taken into Protection by the first Christian Emperours knowing how much it will endear the Church of England to Your Majesties Royal Care and Kindness when you discern its exact conformity to the first Constitution in all things but its Suffering And now I cannot pray for more happiness to Your Sacred Majesty then they comprised in a Collect for their Heathen Emperours under all the Storms and Outrages of Persecution That Almighty God would grant You a Long Life a Quiet Reign an Undisturbed Family Valiant Armies Faithful Councellors and Loyal Subjects That all things may fall out as successfully as Your Royal Heart can desire That Your Empire may ever increase and flourish And that the Lineal and Legal Succession of Your Royal Family may inherit Your Imperial Throne through all Succeeding Ages Which is the daily Prayer of Your Majesties Most Humble and Dutiful Subject S. P. The Contents § I. THE Introduction representing the seeming difficulty of the Argument from the niceness of the Controversy it self from the partiality of the Writers engaged in it and from the just jealousy of Superiours about it and yet nothing more easy to determine to the Satisfaction of all Parties concern'd and particularly to the advantage of Soveraign Powers Pag. 1. § II. Christianity supposes the power of Princes Our Saviour disclaims all Temporal Authority and all exemption from it to those that have it To pretend to any such thing by any grant from him is to renounce him and turn Mahumetan Christ as he is Head of his Church is subject to Sovereign Powers pag. 10 § III. The Power of Princes over the Church supposes the Power in the Church it is no Spiritual but a Civil Power over the Spiritual to deny the Authority of the Church in all Ages is to take away our Saviours own Authority all the several branches of his Commission to the Apostles proved against Mr. Hobbs to be Authoritative pag. 34. § IV. No Church-Power but what is conveyed from the Apostles by Ordination The Supremacy of Princes is the same whether Heathen or Christian Princes neither gain nor loose any Power by their Christianity Mr. Hobbs that he may destroy the present Power of the Church is forced to take away our Saviours own Power over it in this present World pag. 56. § V. The danger of a competition between these two Powers wholly avoided by the Churches Power being founded upon the Doctrine of the Cross. The Doctrine of the Cross explained pag. 65. § VI. The Rights of Sovereign Princes secured and improved by divers particular Laws of the Christian Institution The folly of limiting the obligation of these Laws to such Governours as govern by Law demonstrated against Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Baxter pag. 77. § VII Submission to the worst of Princes proved much wiser and much more advantageous to the Interest of the Subject then the liberty of Resistance or Rebellion in any case whatsoever Barclay's Concession of its being lawful in any case shewn to be an inlet to the subversion of all Governments in all cases pag. 109. § VIII Those that are trusted by our Saviour with the Government of his Church are tyed by him to a particular and exemplary submission to Civil Authority They are not forbidden the exercise of power but the haughty and insolent use of it The Church of England consists not in its Laws but in its Authority to Act Laws pag. 126. § IX The Primitive Churches practice of Passive Obedience No Canons against Rebellion because it was then never committed The Church careful to secure all mens civil Rights Canons to secure the Rights of Masters over Servants The Doctrine of Universal submission taught in the Greek Church by Policarp Justin Martyr Athenagoras Theophilus Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria p. 140. § X. The same Doctrine taught and practised in the Latin Church by Irenaeus Tertullian Minutius Foelix St. Cyprian It was not lawful for Christians that were banish't for their Religion to return home without leave of the Government To say this Doctrine was then taught because they wanted strength is to call them Knaves and Villains The blasphemy of the Independants in justifying their Treason by pretending to Inspiration from Heaven This done by John Goodwin and J. O. pag. 153. § XI The strictness of Government in the Church kept up to the height all this Interval notwithstanding their entire submission to the power of the Empire The necessity of a Legislative Power to the Being of a Church The Government and Discipline of the Primitive Church exemplified from the Apostolical Canons pag. 169. § XII The State of the Primitive Church collected into one view out of the Writings of St. Câ—prian with an account of the birth growth and death of the Novatian Schism His first Principle of Unity is the duty of Communion with the Bishop in every particular Church pag. 198. § XIII His second