judicium neque nunc sibi praepositum Episcopum cogitantes quod nunquam omnino sub antecessoribus factum est cum contumeliâ contemptuPraepositi totum sibi vendicent ought we to expect from the divine displeasure when some of the Presbyters forgetting both the Gospel and themselves neither regarding the future Judgment of God nor the Authority of their Bishop Challenge what was never done under our Predecessors the whole Power of the Church to themselves to the reproach and contempt of their Bishop These are very severe words and the Crime it seems was look't upon as a thing so horrid at that time that it was till then without Precedent And therefore for the prevention of any further mischief and scandal he writes at the same time an earnest Letter to the People themselves to warn them against the disorderly Actings of his Presbyters But in his Epist. 17. next Letter considering the sickly Season of the year he gives power not only to the Presbyters but to the Deacons to grant Absolution in case of Sickness by vertue of this hisCommission for the Deacons had no Authority of their own to do it and therefore what they did was valid purely by vertue of his Deputation and the validity of Ecclesiastical ministrations depends not upon the outward Act but theAuthority by which they are warranted But it happened that about this time Celerinus a Confessor at Rome writes to Lucianus a Confessor at Carthage to grantAbsolution to some women that had fallen in the Persecution but had made ample satisfaction for it by their eminent Hospitality to the Confessors Upon this Lucianus with the rest of his Brethren Epist. 22. with great heat and rashness grant their peremptory Absolution and signifie their resolution to St. Cyprian with a threatning if he refused to joyn with them that they would not communicate with him To such a wild abuse was the customary priviledge of meer intercession grown that they came at last to supersede and over-rule all the Episcopal Authority Upon this St. Cyprian writes a peremptory Epistle to his Clergy commanding Obedience to his former Orders Epist. 26. to restore no man to the Church till it first pleased God to restore peace to it Instâ—tur interim Epistolis c. And the mischiefs of this licentious Practice to the Subversion of the Peace and Discipline of the Christian Church he represents in an Epistle to the Clergy of Rome That this did but expose the Bishops to the hatred Quae res majorem nobis conflat invidiam ut nos cùm singulorum causas audire excutere caeperimus videamur multis negare quod se nunc omnes jactant à Martyribus Confessoribus accepisse Denique hujus seditionis Origo jam cepit c. and envy of the People that when they would make particular enquiry into every mans case they would seem to the People to defraud them of that favour that was bestowed on them by the Martyrs which had been already the cause of some Seditions in his Province c. And they in an Eloquent Epistle Epist. 30. written by Novatian himself as St. Cyprian informs us in his Epistle to Antonianus approve his Judgment and declare themselves peremptory in his Opinion and so do Moyses and the Confessors then Epist. 28. 31. in Prison at Rome to whom St. Cyprian at the same time writ about the same matter Upon this he writes to the Lapsi themselves that had received Absolution without his Authority to let them know that whatever was done without the Bishop was void and good for nothing The Ordination of Bishops and the Succession Per temporum successionum vices Episcoporum Ordinatio EcclesiaeRatio decurrit ut Ecclesia super Episcopos constituatur omnis actus Ecclesiae perâ—eosdem Praepositos gubernetur Cùm hoc itaque divina lege fundatum sit miror quosdam audaci temeritate sic mihi scribere voluisse ut Ecclesiae nomine literas facerent Quando Ecclesia in Episcopo Clero in omnibus stantibus sit constituta of the Church run together hand in hand through all times and ages so as that the Church is built upon the Bishop and every act of the Church is authorised by the Bishops seeing therefore this is establish't by the Will of God I cannot but stand amazed at the bold rashness of some i. e. Lucianus the Confessors that dare write to me that they may give Letters of pardon in the name of the Church when the Church is made up of the Bishop the Clergy and the faithful Layity Novatus the first contriver of theSchism seeing himself and his Party thus universally run down sets Faelicissimus in the head of it by his boldness and impudence to keep up the sinking cause though Baronius is here so far mistaken as to make An. 254. N. 32. Faelicissimus the first Founder of the Schism notwithstanding St. Cyprian has so expresly given that honour to Donatus together with the occasion of his Quarrel which was nothing else then a design to escape the Discipline of the Church to which he knew himself so obnoxious that he could no other way avoid it but by raising Tumults St. Cyprian after a very severe Character of his wicked temper of Mind thus tells the Story plainly This is the Novatus that first sowed the Idem est Novatus Epist. 53. qui apud nos primum discordiae schismatis incendium seminavit qui quosdam istic ex fratribus ab Episcopo segregavit qui in ipsâ persecutione ad evertendas fratrum mentes alia quaedam persecutionostris fuit Ipse est qui Faelicissimum Satellitem suum Diaconum nec permittente me nec sciente suâ factione ambitione constituit Seeds of Schism and Discord among us that separated the Brethren from their Bishops that in the very time of Persecution became another Persecution himself to subvert the minds of our Brethren It is he that made Faelicissimus the Hector his Deacon without my knowledge or permission by Faction and Ambition And after this account of the Author he lets us know the occasion of the Schism That beside many other scandalous Enormities committed by him Not long before the breaking out of this Uterus uxoris calce percussus Abortione properante in paricidium partus expressus Hanc Conscientiam criminum jampridem timebat propter hoc se non de Presbyterio excitaritantùm sed communicatione prohiberi pro certo tenebat urgentibus fratribus imminebat cognitionis dies quo apud nos causa ejus ageretur nisi persecutio antè venisset Quam iste voto quodam evadendae lucrandae damnationis excipiens haec omnia commisit miscuit ut qui ejici de Ecclesiâ excludi habebat judicium Sacerdotum voluntariâ discessione praecederet quasi evasisse sit paenam praevenisse sententiam Persecution he had so wounded his Wife by a kick
as any other Ceremony whatsoever Now the Bishop being with this great care and caution admitted to his Trust he was consider'd in a treble capacity first in relation to his own Diocess secondly to the Bishops of the Province thirdly to the Catholick Church Within his own Diocess he had the Supreme Government for every Diocess though it be but a Member of the Catholick Church is yet a distinct Society of it self and ordinarily Govern'd by a Jurisdiction within it self and that was by the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters in which he enjoyed such a Supremacy that no act of the Presbyters could be valid without his Consent and Authority and yet his Supremacy was so confin'd that he could as little act without the concurrence of his Presbyters as they without his Now this Episcopal Superiority acting only in conjunction with the Presbyters was the most proper method that could have been contrived to prevent confusion on one hand and Tyranny on the other For where a Body of Men act in an equality of Power without some real Authority above them nothing can be expected but perpetual Factions and Animosities And on the other side a Power purely Monarchical without any Associates in the Government may easily if it please degenerate into Tyranny and when it does so has nothing to restrain it and though Tyranny be an ugly thing in Civil Government yet in the Ecclesiastical it is far more indecent because Church Power is founded upon the profession of Meekness and Humility But though the Bishops ever associated the Presbyters in Authority with them from the time of the Apostles yet I imagine that there are no Footsteps of any Divine Command requiring it though its early practice may prove it an Apostolical Custom and Tradition but if it was it was for any thing we know their own voluntary act as becoming the modesty of Christian Governors But the Jurisdiction of the Church being thus seated in the Bishop and his Colledge of Presbyters matters were so effectually ordered that their Acts were not only valid within their own Precincts but in the Catholick Church all the World over Thus it is Enacted that if any Clergy-man or Lay-man excommunicate or any way unfit to be received shall be received in another City i. e. according to the Language of those times in another Diocess without commendatory Letters both he that receives him and he that is received shall be excommunicate And if any Clergy-man shall quit his own Diocess without his Bishops leave he shall be degraded from his office And the Bishop that shall receive such an one in his Clerical Capacity shall be excommunicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Master of confusion or an enemy to the peace and unity of the Catholick Church No Clergy-man that is excommunicate by his own Bishop shall be absolved by another as long as that Bishop lives And no Clergy-man of what Order soever not a Bishop himself is to be so much as relieved without commendatory Letters No Bishop is to ordain in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition There is no Flight or Appeal from one single Bishop to another but if any man thought himself aggrieved by his own Bishop he had power of Appeal to the Bishops of the Province who were to assemble twice a year in Council to Debate Matters of great weight in the Church especially to review the Acts of Government in every particular Diocess of the Province that if they found any wrong Judgment they might reverse it or if any harsh or too severe they might mitigate it Here is all the care in the World taken to preserve the Efficacy of the Discipline in every Church and it was so religiously observed in the Primitive times that I do not remember one instance of its being violated till the time of the Constantinopolitan Usurpation And it is reckoned among the many other strange Enormities of Dioscorus by the Council of Calcedon in their Epistle to the Emperours Valentinian and Marâ—ian in which they give an account of the reasons of his Deposition viz. That he had received several Persons legally excommunicate by his single Authority in contempt of the Holy Canons which command that those that are excommunicate by one be not received into Communion by another And in pursuance of the foremention'd Apostolical Canons to preserve the Authority of every Bishop within his own Jurisdiction it was afterward decreed by the Nicene Council that there shall be no redress no nor complaint against the Sentence of the Diocesan Bishop unless it be at the meeting of the Provincial Synod And it is said that at the motion of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople for prevention of Frauds and Cheats in Canonical Epistles such an artificial form was contrived by the Council as was impossible to be counterfeited The form is extant in Gratian Distinct. 73. it is somewhat remarkable and very well worth the perusal But it is plain that they confined every Bishops power within his own Circuit and every Clergy-man to his own Bishops Jurisdiction And all the following Councils stick close to the same principles of Discipline though the African Bishops were more strict then other Churches in this as well as all other points of Government no Travelling among them without dimissory Letters And if any Bishop carried a complaint to any Forraign Church he stood ipso facto excommunicate to all the African Churches But lastly beside this form of Provincial Government in which all matters of common concernment were determined by the major Vote of the Episcopal Synod and by which all the Diocesses within the Province were united and cemented into one Communion there was a common tye of Government between the Bishops of several Provinces in whose Concord consisted the Unity of the Catholick Church so much talked of by the Ancients And this was chiefly kept up by Communication of Synodical Letters which was not an Arbitrary correspondence but an indispensable duty of every Church to every Church so that whatever Bishop neglected it he was for that reason cast by all others out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and by this device every Act of Discipline in every Church was of force in all Churches all the World over and whoever was taken in a Member of one Church had a right from it to communicate in all Churches and whoever was cast out of the same stood excommunicate to the whole Christian World And this was done with all security and expedition by setling the power of correspondence in every Province upon the Metropolitan and by the mutual intercourse of Metropolitans all the general Affairs of the Church were transacted And therefore upon the choice of a new Metropolitan it was the custom to signifie his Election to all the rest that they might know to whom to direct their corresponding and communicatory Letters Thus the Synod of Antioch that deposed Paulus Samosutenus in
