first ages of Christianity. No heresy was then feoffed upon any man, but upon open and acknowledged conviction; and, if he cleared himself fron the main crimination, he was pronounced innocent.

Look into the records of times. The contagion of Arius, beginning at the obscure Church of Baucalis, soon reached to Alexandria; and there instantly infected seven hundred virgins, twelve deacons, seven priests: and offered to diffuse itself into the very Episcopal Throne. At last, by Miletus's relation, the Archbishop Alexander is made acquainted with the rumour of that heresy. He presently sends for Arius, and charges him with the crime. That impudent mouth sticks not to confess his wicked error; but there openly casts up the poison of his damnable doctrine, before his governor. The holy Bishop no less 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; follows him, as was meet, with seventy letters of caution to other Churches. Yet still the mischief spreads. The godly emperor Constantine is informed of the danger: he calls a Synod: Arius, with his all wicked pamphlets, is there cried down, and condemned to banishment. I do not find those Holy Fathers nibbling at consequences, strained out of his Thalia, or some other of his abominable papers; but charging him, with the right-down positions of heresy: such as these blasphemies, concerning Christ; "Time was, when he was not:" "He 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 quirks of sophisms, no violent deduction of unyielded sequels: the heresy proclaimed itself, and was accordingly sentenced.

Such were the proceedings with the Appollinarists, in the Third Council of Rome; and, in the First General Council of Constantinople, with the Macedonians; and, where not, in the cases of heresy?

And if, for all the rest, we would see a model of the old theological simplicity, in the censures of this nature, we need but to cast our eye upon that Profession of Faith and Anathematism, which Damascus ingenuously wrote to Paulinus; whether Bishop of Thessalonica, as Theodoret would have it; or, as others, of Antioch: "We pronounce Anathema," saith he, "to those, who do not with full liberty, proclaim the Holy Ghost to be of one power and substance, with the Father and the son. We pronounce Anathema to them, who follow the error of Sabellius; saying, That the Father is one and the

Bin. Concil. p. 1. Rom. 3. sub Damaso.

same person, with the Son. We pronounce Anathema to Arius, and Eunomius; who, with a like impiety, but in a form of words unlike, affirm the Son and the Holy Spirit to be creatures. We pronounce Anathema to the Macedonians; who, coming from the stock of Arius, have not varied from his impiety, but from his name. We pronounce Anathema to Photinus; who, renewing the heresy of Ebion, confesses our Lord Jesus Christ made only of the Virgin Mary. We pronounce Anathema to those, that maintain two Sons; one, before all worlds; the other, after the assuming of flesh from the Virgin." Thus he. Is there any man here condemned for a heretic, but he, who directly affirms, confesses, maintains opinions truly damnable?

Neither, indeed, is it just or equal, that a man should, by the malice of an enemy, be made guilty of those crimes, which himself abhors. What I will own, is mine; what is cast upon me, is my adversary's: and if I be, by deductions, fetched into such error, the fault is not in my faith, but in my logic: my brain may err: my heart doth not.

Away then, ye cruel torturers of opinions, dilaters of errors, delators of your brethren, incendiaries of the Church, haters of peace away with this unjust violence. Let no man bear more than his own burden. Press an erring 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 own: frame not imaginary monsters of error, with whom you may contend. He, that makes any man worse than he is, makes himself worse than he.

RULE VIII.

TO KEEP OPINIONS WITHIN THEIR OWN BOUNDS; NOT IMPUTING PRIVATE MEN'S CONCEITS TO WHOLE CHURCHES.

EIGHTHLY, it will be requisite to a peaceable Moderation, that we should give to every opinion his own due extent; not casting private men's conceits upon public Churches; not fathering single fancies upon a community ".

There was

All men cannot accord in the same thoughts. 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 stream.

There is no reason, that the blame of one or few should be diffused unto all.

If a Pope John the XXIId. shall maintain, that the souls of the

Non debet plurimorum malum tendere in æstimationem cunctorum. Greg. Moral. 1. 26. 28.

blessed shall sleep till the resurrection; if a Dominicus à Soto shall hold, that the whole Christian faith shall be extinguished, in the persecutions of Antichrist; shall we impute these opinions to the See or Church? If an Alphonsus à Castro shall hold heretics and apostates, after they are once baptized, to be true members of the Catholic Church; or a Catharinus, or Vasquez, shall teach the commandment, that forbids worshipping of images, to be merely temporary: if a Durant shall revive Pelagianism, in denying that there is any need of the divine aid, either of general or special concourse in human actions: if a Richardus Armachanus shall second the Novatians, in teaching, that there is no pardon to be obtained by the penitent, for some heinous sins: if an Occham shall teach, that the visible signs are not of the essence of a sacrament; or a Johannes Parisiensis, or Cornelius à Lapide, little differing from the condemned error of Rupertus Tuitiensis, shall teach, that the sacramental bread is hypostatically assumed by the Word: is there any so unjust arbiter of things, as to upbraid these paradoxes to the Roman Church, who professeth their dislike?

