The first and most troublesome heresies of the primitive church, were about the Trinity. For, according to the usual curiosity of natural philosophers, they could not abstain from disputing the very first principles of Christianity, into which they were baptized, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Some there were that made them allegorical. Others would make one creator of good, and another of evil; which was in effect to set up two Gods, one contrary to another; supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God, without impiety. From which doctrine they are not far distant, that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin. Others there were, that would have God to be a body with parts organical, as face, hands, fore-parts, and back-parts. Others, that Christ had no real body, but was a mere phantasm: for phantasms were taken then, and have been ever since, by unlearned and superstitious men, for things real and subsistent. Others denied the divinity of Christ. Others, that Christ, being God and man, was two persons. Others confessed he was one person, and withal that he had but one nature. And a great many other heresies arose from the too much adherence to the philosophy of those times: whereof some were suppressed for a time by St. John’s publishing his Gospel, and some by their own unreasonableness vanished, and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great, and after.
When Constantine the Great, made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian soldiers, had attained to be the only Roman Emperor, he also himself became a Christian, and caused the temples of the heathen gods to be demolished, and authorised Christian religion only to be public. But towards the latter end of his time, there arose a dispute in the city of Alexandria, between Alexander the Bishop, and Arius, a presbyter of the same city; wherein Arius maintained, first, that Christ was inferior to his Father; and afterwards, that he was no God, alleging the words of Christ, my Father is greater than I: the bishop, on the contrary, alleging the words of St. John, and the word was God; and the words of St. Thomas, my Lord and my God. This controversy presently, amongst the inhabitants and soldiers of Alexandria, became a quarrel, and was the cause of much bloodshed in and about the city; and was likely then to spread further, as afterwards it did. This so far concerned the Emperor’s civil government, that he thought it necessary to call a general council of all the bishops and other eminent divines throughout the Roman Empire, to meet at the city of Nice. When they were assembled, they presented the Emperor with libels of accusation one against another. When he had received these libels into his hands, he made an oration to the fathers assembled, exhorting them to agree, and to fall in hand with the settlement of the articles of faith, for which cause he had assembled them; saying, whatsoever they should decree therein, he would cause to be observed. This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency, than would in these days be approved of. But so it is in the history; and the articles of faith necessary to salvation, were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome.
When Constantine had ended his oration, he caused the aforesaid libels to be cast into the fire, as became a wise king and a charitable Christian. This done, the fathers fell in hand with their business, and following the method of a former creed, now commonly called the Apostles' Creed, made a confession of faith, viz.: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible: in which is condemned the polytheism of the Gentiles: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God: against the many sons of the many Gods of the heathen: Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God: against the Arians: Very God of very God: against the Valentinians, and against the heresy of Apelles and others, who made Christ a mere phantasm: Light of Light: this was put in for explication, and used before to that purpose by Tertullian: Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father: in this again they condemn the doctrine of Arius. For this word, of one substance, in Latin consubstantialis, but in Greek ὁμοούσιος, that is, of one essence, was put as a touchstone to discern an Arian from a Catholic; and much ado there was about it. Constantine himself, at the passing of this creed, took notice of it for a hard word; but yet approved of it, saying, that in a divine mystery it was fit to use divina et arcana verba; that is, divine words, and hidden from human understanding: calling that word ὁμοούσιος, divine, not because it was in the divine Scripture, (for it is not there) but because it was to him arcanum, that is, not sufficiently understood. And in this again appeared the indifferency of the Emperor, and that he had for his end, in the calling of the Synod, not so much the truth, as the uniformity of the doctrine, and peace of his people that depended on it. The cause of the obscurity of this word ὁμοούσιος, proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman dialect, in the philosophy of the Peripatetics. The first principle of religion in all nations, is, that God is, that is to say, that God really is something, and not a mere fancy; but that which is really something, is considerable alone by itself, as being somewhere. In which sense a man is a thing real; for I can consider him to be, without considering any other thing to be besides him. And for the same reason, the earth, the air, the stars, heaven, and their parts, are all of them things real. And because whatsoever is real here, or there, or in any place, has dimensions, that is to say, magnitude; that which hath magnitude, whether it be visible or invisible, finite or infinite, is called by all the learned