Letters could be hoped for whilst they continued in Communion with him 20. And then 5thly It is also as notorious on the same Principles of St. Cyprian's Age that such Schism from the visible Communion of the Catholick Church was also supposed to deprive the Person so divided of all the invisible Benefits of Church Communion God was supposed obliged to ratifie in Heaven what was done by those whom he authorized to represent him on Earth He avenged the Contempts of his Ministers and would not be a Father to those who would not own his Church for their Mother by paying her a Filial respect They were not to expect any pardon of their Sins They could not hope for the Holy Ghost who dissolved the Vnity of the Spirit They were uncapable of the Crown of Martyrdome whatever they suffered in the state of Separation This is the result of many of St. Cyprian's Discourses on this Argument And indeed it is very agreeable with the Design of God that they who cut themselves off from the Peculium should by their doing so lose all their pretensions to the Rights and Privileges of it Not only so but that they should also incur all the Mischiefs to which they were supposed liable who had lost their Right of being Members of the peculiar People Accordingly as they believed all Persons at their first admission into the Church to be turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God so upon their leaving the Church or their being cast out of it by the judicial Act of their Superiours they were supposed to return into the state of Heathens to lose the Protection of those good Spirits who minister only to the Heirs of Salvation and again to relapse into their former condition of Darkness and being consequently obnoxious to be infested by the Devil and his Powers of Darkness And that this was so appeared by several ordinary Experiments in those earlier Ages not only of the Apostles but that also of St. Cyprian who has many Examples of it in his Book de Lapsis And this confinement of the Spiritual Privileges of the peculiar People to the External Communion of the Church as it was Fundamental to their Discipline so it was rational consequently to their other Principles God was not thought obliged to confer those Privileges but by the Act of those whom himself had authorized to oblige him But Dividers were supposed not to belong to that Body to which the Promises were made and ambitious Intruders into other Men's Offices could not in any Equity pretend to have their Acts ratified by God from whom they could not be supposed to receive any Authority when they did not receive it by the Rules and Orders of the Society established by him These things were then believed and believed universally Indeed nothing but an universal Belief of them would have maintained that Discipline which was then observed in the Church could have obliged them generally to suffer as they did then the severest Inflictions from the Magistrate rather than incurr the much more feared Displeasure of their Ecclesiastical Superiours When we are also of the same Mind and alike influenced by Principles and Regard to Conscience then indeed and then alone we may pretend to be a Posterity not degenerous from the great Examples of those glorious Ancestors Then it will not be in the Power of Acts of Parliament to drive us from our Principles and bring a Scandal on our Religion Then where our Bishops follow Christ we shall follow them and it will not be in the Power of the Worldly Magistrate or the Gates of Hell it self to prevail against our Church and to dissolve the Vnion between us Then Magistrates themselves will be more wary of involving Consciences on occasion of their little Worldly Politicks at least they will not pretend Religion and the Religion of that very Church which suffers by them for doing so May we live at length to see that happy day However it will hence appear how impossible it will be to excuse our Adversaries present Case from Schism if it be tried by that Antiquity which we do indeed profess to imitate and alledge 21. Now in this Case I am discoursing of I have purposely selected the Instances of St. Cyprian's Age rather than any other not only because they are the ancientest indeed the first we know of of one Bishop's invading another's Chair not vacant but because we have withal in him the most distinct account of the Sense of the Church in his Age of such Facts and of the Principles on which they proceeded in condemning them He had occasion given him to be so distinct by two Schisms one of his own Church in Carthage where Felicissimus was set up against himself another that I have principally insisted on of Novatian set up against Cornelius in Rome On these Occasions he has written one just Discourse besides several Epistles But these Principles were not singular and proper to that Age they descended lower and are insisted on by Optatus and St. Augustine in their Disputes with the Donatists whenever they dispute the Question of their Schism without relation to their particular Opinions 22. And now what can our Adversaries gain though we should grant them all they can ask concerning their Collection till they be able to disarm us of these earlier Authorities neither mentioned nor perhaps so much as thought of by their Author Till they do so we have all the Advantages against them that our Cause does need or we desire They give us a bare Collection of Facts without any other Evidence of the Principles on which they were transacted