be divided into two parts yet both inherit their own share in solidum and so if two Men be bound for the same Debt if they are bound each Man in partem they are obliged to pay but half share but if they are obliged in solidum either of them is bound to pay all And this is St. Cyprian's State of Episcopacy that though many share the Authority yet every Bishop has as full possession of his own share within it self as if there were no other Seeing as he elsewhere expresses it a Parcel of the Flock is allotted to the care of its particular Pastor which every one is bound to guide and govern and to account to God for the discharge of his Episcopal Office Neither was this his singular Notion but the unanimous and settled Sense of the Ancients Thus the Author of Clement's Institutions brings in the Apostles Writing after this manner to all Christian Bishops We being all gathered together have written to you this form of Catholique Doctrine For the Confirmation of you to whom is entrusted the Catholique Episcapacy of the Church This was the entire Sense of all Ignatius his Epistles which suppose the full Jurisdiction of every particular Church to be placed in the Bishop and his own Clergy So Tertullian It is necessary that so many great Churches should be that one and first derived from the Apostles from whom all are derived and therefore they are all but one and yet several Apostolical Churches So all the Ancient Canons inhibit every single Bishop even the Metropolitan to intermeddle in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition Neither is this Supremacy of Power in every Bishop any abatement of the just Rights of Metropolitans For in the Primitive Church as I have shewn in a former Treatise Metropolitans had no Power over inferiour Bishops but in conjunction of the Synod of the Province So that it was the Synod not the Metropolitan that had the Superiour Power over every single Bishop And it is evident that he was as liable to the Sentence of the Synod as the meanest Bishop of the Province as appears from the case of Paulus Samosatenus and Metropolitans considering their number were as often censured and Deposed as other Bishops And this is the reason of St. Cyprian's so earnestly disclaiming the Title of Episcopus Episcoporum because though his own Metropolitical Jurisdiction were of great extent yet as a single Bishop he had no Superiority over any other Bishop no Authority to punish his Misdemeanors to receive Appeals from his Sentence or to order and rectifie any thing within his Diocess All such Power was to be exerted only in Synodical Conventions in which he had the Honour and Authority of Presidency but the Jurisdiction was seated in the Body of the Council without whose concurrence had he presumed to do any thing more then any other Bishop his least punishment had been certain Deposition This was the real State of things in the Ancient Church and Metropolitans never took upon them any Power over their Collegues or Brother-Bishops by their own single Authority till after the Papal Usurpation neither then did they challenge it as Metropolitans but as Legates to the Pope and that was one of the highest branches of the Usurpation But before that time the Governours of the Church were not more watchful against any one thing then that one Bishop should not claim any power over another Now this Principle being first laid That the whole Episcopal Authority is vested in every Bishop the next that is consequent upon it is That whoever separates from the Communion of his Bishop or sets up another against him is a Schismatick and this was the Subject of almost all his Epistles concerning the Restitution of the Lapsi or such as fell in time of Persecution For they according to the Ancient Discipline of the Church were not to be received into Communion but by these degrees First they were to Petition to be admitted to Penance and that upon confession of their fault was granted and then having undergon the Penance imposed they made a publick Confession of their Crime before the Congregation and upon that they received Absolution by the Imposition of the hands of the Bishop and Câ—ergy and after that they were admitted to the Holy Eucharist or Full-Communion But instead of this solemn severity of Discipline some of his own Presbyters had been so rash as without the consent of their Bishop to give them entire Absolution and admit them to entire Communion This was the opening of that unhappy Schism that afterward created so much trouble both to himself and the Church of God For when these Presbyters had so illegally restor'd those Enormous offenders they prevail'd by their Importunity upon the good Nature of the Martyrs and Confessors to intercede for their Restitution it being an Honour and Prerogative allowed them in the ancient Church to admit Sinners more easily to repentance upon their Request because they had by the constancy of their sufferings compensated for the scandal that the others had given by their Fall But instead of interceding for their admission to Penance these well meaning men move St. Cyprian for their complete Absolution without it to which he replies that they who had with so much courage and devotion kept the Faith of our Lord ought to be as â—areful of keeping his Law and Discipline †Epist. 16. per totum But yet he is willing to excuse them not only because they did it out of ignorance of the Laws of the Church and out of modesty being meerly overcome by the importunity of others but because they proceeded no farther than only to intercede with him in whom they acknowledge the Power and Authority of granting Absolution whereas the Presbyters had subverted all the Order of the Church by presuming upon it without him These slighting that dignity and respect which the Martyrs Hi sublato honore quem nobis beati Martyres cum confessoribus servant contemptâ domini lege observatione quam iidem Martyres Confessores tenendam mandant ante extinctum persecutionis metuÌ„ ante redituÌ„ nostruÌ„ ante ipsum pene MartyruÌ„ excessum communicent cum lapsiis offerant Eucharistiam tradant Confessors care fully observed despising the Law of God which those Good Men required to be kept before the fear of Persecution is over before our Return before the very consummation of the Martyrs themselves communicate with and give the Eucharist to the Apostates And therefore at the begining of this Epistle in which he so candidly excuses the Martyrs he reproves the rashness and disorder of the Presbyters with more then usual warmth and vehemence of Expression What Punishment Quod enim periculum non metuere debemus de offensâ domini quando aliqui de Presbyteris nec Evangelii nec loci sui memores sed neque futurum domini
the force and execution of present Laws and Penalties But then as the Christian Religion aims at the future happiness of the Souls of men its Conduct and Government is left to a peculiar Order of men to whom its Founder has entrusted the care of Souls and for which they are accountable to him alone For seeing the Kingdom that he establisht was altogether different in its Constitution from worldly Empire Seeing he appointed Officers void of all Secular Power to preside over it by virtue of his own immediate Authority And seeing he has engaged a peculiar Providence to be assistant to them in the Government of his Church through all Ages the case is plain to all Men that believe his Institution that all Ecclesiastical Power whatever it is that concerns the welfare of Mens Souls in the World to come is entirely vested in the spiritual Guides and Governors of the Church It being therefore so manifest past all contradiction that in all Christian States there are and must be from the Nature both of Government and Christianity two distinct Powers the only difficulty will be so to determine the Bounds of â—â—ch that they neither interfere in the exercise of their Jurisdiction nor any way incroach upon each others Authority An undertaking that has been often attempted by learned Men but generally with that vehement biass and partiality either way that has made it a Controversie not for truth but interest For it being chiefly managed by Divines and Canonists in behalf of the Church and by Statesmen and Lawyers in behalf of the Common-wealth each Party have not so much endeavour'd to assign the real Bounds of Truth as to propagate their own Empire and Dominion And for this reason is it that the Writers of the Church of Rome so eagerly and universally advance the Ecclesiastical Power the omnipotent Soveraignty of which they settle in the Pope alone as to raise it above the Power of all Sovereign Princes and all the Powers of the Earth Neither are they content to make it Superior to all their Authority but swell it to that exorbitant Greatness till they swallow up all Empire into its Jurisdiction And for this very reason the learned that have generally opposed themselves to these high and wild pretences have as generally run into the other Extreme so as to take all Ecclesiastical Authority not only from his Holiness and his Court but from all Ecclesiastical Officers to whom it was consign'd by our Blessed Saviour to the utter destruction of any such thing as a Christian Church So that in this Partial and in reality Prophane way of managing this great Controversie they contend not about the true and just grounds of each Province but both fight for the possession of the whole In which way of waging War no other event of it can be expected then of that irreconcileable fewd between Hannibal and the great Scipio that either Rome or Carthage must be destroyed and the Empire of one intirely subdued to the Dominion of the other And though some very few have treated of these things with somewhat more temper and moderation so as to acknowledge some kind of Bounds to their respective Jurisdictions yet they scarce ever set and determine them with that Justice and Equality that the security both of Government and Religion requires but apparently warp to their own side as they incline to or depend upon the interest of the Civil or Ecclesiastical State And therefore that is the great and only advantage that I can ensure to my self above those many so very much more learned Men that have labour'd in this weighty Argument that I know my self to undertake it without being engaged by any prejudice or biassed by any Interest or hired by any Reward then purely the discharge of a good Conscience without which the highest pleasure and satisfaction that humane life can afford were not a tolerable thing but with it an ordinary State of life with health is a present Paradice and state of Happiness So that how much soever I come behind others and I am sensible of a very great distance in the advantages of Wit and Learning yet I shall give place to no Man in freedom and integrity of Judgment And that alone I am sure is enough to make me Master of my Argument for if Men would only consider the Nature of the thing it self and abstract it from interest and prejudice that alone would bring them into a right understanding of it But when instead of looking directly upon their Object as they ought they labour to squint and pervert their own Eye-sight it is their own sault that they lose its natural representation And this is the very thing that fills the World with so many disputes to so little purpose because Men in their Enquiries will not follow the guidance of things themselves whereas if they would but be pleased to do so the truth of every thing is as clear and visible to a diligent Enquirer as Light it self There is not any one Argument that is thought more intricate obscure and difficult then this that I am now undertaking and therefore it is for the most part baulkt by the Wise Men of the World as a point too touchy to be handled especially because such great and powerful interests are engaged in the Contest and they are sure to be jealous as they ought to be of their own Prerogatives and will hardly so much as endure to have them touched much less fetter'd and confin'd So that this dispute is not only supposed difficult but dangerous in that it is thought so hard a matter for the Undertaker not to incur some way or other the displeasure of his Superiours by his best and most honest performance And yet after all this wariness and wisdom if Men would but state the thing only as that states it self there is scarce any one Controversie that can be more safe or more easie then its determination For things are so wonderfully order'd by the wise Providence of God in settling Christianity in the World that by determining the power of the Church and State as they are determin'd by his own original Settlement both Parties may have their own utmost demands and particularly the Civil Power more then otherwise it could have demanded And I doubt not but before I have done to give satisfaction to the highest Pretenders either way especially on the side of the State without any invasion of the Churches Power To assign an inherent and independent Power in the Church distinct from that of the State and immediately derived not from the Prince but our Saviour and that I am sure is as much as the highest claims to Ecclesiastical Power can with any modesty or without rank dishonesty challenge But then this being granted I shall demonstrate That there is as full and unabated Supremacy in Sovereign Powers over all manner of Ecclesiastical Authority as if it had been entirely derived from their own special
of breach of honesty by making him invade the Power of the Sword when he had disclaim'd it so this evasion charges him with defect of understanding as if our Saviour had been so weak as to argue Caesar's Title of Propriety from his Inscription Whereas any Man of Common sense if he will not industriously pervert it cannot but understand that our Saviour argues from the known Custom of all Nations in the World to stamp their Coin with their King's Image so that the piece of Money that they shewed him bearing Caesar's Picture that was an Evidence that he was their Sovereign Lord and therefore were they bound to submit to him in all his Commands that were not inconsistent with the Law of God and paying of Tribute not being so it was not only no sin but a necessary Duty or as St. Paul expresses it in pursuance of his Masters Precept exhorting and commanding the Christians to pay Tribute not only for Fear but for Conscience sake and because it is due This Sense is so very plain and unavoidable that nothing but malitious difingenuity could pervert it and the truth of it is this sort of men seem to take a kind of Pride and Delight in insulting ever the Holy Scriptures and make them ridiculous by their own imperious glosses to avoid their force as we shall see as we proceed But at present to give one example for all there are among them that blush not to prove our Saviour's Civil Dominion over the Kings of the Earth from the blessed Virgins Song He hath defeated the Proud in the imagination of their hearts he hath put down the Mighty from their Seat and hath exalted the humble and meek In which words she glorifies the Goodness and Wisdom of God that he was pleased that his Son should be born of a poor despised Maid and not as the great Men of the World expected of them that sate upon the Thrones of the Earth from which humble and grateful piece of Devotion to infer that she rejoyced and triumphed in the Prospect of that Confusion that her Son should bring upon the World by subverting and pulling down all the establisht Governments in it and erecting every where new Kingdoms and Principalities by his own Prerogative 't is so rude an imposing not only on this particular passage but upon the whole Tenor of the Gospel it self and the nature of our Saviours Office as argues a strange height either of Pride or Prophaneness For nothing can be more evident from all the preceding passages and the whole Scope of the Gospel then our Saviour's disclaimour of any pretence to any