opinion has not wanted its Patrons and defenders Turrianus Bovius c. but herein deserted by the more modest and moderate of their own party besides that their Apostolicalness in this sense is by the learned Daillé everlastingly shattered and broken But then he sets them at too wide a distance assigning them to the latter end of the fifth Century when 't is as clear as the Sun that they were extant and in credit with many before the times of Epihanius though somewhat altered now from what they were in his time compiled probably out of many lesser 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Books containing the Doctrines and Rites that had been delivered and practised by ancient and Apostolical persons or at least vented under their names but whether as some conjecture composed by Clemens Alexandrinus and thence by an easie mistake ascribed to Clemens Romanus I am not at leisure to consider In this Class of Writers I may reckon Dionysius the Areopagite absurdly enough asserted by many to be genuine by Daillé thrust down to the beginning of the sixth Century but most probably thought to have been written about the middle of the fourth Age as a person amongst us deservedly of great name and note has shewn in his late Vindication of Ignatius Epistles These are the principal of those Authors who could not be fix'd upon any certain year the rest have in the Index their particular and respective times To which I have added the account of the Editions for the more ready finding if occasion be of any passage quoted out of them One thing indeed there is which I cannot but take notice of it looks so like a piece of vanity and ostentation that the margent is charged with so many quotations but whoever considers the nature of my design will quickly see that it was absolutely necessary and that it concerned me not to deliver any thing without good authority the reason why I have where I could brought them in speaking their own words though to avoid as much of the charge as was possible I omitted the citing Authors in their own Languages and only set them down in English faithfully representing the Authors sense though not always tying my self to a strict and precise translation How pertinent my quotations are the Reader must judge I hope he will find them exact being immediately fetched from the fountain-head here being very few if any that have not been examined more than once For the method into which the Book is cast I chose that which to me seemed most apt and proper following S. Pauls distribution of Religion into piety towards God sobriety towards our selves and righteousness towards others and accordingly divided the discourse into three parts respecting those three great branches of Religion though the first is much larger than either of the other by reason of some preliminary Chapters containing a vindication of the Christians from those crimes that were charged upon them that so the rubbish being cleared and thrown out of the way we might have a fairer prospect of their Religion afterwards The Book I confess is swell'd into a greater bulk than I either thought of or desired but by reason of somewhat a confused Copy never design'd for the Press no certain measures could be taken of it And now if after all this it shall be enquired why these Papers are made publick as I can give no very good reason so I will not trouble my self to invent a bad one It may suffice to intimate that this discourse long since drawn up at leisure hours lay then by me when a tedious and uncomfortable distemper whereby I have been taken off from all publick Service and the prosecution of severer studies gave me too much opportunity to look over my Papers and this especially which peradventure otherwise had never seen the light Indeed I must confess I was somewhat the easilier prevailed with to let this discourse pass abroad that it might appear that when I could not do what I ought I was at least willing to do what I could If he that reads it shall reap any delight and satisfaction by it or be in any measure induced to imitate these primitive virtues I shall think my pains well bestowed if not I am not the first and probably shall not be the last that has written a Book to no purpose THE CONTENTS PART I. CHAP. I. Things charged upon the Primitive Christians respecting their Religion CHAP. II. Of the Novelty that was charged upon Christianity CHAP. III. Things charged upon the Christians respecting their outward condition CHAP. IV. The Charges brought against them respecting their life and manners CHAP. V. Of the positive parts of their Religion And first Of their piety towards God CHAP. VI. Of Churches and places of Publick Worship in the primitive times CHAP. VII Of the Lords-Day and the Fasts and Festivals of the ancient Church CHAP. VIII Of the persons constituting the body of the Church both people and Ministers CHAP. IX Of their usual Worship both private and publick CHAP. X. Of Baptism and the administration of it in the Primitive Church CHAP. XI Of the Lords Supper and the administration of it in the ancient Church PART II. The Religion of the Primitive Christians as to those virtues that respect themselves CHAP. I. Of their Humility CHAP. II. Of their Heavenly-mindedness and contempt of the World CHAP. III. Of their sobriety in respect of their Garb and Apparel CHAP. IV. Of their great Temperance and Abstinence CHAP. V. Of their singular Continence and Chastity