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
the Arians Which so disgusted Valens Ursacius and their Associates that were more warping to Arianism then was suspected and indeed had been secret Arians all along as will appear by the sequel of the Story that they draw up another Creed among themselves and give it out to the World under the name of the Sirmian Creed In which they condemn and reject the use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Christian Church both because not warranted by Scripture and because such Mysteries transcend the knowledge and comprehension of humane Understandings The consequence of which as St. Hilary truly observes was that by shutting out the word Homoousios it must be Decreed either that he was a Creature made out of nothing or out of another Substance uncreated and distinct from the Divine Nature And by the profession of our ignorance of his Divine Generation that we plainly declare that we do not certainly know that he is the Son of God both which consequences being so dangerous and so evident it could not but encrease the Zeal not only of the Orthodox Fathers but the Eusebians against such an undermining Creed But the Valentians having now discover'd themselves endeavour to make their Party as strong as they can and among other confiding friends send their Creed to Eudoxius a very ill Man that had by the Patronage of the Eunuchs seized the great Bishoprick of Antioch as the sense of the Western Church and with the Title of the Sirmian Faith and he being an eager admirer of Aetius that had outbid the Photinian Heresie in daring and boldness embraces it with great greediness and calls a Council at Antioch to abet and ratifie this Western Faith and writes back Letters of thanks to Valens and Ursacius for settling the right Faith in those Parts Of all which proceedings George Bishop of Laodicea an Eminent Eusebian informs Basilius of Ancyra and the Bishops that were then Assembled with him upon occasion of Consecrating a new Church there founded by him and begs that they would give their assistance to deliver the Church of Antioch and indeed the whole Christian Church from a such malignant Heresie With all which they being surprised supposing that all things had been duly and fully setled in their late Council at Sirmium but instead of that they now find a forged and counterfeit Creed thrust upon The faithful Sand. takes no notice of all this but only says that they conâ—â—â—â— both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them and therefore they immediately condemn it in Twelve smart Propositions draw up a new Creed in which they restore the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the sorged Creed of Valens had exploded and affirm the Son to be like the Father both in Substance and in all things send it by Basilius and other Legates to the Emperor with a request that the determinations of the Sirmian Council might be ratified by Imperial Edict he receives both it and them with all possible kindness is in a great passion against Valens and his Conventicle and damns their forged Consession by publick Edict From all which it is more then evident That this Creed of Valens was not drawn up in the Sirmian Council as the Historians unanimously mistake but after its dissolution by a rump Faction that continued in the City and that appears plain enough without all this proof by the Preamble to it viz. Seeing a Dispute about the Faith has been thought convenient all things have been diligently Examin'd and Discuss't at Sirmium in the presence of Valens Ursacius Germinius and others So that it was not the Act of the Council but of a few Bishops that protested against it who by it so netled the Eastern Bishops that had been present at the Council that they immediately meet again in Council to condemn the Imposture and restore the true Sirmian Faith And yet for all this it is unanimously agreed by all Writers both Ancient and Modern even those who acknowledge that this Second Creed was not made till after the Council that this was the very Creed subscribed by the great Hosius in the Council But methinks though we had wanted this forcible exception against it that he could subscribe no such Creed in Council because none such there was to be subscribed yet such an enormous Apostacy should not be so easily believed of a Man so Great so Good so Wise the very Father of the Church in that Age that had for so many years managed all the great Affairs of Christendom presided in all the great Councils Eastern and Western should at last quit the faith that he had so long contended for And therefore Baronius bemoans his fall with Ad Annum 357. n. 17. most sorrowful Accents to the Tune of How are the Mighty fallen and his compassion had not been ill placed had it been well grounded for though all Men from that very Age to this very day have run away with the truth of the Story as a thing unquestionable yet if we trace it up to its very beginning we shall find it not only destitute of any competent Authority but grounded upon an Information apparently false and inconsistent with the most evident Records of the Church And that is the Forgery of Valens and his Associates who disperst the Decree of their Conventicle into all parts of the Christian World as the Creed of the Sirmian Council and all that consented to it and in all probability with Hosius his name in particular annexed to it to give the greater blow by his Authority to the Athanasian Party of which he was the great Oracle and this they might do with more advantage then they had spread their former Lyes in that he had after great struggling and resistance complyed with the Council and they had publish't this Creed as the result of it and then it was but an easie and plausible addition to it that this was the very thing that he had complyed with And this being blown abroad with so much confidence must for some time pass without controll and gaining the belief of some few honest Men upon the first surprize has ever since supported it self upon their Authority This is all the Foundation that this Story has or can have though I very much suspect it has not so much but relyes altogether upon one mans mistake I am sure it does upon his Authority and that is St. Hilary at a time when he could have no competent Information of the matter for he was then in Banishment in a distant part of the World and being there informed that Hosius was present at the Council and reconcil'd with the Eusebians upon some complyance to the Council and being withal inform'd of this Creed that its Contrivers had given out as the very Creed of the Council it was natural and easie to conclude that the Subscription to this Creed was the Condition upon which
Eudoxius who was lately made Bishop of Antioch by the help of the Eunuchs and being an ignorant and unlearned Man had the ill-fortune to admire this Mechanick Fop but being got into Orders he leaves his own Countrey to reside at Alexandria because it was necessary forsooth that some body should be there who was able to cope with the great Athanasius and after a while he is falsely accused to Gallus by Basilius and Eustathius two great Bishops that he had bafled in disputation but he acquited himself so well that Gallus took him for his own Chaplain after whose death these spightful Bishops accuse him again to Constantius as privy to Gallus his Conspiracy against him and he being deliver'd by the Emperor into their hands they banish him to Pepuza in Phrygia This Tale as ridiculous as it is is the fairest Story that they could raise to the memory of this littâ—e Heretique Thô the Truth of the whole matter is that he was a meer Fanatique for being conscious to himself of his want of Education and having a mind to be thought something in the World he pretends an immediate Revelation from God of all things that he had kept secret from the Apostles particularly a perfect knowledge of the Divinity viz. That the Son was so far from being of the same or the like Substance with the Father as the Church had taught from the time of the Apostles that he was unlike him in all things Now Basilius and the old Eusebians being alarm'd partly with the spreading of this new Heresie by the Patronage of Eudoxius Bishop of Antioch and partly with the late prevarication of Valens and his Companions but most of all by that League that they were making among themselves they certifie the Emperor of all these bold endeavours to break in pieces his late settlement of Union of which he was so fond and had endeavoured so many years at present he declares against them with all possible keenness of Zeal but in order to their final Extirpation resolves once more upon a general Council and first appoints it to meet at Antioch but before the set time of Meeting the City was destroyed by an Earth-quake which says Philostorgius according to his Partial and Fanatique way of writing befell them as a Judgment from Heaven because most of the Inhabitants of the City were Homousians But upon its destruction several other places are mention'd though none could be agreed on so that the very place for the Council became a tedious matter of debate and Basilius with the Eastern Bishops by whose motion it was resolved upon are sent for by the Emperor to Sirmium to advise about it where they luckily meet with Valens and his Western Associates and falling into a Conference before the Emperor about the present Controversies after a long dispute till late at night they at last by the Emperours Motion agree upon a new accommodation to gratifie all Parties among themselves i. e. Not to affirm the Son to be like the Father in Substance And this was to please Valens and his Party who had exploded the word Substance out of their Creed but to be like him in all things and this could not but satisfie Basibius and his Party for if he were like him in all things he must be so in Substance and upon this they agree upon the Reconciling Creed commonly called the third Sirmian Creed for which they were so much laughed at and of which they were so soon ashamed for dating it according to the year of the Consuls Eusebius and Hypatius whereas all former Councils were never wont to set any Date to their Creeds thereby implying their settlement from the Beginning But these piecings never hold firm for when they came to subscribe their Creed Valens would have shuffled writing only that the Son was like the Father but was forced by the Emperor to add in all things and Basilius suspecting the fraud that might lye under these general words subjoins to his own Subscription When I say that the Son is like the Father in all things I mean not in Will only but in Substance But that was no more then his own protestation for Valens having gain'd a Creed without the word Substance he had gain'd his point and so lays it up safe till he had occasion to use it for his own purpose After this they agree to divide the Council into two parts probably out of Jealousie one of another one to sit at Ariminum for the ease of the Western Bishops and the other at Seleucia in Isauria for the ease of the Eastern At Ariminum meet above 400 Bishops though Sandius like himself says above 1000 thus Men that accustom themselves to lying will often lye to no purpose Of these there were not above 50 of Valens his Party as Athanasius affirms or at most not above 80 as Severus but being emboldned by their late new Creed at Sirmium whereby they had at length shaken off all the Clogs that had been hitherto fastened on them to hinder their return to Arianism and being assured that the Emperor would back their motion with all his Zeal and Power they step forth and move for the Union and Satisfaction of all Parties that all former Creeds might be abolisht and that their late Creed agreed upon at Sirmium and approved by his Imperial Majesty might be establisht for ever and that for the time to come no such strict Inquisition should be made into Mens Opinions that does but breed Quarrels and Animosities in the Church But the Fathers being too well satisfied by so many experiments that had been made in this Princes Reign that nothing would ever be able to stop out the Arian Heresie but the Nicene Faith and now seeing all those fences that had been raised against it by so many Councils broke down and leapt over and the Christian Church like to be turn'd into a Common for the entertainment of all Heresies without restraint or distinction resolve to make short work of it and therefore tell them that they came not there to make new forms of Faith but were satisfied with the Faith that they had received from their Fore-fathers and that their present business was to make enquiry whether any thing were innovated against it and remove it and therefore demand of them for clearing themselves of any such design to subscribe the Condemnation of the Arian Heresie which they refusing the Synod proceeds to have the Nicene Faith and that alone Establisht for ever and Decree that for the time to come it should never be call'd in question it being an absurd thing to be always making new Faiths as if they were but now beginning to believe Their Resolution and the Title prefixt to it being very remarkable I shall set them down in their own words The Title runs thus Incipit definitio Catholica habita ab omnibus Catholicis Episcopis priusquam per terrenam potestatem territi
Haereticorum consortio sociarentur in Concilio Ariminensi The Decree thus Sic credimus placere omnibus posse Catholicis à Symbolo accepto nos recedere non oportere quod in collatione apud omnes integrum recognovimus nec à fide recessuros quam per Prophetas à Deo Patre per Christum Dominum nostrum docente Spiritu Sancto in Evangeliis in Apostolis omnibus suscepimus ut per traditionem Pa. trum secundum successionem Apostolorum usque ad tractatum apud Nicaeam habitum contra haeresin quae tunc temporis exurrexerat positum nunc usque permanet Quibus omnibus nec addendum aliquid credimus nec minui posse manifestum est Placet ergo nihil novum fieri substantiae quoque nomen rem à multis sanctis scripturis insinuatam mentibus nostris obtinere debere sui firmitatem Quam rem cum suo nomine Ecclesia Catholica cum doctrinâ deificâ semper confiteri profiteri consuevit This is a brave resolution and becoming the courage of such a Venerable Assembly if they had stood to it To this Decree they demand Valens and his followers to submit themselves but they refuse and stand upon their late Imperial Faith and so are all deposed Of all which they certifie the Emperour in a Synodical Epistle in which they give him this reason of their resolution of sticking to the Nicene Faith Quae sola hostis interfectrix Arianae Haereseos in quâ certè addere aliquid temerarium est auferre periculosum quorum si alterutrum fiat erit hostibâ—s quidlibet agendi libera facultas Because that alone cut the Throat of the Arian Heresie so that to add any thing to it or diminish any thing from it would open a gap to the Enemies to break down all and of the same Opinion was St. Hilary at last though he had been formerly for framing new Creeds to way-lay new Heresies Fides quae apud Nicaeam ordinata est plena at que perfecta est omnibus undique quibus irrepere haeretici solent aditibus obsetatis inviolabili inter Patrem Filium aeternae unitatis soliditate connectitur This was the result of this Great Council and yet though there are so many clear and undoubted Records of it Philostorgius and Sandius are so infatuated as to tell us that the Fathers of this Council unanimously agreed in rejecting the Homoousian Faith and Sandius adds that they condemned the Council of Nice as diabolical But immediately after this Vote of No Faith after the Nicene Valens and his Associates leave the Council and before the Legates could come to the Emperour they inform him of the stubborness of the Council in rejecting his own Imperial Creed and to aggravate the affront setting up against it his old Enemy Homoousios so that after twenty years War that his Majesty had waged against it they had given it much greater Strength and Authority then it ever had before by Voting it perpotual and unchangeable Upon this finding his project that he had been so long in hatching and as he thought had brought to some life so unexpectedly dash't to nothing it swells his Choler into Rage and Madness and he now vows never more to be bafled and though he was always as Ammianus describes him inexorabilis suae Authoritatis vindex an implacable exacter of Obedience from this time forward his Reign was nothing but Force and Tyranny And in the first place he will neither admit the Legates of the Council into his presence nor dismiss the Council it self but writes a surly Letter in which he only bids them to wait for an