be Saints in the Church Triumphant But whether it be there or here a mutual communion there is always to be held between us between the Saints upon the Earth though Saints by outward calling onely united in the joynt participation of the Word and Sacraments and the external Profession of the Faith and Gospel but more conspicuously between those which are Saints indeed not onely nominally but really and truly such in that harmony of affections and reciprocal offices of love which makes them truly one Body of Christ though different Members And a communion there is too of this later kinde between the Saints upon the Earth and those which have their consummation in the Heaven of Glories who though they have in some part received the promise yet being fellow-members of the same one Body they pray for and await our ransom from this prison of flesh without which God hath so disposed it they should not be made perfect Which said we may now clearly see in what particulars the Communion of Saints intended in this Article doth consist especially which may be easily reduced unto three heads 1. A Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation by which they are made members of one another and of Christ their Head 2. A Communion of Affections expressed in all the acts of love and charity even to the very communicating of their lives and fortunes And 3. A communion of entercourse between the Saints in Heaven and those here on Earth according to the different states in which God hath placed them All other kindes of Christian Communion are either contained in and under these or may be very easily reduced unto them And first for the Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation and the benefits which redound thereby to the Church of Christ St. Paul hath told us That the Cup of blessing which is blessed in the holy Eucharist and the Bread there broken is the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and that being made partakers of that one Bread we are thereby made though many to be one Bread also and one Body even the Body of Christ one Bread though made of many grains and one Body though composed of many members A better Paraphrase upon which place of the Apostle we can hardly finde in all the writings of the Fathers than that of Cyril Ut igitur inter nos Deum singulos uniret quamvis corpore simul anima distemus modum tamen adinvenit consilio patris sapientiae suae convenientem Suo enim corpore credentes per Communionem mysticam benedicens secum inter nos unum nos corpus efficit c That Christ might unite every one of us both with our selves and with God though we be distant from each other both in body and soul he hath devised a way agreeable to his own Wisdom and the Counsel of his Heavenly Father For in that he blesseth them that believe with his own Body by means of that Mystical Communion of it he maketh us one body with himself and with one another For who will think them not to be of this Natural union which be united in one Christ by the Union or Communion of that one holy Body For if we eat all of one Bread we are all made one Body in regard Christ may not be dis-joyned nor divided In which full passage of the Father we finde an union of the faithful with Christ their Head as well as a conjunction with one another effected by the Mystical communion of his Body and Blood A double union first with Christ and with each others next as the members of Christ. The union which we have with Christ is often times expressed in Scripture under the figure and resemblance of the Head and Members which as they make but one Natural Body so neither do they make but one Body Mystical Know you not saith the Apostle that your bodies are the members of Christ 1 Cor. 6.15 That ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 12.27 That we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones Ephes. 5.30 And doth not the same Apostle tell us That God hath given Christ to be head over all things unto his Church Eph. 1.22 That Christ is the head of the Church Vers. 23. And that from this head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God Col. 2.19 Occumenius hereupon inferreth That neither Christ without the Church much less the Church without her Christ but both together so united make a perfect body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author hath it Others of more antiquity do affirm the same For thus St. Chrysostom Quidnaem significat panis Corpus Christi quid fiunt qui accipiunt Corpus Christi What signifieth the Bread The Body of Christ What are they made that do receive it The Body of Christ. St. Augustine thus Hunc cibum potum societatem vult intelligi corporis membrorum suorum i. e. He would have us understand that this meat and drink is the fellowship of his body and of his members What of the members onely with one another Not onely so but of the fellowship or communion which they have with him that is their head who though he be above in the heavenly places and is not fastned to his body with any corporal connexion yet he is joyned unto it by the bonds of love as the same Father hath it in another place Habet ecclesia caput positum in coelestibus quod gubernat corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed charitate annexum St. Cyprian speaks more home than either both to the matter and the manner of the union which we have with Christ. Nos ipsi corpus Christi effecti Sacramento re Sacramenti capiti nostro conjungineur unimur We are then made the Body of Christ both by the Sacrament and the grace represented by it when we are joyned or united unto Christ our Head Not that we are not made the members of Christs Mystical Body but onely by a participation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood but that this Mystical union and communion which we have with Christ is most fitly represented by it For otherwise St. Paul hath told us That by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body and consequently made the members of Christ. According unto that of Divine St. Augustine Ad hoc baptisma valet ut baptizati Christo incorporentur membra ejus efficiantur To this saith he availeth Baptism that men being baptized may be incorporated unto Christ and made his Members But this supposeth a relation to the other Sacrament of which although they may not actually participate before they die yet they have either a desire to it if they be of age and a right or interess in it
if they die in their Baptism in which respect they may be said to communicate with the rest of the faithful Concerning which the same St. Augustine hath most excellently resolved it thus No man in any wise may doubt but that every faithful man is then made partaker of Christs Body and Blood when in Baptism he is made a member of Christ And that he is not deprived of the Communion of that Bread and that Cup although before he either eat of that Bread or drink of that Cup he depart this world being in the unity of Christs Body For he is not deprived from partaking of the benefit of that Sacrament so long as he findeth in himself the things or the res Sacramenti as St. Cyprian calls it which the Sacrament signifieth As for the Union or Communion which the faithful have with one another though that arise upon their first incorporation in Iesus Christ by holy Baptism yet is more compleatly signified and more fully effected by that communion which they have in his Body and Blood And so St. Cyprian and St. Augustine and the rest of the Fathers do declare most plainly St. Cyprian as more antient shall begin the evidence and be the foreman of the Inquest That Christian men are joyned together with the inseparable bonds of charity the Lords Supper doth saith he declare St. Augustine generally first of all outward Sacraments In nullum nomen Religionis seu verum seu falsum coagulari possunt homines nisi aliquo signaculorum vel sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligantur Men saith he cannot be united into any Religion be it true or false unless they be joyned together in the bond of some visible Sacraments What he affirmeth of this particularly we shall see anon first taking with us that of Dionysius an Antient Writer doubtless whosoever he was Sancta illa unius ejusdem panis poculi communis pacifica distributio unitatem illis divinam tanquam unà enutritis praescribit that is to say That holy and peaceable distribution of the same one Bread and that common Cup prescribeth to them which are so fed and nourished together a most heavenly union More elegantly in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Pachymeres the Greek Paraphrast doth thus reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Because that common feeding together with such joynt consent bringeth to our remembrance the Lords Supper Nor doth the participation of this blessed Sacrament produce an union or communion between them alone who do receive the same together at one time and place but it doth joyn and knit together all the Saints of God how far soever they are distant and scattered far and near upon the face of the Earth For therein we profess that we are all servants in one House and resort all to one Table and feed all of one Spiritual Meat which is the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God The Prayers which are used in that holy action being so fitted and contrived in all Antient Liturgies that they extend not unto those onely which do then communicate but that they and the whole Church with them may by the death and merits of Iesus Christ and through Faith in his Blood obtain remission of their sins and all other the benefits of his passion as it is piously expressed in the Liturgy of the Church