prayer A Counsel held at Caesar Augusta accursed such as received the Sacrament and eat it not in the Church A General Counsel was called at Constantinople which decreed that Mary should be called the mother of God Anno 583. The First and second Synods were called at Lyons for the removing of Schism i. e. divisions in matters of Religion raised in the Church Six Synods were held at Rome touching the Electon of a Bishop and the preservation of Church goods c. Malum Consilium Consultori pessimum THese things have I thought good here to recapitulate or briefly to rehearse to the end that the great Apostasie so often spoken of might be evidently manifest to all and the great fall and revolution of the Church from the Apostles Doctrin and Practise For when they assembled together it doth not appear that there was such discord and divisions such strife and aâ—…tipathy such brawling and contention in their general assemblies as there was in the Counsels before mentioned neither did they manifest such a bitter spirit of enmity and discord when they chused Mathias in the room of Judas nor yet when they chused the seven Disciples Acts 1. Chap. 6. Moreover when the Apostles and Elders and Brethren were assembled together to determin what was best to be done touching the doctrin sowed by certain that came from Judea which taught the Brethren saying That except they were circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not be saved after they had debated the Matter they decreed with one accord to send chosen men unto the Gentiles and to injoyn them to abstain from things offered to Idols and blood from that which was strangled and from fornication c. But it doth not appear that they out of spite condemned or excommunicated those of Iudea and held them forthwith for acursed because of their error like as the Apostatized Bishops and Clergy men have done one with another and one unto another as appeareth from what I have before rehearsed Again when Paul came to Ierusalem he went with the Brethren unto Iames where all the Elders were assembled and there they determined what they thought best to be done and decreed that Paul should purifie himself according unto the Law c. These Counsels or General Assemblies oâ—… the Apostles and Brethren the Scripture makes mention of yet it doth not appear from the Scripture that the Apostles and Brethren Decreed the Celebration of the Feast of Easter or that none should be made Priest till they were thirty years old neither doth it appear that they brawled about men and agreed upon nothing nor yet that they ordered Lessons to be read in the Church between certain Psalms neither doth it appear from the Scripture that they decreed that Lent should be righteously observed and that the Priests should not marry nor yet that Infants should be baptized Neither doth it appear that they decreed that the Clergy should wear a different Attire from other men or that such Divine service as the Metropolitan liked of should be retained I say it doth not appear that they to wit the Apostles and Brethren decreed these or such like things in their Counsells but that since the Apostles days they have been decreed by the Synods and Counsels which have been in the Apostasie and yet at this day many of them are taught for doctrins though they be but the traditions of fallible Synods and Counsels as I have shewn Inclinemus igitur aurum verbo Dei in corde non ex Conciliis contendentium Episcoporum non ex Disputationibus novitiis non ex forensibus manicipalibus gestis sed in nostris cordibus veritatem quaeramus The Iudgment of some notable men concerning SYNODS i. e. general or universal Assemblies â—…nd Counsels together with their Effects I. IN the days of Berardus the Church of Rome was polluted with many superstitions and Baudaert said that the Bishops were rather biters of sheep then true Shepheards And upon a time when he was in a Counsel of the Clergy and had seen how unchristianly they dealt he said Sometime I have admired that among the little number of the twelve Apostles there was a Traitor but now do I wonder much more that among this great number of so many Bishops and Prelats that one upright Disciple of Christ cannot be found Apop Chr. lib. 13. pag. 260. Daar geen Godvreesendheid bij en is Daar is 't hoe geleerder hoe verkeerder Where ther 's neither God's fear nor godliness Ther 's the more learn'dess the more perversness II Gregorius Theologus who lived about three hundred years after the birth of Christ said That he had promised and determined never to come at Synods forasmuch as he observed that always there came more evil then good out of them for the ambitiousness and contention of the Bishops is above measure said he Anno 300. III. The Reformed Protestants testified that Synods and Counsels which strove upon the earth might err and with the most voyces conclude Lies in this or the other point according to what experience in all ages hath taught Eub. ch 28 29 c. IV. D. Calvin testified that Prophets and Pastours the Church Counsels have erred And that God hath often discovered that in Counsels which was humane to the end that People should not rely or depend too much upon men Instit. 