Answer till his return from the War with the Barbarians which was done by the advice and contrivance of Valens and his Associates to tire out the poor old Bishops that desired to return home to their Charges and at length to demolish this new Sconce that they had raised against the Heresie But all in vain for by this rough and careless answer they sufficiently understood his meaning and so send a bold and peremptory Letter to assure him that let him do what he would they were resolved never to depart from their resolution and therefore Petition to be immediately dismist But for all that he leaves them in Council all Winter to blow their Fingers and cool their Resolutions till his return from the War In the mean time at the Request of Valens and his fifty Men he commands themselves to repair to the City of Nice in Thrace namesake to that in Bithynia and decoy along with them as many Bishops as they could pick up through weakness or Cowardise and there Vote his own Form for the standing and unalterable rule of Faith with the advantage of the Name of the Nicene Faith All which is accordingly done only they put a new trick upon his Credulity for whereas his own Creed run thus that the Son was like the Father in all things they only set it down in the words of Valens as he would have subscribed it before the Emperour at Sirmium that he was like the Father This being done they inform the Emperour that they had exactly obeyed his Commands that he laid upon them at his departure to his Wars ne quis usiae vel homousii nomina Ecclesâ—e Dei ignota aliquando nominet quod Scandalum inter fratres facere solet With this the poor abused Emperour is fully satisfied and as soon as he returns home all that refuse to subscribe this new curtail'd Creed are banish't out of hand particularly Liberius of Rome is sent to travel a Second time but the Legates from the Orthodox Bishops at Ariminum are forced to a subscription and at length most of the Bishops themselves are brought to a complyance partly by the perswasions of Valens and his Friends to yield to the Emperours Will as a present expedient and partly by their solemn and vehement Protestations against the Arian Heresie And this is the very moment of time in which St. Jerom says Ingemuit totus Orbis Arianum se esse miratus est A passage quite worn out by our Innovators to prove an Apostacy of the Catholick Church from the true Faith Whereas St. Jerom is so far from intimating any such Apostacy that he only complains of it as a Cheat and Trapan which as soon as the Bishops understood they did with infinite indignation disclaim their Subscriptions So that the whole World was so far from being Arian at that time that it was fall'n out with it self for being so weakly over-reach't and out-witted by an handful of Arians who had drawn them in by their great Protestations and Professions against Arianism to subscribe such a loose and ambiguous Form of Faith as might let it in otherwise as for the Creed it self himself pleads for it Nunquid hîc insertum est erat tempus quando non erat vel de nullis extantibus
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
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
of enquiry which though a fault is by no means so disingenuous as acting against knowledge But as for this Case of Apostates in time of Persecution upon whom Mr. Hobbs says Excommunication could have no effect of Terrour If indeed the Providence of God had not given them sufficient evidence of their Faith I will grant it to be true not only of that but of all the other Threatnings of the Gospel But if God have given sufficient motives of belief as if the Gospel be not a cheat he has if it be all Mr. Hobbs's dispute is without bottom a Man's Apostacy is no Fence against the Reflections of his own Conscience For though it is in his Power to deny his Faith for fear of Persecution yet it is not in his Power to disbelieve it So that upon such a Man the Sentence of Excommunication by which he is cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven lights with as much Terrour as upon any other Believer And there is nothing more evident in the History of the Primitive Church then the Efficacy of this Sentence upon such Offenders For the greatest part of those that fell in time of Persecution were by this means alone recover'd to the Church brought to sue for pardon and undergo very severe Penances as a satisfaction for the Scandal But to what purpose do I put my self to the trouble to prove these things when all Mr. Hobbs's discourse upon this Argument runs upon this supposition as if Christianity were but a trivial and indifferent thing that might or might not be believed as Men variously fancied or were casually inclined And upon that supposition I will freely grant it to be of as little effect as he would have it But if the Providence of God hath given us such a Demonstrative Evidence of the Divine Authority of this Religion that no Man who inquires into it can wink against its Light without doing violence to his own Convictions then whether Men will or no it will be a perpetual Terrour to their Consciences And that this slight Opinion of the Evidence of Christianity though upon what slight and indeed ignorant pretences I have elsewhere shewn is the bottom of Mr. Hobbs's meaning is too manifest from his next branch of the Supremacy of Sovereign Powers which indeed is neither better nor worse then bare-faced Blasphemy And that is the Power of making Scripture Law i. e. Obligatory But if that be the state of the Christian Religion that it is not at all material whether a Man regard it or not for any Obligation or Authority in it self Mr. Hobbs is not to be blamed unless in point of Prudence for all those irreverend abuses that he has been pleased to put upon it But if it be made Law by the Command of God as it is if it be not all imposture in pretending falsly to his Authority then whatever the Sovereign is pleased to make of it Mr. Hobbs and all his Followers that will allow it no obligation but from Man stand Convicted of the most manifest Treason and Blasphemy against the Sovereign Lord of all and this part of Ecclesiastical Supremacy of making Scripture Law that they give to Kings they take away from God himself After all this rank prophaneness it is almost needless to consider his last branch of Ecclesiastical Power viz. the Right of Ordaining and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers not only because it is of the same Nature and derived from the same Divine Authority with all the other particulars of the Apostolical Commission but because himself grants it in general by placing it in the People For if it be any where that is enough against himself that denies all manner of Power in the Church but most of all because he has confessed and no Man can deny it the whole truth of the matter both against the Hobbist and the Independant too viz. That the Apostles conveighed their Authority to their Successors whom themselves Deputed and Ordained by Imposition of hands and if so this Power of constituting Successors resided in them alone because no Man could be constituted an Officer in the Church but by their Imposition of hands or those to whom by it they Transmitted their Power So that whatever interest they might permit the People in their Choice or Nomination of their Officers the whole power of Constituting them in their Office and Authority lay in themselves alone §. IV. But Mr. Hobbs having hitherto treated of the Power Ecclesiastical as it stood before the Conversion of Kings and Men endued with Sovereign Civil Power and after his rate of Demonstration proved it to be no Power at all whilst vested in the Pastors of the Church he comes now to prove that it is lodged in Civil Sovereigns upon their Conversion to the Christian Faith and that when it comes to them it becomes true and proper Power But before I consider his small Arguments I cannot understand why that which was no Power before becomes Power now There can be but one reason for it and that is too obvious in all Mr. Hobbs's Writings viz. Because it is now abetted with the Penalties of this life whereas before it was only abetted with the Penalties of the life to come so that the plain English of the Assertion if spoken out is this that there are no penalties at all but in this life and then I must confess that the power of the Church can be no Power till complicated with the Civil Power But the man that discourses upon such Principles as these has nothing to do with the Christian Religion or any thing relating to it But secondly Which way came this Power into Civil Sovereigns Our Saviour left it to his Apostles and they delivered it down by Imposition of Hands to others who were to conveigh it in the same manner of Succession through all Ages how then came Civil Sovereigns by it If any were Ordain'd to it they had it by virtue of their Ordination not their Right of Sovereignty if they were not which way could they become possessed of a Power that was never derived to them in the way of Ordination which is the only way in which it can be conveighed and therefore if they have it not that way they can never have it any other As for the Principle upon which he founds this Power of the Civil Sovereign though it be true in it self yet it is no proper reason for what he would infer from it viz. That the Right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil This is undoubtedly true that they are the proper Judges of what conduces to the peace and quiet of Government but then this Power is common to Heathen as well as Christian Soveraigns they are all equally concern'd and obliged to take care of the Publick Peace so that this Power does not accrue to the Civil Sovereign by his becoming
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
to their demands and justifie them in their Schism because they dissent not from her in any matters clearly reveal'd which alone the Church has Power to impose and to charge the Church of Tyranny for daring to impose any other conditions of Communion then what are imposed by Divine Authority An excellent way of accommodation this in behalf of the Church of England to condemn her whole practice of illegal and unwarrantable Usurpation and allow the Pleas of the Dissenters just and reasonable And what is worst of all to take away all Government in the Church for ever and the Church it self too when it is evident from common sense that it can never subsist without a Legislative Authority within it self but that I shall have occasion to discourse of more copiously hereafter when I come to shew what injury is done to the Church of England by these false Principles of accommodation I shall at present content my self with proving it by experience and representing the particular Laws made by the Ancient Governors of the Church from time to time to secure and provide for its own Peace and Tranquility And by it I shall make good these three considerable Points First the great Authority inherent in them and independent on any Civil Power Secondly their great wisdom in the use and exercise of it for by the particulars it will appear that they generally acted upon wise and prudent reasons And thirdly the absolute necessity of it when we shall see by the Example of every age that there is no way of preserving any manner of Peace in the Church without it And to begin with the first Decree made by the Apostles themselves to accommodate the contrary prejudices of Jews and Gentiles If they had obliged the Gentiles to comply with the whole Law of Moses that would have look't like an attempt to bring them under the old intolerable Bondage and tempt them rather to renounce Christianity then submit to such a grievous Yoke And if they had wholly exempted them from the Mosaick Law that would have as much endangered the Apostacy of the Jews thinking that they should thereby have renounced the God of the Law for it was not easie to every capacity to distinguish between rejecting the Law and the Lawgiver And therefore to satisfie and avoid the prejudices of both Parties they agreed To lay no greater burthens then these necessary things that they abstain from Meats offer'd to Idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood Where by things necessary it is plain that they mean things necessary at that time and place for that they were not so in all times and places is evident not only from the direction of their Synodical Epistle to the particular Churches of Syria and Cilicia but from their not imposing the same Decree upon other Churches that were not in the same Circumstances In the Churches of Syria and Cilicia that confined upon Judaea the Jews were very numerous and therefore to avoid offending i. e. tempting them to renounce the Christian Faith it was requisite to make it a standing rule to them at that time that all Christians abstain from the Oblations to Idols and that would wholly prevent their great fear of Idolatry But on the contrary because the Church of Corinth consisted chiefly of Gentiles the same rule was not made peremptory and universal to them but they were left to their own liberty to eat Meats offered to Idols as they judged most consistent with Christian prudence and charity as they are directed by their Ghostly Father St. Paul This is all that I can make of that great Council and though they were endued with the Holy Ghost yet they proceeded by no other Rule then common prudence and discretion And if they had taken the same method that our Schismatiques and Pacificators would oblige the present Church to to search for a determination of this casual dispute in their Masters own Laws I doubt they would have been very much at a loss to have found any thing like such a decree amongst all his Precepts And yet there was as much reason that they should refer all Acts of Government to be determin'd by his own express Decree as that their Successors should refer them to theirs But next to this Apostolical Synod the Apostolical Canons are the greatest and earliest Demonstration of the Legislative Authority of the Christian Church being compiled by their next Successors in the second and third Centuries by which we understand the true settlement of the Church as the Apostles left it for all the Canons relating to Government are no new Laws but only declarations of old Customs so that though they were not Apostolical Laws they were true and early Records of Apostolical Customs and by them the practice of Church-Government was so entirely setled that they were ever after the Rule and Pattern to the determinations of following Councils And most of the chief Canons both General and Provincial were only Ratifications of these old Decrees to recover their just Authority when any of them had been neglected or violated or additional provisions in pursuance of their general design in new particular Cases For which it seems every Age found matter enough to suppress some Mens extravagant and wanton fancies and it was the new rising of Schisms and Heresies that gave occasion to enacting all the Laws of the Church But these Apostolical Canons being as it were the Institutes or Magna Charta of the Ecclesiastical Laws and being withal enacted in this Period of time that we are now in by pure Ecclesiastical Authority I shall give a brief view of them to let the Reader see the exact Model of the Primitive Church as reduced to practice and brought to perfection by the Apostles and their immediate Successors In the first place therefore because nothing has so great an influence upon the welfare of the Church as the setting up good and wise Governors over it great care is taken against rash Ordination of Bishops so that though every Bishop has an inherent Right in himself to conveigh his own Authority to another yet is it here fixt and has remain'd so through all Ages as a standing Law to the Church that every Bishop be Consecrated by three Bishops at least or two in cases of necessity Now though this Rule has been observed and practiced in all Churches over all the World and is so highly useful to the good Government of the Church by not entrusting a matter of such weight to the discretion of a single Person yet I believe it will be a very hard task to find any thing like a clear Precept requiring it in the Holy Scriptures So apparently repugnant is the principle of the Projectors of Accommodation against unscriptural impositions to the very first Law that was made in the Christian Church after the Apostles and if they pleased it might as well be used to take away this prudent Practice