a body. It followeth, that all real things, in that they are somewhere, are corporeal. On the contrary, essence, deity, humanity, and such like names, signify nothing that can be considered, without first considering there is an ens, a god, a man, &c. So also if there be any real thing that is white or black, hot or cold, the same may be considered by itself; but whiteness, blackness, heat, coldness, cannot be considered, unless it be first supposed that there is some real thing to which they are attributed. These real things are called by the Latin philosophers, entia, subjecta, substantiæ; and by the Greek philosophers, τὰ ὄντα ὑποκειμενα, ὑποστάμενα. The other, which are incorporeal, are called by the Greek philosophers, οὐσία συμβεβηχότα, φαντάσματα; but most of the Latin philosophers used to convert οὐσία into substantia, and so confound real and corporeal things with incorporeal: which is not well; for essence and substance signify divers things. And this mistake is received, and continues still in these parts, in all disputes, both of philosophy and divinity; for in truth essentia signifies no more, than if we should talk ridiculously of the isness of the thing that is. By whom all things were made. This is proved out of St. John i. 1, 2, 3, and Heb. i. 3, and that again out of Gen. i. where God is said to create every thing by his sole word, as when he said: Let there be light, and there was light. And then, that Christ was that Word, and in the beginning with God, may be gathered out of divers places of Moses, David, and other of the prophets. Nor was it ever questioned amongst Christians, except by the Arians, but that Christ was God eternal, and his incarnation eternally decreed. But the Fathers, all that write expositions on this creed, could not forbear to philosophize upon it, and most of them out of the principles of Aristotle; which are the same the Schoolmen now use; as may partly appear by this, that many of them, amongst their treatises of religion, have affected to publish principles of logic and physics according to the sense of Aristotle; as Athanasius, and Damascene. And so some later divines of note, still confound the concrete with the abstract, deus with deitas, ens with essentia, sapiens with sapientia, æternus with æternitas. If it be for exact and rigid truth sake, why do they not say also, that holiness is a holy man, covetousness a covetous man, hypocrisy an hypocrite, and drunkenness a drunkard, and the like, but that it is an error? The Fathers agree that the Wisdom of God is the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, and that he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, if they meant it in the abstract: for if deitas abstracted be deus, we make two Gods of one. This was well understood by John Damascene, in his treatise De Fide Orthodoxa, which is an exposition of the Nicene creed; where he denies absolutely that deitas is deus, lest seeing God was made man, it should follow, the Deity was made man; which is contrary to the doctrine of all the Nicene Fathers. The attributes therefore of God in the abstract, when they are put for God, are put metonymically; which is a common thing in Scripture; for example, Prov. viii. 25, where it is said: before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth; the wisdom there spoken of, being the wisdom of God, signifies the same with the wise God. This kind of speaking is also ordinary in all languages. This considered, such abstracted words ought not to be used in arguing, and especially in the deducing the articles of our faith; though in the language of God’s eternal worship, and in all godly discourses, they cannot be avoided; and the creed itself is less difficult to be assented to in its own words, than in all such expositions of the Fathers. Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. I have not read of any exception to this; for where Athanasius in his creed says of the Son, He was not made, but begotten, it is to be understood of the Son as he was God eternal; whereas here it is spoken of the Son as he is man. And of the Son, also as he was man, it may be said he was begotten of the Holy Ghost; for a woman conceiveth not, but of him that begetteth; which is also confirmed, (Matth. i. xx): That which is begotten in her, (τὸ γενεθεν), is of the Holy Ghost. And was also crucified for us under Pontius Pilate: he suffered and was buried: and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father: and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead. Whose kingdom shall have no end. Of this part of the creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian. Hither the Council of Nice proceeded in their general confession of faith, and no further.
This finished, some of the bishops present at the Council (seventeen or eighteen, whereof Eusebius Bishop of Cæsarea was one) not sufficiently satisfied, refused to subscribe till this doctrine of ὁμοούσιος should be better explained. Thereupon the Council decreed, that whosoever shall say that God hath parts, shall be anathematized; to which the said bishops subscribed. And Eusebius, by order of the Council, wrote a letter, the copies whereof were sent to every absent bishop, that being satisfied with the reason of their subscribing, they also should subscribe. The reason they gave of their subscription was this, that they had now a form of words prescribed, by which, as a rule, they might guide themselves so, as not to violate the peace of the church. By this it is manifest, that no man was an heretic, but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that form by the church prescribed, and that no man could be made an heretic by consequence. And because the said form was not put into the body of the creed, but directed only to the bishops, there was no reason to punish any lay-person that should speak to the contrary.