be divided into two parts yet both inherit their own share in solidum and so if two Men be bound for the same Debt if they are bound each Man in partem they are obliged to pay but half share but if they are obliged in solidum either of them is bound to pay all And this is St. Cyprian's State of Episcopacy that though many share the Authority yet every Bishop has as full possession of his own share within it self as if there were no other Seeing as he elsewhere expresses it a Parcel of the Flock is allotted to the care of its particular Pastor which every one is bound to guide and govern and to account to God for the discharge of his Episcopal Office Neither was this his singular Notion but the unanimous and settled Sense of the Ancients Thus the Author of Clement's Institutions brings in the Apostles Writing after this manner to all Christian Bishops We being all gathered together have written to you this form of Catholique Doctrine For the Confirmation of you to whom is entrusted the Catholique Episcapacy of the Church This was the entire Sense of all Ignatius his Epistles which suppose the full Jurisdiction of every particular Church to be placed in the Bishop and his own Clergy So Tertullian It is necessary that so many great Churches should be that one and first derived from the Apostles from whom all are derived and therefore they are all but one and yet several Apostolical Churches So all the Ancient Canons inhibit every single Bishop even the Metropolitan to intermeddle in anothers Diocess upon pain of Deposition Neither is this Supremacy of Power in every Bishop any abatement of the just Rights of Metropolitans For in the Primitive Church as I have shewn in a former Treatise Metropolitans had no Power over inferiour Bishops but in conjunction of the Synod of the Province So that it was the Synod not the Metropolitan that had the Superiour Power over every single Bishop And it is evident that he was as liable to the Sentence of the Synod as the meanest Bishop of the Province as appears from the case of Paulus Samosatenus and Metropolitans considering their number were as often censured and Deposed as other Bishops And this is the reason of St. Cyprian's so earnestly disclaiming the Title of Episcopus Episcoporum because though his own Metropolitical Jurisdiction were of great extent yet as a single Bishop he had no Superiority over any other Bishop no Authority to punish his Misdemeanors to receive Appeals from his Sentence or to order and rectifie any thing within his Diocess All such Power was to be exerted only in Synodical Conventions in which he had the Honour and Authority of Presidency but the Jurisdiction was seated in the Body of the Council without whose concurrence had he presumed to do any thing more then any other Bishop his least punishment had been certain Deposition This was the real State of things in the Ancient Church and Metropolitans never took upon them any Power over their Collegues or Brother-Bishops by their own single Authority till after the Papal Usurpation neither then did they challenge it as Metropolitans but as Legates to the Pope and that was one of the highest branches of the Usurpation But before that time the Governours of the Church were not more watchful against any one thing then that one Bishop should not claim any power over another Now this Principle being first laid That the whole Episcopal Authority is vested in every Bishop the next that is consequent upon it is That whoever separates from the Communion of his Bishop or sets up another against him is a Schismatick and this was the Subject of almost all his Epistles concerning the Restitution of the Lapsi or such as fell in time of Persecution For they according to the Ancient Discipline of the Church were not to be received into Communion but by these degrees First they were to Petition to be admitted to Penance and that upon confession of their fault was granted and then having undergon the Penance imposed they made a publick Confession of their Crime before the Congregation and upon that they received Absolution by the Imposition of the hands of the Bishop and Câ—ergy and after that they were admitted to the Holy Eucharist or Full-Communion But instead of this solemn severity of Discipline some of his own Presbyters had been so rash as without the consent of their Bishop to give them entire Absolution and admit them to entire Communion This was the opening of that unhappy Schism that afterward created so much trouble both to himself and the Church of God For when these Presbyters had so illegally restor'd those Enormous offenders they prevail'd by their Importunity upon the good Nature of the Martyrs and Confessors to intercede for their Restitution it being an Honour and Prerogative allowed them in the ancient Church to admit Sinners more easily to repentance upon their Request because they had by the constancy of their sufferings compensated for the scandal that the others had given by their Fall But instead of interceding for their admission to Penance these well meaning men move St. Cyprian for their complete Absolution without it to which he replies that they who had with so much courage and devotion kept the Faith of our Lord ought to be as â—areful of keeping his Law and Discipline †Epist. 16. per totum But yet he is willing to excuse them not only because they did it out of ignorance of the Laws of the Church and out of modesty being meerly overcome by the importunity of others but because they proceeded no farther than only to intercede with him in whom they acknowledge the Power and Authority of granting Absolution whereas the Presbyters had subverted all the Order of the Church by presuming upon it without him These slighting that dignity and respect which the Martyrs Hi sublato honore quem nobis beati Martyres cum confessoribus servant contemptâ domini lege observatione quam iidem Martyres Confessores tenendam mandant ante extinctum persecutionis metuÌ„ ante redituÌ„ nostruÌ„ ante ipsum pene MartyruÌ„ excessum communicent cum lapsiis offerant Eucharistiam tradant Confessors care fully observed despising the Law of God which those Good Men required to be kept before the fear of Persecution is over before our Return before the very consummation of the Martyrs themselves communicate with and give the Eucharist to the Apostates And therefore at the begining of this Epistle in which he so candidly excuses the Martyrs he reproves the rashness and disorder of the Presbyters with more then usual warmth and vehemence of Expression What Punishment Quod enim periculum non metuere debemus de offensâ domini quando aliqui de Presbyteris nec Evangelii nec loci sui memores sed neque futurum domini
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 Renouncing his Saviour for so does every one that denies his distinct Authority and takes it to himself So inseparably is the right of Governing the Christian Church annexed to the Apostolical Office by virtue of our Saviour's Divine Authority that to take it from them and place it any where else is open Rebellion against the Soveraignty of God himself Thus far have I consider'd the wild Consequence of that Opinion that gives all Power in the Christian Church to the Civil Magistrate and shewn not only that it gives them what no Prince was ever so Extravagant as to challenge a Power to Administer the Sacraments a Power to Ordain Ecclesiastical Officers a Power to do all those Offices that are known all the World over to be proper only to the Ecclesiastical Function but withal that it apparently takes away all Authority from our Saviour himself And this in the Conclusion of all I must say for Mr. Hobbs that though he sticks not to own all these bad Consequences he affirms no more then what he is forced to by his first Assertion and whoever gives the proper Ecclesiastical Power to the Civil Sovereign if he will not own Mr. Hobbs his Consequences must quit his own Assertion And this I shall prove in its proper place upon all the followers of Erastus that will not acknowledge any form of Ecclesiastical Government settled by Divine Right they must Renounce their Christianity and be Baptized into the Church of Leviathan §. V. And now having avoided these two dangerous extremes one whereof destroys our Government and the other our Religion upon the supposition of the Truth of the Premisses there are and ever must be in all Kingdoms and Common-wealths where Christianity is Entertain'd and Protected two distinct Jurisdictions so as that if we confound them both together or that either invade or intrench upon the other it is as much as our Christianity is worth and the wrong either way will light at last upon our Saviour's own Authority For if the Priest challenge any Temporal Jurisdiction as derived from our Saviour beside the violation of the Rights of Sovereign Powers he directly affronts his Masters own Government and in effect disclaims it For his Kingdom is purely Spiritual and he becomes our Lord and Saviour by virtue of his Supremacy over it and therefore to pretend to any Power of another Nature from him as head of his Church is the thing that I charge with turning Christ into Mahomet and forces upon him in spight of his own Protestation against it a Temporal Dominion Which is such an abuse of his Institution and such a contradiction to his whole Design that to call him Impostor would not be a greater Blasphemy For this implies no less then that under pretence of such a Religious and Innocent design of erecting a Kingdom but not of this World he really intended no other Design then to advance an Universal Empire over all the World and all the Sovereign Powers of it And on the other side if a Sovereign Prince shall assume to himself the Exercise of that Power that is peculiarly vested in the Governors and Officers of the Church and so take upon him the sole Government of it as such instead of Governing the Church he destroys it when every Church as a Church is capable of no other Government then what was delegated to the Apostolical Office by our Saviour's own special Commission after the full settlement of the Rights of Sovereign Princes So that after this for them to take it to themselves is to act not only without but against our Saviour's own express Commission when he has so particularly appropriated that Power to another Order of Men. Neither is it only an encroachment upon our Saviour's own Authority but an assuming of it to himself In that the Prince thereby Challenges the Supreme Government of our Saviour's Kingdom without any Commission from him and then has it by virtue of his own Title and not of our Saviour's Grant and then is our Saviour plainly turn'd out of his Kingdom and another seated in his Throne Now this being the true State of the Christian Church the grand difficulty that follows upon it and that has hitherto so much puzled most Men in this Debate is the danger of Competition between two Supreme Powers For if they happen to contradict each other as of later time they have too often done who shall over-rule If a man obey his Prince contrary to the Prescription of his Spiritual Guide he may endanger his Soul if he obey the Bishop he disobeys his Prince and thereby forfeits his Neck to Justice This Knot is thought so difficult that instead of untying it it is generally cut asunder and the competition avoided by denying the distinction Thus the Romanists that are the high flying Assertors of Ecclesiastical Power unanimously confine all the Power of Sovereign Princes to things Secular and take away all Authority from them in matters Ecclesiastical And on the other side the greatest part of those that Assert the Royal Supremacy deny any Jurisdiction at all in Ecclesiastical Officers making their whole Function meerly Ministerial or nothing but a right to perform and administer the Offices of the Church but as for any Power or Jurisdiction in it they have none but what is granted by the Civil Magistrate But both these run into all the fore-mention'd ill Consequences the first by denying the King's Supremacy over all things within his own Dominions The second by denying our Saviour's Supremacy over his Catholick Church in all places by which he has every where settled a Power in his Deputies distinct from the Power of Princes so that either of these Extremes howsoever minc'd and stated still carry us upon the same Precipice Though this difficulty becomes so much the more nice because of the more Ancient Possession of Sovereign Powers in that before the Institution of the Christian Church they govern'd their Kingdoms without Competitors and therefore have reason to be jealous of this new Authority as an encroachment upon their old Soveraignty For whereas before the setting up of this the whole and sole Power within their Dominions was in themselves now they seem to enjoy but a kind of divided Empire and see another erected in it backt by no less Authority then the immediate and miraculous Power of God himself and that is greater then the greatest Power upon Earth so that by it they seem not only to be rivall'd but over-topt in their Authority That is that Providence that had hitherto made them Supreme under it self within their own Dominions seems hereby to introduce a Superiour Power over their Heads by his own more immediate Institution All which seems to be an unavoidable contradiction to the first Principle that I have laid of a Christian Church that it makes no alteration or abatement of the Rights of Sovereign Princes But all these difficulties as big and as dreadful as they may