of England To this St. Ierom gives a clear and most ample testimony who being pressed by Iohn the then Bishop of Ierusalem with whom he had some personal quarrels to go to Rome and witness his integrity by communicating in the face of that Church A qua videmur communione separari from whose communion he had seemed to separate returns this Answer Non necesse esse ire tam longè that it was not needful for him to go so far How so Et hic in Palestina eodem modo ei jungimur In viculo enim Bethlehem Presbyteris ejus quantum in nobis est communion◠sociamur For here saith he in Palestine do we hold communion with that Church and I residing in this Village of Bethlehem am joyned in the communion with the Priests of Rome By which we see that whosoever doth worthily eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood according to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour communicates thereby with all Christian men of all Countreys and Nations whatsoever and that by vertue and effect of the said Communion they be all knit and joyned together as members of the same one Body in the bonds of love And this is that which is affirmed by St. Augustine Non mirum si absentes adsumus nobis ignoti no smet novimus cum unius corporis membra simus unum habeamus caput una perfundamur gratia uno pane vivamus una incedamus via eadem habitemus is domo It is no wonder saith the Father that being absent we be present together and being not acquainted do know each other considering that we be the Members of one Body have the same one Head an endowment of the self-same Spirit and that we live by one bread go the same way and dwell together in one House To testifie this Communion which they had with each other by vertue of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper it was a custom of the Primitive and Purest times to send some part of the consecrated Elements unto them which were absent and joyned not with them in that action And sometimes for one Bishop to send to another a Loaf of Bread as a token of consent in the point of Faith and in all brotherly love and concord which he that did receive it if he thought it fitting might consecrate and use at the Ministration Touching the first of these it was well observed by Irenaeus that when any of the Eastern Bishops came to Rome the Popes thereof which preceded Victor did use to send them some of the blessed Sacrament although they differed in the observation of the Feast of Easter whereby a mutual concord and communion was preserved between them Of which he writeth thus to the said Pope Victor Qui fuerunt ante te Presbyteri etiam cum non ita observarent Presbyteris Ecclesiarum of the East he meaneth cum Romam acciderent Eucharistiam mittebant And of the other it is said in those Epistles which Paulinus wrote unto St. Augustine Panem unum quem unanimitatis indicio misimus charitati tuae rogamus ut accipiendo benedicas i. e. The Loaf of Bread which I have sent unto you as a token of unity I beseech you to receive and consecrate See also to what purpose he sent those five Loaves which were designed for the said St. Augustine and Licinius of which he speaketh in the Six and thirtieth Epistle of that Fathers works and that other single Loaf in the Five and thirtieth where it appeareth That the Loaves so sent and consecrated
at the best be they what they will neither the Fathers nor Apostles no nor Christ himself for ought I can see to be excepted Which error being thus sprung up did in an Age so apt to novelties and innovations meet with many followers and some too many indeed in this Church of England some of them teaching as it is affirmed by their learned Adversary that Christ redeemed our souls by the death of his soul as our bodies by the death of his body Now whereas the soul is subject to a twofold death the one by sin prevailing on it in this life which is the natural depriving or voluntary renouncing of all grace the other by damnation in the world to come which is the just rejecting of all the wicked from any fellowship with God in his glory and fastning them to everlasting torments in hell fire I would fain know which of these deaths it was the first or second which our Saviour suffered in his soul. I think they do not mean the last and am sure they cannot prove the first for to talk as some of them have done that there may be a death of the soul a curse and separation from God which of it self is neither sin nor conjoyned with sin is such a Monster in Divinity as was never heard of till this Age. Certain I am the Scripture only speaks of two kindes of death the first and the second both which we finde expressed in the Revelation where it is said the fearful and the unbeleeving and the abominable and murtherers and sorcerers and whoremongers and Idolaters and all lyers all which no doubt are under the arrest of the first death whereof he speaketh chap. 2. vers 11. shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death And sure I am the Fathers if they may be credited are contrary in tearms express to this new device not only acknowledging no death in Christ but the death of the body but also utterly disclaiming this pretended death of the soul. In quo nisi in corpore expiavit populi peccata in quo passus est nisi in corpore Wherein saith Ambrose did he expiate the sins of the people but in his body wherein did he suffer death but in his body St. Austin to this purpose also Sacerdos propter victimam quam pro nobis offerret a nobis acceptam that Christ was made or called a Priest by reason of that sacrifice which he took of us that he might offer it for us which could be nothing but our body More plainly and exclusively Fulgentius thus Moriente carne non solum deitas sed nec anima Christi potest ostendi commâ—rtua that when Christ dyed in the flesh neither his Deity nor his soul can be demonstrated to have dyed also with it The greatest Doctors of the Greek Churches do affirm the same Christ saith Theodoret was called an high Priest in his humane nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and offered none other sacrifice but his body only And thus Theophylact A Priest may by no means be without a sacrifice It was necessary then that Christ should have somewhat to offer Quod autem offerretur praeter ejus corpus nihil quippiam erat and there was nothing which he had to offer but his body only Athanasius in his third Oration against the Ariâ—ns and Nazianzen on that text When Iesus had finished all those sayings do affirme the same but not so clearly and exclusively as the others did Now as here is no death of the soul which possibly may be imagined to have happened to Christ if we will be judged by the Scriptures and as the Fathers Greek and Latine do so significantly and expresly disclaime the same so is it such an horrid speech such a pang of blasphemy as should not come within the heart nor issue from the mouth of any Christian. But this I only touch at now We shall hear more of it in the next Article touching the descent into hell where it shall be presented to us in another colour I end this point at this time with that of Augustine There is a first death and there is a second The first death hath two parts one whereby the sinfull soul by transgressing departeth from her Creator the other whereby she is excluded from her body as a punishment inflicted on her by the judgment of God The second death is the everlasting torment of the body and soul. Either of these deaths had laid hold upon every man but that the righteous and immortall Son of God came to die for us in whose flesh because there could be no sin he suffered the punishment of sin without the guilt of it And to that end admitted or endured for us the second part of the first death that is to say the death of the body only by which he ransomed us from the dominion of sin and the pain of eternal punishment which was due unto it But yet there is another argument which concludes more fully against this new device of theirs then any testimonies of the Fathers before produced mamely the institution of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by the Lord himself in which there is a commemoration to be held for ever both of the breaking of his body and of the effusion of his bloud by which his bodily death is represented and set forth till his coming again but no remembrance instituted or commanded for the death of his soul. Which if it were of such an unquestionable truth as these men conceive and of such special use and efficacie to the worlds redemption as they gave it out would doubtlesse have been honoured with some special place in that commemoration of his Sacrifice which himself ordained Who in the same night he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thankes he brake it and said Take eate this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me and likewise after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying this cup is the new Testament sealed in my bloud which is shed for you this do as oft as ye drink in remembrance of me In which and more then this we finde not in the book there is not one word which doth reflect on the death of his soul or any commemoration or remembrance to be held of that Only we find that as our Saviour by his death which was then at hand did put an end to all the legal rites and sacrifices of the old Testament which were but the shadows of things to come as St. Paul cals them Coloss. 2.17 So having fulfilled in the flesh all that had been fore-signifyed and spoken of him in the Law and Prophets he did of all ordain and institute one only Eucharistical sacrifice for a perpetuall remembrance of his death and passion to his second coming And thus St.
