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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02520	Christian moderation In two books. By Jos: Exon.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1640 (1640)	STC 12648B; ESTC S103629	96,446	388

drove the Macedonian hereticks not out of the Citty onely but out of the Country too I cannot blame Gratianus the Emperour that hee interdicted all assemblies to the Manichees Photinians Eunomians And if he had extended his Banne against those other forenamed hereticks it had beene yet better for the Church Hierom's word is a good one It is not cruelty that wee thus doe for Gods cause but Piety But if there be any who with full consent embrace all the Articles of Christian Belee●e and yet erre not contumaciously in some such dangerous consequences as doe in mine understanding though not their owne threaten ruine to the foundation by them yeelded as I dare not exclude them from the Church of God so I dare not professe to abhorre their Communion God forbid wee should shut up Christian brother-hood in so narrow a compasse as to barre all misbeleevers of this kind out of the family of God Doe but turne over that charitable and irrefragable discourse of Christianography Let your eyes but walke over those ample territories and large regions which in most of the parts of the habitable world but especially in Europe Africa and Asia professe the blessed name of God our Redeemer and looke to be saved by his blood and then aske your heart if you dare entertaine so uncharitable a thought as to exclude so many millions of weake but true beleevers out of the Church below or out of heaven above you shall there see Grecians Russians Georgians Armenians Iacobites Abassines and many other sects serving the same God acknowledging the same Scriptures beleeving in the same Saviour professing the same faith in all fundamentall points aspiring to the same Heaven and like Bees though flying severall wayes and working upon severall meadowes or gardens yet in the evening meeting together in the same hive Now if I liv'd in the community of any of these diverse sects of Christians I should hold it my duty to comply with them in all not unlawfull things and if any of them should live in the community of our Church I should labour by all good meanes to reclaime him from his erroneous opinion or superstitious practice when I had wrought upon him my utmost rather then let goe my hopes and interest in him I would goe as farre to meet him without any angariation save that of charity as the line of a good conscience would permit me herein following the sure patterne of our blessed Apostle whose profession it is Though I be free from all men yet have I made my selfe servant unto all that I might gaine the more unto the Iewes I became as a Iew that I might gaine the Iewes And to them under the Law as under the Law that I might gaine them that are under the Law To them that are without Law as without Law being not without Law to God but under the Law to Christ that I might gaine them that are without Law To the weake I became weake that I might gaine the weake I am made all things to all men that I might by all meanes save some I doe much feare the Church of Rome hath a hard answere to make one day in this particular Who imperiously and unjustly challenging unto it selfe the title of the Church Catholike shutteth all other Christian professions out of doores refusing all Communion with them and so neglecting them as if they had no soules or those soules cost nothing Amongst the rest I shall give but two instances The great Prince of the Abassine Christians having heard of the fame of the Europaean Churches sends some of his nation of whom he had a great opinion to Rome to be informed of the substance and rites of Religion there professed Zago Zaba was one of the number they with great labour and hazard arrived there made knowne their great errand but were so farre slighted that they were not so much as admitted to Christian society and after many yeares vayne hope were turn'd home disregardfully not much wiser then they came without any other newes save of the scorne and insolence of those who should have instructed them A carriage much sutable to that which they still beare to the Greeke Church a Church which as for extent it may compare with theirs so for purity of doctrine I dare say if that be her voyce which her last Patriarch Cirill of Constantinople hath acquainted the world with all as I was also confidently assured by the late learned Bishop of Saribaris as far exceeding the Roman Church as the Roman doth the Russian or Ethiopick which it most contemneth Let any the most curious eye trave●l over that learned confession of faith which after all devises and illusions is proved sufficiently to be the genuine act of that worthy Patriarch and by him published in the name of the whole Greeke Church and let him tell me what one blemish or mole hee can finde in that faire body save onely that one clause concerning the third person of the blessed Trinity The holy Spirit proceeding from the Father by the Sonne wherein there can be no danger whiles he addes in the next words Being of the same substance with the Father and the Sonne and concludes These three Persons in one Essence we call the most holy Trinity ever to be blessed glorified and adored of every creature This errour of his Greek Church as it is now minced is rather a Problem of Scholasticall Divinity then an heresie in the Christian faith In all the rest shew me any the most able and sincere Divine in the whole Christian world that can make a more cleare and absolute declaration of his faith then that Greeke Church hath done by the hand of her worthy and renouned Prelate yet how uncharitably is she barred out of doores by her unkinde sister of Rome How unjustly branded with heresie in so much as it is absolutely forbidden to the Grecian Priests to celebrate their Masses and divine Services in the Roman fashion Neither may the Romans officiate in the Grecian manner under the payne of perpetuall suspension And if a woman of the Latine Church be given in marriage to a Greeke shee may not be suffered to live after the Grecian fashion A solaecisme much like to that of the Russian Churches who admit none to their Communion be hee nver so good a Christian if he doe not submit himselfe to their matriculation by a new Baptisme Sure those Christians that thus carry themselves towards their deare brethren dearer perhaps to God then they have either no bowels or no braynes and shall once finde by the difference of the smart whether ignorance or hard-heartednesse were guilty of this injurious measure Next to the persons the limits of this approach or remotenesse are considerable which must be proportioned according to the condition of them with whom we have to deale If they be professed enemies to the Christian name Beware of dogs beware of the