CHAP. VI. Of their readiness and constancy in professing their Religion CHAP. VII Of their Patience and Exemplary Carriage under Sufferings PART III. Of their Religion as respecting other men CHAP. I. Of their Justice and Honesty CHAP. II. Of their admirable Love and Charity CHAP. III. Of their Vnity and Peaceableness CHAP. IV. Of their Obedience and Subjection to Civil Government CHAP. V. Of their Penance and the Discipline of the Ancient Church Primitive Christianity OR THE RELIGION OF THE Ancient Christians In the first Ages of the Gospel PART I. CHAP. I. Things charged upon the Primitive Christians respecting their Religion Christian Religion likely to meet with opposition at its first setting out Chiefly undermined by Calumnies and Reproaches Three things by the Heathens charged upon the Christians some things respecting their Religion some their outward condition others their moral carriage and the matters of their worship Their Religion charged with two things Impiety and Novelty The charge of Atheism considered and answered out of the Fathers The Heathens excepted against as incompetent judges of the affairs of Christianity In what sense Christians confessed themselves Atheists The wretched and absurd Deities that were amongst the Heathens and the impure manner of their worship Atheism properly such disowned and denied by Christians The account they gave of their Religion and the God whom they worshipped NO sooner did the Son
endeavours to find out many mystical significations intended by it and seems to intimate as if he had been peculiarly warned of God to observe it according to that manner an argument which that good man often produces as his warrant to knock down a controversie when other arguments were too weak to do it But although it should be granted that our Saviour did so use it in the institution of the Supper the Wines of those Eastern Countries being very strong and generous and that our Saviour as all sober and temperate persons might probably abate its strength with water of which nevertheless the History of the Gospel is wholly silent yet this being a thing in it self indifferent and accidental and no way necessary to the Sacrament could not be obligatory to the Church but might either be done or let alone The posture wherein they received it was not always the same the Apostles at the institution of it by our Saviour received it according to the custom of the Jews at meals at that time lying along on their sides upon Beds round about the Table how long this way of receiving lasted I find not in the time of Dionysius Alexandrinus the custom was to stand at the Lords Table as he intimates in a Letter to Pope Xystus other gestures being taken in as the prudence and piety of the Governours of the Church judged most decent and comely for such a solemn action the Bread and Wine were delivered into the hands of those that communicated and not as the superstition of after-ages brought in injected or thrown into their mouths Cyrill tells us that in his time they used to stretch out their right hand putting their left hand under it either to prevent any of the sacramental Bread from falling down or as some would have it hereby to shadow out a kind of figure of a Cross During the time of administration which in populous Congregations was no little time they sung Hymns and Psalms the compiler of the Apostolical Constitutions particularly mentions the 33. Psalm which being done the whole action was solemnly concluded with prayer and thanksgiving the form whereof is likewise set down by the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions that God had thought them worthy to participate of such sacred mysteries and the people being blessed by the Bishop or the Minister of the Assembly and having again saluted each other with a Kiss of Peace as a testimony of their hearty love and kindness whence Tertullian calls this Kiss signaculum Orationis the Seal of Prayer the Assembly broke up and they returned to their own houses This for the main was the order wherein the first Christians celebrated this holy Sacrament for though I do not pretend to set down every thing in that precise and punctual order wherein they were always done and how should I when they often varied according to time and place yet I doubt not but who ever examines the usages of those times will find that 't is done as near as the nature of the thing would bear The end of the first Part. Primitive Christianity OR THE RELIGION OF THE Ancient Christians In the first Ages of the Gospel PART II. The Religion of the Primitive Christians as to those Vertues that respect themselves CHAP. I. Of their Humility This second branch of Religion comprehended under the notion of Sobriety and discovered in some great instances of it The proper tendency of the Christian Religion to beget humility This divine temper eminently visible in the first Christians made good out of their writings The great humility and self-denial of Cyprian What Nazianzen reports to this purpose of his own Father Their modest declining that just commendation that was due to them Many who suffered refus'd the honourable title of Martyrs Nazianzen's vindication of them against the suggestions of Julian the Apostate The singular meekness and condescension of Nebridius amidst all his honours and relations at Court Their stooping to the vilest Offices and for the meanest persons dressing and ministring to the sick