Temporal Authority And the truth of it is if he had laid claim to any such Power his Religion had stood upon no better Foundation than that of Mahomet that was at first planted and propagated and has hitherto been maintain'd by nothing but the power of the Sword Whereas the Design of our Saviour's Institution was pure and unmixt Religion and therefore abetted it self and its Laws by no other Sanctions then only the rewards and punishments of the life to come And the same Power that he claim'd and exercis'd himself and no other he devolved upon his Apostles from them to descend to their Successors to the end of the World so that all their power whatever it is being derived from him is of the same nature with that which himself whilst on Earth challenged as Head of his Church And yet it is plain that as Head of his Church he was so far from challenging any superiority over the Powers of the World that he profest nothing more frankly than an entire subjection to them And therefore Sovereign Princes cannot be properly said to be vested with any power under our Saviour as such for as it is evident that they are vested with a Supremacy of Power antecedent to his Institution so is it as evident that he never gave them any Commission for the Government of his Kingdom That power was given to his Apostles that were as much subject to the Civil Government as himself had ever been so that as he could give them no Temporal Power because he had or rather would have none it is plain that neither they nor their Successors could pretend to any by vertue of his Commission What he enjoys in Heaven as the Son of God whatever it is is peculiar to himself upon the account of his Divinity but he has communicated no other to his Church on Earth then what himself claim'd whil'st he remain'd in it which was purely spiritual in order to a Future State but void of all Temporal Power and Coercion So that it is but a crude expression not to call it prophane because it is so common by customary mistake to affirm that Kings are Supream Governors under Christ. They are and ever were so under God but so as to be superiour to Christ as Christ is Head of his Church within their Dominions For as Head of his Church he ever own'd himself subject to the Temporal Powers And therefore what absoluteness of power soever he enjoys by vertue of his Divine Nature yet as the Messias or the Mediator of the new Covenant for as such he was man 1 Tim. 2. 5. or as the Head and Founder of the Christian Society he strips both himself and his Officers of all pretences to and advantages of Temporal Power The reason of it we must carry with us all along because it is the Essential thing peculiar to his Institution that it might be able to subsist purely upon its own strength and maintain it self purely by vertue of its own Goodness and that not only without the Assistance but against the utmost Opposition of all Worldly Power And therefore the wise Providence of God so order'd things that it was sent into the World under all disadvantages but only of its own Truth and Goodness And by that alone it prevailed over all the World before it had the least countenance from the Civil Powers nay whilst it was with all their strength zeal and malice opprest by them And this is the only thing that made it pure Religion and distinguisht it from all other Religions in the World whereas had it any certain Temporal advantage annext to it as such men had been invited to embrace it as matter of Interest and not of Conscience and then it had become Worldly Policy and ceased to have been Religion That then is the first Principle upon which our whole Christianity lies that all the Advantages Priviledges and Preheminences that the Church can pretend to derive from our Saviour are purely Spiritual relating only to the State of Souls in the World to come And if the Church any where enjoy any other Dignities or Jurisdictions it derives them wholly from the Grants and Charters of Soveraign Princes who may endow them with what Priviledges themselves think convenient as they may any other Order of their Subjects And what Powers or
of the Primitive Church where we shall find the whole matter so fairly and so easily accorded that it is next to a miracle how it should ever be made so great a difficulty in these later times But it hapned in this as it did in most other things at the time of the Reformation that men saw themselves wrapt up they knew not how in woful Errours and Corruptions but did not and indeed as the World then stood could not immediately discover the true original state of the Church as it was at first setled by our Saviour and his Apostles and received into protection by Constantine and the Christian Emperours So that though they had Eye-sight enough and God knows very little would serve their turn to discern the follies and abuses of Rome they were at a loss how to fix the right Reformation and for want of the ancient Records of the Church that lay buried in dust and rubbish at that time could make but slow improvements in it So that before the true state of the Church could be clearly and fully discover'd most of them were setled in some way or other and after any new settlement it is very difficult to make any Alteration and therefore they continue in their first posture to this day But the Church of England at the very first Attempt resolving to reform it self by the Example of the Primitive Church and having the good fortune to retain the Apostolical form of Episcopal Government in subordination to the Royal Power set it self in a right way to Reformation And so as the state of things came to light by degrees brought its work to some competent Perfection For the Reformation of the Church after such an inveterate degeneracy must needs be a work of so great bulk and difficulty that it is an unreasonable thing to expect that it should be finisht at the first stroke So great a design as that must be a work of time and consideration to be reviewed and amended as the Master-Workmen shall find most convenient So as that they who had a Power first to begin it have an inherent right when ever they think fit to take an account of their own Work and if they find any flaws mistakes or defects in it to make them up by an after-care So that there must be a constant Power residing in the Church to enact or abolish Laws as it judges most serviceable to the present state of things And that is truly and properly the Church of England the Governours of it acting under the Allowance of the Sovereign Power by its establisht Laws and Constitutions with a constant power residing in themselves and their Successours to enact new Laws as they shall judge most beneficial to the Edification of the Church And it is a very crude notion of the Church of England as common as it is that it is to be found in its Canons Articles and Constitutions for that is only the Law and dead rule of the Church of England but the Church properly so call'd consists in its living Authority as setled by our Saviour by which these Laws were at first enacted and are or ought to be still executed and may in some cases be alter'd And that is the great difference between the Law and the Authority of the Church that one is alterable and the other is not The Authority of the Church may make new Laws and cancel old ones but that lasts the same for ever So that for men to talk of this or that Church without a particular form of Government setled in it by our Saviour's own Commission is to turn the Christian Church into a Chimaera and imaginary state of Fairies But as for the Church of England according to the design of its Reformation it consists of a National Synod of Bishops together with a select Convocation of Presbyters representing the whole Body of the Clergy in subjection to the Sovereign Power and in communion with the Catholique Church all the World over as far as it can be attain'd And this is contrived so agreeably to the Primitive Platform the Interest of Government the Nature of Christianity that there is little else defective in it then the honesty and the confidence to own it self and put its own Constitution into effectual practice But of that I shall discourse in its proper place §. 9. At present for the practice of the Primitive Churches Government within it self and as it related to the Civil State it must be consider'd in the two Periods before and after the Conversion of the Empire and by comparing the true face and posture of things in these two so different states we shall have an exact description of the Rights of the Church in all estates and conditions whatsoever But most of all of its easy complyance with the Rights of Civil Government in Christian States and of the safest way for Christian Sovereigns to govern and protect the Church within their Dominions without invading its inherent and unalienable Authority And then last of all I shall compare that Royal Supremacy that is acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England in Causes Ecclesiastical with the sense of the Ancient Church concerning the Authority of Emperours and with the Practice of Christian Princes in the Exercise of this Authority And by shewing their compleat Agreement shall from that Topick distinctly prove that we have in this as well as in other matters attain'd a good degree of Reformation First as for the Period of time before the Conversion of the Roman Empire there are two things to be consider'd first their behaviour towards the Civil Government whilst it supprest and persecuted the Christian Faith Secondly the exercise of their own Authority within themselves From both which it will appear that the Church as a Society founded by Christ challenged a Jurisdiction distinct from and Independant upon the Civil State and that this Jurisdiction was so far from interfering with or abating of the Sovereignty of Princes that it bound them to the strictest Allegiance and Subjection to the most inhumane Persecutors And the Story of this Interval whilst the powers of the Church and the World were separate and indeed as much as it was possible opposite will set before us a much clearer State of the Nature and Extent of the two Jurisdictions then we can have from the Practice of Christian States in which the two Powers concurring in the same Acts of Government it is not altogether so easie to discern their distinct influences but will withal give us the fullest Character of true Christian Loyalty from their practice under the hardest usage and severest persecutions But most of all from their Principles upon which they founded their Obligation to their Practice and when it appears upon what grounds and reasons they submitted to the utmost cruelty of the Civil Government that will prevent the common shift made by all Factious Parties against the Authority of their Example
as any other Ceremony whatsoever Now the Bishop being with this great care and caution admitted to his Trust he was consider'd in a treble capacity first in relation to his own Diocess secondly to the Bishops of the Province thirdly to the Catholick Church Within his own Diocess he had the Supreme Government for every Diocess though it be but a Member of the Catholick Church is yet a distinct Society of it self and ordinarily Govern'd by a Jurisdiction within it self and that was by the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters in which he enjoyed such a Supremacy that no act of the Presbyters could be valid without his Consent and Authority and yet his Supremacy was so confin'd that he could as little act without the concurrence of his Presbyters as they without his Now this Episcopal Superiority acting only in conjunction with the Presbyters was the most proper method that could have been contrived to prevent confusion on one hand and Tyranny on the other For where a Body of Men act in an equality of Power without some real Authority above them nothing can be expected but perpetual Factions and Animosities And on the other side a Power purely Monarchical without any Associates in the Government may easily if it please degenerate into Tyranny and when it does so has nothing to restrain it and though Tyranny be an ugly thing in Civil Government yet in the Ecclesiastical it is far more indecent because Church Power is founded upon the profession of Meekness and Humility But though the Bishops ever associated the Presbyters in Authority with them from the time of the Apostles yet I imagine that there are no Footsteps of any Divine Command requiring it though its early practice may prove it an Apostolical Custom and Tradition but if it was it was for any thing we know their own voluntary act as becoming the modesty of Christian Governors But the Jurisdiction of the Church being thus seated in the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters matters were so effectually ordered that their Acts were not only valid within their own Precincts but in the Catholick Church all the World over Thus it is Enacted that if any Clergy-man or Lay-man excommunicate or any way unfit to be received shall be received in another City i. e. according to the Language of those times in another Diocess without commendatory Letters both he that receives him and he that is received shall be excommunicate And if any Clergy-man shall quit his own Diocess without his Bishops leave he shall be degraded from his office And the Bishop that shall receive such an one in his Clerical Capacity shall be excommunicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Master of confusion or an enemy to the peace and unity of the Catholick Church No Clergy-man that is excommunicate by his own Bishop shall be absolved by another as long as that Bishop lives And no Clergy-man of what Order soever not a Bishop himself is to be so much as relieved without commendatory Letters No Bishop is to ordain in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition There is no Flight or Appeal from one single Bishop to another but if any man thought himself aggrieved by his own Bishop he had power of Appeal to the Bishops of the Province who were to assemble twice a year in Council to Debate Matters of great weight in the Church especially to review the Acts of Government in every particular Diocess of the Province that if they found any wrong Judgment they might reverse it or if any harsh or too severe they might mitigate it Here is all the care in the World taken to preserve the Efficacy of the Discipline in every Church and it was so religiously observed in the Primitive times that I do not remember one instance of its being violated till the time of the Constantinopolitan Usurpation And it is reckoned among the many other strange Enormities of Dioscorus by the Council of Calcedon in their Epistle to the Emperours Valentinian and Marâ—ian in which they give an account of the reasons of his Deposition viz. That he had received several Persons legally excommunicate by his single Authority in contempt of the Holy Canons which command that those that are excommunicate by one be not received into Communion by another And in pursuance of the foremention'd Apostolical Canons to preserve the Authority of every Bishop within his own Jurisdiction it was afterward decreed by the Nicene Council that there shall be no redress no nor complaint against the Sentence of the Diocesan Bishop unless it be at the meeting of the Provincial Synod And it is said that at the motion of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople for prevention of Frauds and Cheats in Canonical Epistles such an artificial form was contrived by the Council as was impossible to be counterfeited The form is extant in Gratian Distinct. 73. it is somewhat remarkable and very well worth the perusal But it is plain that they confined every Bishops power within his own Circuit and every Clergy-man to his own Bishops Jurisdiction And all the following Councils stick close to the same principles of Discipline though the African Bishops were more strict then other Churches in this as well as all other points of Government no Travelling among them without dimissory Letters And if any Bishop carried a complaint to any Forraign Church he stood ipso facto excommunicate to all the African Churches But lastly beside this form of Provincial Government in which all matters of common concernment were determined by the major Vote of the Episcopal Synod and by which all the Diocesses within the Province were united and cemented into one Communion there was a common tye of Government between the Bishops of several Provinces in whose Concord consisted the Unity of the Catholick Church so much talked of by the Ancients And this was chiefly kept up by Communication of Synodical Letters which was not an Arbitrary correspondence but an indispensable duty of every Church to every Church so that whatever Bishop neglected it he was for that reason cast by all others out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and by this device every Act of Discipline in every Church was of force in all Churches all the World over and whoever was taken in a Member of one Church had a right from it to communicate in all Churches and whoever was cast out of the same stood excommunicate to the whole Christian World And this was done with all security and expedition by setling the power of correspondence in every Province upon the Metropolitan and by the mutual intercourse of Metropolitans all the general Affairs of the Church were transacted And therefore upon the choice of a new Metropolitan it was the custom to signifie his Election to all the rest that they might know to whom to direct their corresponding and communicatory Letters Thus the Synod of Antioch that deposed Paulus Samosutenus in