are many Pastors yet we â—eed but one Flock and we are all bound to fold and cherish all the Sheep that Christ has purchased with his Blood and Passion By which and the like passages which are very frequent in his Writings nothing less can be understood than the Obligation of all particular Churches to mutual Concord for the preservation of Peace and Unity in the Church Catholique And agreeable to this Doctrine was his practice through the whole course of his Government to give an account of his proceedings to Foreign Churches for their Judgment and Approbation and by that means a stricter Unity of Discipline was at that time kept up in all Christian Churches then in any other Age. Thus when he had cast Faelicissimus and his Associates out of the Church of Carthage they could never after it get footing in any other Church And when Cornelius had cast Novation out of the Church of Rome though he made many bold and plausible Attempts to insinuate himself into divers other Churches yet he could never meet with entertainment in any but found himself doom'd to the Fate of Cain to be a Vagabond all the days of his Life This Correspondence of Discipline is the subject of the greatest part of St. Cyprian's Epistles Thus he wrote to the Church of Rome to give an account of his Discipline and Diligence Necessarium duxi has ad vos literas facere quibus vobis actâ—s nostri Disciplinae Diligentiae ratio redderetur And then gives a particular Account of all his Proceedings in the Case of the Lapsi and the illegal Pardons of the Martyrs and Confessours Lest says he our Resolutions that ought to be uniform and agreeable in all things should be dissonant in any The very same that is done in his Epistle to Caldonius in which he tells him That he had sent the same Account to divers other Churches and desires him to conveigh it to as many Bishops or Collegues as he could That the same Resolution and Agreement in all things might according to our Lords Command be preserved in all Churches Ut apud omnes unus Actus una consensio secundùm Domini proecepta teneatur And again in his Epistle to the Clergy of Rome he informs them of the disorderly Proceedings of Lucianus and other Confessors in giving Absolution without his consent and desires their farther assistance assuring them That their former concurrence with him had supported him against that old dead weight of Envy and saved him a World of Trouble Laborantes hic nos contra invidiae impetum totis fidei viribus resistentes multùm sermo vester adjuvit ut divinitùs compendium fieret And when in another Epistle to them he had caution'd them against Privatus an Heretical Bishop they return him thanks for his great care of the Unity of the Christian Church a duty say they equally incumbent upon us all Omnes enim nos decit pro corpore totius Ecclesioe cujus per varias quasque Provincias membra digesta sunt excubare And so when the African Bishops had agreed to make an abatement of the rigour of Discipline toward the Lapsi upon the foresight of a new approaching Persecution they acquaint the Church of Rome with their Resolution by a Synodical Epistle But the most eminent correspondence at this time and about this business was that between Cornelius Bishop of Rome Dionysius of Alexandria Fabian of Antioch and Cyprian of Carthage by whose Concord and Conduct the fury both of the Schism and Schismatiques was at last utterly vanquish't And it was this breach of the Unity among Christian Bishops that was the great Aggravation and Enormity of the Sin of Novatian as it is represented by St. Cyprian in his excellent Epistle to Antonianus Cùm sit à Christo una Ecclesia per totum mundum c. When there is but one Church in the whole World divided into many Parts and one Episcopacy diffused all over by the numerous Concord of many Bishops this Man slighting the Command of God and the setled Unity of the Catholique Church endeavours to erect an humane Church sends his new Apostles through divers Cities to lay the Foundations of a new Institution And whereas there had been of a long time Bishops venerable for Age Orthodox in Faith proved in Tryals proscribed in Persecutions Ordain'd in all Provinces and every City yet he dares presume to set up over them his own False-Bishops as if he resolved to vanquish the whole World meerly by his stubbornness and by the propagation of Discord to tear in pieces the whole Union of the Ecclesiastical Body That was a plain dissolution of the Unity of the Catholique Church the dividing the Body of Christian Bishops in whose Concord and Agreement the true Catholique Unity consisted But the most remarkable Discourse in all St. Cyprian's Writings upon this Argument is his severe Epistle to Florentius or Pupianus an African Bishop who took upon himself to disclaim Communion with St. Cyprian by his own single Authority notwithstanding that St. Cyprian was in the Communion of the Catholique Church Ecclesiae universae per totum mundum nobiscum Unitatis vinculo copulatâ—â— And therefore when the one Catholique Church cannot be rent nor divided but is united and combin'd together by the Cement of the Episâ—opal Concord He charges Pupianus with casting himself out of the Communion of the Catholique Church by denying to Communicate with St. Cyprian with whom all other Bishops communicated And withal tells him That his Crime is so great that he can scarce be restored upon Repentance and Satisfaction and that for his own part he dares not do it without some express Commission from God himself I shall begg advice from God whether you shall be restored after having made satisfaction and that he will be pleased to let me know by some sign and intimation of his Will whether he will ever permit such an one as you to he received into the Communion of his Church And this is the thing that St. Cyprian means by a Bishops making himself Episcopus Episcopi with which he here particularly charges Pupianus when one Bishop presumes by his single Authority to judge another Which was in those days justly esteem'd the most unpardonable breach of Catholique Communion For upon that pretence he might if he pleased disclaim and condemn every Bishop of the Christian World And therefore though any other Offender that stood Excommunicate even by a Council of Bishops might be admitted to the peace of the Church upon satisfaction yet in this case St. Cyprian doubts whether Pupianus his Repentance will be ever accepted Insomuch that if upon it he should be received into the Communion of the Church his Absolution must not be peremptory as in other cases but so as still to refer him to the fear and danger of the Judgment of God Si temeritatis saperbiae
mankind must be United in one Political Body because they are all bound to observe the same Lawes of Justice and Humanity To make short of it so they are all Kingdoms and Common-wealths are as much bound to mutual Justice as private Persons under one and the same Government And if any Prince violate this Law by Invading his Neighbours Rights he is or ought to be looked upon by Gods natural Law that equally provides for the good of all as an Enemy and Traytor to the Society of Mankind and it is the duty as well as interest of all other Princes not only to oppose his attempts but to the utmost of their power to proceed against him as an Enemy to Humane Society and endeavour his Extirpation out of it This upon the supposition of that one Law of Nature that provides for the wellfare and happiness of all mankind is an unavoidable consequence so is it upon supposition of Unity ofFaith that all that are bound to it must be under one common Government But because the World is ill-Govern'd it is an unhappy way of arguing to make that a Precedent that the Church should be so too Arg. 4 God has granted to the Church certain Powers as the Power of the Keys a Power to Enact Laws a power to Excommunicate a Power to hold Assemblies and a power to ordain Governours But to all this it is answered that these Powers are granted to particular Churches not to the whole as distinct from the parts They are granted to both to every particular Church over its own Members and to the whole Church over every particular Church and whether as such it be distinct from all its parts is a dispute too Metaphysical for me to undertake but as consisting of them all it has a Power over every one and if there were no such Power common to all it were in vain to grant any of these powers to each particular Church because without that these would be utterly defeated of their Force and Efficacy for example supposing a power in a particular Church to punish an Offender by Excommunication unless the force of that Excommunication reach to other Churches it loses its effect for notwithstanding that he has a Right to Church-Membership in all the Churches through the whole World beside And then he is as much cast out of the Church as à ny man would be out of England that is driven from any one Village So that from the right of exercising Discipline in each particular Church the consequence is unavoidable to infer the same common power in the Church Catholick And that by our Authors leave was St. Cyprian's Inference Not merely from these common Grants to infer this right in particular Churches but to infer the same power in every part over it self and in the whole over every part And St. Cyprian is so perpetually beating upon this Argument that I cannot enough wonder how it is possible that this learned Man should here so foully mistake him as if he had confined the exercise of all Ecclesiastical Discipline to each particular Church But the falsehood of it I have sufficiently shewed above And beside what I have already alledged there is one pregnant passage in his Epistle to Steven Bishop of Rome against Marcian Bishop of Arles to this purpose Idcirco frater charissime oopiosum corpus est sacerdotum concordiae mutuae glutino atque unitatis vinculo copulatum ut si quis ex collegio nostro haeresin facere gregem Christi lacerare vastare tentaverit subveniant caeteri quasi pastores utiles misericordes oves dominicas in gregem colligant Therefore most dear Brother is the body of the Priesthood so large combin'd together by the cement of concord and bond of Unity that if any of our Colledges shall attempt to raise Heresies and Schisms the rest ought to come in and as watchful and tender Pastors reduce the Lords Sheep to his Flock Every Bishop was to watch over his own Flock but the whole Body or Colledge of Bishops over every Bishop and therefore the power lodged in them all was but one common power seated in the Catholick Church so far was St. Cyprian from dreaming of the consinement of its exercise to particular Churches As for the following Arguments and Answers they are to the same purpose with these I have already examined and are for the most part repetitions of the same and run into the same principles that all Unity is nothing but either Unity of Faith or voluntary Agreement both which are already so often proved to be no Unity without an Unity of Government that to avoid being tedious I shall say no more but proceed to examine our Learned Author 's own Arguments and in them he is more unhappy then in his Answers for they are so many very good Arguments against himself First then This being of so great weight would have been declared in Holy Scripture And so it is and nothing more so to any man of common sense I will challenge all the World to shew me any one thing more earnestly enjoyn'd and frequently recommended then the preservation of Unity among Christians and then if without an Unity of Government no other could be possibly preserv'd as our Author has proved from common sense and common experience that must be the thing principally commanded by all those injunctions But such arguings as these suppose all men very great Blockheads as if they were not able to understand any thing unless it were beaten into them whereas the Scripture supposes Mankind endued with common sense that can apply general Laws to particular cases without being guided like Beasts every step they take And thus our Saviour having instituted the Society of his Church and established Governors in it when he enjoins them to be careful to preserve Unity no Man can be so dull as not to understand that he thereby requires them to make use of all means of obtaining it but especially such as are necessary to its preservation in all Societies And therefore whether this Unity of Government be injoin'd in express words in Scripture I will not concern my self to enquire because 't is as clear there to all Men of common Sense as if it were so injoined and that is enough But Secondly There appears no such thing in the Apostolical practice What did not the Apostles keep Unity among themselves Did they not Govern the Church as much as they could by common consent Did not every particular Apostle give an account of his own Churches to the whole Colledge Did they not advise together upon Emergent Controversies And was not every Man concluded by the Vote of the whole Council It is strange to me to see it affirm'd that they observed no such Polity in founding Christian Societies when there is no one thing more observable in their whole History then their great care to maintain Peace Love and Unity among all Churches and that
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
cause to St. Cyprian and by acknowledging a double relation or capacity in every Bishop one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Church and that is all the Political Union we contend for But Seventhly This Political Unity does not accord with the nature of the Gospel because it would bring too much Worldly State and Grandeur into the Church as appears by the Papal Monarch And that is true a Monarchical Unity would naturally bring in a Worldly Kingdom but not such an Unity as consists in the Communion of all Parts together and not in the Subjection of the rest to one part as our Author expresses it or as Mr. Thorndike often repeats it That not the infinite Power of one Church but the Regular Power of all is the mean provided by the Apostles for attaining Unity in the Whole This is the state of the Question between us and therefore all our Authors flourishes about the Papal Tyranny are nothing but flourish because it is so far from being that Catholick Unity that we own that it is the whole design of this work to prove that it is a most execrable and impudent subversion of it The 8th and 9th Arguments proceed upon the same Supposition of a Papal Monarchy The tenth upon its no Necessity against our Authors own confession The 11th and 12th because such an Unity was never in fact attain'd If he means in full perfection no more was ever any Government and therefore it is not to be required in this World but if he means that it was never put in practice so as in good measure to attain its end the whole History of the Church down to the Papal Usurpation contradicts it as appears by the whole Series of this Discourse This is all that this learned Man has alledged upon this Argument and from it the Reader I hope is sufficiently satisfied how little that has to alledge for it self for he was a person of that comprehensive mind that he never omitted any thing pertinent to his design was never in debt to any cause that he undertook nor ever fail'd that but when that fail'd him and therefore when we see so great a man able to say so little in defence of this uncatholick Assertion that is the strongest proof that we can have and perhaps stronger then any we could have had without it that it is utterly indefensible PART II. SECT I. HAving in the former Part of this Discourse set down the practice of the Church both as to the Exercise of its own Jurisdiction within it self and its entire subjection to the Civil Powers whilst it subsisted meerly upon its own Charter without any Assistance or Protection from them We are now arrived at a new state of things as they stood under Christian Emperors And here we shall find that the Government and the Constitution of the Church continued as it had ever been within it self and that the Christians when the Empire was on their side own'd the same kind of Subjection and that upon the same Principles of Duty to the Civil Government that they had ever done in the times of Persecution and when I have made good both these it will make up a compleat Demonstration both of the unalienable Power of the Church within it self and of the Sense of the Catholique Church unanimously condemning all resistance against the Civil Government in any case but most of all in the case of Religion Under Constantine the Great it is not to be doubted but that they were forward enough in their Loyalty and Obedience to his Government for all Men are for the Government when the Government is for them and therefore this part of the Enquiry concerning the Peaceable behaviour of Christians under his Reign is wholly superseded