washing the Saints feet kissing the Martyrs chains The remarkable humility of Placilla the Empress and the Lady Paula An excellent discourse of Nyssen's against Pride NExt to Piety towards God succeeds that part of Religion that immediately respects our selves expressed by the Apostle under the general name of Sobriety or the keeping our selves within those bounds and measures which God has set us Vertues for which the Primitive Christians were no less renowned than for the other Amongst them I shall take notice of their Humility their contempt of the World their temperance and sobriety their courage and constancy and their exemplary patience under sufferings To begin with the first Humility is a vertue that seems more proper to the Gospel for though Philosophers now and then spake a few good words concerning it yet it found no real entertainment in their lives being generally animalia gloriae creatures pufft up with wind and emptiness and that sacrific'd only to their own praise and honour whereas the doctrines of the Gospel immediately tend to level all proud and swelling apprehensions to plant the world with mildness and modesty and to cloath men with humility and the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit By these we are taught to dwell at home and to converse more familiarly with our selves to be acquainted with our own deficiencies and imperfections and rather to admire others than to advance our selves for the proper notion of Humility lies in a low and mean estimation of our selves and an answerable carriage towards others not thinking of our selves more highly than we ought to think nor being unwilling that other men should value us at the same rate Now that this was the excellent spirit of Primitive Christianity will appear if we consider how earnestly they protested against all ambitious and vain-glorious designs how chearfully they condescended to the meanest Offices and Imployments how studiously they declin'd all advantages of applause and credit how ready they were rather to give praise to others than to take it to themselves in honour preferring one another S. Clemens highly commends his Corinthians that all of them were of an humble temper in nothing given to vain-glory subject unto others rather than subjecting others to themselves ready to give rather than receive Accordingly he exhorts them especially after they were fallen into a little faction and disorder still to be humble-minded to lay aside all haughtiness and pride foolishness and anger and not to glory in wisdom strength or riches but let him that glories glory in the Lord and to follow the example of our Lord the Scepter of the Majesty of God who came not in the vain-boasting of arrogancy and pride although able to do whatsoever he pleased but in great meekness and humility of mind appearing in the world without any form or comeliness or any beauty that he
that was overlaid with Gold where he beheld nothing but a company of persons with their bodies bow'd down and pale faces I know the design of that Dialogue in part is to abuse and deride the Christians but there 's no reason to suppose he feigned those circumstances which made nothing to his purpose As the times grew better they added more and greater ornaments to them concerning two whereof there has been some contest in the Christian world Altars and Images As for Altars the first Christians had no other in their Churches than decent Tables of wood upon which they celebrated the holy Eucharist these 't is true in allusion to those in the Jewish Temple the Fathers generally called Altars and truly enough might do so by reason of those Sacrifices they offered upon them viz. the commemoration of Christs Sacrifice in the blessed Sacrament the Sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving and the oblation of Alms and Charity for the poor usually laid upon those Tables which the Apostle expresly styles a Sacrifice These were the only Sacrifices for no other had the Christian world for many hundreds of years which they then offered upon their Altars which were much of the same kind with our Communion-Tables at this day For that they had not any such fixed and gaudy Altars as the Heathens then had in their Temples and Papists still have in their Churches is most evident because the Heathens at every turn did charge and reproach them for having none and the Fathers in their answers did freely and openly acknowledge and avow it asserting and pleading that the only true sacred Altar was a pure and a holy mind and that the best and most acceptable Sacrifice to God was a pious heart and an innocent and religious life Haec nostra sacrificia haec Dei sacra sunt these say they are our oblations these the sacrifices we give to God This was the state of Altars in the Christian Churches for near upon the first three hundred years till Constantine coming in and with him peace and plenty the Churches began to excel in costliness and bravery every day and then their wooden and moveable Altars began to be turned into fixed Altars of Stone or Marble though used to no other purpose than before and yet this too did not so universally obtain though severely urged by Sylvester Bishop of Rome but that in very many places Tables or moveable Altars of wood continued in use a long time after as might easily be made appear from several passages in Athanasius and others yea even to S. Augustine's time and probably much later