Opinion of the great merit of Caelibacy was one of the first Superstitions that invaded the Christian Church and was in every Age more busie and forward than any other though I do not find that it could ever obtain the force of Law in the Eastern Church till the Council in Trullo in the year 691 by whom Bishops and no other are forbidden to cohabit with their Wives after Consecration and as that is the first Canon of this kind so is it a flat contradiction to the Apostolical Canon And though the Council endeavour to excuse it yet they do but the more grosly entangle themselves by their own Apology and instead of defending their fault confess it For when they have made the Canon they tell us that they do not intend thereby to contradict the Apostolical Canon when the very making of it is an express contradiction to it And in the very next Canon they condemn the Church of Rome for prohibiting marriage to Priests and Deacons and make good their Decree from this very Canon that equally allows it to all Orders But above all commend me to Gratian upon this Argument who when he has in two whole Chapters recited several Ancient Canons of the Church against this Superstition especially those severe ones of the Council of Gangra and last of all this last mention'd Canon in Trullo in which the marriage of Presbyters and Deacons is expresly warranted he begins his next Chapter with this general Assertion Servanda est ergò continentia ab omnibus in sacris ordinibus constitutis And then proves it by the Decrees of later Popes injoining Caelibacy as a Duty of Piety to all Orders of the Clergy But if they can thus confidently justifie their Innovations out of the Ancients by concluding contrary to their own avowed and express Sense I confess they may make good any Cause though I should think it would be much more adviseable to let fall such a Cause as can be no better way defended Another remarkable Law that was Enacted during this Interval by meer Ecclesiastical Authority was the exclusion of all voluntary Eunuchs from Holy Orders And that was made upon occasion of the Heresie of the Valesians who thought themselves bound to this severity against themselves by too rigid an Interpretation of some passages of our Saviour especially that of St. Matthew's Gospel 19. 12. And the same Canon was afterward renewed in a Synod at Alexandria against Origen upon the same account and after that by the great Council of Nice upon occasion of the fact of Leontius who being a Presbyter and very much delighting in the conversation of a young Virgin by name Eustolia and being upbraided with the scandal of using so much freedom with her to prevent that without losing her Society he made the same attempt upon himself that Origen had done for which he was deposed by the Council though afterwards he was contrary to the Canon or rather in defiance to the Council promoted by the Eusebian Faction with whom he sided to the great See of Antioch But hereby we may see the necessity of a Legislative Power in the Church without which there would be no means to restrain all the wild Conceits and Extravagancies that Superstition can blow into Mens fancies So exorbitant a Principle is it so inconsistent with the Peace and preservation of the Church so absurd so foolish and contrary to the Common Sense of Mankind that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governors of the Church but what is expresly imposed by the Word of God There are many more Examples in this Interval both of the settlement of that Polity in the Church that I have above described and of divers wise and prudent Laws made upon particular Occasions but to avoid being too tedious and yet to do the work effectually I shall confine my self to the Writings of St. Cyprian in whose time the State of the Church was brought to perfection and who I may be bold to say understood it as well as any Writer of the Christian Church either before or after his own time and who has stated the whole matter with the greatest clearness and strength of Reason and reduced it to practice with the most unblameable prudence and wisdom and therefore I shall give a more particular and exact account of his Sense of the Government and Unity of the Catholick Church both for the enlightening of some Mens minds who pretend to be so dull that they cannot understand how it should be govern'd in way of external Polity and for a proof of the exact agreement of the Church of England in its design'd Model of Reformation with this Ancient State of the Christian Church This is made much more easie at this time by the late labour of a very learned Prelate of our own in digesting his Writings that had hitherto lay not a little confused into their due and exact order of time For when we certainly know at what time and upon what occasion every discourse was written it must needs make it much more easie and much more useful then otherwise the discourse could have made it self For that Unity is a very desirable thing is agreed on all hands the only dispute is wherein it consists Some will have it to be only an Union of Faith and Charity others of External Polity so as that all Christians are some way or other United under one Government And these we may subdivide into two Parties Either those that place the Unity of the Catholick Church in a Subjection to one single Monarch Or those that set up an Obligation to a Political Unity among all Churches under several Governments So that though every particular Church or Diocess have Supreme Government within it self as to all things that concern its own State yet it is accountable to the Catholick Church i. e. to all other Churches for the Peace of the whole For though a Church may be at Unity within it self yet if it do any thing injurious to the peace of Government in any other Church it becomes Schismatical to the whole Body of the Catholick Church presuming as much as in it lies to overthrow the Discipline of all other Churches This as I take to be the true State of the Controversie so to be St. Cyprian's sense of it §. 12. And the first Principle that runs through all his Writings and lies at the bottom of all his Notions concerning Church Unity is that there is but one Episcopacy setled in the Church by Divine Appointment distributed among the several Bishops of the Catholique Church every one retaining the whole Power within his own Bishoprick as he expresses it like a Lawyer Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every one holds his own share with full Title and Possession For the word in solidum is a Law-term denoting a Plenitude of Title so that though an Estate
Priviledges all States that profess Christianity are bound by that profession to settle upon the Church I shall shew in its proper place but whatever they are the Church cannot challenge them by it's Original Charter So that if any Church shall be so presumptuous as to pretend to any such Power which way soever it comes in whether directly or indirectly by vertue of our Saviour's Commission that is not only a Contradiction to the Nature of Christianity but an Atheistical Abuse put upon the whole Design of the Institution But as to pretend to any such Power from our Saviour only over Subjects is no less then Blasphemy against him so to pretend to it over Soveraigns doubles the Blasphemy by adding the Sin of Rebellion to that of Impiety and utterly destroys not only the Being and Constitution of a Christian Church but of all humane Societies So that how many Marks soever there may be of a true Church this alone is an infallible Note of a false one And therefore every Church that refuses to disclaim any Temporal Power over Princes renounces the Christian Faith and forfeits all the Rights and Priviledges of a Christian Church but if it should be so vain as openly to claim any such power it bids open defiance to our Saviour and quits him and his Religion to follow Mahomet So that there is no one thing in the World can so effectually unchurch a Church as its claiming any Temporal Authority to it self especially over Soveraign Powers And this I doubt will light very severely upon the Bishops of Rome ever since the Hildebrandine Apostacy viz. That the Pope as Vicar of Christ has a power of deposing Soveraign Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance this they have own'd whenever they durst and put in practice whenever they could and would never be brought upon any Terms to condemn it which Doctrine certainly is the greatest unkindness that they can do themselves and the worst thing that their greatest Enemies could desire to object against them and if any thing can prove his Holiness to be Antichrist this is the thing because it is an utter Subversion of the whole State of Christianity and makes our Saviour a false Christ by making him a Temporal Messias and placing him in the head of an Army to subdue the Princes and Nations of the World into subjection to himself I am sure for this very reason does the Learned Cardinal Baronius make Mahomet the Type of Antichrist because he promoted his Religion over several parts of the World by force of Arms Quod armorum potentia tot provincias nullo fermè negotio per suos posteros ejusdem sectae homines subjugasset He would have done well to have applyed this Censure nearer home and then he would not have justified all the Rebellious Popes in their violencies and outrages that they acted against Soveraign Princes and yet no man has done it with more diligence then himself as I shall prove when I come to consider his Performance Neither will this Charge of Apostacy light only upon the Church of Rome but upon every Church that maintains a right of resistance to Soveraign Powers upon a pretence of Christian Religion whatsoever for that is still to take to themselves such a power against their Prince by our Saviours Authority which is the same direct contradiction to the Nature of the Christian Faith and the same sort of Apostacy from Christianity to Mahumetism putting a Scymeter into our Saviours hand and under his pretended conduct waging War against their lawful Soveraign and that is the greatest dishonour that they can bring to their Master or themselves And yet we shall find some other Churches aś much guilty of this Apostacy both in Doctrine and Practice as that of Rome and though Rome and they stand at the greatest distance of Enmity out of Jealousie of one another who should carry the prize yet they both fully agree in this fundamental Antichristian Principle But this Charge will come home in its proper place at present we must take this Article of faith all along with us No Temporal Authority in the Church unless from the grant of the State §. III. But then secondly it must be granted too that the Power of Princes how great soever in Church matters supposes the Spiritual Authority of the Church that was as much settled by our Saviour without any dependency on the Authority of the State as the Authority of the State was settled by the Providence of God before there was any such thing as a Christian Church in the World So that it is undeniably evident from its original Constitution that the Church subsists no more upon the State as to its proper Power then the State upon the Church For as the Christian Church came into the World after the Civil Government of States was entirely settled in it so did the World come into the Church after its Government was as entirely fixed within it self And therefore as Christianity by its coming into the World ought no manner of way to abate the Civil Power of the State so neither when the Powers of the World come into the Church ought they to diminish any thing of that Authority that it enjoyed by Divine Commission before they came into it For they are received into it upon the same terms with all other Proselytes of the Christian Faith that they submit themselves to it as our Soviour's own Institution So that as our first point is That all Sovereign Princes have or ought to have an Imperial Supremacy over all Ecclesiastical Persons and in all Ecclesiastical Causes Our second is That this Supremacy which is the highest Power that can be on Earth is no Ecclesiastical but a Civil Supremacy For beside that it would be a dishonour to degrade a Sovereign Prince to the Priestly Office The Ecclesiastical Power is purely Spiritual and that is a Power that was never challenged by any Prince nor directly given by any Man though it is so by plain and undeniable consequence by all that disown an Inherent Authority in the Church from our Saviour's own Commission but only Mr. Hobbs who as he made the Prince his own Priest made him his own God too Now these two Principles laid together clear up the Nature and Title of the Supremacy of Sovereign Princes That it is none of that Spiritual Power that is lodged in the Church but a Temporal Supremacy over all the Spiritual Power of it within his own Dominions And now if these two Principles that are as certain as Christianity it self were but calmly attended to they would perfectly silence all the clamours of both the extreme Parties in this Controversie Those of the Church of Rome must cease their noise that we make the King a Bishop by acknowledging his Supremacy in all Ecclesiastical Causes and over all Ecclesiastical Persons when upon this State of the Question such a Supremacy over all things and persons within their Dominions