than the Facts themselves We give them here a contrary Fact of Persons of unquestionable Sincerity to Principles and not only so but the Principles themselves on which they proceeded acknowledged by the Persons themselves They give us Facts of the Greek Church only We give them one wherein the sense of the whole Catholick Church appeared not of the Greeks alone but of the Latines also They give us those of Modern of Barbarous of Divided Ages wherein the great Bodies of the Eastern and Western Churches were divided in Communion the Eastern Churches particularly within which their Instances are confined into Nestorians and several subdivided Sects of Eutychians who yet if they had been more unanimous were otherwise no very competent Witnesses of Apostolical Tradition not only in regard of their Age but their Corruptness their Vnskilfulness their Credulity We here have given them the sense of the Church in an Age wherein her Testimony is every way unexceptionable wherein she had certain means of knowing the Truth and withal valued it as it deserved Even there we find the Principles now mentioned universally received and universally received as the grounds of that universal Catholick Communion which she had received by an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles to that very Time Even there I say we
find them received where nothing could have been received universally that had been an Innovation In so short a time it was hard to bring in Variations from the Primitive Rule and harder yet that all the Churches could have been unanimous in them if they had been Variations as Tertullian reasons in his Prescriptions especially when there was no Vniversal Authority received over the whole Catholick Church that could induce them to it From the Time of Trajan the Succession of our Saviour's Family failed in the Church of Jerusalem to which all particular Churches paid a deference From the Time of Hadrian there could be no pretence for that Church above others when it consisted not of Jews but Greeks and Romans What was there therefore that could make them unanimous in Variations and Variations of such Importance as this had been They had then no General Councils And the absolute Supremacy of particular Bishops in their proper Districts is by none maintained more expresly and more zealously than by St. Cyprian with particular regard to all other Powers that in later times have pretended to oblige Bishops that is to Councils and the Bishop of Rome This Catholick Communion grounded on the common Interest of all the Bishops to have all their Acts of Discipline in their particular Dictricts ratified over the whole World might have brought in other things that were consequential to these common Interests But there was nothing antecedent that can be imagined that could have brought in this Catholick Communion of those times among such a multitude of absolute and independent Societies as the Churches were then if it had not been brought in from their very first Originals And yet these Notions we were speaking of were Fundamental to that Catholick Communion it self as managed in those earlier Ages Let them therefore make their uttermost advantage of those Instances which our Adversaries call Precedents in later Ages This is however plain If they be not found inconsistent with these earlier Instances they can make nothing for their purpose If they be yet none can doubt but that later Deviations how numerous soever are to be over-ruled and concluded by the Precedents of these first and earliest Instances not so much as mentioned by their Author 23. Yet after all though we should admit that this Author had been successfull in all that he has attempted we may yet justifie our adherence to the deprived Bishops and our Separation from their opposite Altars and justifie it too by the Doctrine of their own Author For 7thly Even he permits a Separation where Orthodoxy is concerned and expresly excepts this Case from the number of those which he pretends to confute An Heretical Bishop he calls a false Bishop a false Teacher and tells us that they who separate from such do not divide the Vnity of the Church by Schism but endeavour to free the Church from Schisms and Divisions These are his own Words in the Conclusion of his Discourse I easily foresee this Charge will seem new and surprizing to our Adversaries and yet I cannot see how they can secure themselves against it St. Augustine observes that Schisms generally end in Heresie That is the natural consequence of defending it as our Adversaries do by Principles A single Act of Vndutifulness to Superiors will in course pass away with those who are guilty of it so that Posterity will not be concerned in it But when it is defended by Principles it turns into false Doctrine and Doctrine of that pernicious Consequence that the Church is obliged to take notice of it as she will be faithful to her Trust in securing her Body from the like Divisions for the future Thus the Donatists took the first occasion for their Schism from the pretended personal Faults of Caecilian and his Ordainers This whilst it was a particular Case went no farther than that particular Schism But when it turned into a general Doctrine that personal Faults were sufficient to justifie Separation then it laid a Foundation of frequent Schisms as often as any Criminals got into Places of Trust and either Evidence was wanting or themselves too powerful to be contested with Then it concerned Ecclesiastical