Augustine doth informe us saying Id enim sacrificium est quod successit omnibus sacrificiis quae immolabantur in umbra futuri that this one sacrifice succeedeth in the place of all those which were offered in relation unto Christ to come But before him St. Ireneus did more plainly affirme that same who living in the next age to the Apostles is able to instruct us better in the mysteries of the Christian faith then any other more remote and of lesse antiquity And he tels us this viz. that as God caused his Gospel to be preached over all the world in stead of the innumerable ordinances of the Law of Moses so he ordained that for those several sorts of sacrifices which are there prescribed simplex oblatio panis et vini sufficiat the offering of bread and wine only should be held sufficient More plainly yet as plainly as he could expresse himself by words and writing he doth thus deliver it Sed suis Discipulis dans consilium c. Christ saith he giving his Disciples charge to offer the first fruits of every creature to the Lord their God not that God standeth in need of their oblations but that they might not be esteemed to be either unfruitfull or ungratefull tooke ordinary bread eum qui ex natura panis est and having given thanks said This is my body and taking the cup into his hands such as we use to drink of the fruit of the vine acknowledged it to be his bloud What then for this we know already It followeth Et novi testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo By doing which saith that old Father he taught us the new sacrifice of oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles doth offer unto God over all the world So that the holy Eucharist was ordained by Christ not only as a Sacrament but a sacrifice also and so esteemed and called by the most antient writers though many times by reason of several relations it hath either severall names or severall adjuncts that is to say a sacrifice a commemorative sacrifice an eucharisticall sacrifice a spiritual sacrifice the Supper of the Lord a Sacrament A sacrifice it is and so called commonly in reference unto the oblation or offering of the bread and wine made unto God in testimony and due acknowledgment that all which we possesse is received from him and that we tender these his creatures to him as no longer ours but to be his and to be spent in such employments and for such holy uses as he shall please to put it to In this respect it is entituled Oblatio panis et vini the offering or oblation of bread and wine as before we saw from Irenaeus the sacrifice offered by us Gentiles hostia quae ipsi a nobis Gentibus offertur of the bread and wine presented in the holy Eucharist as in Iustin Martyr Sacrificium panis vini the sacrifice in plain terms of bread and wine as Fulgentius hath it For clearing of which point we may please to know that antiently it was the custome of the Primitive Christians to bring their bread and wine to the Church of God and offer them to the Lord by the hands of the Priest or Minister part of the which was consecrated for the use of the Sacrament the rest being usually given to the poor and needy as having a letter of attorney from the Lord of heaven to receive our bounties For thus we read in Iustin Martyr who lived the next dore also to the Apostles Prayers being done saith he we salute one another with an holy kisse Then do we offer to the Bishop for such is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he speaks of there bread and wine mixt with water as the use then was which he receiving offered to God the sacrifice of praise and glory c. And thus St. Cyprian speaking of a rich but covetous Widow who came not with her offering to the Church as her poor neigbours did charged her that she came into Gods house without her sacrifice and eat of that which had been offered or sacrificed unto God by far poorer folke Locuples et dives Dominicum celebrare te dicis but there dominicum signifyeth the Lords day plainly qui corbonam omnino non respicis qui in dominicum there it is the Church sine sacrificio venis qui partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis are his words at large Where sacrificium in both places signifyeth the bread and wine which they used to offer to the Lord to be consecrated and employed in celebrating the memorial of our Saviours passion It is called next a commemorative sacrifice a Sacrifice commemorative and representative by Dr. Morton Ld. B. of Durham in his book of the Sacrament in regard that it was instituted by our Saviour Christ for a perpetual memory of that one perfect and al-sufficient sacrifice which he offered of himself upon the Crosse. And to this end it was that Chrysostome having called the Sacrament of the Lords supper by the name of a Sacrifice addes presently not by way of correction or retractation as I know some think but by way of explanation only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the remembrance rather of a sacrifiâ—e or a commemorative sacrifice as some others call it Which word commemorative as I take it detracts not from the nature of a sacrifice as if it were the lesse a sacrifice because commemorative but only signifyeth the end to which it is specially directed For as the sacrifices of the old law were true and proper sacrifices in respect of the beasts or â—owles or other things which were offered although prefigurative of that sacrifice made upon the Crosse which was then to come so are the sacrifices of the Gospel true and real sacrifices in reference to the oblation made of bread and wine for the service of God although commemorative of the same great sacrifice now already past It was called thirdly a spiritual and Eucharistical sacrifice by reason that Gods servants therein make profession of their due acknowledgements for all the blessings which he hath vouchsafed to bestow on their souls and bodies especially for the redemption of themselves and of all mankinde by the death of Christ and therewith offering up themselves their souls and bodies as a pleasing and most acceptable sacrifice to the Lord their God For thus we finde in Iustin Martyr that the Bishop or President of the Congregation having received the bread and wine from the hands of the faithful offered by them the sacrifice of praise and thanks to God the Father of all things in the name of the Son and the holy Ghost for all those blessings which he hath graciously from time to time bestowed upon them And thus Irenaeus Oportet nos
oblationem Deo facere et in omnibus gratos inveniri fabricatori Deo c. It becometh us saith he to make oblations unto God and to be thankefull in all things to our heavenly maker offering to him the first fruits of his own creatures with a right belief and faith without hypocrisie in hope assured and fervencie of brotherly affection which pure oblation the Church alone doth offer to the maker of all things out of his own creatures with praise and thanks-giving And last of all it is called the Sacrament sometimes the Sacrament of the Lords Supper sometimes the Sacrament of the Altar by reaso that the bread and wine thus dedicated to the service of Almighty God and righly consecrated by his Ministers are made unto the faithful receiver the very body and bloud of Christ our Saviour and do exhibit to us all the benefits of his death and passion Of which it is thus said by the old Father Irenaeus that the bread made of the fruits of the earth and sanctifyed according to Christs ordinance jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistia ex duabus rebus constans terrena Coelesti c. is now no longer common bread but the blessed Eucharist consisting of two parts the one earthly and the other heavenly that is to say the outward elemental signe and the inward and spiritual grace In which respect it was affirmed of this bread by Cyprian if at the least the work be his which is somewhat doubted non effigie sed natura mutatum that though it kept the same shape which it had before yet was the nature of it changed not that it ceased to be what before it was as the Patrons of the Romish Masse do pervert his meaning but by being what before it was not just as an iron made red hot retaineth the proportion and dimensions which before it had and is still iron as at the first though somewhat of the nature of fire which is to warme and burn be now added to it And this was antiently the doctrine of the Church of Christ touching the sacrifice of the Lords supper or the blessed Eucharist before that monstrous Paradox of Transubstantiation was hammered in the brains of capricious Schoolmen or any such thing as a Propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead affabulated to the same by the Popes of Rome Now such a sacrifice as this with all the several kinds and adjuncts of it we finde asserted and maintained by the Church of England though it condemn the sacrifices of the Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt as dangerous deceits and blasphemous fables and censureth Transubstantiation as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture destructive of the true nature of a Sacrament and to have given occasion to much superstition For if a true and proper sacrifice be defined to be the offering of a creature to Almighty God to be consecrated by a lawfull Minister to be spent and consumed to his service as Bellarmine and the most learned men of both sides do affirme it is then is the offering of the bread and wine in the Church of England a true proper sacrifice for it is usually provided by the Church-wardens at the charge of the people and being by them presented in the name of the people and placed on the Altar or holy table before the Lord is now no