4. ix ch 3. V. Boudaert said in Gilterland's Synod Soffragia non ponderanda sed numeranda esie i. e. that voyces were not to be pondred but numbred but said he if the Church reign in this manner or deal with voyces shall not the most evil surprize the best which is the least for is it not so most commonly and when that the Shepheards come to be changed into wolves are not the innocent harmless sheep then in pittiful danger Espetially saith he when Rulers of Cities are stirred up by passionate Priests VI. D. Pareus said Often hath the Truth suffered wrong in Synods because all that were assembled agreed in one error so that the truth came often times to be abandoned and with silence passed by Iren. 57. p. VII It hath been said the Church judged of the Doctrine of the Church According to this saying shall the Papists Church judge of the the doctrine of Popery the Lutherans the Calvinists the Anabaptists and every one of them but what such a judgment is this otherwise then that which is daily practised by their one condemning another and every one maintaining his own Sect So saith Hilarius What unity or edification is there in such work and in so much following partial Counsels or conferences None at all said he VIII Beza declared expresly that the Church and Counsel might err and that they had often erred and that the Devil in some old Counsels had sitten as President in them IX The Professors of Leyden said We see that particulars have not only erred but General Counsels for shepheards may also be devoures
that their outward Countenance bewrayed their inward Apostacy i. e. their revolting or falling from the True Religion for the former went cheerfully with great majesty and grace their Fetters becoming them as the skirts of the new-married Spouse garnished with sundry Colours and laid over with Gold and withal yielding a Christian fragrant i. e. sweet-smelling smell so that many supposed their Bodies to have been outwardly perfumed But the other all sad and mournful as vile ond abject caitified i. e. base naughty mis-shapen Creatures full of all deformity derided of the Gentiles themselves deserving death as degenerating Cowards destiture of the most precious glorious and lively Name of Christianity with the sight hereof many are confirmed so that suddenly being apprehended without stay they professed their Faith A little after in the same Epistle it is shewn how that Maturus Sanctus and Blandina were led unto the brute Beasts in the popular and publick spectacle of the heathenish Inhumanity even at the day appointed of set purpose where Maturus and Sanctus were diversly tormented with sundry sorts of punishment as if they had suffered nothing before and whatsoever the outragious multitude craved and commanded that they suffered but above all they patiently suffered the Iron Chair wherein their Bodies boiled as in a Frying-pan yet could they get no other Sentence of Sanctus save that Confession which he cried at the first And because Caesar had commanded that such as confessed themselves Christians should be executed and such as renounced should depart the frequented Solemnity which by reason of the concourse of the Gentiles from every Country was at the beginning very populous he brought forth from Prison the blessed Confessors for so it seems the Christians were sometimes called into the open Spectacle or View and Presence of the People to be scornfully gazed upon and when he had again made Inquisition them as many as he to wit the President found to be priviledged Persons of Rome those he beheaded the rest he threw to be torn asunder of wild Beasts But Attalus was burned in the Iron Chair and being demanded what Name God had he answered God is not called after the manner of Men. And after these things Blandina together with Ponticus a young Man of fifteen years of Age was brought forth and compelled to swear by their Idols Names But they constantly persevered in their Opinion and contemning their Idols set the multitude in such a rage against them that they neither pitied the years of the young Man nor spared the Womankind but plagued them with many Torments used in their Theaters i. e. certain Places made for People to sit and behold solemn Games and Plays urging them now and then to swear which when they could not bring to pass Ponticus being encouraged of the Sister in presence of Pagans i. e. Heathens or Infidels who then beheld how she exhorted and confirmed the young Man after he had suffered many Torments yielded up the Ghost And Blandina was afterwards wrapped in a Net and tumbled before a wild Bull who fanned and tossed her with his Horns to and fro yet it is said she had no feeling of these things her Mind being fixed and wholly set upon the Conference which she had with Christ and finally she was beheaded The Rage and Cruelty of the Gentiles did not herewith cease against the Christians for as many as were choaked up with the noisome stink of the Prisons were thrown to be devoured of Dogs and a continual watch set day and night that none of them should be buried and some fretted and fumed at them with the gnashing of their teeth seeking further revengement of them others derided and scoffed them magnifying their Idols as Causers of the Chrishians Calamity And such as were of a milder Nature and somewhat sorrowed at our Sufferings upbraided us i. e. cast them in the teeth and said Where is their God and what profited them this Religion which they preferred before their Lives And after they had kept the dead Bodies six days unburied at length were burned to ashes the ashes also they gathered and