Principle of Unity is the Obligation upon all Christian Bishops to keep up correspondence and Communion among themselves pag. 227. § XIV Mr. Thorndike's Notion of the Unity of the Catholick Church by way of External Polity vindicated against the Objections of Dr. Barrow and the Doctors Treatise concerning the Unity of the Church confuted pag. 236. Part. II. § I. THe Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Power under the Reign of Constantine the Great in the Cause of the Donatists and Arians An account of the History of the Donatists from their beginning to the Council at Rome under Melchiades pag. 265. § II. A Chasm discovered in Optatus from the Council of Rome till after the Council of Arles The Sentence of the Council of Arles against the Schismaticks Their Illegal Appeal to the Emperour His resentments of it The Forgery of Ingentius against Foelix of Aptung discovered Constantine's Sentence against them at Milan without accepting their Appeal pag. 285. § III. Constantine's Proceedings against them But forced to grant them Liberty of Conscience upon his War with Licinius Their insolence upon it Their Case parallel with our present Schismaticks pag. 300. § IV. A Character of Donatus the Great and his Circumcellians Their behaviour towards the Emperour's Commissioners Their Flatteries of Julian pag. 307. § V. Their divisions and subdivisions among themselves Their Outrages and siding with Gildo the African Rebel Their disingenuity publickly exposed both by the Emperour and the Church The Imperial Laws against them and their great Efficacy Liberty of Conscience again granted them upon the Invasion of the Goths pag. 316. § VI. An account of the Conference at Carthage before Marcellinus The Donatists design in procuring his Murther The Faction forever broke by the effectual execution of Laws against them under Honorius p. 333. § VII The History of Arianism from its beginning to the end of the Nicene Council Eusebius of Caesarea and Petavius vindicated from suspicion of the Heresie Eusebius of Nicomedia and his Faction no Arians p. 348. § VIII After the Council
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
is the very establishment of this Polity for a duty or obligation common to several Societies supposes one Government common to them all to which every Society is accountable for the discharge of its Duty Every passage that recommends Union among the Members of that Body of which Christ is Head is an express Command to this Duty for he is Head of the Catholique Church and the Catholique Church is his whole Body and therefore particular Churches are only Members of it and therefore as such they are obliged by such Precepts to keep the Unity of the whole If our Learned Author mean that this Communion was not establisht between all Churches in the Apostles time I will grant it because it was impossible that it should till the settlement of Christianity in the World was brought to some perfection and till then such a Confederation in Discipline could not be established in all places For some of them travelling into remote Parts and Founding Churches there such distant Churches could not keep up any common Discipline among themselves for want of convenient Correspondence But as far as this design could be put in practice it was pursued by the Apostles keeping Peace and Unity among all Neighbour Churches But Thirdly The Fathers make the Unity of the Church to consist only in the Unions of Faith Charity Peace not in this Political Union First suppose they do yet if a Political Union be necessary to preserve those other Unions that must be implyed in them But Secondly What Fathers make it to consist only in those Unions Does any Father affirm that there is no other Union in the Church but only of Faith Charity and Peace that were to the purpose but because they sometime speak of those Unions to conclude that they affirm that there is no other only shews a miserable scantiness of proof and yet beside this the chief Passages that he alledges out of them refer to this Political Union His first Instance of the Church of Rome's refusing to receive Marcion to Communion because he was Excommunicated by his own Father the Bishop of Sinope a small Diocess in Pâ—ntus is the most remarkable Precedent of this Unity of Discipline that he could have pitched upon in all the Records of the Ancient Church for if they were â— bliged not to admit him into Communion in one Church when he was Excommunicate in another then they were under some Law of Government common to both how else should the Church of Rome be obliged to put in execution a censure of the little remote Church of Synope And yet too without this obligation the Discipline of the Church would be utterly defeated for what had become of that if it had not been of force at Rome and every where else as well as at home And of the same nature is the