because if they did their Duty they had no motive or temptation not to do it submission to his Government being no less their Interest then their Duty and therefore it was no matter of Praise or Vertue in them if they own'd and honour'd that Power that was their peculiar Deliverance and Protection So that this side of the Controversie I shall altogether wave in this place and only consider the Ecclesiastical State of things under his Government where I once intended to have Exemplified the due Exercise of Regal Supremacy in the Christian Church from his Example First As a Sovereign Prince Secondly As a Christian Sovereign And that First In matters of Faith and Christian Doctrine Secondly In matters of Discipline and Christian Government and here particularly First Of his Power in Summoning Councils as Supreme Governor of a Nâ—tional Church Secondly Of that Obligation that he brings upon himself by becoming a Christian First To abet the Power of the Church with his own Secular Authority Secondly To endow it with a Revenue for the maintenance of the Service of God and those that attend upon it But upon more mature deliberation I thought it much more adviseable to forbear all such Reasonings and Discourses till I had first set down the whole matter of Fact as things stood not only under his Reign but all the Succeeding Emperors where we shall find Precedents enough to make up a Demonstration of all the fore-mentioned Principles But because this is the first Instance of Uniting Church and State into one Body and because this Wise and Prudent Emperor seems to have exerted his Power in both exactly according to the Rules both of Religion and Government I shall the more curiously consider the management of Affairs under his Reign whereby will be fully exemplified how this Union may be reduced to practice without any Diminution of either Power or Confusion of one with another and that will plainly demonstrate wherein consists the Original Rights of the Church in a Christian State and the due Exercise of the Supremacy of Christian Kings over all Ecclesiastical Persons Rights and Powers Now because the Supreme Power in all Government is the Legislative Power and is the thing most disputed in this Controversie I shall shew that he was so far from annexing this Power in the Church to the Imperial Crown that he expresly asserted its inherent Right and Protected it in its Exercise within it self with all his zeal and ability In that whenever he had a mind to have any Ecclesiastical Laws Enacted he never presumed to do it by his own Authority which he ever declared would have been no less Crime then to invade the Power of God himself but always referred the matter to the Bishops in Council and by their Canons he framed his Ecclesiastical Laws but never made any without or against them And that is a full and clear acknowledgement of that antecedent Authority that they enjoyed by our Saviour's appointment when he constituted the Apostles and their Successors Supreme Governors of his Church to the End of the World So that in all Changes and Revolutions of things their Government must remain unalterable and indefeasible and whatever Assistance
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
reprimeremus Audaciam Seeing it was beyond the memory of the People what was transacted almost an hundred years since with the Schismaticks necessity compelled us that producing the matters of Fact at our Conference we should rebuke their strange boldness and immodesty To this purpose Marcellinus a Man eminent both for Wisdom Learning and Piety and the same to whom St. Austin dedicates his Books De Civitate Dei though a Secular Judge is sent into Africa with a Commission to preside at the Conference and that he might do by the Laws and Custom of the Church because the Controversie was not about either a matter of Faith or rule of Discipline but only a matter of Fact Neither had he the Office of a Judge about that so much as an Inquisitor but was by his Commission only to Examine the publick Records and that was all that he undertook and perform'd In March in the year 411. he Summons both Parties to meet at Carthage in the June following and grants to all Donatists that would obey his Summons the free use of their Churches and provides all things necessary or useful for their Journey The whole number of Donatist Bishops in all 159 enter Carthage in a full Body with all the shews of Pomp and Ostentation and this being their full strength at that time it shews how their Party had shrivel'd away under this Emperor's Laws against them For in their Council at Bagaia where the Maximinianists were condemn'd by the other Donatists were present four hundred and sixty Bishops and yet now all their Force cannot make a third part of that number But when they came to Carthage they would not meet in the usual house of Convocation that they call'd the Synagogue of Satan and therefore met in the Gargilian Baths And before they enter'd upon the Conference the Catholicks endeavour to Court them with all manner of Civility and Condescention if by any means to prevail upon them to have some sense of the Peace and Unity of the Christian Church But all in vain they were resolved to persist in their Peevishness and therefore when they came together instead of fair and ingenuous Discourse they only endeavoured to spin out time with trifling and pettifogging Tricks For whereas the Catholiques first propounded for quicker dispatch to separate the particular matter of Fact concerning Caecilian's being Ordain'd by a Traditor from the general matter of Right concerning their present Separation from the Church Because that was only Personal and carried nothing in it that concern'd the cause of the Church it self at so great a distance of time and therefore they would freely grant tho nothing could be more false that Caecilian and Faelix were guilty of all their Indictment But that being granted they affirm'd that it was no sufficient reason for them at that time of the day to separate themselves from the Catholique Church though it had so many years past Communicated with them But the Donatists resolve to insist upon the old Nags-head-story and wholly baulk the matter of Right for here they knew that they could wrangle and amuse the People and this was not only their standing Artifice but as Baldwin observes 't is the last shift of all Schismatiques when they are bafled to throw dirt So Petilian served St. Austin so the Pelagians so the Manichees but he would not be drawn from his Cause by such foolish divertisements and still answer'd them all Quod ad mores nostros pertinet quemadmodum vivamus in promptu est eis cum quibus vivimus nunc de Catholico agitur Dogmate c. As for my Life and Conversation it is known to those with whom I live but our business is about Christian Truth that is the cause not I if you have any thing against me in God's Name Indict me according to Law but otherwise it is a base and helpless shift when you are Convicted by Argument to betake your selves to idle Tales and Slanders for that is the last Machine of all Hereticks And therefore 't is no wonder that the Schismaticks stuck so long at this point for to Persons of that Kidney Calumny is much dearer then their Opinion And it was a long while before Marcellinus with all his Art and Temper could bring them out of this Hold but being at last forced out of it they in the next place wrangle about matters that they pleaded ought to be preliminary to the Conference And first they cavill'd and excepted against the time viz. That the time limited by the Emperour's Summons was past to which cavil they are Answer'd That the Meeting was adjourn'd to the present time by their own Consent Then they except against Marcellinus and the Form of proceeding viz. That Ecclesiastical matters ought not to be determin'd after the manner of the Secular Courts but by the Holy Scriptures To this Marcellinus replies both that he does not take upon himself the Office of a Judge and withal that things should be determin'd by the Rule of Scripture as they desired And beside this the Catholick Bishops satisfie them by exhibiting the Injunctions that they had given to those Bishops that were to manage the Conference that they had taken sufficient care of that matter But then this the Donatists turn'd into a new Cavil that they would not trust their Cause to a few Mens management but would be all Speakers which they knew could not be done in so great a Multitude without turning the whole business into Tumult and Confusion And therefore it is with much ado over-ruled that Seven of each Party should manage the Conference of whom St. Austin and Petilian were the chief of each side But in the next place the Mandate of the Catholicks to their Commissioners being signed by 286 Bishops the Donatists object that there were not so many present and pretend that to encrease the number they had set down false names and therefore require that every Bishop should answer to his own name But all this trifling being at last past through Marcellinus with Hat in hand desires the Company that they would be pleased to take their Seats but the Donatists insolently refuse his Civility grumbling out among themselves that of the Psalmist Odi Ecclesiam Maligâ—antium cum impiis non seâ—â—bo Then the Instrument of the Donatists to their Commissioners is read which consists all of Accusation against the Catholiques both as Traditors and Persecutors and here they are immediately snapt in their own â—nare having subscribed many Names to it of Men that were not in Being and among the rest of one that upon the discovery they now pretended dyed on the way though before they had declared that it was drawn up after they came to Carthage and that was all the Event of the first days Conference that they ensnared themselves in two or three grand Falshoods The second Conference was spent in the same trifles and cavils with the first and so came to
declared against the great Arian Assertions especially of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Sum of all that Heresie that he should be charged not only for an Heretick but a Prevaricator Though the hardest piece of disingenuity is his turning Eusebius his ingenuous confession into guile and falshood but with what justice or candor I dare leave the Reader to judge from the words themselves as I have oâ—ted them above that give as far as I can discern as prudent and rational account of the true State of the Controversie as any that we have upon Record But Petavius has met with his own Measure for after all the pains that he has taken against the Arian Heresie he stands vehemently suspected of Treachery to his own Undertaking Sandius is very proud of his company and lays no small stress upon the assistance of his Authority And though this Rhapsodist whoever he was was apparently a thing of no judgment yet others that want not understanding complain That he has done the Doctrine of the Trinity no great kindness by his defence of it but has betrayed the constant Tradition of the Church about it and it is what I have often heard objected by some that would be learned Men in common Discourse though upon what ground I cannot devise unless it be that some Men pass their censures upon Books only by skimming over Indexes and Contents of Chapters instead of perusing the Books themselves for I am sure no Man that has Examin'd Petavius his performance upon this Argument can ever suspect him of a design to betray his cause that he has defended with so much Judgment Learning and Industry but so it is that some Body turning over the heads of the Chapters finds a Catalogue of Fathers before the Council of Nâ—ce that held different Opinions from the Catholique Rule Saltem loquendi usu as he speaks from thence it is shrewdly insinuated that he leaves them under suspition of Arianism which is so far from being true that he had before-hand cleared them from all such suspition as to the substance of the Doctrine and proved the constant Tradition of it through all Ages of the Church from the Apostles And sums up his Evidence of the whole matter in this one positive Assertion Omnes in eo Scriptores illi conveniunt esse unum Deum unamque Deitatem non autem plures Deos aut Deitates Deinde tres esse qui Divinitatem illam habent quique singula quâ nomen ipsum obtinent Dei quâ proprietates ut Groeci Philoâ—ophi nominant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae nulli alteri quà m soli ac verè proprieque dicto Deo tribuuntur Sic in eo rurfus congruunt ut unum de tribus fontem originem caeterorum constituant eumque patrem nuncupent illius qui proximè ab hoc numeratur appellaturque filius qui genitus ab illo dicitur ac tum Deus est tum homo pro Nativitate duplici quarum una seculis est anterior omnibus ab solo patre Deo Altera in tempore sola itidem ex Matre foeminâ Haec fere de Deo ac Trinitate profiteri sigillatim illos reperies idque alios aliis clarius ac disertius eloqui Quae si sola considerentur ex iis reliqua deinceps necessariò sequuntur quae de hoc mysterio post Nicaenam Synodum in Ecclesia sancita sunt post vehementes ac diuturnos conflictus ad convincendos ac refutandos Arianos aliosque religionis hostes idonea sunt ex sese Now if all the Fathers agreed as he says they did in this Confession of Faith it is impossible to charge them with the least suspition of Arianism only because some of them Platonised too much in some Forms of Expression and when he says as he does once that they were of the same Opinion with Arius it is when he makes Arius not of the same Opinion with himself and thinks him a Genuine Platonist but if he were that was not his proper Heresie the peculiar poison whereof consisted in this That the Son of God was created 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as Sozomen declares and Petavius too no Man ever affirm'd before Arius so that if he were a Platonist he might be in another Error but that was not Arianism and if any of the Ancients might seem to come too near him in some Platonick Expressions yet they are all clear by Petavius his account from all suspition of Arianism This I thought good to interpose in behalf of Petavius that so learned a Man might not be loaded with such a disingenuous surmise for no other reason that I can see then that he has deserved better of his Argument then any other Writer whatsoever excepting only the great Athanasius himself But to return to Constantine and the Nicene Council after the Condemnation of Arius the other Controversie concerning the time of Easter was easily decided the very same day and all Churches are commanded to observe the Festival in the same form and time And here the difference that St. Athanasius has observed between these two Decrees of the Council is very observable That when they Enact concerning the Paschal Controversie they say it seems good to the Council c. And set down the day of the Month and the year of the Council in which it was Enacted thereby intimating that the way of observing Easter became Obligatory by the Authority of their Decree But when they set down their Faith they neither say it seems good nor add any date but express it in this Form that so and so the Catholique Church believes thereby declaring That it is not a New but an Apostolical Faith and therefore to be received by all Christians And this is seconded by a Rescript from the Emperor and recommended partly as a thing fit and decent that the practice of almost the whole Catholique Church should over rule the Customs of particular Churches and in pursuance of this general Decree it was farther Enacted That on all Sundays in the year and on all days from Easter to Whitsontide Christians should every where pray not kneeling but standing a Custom that had been practised in the Church from the Beginning and 't is reckoned by the Fathers among their immemorial Traditions as a Symbol of our Saviour's Resurrectâ—on at that time which being not observed by those Churches who kept Easter after the manner of the Jews thereby to distinguish themselves from other Christians the Custom therefore of standing is here injoin'd to be observed uniformly in all places and so the Council expresses the intent of their Decree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all things may be performed with Uniformity in all Dâ—ocesses But the main thing that the Emperour enforces its Practice with is the Divine Authority of the Councils determination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore matters standing thus it is requisite that
