according to the faith and trust that we have in him To the same purpose Athenagoras in his return to this charge Diagoras indeed was guilty of the deepest atheism and impiety but we who separate God from all material being and affirm him to be eternal and unbegotten but all matter to be made and corruptible how unjustly are we branded with impiety It 's true did we side with Diagoras in denying a Divinity when there are so many and such powerful arguments from the creation and government of the world to convince us of the existence of God and Religion then both the guilt and punishment of Atheism might deservedly be put upon us But when our Religion acknowledges one God the maker of the Universe who being uncreate himself created all things by his word we are manifestly wrong'd both in word and deed both in being charged with it and in being punished for it We are accused says Arnobius for introducing prophane Rites and an impious Religion but tell me O ye men of reason how dare you make so rash a charge To adore the mighty God the Soveraign of the whole Creation the Governour of the highest powers to pray to him with the most obsequious reverence under an afflicted state to lay hold of him with all our powers to love him and look up to him is this a dismal and detestable Religion a Religion full of sacriledge and impiety destroying and defiling all ancient Rites is this that bold and prodigious crime for which your Gods are so angry with us and for which you your selves do so rage against us confiscating our Estates banishing our persons burning tearing and racking us to death with such exquisite tortures We Christians are nothing else but the worshippers of the supream King and Governour of the world according as we are taught by Christ our Master search and you 'll find nothing else in our Religion this is the sum of the whole affair this the end and design of our divine Offices before him it is that we are wont to prostrate and bow our selves him we worship with common and conjoin'd devotions from him we beg those things which are just and honest and such as are not unworthy of him to hear and grant So little reason had the Enemies of Christianity to brand it with the note of Atheism and Irreligion CHAP. II. Of the Novelty that was charged upon Christianity Christianity excepted and cried out against as a late novel Doctrine This a common charge continued when Christianity had been some hundreds of years in the world Christianity greatly prejudiced by this charge Men loth to forsake the Religion of their Ancestors What the Christians answered to it Christian Religion the same in substance and effect with that of the ancient Jews in that respect by far the oldest Religion in the World prov'd and urg'd by Tertullian Cl. Alexander Eusebius c. It s lateness and novelty no real prejudice to rational and unbiass'd men The folly and vanity of adhering to absurd and unreasouable Customs and Principles because ancient and of refusing to change opinions for the better An objection if Christ and Christianity were so great blessings to mankind why was it so long before God revealed them answered out of Arnobius THis Artifice proving weak and ineffectual the next charge was its lateness and novelty that it was an upstart Sect and but of yesterdays standing not known in the world many years before whereas the Religion of the Gentiles had uncontroulably and almost universally obtained from Ages and Generations a Doctrine newly sprung up and come as 't were from a far Country 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 't is in Theophilus Antiochenus a divorce or rending themselves from the institutions of their Ancestors as Tertullian has it This charge begun betimes when S. Paul preached at Athens we find this the first thing charged upon him that he was a setter forth of strange gods because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection and it was followed with a loud cry in succeeding times you are wont to object to us says Arnobius that our Religion is novel start up not many days ago and that you ought not to desert your ancient way and the Religion of your Country to espouse barbarous and foreign Rites And Eusebius tells us the Heathens were wont to reason thus what strange profession of Religion is this what new way of life wherein we can neither discern the Rites amongst us us'd in Greece nor amongst any Sect of the Barbarians who can deny them to be impious who have forsaken the Customs of their Fathers observed before in all Cities and Countries revolting from a way of Worship which had been universally received from all Ages both by Greeks and Barbarians entertained both in Cities and Villages countenanced and approved by the common vote and consent of all Kings Law-makers Philosophers and the greatest persons whatsoever Nay we may observe that after Christianity had been setled for some hundreds of years in the world and was become the prevailing Religion and had in a manner banished all others out of doors and driven them into corners yet this charge still continued thus Julian the Emperour writing to the people of Alexandria concerning the Galilaeans so he was wont in scorn to call the Christians that he wondered that any of them durst dwell amongst them or that they would suffer these despisers of the Religion of their Country to be in any place amongst them calls Christianity the new Doctrine that had been preached to the world the very same title which Lucian had also long since bestowed upon it where speaking of our Saviour he calls him the great man that was crucified in Palestine who introduced that new Religion into the world So Symmachus some years after Julian a man no less eminent for his parts and eloquence than for