longer theirs but his and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine and being consecrated by the Priest is consumed and eaten by such as come prepared to partake thereof The whole prayer used at the consecration doth it not plainly manifest that it is commemorative and celebrated in memorial of that full perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world which our Saviour made upon the Crosse for our Redemption And when the Priest or Minister doth call upon us in the Exhortation above all things to give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father the Son and the holy Ghost for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ and that we do accordingly entirely desire his fatherly goodness mercifully to accept that our sacrifice of praise and thanks-giving and therewith offer and present unto him our selves souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and lively sacrifice unto him do we not thereby signifie as plainly as may be that it is an Eucharistical and spiritual sacrifice Finally that it is a Sacrament I think none denies and that thereby we are partakers of the body and bloud of CHRIST I think all will grant the people giving thanks to Almighty God for that he hath vouchsafed to feed them with the spiritual food of the most precious body and bloud of his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and calling upon him to grant that by the merits and death of his Son Christ Jesus and through faith in his bloud both they and all his whole Church may obtain remission of their sins and all other benefits of his passion Nor doth the Church of England differ from the Antients as concerning the change made in the bread and wine on the consecration which being blessed and received according to Christs holy institution become the very body and bloud of Christ by that name are delivered with the usual prayer into the hands of the people and are verily and indeed saith the publick authorized Catechisme taken and received of the faithfull in the Lords Supper The bread and wine though still the same in substance which before they were are changed in nature being made what before they were not according to the uncorrupted doctrine of the purest times and the opinion of the soundest and most learned Protestants I add no more but that if question should be asked with which of all the legal sacrifices this of the Church of Christ doth hold best proportion I answer that it it best agreeth with those Eucharisticall sacrifices of the Law which were called peace-offerings made unto God upon their reconciliation and atonement with him In which as the creature offered a sacrifice to the Lord their God might be indifferently either male or female to shew that both sexes might participate of it so being offered to the Lord the one part of it did belong to the Priest towards his maintenance and support as the skin the belly the right shoulder and the brest c. the rest was eaten in the way of a solemn feast by those who brought it for an offering before the Lord. And in the feast as Mollerus very probably conjectureth the man that brought this offering did use to take a cup of wine and give thanks over it to the Lord for all his benefits which was the Calix salutis whereof the Psalmist speaketh saying I will take the
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper commanded and ordained by him De latere pendentis in Cruce Lancen percusso Sacramenta Ecclesiae profluxerunt as his words are briefly and hereunto the Fathers and most writers since have inclined generally This was the last remakable thing remembred in our Saviours passion the draining of his bloud to the last drop as it were which though it could not yet add to his former sufferings being dead before yet served it as a confirmation of his death in the eyes of those who otherwise might have called the realty thereof in question and was a certain note to discern him by after he was risen again from death to life as in the story of St. Thomas No further difficulty that I know of doth occur in this the pleading of this Text by the Canonists of the Church of Rome in maintenance of their mingling water with the wine in the blessed Sacrament being so silly a device that it deserves not to be honoured with a confutation But in the other passage which the Gospel mentioneth touching the not breaking of his bones perhaps a question may be made by some captious men how it can possibly agree with another text of holy Scripture where it is said This is my body which is broken for you and to what use the breaking of the bread doth serve in the holy Eucharist it not to signifie the breaking of our Saviours body But the answer unto this is easie For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word used by St. Paul in the Original doth not only signifie to break in peeces though Rob. Stephanus in his Thesaurus expound the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by no other word then the Latine Frango Sometimes it signifieth to strain as in that of Aristotle going up an hill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knees are bent or strained backwards and in that also of Hippocrates where he observeth that sometimes in holding the hand forth out-right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bowing of the joynt or elbow is strained Sometimes it signifieth to cut Hesychius an old Grammarian expounding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is cut and Theophrastus calling the cuttings of vines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom Suidas Phavorinus and the Scholiast on Aristophanes do agree also And in this sense the bread is broken in the Sacrament although cut with knives there being mention of a sacred knife in St. Chrysostoms Liturgie which was employed unto no other use then that of the holy Sacrament And last of all it signifieth sometimes the tearing or bruising of the fleshy parts when the bones are neither broken nor so much as touched which is most clearly witnessed by Hippocrates the Father of all learned Physick giving this for a Rule of Art that the breaking of any of the bones is less dangerous then where the bones are not broken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the veins and sinews adjoining are on every side bruised So that although the bones of our Saviour were not broken that he might in all things be agreeable to the Paschal lamb yet were his joints strained to the utmost when he was stretched upon the Cross his flesh most cruelly cut and torn with scourges his veins and sinews miserably bruised and broken with those outward torments All which as they are signified by this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render broken so doth it very well agree with that meaning of the word broken in our Engish Idiom As when we say a man hath got a broken skin or broken head when the flesh is only bruised and the skin but rased And hereto Beza doth agree in his Annotations on that Text By the word broken in St. Paul is designed saith he the very manner of Christs death his body being torn bruised and even broken with most cruel torments though his legs were not broken as the theeves were so that the word hath a marvellous express signification making the figure to agree so fully with the thing it self the breaking of the bread representing to us the very death and passion of our Saviour Christ. Now go we on Pilates leave being thus obtained and the certainty of Christs death assured by this second murder they hasten all they could unto his funeral to which was used small preparation but less pomp by far It was the day of preparation to the following festival as two of the Evangelists do affirm expressely the Friday or good Friday as we call it now in which it was not lawful for the Iews to do any work A garden there was hard at hand and in the garden a new sepulchre in which never man was laid before a Virgin-sepulchre for the son of a Virgin-mother a Garden to receive that great pledge of death which first found entrance by a Garden So that the labour was not much to take down his body and carry it to the next spot of ground and there intomb it No further cost bestowed upon his funerals who spared not his most pretious bloud to procure our happiness but a mixture made of Myrrhe and Aloes and had not Nicodemus been more valiant now then when he used to come unto his Saviour as it were by stealth he had wanted that And this was done after the custom of the Iews whose manner it was to bestow that charge upon their dead in sign of their belief of the Resurrection unto life eternal not out of any thought they had of his so speedy a Resurrection at the three days end though he had often told them that he would so do So far were they from looking to behold him again on the first day of the week then following that they did all they could to lay him up fast enough till the day of judgement and to that end not only wrapped him up in sear-cloaths for such the linnen clothes were which they wrapped him in Ioh. 19.40 but rolled a great stone to the dore of the sepulchre to make sure work with him God certainly had so disposed it in his infinite wisdome to make the miracle of his Resurrection the more considerable and convincing both with Iews and Gentiles This is the sum of those particulars that concern Christs burial Which though it seem of no more moment then as a confirmation of an unfaigned death and a preparative to his Resurrection and consequently may be thought unnecessary to be here added in the Creed yet upon further search into it we shall finde it otherwise Our Saviour had not overcome death if he had not dyed nor got the victory of the grave had he not been buryed His being restored unto life within three days of his death was a very great and signal miracle but not so great as that which had been acted before on Lazarus who had lain four days in the earth and began to putrefie His lying in the grave was the way