prosecute more largely when I come to shew the Grounds and Reasons upon which this Duty of Universal Subjection is founded and these I shall demonstrate from the Use the Nature and the Original of Government that cannot subsist but upon its supposition And then I shall take an account of all the republican and antimonarchical Principles and shew that all their Hypotheses concerning Government first contrived by the Common-wealths-men of Greece stand upon no firmer bottom than meer fable and poetry and in particular that their fundamental Principle of deriving all Government from the People is built upon no wiser supposition then this That the World was once peopled with Men and Women that sprung out of the Earth both without a Creatour and without Parents And then in the last place shew that the Hildebrandinists of all Sects Bellarmine Suarez Mariana Lessius Becanus Boucherius and others on the Papal side Buchanan Junius Brutus Rutherford Mr. B. and other of the Presbyterian side all agree in this one Principle of deriving the Government from the People and make it the last pretence of all their pleas for resistance upon what account soever In the mean time I proceed upon the Authority of the Scriptures §. 8. That is the second advantage that the Christian Religion brings along with it for the security of Civil Government viz. the many Laws that it has injoyn'd to bind Subjects to an entire and absolute subjection The third is this That those that are entrusted with highest Authority in the Church are most severely forbidden to challenge to themselves any temporal power or dominion and strictly commanded to exercise their own jurisdiction with all manner of meekness and humility towards their Inferiours and an exemplary submission to their Superiours And this is a new Tye upon them beside all the former obligations from the nature of Christianity the doctrine of the Cross the Precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles in common to them with all other Christians to an entire and unreserved subjection Thus when our Saviour had constituted the Apostles supreme Governours in his Church he beats them all off from all Thoughts of worldly pride and ambition and instructs them to exercise their Power though it were so very great with that complyance and condescention as if they had in reality none at all For all our Saviour's Precepts to his Apostles to avoid domination relate wholly to the manner of exercising their Authority and not to the Authority it self as the Enemies to the Christian Church would force them to imply For that the Apostles were vested with true and proper Power is evident both from their Office all the Acts whereof we have shewn to be Authoritative and from our Saviour's own immediate Grant in which he expressly declares That he leaves to them and their Successours the same Power that himself had received from his Father So that if he had any real Authority at all so had they too and if they had none neither had he And therefore those several Texts that are usually alledged to take away the Power of the Church cannot be understood of any thing but the manner of its exercise without any pride or haughtiness and with all manner of gentleness and condescention to those that were under their Authority And if we take an Account of the particular passages themselves they will force us to take them in this sense and no other Thus when they were contending among themselves our Saviour calls them to him and tells them The Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise Authority upon them but it shall not be so among you But whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief or Ruler among you let him be your Servant even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Which words though they are alledged by Grotius in the Book of his Youth de Imperio against all manner of Authority in the Church beside that of perswasion which is none at all Yet in his Notes upon the Gospels he clearly shews the Vanity and the Falsehood of that Interpretation And no wonder when it is done so expressly by the Words themselves in which our Saviour shews his Apostles how they may observe this Rule by following his Example Now it is plain says he that it cannot be said of him that he had no Authority when he says of himself that he had all Power in Heaven and Earth and therefore it cannot refer to the Being of Authority it self but to its kind and the manner of using it That as he notwithstanding the greatness of his Dignity behaved himself rather like a Servant than a Lord and instead of imperious commanding his Subjects condescended to the lowest Offices towards them thereby to endear them to himself and the gentleness of his Government so should all Pastours and Governours in the Christian Church not insult and domineer over their Flocks not govern them with an arbitrary Power or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tyrannical dominion as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it nor enslave them to their own interest and insolence as the Roman Prefects did the Provinces particularly the Governours or Ethnarchs of Judaea who as Josephus informs us were known by the particular Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactours But to treat them with all gentleness and to be so far from using them like Slaves that they should rather behave themselves to them like Servants i. e. in short to mix nothing of Arrogance with their Authority And that truly becomes the Person and Dignity of a Christian Prelate as St. Chrysostom paraphrases upon it to be affable and courteous to be kind and gentle to be familiar and condescending to the meanest Persons this gains him respect with all Men and makes his Authority much greater then it would be without it Men will much more readily obey a Superiour that obliges more then he commands Whereas on the contrary says he if a Bishop be proud and surly or if rough and peevish or if when he ought to reprove he scold and braul or if when he should command he huffs or domineers or if he affect to be troublesome to his Inferiours and shew the greatness of his Power by nothing else then being pert and vexatious he justly exposes himself to the contempt of all Men loses the respect due to his Person and the Reverence due to his Place Nothing so odious or despicable as a Clown in any Authority but in Church Authority it is so offensive that the indignity of it is not to be express't it is so wide a contradiction to the Place and Office Now the sense of this Text being thus stated as it is by this Eloquent Father it fixes the meaning of all the rest thus when St. Peter exhorts the Pastors not to Lord it over God's heritage where it is all one whether
of the Primitive Church where we shall find the whole matter so fairly and so easily accorded that it is next to a miracle how it should ever be made so great a difficulty in these later times But it hapned in this as it did in most other things at the time of the Reformation that men saw themselves wrapt up they knew not how in woful Errours and Corruptions but did not and indeed as the World then stood could not immediately discover the true original state of the Church as it was at first setled by our Saviour and his Apostles and received into protection by Constantine and the Christian Emperours So that though they had Eye-sight enough and God knows very little would serve their turn to discern the follies and abuses of Rome they were at a loss how to fix the right Reformation and for want of the ancient Records of the Church that lay buried in dust and rubbish at that time could make but slow improvements in it So that before the true state of the Church could be clearly and fully discover'd most of them were setled in some way or other and after any new settlement it is very difficult to make any Alteration and therefore they continue in their first posture to this day But the Church of England at the very first Attempt resolving to reform it self by the Example of the Primitive Church and having the good fortune to retain the Apostolical form of Episcopal Government in subordination to the Royal Power set it self in a right way to Reformation And so as the state of things came to light by degrees brought its work to some competent Perfection For the Reformation of the Church after such an inveterate degeneracy must needs be a work of so great bulk and difficulty that it is an unreasonable thing to expect that it should be finisht at the first stroke So great a design as that must be a work of time and consideration to be reviewed and amended as the Master-Workmen shall find most convenient So as that they who had a Power first to begin it have an inherent right when ever they think fit to take an account of their own Work and if they find any flaws mistakes or defects in it to make them up by an after-care So that there must be a constant Power residing in the Church to enact or abolish Laws as it judges most serviceable to the present state of things And that is truly and properly the Church of England the Governours of it acting under the Allowance of the Sovereign Power by its establisht Laws and Constitutions with a constant power residing in themselves and their Successours to enact new Laws as they shall judge most beneficial to the Edification of the Church And it is a very crude notion of the Church of England as common as it is that it is to be found in its Canons Articles and Constitutions for that is only the Law and dead rule of the Church of England but the Church properly so call'd consists in its living Authority as setled by our Saviour by which these Laws were at first enacted and are or ought to be still executed and may in some cases be alter'd And that is the great difference between the Law and the Authority of the Church that one is alterable and the other is not The Authority of the Church may make new Laws and cancel old ones but that lasts the same for ever So that for men to talk of this or that Church without a particular form of Government setled in it by our Saviour's own Commission is to turn the Christian Church into a Chimaera and imaginary state of Fairies But as for the Church of England according to the design of its Reformation it consists of a National Synod of Bishops together with a select Convocation of Presbyters representing the whole Body of the Clergy in subjection to the Sovereign Power and in communion with the Catholique Church all the World over as far as it can be attain'd And this is contrived so agreeably to the Primitive Platform the Interest of Government the Nature of Christianity that there is little else defective in it then the honesty and the confidence to own it self and put its own Constitution into effectual practice But of that I shall discourse in its proper place §. 