Governours to condemn this Doctrine that encouraged even Men of Conscience to divide designedly and frequently And when that Doctrine was thus condemned by the Church and was notwithstanding maintained by the Donatists as a Principle on which they subsisted as an opposite Communion it then became a Character of a Party to maintain it and from that time forward the Donatists were reckoned among Hereticks as well as Schismaticks For this was the true Notion of Heresie in those Ages as contradistinct from Schism Both of them supposed a Division of Communion or tended to it But that Division was called Schism which only broke the Political Vnion of the Society without any difference of Principles as when Thieves or Robbers transgress their Duties without any pretence of Principles authorizing them to do so So whilst Resentment alone was the reason that made Subjects separate from the Communion of their Ecclesiastical Governours or whilst Ambition alone made any to invade the Office of his Bishop and to erect an opposite Communion this was Schism properly so called as contradistinct from Heresie But when the Schism is patronized by Doctrines and justified as well done and consistently with Conscience such Divisions besides their being Schismatical were Heretical also in the sense of the Ancients and such Doctrines as Characteristical of a distinct Communion were properly called Heresies On this account the same Doctrine of the Original Identity of Bishops and Presbyters was no Heresie in St. Hierome who notwithstanding kept Communion with the Bishops of the Jurisdictions he lived in and yet was Heresie in Aâ—erius when upon account of that pretended Identity he presumed to pay no more Duty to the Bishops of the respective Jurisdictions than he would have done to single Presbyters This is the most agreeable account of the Heresies not only in Philastrius but in other more judicious Collectors of Catalogues of Heresies And it is very agreeable with the Notion of that Term among the Philosophers from whom the Christians derived it All Notions that were proper and characteristical to particular Schools among them made Heresies not those which were received in Common among them Answerably whereunto those Differences only of Opinion made Heresies in the Church which were the Notes of different Communions not those which went no farther than Speculation 24. I am very well aware how surprizing this will be to those who upon Popular Opinions have been used to believe no Opinion Heresie that was not against Fundamentals But if they will for a while lay aside their Prejudices they will possibly find this as slightly grounded as many other Popular Opinions are The very distinction between Fundamentals and Non-Fundamentals is not that I know of ever taken notice of by the Primitive Christians either in the same
a while it did keep them in their Thrones 17. The Truth is these Men were all so fickle and untrue to Principles for a long time that it is impossible to gather from their bare Facts what they did consequently even to their own Principles Euphemius himself though he afterwards declared himself Synodically for the Council of Chalcedon yet came in at first upon the Henoticon of Zeno So also was his Successor Macedonius at first brought in on the same Condition of owning the same Henoticon So Theodorus and Theophanes Accordingly the Emperor's Instruments got from him a Confession of Faith mentioning neither the 3d nor 4th Councils upon which his People of Constantinople deserted him till he returned to own the Council of Chalcedon so we are told by a Coaeval Monument of that Age an Epistle of the Palestine Monks to Alcyso in Evagrius How could Euphemius then own his Communion even by our Author's Principles as of an Orthodox Successor This was about the end of the Year 495. Cedrenus tells us he again relapsed to his Henoticon in the 8th Year of the same Emperor Anastasius that was about the Year 499. After he again declared for the Synod of Chalcedon with that Zeal as that he Anathematized Flavianus and his Legates for declaring against it This was the 19th Year of Anastasius if we may trust Theophanes concerning it that is about the Year 510. Not only so but a little before his Expulsion that is in the 21st Year of the same Prince that is after the beginning of April 511. Celer again prevails on him to receive the Henoticon aad to omit the 3d and 4th Council as he had done formerly though he presently retracted it and was therefore immediately banished Nor was Flavianus of Antioch more constant than he Immediately on his coming into the See no doubt the bigotted Emperor made him speak home to his Cause before he would permit him and accordingly Victor Tununensis tells us that in a Synod of Constantinople under the Consuls of the Year 499 if he be more to be trusted here than usually he is in assigning Years he condemned the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon After this Cyrillus Scythopolitanus says he joined with Macedonius and Elias in defending the same Council Again in the 18th Year of the same Reign that is in the Year 509 he declares as high for the Eutychians as themselves could wish He condemns the Council of Chalcedon He condemns the Confession of two Natures in our Blessed Saviour He condemns all the Persons concerned in the Disputes concerning the tria Capitula who had been absolved in the Council of Chalcedon and the Council that absolved them And the next Year he was condemned