Marvel's character of the Council of Nice. 151 CILS. as of men who are acted by the devils: for should Satan him- oF COUNself write books by the hands of men, he could not write with more spite and venom than they have done against the priesthood and the Church. He cites a most false and malicious character of the first general council of Nice, out of Marvel's Historical Essay of Councilsk; who was, as the reader may perceive by the citation itself, an utter enemy to the Nicene faith. Such also, or almost such, are many of the other writers which he cites in that chapter1; either utter enemies, or not true friends to the consubstantial doctrine; and how much Marvel hath misrepresented that council, may be seen in the account which Eusebius hath given of it in a few short chapters m (or that which Socrates hath given of it out of Eusebius") in the Life of Constantine; as also out of Sozomen°. Those who do not understand the originals may see in the English translation of the ecclesiastical historians? how Eusebius calls the meeting of the council "the work of God"," and compares the bishops of which it consisted, to "a garland made of the finest flowers from all parts," and bound [Rights, p. 196. Where Tindal, in speaking of the council of Nice, says, "which yet, as Mr. Marvel justly observes, was a pitiful human business, attended with all the ill circumstances of other worldly affairs, conducted by a spirit of ambition and contention; the first, and so the greatest, oecumenical blow that by Christians was given to Christians. It was," says he, "their imposition of a new article or creed upon the Christian world, not being contained in express words of Scripture .... In digging thus for a new deduction they undermined the fabric of Christianity," &c. The extract is from "An Historical Essay concerning General Councils, Creeds, and Impositions in matters of Religion;" (Marvel's Works, vol. ii. pp. 142, 143. 4to. Lond. 1776,) which was appended to a work, written by Marvel against Dr. Francis Turner, afterwards bishop of Ely, and one of the seven bishops, entitled, "Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in mode," published in 1676, under the assumed name of Andreas Rivetus, an anagram of Res nuda Veritas. Turner had sent out " Animadversions on 'the Naked Truth,'" a pamphlet published anonymously by Dr. Herbert Croft, [The authors cited in that chapter m De vita Constant., lib. iii. cap. iv. -xiii. [ap. Hist. Eccl., Reading, tom. i. pp. 578-584.] n Socratis, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. cap. vii. viii. [ibid., tom. ii. pp. 15-26.] o Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. cap. xvii. xviii. sqq. [to the end of the book, ibid., tom. ii. pp. 35—43.] P [The History of the Church, translated from the Greek of Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius, with a translation of Valesius' Annotations on those authors, fol. Camb. 1683.] Reprinted at London, 1709. 4 [ἐπειδὴ οὖν συνῆλθον οἱ πάντες, ἔργον ἤδη Θεοῦ τὸ πραττόμενον ἐθεωρεῖτο· οἱ γὰρ μὴ μόνον ψυχαῖς ἄλλα καὶ σώμασι καὶ χώραις καὶ τόποις καὶ ἔθνεσι πορρωτάτω διεστῶτες ἀλλήλων, ὁμοῦ συ νήγοντο, καὶ μία τοὺς πάντας ὑπεδέχετο πόλις, οἷον τινα μέγιστον ἱερέων στέφανον ἐξ ὡραίων ἀνθέων καταπεποικιλ Mévov.-Euseb. Vita Const., cap. vi. ibid., p. 579.] PREFAT. DISCOURSE, SECT. VII. 152 True character of the Nicene Fathers. together with the bond of peace. "Some of them," he saith", 66 were adorned with the word of wisdom; others were venerable for the gravity of their lives, and their very great sufferings; and others for their modesty and moderation:" and of the three hundred and eighteen fathers who were assembled in that council, all but five agreed in that Nicene confession of faith. There they will find what respect and deference the emperor paid to them, as to his spiritual fathers and superiors, and that the great animosities and contentions he found at first among them did not lessen his veneration for them; for he was thoroughly instructed in the Christian religion", and did not only consider that Christians, and Christian priests, were men of passions, and subject to be tempted to strife by the devils; but also "looked upon sects," and parties, "and schisms" among themselves, "as arguments for the truth of Christianity, because they were foretold." Indeed their divisions was neither matter of wonder or scandal to the wise among the Greeks, who knew that there were numerous divisions among the philosophers, and all other professors of arts and sciences, and therefore r [τῶν δὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ λειτουργῶν οἱ μὲν διέπρεπον σοφίας λόγῳ· οἱ δὲ βίου στερρότητι καὶ καρτερίας ὑπομονῇ· οἱ δὲ τῷ μέσῳ τρόπῳ κατεκοσμοῦντο. ibid., c. ix. p. 581. μéσos трóжos sumi potest pro modestia et comitate morum, ut μέσῳ positum sit pro μετρίῳ. Vales. annot. in loc.] [ταύτην τὴν πίστιν τριακόσιοι μὲν πρὸς τοῖς δεκαόκτω ἔγνωσάν τε καὶ ἔστερξαν· καὶ ὡς φησὶν ὁ Εὐσέβιος, ὁμοφωνήσαντες καὶ ὁμοδοξήσαντες ἔγραφον πέντε δὲ μόνοι οὐ προσεδέξαντο.