known and famous case of Synesius who when he had Excommunicated Andronicus and his Companions requires of all Bishops in the World not to receive them to Communion under pain of Excommunication as dividing that Unity of the Church which Christ has appointed Though this was only for the greater caution for though he had not given this notice they were all obliged under the same penalty of Excommunication not to admit them to Communion without their Bishop's Certificate or Communicatory Letters and as long as that rule was observed which was till the time of the Usurpation the Discipline of every particular Church was without any trouble effectual in all Churches all the World over But to return to Marcion the reason says our Author why the Roman Church refused Communion to Mercion when he was Excommunicated by his Father was because his Father and they were of one Faith and one Mind And let it be the reason if he pleases for what can follow thence then that Unity of Faith obliges to Unity of Discipline And that too is expresly enough infer'd in the following words which he has omitted We cannot i. e. we ought not to act contrary to our fellow Minister But after all we need only refer this whole matter to our Learned Author 's own decision who has given his judgment of it in these words It is a rule grounded upon apparent Equity and frequently declared by Ecclesiastical Canons that no Church shall admit into its Protection or Communion any Persons who are Excommunicated by another Church or who do withdraw themselves from it And this he proves by the Canon of the African Fathers against Appeals to Rome by the proceedings against Marcion by St. Cyprian's repulse of Maximus and Novatian and Cornelius of â—aelicissimus by the punishment of Dioscorus who was deposed for it and by the Mandate of Synesius to all Christian Churches against Andronicus And what can we desire more then this That as this Rule was a standing Law of the Christian Church so it was grounded upon apparent Equity and such Laws are Obligatory all the World over because their Violation is apparent Iniquity in short it was no Arbitrary Rule but such an one as was its own obligation by its own intrinsick Goodness and Usefulness As for our Authors Passages out of Tertullian they do him as little Service as this Precedent of Marcion For they expresly assert this Unity of Discipline in the Catholique Church We are one Body by our agreement in Religion our Unity of Discipline and our being in the same Covenant of hope What can be more evident then that he makes the Unity of the Christian Body to consist in an Unity of Discipline as well as of Faith And to the same purpose are all his other Passages out of the Ancients that from the Unity of Faith in all Churches infer this Unity of Discipline as is obvious to any one that will but peruse them The Fourth Argument is only a Repetition of the two first and therefore is already consider'd And so is the fifth viz. That this Unity could not comport with the Apostolical State of the Church when Christian Churches were founded in such distant places as could not with convenience correspond That is to say it was not reduced to practice till it was practicable and that I must acknowledge it was not in all places till after the Apostles but as far as it could be obtain'd it was carefully observed from the beginning The Sixth Argument taken from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or liberty of particular Churches to govern themselves I have answered in the foregoing Discourse by shewing its Consistency with its Subjection to the Catholique Church because as our Learned Author here very well observes The Peace of the Church was preserved by Communion of all parts together not by the subjection of the rest to one part But the truth is in prosecuting this Argument he has not only answered that but all the rest by confessing the absolute necessity of this Political Verity so that without it Christianity must have perished by referring the judgment of the
his Tyrian Judges he immediately summon'd them at so just and modest an Appeal And then Athanasius might easily have cleared himself had they not surprized and overwhelm'd him with a new Accusation attested by his own best friends for the Witnesses that they produced of his threatning to hinder the Transportation of Corn to Constantinople were some of those that had appeared most eminently in his defence at the Tyrian Council This was an Evidence that could not be withstood nor is it to be avoided but by one of these two ways Either that Athanasius being vext out of all Patience by so long a Train of base usage and knowing his great and popular interest at Alexandria might in some suddain and extravagant Passion have bolted out some such threatning which though it were a very high Crime in the Emperours Esteem no less then Treason against