you readily receive this Order as a true divine Command for whatever is agreed on in the Holy Councils of Bishops is to be taken as the Will of God But then it is remarkable that the Emperour only imposes this Decree of the Council by its own Authority and does not back it as he does that against Arianism with secular Penalties for what reasons himself best knew it is enough that it was not needful for by the bare Authority of the Council the controversie was laid asleep forever nor do I remember that after that time we hear of any material Contention about it Now by the whole management of this business the Conclusion is evident that the Emperour thought that Laws Ecclesiastick ought to be made by the Ecclesiastick State and when they were so that they were Valid and Obligatory by their own Authority though himself had power to enforâ—e them with Civil Snactions as he judged it serviceable to the advancement of Religion and the Peace of Government §. VIII And so the Great Council was dismist as well as summon'd by the Emperour with that success he desired in the unanimous Condemnation of the Arian Heresie insomuch that in that great number of Bishops that were there present there were no more then two that refused to subscribe the Decrees of the Council Secundus and Theonas as Eusebius himself informs us both in the life of Constantine and in his Epistle to his Diocess and it is from his Authority that Theodoret corrects the Errour boâ—h of Soorates and Zozomen who set down six Dissenters that is beside those two Eusebius of Nicomedia Theognis of Nicaea Maris of Calcedon and Eusebius of Caesareâ— but though it be true that these were the great Sticklers at first against the admission of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Faith yet is it certain from Eusebius his own account of it that they all at last acquiesced in the determination of the Council and Athanasius is witness of this not only for this Eusebius of Caesarea but his Namesake of Nicomedia And here even Philostorgius himself who is miserably lost thâ—â—â—â— this whole Story and every where betrays his ignorance by his confusion of times places and persons as well as his imperfect and false Relations yet here I say he happens to report the matter accurately enough though his Disciple Sandius who always takes great pains to be in the wrong forsakes both him and all the ancient Historians to follow the imperfect Story of Nicetâ—s who sets down twenty two Dissenters and among them Eusebius of Caesarea But on the other hand St. Jerom tells us and that as he pretends from the very Acts of the Council that not only these Bishops but Arius himself and his two Companions Euzoius and Achillas the last whereof though but a Presbyter Sandius is so ignorant as to take him for the Bishop that was Predecessor to Alexander were upon submission received into the Churches favouâ— but this I take to be one of St. Jerom's hasty slips for as all Authors beside agree that he was immediately banisht so it is very unlikely that if he had recanted and been received into the Church that Constantine should at that time have publisht that severe Rescript against him that his Sect should be call'd Porphyrians i. e. Enemies to the Christian Faith and that his Books should be burnt upon pain of death But beside that is there had been any signs of Repentance in Arius we should certainly have had an account of it in the Synodical Epistle of the Council to the Church of Alexandria whereas on the contrary they bemoan the Calamity into which he had not only cast himself but drawn after him Theonas and Secundus two Egyptian Bishops and tâ—e only two Bishops that stuck to the Arian cause into the same Pit of Destruction And that could be nothing else but banishment as appears from the words immediately following in which they congratulate to the Churches of Egypt their deliverance from those wicked and turbulent men and accordingly the Historians Socrates and Sozomen tell us that Arius was recall'd from banishment not long after the Council and not long after him Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea who had been banisht from their Sees by the Emperous not at the time of the Council with Arius but some time after as is evident from the Emperours own Epistle to the Nicomedians in which he declares the reasons of their banishment viz. That though they had subscribed the Nicene Faith yet after their return home they had received some Arians into Communion that the Emperour had removed from Alexandria for the security of the Peace of that Church and that wasthefault of the Eusebians in this whole affair that though they were not Arians they thought that they might communicate with them as it is evident from the Synodof Alexandria in their excellent Synodical Epistle who do not in the least accuse the Eusebians of Arianism but only of holding Communion with them Not long after the just Banishment of these two trimming Bishops Arius is upon his submission restored into the bosom of the Church but with a peremptory command never to return to Alexandria upon which the banish't Bishops are awakened and encouâ—aged to endeavour their own Restitution in that as they plead in their own behalf when the person really guilty was absolved themselves who had never followed his Heresie but embraced the Decrees of the Council in all things and subscribed the Faith of Con-Substantial could not but be concern'd at least to deâ—â—ver themselves from the very suspicion of that Hereâ—â—e that they never own'd and therefore as they had before subscribed the â—â—â—th of the Council with which they â—â—y the Council was then well satisfied without subscribing the Anathema so now when they were ready to give an entire assent and subscribe even that too as well as the Form of Faith they hope 't it would not only give them complete satisfaction but move them to intercede with the Emperour for their Restitution And that was easily obtain'd from him who was desirous of nothing more then the Peace and Concord of the Church But Eusebius being of an haughty and implacable Spirit Studies nothing but revenge against Athanasius who was the chief man though in an inferiour station that had born down himself and his whole Party in the Council And beside his particular spite against the person of Athanasius his Party could not digest the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates relates and therefore raised a new War about it notwithstanding that they agreed with the Catholicks about the whole Doctrine of the Trinity When both affirmed says he one Godhead subsisting in Three Persons yet I know not how it came to pass they were always contending about it And this we shall find exactly true that after the Council of Nice they never in the least appeared in behalf of
them and so the good man quietly enjoyed his Bishoprick all the Reign of Coâ—stans but upon his death the Eusebians being back't with the great power of the 5 Commissioners grew more furious then ever prevail with Constantius to banish Paul again neither would that content them but he is kept in close Prison at Cucusus in Cappadocia to be starved to death at last because after six days fasting they find him alive they strangle him Having laid the Story of this poor injur'd man together I return back to our new Commissioners who finding that though they had framed four several Creeds in their first Council at Antioch none of them would satisfie the Western Bishops they Summon a second Council to the same City in the Year 344 and draw up a long new Creed for the most part consisting of Anathema's against all Branches of the Arian Heresie and send it to the Western Bishops then Assembled at Milan but they unanimously reject it for this very reason that they were resolved to acquiesce in the Decrees of the Nicene Council and not be so curious as after the Authority of their determination to make any farther enquiry though learned Mr. Sandius says they laid it aside because it being written in Greek they understood it not a wise account of a Transaction of the Christian Church that they corresponded in an unknown Language and understood not one another though they answer'd each others Papers and gave very good reasons for their disagreement particularly the offence of Innovation And there all along stuck the Controversie with the Orthodox Bishops that they thought themselves bound to abide by the Decree of that great Council and out of Reverence to its Authority would never hear of any Alteration And that is the great Charge with which Athanasius perpetually loads the Eusebians that for that very reason they could not be in the right in their belief because they opposed themselves to the Faith of the Nicene Fathers But Julius Bishop of Rome finding things grow worse and the Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches made daily wider he Petitions the Emperor Constans to move his Brother Constantius to join with him for a general Council to which Constantius agrees and the most Convenient place pitch't upon for their Meeting was Sardica in Illyricum being the Confines of both the Empires where in the year 347 met at the time appointed 280 Western and 76 Eastern Bishops But they are no sooner met then they break in pieces for the Eastern Bishops refuse to sit unless Athanasius and the other Parties Accused may be first removed out of the Council whereas the Western will have them treated as they ought to be as innocent Persons till they are Canonically Convicted Upon this after divers inter-messages the Easterns forsake the City and sit at Philippopolis and it is more then likely that they never came with any design of agreement and pick't this quarrel only to baulk the Council And this is roundly charged upon them by the Council it self in their Encyclical Epistle extant in Athanasius his second Apology as done by Compact the Passage is very remarkable and because it is so though it be somewhat long I shall give the Reader the sense of it as briefly as I can It is not without cause that these Men though often cited would never appear but by their constant shifting a fair hearing through the guilt of their own Conscience confirm'd both the suspition of their own forgeries and gave ground to believe that the Accusations against themselves were but too true And therefore because beside this shuffling they have not only restored but advanced such as were Deposed for the Arian Heresie in which design the chief Men after Eusebius Theodorus of Heraclea Narcissus of Neronias in Cilicia Stephanus of Antioch George of Laodicea Acacius of Caesarea in Palestine Menaphantus of Ephesus Ursacius of Singido in Mysia and Valens of Mursa in Panonia are now the chief Ring-leaders These Men therefore suffer'd not any of those who came with them out of Asia to Communicate with the Church here or so much as to come to the Council and in their journey call'd several Meetings in the Form of Councils in which they by their threat'nings forced the Company to enter into a Solemn Covenant among themselves that when they come to Sardica they should peremptorily refuse the Authority of the Council and never appear before it or sit in it but as soon as they came thither when they had made a formal shew of appearance should immediately vanish This Treachery is attested by Macarius of Palestine and Asterius of Arabia who were all along present at their proceedings and who being offended at so much baseness discover'd to the Council at their first coming under what force they were detain'd and with what wickedness things were to be managed Adding withal that there were great numbers of Orthodox Bishops in their parts but that these Men kept them at home by force and with the bloodiest threat'nings if they should dare to appear and for all possible Security of all that came they obliged them all to lodge in the same house that so no Man might any way be ticed and drawn away from the Conspiracy So far the Council and nothing more evident all along then that the Eusebians dreaded nothing more then a fair hearing of the Indictments of their own framing and therefore by all the Arts and Methods of disingenuity broke all Opportunities that were offered them for it So that though they were forced to make an Appearance at Sardica by the Emperor's Command yet they came with this resolution never to suffer the matter to come to any Issue And withal finding themselves so over numbred that they could not obstruct it they wisely take pet and quit the Council But the Western Bishops for all that proceed and reduce the Debate to these three Heads as they have drawn it up in their Epistle to Pope Julius First The settlement of the Faith Secondly The Examination of Witnesses that had been illegally rejected in former Councils 3dly An enquiry after all those various injuries and violences that had been done to the Orthodox Clergy by the Eusebians As to the first It is unanimously Voted to frame no new Creed but to acquiesce in the sufficiency of the Nicene Faith As to the Second They unravel all the Forgeries and Tergiversations of the Eusebians in former Councils and in an Encyclical Epistle certifie all the Bishops of the Christian World of the several Perjuries that had been made use of to raise an Accusation against Athanasius and other Orthodox Bishops and then of their several disingenuous and dishonest Methods to shift the proof of their own Indictment particulary of their running away from their own Appeal to Julius Bishop of Rome but most of all of their awkerd behaviour in this Council where they would not be prevail'd with by any importunity or
intreaty to proceed to Tryal which the Council imputes not only to their knowledge of the defect of their Accusations against others but to the Conscience of their own guilt Seeing great numbers of Persons there present that were ready to testifie of their various Cruelties and tell sad Stories of their Imprisoning Banishing Beating Starving Strangling Persons in Holy Orders only for refusing to Communicate with the Aria◠Hereticks And though the Criminals refused to appear the Witnesses were Examined and they Deposed and both the Emperors written to that their Majesties would be pleased to set all such at liberty that were still under restraint and to order their Officers for the time to come not to use any force or violence against the Clergy for their Faith but leave them first to be tryed by the Ecclesiastical Judicature In the next place the whole Intrigue against Athanasius is re-examined the Stories of Arsenius and Ischiras farther proved by fresh Witnesses and so both himself and the rest of the Deposed and Banish't Bishops are restored and the Intruders thrust not only out of their Sees but out of the Communion of the Christian Church And then in the last place they enact some Rules of Discipline useful and almost necessary for the Present State of the Church as against the practice of Eusebius and other Bishops of the Faction that invade other Mens Bishopricks and though such Offenders were only sent back to their own Sees by the Canon of the Nicene Council this Council is so severe as not only to Depose but Excommunicate them so as not to be capable of being admitted to Lay-Communion even at the hour of death Another Canon they made against the wandring of Bishops and that reach't Ursacius and Valens who left their own Diocesses to carry on the Eusebian Faction in other Provinces A third Canon was That if a Bishop were oppress 't by his Com-provincials he might have leave to make his complaint to the Bishop of Rome who might judge whether he ought to have a new hearing or not and this beside some secret reasons was to relieve the Eastern Bishops from the Oppression of the Eusebians who carried all before them by force and foul dealing Though the Romanists will have it to have been made particularly to justifie Athanasius in his Appeal to Rome but beside that if it were true it would do their Cause no service it is certain that Athanasius made not the Appeal himself but that his Cause was first referr'd thither by the Eusebians and that too with no other design then to remove it as far as they could from their own doors for fear of discovery §. XIII But as vigorously as the Western Bishops proceeded at Sardica the Eastern out-stript them at Philippopolis they first take to themselves the Title of the Council at Sardica they draw up a new Confession of Faith and call it the Sardican Creed in which they Anathematise all the Positions of Arius and only omit the word Consubstantial And as for Athanasius they cunningly load him with the Authority of the Tyrian Council and the Sentence of Constantine upon it Qui omnia ejus flagitia recognoscens suâ illum sententiâ in exilium deportavit Who examining into all his Crimes banish't him by his own Sentence as they blush not to aver as if the abused Emperor had been acquainted with all the juglings of that Council when it was