himself is Deposed and Anathematised as one that destroyed the Order of the Church and disturb'd the Peace of Christian Empire and compass't the Death of a Catholique Prince and abetted a perjured Usurper and subverted the Peace of the World And the same Sentence was ratified five years after in a Council at Mentz though all in vain for they got nothing by it but the Name and the Brand of Schismatiques But what bloody work has been made in Christendom by the Principles of this Termagant Pope from that time to this will make up a Volume of it self when we come to those times But to return to the state of the Primitive Church though there are no examples of any affront or violence offer'd to the Civil Magistrate in it yet there are numberless Instances of their quiet and peaceable Submission and that too upon Principles of Duty and Obligations of Conscience Thus was it bravely said of St. Polycarp and worthy the greatness and wisdom of the Martyr to the Pro-Consul at his Tryal We are Commanded Sir to give all due and decent honour to Princes and Magistrates so far as we can do it without doing wrong to our own Consciences They were bound to comply with and submit to the Will of their Governours in all things but Sin and that by the Laws of their Religion But the most magnificent Account of this is to be seen in the Christian Apologists who in the very heat and flame of Persecutions when if ever Men should be exasperated into Passion Glory and Triumph in their great Zeal and Loyalty to those very Princes by whom they were persecuted Just in Martyr is so confident as to Petition the Emperours to punish all such as profess't Christianity and yet lived not according to the Laws of their Religion and then immediately adds As for our parts we are the most forward of any Subjects to pay Taxes and Contributions to the Emperour as we are Commanded by our Master to give unto God the things that are God's and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's And therefore we worship God alone but cheerfully serve them in all other things as well knowing them to be Sovereign Princes over Men and withal praying for them that God would add Wisdom to their Imperial Dignity This is our Practice and Profession and if notwithstanding this you will proceed against us we shall be no losers being assured that every Man must after death give an account of his own Actions and then our Rewards shall be proportion'd to our Sufferings And after the same manner and with the same confidence does his Scholar Athenagoras conclude his Eloquent Oration to the Emperours when he had shewn the Innocence of the Christians in all other particulars when he had wip't off all Calumnies and when he had represented their Piety their Honesty their Temperance their Sobriety he adds And now great and worthy Sirs lend me your Royal Ear who think you are more likely to obtain the things that they pray for then Persons so qualified and yet we daily poure forth our Prayers for the prosperity of your Government and that the Son may according to right succeed the Father in the Empire and that your Government may ever increase and flourish in short that all things may fall out as successfully as your hearts can desire which will be a benefit also to our selves that living under your Reign a quiet and peaceable life we may readily obey your Commands That was the sum of all their Apologies and it was suited to the Nature of their Religion as it stood founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross we are obedient to all your Commands that are not contrary to the true worship of God and the Laws of our Religion there we crave leave to be excused and if that offend you we can but suffer for it which we are ready to do with all manner of meekness and submission as being assured of an â—ternal Reward for a short calamity Theophilus Antiochenus in his Address to his Friend discoursing of the Folly and Vanity of giving Divine Worship to the Emperours he tells him That it is a much greater honour to them not to worship but to pray for them I will worship that God from whom Caesar received his Authority But you will say why not Caesar too Because he was not set up to be worshipt but to be paid that proper honour that is due to Caesar for the King is not the Deity but ought to remember that he is advanced by God to that height of Dignity not to be worshipt by his Subjects but to do them Justice for this end the Divine Majesty placed him in the Imperial Throne and therefore as Caesar will not suffer any of his Subjects to usurp the Caesarean Title because it belongs to him alone neither let himself challenge that worship that is proper and peculiar to the Divine Majesty And therefore O Man honour the King honour him I say by loving him obeying him and praying for him and by so doing you will do the will of God for this is the Sum of the Divine Law my Son honour God and the King and be not disobedient or refractory to either of them This was the true state of the Case in his time to shew all manner of respect and honour to Sovereign Princes as such only in Subordination to God so as to obey them in all things but when their commands interfer'd and then indeed they choose to obey God in the first place still preserving in all other things the same honour and duty to their Prince And after the same manner Origen answers Celsus when he asks him why the Christians cannot worship and appease the Emperours because says he there is only one God that ought to be worshipt the Lord of all and he is best appeased with devout Prayers but the favour of Princes is not to be courted by such mean and dishonourable obsequiousness as is inconsistent with true Piety or such servile Flatteries as are unworthy a generous man and one that esteems magnaâ—imity to be the greatest of Vertues but as far as our Piety to God will permit we are not so frantick that we should wilfully exafperate the displeasure of Kings to deliver us to torments and death for we are so taught in our Books let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but is of God therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God And these words are to be understood in their plain and natural sense And their Sense is so very plain that it is impossible to fasten any other Sense upon them beside their own With all these imminent Doctors of the Church agrees the Answer of that pious and resolute Prelate Dyonysius of Alexandria in his Examination before AEmilianus Prefect of Egypt that we worship one God the Maker of all things and who bestowed the Empire upon their
God had preordained and for the more easie letting of him in and the appointed continuance of him in his Throne there was a special necessity that no such Opinion as this of the lawfulness of resistance whether true or untrue should be taught and believed Whereas now on the contrary that the time of God's preordination and purpose for the downfal of Antichrist drawing near there is a kind of necessity that those truths which have hitherto slept should now be awakened as the necessary means to ruine Antichrist particularly that God should reveal to his faithful Ministers and Servants the just bounds and limits of Authority and Power and the just and full extent of the lawful Liberties of those that live in subjection This is the sum of the new discoveries of John Goodwin in his Book Entituled the Anti-Cavalier And there are divers passages to the same purpose in the Writings of John Owen about the same time who has warranted all the Villanies of Cromwel and his Independants even the King's Murther itself by pretending to new Lights and Revelations from Heaven Particularly That when God is doing great things he gives glorious manifestations of his excellencies to his secret ones So that he that is call'd to serve Providence in high things without some especial discovery of God works in the dark and knows not whither he goes and what he does such an one travels in the Wilderness without a directing Cloud Clear shining from God must be at the bottom of deep labouring with God What is the Reason that so many in our days set their hands to the Plough and look back again Begin to serve Providence in great things but cannot finish Give over in the heat of the day They never had such Revelation of the mind of God upon their Spirits such a discovery of his Excellencies as might serve for a bottom of such undertakings Men must know that if God hath not appear'd to them in brightness and shewn them the horns in his hand hid from others though they think highly of themselves they 'l deny God twice and thrice before the close of the work of this Age. Hence is the suiting of great Light and great work in our days Let new Light be derided whilst men please he will never serve the Will of God in this Generation who sees not beyond the line of foregoing Ages But what is this new Light that was never seen in the World before to this it is fairly answered plainly the peculiar Light of this Generation is that discovery which the Lord hath made to his people of the mystery of Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny By which a Monarchy of some hundred years continuance always affecting and at length wholly degenerating into Tyranny was destroyed pull'd down and swallowed up a great and mighty Potentate that had caused terrour in the Land of the Living and laid his Sword under his head was brought to punishment for Blood as he expresses it in his Thanksgiving for his present Majesties overthrow at Worcester p. 15 where he very familiarly bestows upon him the honourable Titles of a Tyrant full of Revenge a man of Blood a Son of Belial Absalom and Sheba the Son of Bichri And lastly he encourages the Rebels and Traytors the day immediately after his late Majesties Murther with a jacta est Alea i. e. the cast of a Dye thrown by the hand of God himself whose Providence he says must be served in it according to the discovery made of his own unchangeable Will But such pretences as these are such desperate pieces of Villany in themselves so framed to serve any wickedness in the World such rank Blasphemy and Rebellion so destructive of all Government and Society that for any man to make use of them is the very height of Prophaneness and when men are come so far it is in vain to confute them because 't is impossible to object worse things against them then they are ready to own But however they unawares make a fair confession that their own Doctrine and Practice is contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel and the Practice of its Primitive Professors and then we care not whence they receive it for whencesoever it comes it makes them Apostates from the Christian Faith that did not only suppress it but expresly condemn it so that if their new discovery be true there is an end of the Gospel To that height of Prophaneness were these men blown up by their success in Villany that they would rather renounce their Saviour openly before God and the World then quit their Rebellion Though the highest aggravation of it is that after so daring a defiance to the Christian Religion they dare pretend to the highest claims of Gospel Purity But that has ever been the Policy of Enthusiasts to piece out their notorious forfeiture of all Integrity with infinite pride and confidence But thus we see it is aâ—d thus it must be that if men once forsake the Doctrine of the Cross there is no stopping till they come to the Gospel of the Pigeon and the Scymeter And thus having proved the first Proposition the Doctrine and Practice of Submission and Passive Obedience under the severest Cruelties and Perâ—ecutions I now proceed to the second thing to be consider'd in this Interval viz. That notwithstanding this absolute and entire submission to the Civil Powers under all Persecutions they kept up a strict Government and vigorous Discipline within themselves by vertue of their own Authority And that will be a new demonstration from experience and matter of Fact that the highest exercise of Ecclesiastical Power for then it was at the height is so far from interfering with the Civil that it is every way compliant with the lowest state of Subjection to it §. 11. In the first place it is already made evident that our Saviour by his own appointment setled Governours over his Church and that these were the Apostles and their Successors the Bishops through all Ages Now the proper office of all Government is to see to the execution of all Laws already in force and to enact new ones upon particular occasions and emergencies as they shall judge most advantageous to the present state of the Society And this was the work of the Apostles and Primitive Bishops always to promote the Practice of their Masters own Laws among his Subjects and as oft as it was needful to make occasional provisions for the peace and order of the Church Of the former I need say nothing because it is granted and supposed on all hands but of the latter it will be requisite to give a full account because though it is the only means that our Saviour has provided for the Unity of his Church and though by the use of it the Church was preserved in Peace and unity in its best and purest times and lastly though without it there can be no Government in the Church nor any bar to endless
confusions yet I know not by what blind and unhappy fate it is become a popular and a reigning principle among us All Innovators lay it at the bottom of their new Projects of Reformation it is the fundamental Principle of Grotius as well as all other Erastians Legislativam Potestatem jure divino non competere ecclesiae that the Church has no Legislative Power by Divine Right At present to say nothing to the falshood of the Proposition itself yet methinks Grotius who was so well acquainted with the Records of the ancient Church of all men should not have said it when it was so constantly both challenged and put in practice and that not only all the time before the Emperors became Christians but after But he was then a young man and the Book is written with great rawness and betrays lamentable want of consideration It is the very Foundation of all Independency that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governours of the Church upon the Members of it but what is clearly revealed in the word of God And that there is no other Rule of Unity then that rule prescribed by our Lord himself which is so far from truth so inconsistent with the Being of a Church that it is a meer contradiction to the Nature and the use of Government whose proper Office it is to make Provisions for the Peace and good Order of the Society upon all occasions by the common rules of Prudence and Discretion and such things it is necessary to leave to the judgment and determination of Men because their convenience and usefulness is alterable with change of times and circumstances and therefore must be left to the liberty of the Governors of the Church to impose or remove them as they shall judge most suitable to the present State of things This was the standing rule in the Primitive Church that points of Faith were unalterable and when they were once determin'd by the Judgment of the Catholick Church they were never after that to be debated but as for all Laws of Discipline they were alterable with change of times and circumstances And to name one for all Regula quidem fidei says Tertullian una omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis Hac lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis The Rule of Faith is always the same this alone is unchangeable and unreformable But as this remains forever so matters of Discipline and Government admit the Novelty of change and amendment So that next to the Fundamental Charter of being a Church this is the grand Principle of its Government that its Governours be endued with an Authority of imposing some things that are not required in the Word of God because the Church must be govern'd as all humane Societies are i. e. by men of common sense that have Wit enough to judge what is fit to be done upon any emergent cases and whose Authority is sufficient to oblige the Members of the Society to their Decrees and without it there could neither be Church nor Government So that this principle is so little suited to the state of Church-Purity as the Schismatiques pretend that it is only set up as an impregnable pretence for everlasting Schisms and Divisions For it was never started or so much as thought of till t'other day when the Puritan Faction for want of something more material to object against the Constitutions of the Church were forced at last to make this their main quarrel that they were not préscrib'd in the Word of God And as long as they were resolved to stand to that Exception they were secure in their