his own Royal City yet its Enormity consisted in its great rashness and indiscretion and this to me seems very probable if we consider his Great Spirit his Cholerick Constitution and his Infinite Provocation or else that his Friends were since the Council taken off by the Briberies and Flatteries of the Eusebians But if it were so the Emperour could have no Evidence for it neither indeed have we any ground to surmise it was so and therefore the thing being so fully attested by Athanasius his own Friends it was as fair a Testimony as could be given in any Case no wonder then that it raised the Emperours displeasure so high that he would hear no more when it endanger'd the Peace of the Empire and the ruine of his own City that could not possibly subsist without the constant supplies from Alexandria To all which we may add the Emperour's impatient desire of Peace and Concord in the Christian Church as it is visible through his whole Reign and of this Athanasius was all along represented to him as the only Obstacle and therefore Sozomen leaves it doubtful whether the Emperour banisht him because he believed the Accusations against him or because it would be a means of setling Concord among the other Bishops the whole Quarrel being about him and as his Enemies represented it meerly raised and kept up by him and therefore when Anthony the Famous Monk of AEgypt interceded for his Restitution the Emperour returns in Answer that Athanasius was a proud and provoking man and a Ring-leader of Discord and Sedition for these were the Crimes says the Historian that his Adversaries chiefly objected against him because the Emperour of all men in the World most hated men of that temper And therefore because John the Meletian Bishop was the head of the other Faction he sent him into banishment too supposing that when the Leaders were out of the way the Schism would dye of its own accord Now if we lay all these things together we shall have no reason to lay any hard usage or foul dealing to Constantine in this whole affair and they that best understood it altogether acquit him as we have seen from the Council of Alexandâ—ia from Athanasius himself and from Constantine the younger And Theodoret pleads in his excuse agreeable to what we have observed above of his easiness to be imposed upon by men that pretended well That he was apparently circumvented in the whole transaction by trusting to the honesty of some Bishops that hid their Malice and Wickedness under great shews of Piety And therefore it is but a rash conclusion of St. Jerom and Lucifer Calaritanus that Constantine before his Death turn'd Arian When his zeal for the Nicene Faith was so evident through all the Actions of his life when the Eusebians themselves by whom he was deceived were great pretenders against the Arian Heresie and when he would not be reconciled to Arius till he had upon Oath profest the Catholick Faith and when himself was careful to tye on the Obligation of the Oath with all possible severity telling him if your faith be right your Oath is good but if Heretical and yet you have sworn know this that God will judge you from Heaven All which is very far from looking any thing like Arianism but St. Jerom was an hasty man and abounds too much with these harsh and heedless censures and Lucifer Calaritanus though he were a Catholick was a very peevish man and out of meer peevishness turn'd Schismatick from the Catholicks and is the firstCatholick Christian that I can find upon Record that ever spoke rudely and indecently of a Sovereign Prince as he did of Constantius before his Apostacy from the Church For immediately after his Restitution he utterly forsook its Communion because the Catholicks admitted the Arian Clergy into it upon Repentance and is so stubborn in his Schism that to keep it up he forsakes his Bishoprick in Sardinia flies into Africa the Soil of Schisms as well as Monsters and there joyns Faction though not Communion with the Donatists for though they never communicated with each other yet they United Interests against the Catholicks And therefore his rudeness to the Emperour Constantius and his Calumny of Constantine though done by him whilst a Catholick proceeded from his Spirit of Donatism that was discovered by his after-Actions And now having thus far set down the true Story of the Arian Contâ—oversie under this Emperour as to matter of Fact and from it exemplyfied both the Authority and Duty of Christian Princes in the Government of the Church I shall forbear making any remarks or reflections upon it till I have given an Historical account of the exercise of the same power by his Successors in the following Ages of the Church whereby we shall find that the example of this Great Prince was set up as the best Standard of Government that those Princes that were most careful to discharge their Conscience towards the