scattered in the River Rhoanus which passed by so that no jot or relick thereof should longer remain upon Earth This they did to the end they might overcome God and hinder the reviving of the Saints lest that as they said there should be any further hope of the Resurrection whereof say they the Christians being fully perswaded bring among us a strange and new Religion They contemn i. e. despise punishment and hasten themselves cheerfully unto death Now let us see whether they can arise and whether their God can help and deliver them from our hands Of Attalus's Revelation In the aforesaid Epistle there was a certain Narration contained concerning one Alcibiades who lived miserably feeding only on Bread and Water when he had determined with himself to live in Prison It was revealed to Attalus after his first Conflict on the Theater that Alcibiades did not well in that he used not the lawful Creatures of God and also gave an occasion of doubting unto others Hereof when Alcibiades was perswaded he used all things indifferently and praised God For they were not destitute of the Grace of God but had the Holy Ghost for their Director What Irenaeus wrote concerning the Holy Scriptures Eusebius relates what Irenaeus hath writ concerning the Four Evangelists i. e. the Bringers of good Tidings saying Matthew delivered unto the Hebrews the History of the Gospel written in their own Tongue When Peter and Paul had preached at Rome and planted the Church aftheir departure Mark the Disciple and Interpreter of Peter also delivered us in writing such things as he had heard Peter preach And Luke accompanying Paul comprised in one Volume the Gospel preached of him After these Iohn the Disciple of our Lord which also leaned on his Breast published a Gospel unto the Posterity remaining at Ephesus Moreover in the same Chapter it is said That in the Captivity of the Iews under Nebuchadnezzar the Scriptures were perished the Iews returning into their own Region i. e. Country after seventy years in the time of Artaxerxes King of Persia he inspired Esdras the Priest of the Tribe of Levi that he restored again all the Sayings of the former Prophets and delivered unto the People the Law given by Moses Apollinarius concerning Montanus It is now a great while ago well-beloved A. M. since thou didst enjoin me this Task that I should publish some Book against the Followers of the Heretick Montanus whereupon I doubted unto this day what was best to be done Not because I was not able to confure their Falshood and give Testimony unto the Truth but that I feared greatly lest by writing I should seem to add something to the Doctrine of the New Testament whereto nothing may be added and wherefrom nothing may be taken away by him that
AN ABRIDGMENT OF Eusebius Pamphilius's ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN TWO PARTS Part I. A Compendious Commemoration of the Remarkablest Chronologies which are Contained in that Famous History Part II. A Summary or brief Hint of the Twelve Persecutions sustained by the Antient Christians with a Compendious Paraphrase upon the same Whereunto is Added a Catalogue of the Synods and Councels which were after the days of the Apostles together with a hint of what was Decreed in the same By WILLIAM CATON Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked as saith the Proverb of the Antients 1 Sam. 24. 13. The Second Ed. with larg Editions by another hand LONDON Printed for Francis Holden in the Passage going into White-Hart-Yard in Lombard-street 1698. To his well Beloved Friends the CHRISTIAN QUAKERS In ENGLAND or else where William Caton Your dear Brother in the Truth wisheth that Mercy and Peace with every good and perfect gift necessary for your Salvation and Consolation may be plenteously multiplied among you from God the Father of our Lord Jesus-Christ My Beloved SInce I have heard of your manifold Tribulations and frequent Sufferings which of late have befallen you in your Native Country my heart hath often been filled with heaviness not only â—hrough the Report which plenteously have had thereof but much rather â—hrough the sensible feeling which I have â—ad of the same well my Friends this the day which we have looked for having foreseen its coming in the light the Lord and therefore did some of thâ—… Brethren often put you in mind of it 〈◊〉 I believe many of you can testifie Aâ—… since this gloomy and dark day came upoâ—… the Nation I know your tryals have beeâ—… sharp your burthens many your Tribulations great and your Temptations noâ—… a sew Yet Nevertheless many of our Ancestors who have striven for the same Faitâ—… and suffer for the same Truth for whicâ—… you suffer at present have endured a greâ—…ter fight of Torments Exilements and mâ—… terrible Afflictions then as yet you havâ—… sustained as may in part appear by this foâ—…lowing Treatise yet in their days the firâ—… had a time to kindle before it brok oâ—… into such a vehement and consuming flame in which many of the Antient believing Christians were tryed and their faith and patience thereby exercised and when thâ—… Lord had sufficiently proved and tryeâ—… his jewels as in a fiery Furnace then the vigor of the fire ceased the flame came to be quenched and then the jewels they were gathered spared and treasured up in thâ—… Closset of the Lord's Sanctuary where neither moth rust nor thief could in any wise enter This seems to be a