the Iesuite Theodore Beza denyes that the body of Christ can be substantially in many places at once Therefore he denies Gods Omnipotence The Protestant ascribes to God more then a meere permission of evill therefore hee makes him the Author of sinne Contrarily no meane one of ours inferres a Papist makes Christ a creature therefore hee is an Arrian Makes Christ of meale therefore not of the blessed Virgin therefore an Apollinarist Consequences which the disputant thinks to make good but the accused on either part detests Thus the honest and ingenuous Christian is drawne from a commendable search of necessary truthes into a wild chase of envious inferences And now the quarrell is indeed fallen off from Divinity and is removed to the Schooles of Logique naturall Philosophy Metaphysicks and not hee that hath the most truth must carry it but he that can bring the most skilfull Sophistry What is it that distracts the Reformed Churches of Christendome but this injurious conceit of inconsequent inferences The humanity of Christ saith one part is omnipresent therefore saith the other no humanity at all sith this is onely proper to the Deity The ubiquity of Christs humane nature is denyed saith the other therefore the personall union is destroyed Away with these rigid illations when wee have to doe with brethren Each holdeth his owne both disclayme the inferences and in their sence may For as learned Bucer gravely It is our part to see not what doth of it selfe follow upon any Opinion but what followes in the conscience of those who hold that opinion which wee thinke contrary to a fundamentall Article Were this rule held how happy were the Church how certaine our peace when we have done our best there will be errours enow in the Church wee need not to make them more This was not the fashion in the plaine dealing world of the first ages of Christianity No heresie was then feoffed upon any man but upon open and acknowledged conviction and if he cleared himselfe from the maine crimination hee was pronounced innocent Looke into the records of times The contagion of Arrius beginning at the obscure Church of Baucalis soone reach't to Alexandria and there instantly infected seaven hundred virgins twelve Deacons seaven Priests and offered to diffuse it selfe into the very Episcopall Throane at last by Miletus his relation the Archbishop Alexander is made acquainted with the rumor of that heresie he presently sends for Arrius and charges him with the crime That impudent mouth sticks not to confesse his wicked error but there openly casts up the poyson of his damnable doctrine before his Governour The holy Bishop no lesse openly reproves him urges and aggravates the sacrilegious impiety of his opinion And finding him to second his error with contumacies expels him from his Church followes him as was meet with seventy letters of caution to other Churches yet still the mischiefe spreds The godly Emperour Constantine is informed of the danger hee calls a Synode Arrius with his all wicked Pamphlets is there cryed downe and condemn'd to banishment I doe not finde those holy fathers nibling at consequences strain'd out of his Thalia or some other of his abhominable papers but charging him with the right-downe positions of heresie such as these blasphemies concerning Christ Time was when hee was not Hee was made of things that were not He was not begotten of the Substance of the Father In time not from Eternity not true God of God but created of nothing Here were no tricks of inferences no quirkes of Sophismes no violent deduction of unyeelded sequels the heresie proclaymed it selfe and was accordingly sentenced Such were the proceedings with the Apollinarists in the third Councell of Rome and in the first Generall Councell of Constantinople with the Macedonians and where not in the cases of heresie And if for all the rest we would see a modell of the old Theologicall simplicity in the censures of this nature we need but to cast our eye upon that profession of faith and Anathemat●me which Damasus ingeniously wrote to Paulinus whether Bishop of Thessalonica as Theodoret would have it or as others of Antioch wee pronounce Anathema saith he to those who doe not with full liberty proclaime the Holy Ghost to be of one power and substance with the Father and the Sonne We pronounce Anathema to them who follow the error of Sabellius saying That the Father is one and the same person with the Son Wee pronounce Anathema to Arrius and Eunomius who with a like impiety but in a forme of words unlike affirme the Sunne and the holy Spirit to be creatures We pronounce Anathema to the Macedonians who comming from the stocke of Arrius have not varyed from his impiety but from his name We pronounce Anathema to Photinus who renuing the heresie of Ebion confesses our Lord Iesus Christ made only of the Virgin Mary Wee pronounce Anathema to those that maintaine two Sonnes one before all worlds the other after the assuming of flesh from the Virgin Thus he Is there any man here condemned for an heretick but hee who dirctly affirmes confesses maintaines opinions truly damnable Neither indeed is it just or equall that a man should by the malice of an enemy be made guilty of those crimes which himselfe abhorres What I will owne is mine what is cast upon me is my adversaries And if I be by deductions fetch 't into such errour the fault is not in my faith but in my Logick my braine may erre my heart doth not Away then ye cruell Tortors of Opinions Dilaters of Errours Delators of your brethren Incendiaries of the Church haters of peace Away with this unjust violence Let no man beare more then his owne burden Presse an ●●ring brother if ye please in way of Argument with such odious Consectaries as may make him weary of his Opinion but hate to charge him with it as his owne frame not imaginary monsters of error with whom you may contend Hee that makes any man worse then hee is makes himselfe worse then hee §. XII The eighth rule of Moderation To keepe opinions within their owne bounds not imputing private mens conceits to whole Churches EIghtly it will be requisite to a peaceable moderation that we should give to every opinion his owne due extent not casting private mens conceits upon publicke Churches not fathering single fancies upon a Community All men cannot accord in the same thoughts there was never any Church under heaven in which there was not some Ahimaaz that would run alone In all waters lightly there are some sorts of fish that love to swim against the streame there is no reason that the blame of one or few should be diffused unto all If a Pope John the 22 shall maintaine that the soules of the blessed shall sleep till the resurrection If a Dominicus a Soto shall hold that the whole Christian faith shall be extinguished in the persecutions of Antichrist shall wee impute these