incorporeae naturae convenienter ista absque assumptione carnis aptantur nec sedis coelestis perfectio Divinae naturae sed humanae conquiritur It was then in his natural body that Christ ascended into heaven in it he hath acquired and for it all those high preheminences which have been formerly expressed not altering thereby the nature which before it had but adding a perfection of that glory which before it had not and making it though a natural body still yet a body glorifyed And this is generally agreed upon by all the fathers affirming with a joynt consent this most Catholick truth that notwithstanding the accessions of immortality and glory to the body of Christ yet it reserved still all the properties of a natural body Christ saith St. Hierome ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father manente ea natura carnis the very same nature of his body remaining still in which he was born suffered and did rise again And then Non enim exinanita est humanitatis substantia sed glorificata The substance of his body was not done away but only glorifyed St. Augustine as fully but in fewer words Christum corpori suo majestatem dedisse naturam tamen corporis non ademisse that Christ by giving majesty to his body did not destroy the nature of it As plainly but more fully in another place Huic corpori immortalitatem dedit naturam non abstulit Christ saith the Father hath apparelled his flesh with immortality but he hath not taken from it the nature of flesh And therefore it concerneth us to take good heed ne ita divinitatem astruamus hominis ut veritatem corporis auferamus not to maintain his divinity on such faulty grounds as utterly ruine his humanity or so advance the man as to spoyle his body Pope Leo to this purpose also Caro Christi ipsa est per essentiam non ipsa per gloriam The flesh or body of Christ in substance is the same it was in glory it is not the same Others might be produced to the same effect were not these three sufficient to confirme a point so little subject to dispute amongst men of reason And to say truth the quarrell is not of the Thesis or the point it self that the body of Christ retained still the properties of a natural body which before it had but in the Hypothesis or supposition which is built upon it For if our Saviours body still retain the properties of a natural body it must be circumscribed in a certain place and have a local being as all bodies have Otherwise by St. Augustines rule it will be no body For tolle ipsa corpora qualitatibus corporum c. Take away from bodies the properties of bodies and there will be no place or ubi for them to be in et ideo necesse est ut non sint and then the same bodies must needs be no bodies It followeth then upon this rule of that learned Father that the body of Christ though glorifyed is a natural body and consequently circumscribed in some place of heaven and yet because a glorifyed body though a body naturall is so restrained to heaven and the glories of it that no place else is capable of him St. Augustine shall make good the first proposition and St. Cyril the second and then let Gratian make the Syllogisme by adding a conclusion to the former premises St. Augustine telleth us for the first Ne dubites Christum esse in aliquo loco coeli doubt not saith he but that the body of Christ is in some place of heaven Not doubt it Why Propter veri corporis modum because it is agreeable unto the nature of a true body that it should be so St. Cyril for the second thus Non poterat Christus cum Apostolis versari in carne c. Christ could not converse with his Apostles in his body or flesh after he had ascended to his heavenly Father The inference shall be made by Gratian though in Augustines words Corpus in quo resurrexit in uno loco esse oportet The body in which Christ rose must needs be in one place like to other bodies Nor is this more although it seem too much to the Pontificians then what St. Peter said before in a Sermon of his Oportet illum coelos capere viz. that the heavens must contain him till his coming again till all things be restored and perfected in the day of the Lord. Which being so it was unseasonably done of Pope Nicolas to labour the introducing of the new article of Transubstantiation into the Creed before he had expounded that of Christs ascension being so plainly contrary to that new devise that they cannot both stand together in the same belief And when Pope Pius the fourth did publish a new Creed of his own and therein did requre this amongst other Articles that we believe that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into Christs body and of the wine into his bloud which conversion the Catholick Church calleth Transubstantiation he considered neither how repugnant his new Creed would be to that which the Apostles had before delivered nor how destructive to the works of Gods Creation For first if Christ our Saviour be ascended in his naturall body and that the heavens are to contain him till his coming to judgment as both the Scriptures and the Creed do expressely say how can we have his body here upon the earth as often as the Priest is pleased to offer Hoc est corpus meum without confuting both the Creed and the text together Secondly if the bread be transubstantiated into our Saviours body so that it becometh forthwith to be whole Christ both body and soul and his divinity too into the bargain as they say it doth marke what most monstrous paradoxes and absurdities will ensue upon it For first we have a new Divinity of a Creatures making and secondly our Saviour Christ must have as many natural bodies as all the Priests in Christendome say several Masses which is to make him far more monstrous then the Giant Geryon and not to have three bodies only but three hundred thousand Or else this naturall body of Christ must be entire and whole both in heaven and earth and on the earth in as many several places at the self same time as there are dayly Masses said in the Church of Rome which is to take away the Properties of a body natural For tolle spatia locorum corporibus nusquam erunt si nusquam erunt nec erunt ipsa as St. Augustine hath it Take away from a body limitation of place and it will be no where and if no where then it is no body And next we shall have bodies made of flesh and bloud and bones and sinews and all things requisite to the being of a natural
body which yet is neither high nor low nor thick nor thin nor broad nor narrow not visible unto the eye nor perceptible unto any other of the senses which is to faign a body without all dimensions which never any body was supposed to be and make it neither subject unto sight nor touch though Christ was subject unto both and evidenced to be so in St. Thomas his case Add next that this most glorious body made of flesh and bloud endued with a reasonable soul and having a Divinity superadded to it must be devoured and eaten and perhaps worse used which is to make all Christians to be Anthropophagi yea and worse then so not to be man-eaters only but God-eaters too And last of all for this conversion of the bread into the very body of Christ the same which was once born of the Virgin Mary they know not what to call it nor on what to ground it A totall conversion they would have it and yet the tast and colour of the bread doth remain as formerly a substantial conversion it must also be and yet it is sine sui mutatione without a change at all saith Bonaventure Such a conversion t is that they know no name for it for it is neither productiva nor conservativa as Bellarmine himselfe confesseth And therefore he is fain to devise a name and call it conversio adductiva a notion which neither Divinity nor Philosophy ever knew before and hath been quarrelled since by the Pontificians as himself confesseth in the book of his Recognitions And as they knew not how to call it so neither can they tell upon what to ground it Suares affirmeth as before that it depends ex Mathematicis Philosophicis Principiis on Philosophical and Mathematical principles and then as the Archb. of Spalato said in defence thereof it may be an errour in Philosophy but not in Divinity The most part ground it only on the Churches authority by which it was determined in the Councell of Lateran and yet both Scotus and Durandus two learned Papists condemn the Church of unadvisednesse for so defining it by reason of those inextricable plunges and perplexities which it puts them to Some would fain â—ound it in the Scriptures and have tugged hard for it but after all their pains they are told by Cajetan that there is nothing in the Gospell to make good the matter Their best way were to let our Saviour be in heaven at the right hand of God and not to bring him down by their new devices Of which his sitting at the right hand of God I am next to speak having thus cleared my way unto it by this Dissertation ARTICVLI 7. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sedet ad dextram Dei Patris Omnipotentis i. e. And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty CHAP. XII Of sitting at the right hand of God the proper meaning of the phrase and of the Priviledges which accrew thereby to our Lord and Saviour THey which consider our Redeemer in his several Offices do look upon him as a King a Priest and a Prophet A Priest to offer prayers and sacrifices for the sins of his people a Prophet to instruct them in the ways of righteousness a King to govern and direct them by the rules of justice And unto every one of these they do design some branch or Article of the Creed in which it either is expressed or else may easily be fitted and reduced unto it That of his Priesthood they refer wholly to this last branch of the present Article the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of God where he maketh intercession for us which is the most proper duty of the Priestly function That of the Kingly Office they refer partly unto this but chiefly to the Article following where he is represented as the Judge both of quick and dead But first before we come to that we must enquire into the meaning of the phrase or form of speech Sedere ad dextram Dei this sitting at the right hand of God then shew how this is verified in Christ our Saviour Which done we will consider the effects and benefits which do redound unto us men by that great advancement which Christ hath merited or acquired in our humane nature And first this phrase or form of speech viz. the sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty is borrowed from the guise of great Kings and Potentates amongst whom it is an usual thing to place the man whom they intend to honour in the sight of the people at their own right hand So did King Solomon with his Mother in the Book of the Kings when she came to him as a suiter in behalf of Adonijah Whom when the King saw he rose up to meet her saith the Text and bowed himself unto her sate down on his Throne and caused a seat to be set for the Kings Mother and she sate at his right hand A greater honour to a subject for a Queen Mother is no more by the law of Nations the King could not do her and he made known by this unto all his people that he would have his Mother honoured in the next place to himself So read we in the Book of Psalms upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold of Ophir Which whether it were meant of Davids own or Solomons wiâ—e shews plainly that she was to be accounted of as the second person in the Kingdome next in degree and honour to the King himself Of which St. Hierom giveth this reason Est enim Regina regnatque cum eo because she was the Queen and in her conjugal right reigned together with him And this appears yet further by the suit or motion which the mother of Zebedees children made in behalf of her sons when she came unto him saying Grant me that these my two sons might sit the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy Kingdome The good woman as it seems conceived as generally the Apostles and Disciples did that Christ should be invested one day with the Crown of Israel and she desired to have her sons advanced to the highest places of trust and reputation about their Master She did not doubt but they should be of good esteem with him upon all occasions Our Saviour Christ had as it were assured them of that before when he took them and Peter out of all the rest to be present at the miracle of his Transfiguration and the raysing of the Rulers daughter That which she aimed at was of an higher nature ut ipsi primi essent caeteros omnes praeirent in regno ipsius to have them made the chief above all the rest the one to hold the first and the other the second place about him That was her meaning in the placing of them the one at his right hand and the
the fowles of the Aire Next for the Nomothetical arts of Empire let us look on those and we shall finde that as he came not to destroy the Law of God but to fulfil it so hath he added more weight to it either by way of application or of explication then before it had They who consult our Saviours Sermon on the mount and look upon his Commentaries on the law of Moses which the chief Priests and Pharisees had perverted by adulterate glosses will quickly finde that he discharged us not from the Obligation which the moral law had laid upon us but only did become our surety and bound himself to see it faithfully performed by us in our severall places The burden was not made lesse heavy then it was before I speak still of the Moral Law not the Ceremonial but that he hath given more strength to bear it more grace to regulate our lives by Gods Commandements And somewhat he did adde of his own auhority which tended to a greater measure of perfection then possibly we could attain to by the Law of Moses and that not only in the way of Evangelical Counsels and that there are such Counsels I can easily grant but of positive precept For so far certainly we may joyn issue with the Council of Trent that IESVS CHRIST is to be honoured and observed Non tantum ut Redemptor cui omnâ—s fidant sedut Legislator cui obediant not only as a Saviour unto whom we may trust but as a Law-maker also whom we are to obey The same position is maintained also by the Arminian party but not the more unsound for either Veritas a quocunq est est a Spiritu sancto as St. Ambrose hath it And this is so agreeable to the Word of God that either we must deny the Scripture or else confess that it proceeded from the Spirit of God Nor are his laws indeered only to us and sugred over as it were by the promise of a great reward but enjoyned also under pain of grievous punishments punishment and reward being the square or measure of the heavenly government no otherwise then of the earthly Tribulation and anguish saith St. Paul shall come upon the soul of every man that doth evil but glory and honour and peace to every man that doth good to the Iew first and also to the Gentile for God is no respecter of persons By which two general motives set before our eyes and the co-operation of the holy Spirit working with his Word he doth illuminate our mindes and mollifie our hearts and quench our lusts instruct us in the faith confirm us in our hopes and strengthen us in Christian charity till in the end he bring us to the knowledge of his holy will then to obedience to his Laws and finally to a resemblance of his vertues also If after all this care and teaching either by frailty or infirmity we do break his laws or violate his sacred Statutes as we do too often he doth not presently take the forfeiture which the Law doth give him for then O Lord should no flesh living in thy sight be justified but in the midst of judgement he remembreth mercy We may affirm of him most truly as Lactantius did Vt erga pios indulgentissimus Pater ita adversus impios justissimus Iudex as terrible a Iudge he is to impenitent sinners as an indulgent Father to his towardly children as before was said Such is the nature and condition of our Saviours Kingdome which sitting at the right hand of Almighty God he doth direct and govern as seems best to his heavenly wisdome and so shall do untill his coming again to judge both the quick and the dead Although he hath withdrawn himself and his bodily presence yet is he present with it in his mighty power and by the influences and graces of his holy Spirit And in this sense it was that he said unto them Behold I am with you alwayes to the end of the world And that not only with you my Apostles unto whom he spake but cum vobis successoribus vestris with all you my Disciples and with your successors also in your several places till time be no more Though he be placed above in the heavenly glories and is not joyned unto his Church by any bodily connexion yet he is knit unto it in the bonds of love and out of that affection doth so guide and order it as the Head doth the members of the Body natural Habet ecclesia Caput positum in Coelestibus quod gubernat Corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed annectitur Charitate as St. Austin hath it Vice-roy there needeth none to supply his absence who is always with us Nor we the assistance of a Vicar General to supply his place whose Spirit bloweth where him listeth and who is linked unto us in so strong affections But for all this our Masters in the Church of Rome have determined positively that in regard our Saviour hath withdrawn himself from the Church in his Body secundum visibilem praesentiam for as much as doth concern his visible presence he needs must have some Deputy or Lieutenant General qui visibilem hanc Ecclesiam in unitate contineat to govern and direct the same in peace and unity It seemes they think our Saviour Christ to be reduced unto the same straights as Augustus was of whom it is reported in the Roman stories that he did therefore institute a Provost in the City of Rome because he could not always be there in person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and durst not leave it absolutely without a Governor And sure however others may complain of our Saviours absence and for that reason think it necessary to have some general Deputy to supply his place yet of all others those of Rome have least cause to do it who can command his presence at all times and on all occasions For as Cornelius a Lapide affirms expressely by saying only these words Hoc est Corpus meum the Bread is not only transubstiated into our Saviours Body but Christ anew begotten and born again upon the Altar And not his Body only that 's not half enough but as the Canon of Trent tels us there is totus Christus una cum anima Divinitate whole Christ both body and soul and the Godhead also personally and substantially on the blessed Sacrament That he is present every where in his power and Spirit there is none of us which denyeth If they can have his bodily presence also in so short a warning what use can they pretend for a Vicar General Adeo Argumenta ex falso petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius rightly Besides it is a Maxime in Ecclesiastical Polity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that the external Regiment of the Church of Christ is to be fitted to the frame and order of the