his power and authority being Chief Priest and Prefect of Rome confidently owns to the Emperours themselves though they were Christians that he did endeavour to defend the institutions of their Ancestors the setled Rights and Laws of the Country he means them of Religion that he design'd to settle that state of Religion which for so many Ages had been profitable to the Common-wealth and therefore begs of them that what they had received when they were Children now they were old they might leave to their Posterity that they were to be true to the trust that had from so many Ages been devolved upon them and were to follow their Parents as they had happily done their Ancestors that had gone before them So he pleading the cause of Paganism from its antiquity◠and prescription obliquely reflecting upon the novellism of Christianity for more he durst not speak the Emperours to whom he made his address being themselves Christians This indeed must needs be a mighty prejudice against the Christian Religion at its
doctrines of Weavers Taylors Fullers and the most rustick and illiterate persons surely no if at any time we refuse to produce our instructions and counsels before Masters of Families or the Doctors of Philosophy know that if they be studious of virtue enemies to vice and such as breath after the best things before such we are most willing and ready to instruct our youth being well assur'd we shall find them favourable Judges but if they be enemies to goodness and virtue and opposers of sound wholsom Doctrine then if we hold our peace no fault can justly be laid upon us for in such circumstances the Philosophers themselves would not discover the dictates and mysteries of their Philosophy This is the substance of the several answers which Origen pursues more at large through several pages which though very rational and satisfactory yet we find something pleaded more direct and positive to the charge viz. that although amongst the Christians as 't is in any Society of men the vulgar and more common sort might not be men of the sharpest understanding or vers'd in the more polite arts of learning yet wanted they not and those no small number great Scholars men of acute parts and raised abilities such as had run through the whole circle of the Sciences who daily came over to them So Arnobius urging the triumphant power and efficacy which the Christian Faith had over the minds of men who says he would not believe it when he sees in how short a time it has conquered so great a part of the world when men of so great wit and parts Orators Grammarians Rhetoricians Lawyers Physicians and Philosophers have thrown up those former sentimets of which but a little before they were so tenacious and have embraced the Doctrines of the Gospel So fast did the Christian Church fill with the most eminent professors of all parts of Learning that were then known to the world Nor were the Christians of those times more despised upon the account of their weakness and ignorance than they were for their meanness and poverty they were looked upon as de ultima faece as the scum and refuse of the people scarce a considerable man to be found amongst them See says the Heathen in Minucius Faelix the most and best of all your party are a poor beggerly hungerstarv'd generation that have neither riches nor reputation to bear them out This Charge however impertinent seeing the goodness of any Religion depends not upon the greatness of its professors was yet as untrue as 't was unreasonable the Christians having amongst them persons of the chiefest place and quality and after some years the Princes and Potentates of the world and even the Emperors themselves struck sail to the Scepter of Christ When Scapula the President of Carthage threatned the Christians with severe and cruel usage Tertullian bids him bethink himself what wilt thou do says he with so many thousands of men and women of every sex age and dignity as will freely offer themselves What fires what Swords wilt thou stand in need of What is Carthage it self like to suffer if decimated by thee when every one shall find there his near Kindred and Neighbours and shall see there Matrons and men perhaps of thy own rank and order and the most principal persons and either the Kindred or Friends of those who are thy own nearest friends Spare them therefore for your own sake if not for ours And if there were persons of such quality in Afric so remote and in a manner so barbarous a Province what may we suppose there were in Rome it self and other parts of the Roman Empire And in his Apologie speaking of the vast spreading of the party though says he we be men of quite another way yet have we fill'd all places among you your Cities Islands Castles Corporations Councils nay your Armies themselves your Tribes Companies yea the Palace the Senate and the Courts of Justice only your Temples we have left you free Sure I am Pliny in his Letter to the Emperor tells him that Christianity had not only over-run City and Country but that it had infected many of every sex age and order of men And indeed it were no hard matter out of the ancient Histories and Martyrologies of the Church nay from the Heathen Writers themselves to prove that persons of the highest rank and quality even in those times embraced Christianity and seal'd it with their blood Of which it may suffice to give an account only of some few Not to insist upon the Saints which S. Paul tells us were in Nero's Palace we find many considerable persons and some of them near a kin to the Emperour under the reign of Domitian that cruel Prince and persecutor of Christians entertaining the profession of the Gospel And first let us hear the account which Dion Cassius the famous Historian gives us