-Socrat. Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. viii. p. 22.] t Euseb. de vita Const., lib. iii. cap. xxiii. [μόνοις Αἰγυπτίοις ἄμικτος ἦν ἡ πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλονεικία· ὡς καὶ αὖθις ἐνοχλεῖν βασιλέα· οὐ μὴν καὶ πρὸς ὀργὴν ἐγείρειν, οἷα γοῦν πατέρας, ἢ καὶ μᾶλλον προφήτας Θεοῦ, πάσῃ περιέπων τιμῇ, K. T. λ.—ibid., p. 591.] u Sozom. Eccles. Hist., lib. i. cap. iii. [ibid., tom. ii. pp. 12, 13. The chapter contains the account of Constantine's conversion, and the instruction then given him.] See the preface to the Apologetical Vindication of the Church of England, in Answer to her Adversaries, who reproach her with the English Heresies and Schisms. Printed for Walter Kettilby, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1706. [and the Apol. Vindication itself, p. 21, &c. This work was originally a sermon preached by Hickes, on two successive Sundays, in London, on the publication of the "papers found in the late king's strong box," by King James II., in which our divisions were alleged as an argument against the English Church. His preaching this sermon led the king to shew Hickes the original MS. of the papers in Charles II.'s own hand. The sermon was afterwards enlarged, and published in 1686. In 1706 Hickes sent out this second edition, with many additions, an Appendix of papers relating to the schisms of the Church of Rome, and the Preface here referred to; the design of which is to expose the deistical principles which were then being put forth; particularly in two works, from which he gives extracts, An Account of the Growth of Deism, and The Principles of the Protestant religion in respect to Church communion; both of which are mentioned in the later part of this Discourse.] Divisions no argument against Councils. 153 the divisions among the bishops in the council of Nice was no bar to the conversion of two philosophers, who came with as much prejudice as curiosity to hear their debates ; and if our author's spite to priesthood would have let him, he might have learned more manners, if not more religion, than to treat Christian synods as he hath done, from a wise and ingenuous pagan, the philosopher Themistius, who, addressing himself to the Arian emperor Valens, to persuade him to moderate his cruel persecution of the faithful, told himy," He ought not to admire at the disagreement of opinions among Christians, which was but small, if compared with the multitude and confusion of opinion amongst the Greeks, among whom there were above three hundred sects." Nay, he prayed him to consider, that "the most excellent and useful arts had never arrived to such perfection, but by difference of judgment, and strife among the artists themselves; nay, that philosophy, the mother of all good arts, had risen from small beginnings to such a height of perfection, by differences and contentions among learned men." * [See Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. xviii. tom. ii. p. 36. Hickes has been misled by the heading of the chapter, which is, ' De duobus philosophis ad fidem conversis,' &c. One of these only was converted at the council; by an able and simple-minded confessor, who enunciated the Christian doctrines, and added, TaÛTA OUTWS ἔχειν ἀπεριέργως πιστεύομεν· μὴ τοίνυν μάτην πόνει, τῶν πίστει κατορθουμένων ἐλέγχους ἐπιζητῶν, καὶ τρόπον ᾧ γένεσθαι ταῦτα ἢ μὴ γένεσθαι ἐνεδέχετο· ἀλλ ̓ εἰ πιστεύεις ἐρομένῳ μοι ἀποκρίνου· πρὸς ταῦτα καταπλαγεις ὁ φιλόσοφος, πιστεύω, φησί. The same narrative is given, with some other circumstances, in Ruffinus, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. 3. Opuscula, pp. 196, 197. Paris. 1680. The other conversion is mentioned by Sozomen as a parallel instance; it took place at Constantinople on a different occasion. Socrates, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. viii. p. 20, speaks of the dialecticians generally being silenced by the simple lay confessor, who said, ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι, οὐ διαλεκτικὴν ἡμῖν παρέδοσαν τέχνην, οὐδὲ κενὴν ἀπάτην, ἀλλὰ γυμνὴν γνώμην, πίστει καὶ καλοῖς ἔργοις φυλαττόμενην.] 