicks May they doe it whilst God is yet ready to accept it at their hands and before it be too late for securing their own greatest Interest May they doe it whilst they have yet an opportunity of satisfying the World by not graâ—ifying Flesh and Blood in it whilst they may in some measure retrieve the Honour of Religion and prevent the Ruine of innumerable invaluable Souls for which they must otherwise be responsible May they doe it whilst it may be in their power to make some Amends for the Scandals given by them without which their very Repentance cannot be acceptable to God nor beneficial to themselves before they provoke God to farther and severer Inflictions on our beloved Countries and to deprive us of that Religion for which they pretend so great a Zeal When shall we again return to our former Communion and to our former glorious Passive Doctrines and to our much more glorious Practice of them in suffeâ—ing for a good Conscience When shall we on both sides instead of Vpbraidings and Reproaches remove all just occasion of Reproach and return to a noble Emulation who shall doe most for a solid lasting Peace by Principles We have had Principles more contributive to Vnion thaâ— all our new Projects of Comprehension without uniting Principles But what can Principles signifie if we will not be true to them if we will fall from them as often as they pinch us We desire no hard things from them as Conditions on their side for a Reconciliation We onely desire the same Terms from them on which we were united formerly the common Doctrines of not onely ours but the Catholick primitive Church the Preservation of our sacred Ecclesiastical Rights our Duty to our H. Fathers which is not their Invaders Interest to deny before a just conciliary Deprivation and the same innocent Offices in which we formerly communicated And what can they pretend to yield for Peace if they will scruple Concessions so very just and reasonable if they will not
Unitate Eccl. Ep. 49. Edit Ox. Ep. 52.54.55 †These Doctrines of the Catholick Church in St. Cyprian's Age were also Doctrines of the Catholick Church in the Age of Optatus and St. Augustine * Till our Adversaries can disarm us of the advantage we have from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church signified on occasion of these earliest Instances of Schism in St. Cyprian's Age their Authors Collection of later Instances were it never so pertinent to their purpose can do them no Service 7ly This Author himself allows a Separation in Case of Heresie And with that our Adversaries are chargeable 1st as they do not only separate but justifie their Separation by Principles Separation on account of Opinions is by so much the less excusable if the Opinions be not Fundamental Such Opinions then begin to â—e Heretical when they cause an actual Separation as the Latitudinarian Opinions do now in our Adversaries 2. Even as Heâ—â—sie signâ—fies an error in Fundamentals The Church's being a Society is a fundamental Doctrine It is at least fundamental aâ— to us and as to all Benefit we can pretend to by being Members of the Church The Intruders cannot be defended to be valid Bishops but by Principles fundamentally destructive of the Church as a Sâ—ciety distinct from the State in a time of Persecution This sort of Errors fundamental in the highest degree Our Adversaries are wholly the Cause of this late Breach and have shewn themselves neither kind to us nor careful of themselves in it 1 Joh. 2.19 Transition The Vse out Adversaries make of this Collection is in all likelihood very different from the Design of the Author The Design of the Author of this Discourse is to be known from the Occasion of his writing it The Schism which occasioned this Discourse seems to have been that between the Arsenians and Josephians in the Reign of Michael Palaeologus Niceph. Gregor Lib. 4. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Gregor lib. 4. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregor lib. 5. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregor lib. 5. Gregor lib. 6. Niceph. Gregor Lib. 7. This Case of Arsenius is very like that of St. Chrysostome which our Author thought principally to deserve Consideration The Arsenians also gave our Author occasion to observe that past Invalidities in Ordinations did not use to be insisted on rigorously * So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 15. of the Synod under Photius here produced in the later part of this Discourse under the Title of AB 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Accusation to a Synod The Translator does not seem to have understood the Importance of this Phrase neither in his Latine nor English Version nor the Annotatour on the English The Latine Translation seems to imply that Severianus and Acacius personally appeared before Pope Innocent which no History owns them to have done The English that they were called in question by him which if meant juridically could not be true when he after exercised no Censure on them either of Condemnation or Absolution The Annotatour understands it of Discovery but what needed that when the Fact itself was notorious The Notion of Accusation solves all So also in the N. T. Acts 24.1 and 25.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to accuse or inforâ— against which is a proper Authority for this purpose because most of the Ecclesiastical Terms were designedly taken from the Scriptures * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregor lib. 7. p. 183. There was also in this Schism an occasion for the Author to add his Exception of Heresie and his Limitations of that exception * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregor lib. 5. This Case did not oblige our Author to justifie the Validity of a Lay-Deprivation Nay our Author could not justifie the Validity of a Lay-Deprivation if he would be true to the Canons here produced by himself but omitted by the Editors For Presbyters to disown their Bishop not synodically deprived is by the Doctrine of these Canons Schismatical (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 13. Synod A B. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. So it is also by the same Canons for Suffragan Bishops to disown their Metropolitane without the like Synodical Deprivation * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 14. ib. This unpublish'd Appendiz asserted to the Author This Collection therefore can be no Authority for our Adversaries neither as to the Sense of the Author nor of the Church he was concerned for The Case of Meletius in Antioch * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socr. l. 1. c. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soz. l. 2. c. 19. * See the Creed in Socr. l. 2. c. 40. * So Socrates concerning the Meletians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 2. c. 44. So elsewhere Paulinus the Rival of Meletius pleads against him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 5. c. 5. Of St. Chrysostome in Constantinople Of Flavianus Ep. 42. in Edit Pasch. Quesnel Ep. 43. Quesnel Ep. 45 Quesnel Ep 47. Quesnel Act. Concil Chalced. Evag. l. 2. c. 11. Nicephor Eccl. Hist. xiv 47 Zonar In the time of Anastasius Dicorus 1. The Instance of Euphemius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Lect. L. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophanes 2. Of Macedonius Theoph. Niceph E. H. xvi 26 Theod. Lect. 2. Niceph. xvi 26 Theoph. Theod. Lect. l. 2. Theoph. Theoph. Theod. Lect. l. 2. Theoph. Theoph. Euphemius Macedonius Flavianus and Elias were so untrue to Principles that it â—s not easie to gather from their Facts what even themselves thought agreeable to Principles Evagr. III. 31 Theoph. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. Vit. Sab. n. 52. Ib. 52. Ib. 56. The Deprivation of Elias Bishop of Jerusalem in the same Reign how Synodical Elias was in reason obliged to yield to John though not on the Account of his Orthodoxy Cyrillus Vit. Sab N. 56. Maximus Bishop of Jerusalem was in all likelihood not deprived by Acacius Bishop of Caesarea Soc. II. 38 Theod. II. 26 in Chron. Euseb. coâ—tin Epiph. Hâ—r LXXIII Phot. Cod. 258. The Life of Athanasius no good Authority The Dâ—privation of Maximus if true had not been for our Adversaries Purpose because Synodical The Case of Eutychius under Justinian Eustath Vit. Eutych ap Sur. Apr. 6. * Episcoporum Principum Eustath * Sed Vir Sanctus Episcopis Principibus qui Consessus mandato nuncium attulerâ—nt Ad quem inquit accediâ—is quem me vocatis Illi veritate coacti responderunt ad Dominum Nostrum Patrem Quibus ipse rursum Quis est inquit iste Dominus Pater vester Venimus inquiunt tanquam occultis quibus dam verberibus vapularent ad Patriarcham Nostrum Dominum Eutychium Patriarcha Ego inquit ille Patriarchâ— Dei Gratiâ sum nec à me quisquam hominum tollet hanc Dignitatem Quis est ille quem meo in loco