He tells us that about the latter end of Domitian's Reign he condemned many some whereof were slain others stript of their estates and amongst the rest Flavius Clemens the Consul his own Cousin-german and his Wife Flavia Domitilla near akin also to the Emperour upon pretence of Atheism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for that they had embrac'd the Rites and Religion of the Jews His Nephew Clemens he put to death his Wife Domitilla he banished into the Island Pandateria Upon the same account also he put to death Acilius Glabrio who together with Trajan had been Consul the year before That the persons here describ'd were Christians is plain partly from the Charge of Atheism here fastned upon them the common and familiar accusation and the title given to Christianity by the Heathens as we observ'd before and partly because they are said to have passed over to the Rites and Customs of the Jews nothing being more ordinary in the Historians of those times than to mistake Christians for Jews and to call them so because both proceeding out of the same Country Christ himself and his Apostles being Jews born and his Religion first published and planted there And that which may give some more countenance to this is that Suetonius speaking of Domitian's condemning this Fl. Clemens represents him as a man contemtissimae inertiae as a most contemptibly dull and sluggish person which we know was generally charged upon the Christians that they were an useless and unactive people as we shall have occasion by and by more particularly to remark Besides this Fl. Domitilla the Wife of Clemens there was another of the same name his Neece by the Sister's side unless Dion Cassius mistook and put down Wife for Neece which there 's no reason to suppose seeing both may very well consist together who as Eusebius informs us was with many more banished by Domitian in the fifteenth year of his Reign into the Island Pontia and there put to death for the profession of Christianity whose persecutions and
to an Image lest thereby they should give occasion to others to think that they ascribed divinity to them for this reason they shunn'd all community with the Rites and Customs of the Heathens abstaining from things strangled or that had been offered to Idols from frequenting the publick Bathes or going to the Sights and Shows because they seemed to owe their original to idolatry and were the occasion of many gross enormities they refused to wear Crowns of Laurel lest they should seem to patronize the Custom of the Gentiles who were wont to do so in their sacred and solemn Rites as appeared eminently in the Solemnities of the Emperours Severus and Caracalla when the Tribune delivering the donative to the Souldiers and all came to receive it with Crowns upon their heads one of them brought his in his hand and being demanded the reason answered that he was a Christian and could not do it which was the occasion of Tertullian's Book de Corona Militis wherein he sets himself to defend it Secondly They were willing to put themselves upon the strictest trial and to undergo the severest penalties if found guilty of those Crimes that were charged upon them So their Apologist bespeaks the Emperours we beseech you says he that those things that are charged upon the Christians may be enquired into and if they be found to be so let them have their deserved punishment nay let them be more severely punished than other men but if not guilty then 't is not reasonable that innocent persons should suffer meerly upon report and clamour And speaking of those that only took sanctuary at the name of Christians he adds that those who lived not according to the Laws of Christ and were only called by his name they begg'd of them that such might be punished To the same purpose Athenagoras in his Embassy taking notice how their Enemies laid wait for their lives and fortunes loaded them with heaps of reproaches charging them with things that never so much as entred into their minds and of which their accusers themselves were most guilty he makes this offer let but any of us be convict of any crime either small or great and we refuse not to be punished nay are ready to undergo the most cruel and heavy penalty but if we be only accused for our name and to this day all our accusations are but the sigments of obscure and uncertain fame no Christian having ever been convict of any fault then we hope it will become such wise gracious and mighty Princes as you are to make such Laws as may secure us from those wrongs and injuries But alas so clear was their innocency that their bitterest adversaries durst not suffer them to come to a fair open tryal if you be so certain that we are guilty says Tertullian to the Heathens why then are we not treated in the same nature with all malefactors who have leave both by themselves and their advocates to defend their innocency to answer and put in pleas it being unlawful to condemn any before they be heard and have liberty to defend themselves whereas Christians only are not permitted to speak any thing that might clear their cause maintain the truth and make the Judge able to pronounce righteous sentence 't is enough to justifie the publick odium if we do but confess our selves Christians without ever examining of the crime contrary to the manner of procedure against all other Delinquents whom 't is not enough barely to charge to be murderers sacrilegious or incestuous or enemies to the Publick the titles you are pleased to bestow upon us unless they also take the quality of the fact the place manner time partners and accessories under examination But no such favour is shewn to us but we are condemned without any inquisition passed upon us And good reason there