Church and most prudent in the exercise of their power over it propounded his example to themselves for the Pattern of their Reign and that those swerved more or less from the right Rule of Government who forsook his Method to set up new Politicks of their own devising from whence we shall not only exemplifie the right and wrong exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church but withal discover the several Grounds and Reasons upon which the power of Princes though not Ecâ—lesiastical comes to be so far interessed in matters of the Church as to be superiour to its own proper power and that I hope is sufficient to settle this Argument §. X. After the death of Constantine the Great the Empire is divided between his three Sons and that as 't is most commonly supposed upon the Authority of Eusebius by his last Will and Testament though if we consult the passage it self it is only a loose expression fitted to a Panegyrick rather then an History and so are all his four Books of the Life of Constantine and amounts to no more then this That he left
whole Empire was big with a resolution to settle the Peace of the Church as well as the State and once more to quell the Obstinacy of the Shism by the Authority of a General Council But whilst he is designing this great and pious work news is brought him of a worse Flame broke out at Alexdria by means of the Heresy of Arrius that had already engaged not only all Egypt but was blown over into Asia and for the suppression of this dangerous Schism for so at first he look't upon it and therefore only endeavoured to reconcile the Parties he Summons the Great Council of Nice to which among the other Famous Bishops that were present at it Caecilian was summon'd but no Bishops of the Pars Donati as supposing them out of the Communion of the Catholick Church But after this Council we hear little or no thing of the Donatists in this Emperor's Reign himself and the Christian Bishops being wholly employed in quenching that more fatal and pernicious Heresie and how effectually and speedily he rooted up the Heresie it self by the Authority of the Church abetted with the Imperial Power we shall demonstrate in its proper place For though after the Heresie it self was vanquish't by this Council the Hereticks or rather their Friends created him infinite trouble about it by Oblique Arts and for other ends yet this I affirm and shall prove that they durst never own the Heresie it self not only in his time but in all the time of his Son Constantius till the end of his Reign And now here I ought to break off the Story of the Donatists with this Emperors History but their Progress in Schism after his indulgence is such a natural representation of the growth and improvement of Peevishness if once left to its own lâ—berty that I cannot forbear to represent their whola Story at one View especially because it suits a Parallel case that lyes at our own doors so exactly that two Indentures cannot be more like then these two Schisms And the truth of it is all Schisms are but the same for though they are raised about different matters yet they all move in the very same track of Sedition till from meer peevishness they advance to the heighth of Cruelty and end in Rebellion and it is nothing else then the natural method of ill-nature and passion if but suffered to pursue the bent of its own Inclinations And therefore it is no wonder if all Schismaticks howsoever distant in Time Place or Interest follow one another so accurately in the very same steps when they are all acted by one and the same Principle of Nature then it is for Colts to be wild in all Parts of the World if never brought under the Whip and Bridle And that is the greatest benefit of Government to be a curb to the ill-natur'd Passions of Mankind for without that Man would be the most unruly of all Beasts especially the meaner sort of the kind the Rabble that are ever drawn in to be the chief Actors in these Religious Tumults And that is the reason that these are more Cruel and Barbarous then other Seditions because they are carried on by the wildest part of Mankind that have heightned and enflamed their natural Salvageness with the heats of Enthusiasm and Principles of false Religion All which will evidently appear by comparing what our selves have seen and felt with what these wild Schismatiques acted Thirteen hundred years since The actions of both suiting so exactly to each other that had they been the very same Men they could not have acted more like themselves The Twins that were so like that their own Mother could not distinguish them were not more so then these two Schisms though born at such a distance of Time and Place §. IV. The Donatists then having by the Emperours forced Indulgence and the Diversion given him by the Arians gain'd so much ease and quiet as not only to encrease their Schism at home but to