4 [αὐτοῦ τὴν πολλὴν ἀπηνείαν ὁ φιλό σοφος Θεμίστιος μετριωτέραν τῷ προσφω- OF COUN CILS. PREFAT. DISCOURSE, 154 Objections, had Angels been made our Priests. are But nothing will satisfy these men, whose reasons SECT. VII. perverted, and whose souls are poisoned to such a degree, with the anti-Nicene venom against priesthood and priests. If God had thought fit instead of men to make angels priests, that would not have pleased them. Then they would have arraigned His wisdom at the bar of their reason, for making Spirits priests, who had none of our passions, and by consequence could have no compassion for our infirmities. If they had preached and prayed among them as we do, and administered the same Sacraments, and come to visit them in their houses, familiarity would have bred the same contempt. When they preached up repentance, mortification, and self-denial, they would have cavilled, and said they preached what they did not understand; that they knew not our animal frame and carnal constitution; and that it was unreasonable to hear such doctrines from those who did not understand flesh and blood. Had they preached up nonresistance, they would have said they were devils, who out of spite to men, the noblest part of God's creation, had a mind to make all mankind slaves. Had they sometimes eat and drank with them, as the angels did with Abraham and Lot, they would have said they were gluttonous and wine-bibbers; but had they conversed with them, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, they would have said they were austere devils. Had they made canons, especially penitential canons, for the government of the Church, and put them in execution upon stubborn and contumacious sinners, they would have said they were Abaddons; that 'their pretended power clashed with the civil magistrates' power;' that it 'took from them the power of protecting their subjects;' that they 'took the practice of it from the heathen priests;' that it 'set up imperium in imperio,' and 'was sufficient to enslave all mankind".' Had they pretended to bind and loose sinners, then they would have said they could not be good but evil spirits," who usurped the prerogative, and invaded the incommunicable rights of God;" assuming a power to themselves of" damning and saving, and making God no more than their executionera." If they had met together and framed any confession of faith, especially in the words of that of the Nicene council, though CILS. Fallacy on the right of the laity to Church property. 155 they had framed it with the same harmony and agreement oF COUNin which the good angels live in heaven, they would have said, that "it was an imposition on the Christian world, not being contained in express words of Scripture; . . . that they undermined the fabric of Christianity by it; that they departed from the general rules of their religion in imposing of it, and violated our Saviour's institution of a Church, not subject to any additions in matters of faith b;" and that as they had no idea of that doctrine, so it was nothing to them, "who are to judge for themselves, and act according to their judgment:" and had they enjoined any rites or ceremonies, they would have said "they were for shows, and laid stress upon impertinencies which no ways influenced a good life "." He censures the clergy for condemning King Henry VIII., for alienating the Church lands, and "those who possess them as guilty of sacrilege, for withholding them from the Church;" and so he might have censured many learned laymen too. And the reason he gives for censuring or rather ridiculing of them is this; that "they are now in the hands of the Church, and have been ever since the people were possessed of them," because the people in the Scriptures are called the Church. So the people of the city are called 'the city,' and if any of them should possess themselves of the city lands, they would be in the city still. So when an intruding president and fellows of Magdalene college in Oxford, sacrilegiously shared the founder's gold among them, the gold was in the college still. But if for Church lands, we put priests' lands, or bishops' lands, his sophism will appear to a child, though he hopes to deceive men with it; and as long as our bishops and priests enjoy the remainder of the Church lands, these men, if permitted, will be always thus writing against them. A stipendiary ministry, subject to a "staff and a pair of shoes," is what they design to bring about by all their invectives against the clergy: and as they malign the Church for her lands, so they hate her b Ibid., p. 196. [This is the conclusion of the quotation from Marvel's Hist. Essay of Councils. See note k, p. 151.] Ibid., Pref., p. lxxxv. d Ibid., p. 212. • Rights, 215. f["nothing being found more effectual to keep a pragmatical priest within bounds, than the fear of having a staff and a pair of shoes laid at his door."] Rights, p. 214. |