9. At present for the practice of the Primitive Churches Government within it self and as it related to the Civil State it must be consider'd in the two Periods before and after the Conversion of the Empire and by comparing the true face and posture of things in these two so different states we shall have an exact description of the Rights of the Church in all estates and conditions whatsoever But most of all of its easy complyance with the Rights of Civil Government in Christian States and of the safest way for Christian Sovereigns to govern and protect the Church within their Dominions without invading its inherent and unalienable Authority And then last of all I shall compare that Royal Supremacy that is acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England in Causes Ecclesiastical with the sense of the Ancient Church concerning the Authority of Emperours and with the Practice of Christian Princes in the Exercise of this Authority And by shewing their compleat Agreement shall from that Topick distinctly prove that we have in this as well as in other matters attain'd a good degree of Reformation First as for the Period of time before the Conversion of the Roman Empire there are two things to be consider'd first their behaviour towards the Civil Government whilst it supprest and persecuted the Christian Faith Secondly the exercise of their own Authority within themselves From both which it will appear that the Church as a Society founded by Christ challenged a Jurisdiction distinct from and Independant upon the Civil State and that this Jurisdiction was so far from interfering with or abating of the Sovereignty of Princes that it bound them to the strictest Allegiance and Subjection to the most inhumane Persecutors And the Story of this Interval whilst the powers of the Church and the World were separate and indeed as much as it was possible opposite will set before us a much clearer State of the Nature and Extent of the two Jurisdictions then we can have from the Practice of Christian States in which the two Powers concurring in the same Acts of Government it is not altogether so easie to discern their distinct influences but will withal give us the fullest Character of true Christian Loyalty from their practice under the hardest usage and severest persecutions But most of all from their Principles upon which they founded their Obligation to their Practice and when it appears upon what grounds and reasons they submitted to the utmost cruelty of the Civil Government that will prevent the common shift made by all Factious Parties against the Authority of their Example
Opinion of the great merit of Caelibacy was one of the first Superstitions that invaded the Christian Church and was in every Age more busie and forward than any other though I do not find that it could ever obtain the force of Law in the Eastern Church till the Council in Trullo in the year 691 by whom Bishops and no other are forbidden to cohabit with their Wives after Consecration and as that is the first Canon of this kind so is it a flat contradiction to the Apostolical Canon And though the Council endeavour to excuse it yet they do but the more grosly entangle themselves by their own Apology and instead of defending their fault confess it For when they have made the Canon they tell us that they do not intend thereby to contradict the Apostolical Canon when the very making of it is an express contradiction to it And in the very next Canon they condemn the Church of Rome for prohibiting marriage to Priests and Deacons and make good their Decree from this very Canon that equally allows it to all Orders But above all commend me to Gratian upon this Argument who when he has in two whole Chapters recited several Ancient Canons of the Church against this Superstition especially those severe ones of the Council of Gangra and last of all this last mention'd Canon in Trullo in which the marriage of Presbyters and Deacons is expresly warranted he begins his next Chapter with this general Assertion Servanda est ergò continentia ab omnibus in sacris ordinibus constitutis And then proves it by the Decrees of later Popes injoining Caelibacy as a Duty of Piety to all Orders of the Clergy But if they can thus confidently justifie their Innovations out of the Ancients by concluding contrary to their own avowed and express Sense I confess they may make good any Cause though I should think it would be much more adviseable to let fall such a Cause as can be no better way defended Another remarkable Law that was Enacted during this Interval by meer Ecclesiastical Authority was the exclusion of all voluntary Eunuchs from Holy Orders And that was made upon occasion of the Heresie of the Valesians who thought themselves bound to this severity against themselves by too rigid an Interpretation of some passages of our Saviour especially that of St. Matthew's Gospel 19. 12. And the same Canon was afterward renewed in a Synod at Alexandria against Origen upon the same account and after that by the great Council of Nice upon occasion of the fact of Leontius who being a Presbyter and very much delighting in the conversation of a young Virgin by name Eustolia and being upbraided with the scandal of using so much freedom with her to prevent that without losing her Society he made the same attempt upon himself that Origen had done for which he was deposed by the Council though afterwards he was contrary to the Canon or rather in defiance to the Council promoted by the Eusebian Faction with whom he sided to the great See of Antioch But hereby we may see the necessity of a Legislative Power in the Church without which there would be no means to restrain all the wild Conceits and Extravagancies that Superstition can blow into Mens fancies So exorbitant a Principle is it so inconsistent with the Peace and preservation of the Church so absurd so foolish and contrary to the Common Sense of Mankind that nothing ought to be imposed by the Governors of the Church but what is expresly imposed by the Word of God There are many more Examples in this Interval both of the settlement of that Polity in the Church that I have above described and of divers wise and prudent Laws made upon particular Occasions but to avoid being too tedious and yet to do the work effectually I shall confine my self to the Writings of St. Cyprian in whose time the State of the Church was brought to perfection and who I may be bold to say understood it as well as any Writer of the Christian Church either before or after his own time and who has stated the whole matter with the greatest clearness and strength of Reason and reduced it to practice with the most unblameable prudence and wisdom and therefore I shall give a more particular and exact account of his Sense of the Government and Unity of the Catholick Church both for the enlightening of some Mens minds who pretend to be so dull that they cannot understand how it should be govern'd in way of external Polity and for a proof of the exact agreement of the Church of England in its design'd Model of Reformation with this Ancient State of the Christian Church This is made much more easie at this time by the late labour of a very learned Prelate of our own in digesting his Writings that had hitherto lay not a little confused into their due and exact order of time For when we certainly know at what time and upon what occasion every discourse was written it must needs make it much more easie and much more useful then otherwise the discourse could have made it self For that Unity is a very desirable thing is agreed on all hands the only dispute is wherein it consists Some will have it to be only an Union of Faith and Charity others of External Polity so as that all Christians are some way or other United under one Government And these we may subdivide into two Parties Either those that place the Unity of the Catholick Church in a Subjection to one single Monarch Or those that set up an Obligation to a Political Unity among all Churches under several Governments So that though every particular Church or Diocess have Supreme Government within it self as to all things that concern its own State yet it is accountable to the Catholick Church i. e. to all other Churches for the Peace of the whole For though a Church may be at Unity within it self yet if it do any thing injurious to the peace of Government in any other Church it becomes Schismatical to the whole Body of the Catholick Church presuming as much as in it lies to overthrow the Discipline of all other Churches This as I take to be the true State of the Controversie so to be St. Cyprian's sense of it §. 12. And the first Principle that runs through all his Writings and lies at the bottom of all his Notions concerning Church Unity is that there is but one Episcopacy setled in the Church by Divine Appointment distributed among the several Bishops of the Catholique Church every one retaining the whole Power within his own Bishoprick as he expresses it like a Lawyer Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every one holds his own share with full Title and Possession For the word in solidum is a Law-term denoting a Plenitude of Title so that though an Estate
Cornelius was lawfully Elected and Consecrated before Novatian and therefore that that alone was enough to null the Title of Novatian Et cum post primum c. And seeing when there is one Bishop there cannot be another whoever pretends to be second after a first who ought to be alone is not the second but none at all And though he gives a large Account of Cornelius his Vertues and the Vices of Novatian yet the Principle that he relyes upon is the Priority of Cornelius his legal Ordination after which for any other man to thrust himself upon what pretence soever into the same Bishoprick is really to thrust himself both out of the particular Church that he invades and out of the Catholick Church against which he Rebels because by the Rules of both one Church is not capable of receiving two Bishops But the Martyrs being reduced and the Schismaticks scatter'd and every where rejected St. Cyprian sets himself to bring the War to a Final Issue and for that end summons a Council at Carthage to settle the Case of the Lapsi forever whereas he informs Antonianus it was after mature debate determin'd with true Ecclesiastical Moderation Scripturis diu ex utrâque parte prolatis c. The Scriptures bâ—ing alledged and urged on either side we temper'd and pois'd the matter with an healing moderation that neither the hope of Restitution should be wholly denyed the Lapsi lest despair should drive them into utter Apostacy nor that the censure of the Church should be so loosned that the Offenders should be lightly admitted to Communion but that upon due Penance and Humiliation every mans particular cause and circumstances being examin'd he should be accordingly treated Which Decree being certified by a Synodical Epistle to Rome Cornelius at the Petition of St. Cyprian as Labbe according to the manner of the Romanists expresses it allows his Confirmation And for the proof of it alledges St. Cyprian's words to Antonianus in which he declares Cornelius his Compliance with the Authority of his determination so that instead of giving force to his Authority he only followed it And as if the number of Ac si minus sufficiens â—piscoporum Numerus in Africâ videbatur etiam Romam super hac re scripsimus ad Cornelium Collegam nostrum qui et ipse cum plurimis Coëpiscopis habito Concilio in eandem nobiscum sententiam pari gravitate et salubri moderatione consensit Bishops in Africa were not sufficient we writ to Cornelius our Collegue at Rome who calling a Council of a great many Bishops approved our Judgment with equal Wisdom and wholsome moderation The Schismatiques being thus utterly routed at Rome they fly back into Africk and there associate to set up another Bishop against St. Cyprian and agree upon Fortunatus which being done Faelicissimus with a Guard of rude and desperate Fellows posts to Rome signifies the Election of their new Bishop to Cornelius and demands Communion with him but is rejected with all manner of scorn and disgrace Upon this they huff and domineer and scare the old Bishop with their lowd threatnings and lowder Lyes particularly that this business was transacted by the concurrent Vote of five and twenty Bishops this puts Cornelius to a stand and hearing nothing all this while of it from St. Cyprian writes to him to know the whole state of the matter who returns him a large and pathetical Narrative of it where he states the whole matter with that Epist. 