Schism for it is an Objection not against the particular Constitutions of this Church but the practice of the Universal Church and the exercise of any power in all Churches of the World and therefore it being so good a Fund for Confusion it is for that reason so carefully nursed by the Independant Faction at this day it is the result of all J. O's Books about Schism because it makes all peace and settlement an impossible thing when there is no such rule of worship or discipline as is pretended by attending to which the Unity of the Church is to be preserved and therefore to refer us to a means of Peace that is not in being is to leave us remediless And if the Church may not make occasional Provisions to restrain some mens extravagancies and to settle good order all men are let loose to all the follies in the World and it will look more like a Bedlam than a Christian Church In short it serves to no other purpose then to be an everlasting pretence of Sedition when it takes away not only from the Church but from theCivil Government too all Authority of making any Laws for the settlement of Religion And yet this very Principle of Confusion this Darling of Independency this bulwark of all Schism is crept into the Church of England it self or some pretenders to it and is laid down by our Reconcilers and Peace-makers as the first Rule of Accommodation between the Church of England and the present Dissenters Though if it were admitted the different Parties would be so far from being taken into the Bosom or the Peace of the Church that it would only widen the differences and harden them in their Schisms For first the contest is not primarily about unscriptural Impositions but about divine Commands they contend that their Form of Church Government is of God's Institution and that the form now establish't in England is an humane Government set up against it and destructive of it this is the whole design of Mr. B's Treatise of Episcopacy and this has ever been the main controversie from the beginning of the Schism whether the Episcopal or the Classical Government were set up by our Saviour in the Christian Church for Men were not so unthinking in those days as to imagine he should set up the Society of his Church without setling any Government in it and therefore it is but an imperfect a partial and a treacherous account of the Separation to state the controversie only in Ceremonies when the main controversie has been from the beginning to this very day about a matter of Divine Right and therefore to take no notice of that in the History of the Schism is to intimate that as to that part of the controversie neither had the better of the other but they both equally contended about what never was and that all the blame of the Separatists is their refusing to submit to some lawful Impositions But that reaches not their cause the ground of their Separation is pretended Divine Law they must be beaten out of that or they must be let alone But secondly this Principle of accommodation by rejecting unscriptural Conditions of Communion would be so far from reconciling the Dissenters to the Church that it would only give up the Churches Cause
judicium neque nunc sibi praepositum Episcopum cogitantes quod nunquam omnino sub antecessoribus factum est cum contumeliâ contemptuPraepositi totum sibi vendicent ought we to expect from the divine displeasure when some of the Presbyters forgetting both the Gospel and themselves neither regarding the future Judgment of God nor the Authority of their Bishop Challenge what was never done under our Predecessors the whole Power of the Church to themselves to the reproach and contempt of their Bishop These are very severe words and the Crime it seems was look't upon as a thing so horrid at that time that it was till then without Precedent And therefore for the prevention of any further mischief and scandal he writes at the same time an earnest Letter to the People themselves to warn them against the disorderly Actings of his Presbyters But in his Epist. 17. next Letter considering the sickly Season of the year he gives power not only to the Presbyters but to the Deacons to grant Absolution in case of Sickness by vertue of this hisCommission for the Deacons had no Authority of their own to do it and therefore what they did was valid purely by vertue of his Deputation and the validity of Ecclesiastical ministrations depends not upon the outward Act but theAuthority by which they are warranted But it happened that about this time Celerinus a Confessor at Rome writes to Lucianus a Confessor at Carthage to grantAbsolution to some women that had fallen in the Persecution but had made ample satisfaction for it by their eminent Hospitality to the Confessors Upon this Lucianus with the rest of his Brethren Epist. 22. with great heat and rashness grant their peremptory Absolution and signifie their resolution to St. Cyprian with a threatning if he refused to joyn with them that they would not communicate with him To such a wild abuse was the customary priviledge of meer intercession grown that they came at last to supersede and over-rule all the Episcopal Authority Upon this St. Cyprian writes a peremptory Epistle to his Clergy commanding Obedience to his former Orders Epist. 26. to restore no man to the Church till it first pleased God to restore peace to it Instâ—tur interim Epistolis c. And the mischiefs of this licentious Practice to the Subversion of the Peace and Discipline of the Christian Church he represents in an Epistle to the Clergy of Rome That this did but expose the Bishops to the hatred Quae res majorem nobis conflat invidiam ut nos cùm singulorum causas audire excutere caeperimus videamur multis negare quod se nunc omnes jactant à Martyribus Confessoribus accepisse Denique hujus seditionis Origo jam cepit c. and envy of the People that when they would make particular enquiry into every mans case they would seem to the People to defraud them of that favour that was bestowed on them by the Martyrs which had been already the cause of some Seditions in his Province c. And they in an Eloquent Epistle Epist. 30. written by Novatian himself as St. Cyprian informs us in his Epistle to Antonianus approve his Judgment and declare themselves peremptory in his Opinion and so do Moyses and the Confessors then Epist. 28. 31. in Prison at Rome to whom St. Cyprian at the same time writ about the same matter Upon this he writes to the Lapsi themselves that had received Absolution without his Authority to let them know that whatever was done without the Bishop was void and good for nothing The Ordination of Bishops and the Succession Per temporum successionum vices Episcoporum Ordinatio EcclesiaeRatio decurrit ut Ecclesia super Episcopos constituatur omnis actus Ecclesiae perâ—eosdem Praepositos gubernetur Cùm hoc itaque divina lege fundatum sit miror quosdam audaci temeritate sic mihi scribere voluisse ut Ecclesiae nomine literas facerent Quando Ecclesia in Episcopo Clero in omnibus stantibus sit constituta of the Church run together hand in hand through all times and ages so as that the Church is built upon the Bishop and every act of the Church is authorised by the Bishops seeing therefore this is establish't by the Will of God I cannot but stand amazed at the bold rashness of some i. e. Lucianus the Confessors that dare write to me that they may give Letters of pardon in the name of the Church when the Church is made up of the Bishop the Clergy and the faithful Layity Novatus the first contriver of theSchism seeing himself and his Party thus universally run down sets Faelicissimus in the head of it by his boldness and impudence to keep up the sinking cause though Baronius is here so far mistaken as to make An. 254. N. 32. Faelicissimus the first Founder of the Schism notwithstanding St. Cyprian has so expresly given that honour to Donatus together with the occasion of his Quarrel which was nothing else then a design to escape the Discipline of the Church to which he knew himself so obnoxious that he could no other way avoid it but by raising Tumults St. Cyprian after a very severe Character of his wicked temper of Mind thus tells the Story plainly This is the Novatus that first sowed the Idem est Novatus Epist. 53. qui apud nos primum discordiae schismatis incendium seminavit qui quosdam istic ex fratribus ab Episcopo segregavit qui in ipsâ persecutione ad evertendas fratrum mentes alia quaedam persecutionostris fuit Ipse est qui Faelicissimum Satellitem suum Diaconum nec permittente me nec sciente suâ factione ambitione constituit Seeds of Schism and Discord among us that separated the Brethren from their Bishops that in the very time of Persecution became another Persecution himself to subvert the minds of our Brethren It is he that made Faelicissimus the Hector his Deacon without my knowledge or permission by Faction and Ambition And after this account of the Author he lets us know the occasion of the Schism That beside many other scandalous Enormities committed by him Not long before the breaking out of this Uterus uxoris calce percussus Abortione properante in paricidium partus expressus Hanc Conscientiam criminum jampridem timebat propter hoc se non de Presbyterio excitaritantùm sed communicatione prohiberi pro certo tenebat urgentibus fratribus imminebat cognitionis dies quo apud nos causa ejus ageretur nisi persecutio antè venisset Quam iste voto quodam evadendae lucrandae damnationis excipiens haec omnia commisit miscuit ut qui ejici de Ecclesiâ excludi habebat judicium Sacerdotum voluntariâ discessione praecederet quasi evasisse sit paenam praevenisse sententiam Persecution he had so wounded his Wife by a kick
he had never been proceeded against This is the main stress of his Argument upon this Subject which he farther shews by the power of inflicting and abating Pennance that is connected with the Authority of Excommunication or inflicting Censures And the force of this Argumentation is so evident and unavoidable that I must confess my self not a little surprised how it was possible that our Learned Adversary could any way baulk or shift the Evidence of its Conviction Especially when himself saw so clearly that an Ecclesiastical Unity of Government in the Church is absolutely necessary to its preservation for though he founds it only upon the Confederation and consent of Churches and not any divine Command yet he founds that Consent upon its necessity to the Peace of the Church This course says he was very prudential and useful for preserving the truth of Religion and Unity of Faith against Heretical Devices springing up in that free age for maintaining Concord and good Correspondence among Christians together with an Harmony in Manners and Discipline for that otherwise Christendom would have been shatter'd and crumbled into numberless Parties discordant in Opinion and Practice and consequently alienated in affection which inevitably among most men doth follow difference of Opinion and Manners so that in short time it would not have appeared what Christianity was and consequently the Religion being overgrown with differences and discords must have perished Now is not this a very fair concession for one who is labouring only to prove that this Unity of Government among several Churches is not necessary to the Church when without it Christianity must have certainly perish't But this dropt from his own natural sense and ingenuity that could not but acknowledge the Evidence of so clear a truth But though it was an utter subversion of his whole design yet it seems he was so intent in the pursuit of the Argument that he had undertaken that he overlook't even his own thoughts when they stood in his way And now after this it is so easie to overthrow every particular part of his discourse that were it not for his Authority it would be needless But because by reason of that it must be done I shall do it with all possible brevity First then the name of Church is attributed to the whole body of Christiaans which implyeth Unity And this he confesses it does but determines not the kind or ground thereof there being several kinds any whereof may suffice to ground that comprehensive Appellation But this by his own Confession is most apparently false for it determines it self to that kind that consists in an Unity of Government and the ground of that determination of it is its necessity to the Peace and Welfare of the Church and therefore without this kind of Unity no other sort will suffice to ground the Appellation because without it there can be no other Unity this is necessary to all other sorts and therefore without it they are not capable of that name But to deal plainly the Argument is not here sairly represented for Mr. Thorndike does not argue merely from the name of the Church but from the nature of the thing to which the name is applied the Church being a Society or Body Politick which is the first thing to be either proved or supposed in this dispute and that being made out then upon that supposition the Argument is very clear that one Church is one Society And therefore when the name Church is frequently given in Scripture not only to particular Churches but to the whole Catholique Church that must be one Society united under one Government for without Government there is no Society and therefore one Society founds one Government Now the Argument being thus laid its force lyes in the nature of things not an empty name and it makes its own way by its own reasonableness Especially when we consider the Bond of this Society viz. The Communion in Divine Offices to which every Member of the Catholick Church having a right the right of all must consist in that one Communion and that one Communion cannot subsist without one Government so perspicuously does the Unity of the Catholick Church infer and inforce an Unity of Government in it The next Argument and Answer are to the same purpose viz. from our Belief of the Holy Catholique Church from whence Mr. Thorndike infers its Political Unity but our Author says it may as well be understood of any other kind of Unity But to that it is easily answered that as long as it is a Society and so must all multitudes of men if they are not riots it cannot be understood without this Unity And therefore it is not precariously assumed and obtruded as is pretended but warrants it self by the reason it brings along with it that determines it to this special kind of Unity But he adds the genuine sense of the meaning of this Article may be our profession to adhere to the Body of Christians and to maintain Charity and communicate in holy Offices with them and to be willing to observe the Laws and Orders Establish't by the Authority or consent of Churches This is very true and very false for if we are under no Obligation to all this then all this meaning is Non-sence and all these kinds of Unity are nothing for if we make this profession of our own free choice and accord then we may choose whether we will do all this or no and it is all one whether we adhere to the body of Christians in Charity Communion and Obedience to the Laws of the Church or whether we refuse it for if it be no duty by vertue of Obligation then it may be left undone as well as done But if all Christians and all Churches are obliged to it then indeed 't is true but then are they United under one Common Government and the making and keeping of this Profession is not voluntary but it is bound upon them by the indispensable Laws of Christianity 3. The Apostles delivered one Rule of faith to all Churches the embracing of which was a necessary condition to admission into the Church therefore Christians are combin'd together in one political Body But it is answered First That from hence can only be infer'd That Christians should consent in one Faith Yes but an obligation to consent in one Faith makes them one Political Body for what if any Church forsake this Rule are they not punishable for it by other Churches If they are they are then combined together in one Political Body If they are not then there is no remedy against Schisms and Heresies and beside that there may be as many different Faiths as Churches and therefore if all Christians are obliged to an Unity of Faith and if they cannot be so without an Unity of Government then the consequence is very strong from the Unity of one to infer the Unity of the other But Secondly By this reason all