But what was the meaning of this doctrine, that God has no parts? Was it made heresy to say, that God, who is a real substance, cannot be considered or spoken of as here or there, or any where, which are parts of places? Or that there is any real thing without length every way, that is to say, which hath no magnitude at all, finite, nor infinite? Or is there any whole substance, whose two halves or three thirds are not the same with that whole? Or did they mean to condemn the argument of Tertullian, by which he confuted Apelles and other heretics of his time, namely, whatsoever was not corporeal, was nothing but phantasm, and not corporeal, for heretical? No, certainly, no divines say that. They went to establish the doctrine of one individual God in Trinity; to abolish the diversity of species in God, not the distinction of here and there in substance. When St. Paul asked the Corinthians, Is Christ divided, he did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as having hands and feet, but that they might think him, according to the manner of the Gentiles, one of the sons of God, as Arius did; but not the only-begotten Son of God. And thus also it is expounded in the Creed of Athanasius, who was present in that council, by these words, not confounding the persons, nor dividing the substances; that is to say, that God is not divided into three persons, as man is divided into Peter, James, and John; nor are the three persons one and the same person. But Aristotle, and from him all the Greek Fathers, and other learned men, when they distinguish the general latitude of a word, they call it division; as when they divide animal into man and beast, they call these εἴδη, species; and when they again divide the species man into Peter and John, they call these μίρη, partes individuæ. And by this confounding the division of the substance with the distinction of words, divers men have been led into the error of attributing to God a name, which is not the name of any substance at all, viz. incorporeal.
By these words, God has no parts, thus explained, together with the part of the creed which was at that time agreed on, many of those heresies which were antecedent to that first general Council, were condemned; as that of Manes, who appeared about thirty years before the reign of Constantine, by the first article, I believe in one God; though in other words it seems to me to remain still in the doctrine of the church of Rome, which so ascribeth a liberty of the will to men, as that their will and purpose to commit sin, should not proceed from the cause of all things, God; but originally from themselves or from the Devil. It may seem perhaps to some, that by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then condemned: and certainly, if by parts were meant not persons individual, but pieces, they were condemned: for face, arms, feet, and the like, are pieces. But this cannot be, for the Anthropomorphites appeared not till the time of Valens the Emperor, which was after the Council of Nice between forty and fifty years; and were not condemned till the second general Council at Constantinople.
Now for the punishment of heretics ordained by Constantine, we read of none; but that ecclesiastical officers, bishops and other preachers, if they refused to subscribe to this faith, or taught the contrary doctrine, were for the first fault deprived of their offices, and for the second banished. And thus did heresy, which at first was the name of private opinion, and no crime, by virtue of a law of the Emperor, made only for the peace of the church, become a crime in a pastor, and punishable with deprivation first, and next with banishment.
After this part of the creed was thus established, there arose presently many new heresies, partly about the interpretation of it, and partly about the Holy Ghost, of which the Nicene Council had not determined. Concerning the part established, there arose disputes about the nature of Christ, and the word hypostasis, id est, substance; for of persons there was yet no mention made, the creed being written in Greek, in which language there is no word that answereth to the Latin word persona. And the union, as the Fathers called it, of the human and Divine nature in Christ, hypostatical, caused Eutyches, and after him Dioscorus, to affirm, there was but one nature in Christ; thinking that whensoever two things are united, they are one: and this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus. Others, because they thought two living and rational substances, such as are God and man, must needs be also two hypostases, maintained that Christ had two hypostases: but these were two heresies condemned together. Then concerning the Holy Ghost, Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople, and some others, denied the divinity thereof. And whereas about seventy years before the Nicene Council, there had been holden a provincial Council at Carthage, wherein it was decreed, that those Christians which in the persecutions had denied the faith of Christ, should not be received again into the church unless they were again baptized: this also was condemned, though the President in that Council was that most sincere and pious Christian, Cyprian. And at last the creed was made up entire as we have it, in the Chalcedonian Council, by addition of these words: And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified. Who spake by the prophets. And I believe one Catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. In this addition are condemned, first the Nestorians and others, in these words: who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified: and secondly, the doctrine of the Council of Carthage, in these words: I believe one baptism for the remission of sins. For one baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of baptism, but to the iteration of it. St. Cyprian was a better