their only care to keep their proceedings altogether in the dark from him But from this they proceed to infer that Athanasius being condemn'd by the Suffrage of so many Bishops and the Judgment of the Emperor it was now but a trick to move for a new Tryal when so many of the Judges Accusers and Witnesses were dead and therefore they must have the old Sentence allowed and ratified before they would act least as they plead They should bring in that prophane Innovation Quam horret vetus consuetudo Ecclesiae ut in concilio Orientales Episcopi quicquid forte statuissent ab Episcopis Occidentalibus refricaretur vice versa That the Ancient Custom of the Church abhors that the Decrees of the Eastern Church should be reversed by the Western and so on the contrary That was the point they would still be at that whatever was done in the Eastern Church should not be submitted to the Judgment of the Western Bishops and then that secured the Authority of the Tyrian Council and as long as that stood firm so did their Cause too But to make short work of it for there are vast numbers of odd casts of disingenuity in their Epistle they Excommunicate Athanasius Paul of Constantinople Julius of Rome Osius Marcellus and all that had any hand in the Absolution of Athanasius and this they signifie in an Encyclical Epistle written in the Name of the Council of Sardica to their friends in all Parts of the World and among many others it is directed to Donatus the Schismatical Bishop of Carthage Gratus the Catholique Bishop of that City with 36 other African Bishops being present at the Council of Sardica and joining with it against the Philippopolitans who therefore think to strengthen their Party by courting the Schismaticks to their side And among other sweet flowers flatter them with their own dear Expression viz. That they durst not join with the Sardican Council Ne proditores fidei Traditoresque Scripturarum dicamur Lest we should be esteemed Traytors of the Faith and Traditors of the Scriptures thereby insinuating an approbation of their Schism from the Catholicks upon that pretence And this took so luckily that the Schismatiques pleaded it in the days of St. Austin to prove that they had ever been in Communion with the Eastern Church But both parties having done the business that they came about especially the Eusebians whose only project it was to shun the Council and make the breach more general with the whole Western Church they break up their Assembly and where-ever they come put to death all that refuse Communion with them particularly they make a great Massacre at Adrianople where they cut off the Bishop's hands and after that his head with innumerable other outrages recited by Athanasius in his Epistle to the Monks But as for the Sardican Council having settled things as well as they could they acquaint both the Emperors with the Issue of their Proceedings and send three Bishops Arm'd with Letters from the Emperor Constans to his Brother Constantius to intercede for the restitution of the banish't Bishops But whilst they attended the Emperor at Antioch Stephen the Eusebian Bishop of that place by his Instruments conveighs a common Strumpet by night stark naked into the Chamber of Euphratas that was the most eminent Man of the Embassy and famous for his great Vertue and Piety but the Woman who expected some debauch't young Gallant for her Companion as soon as she saw the grave old Bishop asleep and altogether ignorant of the matter being
that when the banisht Bishops were restored to the Exercise of their Function by the Decree of the Council he restored them too to the possession of their Bishopricks by his Imperial Rescript The first Synod at Milan was wholly Western and under the Jurisdiction of the Emperour Constans where they had all free liberty both of debating and determining as they pleased So that hitherto all Powers Priviledges and Jurisdictions in the Church were preserved as far as the Emperours were concern'd but after the death of Constans the overthrow of Magnentius and the murther of Gallus when Constantius run mad either through guilt or insolence we read of nothing but Fury and Tyranny For in the year 355 when Gallus was murthered he summons or rather musters a Council at Arles for the Condemnation of Athanasius commands the Bishops to subscribe it and banishes Paulinus of Trevers for refusing the Subscription In the same year meets the second Council at Milan and that for the same purpose in which Eusebius of Verselles Liberius of Rome and at last Hosius of Corduba are sent on the same Errand after Paulinus for the same Offence In the year 357 follows the Council of Sirmium where as we have seen all things were carried by Force Then comes the Council of Ariminum in the year 359 where a Council of near 400 Bishops are compelled to subscribe and submit to the pleasure of Valens and his fifty Men. The Council of Seleucia came to the worst end of all being only a contest between the Eusebians and Acacians who finding themselves over-numbred appeal to the Emperor and are received by him draw up a new Creed in which they not only cashiere the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as they phrased them all other Exotick words And this indefinite Faith is imposed upon all Christian Bishops by an Imperial Rescript upon pain of banishment by which the Acacians outed the Eusebians and so got themselves into the best and fattest Preferments In the year 360 comes the last Conventicle of Antioch in which Meletius Bishop of Antioch was deposed for asserting the Nicene Creed and that against the Publick Faith of the Emperour given him under Hand and Seal for his Security These were wild actings in the Church but they all followed the Magnentian and Gallian madness and that is the excuse that is made for him by Athanasius himself that after that he was not himself but was entirely govern'd by other Men that as he expresses it had no more brains in their Skuls then in their Toes But before this time of outrage and distraction he kept up that reverence and regard that is due to that Authority that our Blessed Saviour has committed to his Church Nay even after this loosing himself and his understanding by getting the whole World he kept up that respect to our Saviour's Institution as at least to Warrant all his irregular Proceedings by a shew of its Authority For though he endeavour'd to carry all things by force and violence yet he never attempted any thing without a pretended Council This was the Interval of time in which the Ancients complain of his invading the Power of the Church and as it were by these wild Practices thrusting himself into the Evangelical Priest-hood Thus was it in the year 355 immediately after the mad Council at Milan when the Dialogue between the Emperour and Liberius Bishop of Rome pass't in which Liberius insists upon that one Proposal that the Emperour would be pleased to call a free Council and not over-aw it by his own Sovereign Power Let there be an Ecclesiastical Synod Summon'd but not to Court where neither the Emperor himself nor any of his Lords or Judges commands by threatning but where the fear of God alone determines all things And for sticking to this Proposition and refusing to act in an Ecclesiastical Sentence till it was granted he is sent into banishment In the same year and upon the same occasion it was that the wise Hosius gave him that famous advice Tibi Deus Imperium commisit nobis quae sunt Ecclesiae concredidit Et quemadmodum qui tuum Imperium malignis oculis carpit contradicit ordinationi divinae Ita tu cave ne quae sunt Ecclesiae ad te trahens magno crimini obnoxius fias neque enim fas est nobis in terris Imperium tenere neque tu thymiatum sacrorum potestatem habes Imperator God has committed the Empire to you the Church to us and as he would rebel against God that should malign your Authority so take heed left by drawing the Affairs of the Church to your self you prove guilty of the same Rebellion for as it is a sin in us to challenge any temporal Authority so know O Emperor that you have not the power of the holy Function This was plain dealing and but necessary at that time when he had made so foul an inrode upon the Jurisdictions and Liberties of the Church and overborn all its Divine Authority by Military force and sury So that his meaning was not as the Romanists would have it to cut off the Emperor from all interposing in Church Affairs because he that had been so much employed in them under Constantine could not think it unlawful in it self But though that be no fault but a duty yet to use his Authority with meer force and violence to destroy the Judgment of the Governors of the Church by compulsion in matters of Faith and to take upon himself the determination of them as he had in effect done and that in contradiction to the Authority of a General Council was such a bold contempt of our Saviour's Institution and such an Invasion of the rights of his Kingdom that the good Bishop could do no less then threaten it with the Terrors of the last day About the same time St. Hilary address't his Apology in behalf of the Catholicks to the Emperor where among divers other abuses that he Petitions to be redress't this is none of the least Provideat decernat Clementia vestra ut omnes ubique Judices quibus Provinciarum administrationes creditae sunt ad quos sola cura solicitudo publicorum negotiorum pertinere debet à religiosa se observantia abstineant neque posthac praesumant atque usurpent putent se causas cognoscere Clericorum innocentes homines variis afflictationibus minis violentià terroribus frangere atque vexare That was the deplorable State of the Church at that time that the Emperor's Prefects and Officers took upon them a Power of Summoning the Orthodox Clergy to their Tribunals to give an account of their Faith and to banish them if they refused compliance with the Emperor's Will and not only so but to take the Accusations of their Enemies against them and right or wrong and without any regard to Justice or understanding the merit◠of the Cause inflict upon them their own Arbitrary punishments This just
complaint of St. Hilary and the oppress 't Catholiques so wrought with the Emperor that notwithstanding his outrage against them because his Affairs in France were then embroil'd by the Incursions of the Barbarous Nations he publishes that seemingly kind Rescript in Answer to their Request Mansuetudinis nostrae lege prohibemus in Judiciis Episcopos accusari c. Commanding that the Accusations of Bishops should not be brought before Secular Magistrates lest it should give too much encouragement to wicked Men to oppress them with slanders and therefore if any Man have a complaint against them let it be Examin'd before the Bishops that so every cause might be determin'd by its proper Judicature This is a singular Law and has scarce any other parallel with it in the whole Code for though there are divers Laws of other Emperors that refer all Controversies about Religion to the Episcopal Audience yet as for the Criminal causes of Ecclesiastical Persons I do not remember any beside this that wholly exempted them from the cognisance of their own Courts And therefore that this Emperor should grant such an Universal exemption seems a courtesie more then ordinary and is thought to have been meerly extorted by the importunity of the Catholick Bishops and the present difficulty of his own Affairs And that they then insisted upon the exemption of Ecclesiastical Persons as well as Causes it was for a reason peculiar to the State of the Controversie at that time that was then managed not so much by Arguments as Accusations though that weapon was chiefly employed against the great Athanasius into whose single Person the Controversie was at last contracted and the Parties were distinguisht by nothing but subscribing and refusing his Condemnation For he being the great Pillar of the Catholick Cause the Eusebians knew well enough that if they could but blow him up the cause must fall with him and for that reason is it that they all along labour'd so hard to overwhelm him with Criminal Accusations And therefore the Catholicks perceiving their fraud interposed as vehemently in defence of Athanasius as of their Faith because all the blows that were levell'd at him were supposed to aim at that insomuch that to subscribe his Condemnation was the same thing as to quit the Party as we have seen in the case of Pope Liberius And for this reason chiefly it was necessary at that time that the Emperor if he would refer the Ecclesiastical Controversie then on foot to the Bishops he should do the same as to the Criminal Causes of the Clergy because they were then universally join'd together And yet as kind as this Law might appear to be in relieving them from the oppressions of the Imperial Courts it was but a fraudulent favour and only design'd to ensnare the Catholicks For this gracious Rescript was publisht in the same year in which he call'd the violent Council at Milan that was on purpose packt out of the fiercest Eusebians to carry things thorough with an high hand and without any contradiction So that when in this Rescript he refer'd the Orthodox Bishops to an Ecclesiastical Judgment he designed nothing but their Oppression in this mad Council and that it is evident was so far from any kindness that it was the sharpest severity he could have contrived against them For if they had just ground of complaint against the unjust actings of the Secular Courts because they were not their proper Judicatures yet when they were so rudely outraged in Council as it was done in the proper Court so was it at their own request and that both took away all ground of complaint and left them without any means of relief Gothofred has a Conjecture that this Rescript was Enacted not before but after the Council and that in favour of the Eusebians who were overcome by the Orthodox at their own weapon of Accusation and yet by the partiality of the Council were protected whilst the Catholicks were oppressed and denyed the very formalities of Justice this says the Learned Man might provoke them to make their Appeals to the Secular Courts where they might at least hope to meet with some humanity and regard to the Laws And therefore the Emperor to spoil this shift brings them all back to the Ecclesiastical Judicature that if they would come thither there they might be heard but no where else But this contradicts the whole state of Affairs at that time when the partiality and oppression of the Secular Judges was the universal Groan of the Catholicks and when this Rescript was enacted upon or at least after their reiterated complaints against it and therefore there is no ground to imagine that the Catholicks how much soever oppressed in Council would think of seeking relief there But whatever was the intent of the Rescript and no doubt it was malicious enough it is certain that it was at least pretended to be granted upon the complaint of the Catholicks against the Secular Courts for taking to themselves the Judgment of Controversies of Faith whereas they ought to have referred them to the Synods of Bishops whom our Saviour had appointed to be the proper Guides and Judges in those matters And that is the meaning of Hosius and the rest in their reproofs of the Emperor not that he used his Authority in the Church but that he abused it by opposing it to the determination of a general Council by whose advice he ought both as a wise Man and a good Christian to have been directed in the use of his Power in such matters And that was the grand miscarriage of his Reign that he would not sit down satisfied under the Authâ—ntique and Solâ—mn determination of so great a Council which if he had done as his Father did he had escaped all that tedious risk of trouble which he created both to himself and to the Church through his whole Reign But however it is evident from all the Premisses that how enormously soever he abused his own Power in the Church he never attempted to Usurp the Churches Power and he never took upon him to make any Alterations in the Faith till they were first made and decreed in Council and though he destroyed the Use and Authority of Councils by denying freedom of Vote yet that was an abuse of his Power not an usurpation of theirs For that he ever own'd with a Religious regard in his most unwarrantable Oppressions And as I have observed at the beginning he shewed greater respect to the Power of the Church then any Emperor in the whole Succession when he called such sholes of Councils only to have his Will of one Man and one Word which he durst not controul himself because they had been own'd and justified by the Churches Authority And if we carefully observe his motions we shall find him a cordial friend both to the Church and to Religion and the end of all his mistaken Zeal was the lasting settlement of Peace and Concord that was