Cajetan was a publick Confession and in generals onely sed non confessio Sacramentalis Not such a private and particular one as is now required not such a Sacramental one as is now defended But we might well have saved this particular search it being ingenuously confessed by Michael de Palacios a Spanish Writer That notwithstanding all their pains to found it on some Text of Scripture they are so far from being agreed amongst themselves that it is much to be admired Quanta sit de hac re concertatio What contention there is raised about it and how badly they agree with one another And if they have no better ground for the main foundation how little hopes may we conceive of finding any good in their superstructures And yet upon no better grounds do they exact a most unreasonable particularity of all mens affairs to be delivered to them in confession requiring of all persons being of age a private and distinct confession of all and every known mortal sin open and secret of outward deed and inward consent together with all circumstances thereof though obscene and odrous not fit to be communicated to a modest ear and that too once a year at least if they do not oftner For this we need not go much further than the Council of Trent where we shall finde Oportere à poenitentibus omnia peccata mortalia quorum post diligentem sui discussionem conscientiam habent in confessione recenseri etiamsi occultissima sunt tantum adversus duo ultima Decalogi mandata remember that they divide the last Commandment into two commissa c Which how impossible it is to do should one go about it what an intanglement it may prove unto the conscience of a penitent sinner and what a temptation also to the Priest himself to be acquainted with particulars so unchast and lustful I leave to any sober Christian to determine of who shall finde more hereof in Alvares Pelagius de Planctu Ecclesiae L. 2. Art 2 3 27 73 83. and Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum cap. 64. Writers of their own than I think fitting at this time they should hear from me who do not love to rake in such filthy puddles So then the business of Confession doth stand thus between us That we conceive it to be free whereas those of Rome will have it obligatory we that it is Iuris positivi onely but they Iuris divini we that it is a matter of conveniency and they of absolute necessity And then for the performance of it they do exact a punctual enumeration of all sins both of commission and omission together with all the accidents and circumstances thereunto belonging which we conceive in all cases to be impossible in some not expedient and in no case at all required by the Word of God Now as we disagree with those of the Church of Rome about the nature and necessity of private confession so have we no less differences with the Grandees of the Puritan faction about the efficacy and power of Sacerdotal Absolution which they which speak most largely of it make declarative onely others not so much whereas the Church hath taught us that it is authoritative and judicial too Authoritative not by a proper natural and original power for so the absolving of a sinner appertains unto God alone but by a delegated and derived power communicated to the Priest in that clause of their Commission Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted and whose sins soever ye retain they are retained Iohn 20.23 Which proves the Priest to have a power of remitting sins and that in as express and ample manner as he can receive it But though it be a delegated Ministerial power yet doth not the descent thereof from Almighty God prove it to be the less judicial Then Judges and other Ministers of Justice sitting on the Bench may be said to exercise a judicial power on the lives and fortunes of the Subjects because they do it by vertue of the Kings Commission not out of any Soveraign power which they can chalenge to themselves in their several circuits Now that the Priests or Ministers of the Church of England are vested with as much power in forgiving sins as Christ committed to his Church and the Church to them the formal words Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted c. which are still used in Ordinations do expresly signifie Which though some of the Grandees of the Puritan faction have pleased to call Papisticum ritum an old Popish ceremony foolishly taken up by them continued with small judgment by our first Reformers minore adhuc in ecclesia nostra retentus and with far less retained by the present Church yet we shall rather play the fools with the Primitive Christians than learn wit of them And for the exercise of this power we have this form thereof laid down in the Publick Liturgy where on the hearing of the sick mans confession the Priest is to absolve him with these formal words viz. Our Lord Iesus Christ who hath left power unto his Church to absolve all sinners which truly repent and believe in him of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences And by his authority committed unto me I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen In which we finde that the Sacerdotal power of forgiving sins is a derived or delegated Ministerial power a power committed to his Ministers by our Lord and Saviour but that it is Iudicial also not Declarative onely It is not said That I do signifie or declare that thou art absolved which any man may do as well as the Priest himself but I do actually absolve thee of all thy sins which no mortal man can but he In this the Priest hath the preheminence of the greatest Potentate And in this sense it is that St. Chrysostome saith Deus ipse subjecit caput Imperatoris manui Sacerdotis i.e. That God himself hath put the head of the Prince under the hand of the Priest For as no man whatsoever although he use the same words which the Minister doth can consecrate the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ because he wants the power of Order which should inable him unto it so no man not in Priestly order can absolve from sin though he may comfort with good words an afflicted Conscience or though he use the same words which are pronounced by the Minister in absolution The reason is because he wants the power of order to which the promise is annexed by our Saviour Christ which makes the sentence of the Priest to be so judicial which when the penitent doth hear from the mouth of the Minister he need not doubt in foro conscientiae but that his sins be as verily forgiven on Earth as if he had heard Christ himself in foro
that is bitten when he looketh upon it he shall live What use makes CHRIST the Lord of this As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Never was type more perfect and exact then that Man by his sins committed against God the Lord had provoked his anger and the Lord gave him over to the hands of the old Serpent the Devil who pierced them with his fiery darts consumed them with the heats of lust and drew them into everlasting danger both of soul and body No way to cure them of those wounds which the sting of sin and Satan had occasioned in them no way to quench those flames of natural concupiscence which were kindled in them and setting them at liberty from the powers of hell but by fastning Christ upon the Cross as was the Brazen Serpent on the top of the pole that whosoever looked on him with the eyes of faith might have the world crucified unto them and they themselves unto the world The Antients generally did thus interpret and apply our Redeemers words as being most agreeable to the scope of the place and to another of his Prophecies concerning himself saying that he should be delivered unto the Gentiles to be mocked scourged and crucified and thereby signifying what death he should die Ioh. 18.32 Calvin indeed of late days will not have it so affirming that this application of our Saviours words nec textui quadrat nec instituto is neither agreeable to the Text nor our Saviours purpose and that the plain and genuine meaning of the words is no more then this Quod Evangelii promulgatione erigendus sit Christus that the name of Christ should be advanced by the preaching or promulgating of the Gospel But whether this agree with our Saviours purpose in making a comparison of himself or rather of his lifting up as Moses lifted up the Brazen Serpent any which hath eyes to see and is not wilfully blinde with prejudice or prepossession may discern most easily Compare the fift and sixt verses of the 21. of Numbers with the 14. and 15. of the third of Iohn and tell me any man that hath not absolutely captivated his own judgement to another mans sense if ever Type and Antitype did agree more punctually The parallel goes further yet but beyond this purpose For as the Brazen Serpent of a remedy did become a disease and was made an Idol of an Hieroglyphick the Children of Israel in the times succeeding burning incense to it So was it also with the Cross or Crucifix in these later ages For who knoweth not how impiously it hath been abused to Idolatry in the Church of Rome how grossely it hath been adored by all sorts of people and with what impudence the greatest and most learned men have bestirred themselves in defence of that most palpable and gross Idolatry Bellarmine sparing not to say though he hope to save himself by a strange distinction of his own that the same honour which is due to Christ crucified is to be also given to the Cross or Crucifix But this is only by the way if it be not out of it I return again These passages premised we now proceed unto the story of our Saviours passion We left him last in Pilates Hall The Priests and people of the Iews cryed out to have him crucified according to the