day of your eternal trouble my dearly beloved wherein your Faith and Patience must be yet tryed as in a Furnace of hot persecution and surely the flames thereof have lowed and blazed already about you though as yet it doth not appear that the vehemency thereof hath so much as scorched that vesture wherewith the Lord had adorned you although the fury of man's wrath and indignation hath been greater against you that would not fall down to worship then against many Malefactors and Truce-breakers but O will not the Lord open their eyes that they may see that through the fiery indignation of their wrath and jealousie were kindled seventy times hotter than ever it hath been against any others yet shall it not be able to consume your Faith nor to burn that garment wherewith your God hath arrayed you would they but see this I know they would stand Astonished yea and fall down in submission to the power of God in the light of his Son to worship him with you O ye worshippers of the only true God who can bow to no Imagâ—… that is formed in the likeness of the true faith true worship true Religion but is it not that which it resembleth neither Conform to or obey any Decree which enjoyneth you to act contrary to the Righteous and Royal Law which God the Father hath put in your hearts neither can purchase any freedom or liberty by fraud guile Treachery falshood or deceit surely your liberty shall be glorious your reward shall be great and your Fame and Renown shall spread among the Godly and upright who when they hear of your Constancy and Fidelity will be glad and rejoyce therein and offer sacrifice of Praise unto the Highest on your behalf with me Wherefore my dearly beloved lift up the heads that droop and the hands that hang down yea strengthen the mind that is fee ble and cheer up the heart that is heavy and sad for your Redeemer is at hand and his salvation is very nigh yet not withstanding his pleasure may be farther to try you that for the future you may be more Precious in his sight and his delight may be more and more in you who above many of the Children of this world have obtained great favour in his sight O loose not loose not the same but rather grow and increase therein to the enriching of your souls with the Coelestial or heavenly Treasure which will remain when that which is uncertain is vanished and gone I have here Composed a little Treatise which Consisteth chiefly of a Cloud of witnesses who have been ingaged in the same case for which you now suffer spoyling of your goods the external Ruin of some of your families Estates the deprivation of your liberties and what not And now through perusing of the same you may behold as in a glass what the Antient Christians have suffered first by the Jews secondly by the Gentiles or heathen and finally by false Christians yet I do believe that the notion of these things to some will be but as the shell to the kernel or as the chaff to the wheat in comparison of that Internal sweet joy comfort and living refreshment which I do not doubt but that many of you plentiously injoy yea even in the heat of these troublesome and Perilous times This same Abridgment of Remarkable things which I have found upon Record I have thought good to Dedicate unto you in as much as you above many in the nation are aquainted with the Christian suffering state and condition who heretofore have been men of sorrows and well acquainted with grief as by that which followeth will more palpably and evidently appear Let not the Innocent and simple be offended at it because it is extracted out of some Ecclesiastical Histories For this I say that many Frivolous Histories which frequently are perused by such as are Prone and inclining to that wisdom and knowledge which is from below are not to be compared to this for they being oft-times Stuffed with forged fables and lying tales they stir up the vain light frothy minds in people but the perusing of this which I have here Collected will rather stir up zeal love and tenderness to the truth and such as now suffer for it as the Antient Christians heretofore have done Moreover through the viewing over
of this a litteral knowledge may in part be obtained of the Fruits Doctrines Principles and Practises of the Apostatized Christians after their degeneration of their Synods and Counsels and what they Decreed of the temptations and provocations which they had who retained their integrity both from the Heathen and from the false Christians and how sad and lamentable their conditions were that did not continue faithful which may serve for examples to such among you beloved as are inconstant and of a doubtful mind let them look upon Origen and hear what he saith in his lamentation after his fall and let them consider the Faith and patience of such as chuseth rather to die than they would swear or sacrifice renounce the faith or deny their Lord and Master and therefore were some torn in pieces of wild beasts some Crucified some beheaded some stoned to death some stifled some fryed or Rosted some burned to ashes some hanged some brained some had their eyes pulled out and the empty place seared with a hot Iron some were drowned in the Sea some fettered and famished to death in noysome Prisons and dungeons Oh the torments that they endured are hard to be uttered and that about the exercise of their Conscience and the worship of their God And truly I must tell you O