or Opposition it met with from the Powers of the World it still kept close to its own Original Jurisdiction But then again though this Emperour permitted the Church the just Exercise of its inherent right of Enacting Ecclesiastical Laws yet he did it so as to preserve to himself his own Imperial Prerogative of Supervising all their Acts and Proceedings and either to give their Decrees force of Law or wholly to reject them as seem'd good to his Royal Wisdom The two great Controversies of the Church in his time and the greatest that ever were at any time were the Schism of the Donatists and the Heresie of the Arians one concerning a point of Doctrine and another of Discipline both which he referred not to his Senate his Privy Council or his Praefecti-Praetorio but to the Judgment and Determination of Ecclesiasticks to settle the Debates as they were directed by the Rules of Faith and the Laws and Customs of the Church but so as to reserve to himself Supreme Inspection of the whole matter as far as it concerned the Peace of Church and State Which in all Christian Common-wealths is the same thing for there all Ecclesiastical Schisms are really so many breaches of the Civil Peace First As for the Schism of the Donatists it broke out about the beginning of Constantine's Reign most say the very same year 306 upon occasion of the Laws concerning the Restitution of the Lapsi by which any Clergy-man that had fallen in Persecution or committed any other enormous Crime was to be punished by perpetual deposition so that though upon Penance and Satisfaction he might be received to Lay-Communion yet he was never to be restored again to his Office in the Church Thus one of the three Italian Bishops that had been decoyed to the Consecration of Novatian in order to a Canonical pretence for his Schism was upon submission and confession of his fault received by Cornelius into Lay-Communion as he declares in his Synodical Epistle to Fabian of Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so Trophimus a Bishop that had promoted the same Schism in the Roman Church was upon his Repentance absolved but yet only admitted to Lay-Communion as St Cyprian declares in his Epistle to Antonianus Sic tamen admissus est Trophimus ut Laicus communicet non quasi locum Sacerdotis Usurpet Trophimus was so received that he might communicate as a Laick not that he might Usurp the place of a Priest And so the same St. Cyprian with great indignation complains of the violation of the same Rule by Fortunatian Bishop of Assur Graviter dolenter motus sum fratres charissimi quod cognoverim Fortunatianum quondam apud vos Episcopum post gravem lapsum ruinae suae pro integronunc agere velle Episcopatum sibi vindicare caepisse I am grievously troubled to hear that Fortunatian heretofore your Bishop should after so foul a fall presume to take upon himself the Episcopal Office And so in the Case of Basilides and Martialis Spanish Bishops that had sacrificed and yet challenged their Bishopricks he sets it down as a judged Case That it is in vain for such men to endeavour to hold their Episcopal Office when it is evident that they are neither fit to preside over the Church of God not to offer sacrifice to him Especially when long since it was agreed by all the Bishops in the whole World and particularly Cornelius our Collegue a good and peaceable Bishop whom it pleased our Lord to honour with the Crown of Martyrdom that such Offenders might be admitted to the Priviledge of Penance but never to the Order of the Clergy and sacerdotal honour Now this being the received and settled Discipline of the Christian Church it happened that under the Persecution by Dioclesian and Maximinian the Christians were put to a new sort of Tryal for whereas the old way was to bring them to sacrifice the Idol Gods in this Rescript of these Emperors they were required upon pain of death to deliver up their Bibles whence they that did so had the name of Traditores and were justly esteem'd by the Church Guilty of the same Crime of Apostacy as those that sacrificed and therefore lyable to the same punishment And this it was that gave occasion to the Schism of the Donatists viz. That Caecilian Bishop of Carthage was either himself a Traditor and so uncapable of receiving holy Orders or that he was ordain'd by Faelix Bishop of Aptung a Traditor and so uncapable of giving them And had their pretence been true and so judged by the Church the Donatists had been no Schismaticks because by the customary Laws of the Church Caecilian must have been excluded from any capacity of Office in it And therefore this controversie that created so much trouble to the Christian World was not at first about any difference of Opinion for both parties were agreed that no Traditor could be ordain'd to the Office of a Bishop and that every Bishop that was a Traditor ought to be deposed from it But the only dispute was whether the Persons accused were really guilty of the Crimes laid to their Charge If they were innocent and so pronounced by the Judgment of the Church then after that the Accusers were apparent Schismaticks in dividing Communion from their lawful Bishop This was the only point at the first Rupture but when an open Schism was made the Schismaticks soon run into all the extravagancies of the Novatians and there was then no pure Church in the World but their own and all Christians that were not of their Faction were no better then Jews and Heathens whilst all that came from other Churches into theirs thereby became the only true Children of God And for that reason they admitted Converts from the Catholicks to their Communion upon the same terms that they did the Heathens If they were in Orders they re-ordain'd them if Laicks they rebaptised them because whatever was done in the Catholick Communion could be of no Effect as being done out of the Christian Church These and a great many more Enormities we shall find in their History because as their Faction grew in strength so it emproved in Insolence till it run it self into all manner of rudeness and outrage and at last perisht in meer Rebellion For that was the Case of this Schism that when there was once a form'd party set up against the Civil Government all people of perverse tempers naturally flock't into it not for any love of Religion put purely to rub and gratifie the Scab of their innate peevishness especially when they were flatter'd into an Opinion of higher Priviledges and Prerogatives then their Neighbours and thereby enjoyed that drunken and transporting pleasure of looking down upon them with holy scorn and disdainful Pity And by this Artifice they drew almost all Africa after them the Africans being of all People most addicted to Innovation and though the People were outragious in
by the Roman Writers as his being then but a Novice in the Faith and not sufficiently inform'd of the Discipline of the Church or his being tired out by the restless importunity of the Donatists so that he could enjoy no quiet till he yielded to it These things may be true but they are needless for though it may not be proper for a Lay-man to judge in Ecclesiastical Causes yet it may not be altogether unlawful especially when the Peace of the State depends upon them and that was the Emperour's case at this time all Africa was in an Uproar and in danger to be lost by the Sedition and therefore it highly concern'd him to exert his own Power as he would secure so great a part of his Empire and upon that reason he might take the Judgment upon himself thereby to restrain the Donatists from raising Disturbances and Seditions in the State Though when all is done it is certain that the Emperour never accepted the Appeal nay that he protested against it as an affront to the Divine Authority and setting up his own Power above God's appears not only from his Epistle to the Bishops at Arles but his perpetual Declarations of it And therefore it is not to be supposed that he would be prevail'd with to take upon himself a Judgment that he so solemnly disavowed And therefore his design in hearing the Cause after Judgment was not to judge but to expose the Schismatiques or to suffer them to expose themselves For the cause was already so fully and clearly determin'd at the Council that it could not admit any Review but because they were so restless to have it re-heard before the Emperour himself he at last seem'd to condescend to their importunity when he knew it would prove their fatal overthrow for it is observable that he would not meddle with the business at all till he had the discovery of Ingentius his Forgery in his Pocket with which they were so surprised that instead of following their Suit it utterly dispersed them And for the very same reason he gave them other Hearings after his own Imperial Judgment only to give them the greater scope to lay open themselves and their dishonesty to the World as will appear anon in the foul discovery of Nundinarius the Deacon §. III. But after the Imperial Sentence against them instead of submitting to so great an Authority and such clear Conviction they raise high clamours of injustice and oppression and when they return home put the People into Riots and Tumults and seize a Church in Numidia belonging to the Catholicks and of the Emperors own Foundation Of which when complaint was made to the Empeperor by the Bishops of the Province such was then the fury of the Schismaticks and the disorder of the times that at that time he could send them no other relief then by exhorting them to patience and bestowing a new Church upon them not daring to inflict any punishment upon the Offenders for so long a Train of Sedition but leaving them as himself speaks to the Judgment of God And as he had not long before witten to his Lieutenant Celsus that he should forbear them a while till himself could have leisure to visit Africa sâ—re now assures them that when he comes the Schismaticks shall feel the Event of his Abused Patience and that he doubted not when he came to convince them of such manifest Villany that would utterly spoil all their Glory of Martyrdom For that they gave out to justifie their stubborness against the Imperial Edicts that whatever punishments the Emperor decreed against them they were ready to undergo as Martyrs for the truth of God and therefore that they were so far from dreading any severity that they desired the Execution of Penal Laws against them And so they persist railing at the Emperor for denying Justice and reviling the Catholicks for inciting him to Persecution Till at length he is forced to Enact severe Laws against them and first of all all their Meeting-houses are confiscated to the Crown and accordingly seized on and it hapned very luckily at that time that one Nundinarius a Deacon of the Donatists who was privy to the first contrivance of the Schism at their meeting at Cirta discovers the whole Conspiracy to Zenophilus the Pro-Consul of Numidia and proves both by publick Records and a great number of Witnesses that Silvanus whom they had made Bishop of Cirta and the most factiâ—â—s man of the whole Party was a Traditor and that my Lady Lucilla had given the Numidian Bishops a great sum of Money to depose Caecilian and bestow his Bishoprick upon her Ladyships Chaplain And this discovery being signified by Zenophilus to the Emperor together with a Catalogue of the Seditious Practices of Silvanus he condemns both Silvanus and all the other Ring-leaders of the Faction to perpetual Banishment and that is the utmost severity that he ever proceeded to for though some of them were sentenced to death yet such was his natural Clemency that he turn'd it into banishment and thus by seising their Conventicles and sending away their Leaders he gave himself ease and quiet for some time from their disturbances But now behold the constant ingenuity of all Schismaticks to be sure to beleager the State when ever they find it in any distress and to gain their own ends out of the publick Necessities and to make what demands they please when the Government is not in a condition to contend with them And thus about this time the War between Constantine and Licinius breaking out the Donatists presently accost the Emperor with a bold Petition both for granting liberty of Conscience and recalling Silvanus and his Collegues from Banishment are so confident as to tell him in broad expression that they would suffer a thousand deaths before they would be reconciled to that Prelatical Knave of his Caecilian And yet so involved were the Emperors Affairs at that time that he was forced to grant whatever they demanded and orders Verinus his Vice-Roy in Africk to leave them to their own Liberty And that they used with all manner of Insolence whilst the Civil War lasted neither now would they be satisfied with their own Liberty at home but endeavour to spread their Schism into all parts of the Catholick Church and poyson all the Emperors Dominions with the Spirit of Faction and Sedition What Emissaries they sent into other Churches is not so well known but to Rome they send one Victor as Titular Bishop of that See who took upon himself all â—piscopal Authority over his Party and had many Successors in his Usurpation but not having Liberty to keep their publick meetings in the City they betook themselves to Field Conventicles and Assembled in the Roks and Mountains and from thence were commonly call'd Montenses Campitae and Rupitani This is all that we have recorded of them in this Emperors Reign for he having overcome Licinius and being Master of the