59. clearness and strength of reason with that evidence of proof with that fulness of Testimony that vanquisht the Faction forever for after that time we hear very little of this sullen Schism And the Fundamental Principle upon which he insists is the Divine Institution of his own Episcopal Superiority Heresies and Schisms arise from no other Fountain Neque enim aliunde Haereses obortae sunt aut nata sunt Schismata quà m inde quòd Sacerdoti dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus sacerdos et ad tempus Judex vice Christi cogitatur cui si secundùm magisteria divina obtemperaret fraterni tas Universa nemo adversum sacerdotuÌ„ collegium quidquaÌ„ moveret nemo post divinum judicium post populi suffragium post coepisco porum consensum Judicem se jam non Episcopi sed dei faceret then because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest at a time is thought to preside in the Church as Christ's Vicegerent To whom if the whole Brotherhood would obey according to the divine commands no man would move Sedition against the Colledge of Priests no man after the Sentence of God the good liking of the People the consent of the Bishops would take upon him to judge not the Bi shop but God him self That was his case that when he had been Canonically Elected and Constituted in the See of Carthage his own Presbyters should presume to out him of his Bishoprick that he held for his life by Dâ—vine Authority And therefore to Travel no farther into this Controversie though the Schismatiques according to the restless Genius of such Men made some faint sallys to save and redeem themselves we plainly see that this was the first Article of St. Cyprian's Unity of the Christian Church the Unity of a Bishop in every Diocesan Church and the dutiful and regular Communion of all its Members with him § 13. The second grand Article and that which has a more diffusive influence upon the Peace and Unity of the Church is the obligation upon all Christian Bishops to preserve Concord and Communion among themselves And as the former unites every Christian to some particular Church so this unites every particular Church to the Body of the Church Catholique And this is that which St. Cyprian and the Ancients intend by the Catholick Church viz. All Churches in the World united into one Body by the Concord of Bishops in the same Rules of Discipline and Government And this is his meaning in those several Passages in which he makes every Church both a perfect Church within it self and yet only a Member of the Church Catholique as in the formention'd Passage in his Book De Unitate Episcopatâ—s â—nus est cujus a singulis in solidâ—m pars tenetur There is but one Episcopacy of which every Bishop possesses his own share with plenitude of Power And in his 56 Epistle A Christo una Ecclesia per totâ—m orbem in multa membra dâ—visa Christ has founded one Church dispers'd through the whole World in many Districts or Divisions And in the same Epistle Episcopatus unus Episcoporum multorum concordi numer sitate diffusus There is but one Episcopacy spread every where by the Concord of all Bishops And in the 68th Epistle Etsi Pastores multi sumus unum tamen gregem pascimus oves universas quas Christus sanguine sâ—o passioâ—â— qâ—aesivit colligere fovere debemus Though we
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
whole Empire was big with a resolution to settle the Peace of the Church as well as the State and once more to quell the Obstinacy of the Shism by the Authority of a General Council But whilst he is designing this great and pious work news is brought him of a worse Flame broke out at Alexdria by means of the Heresy of Arrius that had already engaged not only all Egypt but was blown over into Asia and for the suppression of this dangerous Schism for so at first he look't upon it and therefore only endeavoured to reconcile the Parties he Summons the Great Council of Nice to which among the other Famous Bishops that were present at it Caecilian was summon'd but no Bishops of the Pars Donati as supposing them out of the Communion of the Catholick Church But after this Council we hear little or no thing of the Donatists in this Emperor's Reign himself and the Christian Bishops being wholly employed in quenching that more fatal and pernicious Heresie and how effectually and speedily he rooted up the Heresie it self by the Authority of the Church abetted with the Imperial Power we shall demonstrate in its proper place For though after the Heresie it self was vanquish't by this Council the Hereticks or rather their Friends created him infinite trouble about it by Oblique Arts and for other ends yet this I affirm and shall prove that they durst never own the Heresie it self not only in his time but in all the time of his Son Constantius till the end of his Reign And now here I ought to break off the Story of the Donatists with this Emperors History but their Progress in Schism after his indulgence is such a natural representation of the growth and improvement of Peevishness if once left to its own lâ—berty that I cannot forbear to represent their whola Story at one View especially because it suits a Parallel case that lyes at our own doors so exactly that two Indentures cannot be more like then these two Schisms And the truth of it is all Schisms are but the same for though they are raised about different matters yet they all move in the very same track of Sedition till from meer peevishness they advance to the heighth of Cruelty and end in Rebellion and it is nothing else then the natural method of ill-nature and passion if but suffered to pursue the bent of its own Inclinations And therefore it is no wonder if all Schismaticks howsoever distant in Time Place or Interest follow one another so accurately in the very same steps when they are all acted by one and the same Principle of Nature then it is for Colts to be wild in all Parts of the World if never brought under the Whip and Bridle And that is the greatest benefit of Government to be a curb to the ill-natur'd Passions of Mankind for without that Man would be the most unruly of all Beasts especially the meaner sort of the kind the Rabble that are ever drawn in to be the chief Actors in these Religious Tumults And that is the reason that these are more Cruel and Barbarous then other Seditions because they are carried on by the wildest part of Mankind that have heightned and enflamed their natural Salvageness with the heats of Enthusiasm and Principles of false Religion All which will evidently appear by comparing what our selves have seen and felt with what these wild Schismatiques acted Thirteen hundred years since The actions of both suiting so exactly to each other that had they been the very same Men they could not have acted more like themselves The Twins that were so like that their own Mother could not distinguish them were not more so then these two Schisms though born at such a distance of Time and Place §. IV. The Donatists then having by the Emperours forced Indulgence and the Diversion given him by the Arians gain'd so much ease and quiet as not only to encrease their Schism at home but to carry it into foreign Parts it happened that about the year 331 Donatus Surnamed the Great succeeded Chaplain Majorinus a Man of incredible Pride and Insolence that pretended to familiarity with God and Inspiration from Heaven that could Cant could Lye could Blâ—spheme shift his Face and Pretences with all Turns of Affairs when the Government was in any Streight threaten it with the Numbers of his Party but when his Party was low could write Pleas for Peace and forbearance from the weakness of the Faction and meekness of its Principles And upon any great occasion he had his new Lights and Discoveries from Heaven and when ever he pleased God appear'd to him in Brightness and shewed him the horns in his hands to direct him for serving his Will in that Generation But above all he had an implacable spight against aâ—l Sâ—periours and Governors but most particularly he set himself so accursed was the Envy of his Pride to all that were above him to revile and trample upon the Imperial Majesty it self and to say all the ill that can be said of one Man in one word he was the very I. O. of that Reâ—ellious and Schismatical Age. Under him were spawn'd the Câ—rcumcellians a sort of Levellers or Army Saints whom he stil'd the Captains of the Godly and made them not only his own Life-Guard but an Army against the Power of the Empire These wandred up and down the Country in great Bodys and pretended to reform the Government by Plunder and Robbery and wherever they came set Apprentices free from their Masters and Debtors from their Creditors if they would but join with them to pull down Idolatry and Arbitrary Government And force poor Men to deliver up their Bonds and Indentures to save their Lives And yet all this while they were a very praying People and sought the Lord for direction in all their Villanies And now it is no wonder if Men of these desperate Principles and managed by such a Guide as Donatus proceeded to the heighth both of folly and outrage insomuch that whilst they were in the heat of their Bloód and Zeal they feared no danger out of Ambition of being Martyrs for the cause of God and some of them were so wildly transported as to hang drown and stabb themselves for the Glory of the Lord. And thus for many years they harassed Africa with their Insolence and Cruelty and made the habitable parts of the Country more salvage then the Deserts themselves No Man could dwell in his own House or Travel abroad about his business with any safety but all was exposed to the Rapine of these merciless Robbers Till at length after unspeakable Patience complaint being made by the Catholicks to the Emperor Constans of their deplorable condition he sent two Commissioners Paulus and Macarius with a shew of dividing the Emperors bounty among the poor and distressed and by that means to soften them from that fierceness that they had contracted by this wild Schism to some
Bishoprick swears all over again that he had before forsworn but it seems though he stood not Convicted of Perjury the Court was ashamed of his Evidence for by the Imperial Law a Man that swore manifest Contradictions was supposed to have sworn himself a perjured Person without the formality of any other Conviction But after this they bring upon the Stage such a Plot that if Athanasius had not broken through it by a very lucky Counter-Comedy must have ensnared him beyond all relief On the sudden comes in a beautiful Woman a common Strumpet that had wit and impudence enough to act her part and she with abundance of Tears and all the Solemnities of Grief declares That when she had devoted her self to Virginity she was ravisht by Athanasius And now here you may think that the Eusebians were confident they had him fast enough but they were strangely out-witted for Athanasius stands careless and like a Person unconcern'd and Timotheus one of his Presbyters that stood next to him immediately takes the Accusation upon himself and with great seriousness and passion Expostulates with the Woman where and when he had ever been in her Company at which she directing her discourse to him and pointing directly at him answers Yes Sir it was you you I say that offer'd me this dishonourable violence and rudeness with other foul formâ— of Speech that are usual with such Persons in like cases And yet though this dash't the Court somewhat out of countenance and Athanasius requested that the Woman might be secured for farther Examination yet was â—he dismissed so as never to be found more and he is told that there are much blacker Crimes still behind of which he should be convinced not by his Ears but his Eyes and so out comes the hand of Arsenius for they now supposed themselves secure of him being fled for fear of his life for the Eusebians had threatned that if ever they could reach him they would make him pay dear for his discovery But such was the diligence and so great the Correspondence of Athanasius that he still had him in his Pocket brings him into Court demands whether they knew the Man and he being own'd to be the same both by the Judges and the Evidence he turns back first one side of his Cloak and shews one hand but they cry that it was the other hand that was cut off and to give them encouragement he keeps them in some suspence but after a while when they began to be confident he turns back the other side and brings out the other hand saying You see that Arsenius has his two hands and that is as many as God made him but from whence the third hand was cut off I hope the Evidence