the word that he had always in his mouth all the misfortune was that he fell into ill hands and by their advice endeavour'd it the wrong way His high Opinion of the honesty of some ill Church-Men was the Principle that exposed him to all that abuse that was put upon him all his life time It was his confidence in Eusebius and his Partisans that did drive him into that unhappy course that he took for the attainment of his desired Peace All their advice was Oracle to him and made him both deaf and blind to all other information But otherwise setting aside this unhappy oversight of being over-rul'd by ill Men he seems to have been so far from all thoughts of robbing the Church of its own inherent rights that he thought he could never shew it kindness enough by heaping continual favours of his own upon it he granted it more Priviledges and greater Immunities then any other Emperor and whereas his Father Constantine only exempted Ecclesiasticks from all Personal burthens in the Common-wealth he has in divers Rescripts freed them from all manner of Taxes and Impositions whatsoever and a very little time before his death he publisht an Edict to Establish the perpetual security of all his former Grants with this reason at the end of it as it were his dying words Gaudere â—nim gloriari ex side semper volumus scientes magis Religionibus quà m Officiis Labore corporis vel sudore nostram rempublicam contineri i. e. as Gothofred paraphrases it We freely grant all these Immunities to the Ministers of Religion as knowing that the Publick Weal will lose nothing by all their exemptions from its service but gain greater blessings from their Prayers and Devotions then they could have contributed to it by any other way of Attendance And this very thing is all along upbraided to him by the counterfeit Hilary in his Book against him that whilst he pretended so much kindness to the Christian Church and Clergy he by his ill Government betrayed the one and oppress 't the other Auro reipublicae Sanctum Dei honoras vel detracta templis vel publicata Edictis vel exacta paenis Deo ingeris Osculo Sacerdotes excipis quo Christus est proditus Caput benedictioni summittis ut fidem calces convivio dignaris ex quo Judas ad proditionem egressus est censum capitum remittis quem Christus ne Scandalo esset exolvit Vectigalia Caesar donas ut ad negationem Christianos invites quae tua sunt relaxas â—t quae Dei sunt amittantur So that it is evident from his Story and the Confession of his Enemies that he was a true lover of the Christian Church and a zealous Promoter of Religion and only miscarried by following the advice of the Eusebians which they gave him for their own ends and with what grosness they abused him all along we have seen through every Stage of his life And this is the ground of those high Commendations that are given him by Gregory Nazianzen because he was of himself a true lover of Religion and designed nothing but the Peace and settlement of the Church though under that plausible pretence his good nature and integrity were imposed upon by wicked Men to compass their own wicked designs against the true peace of the Catholick Church And that was the folly and misfortune that they drew him into not to acquiesce in the Authoritative determination of the Church in so great a Council as that of Nice which had he done it had continued in the same Peace and Tranquility in which his Father left it But when instead of that he endeavoured to remove the setled Foundation as it was laid by the true and proper Builders it is no wonder if the whole Fabrick fell upon his own head and buried his whole Reign under its Ruins And it is very likely that his impatience under so awkerd a Burthen when he could not clear himself of it put him at last upon those angry courses that he took to obtain his Will And as at last it perplext so it debaucht his Government for till the Conquest of Magnentius he seem'd to have behaved himself like a wise and able Prince but had not leisure to attempt much less perform any thing great by reason of his perpetual attendance upon this Controversie And that may be a warning to all Princes That when a Controversie of Religion is once laid by a fair and legal decision to beware how they suffer it to rise again lest it prove too strong and stubborn to submit to a second Exorcism However by the different behaviour of these two Princes in interposing in the Controversies of the Church and the different event of their actings in it we have before our Eyes clear examples of right and wrong methods of Government Constantine when he found a Faction in the Church settles peace by the Authority of the Church without putting any restraints upon it and what that determin'd he first made a Law to himself and then to his Subjects and would never after permit it to be call'd in question and by this means he quell'd a dangerous Faction and freed himself from any direct disturbance from it all his own Reign But his Son Constantius on the contrary not acquiescing in the Canonical determination of the Church broke down all the Banks of Government and let in that Inundation of Dispute that overwhelm'd his whole Reign But being sensible of the trouble that he had brought upon himself by having once dismantled the Churches Authority he thought to help himself out by retrieving its force but still the more he strugled the more he entangled himself because instead of setling things by fair and free Councils and unless they are so they are no Councils of Christs Officers but meer Executioners of the Princes Commands himself ever endeavour'd to over-rule all the Councils that he call'd either by fraud or violence And then no wonder when they were so hamper'd if they were not able to attain the end of their Institution And that was the fatal miscarriage of his Reign his garbling the Authority of Councils turning them into Courts of Guards and abetting forty or fifty Seditious Men against the whole Body of Catholick Bishops otherwise if they had been permitted the free exercise of their own proper Authority all things had been carried with that gravity and decency that became the Christian Church as we see by the great Councils of Sardica and Ariminum that had effectually setled the Nicene Faith had not the Emperor cut asunder their Decrees with his Sword and set up an Eusebian Rump in defiance and opposition to the whole Council And therefore whereas some Men are pleased to upbraid the Churches Authority with the miscarriages of these Councils under Constantius they might have been pleased too to consider that the main Body of Christian Bishops discharged their duty with entire faithfulness and
return to the Catholick Church they should be received in their Episcopal Capacity or only according to rigour of Canon be admitted to Lay-Communion But here the Fathers incline to the milder Sentence following the Example of the Nicene Council who received the Novatian Bishops in their Episcopal Capacity to Communion And thus they order here that the Bishops that had joyn'd with the Hereticks either out of ignorance or by surprize or through meer force should be received without deprivation of dignity And in this they rather shewed Justice then Mercy for in all those Transactions as we have seen above there appear'd nothing of Arianism above board and at the same time that they quitted Consubstantiality for Peace sake they anathematised all the Points of the Arian Heresie So that their complyance though it was a defect in prudence it was no Apostacy from the Orthodox Faith And if the leading Eusebians had a design by removing that word to supplant and undermine the true Faith as 't is plain by the last issue of all that some of them had i. e. Valens and his Party yet that was kept secret among themselves and honest well meaning Men had no ground to suspect it because it was always protested against And it is certain that the greatest part of them had no such design for Basilius and all his Party who so fiercely opposed the Acacians when they turn'd Arians had been all along vehement Eusebians and Enemies to Consubstantiality And therefore it is evident that their zeal against that was not at all for any love of Arianism but only of the Peace of the Church which they conceived to be obstructed by that unscriptural and unwarrantable Word And therefore it was no such kindness to receive such Persons as had innocently join'd with them upon such easie terms when by it they were not in the least tainted with the Heresie it self and so St. Jerom himself states it Post reditum Confessorum in Alexandrinâ postea Synodo constitutum est ut exceptis Auctoribus Haereseos quos Error excusare non poterat poenitentes Ecclesiae sociarentur non quod Episcopi possint esse qui Haeretici fuerant sed quod constaret eos qui reciperentur Haereticos non fuisse After the Return of the Confessors from banishment it was decreed in a Synod at Alexandria That excepting the Authors of the Heresie that no surprise can excuse the Repenting Bishops should be received not that they could be Bishops that had been Hereticks but because it was evident that they that were received had not been Hereticks And as for their depriving the Authors and Ring-leaders of the Heresie forever so as never to be raised above Lay-Communion that was no severity but agreeable to the standing discipline of the Church And in the next place whereas there had been lately started an unhappy Controversie between the Greeks and Latins concerning the Words Hypostasis and Persona because the word Hypostasis being Synonimous with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Greeks profess't the belief of three Hypostases they seem'd to the Latins to own three distinct Substances And the Latins who rejected that word and in lieu of it used the word Persona seem'd not to assert any thing real but a meer relative distinction the word Persona being generally used to denote not the Man himself but his Office and Relation This contest run very high as Nazianzen informs us to the endangering a breach between the Churches and therefore St. Athanasius prudently proposes that both words should be promiscuously used in both Churches and that would effectually take away the Jealousie on both sides and so it did for it silenced the controversie forever and it continues so settled to this very day And lastly whereas some Men cryed up the Confession of Faith presented by the Eusebian Party to the Council at Sardica as if the Council had approved of it they declare that it was utterly rejected by the Council and that it refused to alter any thing of the Nicene Faith These Decrees with some other they draw up in an Encyclical Epistle to the Bishops of the Christian World And after the same manner that Athanasius bestir'd himself for the settlement of the Church in Africa St. Hilary labours for the Restitution of the Church of France where he procures frequent Councils particularly one at Paris to condemn the proceedings at Ariminum and restore the Church to that Ancient State that it enjoyed before Constantius his Invasion upon its Liberties and here they unanimously declared That when they subscribed the Creed of Ariminum in which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was omitted they were meerly over-reach't and take the Sacrament upon it that they suspected no harm and abhorred the consequences that were made out of it by ill Men and therefore desire pardon of the World for what they had been surprised into by meer ignorance and in this they were so unanimous that there was but one dissenting Bishop in all France that is Saturninus of Arles whom they deposed and thus says the Historian was all France purged of Heresie by the Authority of one Man And the same thing was done at the same time in the Eastern Church as appears by the Synodical Epistle of the French-Bishops to the Oriental Bishops which is nothing else then an answer to their Epistle declaring their concurrence with their Proceedings And thus was this Evil Spirit of Arianism that had for so many years possess 't and tormented the Christian Church and that Constantius had in vain taken so much pains to exorciâ—e by his own Authority thus I say it was at last easily cast out by the Power and Efficacy of the Apostolical Rod. But the Apostate finding the Peace of the Christian Church so well setled he grows into a rage to see both his wit and his malice so dexterously defeated and now can dissemble no longer pulls off his Vizor of pretended Kindness and turns open Persecutor And in the first place he flies upon Athanasius who had with wonderful success advanced Christianity in Alexandria and therefore upon pain of death he must immediately leave the City This the Emperor with great fierceness commands both the Citizens of Alexandria and Ecdicius the Prefect of Egypt to put in Execution under the severest Penalties And here he brings off his former seeming Lenity to the Galilaean or Christian Bishops that he had restored from Banishment with this slender sham that he only gave them leave to return to their own Countries but never intended to restore them to the Jurisdiction of their Churches And therefore Athanasius having presum'd to usurp his Episcopal Seat without the Imperial Grant must once more be gone And accordingly he withdraws with this comfort to his friends that were weeping at his departure that it was but a flying shower and would â—oon be over But if he had not made hast it had not only wet him to the skin
Pretence and will rather forfeit their Understanding then not gratifie their ill-nature how else could any Man be so transported out of his common Sense from one miscarriage to warrant our imitation of it against the constant sense of the Church for so many Ages And yet with what joy and greediness has this poor trifle been embraced as a new discovery dropt from Heaven and how confident are we that the Primitive Christians were no such softly fools as they have been hitherto represented as to preach and practise that Sheepish Doctrine of Passive Obedience Which only shews how ready some Parties of Men among us are for seizing any pretences for Resistance and Rebellion Otherwise certainly if Men would Judge impartially and without Faction of this mighty work the whole Mystery of it is no more then this that an Industrious Searcher into the Records of the Church has at last found out one instance in which some Christians failed of their Duty to their Prince A great performance this worthy the applause and admiration of this learned Age and therefore to deal civilly with it I care not though I grant the truth of the Assertion but then I must crave leave to let them know that this is the only instance of this kind that hap'ned in Eleven hundred years For that is the thing that I have undertaken to maintain That from the beginning of Christianity down to the time of Pope Gregory the Seventh who was the 159th Pope and succeeded not till the year 1073 no one Christian of the Western Church no not a Pope or taught or put in practice the Doctrine of Resistance to Sovereign Princes or disown'd the duty of Passive Obedience under the worst of Persecutors and after this much good may this little Story of Julian do them For they cannot but see what a mean and foolish design it is to set up one single Tale as a proâ—f of the Sense of the Primitive Christians when it stands all alone and is contrary to the declared Sense of the Catholick Church for so many Ages So that they gain so little advantage to their Cause by this admired Performance that it proves the most unlucky Argument that could have been contrived against it For this is a demonstration to all the World that there is in all the Records of the Church but one Precedent of Christian disrespect or disobedience to persecuting Princes And that is but a single exception to its universal practice and if it be it confesses its own Enormity from it So that methinks Men that design'd to preach up Resistance and Rebellion from the Precedents of the Primitive Christians should rather have taken any other method to abuse the People then by telling them this single Story of Julian For hereby they are brought to understand that they have no more then one Tale for their Cause and that if it were true it is controuled by the universal practice of all Churches in all Ages and that I think is as much as any reasonable Man can desire to shame and bafle the Assertion Especially when it is so evident that Christians before this time were become in a great measure like other Men because when Christianity became the Religion of the Empire and