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him, as he well deserved. Thus the domineering spirit began to exert itself betimes. The Council of Nice afterwards settled the affair, and then the few Quartadecimans who stood out were called heretics, according to the custom of calling every thing heresy that offends the majority. But they must have been a stubborn and refractory set of people, to wrangle on about such a trifle, and not to yield to the far greater number in a thing of no consequence to faith or morals. They should have agreed to break the egg at the same end with their neighbours. If the upper side. has been sometimes imperious and over-ruling, the lower has been as perverse and unpersuasible.

When the fathers assembled at Ephesus, and, headed by Cyril of Alexandria, had decreed that Nestorius should be deposed, and that the Virgin-mother of our Saviour should be called Mother of God, the people of Ephesus, who had been in miserable fears and anxieties, with transports of joy embraced the knees, and kissed the hands of the bishops; a people, as we may suppose, warm and sprightly, and very much in earnest. Their pagan ancestors had signalized themselves by their zeal for Diana.

If General Councils have dogmatically decreed strange things, little, national, protestant synods have often acted in a manner full as arbitrary. One that was held in France, A. D. 1612, offended at something that Piscator had taught concerning justification, compelled all who should go into orders to take this oath : I receive and approve all that is contained in the Confession of faith of the reformed churches of this nation, and promise to persevere therein to my life's end, and never to believe or teach any thing not conformable to it: and because some have contested about the sense of the eigh

teenth

teenth article, which is concerning justification, I declare and protest before God, that I understand it according to the sense received in our churches, approved by national synods, and conformable to the word of God, which is, that our Saviour was obedient to the moral and ceremo nial law, not only for our good, but in our stead, that all the obedience which he paid to the law is imputed to us, and that our justification consists, not only in the remission of sins, but also in the imputation of his active righteousness.And I promise never to depart from the doctrine received in our churches, and to submit to the regulations of national synods on this subject. Synodes Nationaux, &c. par Aymon. These men would no more have parted with an inch of their theological system, than the Muscovites once would with an inch of their beards.

Here follows another decree, made in France A. D. 1620.

I swear and promise before God, and this holy assembly, that I receive, approve, and embrace all the doctrine taught and decided by the national synod of Dort-I swear and promise that I will persevere in it all my life long, and defend it with all my power, and never depart from it in my sermons, college-lectures, writings, or conversation, or in any other manner, public other manner, public or private. I declare also and protest, that I reject and condemn the doctrine of the Arminians, because &c.—So help me God, as I swear all this without equivocation or mental resercation.

They should have thus prefaced the ordinance: It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden, than these necessary things which follow, &c.

To

To compel any one to swear that he will never alter his opinions about controversial divinity, is a grievous imposition. It might have made some unstable men go over to Popery out of resentment, and say, If I must surrender body, soul, sense, and understanding, the church of Rome shall have them, and not you. Thus,

Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra : whilst Christianity blushes and grieves that she can say so little in behalf of her children.

I pass over the synod of Dort, in which the prevailing party oppressed, as they often do, the wise and the learned, and entailed an irrational and uncharitable system on their posterity.

It is said that Pope Innocent the tenth, (I think) when the Jansenian controversy was so warmly agitated, told his learned librarian Lucas Holstenius, that he was very uneasy about it, and unwilling to decide it, because it was a point which he understood not, and had never studied. Holstenius replied, that it seemed not necessary for his Holiness, at that time of life, to begin to study it, and much less to decide it, since it was an intricate subject, which had divided, not only the Christian world, but the greatest philosophers of antiquity; that if the contending parties were left to themselves after they had reasoned, and railed, and wrangled, and declaimed, and preached, and written against one another, and eased themselves that way, they would at last sit down and be quiet for very weariness, or for want of hearers and readers: which advice seemed not at all amiss to the Pope, and was favourably received, but not followed.

Postellus was a scholar and a fanatic, two things that are seldom found together. Latin and Greek

helped

helped to damage his head, and Hebrew quite overset him. He gave into cabalistic interpretations of the Old Testament, and believed in the revelations of some Sibyl, some daughter of Esdras, who prophesied in his days, and was one of those who want to let in new light upon the church, whilst they want more to have the light shut out, and the flaws and crevices patched and stopped in the por, in the upper chamber at home. The poor man was accused of heresy; upon which he entered boldly into the lion's den, surrendered himself a prisoner to the Inquisitors at Venice, offering to take his trial, and to demonstrate his innocence; and thus gave an additional proof of his disorder, whilst, with the adventurous lover in the fable, Tenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Ditis, Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum

Ingressus, Manesque adüt, Regemque tremendum, Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda. Postellus, like Orpheus, found favour in the sight of the Infernal Powers: They behaved themselves, who would believe it! as Philosophers and Christians upon the occasion, and did him justice; for after a fair hearing, they passed sentence on him, declaring that he was not a heretic, but only mad; Postellum non esse hæreticum, sed tantum amentem. Lettres de Simon, i. 23.. If the Inquisitors would act thus, it would be better for their prisoners in this world, and for themselves in the next. It will then be found a poor excuse for their cruelty, that it helped to fill the church with nominal catholics, and to keep up an unity of exoteric faith in the bond of ignorance, fear, and hypocrisy.

Men will compel others, not to think with them, for that is impossible, but to say they do; upon which they obtain full leave, not to think or reason at all, and

this

this is called unity; which is somewhat like the behaviour of the Romans, as it is described by a brave countryman of ours in Tacitus,-Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Disputing enflames fiery zeal, and men bestow blows upon their antagonists, especially when arguments fall short. Invalidum ursis caput, vis maxima in brachiis et in lumbis, says Solinus. If their hands are tied, they bestow a plentiful effusion of curses, and denounce divine judgments; but if they are at full liberty, they bestow both and then cruelty is called charity, charity to the soul, and this same charity, as it is of a fruitful and diffusive nature, produces anathemas, informations, calumnies, banishments, imprisonments, confiscations, inquisitions, and so forth.

Tillemont, speaking of the scandalous persecution in the reign of Constantius, when the Arians oppressed the Consubstantialists, and warmed with his subject, breaks out into these reflections,-Conviction and persuasion cannot be brought about by the imperious menaces of princes; nor is there any room left for the exercise of reason, when a refusal to submit brings on banishment and death.-Such doctrines proceed from the invention of men, not from the Spirit of God, who forces and compels no one against his will. His observations are just: you can no more subdue the understanding with blows, than beat down a castle with syllogisms. A lucid shot through the soul of this superstitious, though else › valuable writer, as a flash of lightning in a dark night. There is indeed between the human understanding and truth a natural and eternal alliance, which is suspended and disordered by ignorance, passion, bigotry, prejudice and selfishness, but can never be totally broken. When a man suffers, and sees his friends suf

ray

fer

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