carry it into foreign Parts it happened that about the year 331 Donatus Surnamed the Great succeeded Chaplain Majorinus a Man of incredible Pride and Insolence that pretended to familiarity with God and Inspiration from Heaven that could Cant could Lye could Blâ—spheme shift his Face and Pretences with all Turns of Affairs when the Government was in any Streight threaten it with the Numbers of his Party but when his Party was low could write Pleas for Peace and forbearance from the weakness of the Faction and meekness of its Principles And upon any great occasion he had his new Lights and Discoveries from Heaven and when ever he pleased God appear'd to him in Brightness and shewed him the horns in his hands to direct him for serving his Will in that Generation But above all he had an implacable spight against aâ—l Sâ—periours and Governors but most particularly he set himself so accursed was the Envy of his Pride to all that were above him to revile and trample upon the Imperial Majesty it self and to say all the ill that can be said of one Man in one word he was the very I. O. of that Reâ—ellious and Schismatical Age. Under him were spawn'd the Câ—rcumcellians a sort of Levellers or Army Saints whom he stil'd the Captains of the Godly and made them not only his own Life-Guard but an Army against the Power of the Empire These wandred up and down the Country in great Bodys and pretended to reform the Government by Plunder and Robbery and wherever they came set Apprentices free from their Masters and Debtors from their Creditors if they would but join with them to pull down Idolatry and Arbitrary Government And force poor Men to deliver up their Bonds and Indentures to save their Lives And yet all this while they were a very praying People and sought the Lord for direction in all their Villanies And now it is no wonder if Men of these desperate Principles and managed by such a Guide as Donatus proceeded to the heighth both of folly and outrage insomuch that whilst they were in the heat of their Bloód and Zeal they feared no danger out of Ambition of being Martyrs for the cause of God and some of them were so wildly transported as to hang drown and stabb themselves for the Glory of the Lord. And thus for many years they harassed Africa with their Insolence and Cruelty and made the habitable parts of the Country more salvage then the Deserts themselves No Man could dwell in his own House or Travel abroad about his business with any safety but all was exposed to the Rapine of these merciless Robbers Till at length after unspeakable Patience complaint being made by the Catholicks to the Emperor Constans of their deplorable condition he sent two Commissioners Paulus and Macarius with a shew of dividing the Emperors bounty among the poor and distressed and by that means to soften them from that fierceness that they had contracted by this wild Schism to some
sense of Duty towards their Superiors and of Humanity towards their Neighbours The Commissioners coming into Africa consult with the Bishops what course was fitest to be taken But the Party of Donatus Combine one and all to hinder all their endeavours of Concord and dispatch Letters and Messengers into all Parts aforehand forbiding their People to receive any thing of the Emperor's Bounty it being a scandal to the People of God to receive any Alms from Sinners And beside this the Rabble are frighted with flying Reports and Stories that the Commissioners brought along with them the Emperors Images that were to be placed upon the high Altar at the time of Celebrating the Eucharistical Sacrifice that so the People might be drawn in to give Divine Worship to the Imperial Image and so become guilty of Idolatry and from this time the words Pagan and Idolator were the two most common Titles that they bestowed upon the Catholicks Nay farther then all this when the Commissioners acquaint the great Donatus with their Message he replies with his usual scorn and rage Quid est Imperatori cum Ecclesiâ reviles the Emperor himself with sawcy and taunting Language and tells them that they might give themselves if they pleased the pleasure of travelling through the African Provinces but he had taken care to save their Masters Money And another Donatus Bishop of Bagaia when the Commissioners came to his City gathers together Troops of Circumcellians from all Parts perhaps into a Malt-house to Assassinate the Commissioners But they to defend themselves upon the discovery of the Conspiracy send for a Party of the Emperor's Forces some few whereof being upon the Guard abused and affronted by the Fanatick Rabble that were Assembled in great Numbers acquaint their Fellow-Soldiers with the Indignity who do what their Officers could fall upon them with great fury kill some and disperse the rest And now the Donatists had the beloved clamour of all Schismaticks to cry out