will prove and yet for all this his Enemies though as Theodoret observes they ought for meer shame to have wished the Earth to swallow them up quick finding themselves so wofully defeated they send some of the rankest Members of the Committee of Secrecy to Mareotis for new Evidence and in the mean while continue their Sessions from time to time where all things are carried with Tumult and Confusion the Evidence which were numerous and the Rabble crying out and raving for his blood the Emperours Officers that were sent thither to secure the Peace fearing lest as is usual in Seditions the Rabble should take head and tear him in pieces before their faces conveigh him out of the Council and he being tired with all these foul dealings and finding that they were resolved upon his ruine conveighs himself from Tyre and repairs to the Emperor at Constantinople to complain of his hard usage and implore his protection against all that inhumanity that he had suffered in the Council but the Emperor was so prejudiced that he would neither see nor hear him and withal so guarded by the Eusebians that Athanasius could get no admittance into his presence and is forced to accost him in the Streets but the Emperor regards him not scarce gives him any hearing but no answer in the mean time the Committee return from Maâ—eotis with Cloak-bags full of fresh Evidence not to be Communicated any farther then the Committee of Secresie and though all Accusations whatever they were were abundantly controuled and over-power'd by several unexceptionable Certificates from the place in behalf of Athanasius and though even Dionysius himself was at length ashamed of the whole business as he intimates in his Letter to the Eusebians perhaps frighted to it by the bold conclusion of a Letter from the Clergy of the Diocess of Alexandria wherein they tell the Council That they had sent Copies of it to the Emperor himself that so they might not suppress it as by all their unworthy and unjust actings they had too much reason to suspect they would but yet for all this the Committee pretending that they were satisfied of the whole matter Athanasius is in his absence Deposed and Excommunicated the Meletians Absolved and Ischiras made Bishop of his own Village and a Church built on purpose in it for his Cathedral and to compleat the Extravagance of the Scene Arsenius himself was taken into the Council and the Man that was slain by Athanasius voted his Deposition and subscribed it with the very hand that was cut off §. IX But Constantine considering with himself the modesty and reasonableness of Athanasius his request only that he would be pleased to hear him before the Judges that had condemned him it at length put him into some choller and so confident an Appeal made him suspect some foul dealing and therefore he Summons them in high terms immediately to appear before himself to give an account of their proceedings But they being conscious to themselves of the foulness of their actions send only a few of the court-Court-Bishops who craftily wave all their old and bafled Accusations at Tyre amuse and surprise the Emperor with a new Story That Athanasius should threaten to stop the Victualling Ships from Alexandria and boast that it was in his power to starve the City of Constantinople This was a very tender point with the Emperor that touch't his own darling City and this they very well knew he having not long before put his great Favourite Sopaâ—er the Philosopher to death for the very same Accusation So that here as Athanasius himself reports it the Emperour's fury took fire he immediately fell into a rage and without any hearing the cause or without any form of Judgment commanded my speedy banishment into France And shortly after the Emperor dies of whose intention his Eldest Son that best knew it informs us That his Father only removed Athanasius for a time to rescue him from the rage of blood-thirsty Men that were resolved to have his life intending in a little time to restore him to his Bishoprick but was prevented by death And therefore the young Emperor declares That it was in pursuance of his Fathers Will that
Creatura est filius dei Perfecta fides est Deum de Deo credere Et natum aiebant unigenitum solùm ex Deo Patre Quid est natum certè non factum Nativitas suspicionem auferebat Creaturae In the next place he subjoyns several Anathema's so frankly pronounced at the same time by Valens and his Confederates against all parts of the Arian Heresie that could not but prevent all Jealousie of any design to introduce it But the Council being dismist Valens and his Party insult over the Orthodox Bishops as if they had gain'd their point against the Nicene Council Dimisso Concilio caeperunt postea Valens Ursacius caeteriquenequitiae eorum socii palmas suas jactitare dicentes se filium non Creaturam negasse sed similem caeteris creaturis tum Usiae nomen abolitum est Tunc Nicaenae fidei damnatio conclamata est Ingemuit totus Orbis Arianum se esse miratus est The Council being dissolved Valens and Ursacius and the other Associates of their wickedness spread their Plumes boasting that they had not denyed the Son of God to be a Creature but to be like the other Creatures then was the Name of Substance abolish't then was the overthrow of the Nicene Faith proclaimed then did the whole World groan and admire to see it self become Arian But were they so No so far from that that as soon as the Cheat was discovered they run about like so many mad Men tearing their hair and taking the Sacrament upon it that by suspecting no harm they were merely over-reacht by wicked men and abhorred that ill use that Valens and his Villains had madeof their Condescention and begg'd pardon of the World for their Folly and Easiness Concurrebant Episcopi qui Ariminensibus dolis irretiti sine conscientiâ haeretici ferebantur contestantes corpus domini quicquid in Ecclesiâ sanctum est se nihil mali in suâ â—ide suspicatos Putavimus dicebaâ—t sensum congruere cum verbis nec in Ecclesià Dei ubi simplicitas ubi pura confessio est aliud in corde clausum esse aliud in labiis proferri timuimus Decepit nos bona de malis existimatio non sumus arbitrati sacerdotes Christi adversus Christum pugnare This is their Protestation and how well they made it good we shall see in the next Reign but however evident it is that St. Jerom never intended by this passage as it is vulgarly abused that Arianism had really prevailed over the Orthodox World but on the contrary that the Orthodox World was astonsh't to see it self over-reach't by it And so ended this great Council of Ariminum in meer fraud and violence And that in the management of Church Affairs as long as our Saviour's own settlement of it in the whole Body of Christian Bishops is regarded can never come to any lasting effect though an Ecclesiastical Monarchy is as lyable to corruptions and abuses as any other State or Government and particularly with how much ease and no power but that of the Church it self all these mighty Contrivances were brought to nothing we shall see in the Reign of Julian §. XVII But as ill as the Council of Ariminum concluded that of Seleucia ended worse and came to nothing but bawling tumult and confusion for it consisted of two Parties that fearing one anothers Accusations they both endeavour'd to disturb all Proceedings till that point of enquiring into Mens lives was laid aside and that being obtain'd they proceed to enquire and determine of Faith but as the Council of Arminium consisted of Catholicks and Arians this was made up of Acacians that followed the Blasphemy of Aetius and the old Eusebians that approved all things in the Council of Nice but the word Consubstantial whereas the Acacians defied the Council it self and all its Decrees and must have not only the word Consubstantial but that of Substance too abolisht But to prevent this the Eusebians at the motion of Silvanus set up the Antiochian Creed for the Standard of Orthodoxy and depose all that refuse subscription to it Acacius and his Party on the contrary give in a Libel in which they equally condemn all unscriptural words anathematise their own Doctrine of Dissimilitude that they might the better condemn their Adversaries for that they knew would take with the Emperour to take away the discriminating words of all Parties But when this new Faith was read Sophronius an Eusebian cryes out if we must be making new Faiths every day in a little time we shall have none at all But to that it is replyed by Acacius If you laid aside the Nicene Faith for yours at Antioch why may not we lay aside yours for one more unexceptionable and thus were they caught in their own Snare for not acquiescing in the first determination of the Church and after the infinite turmoil of so many Councils they are now convinced of their own folly But however they proceed on to wrangle so intemperately that Leonas who was appointed by the Emperour to see things fairly managed was so out of all patience that he turn'd them out of doors and bid them go trifle among themselves So both Parties had their ends having escaped each others Accusations and establisht their own Doctrine with the formality of a Council This being done both post to Constantinople to tell their own Story but the Acacians coming first they so prepossess the Emperour with prejudice against his old friends as to engage him on their side against himself and his own opinion They tell him that Basilius and the other Party were stiff and inflexible in their own determinations and would yield nothing for the reconciling of Dissenting Parties nor remove any of the Offensive Words that were the cause of all these Dissentions not so much as that of Dissimilitude now they knew the Design of reconciling to be the Emperour's Darling and the Doctrine of Dissimilitude his particular aversation Upon this he in great haste and fury calls a Council at Constantinople of Fifty Bishops where these crafty men gain more ground for themselves by seeming to promote his great reconciling project in order to which they present him with a Creed wide enough to take in all Parties in which they banish not only the word Substance and Consubstantial but that of Hypostasis and though they held a Dissimilitude in Substance themselves yet to blind him they now dissemble it and by leaving it undetermined they serve his design of comprehension and therefore instead of his own Sirmian Creed That the Son was like the Father in all things they put him off with this general and ambiguous Form That the Son is like the Father in the sense of the Scriptures i. e. as they believed in Will but not in Substance Now this Creed was a meer contrivance to let in Aëtianism of which of all Heresies the Emperour had the greatest abhorrence yet such was his dotage and infatuation to compass his long look't