beloved that I was constrained to lay those things before you that if peradventure they might in any wise tend to the Confirming and strengthening of the faith of some to the forewarning of others of shrinking in the time of tryal and to the strengthening of the hands of the weak and feeble against their Persecutors who also hereby may see what judgment and misery came upon sundry of their Persecuting fore-fathers so that in my judgment it may be of use not only to you who are persecuted but also to your oppressors and persecutors who now persist in their wickedness and impiety as if they should never come to judgment for the same well my dearly beloved be not you discomforted and cast down in your spirits because the wicked is set up and the ungodly prospers in his ways and the workers of iniquity they are counted happy yet it was not thus in the beginning neither shall it allways so continue for the Lord our God in his due time will strik the hook into the jaw of the Leviathan so that he shall be Restrained and the pure and upright in heart shall be delivered out of his paw and snare into the glorious liberty of the Children of God wherefore let none be afraid who are called to follow the lamb in this Notable day for I am perswaded that Tribulation nor Persecution Exilment nor Banishment Fire nor Sword things present nor things to come though all these do come shall not be able to seperate us from that love which we are made partakers of in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom I bid you farewel my dearly beloved A GENERAL EPISTLE FOR Young Schoollars and LITTLE CHILDREN Dear Children REmember Your Creator and the end wherefore you were Created now in the day of your Youth before you grow Old in Sin and take rooting in corrupt ground of Unighteousness incline your hearts to Holiness and to the Fear of the Lord that you may abound in wisdom and knowledge learn you to know a tender principle in your hearts to teach and instruct you to withhold and restrain you from Folly and Wantonness from frivolous or vain Gaming and Sporting your selves with idle Toyes and unprofitable Playes which do not only strengthen that which is thereunto addicted in your selves but doth toyle and weary your tender bodies And when you sit down at night some times hungry and often weary consider then what you have reaped by your Playes Sports and Pastimes have you not thereby some time provoked your Tutors to Wrath and Anger against you for neglecting of your Books and Learning have you not also offended and grieved your Parents by your neglect of your business and imployment And then you being sencible of your Fault and Transgression the shew of your Countenance that witnesseth against you and inwardly you are perplexed and terrified partly through fear of your Tutors and partly through fear of your Parents when through your Folly you have procured their Displeasure and then are you afraid of Chastisement now if for the time to come you would be freed from this fear do that which is good by being diligent and keeping in the fear of the Lord and then shall you obtain Praise and Commendation both of your Parents and Tutors Again O Children when you are together whether in Families Schools or else where be not Wild Rude Brutish nor provoke not one another to Folly and Wantonness but be Sober Gentle Meek and Civil and let the Fear of the Lord be before your eyes least you sall into Condemnation And you that are of a Mild Gentle and Tender Nature who seel something in your Hearts restraining you from the Evil which abounds among your fellows if you cannot get dominion over it while you are with them then separate your selves from them at convenient seasons and pertake not with them in their Wantonness in their Folly Plays Sports and Pastimes but rather betake your selves to your Books or in some retired place to wait upon the Lord And if they that be Wild and Wanton through their play and wantonness do get Recreation to their Bodies you through your stillness and waiting upon the Lord shall get Refreshment to their Souls in which you shall have joy and pleasure when they shall be ashamed of their folly and have trouble and sorrow for the same When I was A School boy I was for many years as much inclined to wantonness and play as my Fellows though sometime I was enticed and drawn by them into things which I knew then certainly to be evil and contrary to the tender principle of God in my Conscience yet rather than I would be behind them in their wonton childish follies and thereby have come to have been jeered and derided by them I chused rather at that time to run with them to the same excess of vanity though I knew for certain I ought not to have done it and when for the same I came to be corrected by my Tutor and judged of the Lord I was made to confess that it was just and that I had justly deserved the same Afterwards through the mercy and goodness of the Lord I came to be farther Illuminated or enlightned before I left the School And come to have a perfect sense of true judgment being set up in my heart And then I came to be filled with Sorrow and Heaviness for the loss of my mispent pretious time and the Sins of my Youth even while I was yet a youth were brought exceeding fresh into my remembrance and became in those daies my great burthen and withal in those daies my study and learning became also burthensome and not