devolve to him; and she had for this purpose the ordinary spiritual authority instituted by Jesus Christ. The dissenters had no ancient rights, as their societies had never existed before their separation from the church of England, and they neither had nor claimed any spiritual authority, but rested their cause on the supposed rights of conscience, in opposition to authority. The church justifies her reformation without imputing such errors or crimes to the universal church, before the separation, as would prove it apostate and Antichristian. The dissenters can only justify their own existence by maintaining that the church of Christ had apostatized and entirely failed. It is really astonishing that any one can venture to compare the reformation of the church of England to the separation of the dissenters. There cannot be a stronger contrast than is afforded by the two cases. II. The church of England has transgressed in several respects the laws of Christ, in acknowledging the king's supremacy, imposing creeds and articles of faith, establishing superstitious rites, &c. Consequently it was necessary to forsake her communion. Answer. I have showed above (pages 61 and 64) that separation from the church is inexcusable, and have answered these various objections of dissenters (page 259, &c.). III. There may be separation without schism, because Christians may be united in heart and spirit, though the offices of religion are performed in different places of worship. Answer. Christ commanded his disciples to be perfectly united, that the world might believe that the Father had sent him (John xvii. 20. 23.); therefore even schism within the church is contrary to his will, but open sepa ration from it is a manifest disobedience to God. And when separate conventicles are established, and rival ministers endeavour to gain proselytes from the church, declaring its worship, its government, its regulations so unscriptural or erroneous, that Christians are bound to come forth from it and be separate; what plea can be vainer than the pretence of an internal communion of affections, which is disproved by every act? VOL. I. Ee CHAPTER XIV. ON THE NESTORIANS AND MONOPHYSITES. THESE ancient sects, which were separated from the communion of our churches and from the rest of the catholic church, in the fifth century; still continue to exist in Egypt, Abyssinia, Syria, Armenia, and some other parts of the East; and it seems to be the opinion of some respectable modern writers, that they are not to be excluded from the Christian church. Fricius, Jewel, Usher, and Laud are apparently of this opinion, and Field expressly maintains it. The arguments by which it is supported, are derived either from the supposition that these sects believe the fundamental articles of Christian faith, or that their difference with the church is rather verbal than real. It does not appear to me however, that there is any reason to alter our opinion of these sects, from that which the universal church maintained for so many ages. I. Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, in declaiming against the old and pious term OɛOTÓKoç or Deipara, (ascribed to the blessed Virgin as the mother of Him who was both God and man,) dogmatized contrary to the simplicity of the Christian doctrine, affirming in effect, that the Word of God and the man Jesus were two different persons, united only by a sort of moral a Of the Church, book iii. chapter i. union, the former inhabiting the latter as a temple. From this doctrine it followed, contrary to the Christian faith, that the Word of God was not made flesh, nor born into this world, nor did he suffer for us, nor redeem us with his blood; that Christ was not God, but only the temple of God; that the Virgin was only mother of a man, and not of him who was both man and God. It is needless to go into a detail of the Nestorian errors, or to point out their inconsistency with Scripture. Their consequences were so dreadful, that the holy oecumenical synod of Ephesus, in 431, most justly styled their author another Judas, and pronounced anathema against all who should divide the person of Jesus Christ. The decree of this synod on the incarnation, was soon accepted and approved by the church in all parts of the world; for though John, patriarch of Antioch, and the Oriental bishops, for a short time disputed the lawfulness of the proceedings at Ephesus, they afterwards united themselves to St. Cyril of Alexandria and the rest of the church, in pronouncing anathema against Nestorianism. The partizans of the condemned doctrine only found support in Persia, where they disseminated their errors and obtained a permanent settlement. The chief founders of the sect there were Ibas, Barsumas, Manes, and others who had been expelled from the school of Edessa in consequence of their doctrine. The Nestorians have always continued in those parts; they disclaim the name of Nestorians, and pretend that their doctrine and churches are derived from the apostles. They however reckon Nestorius, Diodorus, and Theodore of Tarsus, who taught the Nestorian tenets, among the saints; and while they pretend that Assemani Biblioth. Orientalis, tom. iv. c Ibid. 76. there is no real difference between their doctrine and that of the church, they anathematize the cecumenical synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, because they denied that Christ was two different persons". Since therefore the Nestorian doctrine was condemned by the whole church throughout the world, since those who maintained it were ejected from the Christian society and always accounted heretics, since the Nestorians have never yet been restored to the communion of the catholic church, never forsaken their errors, never acknowledged the errors of their founders; and since they anathematize the whole church in anathematizing the synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, it seems to me that we cannot reckon them as any part of the church of Christ, even though some of them may be desirous of representing their doctrine as orthodox and consonant to that of the church. 2. The doctrine attributed to Eutyches, of the conversion of the human nature into the divine, or the mixture of the two natures together in Christ, so as to form but one nature after the incarnation, was rejected by Dioscorus, and the other leaders of the Monophysite faction, who opposed themselves to the decree of the holy oecumenical synod of Chalcedon (451), which was received and approved by the church in all parts of the world. They and their descendants, entitled Monophysites or Jacobites, acknowledge only one nature in Christ, compounded of the divinity and humanity, yet without conversion, confusion, or mixture'. This doctrine, like the Nestorian, shook the main pillars of the Christian's hope; for in attributing to d Ibid. 220. • Ibid. 230. de Monophysitis, in the second volume of his Bibliotheca Orien f See Assemani's Dissertatio talis, sect. V. |