same Imperial Laws that were made against themselves in Execution against their Brethren And what but t'other day was Tyranny and Persecution in the Catholicks is in themselves Law and Justice And so they go on to load one another with all the foul Stories and ill Language that they were wont to bestow upon the Catholiques and their Sentences of Excommunication are more fierce and heavy than any that were ever denounced by any other party of Christians Some were fatal cutting off all power of Absolution The most gentle were limited to a certain time after which the Decree was irrecoverably pass'd upon them and so they proceeded cursing and damming each other till every Sect spawn'd a new Litter of Vipers to eat out its own Bowels And so they crumbled on till they had made the Church no bigger than it was at first a small grain of Mustard Seed For every Party confin'd the Kingdom of Heaven to its Conventicle This dividing humour of theirs is very well described by St. Austin The Faction of Donatus is crumbled into very small parcels all which little particles condemn this much greater part of Primianus for allowing the Baptism of the Maximianists And every part eagerly contends that they alone retain the true Baptism and that there is no other any where neither in all the World over which the Catholick Church is spread nor in the larger nor the lesser parts of the Faction of Dcnatus but in themselves alone that are least of all But as fierce as they were against each other they were always one united Body against the Catholique Church and upon all occasions of Disturbance or Sedition in the State they were a form'd Body against the Government as will appear by numberless Instances in the next Reign of Arcadius and Honorius under whom they vented their utmost fury and they on the other side resolved to quell and break them and at last by strict Laws diligently executed so took down their stomach and their stubbornness that the Faction dwindled into an inconsiderable rout and was never able to attempt any disturbance either in Church or State They being under no greater restraint in the time of Theodosius the Great then the forfeiture of Ten Pounds and the Execution of that Law being either stifled or hamper'd by the Emperors Officers that commonly divert such Mulcts to their own gain and the damage of the Prosecutor grew so bold in their out-rage against the Catholicks as to offer violence to their Clergy at Divine Service which insufferable Indignity the young Emperors Arcadius and Honorius resented with that just indignation as to publish a Rescript in the year 398 to Theodorus Praefect of Africk requiring him to bring such Offenders to Capital Punishments and if they at any time offer'd to make any Tumultuary resistance not to stand upon forms of Law but to fall upon them with the Military Power And this Law as severe as it may appear was but seasonable and indeed necessary as St. Austin tells the Donatists when they complain of Severity You have no reason to complain of us for the Gentleness of the Catholicks had always forborn the Execution of such Laws had not your own Preachers with their Circumcellians by their barbarous Cruelties and Outrages against us made them necessary for our own security For before those bate Laws of which you complain came into Africa they waylaid our Bishops upon the Road they beat our Clergy most barbarously put intolerable abuses upon the Laicks fired our Houses our Churches With great numbers more of particular Out-rages that he recites there and up and down his other Writings as the murther of Restitutus and Innocentius Presbyters of Hippo putting out the Eyes of some cutting off the hands and pulling out the Tongues of others And as for St. Austin himself they continually watched for his life and exhorted the People to kill him as they would a Wolf to preserve the Flock and assure them that God would forgive all their Sins how great soever for so good a piece of Service And this they did to him in requital of all his kindness towards them who all along interceded with the Governors to spare their lives till at last being convinced by Experience that they abused all mercy and would be reduced by nothing but the greatest Severity he changed his mind as he declares in his Epistle to Vincentius in which he excellently discourses the necessity of the Epist. 48. thing that the Civil Magistrate should restrain the stubborn with Penal Laws About this time happened the War with Gildo the African Rebel a Man infinitely Debauch'd and barbarous in his Manners and a bitter Enemy to Christianity with him the Donatists and Circumcellians join and serve in his Rebellion against the Emperor according to the constant practice of all Schismaticks whenever there is an opportunity to turn Rebels And particularly there was one Optatus a Bishop of the Party so remarkable in the Army for fighting and forwardness that he was surnamed Gildonianus and after ten years Rebellion lost his life in the Service But when Gildo was at length overcome the Donatists bated nothing of their wonted insolence and the Emperor Honorius to whose particular Government Africa appertained being incensed with continual complaints of their disorders resolves by any severity to break the Faction And first he exposes their knavery to all the Christian World by which he hoped at least to take down their confidence and preserve the People from being any more deluded by their fair pretences And therefore in the year 400 he sends forth the forementioned Decree to his Praefect in Africk to be publish'd in all places concerning the Transactions of the Donatists with Julian and his Rescript on their behalf that De Hâ—reticis leg 37. thereby the World might see the constancy of the Catholicks to their Principles and the falshood and treachery of the Donatists to their Religion And this was done either upon one or both of these Occasions either as Baronius most probably thinks that the Donatists persisting in their old Clamours as Petilian had lately done against the Catholicks For instigating the Civil Magistrate Quid autem vobis est cum Regibus seculi quos nunquam Christianitas nisi invidos sensit against them who had nothing to do with the Church or Religion Upon which pretence the Emperor thought good to rebuke their Confidence by exposing their flatteries and foul tamperings with Julian and joining with an Apostate in his design to overthrow Christianity Or else as Gothofred conjectures Honorius enacting such severe Laws against the Donatists they upbraided his Cruelty with the Clemency of Julian as if they found more mercy from Julian though an Enemy an Heathen and an Apostate than from a Christian and Catholick Prince And therefore Honorius lets the World know the Mystery of the kindness between them and Julian and by what base flattery and dirty Arts
the Rescript against the Donatists that was his whole and sole Commission And he pursued it so effectually that about thirty of their Leaders finding that there was no way left of being conceal'd and resolving neither to quit their Churches nor go into Banishment agree to murther themselves and so dye Martyrs and some of them burnt themselves with that mad resolution as put Dulcitius to a stand who therefore out of meer tenderness writes to St. Austin to know what he would advise him to do with such desperate people And he though he had ever been importunate to save their lives now returns this frank Answer That it is no great matter if the small handfull of Banditi who put the whole Woâ—ld into disorder perish by their own hands and when they are gone thâ— World will be at quiet And â—o ended this boisterous Schism that had wasted the Church of Africa for more then an hundred years For Baldwin and Baronius place the Ordination of Chaplain Majorinus from whence the Schism commences in the year 306 but Valeâ—ius more truely in the year 311 and it was in the year 414 in which they are rooted out of Africk by Dulcitius And though some small scatterings of it continued many years after even to the time of Gregory the Great as we find by somâ— of his Epistles which was near 200 yearâ— after this time yet after this time it was never considerable and we hear very little of them either in the Records of the Church or the Imperial Laws They are but once mentioned in a Law of Theodosius the next Emperour but then it is in a List of the whole Rout of Hereticks that ever were in which the same Penalties are inflicted upon all that were Executed by Honorius against the Donatists And it is observable that the Imperial Laws ever after followed the same method being convinced of its necessity by the experience of the thing it self so that though the Coercive Power of the Prince in abetting the Church had been own'd and used all along yet it seems not to have been throughly understood till after this experiment of Honorius upon the Donatists And thus have I shewn in this one Instance the natural Progress of Schism How little Leaven leaveneth the whole Lump so that a National Madness may be no more aâ— bottom then a Malt-house Conspiracy thirty or forty ill-natur'd men put all Africk into a distraction for above one hundred years and when they were removed out of the way those many thousands that were drawn in to follow their Frenzy were restored to their natural sense and sobriety So that if as small a number as those few that were so desperate as to destroy themselves aâ— last had been banisht at first all that trouble that this Schism gave the Empire had been certainly prevented and that is all that any Prince can â— gain by his kindness to such men thaâ— if he will not punish them at first they themselves will force him to do it at last §. VII As for the Arian Controversie though it were at first but a private dispute in the School of Alexandria that was then the only Christian University in the World yet it soon over-run the whole body of the Christian Church if we may believe St. Jerom who speaks thus of it Arius in Alexandria una scintilla fuit sed quia non statim oppressa est totum Orbem ejus flamma populata est And indeed it spread so suddainly that its motion was not so much like Fire as Lightning all the World was all in a flame in an instant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Socrates from which and the like passages Sandius according to his usual dullness and ingenuity infers that the whole World was become Arian and indeed St. Jerom gives some countenance to it by his lavish expression of totus orbis but he is so full of his whole Worlds every where as proves nothing more then that he was very much taken with the Grandeur of the Phrase neither does he apply it to the Reign of Constantine as this ignorant pretender to History does but of Constantius what strength it then had we shall see when we come to that time but under the Reign of Constantine as great Commotions as it occasion'd in the Christian Church it spread not much farther then some few of the Clorgy beside Women of the Church of Alexandria as will appear by the Progress of the Story which runs in order after this manner Arius and his Complices were upon Conviction Canonically proceeded against and cast out of the Church by their Metropolitan and Provincial Synod not only for the Heresie of their Opinion but the scandal and looseness of their lives as himself informs us in his Epistle to Alexander Bishop of Constantinople and beside his Epistles to divers particular Bishops he signified the Excommunication of the Arians by an encyclical Epistle to all the Bishops of the Catholick Church in the beginning whereof he excellently describes that Unity of Discipline that was then preserv'd in it Whereas we are taught in the Holy Scriptures that the Body of the Catholick Church is one that thereby we may keep the bond of Peace and Concord the more firmly it is but agreeable to this that we should communicate with one another by Letters that all may know what is done by every one that so we may all suffer and rejoyce together By which last Phrase the Ancients usually expressed the agreement of Discipline in all Churches in allusion to St. Paul's expression to the Church of Corinth in the Case of their incestuous Offenders This was the Custom of all Churches at that time though that dull Fanatique Arian Sandiâ—s represents it as done out of meer design and artifice to asswage the known displeasure of divers Bishops both against himself and his Opinion and not out of any regard to the Rules of Ecclesiastical Discipline of which this slovenly Historian seems to have had no sense or knowledge But this being done Arius instead of submitting to his Ordinary as he ought to have done by the Laws of the Church or appealing at least to a greater Council for relief against abuse of Discipline shelters himself under the Patronage of a Great and Powerful Prelate at that time Eâ—sebius of Nicomedia who contrary to all the Laws of the Church immediately receives him into Communion which by no means he ought to have done though Arius had been wronged For if that liberty be once admitted in any Case it breaks down the Bounds of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and therefore an Appeal from one Provincial Synod to another was never allowed of in the Primitive Church but in Cases of Grievance the only Appeal that lay was to greater Synods composed out of several Provinces so that when Arius took Sanctuary under Eusebius and he protected him against the Censure of his own Metropolitan and by his own Authority controlled
his Successor Achillas and then Alexander whom they prosecuted even into the Emperour's Courts and being thus versed and practised in Contriving Plots they now hook in Athanasius doing nothing strange to their old wickedness and though their Calumnies against their former Bishops proved ineffectual yet now at last they had their end by the assistance of the Eusebians With whom these Good Men as Mr. Baxter very prudently and feasonably for the Credit of his Party observes joyn'd Interest notwithanding that they knew them to be Arians just as if the Nonconformists at this time should seek by the favour of the Papists to be delivered from the silencing and destroying Prelates upon condition of Common Liberty the cases are not much unlike You may safely take his word for it and for the reality of the matter of Fact too and it is one of the fairest Confessions of Presbyterian Integrity that I have met with though it is not the only Knavish Plot against the Church of England that Mr. B's indiscretion has betrayed as will appear in its due place little to the reputation of some mens honesty who have been very busie without any Authority from their Superiours to Trim and Plot away every thing of the Church of England but its Revenues But the Plot being laid against Athanasius they first tell a blind Story of a kind of Nags-Head Ordination that he was privately ordein'd by no more then six or seven Bishops against the Vote of the Provincial Synod and the Suffrage of the People But this was right Mareotick dulness and was soon contradicted by all the Bishops of Egypt and all the Inhabitants of Alexandria who were so far from opposing his Election that they had almost run themselves into Tumults to hasten his Consecreation Then Stories are told of his Arbitrary exactions of Money from the People but Macarius one of his Presbyters happening to be present at the Tale informs the Emperor that it was nothing but an usual Collection to repair and adorn the Church Upon this Macarius is not long after Accused of Conspiring with Athanasius to send Money to Philumenus that was to murther the Emperor but they both appear at Constantinople and so satisfie him of their Innocence and the absurdity of the Accusation in that they had never known nor seen the Man for in former times Men that were Strangers to each other were not wont to enter into such Plots that if discover'd must certainly cost them their lives and therefore the Emperour being assured that they were no familiar acquaintance with the Traytor does not only acquit them but sends them home with commendatory Letters But these defeats instead of abating the impudence of the Eusebians do but more exasperate their rage and therefore they now resolve to stab home Eusebius having gotten a new Evidence fit for the purpose one Ischiras a debauch't pretended Priest that had foâ—ged his Holy Orders whom Athanasius in his lâ—st Visitation had deposed and forced to fly the Country he repairs to Eusebius and offers him his Service as an Evidence he receives him as a true Presbyter into his protection and gives him the promise of a Bishoprick if he will swear home against Athanasius he immediately Swears that Athanasius had Assaulted his Church though he never had any in an Hostile manner and that either himself or his Presbyter Mâ—cariâ—â— for he would not be positive as to Persons had in their rage overturn'd the Communion Table broke in pieces the mystical Cup so they call'd it to make it appear more terrible and burnt the Bibles But all this would proceed no farther then Deposition and therefore he adds that Athanasius had with his own hands murthered Arsenius a Bishop and shews a Man's hand that was cut off by Athanasius when the Fact was done and Arsenius himself being of the Confederacy was to abscond by consent till Athanasius was dispatched out of the way But so it happened very unfortunately that Ischyras his Conscience it seems Perjury in that Age was not grown to its full assurance misgave him so that he confessed the forgery of the whole Plot in a Letter to Athanasius himself subscribed in the presence of a great number of Clergy but the Caufe had been referred by the Emperor to Dalmatius the Governor of Egypt and before the Tryal Athanasius had the good luck to find out the murthered Arsenius and had him forth-coming at the Tryal and though at first he pleaded ignorance of himself and denyed himself