himself for condemning them as we have seen by his old Friend Macedonius But he recovered himself again and again provoked the Emperor who therefore assembles the Council of Sidon purposely to overthrow the Council of Chalcedon and to depose Flavianus and Elias from their Sees This affrightens them both and they send Saba to intercede for them to the Emperor with flattering and trimming Letters Thus Flavianus escaped that Storm and the Council of Sidon was dismissed without doing any thing against him This was in the Year 512. Immediately he returns to his old Orthodoxy which puts the Emperor out of all Patience when he received the News from Sotericus and Philoxenus that by these pretended Submissions he had made him dismiss the Synod so fruitlesly Cyril tells us the hard words the Emperor used concerning it which I am loath to translate Hereupon he orders his Informers to use what means they thought fit to get him out of his place they then repair to Antioch and with some Bribes set the Rabble upon the Bishop and force him once more to Anathematize the Synod of Chalcedon and then send him into Exile These are the express words of Cyrillus which Baronius is willing to understand of an Endeavour to force him but without Success So I would also have been willing to understand him if he had not frequently been guilty of such Apostasies But here particularly it appears that the Endeavours were successful from the express Testimony and the very Reason Theophanes gives why they banished him notwithstanding his Compliance that is because he anathematized that Council with his Mouth only not with his Heart But perhaps Elias the great the blessed Elias as our Author styles him was more true to Principles He was as frail as the rest and as little resolute in resisting any force that the Exigence of his Affairs brought him under No doubt he came in first as all must have done who were preferred by that Emperor by Promises for opposing the Chalcedon Council but he soon recovered and joined first with Euphemius then with Macedonius and Flavianus in defence of it After he relapsed again and condemns it again before the banishment of Macedonius and went so far that his Example was made use of by the Emperor to persuade Macedonius to follow him in it So Theod. Lector and Theoph. But when Macedonius was banished he received the communicatory Letters of Timotheus but would not those concerning the Deprivation of Macedonius This again provokes the Emperor against him Accordingly the Synod of Sydon was called with full design of condemning the Council of Chalcedon and banishing him Then he wrote the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by Cyrillus Baronius indeed endeavours to bring him off by observing from the Letter of the Palestine Monks to Alcyso that Elias pretended something to have been added to his Letters in relation to his condemning the Doctrine of two Natures in Christ And to prove this Elias produced a Copy of his own Letter he had kept by him wherein there were no such Words Cyrillus has nothing of this But be that as it will it seems however clear that he was very express in condemning the Council of Chalcedon and that his Expressness in that particular with the Intercession of Saba was that which secured him against the Council of Sidon As Flavianus then owned only three Councils taking no notice of the Council of Chalcedon so Elias did indeed mention it but so as withal to signifie that he did not receive it So Theophanes and not only he but his great Admirer Cyrillus explains what he meant by the flattering and trimming Words made use of by him in his Letter to the Emperor He tells us the very Words of his Letter as the Emperor himself signified them to Sabas that he did not approve of what was done in Chalcedon for the Scandals that followed thereupon And when he refused to receive Severus to his Communion he tells us again that the Emperor sent his trimming Epistle from Sidon as an Evidence against him professing that he did not own the Council of Chalcedon nor does he in the least signifie that Elias had any thing to say to it that could satisfie
seems he challenged a Right of filling the See himself and contested it with that Eutychius Bishop of Elutheropolis But that seems to have been after the time of Acacius after his second Restitution His first Contest was with Acacius himself of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis the same persons who are supposed to have been concerned in the Deprivation of Maximus And that the Deprivation of Cyril by Acacius was by some mistake taken for a Deprivation of Maximus in favour of Cyril we have reason to conjecture from The phanes himself He though he follows our Author's Opinion probably on the same Authority of the Life of Athanasius which was elder than Theophanes yet places it as the Truth required he should not at the time of the entrance of Cyril but at the year of his Deprivation and the Succession of Hilarion whom he makes his immediate Successor What can thence be clearer than that it was the Deprivation of Cyril not his Promotion that was here performed by Acacius especially when we are withall asâ—ured that those disputes which occasioned this Deprivation concerning Prerogative were started first in the time of Cyril All that the Adversaries of Maximus and Athanasius did on this restoring of Athanasius by Maximus in the Synod of Jerusalem was as Socrates himself observes only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to