Roman fashion No death but that which was accounted the most shameful and most ignominious of all manner of deaths and was pronounced to be accursed He is accursed of God that hangeth on the tree by the Law of Moses would content their malice And Pilate gave sentence saith the Text that it should be as they required and delivered him to them to be crucified CHRIST had not else redeemed us from the curse of the Law for cursed is he that abideth not in all the words of this law to do them Deut. 27.26 had he not been made a curse for us that is to say had he not willingly submitted to that death of the Cross of which the Lord thus said by the mouth of Moses Cursed is every one that is hanged on a tree Deut. 21.23 the curse and rigour of the law being laid upon him Christ was no otherwise made a curse then so by enduring this most shameful death of the Cross this mortem autem Crucis for the sins of man God saith St. Ambrose made Christ a curse after the same manner as a sacrifice for sin in the law is called sin Bropterea pro maledictis oblatus factus est Maledictum and therefore being a Sacrifice for those who were accursed he became a curse CHRIST saith St. Chrysostom was not made subject to the curse of transgression which is the greatest curse a man can fall into and that which makes him most detested and hated of God but admitted in himself another curse that is the punishment of sin or the curse for sin and this saith he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another curse but not the same CHRIST then was made a curse for us not that he was detested of God or deprived of blessedness which was the curse denounced by Moses against those who kept not the words of the law to do them but that he was adjudged to this shameful and inglorious death which God and man did hold accursed abolishing one curse and undergoing another Et vincens maledictum de maledicto as St. Augustine hath it But to go on our Saviour being condemned to this cursed death a death which none but Theeves and Murderers and false Bond-men were condemned by the laws of Rome they hale him to the same with as cursed a violence sparing no cruelty or disgrace as they led him to it which a barbarous people could inflict or an innocent suffer They made him carry that Cross at first on his own shoulders which after was to carry his whole body And when they eased him of that burden and laid it upon Simon the Cyrenians back it was not out of pity but upon design that coming more fresh and lively to the place of suffering he might the longer be a dying and they the longer glut their eyes with that pleasing spectacle It was the custom of the Iews as of other people to give wine to those who were condemned and led to their execution to comfort and revive their spirits the better to enable them for the stroke of death Even this humanity shall be corrupted to increase his miseries and adde unto the scorne which which were put upon him In stead of wine some of them gave him vinegar mixed with Gall to drink and thereby literally fulfilled in him that which was metaphorically said of himself by David in some time of his troubles when he was fed with the bread of sorrow and the waters of
affliction viz. they gave me gall for meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink They stripped him of his garments which they shared amongst them and lifting up his naked body a lamentable spectacle of reproach and shame extended him upon the Cross stretched him in all his joints till the sinews cracked and so nailed him fast thereby accomplishing that in him which was foresignified by David but literally executed upon Christ not David they have pierced my hands and feet Psal. 22.16 Nor staid they here but to adde shame and infamy to his other sufferings they cause him to be crucified between two Malefactors to make the world believe if it had been possible that they were equally involved in the same guilt because involved alike in the same condemnation Nay more then that vinegar and gall which they gave him to drink was but a taft of that extremity of gall and bitterness which they had in their hearts which they did vomit out in blasphemous words exposing him to contempt and scorn not only with the by-standers but the passers by the very malefactors joining with them to increase his sorrows as if thereby they could have mitigated and removed their own So that he might most justly have cryed out and said Consider and behold all ye that pass by the way if ever there were sorrow like my sorrow which was done unto me wherewith the Lord afflicted me in the day of the fierceness of his wrath Never so true a man of sorrows In which extremity of pain and grief of heart no wonder if nature made a start and seemed to tremble at the apprehension of so many miseries especially considering that the most bitter draught of that deadly CVP was to drink off yet And in this anguish and distress it was that he cryed aloud Eli Eli Lamasabaâ—hthani that is to say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Which words because they seem to some to be an argument oâ— proof for those hellish pains which they have fancied to themselves in the soul of Christ by others are conceived to proceed out of desperation which is indeed one of the greatest torments in the pit of hell we will the rather look into them to see whether any such constructions can be gathered thence Now for the clearer exposition of this text of Scripture we will lay these grounds 1. That dereliction and forsaking do no where throughout Gods book import damnation but are applyed always to the judgements of this present life 2. That in wicked and udgodly men it argueth reprobation from grace and despair of glory which to imagine of CHRIST were rather a most furious blasphemy then an erroneous folly 3. That in the godly as in David whose words they were they either note destitution of help or diminution of comfort but neither in David nor in Christ the true pains of the damned and 4. That no construction must be made of these words which may decrease in Christ the fulness of truth and grace which never wanted in his soul or draw him within the compass of mistaking or mistrusting Gods favour towards him For how could he be tainted with any distrust of Gods mercy and purpose towards him who with such confidence commended his pure Spirit into the hands of his Father who in the midst of his extremities did promise to invest the penitent Thief in the joys of Paradise and finally who in the height of his afflictions when he spake these words had such an interest in God as to call him his own God My God my God and not God only as the text informs us Which grounds so laid we may the better understand the meaning of the words before us and what construction they will bear agreeable and conform to the rule of faith And first I know that many of the antient Fathers were of opinion that as Christ took upon him at this time the person of all mankinde so he made this complaint not in behalf of himself but of his members as when he said to Saul in another case Saul Saul why persecutest thou me he did not mean it of his person which was then in heaven but of his Church militant here on earth Thus Cyprian for the Latine Fathers Quod pro iis voluisti intelligi qui deseri a Deo propter peccata meruerant this complaint of being forsaken thou wouldst have understood as spoken of them who had deserved to be forsaken of God in regard of their sins To the same purpose Augustine Epistola 120. and Leo in his 16. Sermon de Passione Thus also venerable Beda Quare dereliquisâ—i me i.e. meos c. Why saith he hast thou forsaken me i. e. mine because sin saith he did keep them back from saving me that is mine It is plain then that the head doth not speak here in his own Person for how could he be possibly forsaken or out of hope of salvation Thus Athanasius for the Greeks in fewer words but as significantly as the others Christ spake these words in our person for he was never forsaken of God And to this purpose speaks Theodoret in Psal. 21. and Euthymius on the same place also Thus also Damascene Christ saith he having put on our person and appropriated the same unto him prayed on that sort as when a man doth put on anothers person out of pity or charity and in his stead speaks such words sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as do not agree unto himself But this construction of the text though both pious and profitable is not so generally received but that some others of the Fathers do expound them otherwise who think that this complaint was poured out by Christ because he saw himself left helpless to the rage of the Iews and that he seemed so long forsaken of his heavenly Father not in regard of inward grace and comfort but of outward help An exposition so agreeable to the text in all the circumstances of it that some of those who did expound the same of Christs not speaking in his own person but in the person of his members do approve thereof For thus St. Hierom Marvail not at Christs complaint of being forsaken when thou seest the scandal of the Cross. St. Ambrose thus He speaketh as a man which was no shame for him to doe because that we our selves when we are in danger do think our selves forsaken of God Which words Venerable Bede Rabanuâ— Maurus and Aquinas in their Expositions of this Scripture do repeat and follow And this St. Augustine well approves of Quare me dereliquisti tanquam dicereâ— relinquendo me c. Why hast thou forsaken me as if he should have said by leaving me in the time of my trouble because not hearing me when I call upon thee thou art far off from my salvation praesenti scilicet salute hujus vitae that is to say in reference to