was that they should take this course seeing they could really find nothing to condemn them for but for being Christians This one would think strange especially amongst a people so renowned for justice and equity as the Romans were and yet in these times nothing more ordinary therefore when Vrbicius the Prefect of Rome had condemned Ptolomeus meerly upon his confessing himself a Christian one Lucius that stood by cryed out What strange course is this what infamous misdemeanour is this man guilty of that when he 's no adulterer fornicator no murtherer no thief or robber thou shouldst punish him only because he calls himself a Christian certainly Urbicius such justice as this does not become the piety of the Emperour or the Philosophy of Caesar his Son or the sacred and venerable Senate And Tertullian tells us 't was the common accusation they had in their mouths such or such a one is a goodman only he is a Christian or I wonder at such a one a wise man but lately turned Christian So Cyprian I remember reduces his adversary to this unavoidable dilemma chuse one of these two things to be a Christian either is a fault or 't is not if it be a fault why dost thou not kill every one that confesses it if it be not why dost thou persecute them that are innocent Hence we find nothing more common in the old Apologists than complaints concerning the unreasonableness of being accused condemned and punished meerly for their name this being the first and great cause of all that hatred and cruelty that was exercised towards them 't was the innocent name that was hated in them all the quarrel was about this title and when a Christian was guilty of nothing else 't was this made him guilty as Tertullian complains at every turn The truth is they mightily gloried in this title and were ambitious to own it in the face of the greatest danger therefore when Attalus the famous French Martyr was led about the Amphitheatre that he might be exposed to the hatred and derision of the people he triumphed in this that a tablet was carried before him with this Inscription THIS IS ATTALUS THE CHRISTIAN And Sanctus another of them being oft asked by the President what his name was what his City and Country and whether he was a Free-man or a Servant answered nothing more to any of them than that he was a Christian professing this name to be Country Kindred and all things to him Nay so great was the honour and value which they had for this name that Julian the Emperour whom we commonly call the Apostate endeavoured by all ways to suppress it that when he could not drive the thing he might at least banish the name out of the world and therefore did not only himself constantly call Christians Galilaeans but made a Law that they should be called only by that name But to return the sum is this the Christians were so buoy'd up with the conscience of their innocency that they cared not who saw them were willing and
Epiphanius and then too met with no very welcome entertainment as may appear from Epiphanius his own Epistle translated by S. Hierom where the story in short is this Coming says he to Anablatha a Village in Palestine and going into a Church to pray I espied a Curtain hanging over the door whereon was painted the Image of Christ or of some Saint which when I looked upon and saw the Image of a man hanging up in the Church contrary to the authority of the Holy Scriptures I presently rent it and advis'd the Guardians of the Church rather to make usd of it as a Winding-sheet for some poor mans burying whereat when they were a little troubled and said 't was but just that since I had rent that Curtain I should change it and give them another I promis'd them I would and have now sent the best I could get and pray' entreat them to accept it and give command that for the time to come no such Curtains being contrary to our Religion may be hung up in the Church of Christ it more becoming your place solicitously to remove whatever is offensive to and unworthy of the Church of Christ and the people committed to your Charge This was written to John Bishop of Jerusalem in whose Diocess the thing had been done and the case is so much the more pressing and weighty by how the greater esteem and value Epiphanius then Bishop of Salamine in Cyprus for his great age and excellent learning had in the Church of God This instance is so home and pregnant that the Patrons of Image-Worship are at a mighty loss what to say to it and after all are forced to cry out against it as supposititious Bellarmine brings no less than nine arguments if such they may be called to make it seem probable but had he been ingenuous he might have given one reason more true and satisfactory than all the rest why that part of the Epistle should be thought forged and spurious viz. because it makes so much against them More might be produced to this purpose but by this I hope 't is clear enough that the honest Christians of those times as they thought it sufficient to pray to God without making their addresses to Saints and Angels so they accounted their Churches fine enough without Pictures and Images to adorn them Their Churches being built and beautified so far as consisted with the ability and simplicity of those days they sought to derive a greater value and esteem upon them by some peculiar consecration for the wisdom and piety of those times thought it not enough barely to devote them to the publick services of Religion unless they also set them apart with solemn Rites of a formal dedication This had been an ancient Custom both amongst Jews and Gentiles as old as Solomons Temple nay as Moses and the Tabernacle When 't was first taken up by Christians is not easie to determine only I do not remember to have met with the footsteps