jeer Maximus for it that he himself should restore him who had voted against him in the Synod of Tyre How came he here to forget his carrying on his resentment farther afterwards to the Deprivation of Maximus How comes he here not to mention at least the anger of Acacius as well as his jeerinâ— if he had resented this Synod of Maximus and the determination oâ— it as an invation of his Prerogative if this had been the cause why he afterwards deprived him if his ground for saying so had not been rather mistaken conjectures than express and positive Authoritties So little ground he had for believing that Cyril was set up against Maximus Has he therefore any express Testimony for the Communion between Maximus and Cyril as Anti-Bishops of the same See No not so much as in his Celebrated Life of Athanasius it self neither as we have it extant at present nor as we have the Sum of it in Photius He only seems to guess at that as he has done at other things now mentioned from presuming the matter of Fact that they both at once pretended Espiscopal Authority in the same District and yet had both their Names continued in the Ecclesiâ—stical Diptychs 21. In truth the Credit of all our Author says to his own purpose is wholly resolved into that Life of Athanâ—sius which is vouched for it In the Appendix to the Paris Edition we have two Lives of that Great Man one by Metaphrastes the other by an unknown Author elder perhaps than Metaphrastes Both of them own this Tale that Maximus was deposed by Acacius If either of them was the Life read by Photius that of the Anonymous Author was the more likely of the two Metaphrastes was manfestly too late for him otherwise the Excerpta of Photius do better agree with Metaphrastes Photius takes no notice of the Notes of Time which are frequent in the Anonymous Life though he otherwise uses to take particular notice of such things in the Authors on which he makes his Observations But in making two Tyrian Synods wherein the Cause of Athanasius was debated he better agrees with Metaphrastes Perhaps therefore there was a third Life seen by Photius and interpolated after his manner by Metaphrastes which perished after the interpolation which also mentioned this pretended Deprivation of Maximus by Acacius Yet even that Elder Life also by the account of it in Photius seems to have been such a Life of Athanasius as Hierome Savier's Gospel was of our Saviour The several Forgeries and Mistakes of his Predecessors are taken in and his own added to them Here we are told of Athanasius's acting the part of Bishop while he was a Boy and that Alexander the then Bishop ratified what he did in that sportive Personation though he would have it believed that the Children were Serious in what they did But how could they be Serious in taking upon them Exercises of an Authority that did not belong to them This in all likelihood he had from the Greek Translation of Ruffinus's Addition to Eusebius's History by which Socrates confesses he had been seduced in several things concerning Athanasius before he consulted the Works of Athanasius himself Here we also read the Tale of Athanasius's absconding for several years with a young and beautiful Virgin This seems also to have been taken from the truly Monkish Historia Lausiaca of Palladius Here we find also the two Councils of Tyre against Athanasius one the true one on the Tricennalia of Constantine the Great the other in the time of Constantius where the Case of Arsenius was debated which we are certain could be no other than fictitious from the certain accounts Athanasius himself has preserved us of the whole affair But perhaps it was thought more convenient for connecting the actions of Maximus for which this Author would suppose him deprived by Acacius Many other instances might no doubt have been observed if we had leisure to compare this Legend with the undoubted Monuments of Athanasius and his coaeval Authors Photius himself who saw and read that Life gives but a mean account of it I mention not his Censures of the Style of it that we are less concerned for at present He says there were also several things new in the Historical infâ—rmations of it And new indeed they must be which had no antient Historical Monuments to be vouched for them So little reason there is to believe the matters of Fact true from whence our Author reasons in this case For it is manifest that eldest Life mentioned by Photius must have been the Original of this other Life whatever it was that was mentioned by our Collector Yet had they all been aâ— true as they wish they were our Adversaries would gain nothing by them Here are Synods concerned in all the particulars of this account the Synod of Tyre for depriving Athanasius the Synod of Jerusalem for restoring him and a supposed Synod also for the supposed deprivation of Maximus accordingly taken in by the modern Greeks with several other fabulous Synods into their Synodicon first published by Pappus and Justellus then taken by Labbee into his volumes of Councils But what is that to the case of our present Fathers whose deprivation cannot be pretended to have been Synodical 22. Our Author's next instance is in Eutychius deprived of the See of Constantinople by Justinian in the year 564. because he could not assent to the Apthartodocitae who thought our Saviour's Humane Nature incorruptible Yet our Author says he did not separate from the Communion of John who was set up against him But neither is this for our