Thus, if a Knox, or Buchanan, or Goodman, shall broach exorbitant and dangerous opinions, concerning the successions and rights of kings, and lawless power of subjects; why, should this be laid in our dish, more than a Suarez or Mariana in theirs? If a Flaccius Illyricus shall uphold a singular error, concerning grace and original sin; if some ill-advised followers of Zuinglius shall hold the sacramental elements to be only bare signs, serving merely for memory and representation: if some divines of ours shall defend the rigid opinions concerning predestination; if some fantastical heads shall cry down all decent ceremonies, and all set forms of devotion; why should the Church suffer double, in those things, which it bewails? Surely, as the Church is a collective body; so it hath a tongue of her own, speaking by the common voice of her Synods: in her public Confessions, Articles, Constitutions, Catechisms, Liturgies. What she says in these, must pass for her own: but, if any single person shall take upon him, unauthorized, to be the mouth of the Church, his insolence is justly censurable; and, if an adversary shall charge that private opinion upon the Church, he shall be intolerably injurious.

Indeed, as it is the best harmony, where no part or instrument is heard alone, but a sweet composition and equal mixture of all so is it the best state of the Church, where no dissenting voice is heard above or besides his fellows; but all agree in one common sound of wholesome doctrine.

But, such as man's natural self-love is, this is more fit to be expected in a Platonical speculation, than in a true reality of existence for, while every man is apt to have a good conceit of his own deeper insight: and thinks the praise and use of his

knowledge lost, unless he impart it; it cometh to pass, that, not containing themselves within their own privacies, they vent their thoughts to the world: and hold it a great glory, to be the authors of some more than common piece of skill.

And, to say truth, the freedom and ease of the press hath much advanced this itching and disturbing humour of men. While only the pen was employed, books were rare; neither was it so easy for a man to know another's opinion, or to diffuse his own: now, one only day is enough to fill the world with a pamphlet, and suddenly to scatter whatsoever conceit, beyond all possibility of revocation.

So much the more need there is, for those, that sit at the helm, whether of Church or State, to carry a vigilant eye and hard hand, over these common tell-tales of the world; and so to restrain them, if it were possible, that nothing might pass their stamp, which should be prejudicial to the common peace, or varying from the received judgment of the Church.

But, if this task be little less than impossible, since by this means every man may have ten thousand several tongues at pleasure; how much more happy were it, that the sons of the Church could obtain of themselves so much good nature and submissive reverence, as to speak none but their mother's tongue!

The form of tongues, in the first descent of the Holy Ghost, was fiery and cloven; and that was the fittest for the state of the first plantation of the Gospel, intimating that fervour and variety, which was then both given and requisite: now, in the enlarged and settled estate of his Evangelical Church, the same Spirit descends and dwells in tongues, cool and undivided. Cor unum, via una; One heart, one way; was the motto of the Prophet, when he foretels the future coalition of God's people: and One mind, one mouth, was the Apostle's to his Romans; Rom. xv. 6. 2. Cor. xiii. 11. Let us walk by the same rule; let us mind the same thing; is his charge to his Philippians; ch. iii. 16.

But, if any wrangler affect to be singular, and will needs have a mind of his own, let him stand but for what he is: let him go only for a single figure: let him not, by a misprision, take up the place of thousands.

This is seasonably and happily done, by an order of the Star-Chamber, lately made.

RULE IX.

NOT TO DRAW THE ACTIONS OR MANNERS OF MEN TO THE
PREJUDICE OF THEIR CAUSE.

NINTHLY, neither doth it a little conduce to Moderation, to know, that the facts and manners of men may not be drawn to the prejudice of the cause: for, howsoever it commonly holds, that impious opinions and loose life go still together; yet, it is no trusting to this rule, as if it did not admit of exceptions.

There have been those, whose errors have been foul, and yet there conversation faultless. I remember what Bernard said of Peter Abailardus", that he was "John without, and Herod within:" and of Arnoldus of Brixia, "Would God his doctrine were so sound, as his life is strict:" and, elsewhere"; "Whose conversation is honey, his opinion poison: whose head is a dove's; his tail, a scorpion's." Epiphanius, when he speaks of the heretic Hierax, (a heretic with a witness, who denied the resurrection of the flesh, which he granted to the soul) could say, "He was a man truly admirable, for his exercise in piety; and such an one, as, besides the governance of his own, could draw other men's souls to the practice of godliness." And Augustin, speaking somewhere of Pelagius and some others of his sect, I remember, acknowledgeth, that the carriage of their life was fair and unblameable. And those, that are the bitterest enemies to the Waldenses, or poor men of Lyons, give great testimony to the integrity and inoffensiveness of their conversation.

So, on the contrary, there are many, whose religion is sound, but their life impure. As Cæsar said of old, "We have enough of these birds at home." Such as, like ants, follow the track of their fellows to their common hillock: going on those right ways of opinion, whereinto example and education have put them; yet staining their profession, by lewd behaviour. I have read', that a rich Jew being asked why he turned Christian, laid the cause upon the virtue of our Faith: and, being asked how he did so well know the virtue of such faith; "Because," said he, "the nation of Christians could not possibly hold out so long; by virtue of their works; for they are stark naught: therefore it must needs be by the power of their Faith." Certainly, it were woe with us, if lives should decide the truth of religion, betwixt us and unbelievers, betwixt us and our ignorant forefathers. These are not, therefore, fit umpires betwixt Christians competitioning for the truth. The Jew was the a Sententia impia, vita luxuriosa. Non benè vivit, qui non rectè credit. Calixtus. Benedict. Episc. b Bernard. Epist. 193. e Epist. 195. d Epist. 196. Epiphan. Hæres. 67. 'Bromiard. V. Fides.