them were nicely and religiously observed by both Governments The first evidently appears from the Emperour 's summoning so many Councils to gratifie his own Will For his only design was to amend and reform the Nicene Creed for the reconciling of all Parties which if he had thought that he might have done by his own Imperial Authority to what purpose need he have broke up all the High-ways in Christendom by conveying Bishops to and from Councils He might have proclaimed down the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one Imperial Rescript if he had supposed that a proper Authority for it So that when he summoned such Variety of Councils by the Countenance of their Authority to compass his Will that demonstrates it to be a fixt Principle with him that the Controversies of the Church ought to be decided by the Authority of the Church And therefore though it was scarce ever more oppressed or abused by any Prince then himself yet his very illegal Actions are the highest acknowledgement that is upon record of that religious reverence that is due to that power that was setled by our Saviour upon his Apostles and the Bishops their Successours forever For though it so frequently crost his own design yet he durst never directly invade or usurp it but was forced from time to time to solicite their compliance with his own wicked Will or rather misinform'd judgement And though he carried things with so rough a violence yet he would never attempt any thing against the Liberties of the Church unless he could bear himself out by the Authority of a Council But if he so much own'd that how comes it to pass that the Ancients charge him so highly for usurping it particularly Athanasius Hosius St. Hilary and Liberius who freely and boldly reproved him for it to his own face And so they did and that too upon very just grounds for though he did not challenge the Authority of the Church to himself yet he endeavoured to over-rule it by down-right force and violence which is in effect to destroy it And that is the ground of their complaints that they were not allowed freedom in Council but that himself and his Prefects took upon them to forestall the Judgement of the Church by Restraints and Threatnings This is the standing complaint of Athanasius and all the Orthodox Bishops in all their Writings It is the grievance insisted upon by the Synod of Alexandria in their Synodical Epistle in behalf of Athanasius against the Tyrian Council With what forehead could they call that a Council over which a temporal Lord presided and where Spies and Notaries were placed where his Lordship determined and the Officers of the Church were silenced or rather lacquied to his Decree Where what was voted by the Bishops was over-ruled by him He carried all things by Power we were govern'd by the Guards or rather the pleasure of the Eusebians whose Tool and Instrument was the Secular President And a little after These worthy Eusebians shelter their forgeries speaking of the Villany of Arsenius under the pretence of a Council where all things were carried by the Emperour's Will where one of his Lords presided and the Bishops were under the custody of the guard and compell'd to say whatever the Emperour commanded The very same Complaint is made by Athanasius himself against the Council of Antioch in his Epistle to the Monks of Egypt That when upon the Appeal or rather Reference made to Rome by the Eusebians he had repair'd thither and the time of hearing the cause was appointed as soon as they heard they were likely to meet with an Ecclesiastical judgement where the Secular Governour was not to be present nor the Guards to keep the Council doors nor all things to be overul'd by the Commands of Caesar by which methods and no other they had hitherto born down the Bishops and without which security they durst never have made any appearance were so astonisht and surprised that they had no way of escape but to shift off their own Appeal And this is the Account that he gives of their lying off from the Synod of Sardica That when they had brought the Emperours Officers along with them and trusted to do what they pleased by their Authority but finding that all things were resolved to be managed there fairly and freely according to the Ecclesiastical Rule they quite baulkt the Council And to transcribe no more the same complaint is perpetually repeated by him in all his Writings as the fundamental miscarriage v. p. 833. 844. 845. 861. 862. This was the enormity of his Reign though he fell not so grosly into it till after the overthrow of Magnentius or the Murther of Gallus They were the Actions of that time that these good men particularly complain of and no wonder when he did all things more like a Mad-man then a Prince and Govern'd both the State and himself too as wildly as the Church As his Extravagance at that time is described by Ammianus Marcellinus Quo ille Studio blanditiarum exquisito sublatus immunemque se deinde fore ab Immortalitatis incommodo existimans confestim a justiti◠declinavit it a intemperanter ut AEternitatem meam aliquoties assereret ipse dictando scribendoque propriâ manu Orbis totius se Dominum appellare Upon the news of the death of Gallus he was so bloated by the flatteries of his Courtiers for his success against all his Enemies that he forgot himself and his own Mortality and sunk after so prodigious a rate from all sense of Justice that he was often wont in dictating Letters to subscribe himself My Eternity and Lord of the whole World They I say were the actions of this mad time that these good Men particularly complain of and as for all the time before he gave the Church reasonable fair usage and though the Eusebians drew him in to pack Councils yet he never proceeded so high himself as to forestall or over-rule their Decrees As for the Council of Antioch that was the meer contrivance of the Nicomedian Eusebius and his Eunuchs to prevent the Council at Rome in the cause of Athanasius In which it does not appear that the Emperor had any other concernment farther then to put their Sentence in Execution And was in all probability imposed upon as the good Bishops of the Council were in the Condemnation of Athanasius For it was all grounded upon the Acts of the Tyrian Council and had they been legal his Deposition had been but just so that their validity being as here it was supposed no wonder that the Bishops Vote so freely against him though for the most part neither Arians nor Eusebians The Council at Sardica was a full and free Council and though the Eusebians were forced to be cross and peevish in their own defence yet all things were managed in the Council it self fairly and candidly without any appearance of force or fraud in the Emperor insomuch
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
integrity and that it was only the Emperor and his Court-parasites that were guilty of all the Exorbitancies committed in the Church in his time which he committed so altogether without the Churches consent that by them he oppressed it with all the outrage and violence of Persecution But from this clamour raised against the Authority of the Church upon this account and kept up at this very day with so much confidence for we find it among the doleâ—ul invectives of R. B. against the ancient Bishops in his Book of Crudities we may see what a pleasure and satisfaction it is to men of some tempers to be venting their ill nature against the true old Christian Church But Secondly as the Emperour in all his exorbitant actings own'd and supposed the power of the Church so the Catholicks submitted to all their sufferings under him with the same patience and upon the same Principle that they did to the Heathen Emperours And this is most remarkable in the Case of Athanasius who though he was persecuted and provoked beyond all Patience for the Establisht Religion of the Empire but among infinite other slanders that were loaded upon him is charged with Treason and Disloyalty yet for all this he is nice and punctual in his Obedience to all the Emperours commands even against himself and does with the greatest indignation detest the least thought of disrespect or disloyalty to his Sovereign Lord. Thus when his Enemies had slandered him to the Emperour Constantius for having spoken ill things of him and done ill Offices between him and his Brother Constans he defies the Calumny a thousand times over as only sit to be laid upon a distracted Man and calls God and his Holy Angels to witness how far it was from his thoughts and his Principles to speak the least ill word of a Sovereign Prince And when in the second place they charged him for having held correspondence with the Rebel Magnentius here he professes himself amazed and consounded with the greatness of the Lye and wonders how any man should be so strangely beside himself as to â—eign such an incredible Calumny against him He be such a Beast as to be friend to such a Monster as had Rebell'd against and Murther'd his Royal Master No he would rather dye Ten Thousand Deaths then be guilty of one such Disloyal Though And beseeches the Emperour that he would never entertain such an hard opinion of the Christian Church as if it were possible for Christians but much more Bishops to entertain any thoughts like Disloyalty and invokes the God of Heaven and Earth who gave the Empire to Constantius and to whom alone he could appeal from him as being his only Superiour to clear his innocence from so foul a Calumny And whereas in the third place they object that when the Emperour commanded his departure from Alexandria he refused to obey it To this he answers God sorbid that I should be such a wretch as to slite any of his Majesties Commands No he made Conscience of refusing Obedience but to the Questor of a City much more to his Sovereign Lord the Emperour Then discovers to him how the Eusebians had forged Letters in the Emperours Name for his Banishment and tells him that it was upon the assurance of the Forgery that he refused complyance but otherwise assures him that he is not so mad as to disobey any of his own Commands whatsoever so that if he had been pleased to Command him from Alexandria he would have been gone at the first notice and prevented the Command by the promptness of his Obedience The sense of all which is that it is no less then downright madness for any man that pretends to Christianity to make resistance to any Commands of his Sovereign Prince and this he writes whilst he was forced for the security of his life to lye conceal'd in the Wilderness after he had been persecuted by Constantius with the utmost rancour and a thousand times worse then a Mid-night Robber for above twenty years together and in truth had suffered such things from his hands as never any other Subject did from any Prince For his Case is singular and has nothing like it in Story Constantius his treating of him exceeded the injustice and cruelty of all the Heathen Tyrants and yet after all this prodigious and unparallel'd Provocation not only against the Laws of the Empire but of all Humanity how tender is this great spirited Man of making the least abatement of respect and duty to his Prince However he was pleased to treat him he was obliged by his Religion as he would acquit himself from madness not so much as to entertain a thought of the least resistance to any of his Commands in shortc onsidering the strange usage he had met with from the Emperour through his whole life his Story is the greatest instance and demonstration of a religious Sense of Loyalty that is upon Record It is true that Lucifer Calaritanus bestowed his rude Language upon the Emperour liberally enough but he was a man of a prodigiously fierce implacable nature as appears by the Schism that he made in the Church leaving its Communion rather then be reconciled to any of the Arian or Eusebian Clergy upon their repentance and submission which was such a piece of sowreness and austerity as could not but eat up all Sense of civility and good manners and therefore it is no wonder if a man of such a splenetick temper were so free of his Contumelious Language without respect of Persons especially when his natural rudeness was heightned and emproved by that false Principle that Christian Bishops might treat Heretick Princes after the same rate that the Prophets in the Old Testament did Apostate Princes and by that he answers Constantius his complaint of rudeness and insolence against him Dixisti passum te ac pati a nobis contra monita sacrarum scripturarum contumeliam dicis nos insolentes extitisse circa te quem honorari decuerit quasi quisquam dei cultorum pepercit Apostatis You complain that we have given you contumelious language against the commands of the Holy Scriptures you say that we behave our selves after an insolent manner towards you whom we ought to honour as if any Servant of God were to spare Apostates And then proceeds to a Catalogue of all the prophetick burthens against Apostate and Idolatrous Princes in the Old Testament But I am not at all concern'd to excuse him when he quitted the Catholick Communion and joyned Faction with the Rebel Puritans the Donatists as we have seen above Though this is to be said for him that how far soever he might proceed in foul Language he was so far from making any invitation to proceed to violent Actions that he concludes his whole Book with a passionate exhortation to Patience and Martyrdom So that hitherto the Doctrine of resistance to Sovereign Princes in any circumstances whatsoever or
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