Christian than to allow any baptism that was not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the general confession of faith contained in the creed called the Nicene Creed, there is no mention of hypostasis, nor of hypostatical union, nor of corporeal, nor of incorporeal, nor of parts; the understanding of which words being not required of the vulgar, but only of the pastors, whose disagreement else might trouble the church; nor were such points necessary to salvation, but set abroach for ostentation of learning, or else to dazzle men, with design to lead them towards some ends of their own. The changes of prevalence in the empire between the Catholics and the Arians, and how the great Athanasius, the most fierce of the Catholics, was banished by Constantine, and afterwards restored, and again banished, I let pass; only it is to be remembered, that Athanasius is supposed to have made his creed then, when (banished) he was in Rome, Liberius being pope; by whom, as is most likely, the word hypostasis, as it was in Athanasius’s Creed, was disliked. For the Roman church could never be brought to receive it, but instead thereof used their own word persona. But the first and last words of that creed the church of Rome refused not: for they make every article, not only those of the body of the creed, but all the definitions of the Nicene Fathers to be such, as a man cannot be saved, unless he believe them all stedfastly; though made only for peace sake, and to unite the minds of the clergy, whose disputes were like to trouble the peace of the empire. After these four first general Councils, the power of the Roman church grew up apace; and, either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors, the Pope did what he pleased in religion. There was no doctrine which tended to the power ecclesiastical, or to the reverence of the clergy, the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made heresy, and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with banishment or death. And at last kings themselves, and commonwealths, unless they purged their dominions of heretics, were excommunicated, interdicted, and their subjects let loose upon them by the Pope; insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian, there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire concerning his own salvation, of the Holy Scripture; the careless cold Christian was safe, and the skilful hypocrite a saint. But this is a story so well known, as I need not insist upon it any longer, but proceed to the heretics here in England, and what punishments were ordained for them by acts of parliament. All this while the penal laws against heretics were such, as the several princes and states, in their own dominions, thought fit to enact. The edicts of the emperors made their punishments capital, but for the manner of the execution, left it to the prefects of provinces: and when other kings and states intended, according to the laws of the Roman church, to extirpate heretics, they ordained such punishment as they pleased. The first law that was here made for the punishment of heretics, called Lollards and mentioned in the Statutes, was in the fifth year of the reign of Richard the Second, occasioned by the doctrine of John Wickliff and his followers; which Wickliff, because no law was yet ordained for his punishment in parliament, by the favour of John of Gaunt, the King’s son, during the reign of Edward the Third, had escaped. But in the fifth year of the next king, which was Richard the Second, there passed an act of parliament to this effect: that sheriffs and some others should have commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the prelates to be preachers of heresy, their fautors, maintainers, and abettors, and to hold them in strong prison, till they should justify themselves, according to the law of holy church. So that hitherto there was no law in England, by which a heretic could be put to death, or otherways punished, than by imprisoning him till he was reconciled to the church. After this, in the next king’s reign, which was Henry the Fourth, son of John of Gaunt, by whom Wickliff had been favoured, and who in his aspiring to the crown had needed the good will of the bishops, was made a law, in the second year of his reign, wherein it was enacted, that every ordinary may convene before him, and imprison any person suspected of heresy; and that an obstinate heretic shall be burnt before the people.
In the next king’s reign, which was Henry the Fifth, in his second year, was made an act of parliament, wherein it is declared, that the intent of heretics, called Lollards, was to subvert the Christian faith, the law of God, the church, and the realm: and that an heretic convict should forfeit all his fee-simple lands, goods, and chattels, besides the punishment of burning. Again, in the five-and-twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth, it was enacted, that an heretic convict shall abjure his heresies, and refusing so to do, or relapsing, shall be burnt in open place, for example of others. This act was made after the putting down of the Pope’s authority: and by this it appears, that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alteration in religion, than the recovering of his own right ecclesiastical. But in the first year of his son, King Edward the Sixth, was made an act, by which were repealed not only this act, but also all former acts concerning doctrines, or matters of religion; so that at this time there was no law at all for the punishment of heretics.
Again, in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary, this act of 1 Edward VI was not repealed, but made useless, by reviving the statute of 25 Henry VIII, and freely putting it in execution; insomuch as it was debated, whether or no they should proceed upon that statute against the Lady Elizabeth, the Queen’s sister.