to be the Man and would have sworn himself out of himself yet being Convicted by a cloud of Witnesses he confessed the Conspiracy and upon the shame of so clear a Conviction for modesty had not then quite left the Earth both he and John a Ring-leading Bishop among the Miletians confess all the Villany beg Athanasius his Pardon and the Communion of the Catholick Church This the good Man could not but think enough to secure his Innocence against the like attempts forever and therefore with all hast he dispatches away his faithful Presbyter Macarius to acquaint the Emperor with all that had passed and upon the information Constantine breaks up the Court clears Athanasius and by his Letters to Alexandria declares the Villainy of the Meletians And here the Plot slept for near two years before Eusebius durst revive it but having with great pains and promises recover'd his Evidence he and his Party insinuate to the Emperor That Athanasius had taken off Bishop John by great sums of Money and had so threatned the poor Meletian Nonconformists for so Mr. B. calls these plotting Schismaticks that they durst not appear to give in their Evidence against him That the shew of Arsenius was all a rank cheat and that the Person that appeared in his stead was hired by Athanasius and attested only by a few of his own Combination The Emperor is both tired and amused with all this intrigue and therefore summons a Council at Tyre to find out the bottom of these Plots and unravel the whole Information on both sides Where Athanasius accompanied with the Bishops of his Province appears with that boldness and security that became his Innocence for though flying Stories may gain credit among the multitude whilst they are no more then Stories yet when they are brought to a publick Examination before Judges though themselves be Parties they so visibly â—â—â—â— their own folly that few Men have confidence enough to protect and support their falshood And so it happened here for Dionysius who was appointed President to see that all things were fairly carried was himself of the Eusebian Faction and the Bishops that sat were of Dionysius and Eusebius his own packing and yet for all that the Plot was lost in the management and came to nothing and indeed so defective and unfortunate was it in its Evidence that no disingenuity in the Judges could piece it up The Counterfeit Priest Ischiras is re-produced and in hopes of his
quick for his flying from the Tyrian Council to Constantine and withal cut off his Restitution by the Imperial Mandate Now these had been good Laws in ordinary Cases but in the Case of Athanasius they were nothing but Rods and Snares And so it is always when injustice has got the upper hand the Execution of Laws then becomes nothing but Tyranny and Oppression If the Proceedings against Athanasius at Tyre had been any way fair and legal though he had been hardly used yet his Appeal was against the Ecclesiastical Rule and it would have been more decent and becoming Christian Modesty to have sate down under an hard Sentence then to have made a breach upon the Order and Discipline of the Church But when it was all rank Villany and open Forgery contriv'd on purpose to take away his life it was then proper for him to take Sanctuary in the justice of his Sovereign Prince for a common Subjects Protection And indeed wherever injustice is become shameless and enormous men are not bound to that punctual niceness of Rule that they are bound to observe in common and ordinary Cases And so it was here their Proceedings at Tyre were so prodigiously base and impudent that they exceeded the common Villany of Mankind and so were by their own wickedness put out of the Protection of the Laws I have the longer insisted upon this Transaction because it is an extraordinary Case and has nothing like it in all the Records of the Church in the worst and most degenerate times and though there have been several of the later Popes both wicked and cunning enough yet none of them could ever match either the Malice or the Artifice of Eusebius in the management of his Contest with Athanasius But whilst he was contriving and plotting his designs against him at Antioch the Council at Rome proceeds to a fair Tryal and after the Examination of the Acts of the Tyrian Council and of divers Witnesses clearing Athanasius from the Calumnies fast'ned on him they pronounce him innocent receive him to Communion and restore him to his Bishoprick And thus are they according to the Plot of Eusebius engaged in a new War that he knew would swallow up the old Controversie of which the two heads were the two great Bishops of the two great Imperial Cities Julius of Rome and Eusebius of Constantinople for before this time he had violently thrust himself into that See and these were the first Seeds of that long War between these two ambitious Sees that I have described at large in a former Treatise But Athanasius leaves them to manage their own Fray between themselves and makes all hast to repair to his own Church of Alexandria where he arrives before Gregory could come from Antioch to the great joy of the City but soon after comes Gregory and what havock he made by the assistance of Philagrius the Prefect an Apostate Christian may be seen at large in Athanasius his encyclical Epistle to the Orthodox Bishops and as he describes it it exceeds all the Heathen Persecutions in rudeness and barbarity But in short Athanasius is forced to fly for his life and takes Sanctuary at Rome a second time where he knew himself safe as being out of Constantius his Dominions And about the same time the Popes Legates Elpidius and Philoxenus having been from time to time retein'd and delayed by the Craft of Eusebius return from the Council of Antioch as with no satisfaction to themselves having been Eye-Witnesses of so much foul dealing so with an huffing and scornful Letter of Defiance to their Master Pope Julius and all the Bishops of the Western Church And by that Character that Julius gives of it in his answer to it for the Letter it self is not now extant it breaths the very Spirit of Eusebius but as taunting as it was and as bad as their Actings were he is forced to return a milder Anfwer then indeed was fitting because he too well knew that they relyed upon the power and assistance of the Emperour to bear them out in their Enormities But as civilly as he treats them he deals as plainly with them as they deserved and unravels the whole Plot of Lyes Perjuries and Calumnies against Athanasius from the beginning to that very day and so plainly lays open to the Christian World the foulness of all their Proceedings as to demonstrate to all men that notwithstanding they had endeavoured to get the Canons on their own side by shifts and juglings they had most scandalously broke all the most Sacred and inviolable Laws not only of Christian Discipline but of common honesty The Epistle it self is extant in Athanasius his second Apology and it is a perfect Narrative of his Cause and defence of his Innocence written with equal judgment and smartness It is large but the main head of it is in Answer to their great complaint that they should be cited to Rome To which he replyes that in some cases it is agreeable to the Canons that what is determined by one Council should be reviewed in another but however that was he minds them that when they sent their Agents after they had been pleased to refer the Cause to him to manage the Evidence against Athanasius they were so shamefully bafled in the whole business that they had no way left to escape a final overthrow but by moving for a general Council of Eastern and Western Bishops to be held at Rome and now when the Council was call'd at their motion to pretend offence at its being call'd as it argued very great Guilt in themselves so it could not but raise very odd suspitions in others And whereas they plead it as an Universal Rule that what is determined in one Council ought not to be reverst by another he asks them how then dare you to alter the Faith of the Great Nicene Council that when the Bishops of the Christian World were so unanimously concern'd to root out the Arian Heresie they should so far slight their Authority as to reject those Provisions that they had made against it And lastly to pass by their smaller Cavils he lets them see the necessity of this review by ripping up all the Villanies of the Tyrian Plot and so plainly discovers the gross dishonesty of the whole matter as must make them cautious of ever reviving it for the time to come And the Story is told so fully so plainly and so reflectingly upon the Persons Guilty that perhaps it was the dishonour of this Conviction that broke Eusebius his proud heart for he dyed soon after this though Socrates says he dyed before but this Historian is all along miserably mistaken in the Chronology of the Athanasian Story and his Errors of that kind are so numerous that Learned Men are forced to reject his Testimony as of no Authority All the certain account that we have of the time of Eusebius his death is from Athanasius himself who only says that he
upon any pretence whatsoever but especially of Religion is an utter Stranger to the Catholick Church §. XIX And now are we Arrived at a strange and surprizing Revolution of things under the Reign of Julian who no sooner came to the Crown then he endeavour'd by all the ways of fraud and force to destroy the Establish't Religion of the Empire in order to the Reduction of the old Paganism and Idolatry And considering the shortness of his Reign he was a fiercer and more outragious Enemy to the Christian Church then any or indeed all the ancient Persecutors put together And yet notwithstanding all the wildness of his fury they think themselves obliged by the Fundamental Laws of their Religion to pay him the same duty of Loyalty and Allegiance that they payed to the Christian Emperours But the History of his Reign has of late been made the Subject even of popular discourse and that will in a great measure prevent me in this part of my undertaking the Trifle of Julian having received sufficient Correction and much more then it deserved and I doubt the Jest is now spoil'd and the jolly Doctrine prevented from being popular by its unhappy Application But notwithstanding that I shall proceed in my old Method to shew first how the Church took care to Govern and preserve it self by its own Authority against all the Apostates Opposition and by the right and effectual exercise of it was too hard for all his Politicks against it And Secondly what a tender and a religious sense of Duty and Loyalty they profest and practised towards him in spight of his unparallel'd Provocations Of which I shall endeavour so to discourse as not to repete or interfere with other Mens Observations As for the first it is highly observable that when the Apostate came to the Empire he was all on fire for the destruction of Christianity out of it for though he had suppress't his Apostacy all the time of Constantius yet his zeal was perpetually boiling in his Breast and impatient to burst into open Liberty And therefore the very first moment of Opportunity that it had to discover it self it broke forth as Gregory Nazianzen often compares it like fire from its confinement He immediately commands all the Heathen Temples to be opened and the Sacrifices to be brought to the Altars solemny renounces his Christianity and purges away his Baptism with the Blood of Sacrifices is immediately install'd into the old and abrogated dignity of Pontifex Maximus and officiates at the Heathen Rites in his own Person So that tho the former Emperours took it to themselves only as a Title of Honour he ridiculously takes the Office too and acts all the Phantastick Postures and Pageantries of the Heathen Priests And the fury of his zeal swell'd so high that nothing less would serve his turn then to be created a Priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries because those were esteemed the most sacred and recondite part of their Religion And then he goes on every where to re-edifie and adorn the Heathen Temples and to place Heathen Priests in them And having thus in the first place taken all speedy care for the re-settlement of his own Religion his next thought is how to contrive the utter extirpation of the Galilaeans as he always stil'd the Christians in contempt and derision The best and most obvious Policy that he could pitch upon for that was to bring confusion into the Church For which purpose he grants Liberty of Conscience to all Factions calls back all the banish't Bishops particularly Athanasius Eusebius of Verselles and St. Hilary restores all the Hereticks particularly Aetius whom he invites to Court and returns all their Churches to the Novatian Schismaticks and what mighty endearments there were between the Apostate and the Donatists we have seen above in their History Now from an uncontroll'd licentiousness granted to such a vast variety of quarrelsome People he doubted not to make the Church contemptible to all the World by turning it into a Counter-scuffle For he look't upon the Christians as the most contentious Sect in it usually saying that no wild Beasts were so fierce against men as Christians were against one another And this Character of the contentiousness of Christians among themselves he could not but take up from his Observation of the Cruelty and merciless behaviour of the Eusebians towards the Orthodox under his Predecessor that indeed exceeded the salvageness of all wild Beasts But supposing them never so tame nothing less then everlasting confusion could be expected from such an unbounded licentiousness As Sozomen observes that it was not done out of any kindness but that the Church might destroy it self by mutual discord and Civil War And yet alass so far was he from attaining his ends that his malice was utterly defeated by the wisdom of the good Bishops for they being now freed from that violence and oppression that was put upon the Discipline of the Church by Constantius with his Prefects and Eunuchs and so being at liberty to exert that power that was settled upon them by our blessed Saviour they effectually restored that Peace and Concord to the Church which they could never compass under the oppressive Reign of Constantius put an end to the vexatious Arian Controversie establish't the Nicene Faith over all the Christian World and prevented new Schisms and Factions that were at that time breaking out in the Christian Church For after the death of George the Saint who was barbarously Murthered by the Heathens for affronting their Religion or rather robbing their Temples as 't is attested both by Ammianus Marcellinus and all the Christian Historians but most expresly by Julians own Letter to the Alexandrians where he bespeaks the Actors as true Worshippers of the Gods and blames them for having committed so cruel a Riot out of an over warm zeal for their Religion yet Philostorgius and Sandius have the Grace to say That the Fact was committed by the Followers of Athanasius and that they were set on by himself though he were then absent out of the City After this Athanasius returns to Alexandria where he is no sooner come then he calls a Council for resettling the State of the Catholick Church that had been interrupted by Constantius his fierce and long Oppression of it And at this Council the Famous Eusebius of Verselles was present as he return'd from his banishment in the higher Thebais though the Roman Writers will have it that he came as the Popes Legate without any Authority for it but their own bold Assertion and on the contrary he was so far from coming with any Commission from Rome that he came from a quite distant part of the World and only took in Alexandria in his way And now here the first question is as in all other Persecutions concerning the Lapsi or those Bishops that had joyn'd with the Arians or Eusebians in any of Constantius his Councils whether upon their