is inseparable from all Sovereign Power and Christianity and all the Power that it brings along with it comes into the World upon its supposition So that by it we are so far from making the King a Priest that without it we cannot own him to be our King And on the other side when we assert a Spiritual Power to the Church distinct from though subject to the King's Supremacy others cry out Popery Praemunires and I know not what hard names they would soon let fall their out-cry if they would consider that it is such a Power as never any Prince exercised or wittingly challenged though it is possible that some may have run upon it by mistake and is neither Temporal nor Foreign Jurisdiction And in those two points lies the malignity of the pretended Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome for as it is Temporal it plainly subjects the Regal Authority to its Empire and as it is Foreign it makes the whole Kingdom Feudatory and brings us into the form of a Province under an Italian Prince both which are such abuses of Government as evidently subvert it Nay farther as a Foreign Temporal Jurisdiction is inconsistent with the English Monarchy so is all kind of Foreign Jurisdiction though meerly Spiritual irreconcileable with the Prerogative Royal. The reason and the account whereof I shall give in its proper place when I come to state that easie but yet undiscover'd Point of the Divine Authority of National Churches All that I am obliged to at present is to shew the difference between that Authority that we assign to the Church of England and that which the Bishop of Rome would Usurp against which though there were nothing else to be objected but its being Foreign for that reason alone it ought to be banisht the Nation as an Enemy to the Civil Government Whereas the Authority of the Church of England is seated in the King 's own Subjects who can call them to an account for it if they use it to his own or his Subjects prejudice and can as well punish them for any disorders in the abusive Exercise of it as he can any of his own Officers for their misdemeanors in their trust in the Common-wealth So that so far is the King's Supremacy as it is stated in the Church of England from entrenching upon the proper Power of the Church as the Romanists cavil that it only protects it in the due exercise of its Jurisdiction And so far is the proper power of the Church from disclaiming or abating any thing of the King's Supremacy as the other Factions clamour that it first Establishes that upon the most lasting Foundations of Divine Institution before it makes any claim to its own Power and when it does it does it upon no other Terms then of entire submission to its Supreme Authority And now that Man must wilfully dream that can imagine such a power as this in the Church can be any way prejudicial to or detractive from the Civil Government and yet that such a Power there is is an assertion worth no less then our Christianity it self that stands or falls with it For if our Saviour have not entrusted his Church with a Power within it self sufficient to maintain it self by vertue of his own Authority then it stands upon no stronger Foundation then the Will of the Sovereign Power And then as that can Establish so it can Abrogate its whole Obligation which is plainly to say that it is no True Religion for it is certainly none if it relye only upon humane Authority So that all that can be concluded in this case is that upon supposition that our Christian Faith is an Imposture there can be no Power in the Christian Church and that for a very good reason because then the Church can be no Church But upon supposition that our Saviour founded it by Divine Authority the peculiar Power of the Church derived meerly and immediately from himself without any interposition of humane Authority is the first thing to be believed as absolutely necessary to its Being and Subsistence But this will appear with a brighter evidence if we consider the several branches of Jurisdiction that as they are complicated with the supposition of Christianity so are they such acts of Power as no Sovereign Power ever challenged or can with any decency exercise As the Power of Preaching the Gospel through all Nations of the World in the Name and by the Authority of God The Power of granting or with-holding the Instruments of Grace the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist The Power of the Keys or judging who are fit to be admitted into the Society of the Christian Church and who ought to be cast out of it for non-performance of the Conditions undertaken at their Admittance The Power of instructing the People in the Duties of Religion or guiding and directing them in the safest way to Salvation The Power of Ordaining Consecrating and Constituting Ecclesiastical Officers to succeed in the Government of the Church through all Ages These are the several points of their Commission and are granted to be so by Mr. Hobbs himself and that at the very time when he undertakes to demonstrate that all these acts of Power are no acts of Authority And that is one of his choisest methods of Demonstration in all things to bear down the undenyable Truth of all things by meer force of Assertion thus here he reckons up the chief Acts of Authority in the Apostle's Commission and then will bear us down that they are no Acts of Authority only by saying so and that against the Common Sense of Mankind For if they had a Commission from our Saviour to do these things then were they Empowred and Authorised by their Commission to do them So absurd a thing is it to talk of acting by Commission without acting by Power whereas every Commission as such is granting so much Power And therefore if the Apostles and their Successors were Commissioned by our Saviour to these several Acts of their Office as he grants because it cannot be denyed every Act is an effect of that Power that is settled upon them by virtue of their Commission And is it not strange that this witty Gentleman should begin all this Extravagant discourse against all Power Ecclesiastical as such with this very Assertion That the Power Ecclesiastical was at first in the Apostles and after them in such as received it from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands What thickness of Contradiction is this A Power Ecclesiastical and yet no Power at all Why then if it be no Power it is no Power Ecclesiastical and if it be a Power Ecclesiastical then it is some Power And then again a Power by virtue of our Saviour's Commission i. e. a Power warranted by Divine Authority and to say that this is no Power is plainly to averâ— That there is no such thing as Divine Authority And upon this supposition that
dyed after the Council at Rome and before the Council at Sardica and that agrees exactly with the time of Julius his Letters which could not but strike him to the heart For by this Epistle he saw all his wickedness brought to light and his malice against Athanasius after so much pains and so many deep contrivances miserably defeated And so dyed one of the worst Bishops that ever lived in the Christian Church and Baronius his Character of him in comparing him to Ahab is very just and true though he saw not through half his wickedness that there was none like him before or since who sold himself to the practice of all wickedness in the sight of the Lord though Valesius is of the mind that he dyed a good Christian and wonders at the Cardinals severity against him when he dyed in the Communion of the Roman Church And that is too much the common sense of the men of that Church that whatever men are as to all other things yet if they are but good Roman Catholicks they are good Christians too But if he dyed in its Communion it was because he lived no longer in it for if he had survived till all his Train of Wickedness had been made publick to the Christian World as they would have been in a little time not only the Bishop of Rome but all the Bishops of the World must have denyed all Communion to so great a Villain This is the exactest Narrative of all this Affair that I can discover either by tracing and comparing the Relations out of the Antients of it or the Observations of the Moderns upon it Valesius indeed has used great subtilty to tell the Story another Observ. Eccles in Soc. Soz. way As if Athanasius had been but once at Rome and that there had been but one Council held there about his Business and that both were after the return of the Legates from the Council of Antioch and that it was then that Athanasius was first absolved But in my poor Opinion this learned man might very well have spared his pains when it is so plain from Julius his Letter that Athanasius had been absolved by him before he received the Letter from Antioch and that one of the main heads of the Antiochian Letter was to complain of Julius his irregularity in restoring a man to Communion that they had Excommunicated And yet Valesius says he can find no such thing in the Letter and thus it is a common thing when men are busie in searching after small matters that are difficultly to be discern'd to stumble at such great things as they could not but at another time have observed For otherwise nothing can be plainer then that Athanasius was Canonically absolved before the Antiochian Letters for when they complain'd that Julius had received him to Communion that is proof enough of his Absolution for without that having been once excommunicate he could not have been received to Communion And therefore it is but a poor shift of Valesius to help out his niceness that Pope Julius received him as he did the Eusebians de bene esse till he could enquire into the merits of the Cause For the Eusebians were under no Sentence and therefore were to be received in course but Athanasius being under Censure he could not be received till that was taken off But this is still more evident from the account that Julius gives of the reasons of his Proceedings viz. that having taken an exact Examination of all the particular Accusations against Athanasius and so reckons up the Calumnies and Perjuries one by one he asks them which was most agreeable to the Canons to Condemn him as they had done or absolve him as he had done And if after all this admitting an Accused Person to Communâ—on be not absolution upon legal Process I know not what is And if it is then the Story hitherto runs clear as I have set it down but by Valesius his over nice account it is so involved that I must confess that I cannot trace the Method of the History by it nor reconcile it with the Accounts of the Antients §. XII But Eusebius being dead matters were very little alter'd or amended by his fall for his five Confederates Theognis of Nice Maris of Calcedon Theodorus of Heraclea Ursacius and Valens succeeded him in the Emperours favour and the management of all Affairs And if it were possible these Commissioners Acted with greater violence in deposing and banishing of Bishops then the old Tyrant had ever done insomuch that we immediately find several of the Eastern Bishops in Exile and particularly Paul of Constantinople who poor man was all along second to Athanasius in the Eusebian Perâ—ecution and had suffer'd almost as much from the Ambition of Eusebius as Athanasius had from his malice For Paul having been Canonically chosen Bishop of Constantinople Eusebius had a strong fancy to his Bishoprick and therefore gets Macedonius one of Paul's Presbyters a man of a very factious and fiery temper to bring in a general Accusation against him for an ill liver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which meer formality of a general Charge without enquiring after any particular proofs he is thrust out of his See and Eusebius immediately leaps into it Though here the lying Philostorgius says that Eusebius immediately succeeded upon the death of Alexander and suppresses the foul Story of Paul's expulsion but Sandius though he takes notice of it is either so foolish or so impudent as to make use of the Calumny as a just Accusation against the good man at this very day and brings no other Authority for it because he durst not build upon the Testimony of Macedonius but that of ut aiunt i. e. as it is reported which is much worse especially when all good men ever report him to have been a very Religious and Pious Prelate and even Macedonius himself at the very time that he Accused him for form-sake to oblige Eusebius is well known to communicate with him which he ought not to have done had he believed his own Accusation By such little shufflings as these we may see how dully and slightly these Arian Advocates prevaricate with the Records of the Church But to proceed upon the death of Eusebius the Constantinopolitans fetch home Paul against whom the Eusebian Faction set up that Firebrand Macedonius this brings the matter to high Tumults upon which Constantius being then at Antioch sends Hermogenes Master of his Horse to Constantinople to force Paul out of the City but the Rabble taking head he is unfortunately murthered in a Tumult to the great scandal and dishonour of their Cause for which Paul as if he good man had been the Author of the Sedition is banisht and imprisoned and kept in Chains till Constantius was forced to deliver him together with the other banisht Bishops for fear of his Brother Constans who threatned War upon him if he did not restore
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