of any such thing in any approved Writer for the Decretal Epistles every one knows what their faith is till the Reign of Constantine in his time Christianity being become more prosperous and successful Churches were every where erected and repaired and no sooner were so but as Eusebius tells us they were solemnly consecrated and the dedications celebrated with great festivity and rejoycing an instance whereof he there gives of the famous Church of Tyre at the dedication whereof he himself made that excellent Oration inserted into the body of his History About the thirtieth year of his Reign he built a stately Church at Jerusalem over the Sepulchre of our Saviour which was dedicated with singular magnificence and veneration and for the greater honour by his imperial Letters he summoned the Bishops who from all parts of the East were then met in Council at Tyre to be present and assisting at the Solemnity The Rites and Ceremonies used at these dedications as we find in Eusebius were a great confluence of Bishops and Strangers from all parts the performance of divine offices singing of hymns and Psalms reading and expounding of the Scriptures Sermons and Orations receiving the holy Sacrament prayers and thanksgivings â—iberal Alms bestowed on the poor and great gifts given to the Church and in short mighty expressions of mutual love and kindness and universal rejoycing with one another What other particular Ceremonies were introduced afterwards concerns not me to enquire only let me note that under some of the Christian Emperours when Paganism lay gasping for life and their Temples were purged and converted into Christian Churches they were usually consecrated only by placing a Cross in them as the venerable Ensign of the Christian Religion as appears by the Law of Theodosius the younger to that purpose The memory of the dedication of that Church at Jerusalem was constantly continued and kept alive in that Church and once a year to wit on the 14. of September on which day it had been dedicated was solemnized with great pomp and much confluence of people from all parts the Solemnity usually lasting eight days together which doubtless gave birth to that custom of keeping anniversary days of commemoration of the dedication of Churches which from this time forwards we frequently meet with in the Histories of the Church and much prevailed in after Ages some shadow whereof still remains amongst us at this day in the Wakes observed in several Counties which in correspondence with the Encoenia of the ancient Church are annual Festivals kept in Country Villages in memory of the dedication of their particular Churches And because it was a custom in some Ages of the Church that no Church should be consecrated till it was endowed it may give us occasion to enquire what Revenues Churches had in those first Ages of Christianity 'T is more than probable that for a great while they had no other publick incomes than either what arose out of those common contributions which they made at their usual Assemblies every one giving or offering according to his ability or devotion which was put into a common stock or treasury or what proceeded from the offerings which they made out of the improvement of their Lands the Apostolick Canons providing that their First-fruits should be partly offered at the Church partly sent home to the Bishops and Presbyters the care of all which was committed to the President or Bishop of the Church for who says the Authour of the fore-cited Canons is fitter to be trusted with the riches and revenues of the Church than he who is intrusted with the precious souls of men and by him disposed of for the maintenance of the Clergie the relief of the poor or whatever necessities of the Church As Christianity encreased and times grew better they obtained more proper and fixed revenues houses and lands being setled upon them for such 't is certain they had even during the times
we are here we must worship God with respect to our present state and consequently of necessity have some definite and particular time to do it in Now that man might not be left to a floating uncertainty in a matter of so great importance in all Ages and Nations men have been guided by the very dictates of Nature to pitch upon some certain seasons wherein to assemble and meet together to perform the publick offices of Religion What and how many were the publick Festivals instituted and observed either amongst Jews or Gentiles I am not concerned to take notice of For the ancient Christians they ever had their peculiar seasons their solemn and stated times of meeting together to perform the common duties of Divine Worship of which because the Lords-Day challenges the precedency of all the rest we shall begin first with that And being unconcern'd in all the controversies which in the late times were raised about it I shall only note some instances of the piety of Christians in reference to this day which I have observed in passing through the Writers of those times For the name of this day of Publick Worship it is sometimes especially by Justin Martyr and Tertullian called Sunday because it hapned upon that day of the week which by the Heathens was dedicated to the Sun and therefore as being best known to them the Fathers commonly made use of it in their Apologies to the Heathen Governours This title continued after the world became Christian and seldom it is that it passes under any other name in the Imperial Edicts of the first Christian Emperours But the more proper and prevailing name was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Dies Dominica the Lords-day as 't is called by S. John himself as being that day of the Week whereon our Lord made his triumphant return from the