were it proper to my business to search after it No sooner were Altars made fixed and immoveable but they were compassed in with Rails to fence off rudeness and irreverence and persons began to regard them with mighty observance and respect which soon grew so high that they became Asylums and refuges to protect innocent persons and unwitting offenders from immediate violence and oppression an instance whereof Nazianzen gives us in a Christian Widow a woman of great place and quality who flying from the importunities of the President who would have forced her to marry him had no other way but to take sanctuary at the holy Table in S. Basils Church at Caesarea she was demanded with many fierce and terrible threatnings but the holy man stoutly refused although the President was his mortal Enemy and sought only a pretence to ruine him Many such cases may be met with in the History of the Church nor was this a priviledge meerly founded upon custom but setled and ratified by the Laws of Christian Emperours concerning the particular cases whereof together with the extent and limitation of these immunities there are no less than six several Laws of the Emperours Theodosius Arcadius and Theodosius junior yet extant in the Theodosian Code But how far those Asyla's and Sanctuaries were good and useful and to what evil and pernicious purposes they were improv'd in after-times is without the limits of my present task to enquire But if in those times there was so little ground for Altars as us'd in the present sense of the Church of Rome there was yet far less for Images and certainly might things be carried by a fair and impartial tryal of Antiquity the dispute would soon be at an end there not being any one just and good authority to prove that Images were either worshipped or us'd in Churches for near upon four hundred years after Christ and I doubt not but it might be carried much farther but that my business lyes mainly within those first Ages of Christianity Nothing can be more clear than that the Christians were frequently challenged by the Heathens as for having no Altars and Temples so that they had no Images or Statues in them and that the Christian Apologists never denied it but industriously defended themselves against the charge and rejected the very thoughts of any such thing with contempt and scorn as might be abundantly made good from Tertullian Clem. Alexandrinus Origen Minucius Faelix Arnobius and Lactantius many of whose testimonies have been formerly pointed to Amongst other things Origen plainly tells his Adversary who had objected this to the Christians that the Images that were to be dedicated to God were not to be careed by the hand of Artists but to be formed and fashioned in us by the Word of God viz. the virtues of justice and temperance of wisdom and piety c. that conform us to the Image of his only Son These says he are the only Statues formed in our minds and by which alone we are perswaded 't is fit to do honour to him who is the Image of the invisible God the prototype and architypal pattern of all such Images Had Christians then given adoration to them or but set them up in their places of Worship with what face can we suppose they should have told the world that they so much slighted and abhorred them and indeed what a hearty detestation they universally shew'd to any thing that had but the least shadow of Idolatry has been before prov'd at large The Council of Illiberis that was held in Spain some time before Constantine expresly provided against it decreeing that no Pictures ought to be in the Church nor that any thing that is worshipped and adored should be painted upon the walls words so clear and positive as not to be evaded by all the little shifts and glosses which the Expositors of that Canon would put upon it The first use of Statues and Pictures in publick Churches was meerly historical or to add some beauty and ornament to the place which after Ages improved into Superstition and Idolatry The first that we meet with upon good authority for all the instances brought for the first Ages are either false and spurious or impertinent and to no purpose is no elder than the times of
the Sea cutting and burning of limbs putting out eyes and mutilation of the whole body hunger and digging in Mines chains and fetters all which for the great love that they had to their Lord and Master they accounted sweeter than any happiness or pleasure whatsoever Nay the very women in this case were as couragious as the men many of whom undergoing the same conflicts reaped the same rewards of their constancy and vertue But this will more distinctly appear in a few particular cases First When ever they were sought for in order to their being condemned and executed they cared not to make use of opportunities to escape Polycarp at his apprehension refused to fly though going but into the next house might have sav'd his life Cyprian writing to the Confessors commends them that when they were oft desired I suppose he means by their Gentile-friends and relations to go out of prison they chose rather to abide there still than to make their own escape telling them they had made as many confessions as they had had opportunities to be gone and had rejected them Though 't is true he himself withdrew from Carthage when the Officers were sent to take him and carry him to Vtica yet he did it as he tells his people by the advice of some friends but for this