the darling of Princes all Men would equally embrace it for present Advantage and Preferment And in these circumstances bad Men will be sure to appear as forward in their Zeal as the best Christians and generally to outstrip them in outward Appearance So that if at that time there had been any Christians found guilty of disloyalty towards their Prince what wonder is it when such Numbers came into the Church not for any love of the Religion but for other ends and designs of their own And such Men were as effectually loose from all the Obligations of Christianity as if they had never own'd it And therefore the true Sense of Christians ought not to be taken from their practice after it had been the thriving Religion for then it was made a Trade but from their Professions in such times when they had no other Motive to embrace it but it self for then it is certain that all that did so were in good earnest It being then so evident that the Christians through all Ages down to Constantine profess't and practiced the duty of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience to all Princes without reserves and exceptions as an indispensible Law of their Religion that is a clear full and unanswerable declaration of the Sense of the Primitive Church in this matter however any might fall into a contrary behaviour in times of ease and prosperity For then it is impossible but that there would be many in the Church that were not of it as we have shewn above from the complaint of Eusebius and others how the Credulity of Constantine was abused by pretended Converts to the great dishonour of his Government and Oppression of his People And yet I think no Man could think it reasonable to upbraid Christianity with their Scandals and if Julian found multitudes of such Men in the Church when he came to the Empire what wonder would it be if Men that were in reality no Christians made any unchristian Attempts against him So that granting our Apostates the truth of their Plea from the behaviour of Christians towards Julian this one thing utterly barrs their Conclusion that this was the avowed practice of Christians at that time when at the time that he came to the Empire there were as many in the Church that were not as that were Christians But because it is to be supposed that the Counterfeits fell off with the Apostate I will allow the Plea that if the Christians who persevered in the Faith committed any of those disloyal and Seditious pranks that the Apostates charge upon them that then the blame shall lye at the Church door And yet so as not to make a Precedent for imitation because it is a single Enormity both from the plain Laws of the Religion and the universal Practice of all its Professors and after that it is a very impertinent way of arguing to draw any Conclusion from such an Example And yet secondly as impertinent as it is it is much more false for there is not any one instance of any one Christian in all his Reign that ever made any resistance to any one of his Commands And then whatever they did beside to affront him that is nothing to warrant the practice of Resistance and shews that in whatsoever hatred and contempt they held his Person yet notwithstanding that they thought themselves bound in duty to an entire Submission to his Government And therefore of their ill manners and uncourtly behaviour towards him I shall discourse by it self because that concerns not the Argument of Resistance and shall at present only shew that they were so far from putting any such design in practice that they all expresly disclaimed and defied it as utterly inconsistent with the
here a Courtier whether through ignorance or to divert any farther discourse about the Tyrian Council steps in and swears that he was deposed by the Council of Nice To which the grave Bishop could make no other reply then a scornful smile and so proceeds to represent the foul dealings of the Tyrian Council the Forgeries and Recantations of Valens and Ursacius but here he is again upon a dangerous point and so is again interrupted by the Courtiers with rude and impertinent reflections upon the drift of his discourse and there is an end of all the Conference upon that point The next great Jealousie that they had blown into the Emperours head was that Athanasius had so little Wit Manners and Religion as to have made it a great part of his business to make bate between the Emperour and his Brother and carried it on so effectually that if Constantius had not very much restrain'd his own Passion it had broken out into an open and Fatal War and he is so much possest with this jealousie that he professes that the Victory over Magnentius though he run mad for joy of it was not more acceptable to him then one over Athanasius would be But to this the Bishop replyes That if it were true it was most proper for the Emperour to punish such an Offender at his own Tribunal and not to force the Ecclesiastical Judicature to condemn a Person of any Crime unheard But when nothing will do he has his choice either to subscribe the Condemnation or leave his Bishoprick The first he peremptorily refuses and so is banisht to Beraea in Thrace and Faelix his Arch-Deacon put into his place And here it is again observable that Faelix was no Arian himself but a Stickler for the Nicene Faith only allowing the Arians a capacity of Communion with the Church And that is the thing that I affirm all along to have been the Eusebian Cause not to restore Arianism but to piece up the Peace of the Church by comprehending all in one Communion or by mutual forbearance So that notwithstanding that vehement out-cry that has been hitherto made of the Universal Predominancy of Arianism under Constantius especially at this very moment of time I do not find it hitherto so much as own'd nor any man preferr'd upon the account of his being an Arian Auxentius that was at this very time thrust into the place of Dionysius of Milan has as bad a Character as any man of the time yet St. Hilary himself though he were apt enough to make Arians by Consequences says of him that he always openly disclaim'd Arianism though he suspects that it was because he dâ—rst not own it so that whatever was at bottom it is evident that the Arian Heresie it self in all this Controversie never appear'd at top And those very Bishops that are represented as the most zealous Arians were rather Atheists then Heretiques The Head and Founder of the Party was Eusebius of Nicomedia and what a worthy Saint he was already appears from the Tenour of his whole life But when by his unfortunate favour at Court he had got the Power of the Church into his own hands especially the disposal of Bishopricks and made that the only qualification for Preferment to join with him and his malice against Athanasius in this case it is no wonder if the vilest of Men flockt in to his Party in as great sholes as Irish Evidences to a Plot. And such were Valens and Ursacius Men Educated in Villany and so hardened in their wickedness that they were past shame at its very discovery and when they could not stand out a Perjury they would impudently confess it and then â—ace it out and ask Pardon with as little remorse as modesty and when they had unsworn a Perjury they would the next opportunity swear it all good again And such an one was Epictetus as he is described by Athanasius a Neophite rash and daring and therefore dear to Constantius because he found him prompt and dextrous at all manner of Wickedness and so could by his help ensnare what Bishops he pleased for he would never stick at any thing so it were but acceptable to the Emperour And it is the same Character that is given of Cecropius and Auxentius that they were Men of no worth and prefer'd for no other merit then meerly their dexterity in wickedness to destroy good Men. And such an one was George of Cappadocia who was thrust into the place of Athanasius as he is described by Gregory Nazianzen his Countrey-man the most notorious Villain of the Age He was a Monster bred up in the Borders of our Country of an ill-bred but a worse Temper a Slave and a waiter at other Mens Tables and so of no value that he was sold for a Bushel of Corn and by this baseness he was inured to do or say any thing for Bread till at length he crept into some publick Employment though the vilest that could be to be Hoggard to the Army which he discharged with so much cheating and knavery that he was forced to fly and so wandred up and down the World till at length he setled at Alexandria where though he had made an end of his Travels he did but begin his mischiefs and though he were contemptible in all points of no Learning no Wit no Conversation not so much as pretending to a shew of Piety fit for nothing but to make mischief and disturbance he outed so great a Man as Athanasius and as vile a Wretch as he was presumed to get himself placed in his Episcopal Throne And yet this very Wretch is vehemently recommended to the Alexandrians by the Emperour 's own Letter as one of the best Divines in the World So miserably did his Eunuchs abuse the good meaning of this poor Emperor as to put the vilest of Men into the best of Preferments for Money and as he got it so he used it not like a Bishop but a Publican till his Oppressions cost him his life for which he had the good fortune in the barbarous Ages of the Church to be Canonised among the Principal Saints and Martyrs For in all the timely Records of the Church I can find no other St. George then this And this was the peculiar miscarriage of this Emperour 's unhappy Reign that the Preferments were got into wicked hands and then it is not to be doubted but that wicked Men would get into the Preferments and things were so basely carried at last that nothing seem'd to keep up the good old Eusebian Cause but the advantage that it gave ill Men for Ecclesiastical Plunder and Sequestration But to return to the train of the Story Liberius the Bishop of the great City being dispatcht the last Enemy to be overcome was the great Hosius that Father of Councils who by reason of that high Authority that he had acquired in the Christian Church both by his Age and Wisdom was
able by himself alone to keep up the Orthodox Faith against all the Power of the Emperor And therefore he is Summon'd to Court and courted to join in the Condemnation of Athanasius but he satisfied the Emperor so well by his reasons to the contrary that he is dismist with all Civility but by the importunity of the Eunuchs who feared that this escape would make an ill Precedent he is immediately followed with a furious Epistle commanding him to comply or to expect the fortune of his Companions to which the good old Man nothing daunted returns a bold but yet a civil Answer lays before the Emperor at one view the whole Train of Villany against Athanasius that had been so often proved and then leaves it to himself to consider whether it became his Majesty at that time of the day to suffer himself to be made a Tool by such Perjur'd Wretches as Valens and Ursacius and so in short he denies all compliance and defies his threatnings and upon it he is immediately seized and conveyed to Sirmium and there kept in custody till the meeting of a Council in that City the year following And though the fury of the Emperour 's or rather his Eunuchs Persecution in these European Parts is here somewhat interrupted by the Incursions of the barbarous Nations into Gaul yet he rages so much the more fiercely in AEgypt especially at Alexandria sending Syrianus with some Legions of Soldiers to murther Athanasius who besets his Church in the night where the People were then Assembled and are commanded by Athanasius in the Name of God to depart quietly and himself by a kind of Miracle makes his escape through the body of the Soldiers that had encompassed him at the Altar but he being fled and lying conceal'd in the Deserts Constantius is prevail'd with to put that Learned Divine as he calls him George into his Room but what a notorious Villain he had ever been is already described but now being got into Authority he commits all manner of outrages in the City makes divers slaughters in the Churches themselves imprisons Virgins Widows and Orphans seizes on the Orthodox Christians by night and throws them into Goal ejects all Bishops throughout AEgypt and Lybia that refuse to subscribe the Condemnation of Athanasius and of these some he banishes others he imprisons in short he sweeps all away before him like a Land-flood and bears away all the Orthodox Clergy out of their Possessions in the Church Athanasius reckons up no less then Ninty Bishops ejected in AEgypt whereof Sixteen were banisht But the worst of all is still behind their Bishopricks are sold to Heathens Soldiers or any Chapmen that would bid most Money for them and so all ill Men of what Profession or Religion soever or rather of none at all crowded into the Party for the purchase of a Bishoprick and so was the whole Church put into the hands of wicked and debauch't Men who could do no service in it but in the way of out-rage and cruelty and in short the sury of this Persecution through all Africk is described by Athanasius not only to have equall'd but exceeded any of the Heathen Persecutions both for rudeness and cruelty But still himself was the Man aim'd at in it all great rewards are promised by publick Edicts to the Man that shall slay him and blood-hounds are sent out into all Parts to scent out his Form but by a great wonder of Providence he lyes undiscovered all the time of Constantius And in this retirement he did himself and the World that right as to write those two excellent Discourses in his own Vindication viz. his Epistle to the Monks and his first Apology to Constantius in both which he has with that clearness of Reason and evidence of Record laid open the wickedness of the Eusebians in the contrivance of all his Troubles from the time of the Council of Nice to that very day that it is not so properly an History as a Demonstration for he has related nothing that he has not proved by undeniable Records And the truth of it is he is the only valuable Historian of his own Actions for all the Historians are so confused in their account of him that as they are not to be at all trusted when they differ from him so are they very little to be relied upon in any Report that is not vouch't by his Authority §. XV. Thus far has this long Controversie been carried on between the Eusebians and the Abâ—ttors of the Nicene Faith but now the Arian Cause is again brought upon the Stage in another guise by Photinus Bishop of Sirmium who revives the old exploded Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus that differs from Arianism only in this one Circumstance That it affirms the Son of God not to have been Created till the time of his Nativity whereas Arius will have him to have been the first-born of all Creatures yet they both agree in the main Poison of the Heresâ—e That he was a Being Created out of Nothing and then it is not much material in it self how soon or how late it was brought to pass But yet however this new-vampt Hypothesis appearing more bold and tending to bring down the Son of God into the same rank with every ordinary Son of a Woman whereas Arius allowed him great share in the Creation of the Universe and an eminency of Power and Dignity over all other Creatures This therefore alarms all Parties Catholicks and Eusebians and a Council is call'd at Sirmium for its Condemnation And here the Learned Petavius is as over-nice to disturb the plain History of this Council as I have shewn Valesius to have been in reforming the History of the Council at Rome and the Absolution of Athanasius For as he there took a great deal of pains to make but one Council of two so has our Learned Jesuite here to make two of one For though there is mention of no more then one in all the Ancient Records of the Church yet he has lately found out another that he says has hitherto lain buried under the ruins of St. Hilary's Fragments but alas they are so imperfect and confused that nothing can with any assurance be built upon their single Testimony much less upon remote inferences from them which yet is all the light that this Learned Man is able to strike out of that Rubbish Neither indeed is it tanti to spend so much Learning upon such a lean and barren Enquiry for whether there were two or one Sirmian Councils they were call'd upon the same Errand and as I shall prove were of the same mind and what that is we sufficiently know by the Records of that which he would have to be the second whereas the most that we can know of the first beside this is only that there was such a Council and if that be all I cannot see what Temptation the Learned Man could have to be so proud of his