dead this Justin Martyr assures us was the true original of the title upon Sunday says he we all assemble and meet together as being the first day wherein God parting the darkness from the rude chaos created the world and the same day whereon Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead for he was crucified the day before Saturday and the day after which is Sunday he appeared to his Apostles and Disciples by this means observing a kind of analogy and proportion with the Jewish Sabbath which had been instituted by God himself For as that day was kept as a commemoration of Gods Sabbath or resting from the work of Creation so was this set apart to religious uses as the solemn memorial of Christs resting from the work of our redemption in this world compleated upon the day of his resurrection Which brings into my mind that custom of theirs so universally common in those days that whereas at other times they kneeled at prayers on the Lords day they always prayed standing as is expresly affirmed both by Justin Martyr and Tertullian the reason of which we find in the Authour of the Questions and Answers in J. Martyr it is says he that by this means we may be put in mind both of our fall by sin our resurrection or restitution by the grace of Christ that for six days we pray upon our knees is in token of our fall by sin but that on the Lords day we do not bow the knee does symbolically represent our resurrection by which through the grace of Christ we are delivered from our sins and the powers of death this he there tells us was a custom deriv'd from the very times of the Apostles for which he cites Irenaeus in his Book concerning Easter And this custom was maintained with so much vigour that when some began to neglect it the great Council of Nice took notice of it and ordained that there should be a constant uniformity in this case and that on the Lords day and at such other times as were usual men should stand when they made their prayers to God So fit and reasonable did they think it to do all possible honour to that day on which Christ rose from the dead Therefore we may observe all along in the sacred story that after Christs resurrection the Apostles and primitive Christians did especially assemble upon the first day of the week and whatever they might do at other times yet there are many passages that intimate that the first day of the week was their more solemn time of meeting on this day it was that they were met together when our Saviour first appeared to them and so again the next week after on this day they were assembled when the Holy Ghost so visibly came down upon them when Peter preached that excellent Sermon converted and baptized three thousand souls Thus when S. Paul was taking his leave at Troas upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread i.e. as almost all agree to celebrate the holy Sacrament he preached to them sufficiently intimating that upon that day 't was their usual custom to meet in that manner and elsewhere giving directions to the Church of Corinth as he had done in the like case to other Churches concerning their contributions to the poor suffering Brethren he bids them lay it aside upon the first day of the week which seems plainly to respect their religious assemblies upon that day for then it was that every one according to his ability deposited something for the relief of the poor and the uses of the Church After the Apostles the Christians constantly observed this day meeting together for prayer expounding and hearing of the Scriptures celebration of the Sacraments and other publick duties of Religion Vpon the day called Sunday says J. Martyr all of us that live either in City or Country meet together in one place and what they then did he there describes of which afterwards This doubtless Pliny meant when giving Trajan an account of the Christians he tells him that they were wont to meet together to worship Christ stato die upon a set certain day by which he can be reasonably understood to design no other but the Lords day for though they probably met at other times yet he takes notice of this only either because the Christians whom he had examin'd had not told him of their meeting at other times or because this was their most publick and solemn convention and which in a manner swallowed up the rest By the violent persecutions of those times the Christians were forced to meet together before day so Pliny in the same place tells the Emperour that they assembled before day-light to sing their morning hymns to Christ Whence it is that Tertullian so often mentions their nocturnal convocations for putting the case that his Wife after his decease should marry with a Gentile-Husband amongst other inconveniencies he asks her whether she thought he would be willing to let her rise from his Bed to go to their night-meetings
more particularly consider in these three instances their Sobriety in respect of Garb and Apparel their Temperance in regard of food and diet and their Continence or chastity For the first the care about our Garb and Dress it is one of those instances of Sobriety which are to be conducted by the rules of Religion and Reason and which very much discover a vertuous or a vicious temper There are three things as the Son of Syrach well observes that shew a man what he is his Attire excessive Laughter and his Gate There is not certainly a more open evidence of a vain mind than a vain garb and habit St. Basil discoursing what habit does best beseem a Christian tells us in general that it ought to be such as most lively expresses the meekness and humility of the mind that good men of old were so attired and that we are commanded having food and raiment to be therewith content not studying variety