reason that when he did suffer he might suffer at Carthage whereof he was Bishop and that those truths which he had preach'd to them in his life he might seal before them with his blood a thing he earnestly and daily begg'd of God and which was granted to him afterwards And if they did not run away from suffering much less did they oppose it and make tumults and parties to defend themselves no they were led as Lambs to the slaughter and as sheep before the shearers are dumb so opened not they their mouth but committed their cause to him that judges righteously and who has said vengeance is mine and I will repay it None of us says Cyprian to the Governour when apprehended makes resistance nor though our party be large and numerous revenges himself for that unjust violence that you offer to us we patiently acquiesce in the assurance of a future vengeance the innocent truckle under the unrighteous the guiltless quietly submit to pains and tortures knowing for certain that what-ever we now suffer shall not remain unpunished and that the greater the injury that is done us in these persecutions we endure the more just and heavy will be that vengeance that will follow it never was any wicked attempt made against Christians but a divine vengeance was soon at the heels of it But though they thus resolutely stood to 't when the honour of their Religon lay at stake yet it must not be denied that in some cases they held it lawful and convenient to fly in times of persecution Tertullian indeed in a Book purposely written on this subject maintains it to be simply and absolutely unlawful for Christians to fly at such a time an assertion which with all the subtilties of his wit and the flourishes of his African eloquence he endeavours to render fair and pausible But besides the strictness and rigid severity of the man at all times this Book was composed after his complying with the Sect of the Montanists whose peculiar humour it was to out-do the Orthodox by overstraining the austerities of Religion as appears not only in this but in the case of marriages fasts pennances and such like Otherwise before his espousing those opinions he seems elsewhere to speak more favourably of shunning persecution But whatever he thought in the case 't is certain the generality of the Fathers were of another mind that Christians might and ought to use prudence in this affair and at some times withdraw to avoid the storm when it was a coming especially in these two Cases I. When persons were of more than ordinary use and eminency the saving of whom might be of great advantage to the Church Thus S. Paul was let down the wall in a basket when the Governour of Damascus sought his life Thus Cyprian withdrew from Carthage and lay hid for two years together during which time he gave secret orders for governing of the Church Thus Athanasius when Syrianus and his Souldiers broke into the Church to apprehend him was by the universal cry both of Clergy and people perswaded and in a manner forced to retire and save himself in which retirement he continued so long that the Arrians charg'd him with fear and cowardise insomuch that for his own vindication he was forced to write an Apology for himself wherein he learnedly and eloquently discourses the whole affair justifying himself from the instances of the Old Testament of Jacob Moses David Elias from the example of Christ himself and his Apostles in the New from the plain and positive allowance of the Gospel when they persecute you in one City flee into another and that when they should see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place i. e. the miseries that were to come upon Jerusalem by the Roman Army they should fly unto the mountians and if upon the house top or in the field not turn back to fetch any thing that was left behind that 't was necessary for the Apostles to shun the storm because they were the instruments immediately deputed to propagate and convey the Gospel to the World that they were herein imitated by the Primitive Saints and Martyrs who wandred about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth being equally careful to avoid the two extreams of rashness and cowardise they would neither thrust themselves upon danger nor basely run from death when call'd to it like wise Physicians reserving themselves for the use of those that needed their assistance All which and a great deal more he rationally urges in that Apology II. Another case wherein they accounted it lawful for persons to retire under persecutions was when being but new Converts and as yet weak in the faith they look'd upon them as not likely to bear the shock and brunt of the persecution in this case they thought it better for them to withdraw for the present than to put them under a temptaion of being drawn back to Paganism and Idolatry Thus when Gregory Bishop of Neocaesarea saw the Decian persecution grow extream hot and violent considering the frailty and infirmity of humane nature and how few would be able to bear up under those fierce conflicts that must be undergone for the sake of Religion perswaded his Church a little to decline that dreadful and terrible storm telling them 't was a great deal better to save their souls by flying than by abiding those furious trials to run the hazard of falling from the faith and that his counsel might make the deeper impression upon them and he might convince them that in thus doing there was no danger or