Persecution only because some of them perish'd in a Tumult of their own raising But it is no matter who began the fray the People are to be incensed against the Catholiques with the Blood of their Party And therefore what Tragical Stories do we ever after from this slight Occasion hear of the Macarian Times as if this one Accident by which they punish'd themselves had exceeded the Cruelty of the Ten Persecutions But in short the Commissioners finding there was no Peace to be settled in Africa whilst Donatus and his Associates remained in it they sent them all into Banishment and so they continued till the time of Julian the Apostate but in the mean time the Ring-leaders being removed out of the way the People were soon at quiet and betook themselves to to their Callings and kept their Parish-Churches And upon this a Council was called by Gratus Arch-Bishop of the Catholique Communion at Carthage to give God thanks for their Deliverance and to take care for the effectual settlement of the Peace of the Church that lasted till the Donatists broke loose under Julian Who designing by all ways to destroy Christianity thought nothing so effectual to that end as to encourage Schisms and Divisions and destroy the Discipline and Unity of the Church and therefore when this Schism was almost extinguisht by the care of Constantine and his Sons he took as much care by granting liberty to the Donatists to blow it up into a greater flame And yet they on the other side were forward enough to prevent the Apostates Zeal by presenting him with a flattering address so that though the other day under Christian Emperours their word was Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesiâ now under an Apostate a mortal and avowed Enemy to Christianity the whole Discipline of the Church is to be submitted to his disposal and sacrificed to his malice and he accordingly finding what eager Zeal they had to disturb the Peace of the Church gives them all the liberty that they can desire and permits them to râ—build their Conventicles at the same time that he opened the Idol Temples and as Optatus upbraids them let them and the Devil loose together And that is another ill quality of all Schismaticks that they care not what becomes of the common Christianity so the Faction thrives This Rescript of Julian to the Donatists is lost but it seems it was so very scandalous that the Emperour Honorius many years after when he was resolved upon their Extirpation caused it to be publisht in all places to let the People see the baseness and perversness of the Faction But they now finding that they had got the upper hand of the Catholiques though by the malice of this Apostate Emperor are not satisfied with their own liberty but fall soul upon the Catholiques and treat them with all manner of outrage and cruelty pull down their Churches murther their Priests at the Altar overthrow the Altars themselves and cast their Idolatrous Eucharist as they call'd it to the Dogs dig the Catholiques out of their Graves with many more outrages that may be seen in Optatus his second and sixth Books And so they go on to keep up the Faction by Tumults and Stories and making challenges of Disputes and then declining them and the like methods of Schism till the death of Donatus about the year 368 and the fifth of Valentinian and Valens To Donatus succeeds Parmenianus who publishes a vehement Book against the Catholicks stuft with the old Fables of Faelix Caecilian and the Macarian Persecution for as they first founded their Schism upon a Lye so they resolv'd to continue it to the last and perhaps by this time they were in good earnest and had lyed so long till they at length believed themselves or at least as Optatus tells him they were utterly Ignorant of the History of the Schism and to that end he wrote his Books to rebuke all their wild Fictions by publick Records and Imperial Rescripts But to what purpose do you tell the Common People of legal Proceedings No Argument so prevalent with them as a blind Story in a Corner tagg'd with dirty Reflections upon the Government And therefore notwithstanding all these checks the Ring-leaders of the Faction Lye on though we hear little of them till the tenth year of the same Reign Anno Domini 373 when Valentinian publisht a Rescript against their Re-baptising which was renewed by Gratian four years after in the year Three hundred Seventy seven §. V. The next news that we hear of them and it is very strange that we heard it no sooner is That they fall out among themselves divide and subdivide into new Factions and Animosities For upon the death of Parmenian they cannot agree upon a Successor some are for Maximianus and some for Primianus and so both being chosen they divide Communions make Decrees and throw out Anathema's against each other and which is most of all disingenuous stir up the Civil Magistrate to put the