and which most commonly follows it softness and elegancy which are but instruments to minister to excess and luxury introduced into humane life through the idle and unnecessary Arts of loosness and effeminacy 'T is not enough says Tertullian that a Christian be chast and modest but he must appear to be so a vertue of which he should have so great a store and treasure that it should flow from his mind upon his habit and break from the retirements of his conscience into the superficies of his life as he there expresses it More particularly St. Basil tells us that the habit of a Christian ought to be suitable to the two great ends of cloathing instituted by God viz. Honesty and Necessity honesty to hide the less comly parts of the body and to cover that shame which sin has brought upon mankind in Paradise Innocency was mans only robe 't was sin brought in the fig-leav'd coat and what should more induce us to be modest in our apparel than to remember that our clothes are Monitors of our apostasie and that there 's little reason we should pride our selves in that which is only a cover for our shame Necessity and so clothes were designed to keep the body in convenient warmth and to defend it from those injuries and extremities of the air and wether which would otherwise soon rot down this house of clay Now to both these ends he tells us we ought to accommodate our garments not striving for variety having some for uses at home others for oftentation when we go abroad but that whatever attains these ends is enough But besides these there is a third Vse and end of clothes noted by Clemens Alexandrinus and that is for distinction not only of Sexes but of different ranks and degrees of men such as agree best to mens age persons shape nature or their several states and employments in these respects men may use different and distinguishing habits nay he grants that in some cases men may recede from the strict rule and discipline of this affair and that such women as cannot otherwise gain upon their husbands may if they require it go a little more trim and neat provided as he there limits it it be done only to please and gain upon their husbands and that they do not practise any Artifices of unlawful beauty Now that the ancient Christians govern'd themselves by these rules in this affair is plain in that they avoided both singularity on the one hand and excess on the other generally conforming themselves to the decent and orderly customes and fashions of the times and places where they liv'd Justin Martyr giving his friend an account of the Christians tells him that they differ'd not from other men either in their Country or Speech or the usages of the civil life they dwell in their own Cities use the same language with other men nor have they any singular and extraordinary way of life they are not in any thing affected or phantastick but inhabiting partly amongst Greeks partly in barbarous Cities as every ones lot is fallen they follow the customes of their Countrey and both in clothes and diet and all other affairs of outward life shew the excellent and admirable constitution of their discipline and conversation I am not ignorant of what some learned men would have us to believe that in those times when any turn'd from Paganism to Christianity they were wont to change their habit to leave off the Toga or Gown the common habit almost in all parts of the Roman Empire and to take up the Pallium or Cloak and this they think sufficiently countenanc'd by the instance of Tertullian who laying aside the Gown and putting on the Cloak was accused of lightness and inconstancy by the people of Carthage and bitterly persecuted with the common sarcasm à Toga ad Pallium as one that had want only skipp'd from the Gown to the Cloak i. e. from one profession to another insomuch that he was forc'd to write an Apology for himself which he did in his book de Pallio where with a great deal of satyrical and sarcastick wit he retorts upon them and vindicates himself from their charge and cavils But that there was any such change of habit at persons first coming over to Christianity I can see no reason to believe and for the case of Tertullian it makes nothing to the purpose unless it could be prov'd that he left off the gown at his first entrance upon the Christian Religion which will be hard to make out for I am clearly of the mind of the learned Salmasius that he altered his habit and assumed the cloak not when he first became Christian but when he was made Presbyter of the Church of Carthage whence it is called by him according to his dialect Sacerdos habitus for so it is in all ancient Manuscripts and in the first Edition of B. Rhenanus and not sacer habitus as later Editions have it the Priests habit because the Christian Priests usually wore it after their entrance upon Holy Orders For the better understanding of which we are to consider a little that amongst the Greeks the Pallium or Cloak was not commonly worn but was the proper habit of Philosophers who profess'd a more severe and accurate course of life Acordingly amongst the Christians those who professed themselves to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more strict and exact observers of the Christian discipline whether they were Laity or Clergy assumed this habit to themselves and because the Clergy in those times generally took upon them this austere and philosophick way of life this garb was most peculiar to them and this probably they did the rather not only because this was the most plain and simple garment in it self but because they supposed the Apostles whom they strove to imitate wrote this habit as is plain they did as from other passages in the New Testament so from St. Pauls sending for the Cloak