answer of Ratrannus was directed had then in his Court a famous countrey-man of ours called Iohannes Scotus who wrote a booke of the same argument and to the same effect that the other had done This man for his extraordinarie learning was in England where hee lived in great account with King Alfred surnamed Iohn the wise and had verie lately a roome in the Martyrologe of the Church of Rome though now he be ejected thence Wee finde him indeed censured by the Church of Lyons and others in that time for certaine opinions which he delivered touching Gods foreknowledge and predestination before the beginning of the world Mans freewill and the concurrence thereof with Grace in this present world and the maner of the punishment of reprobate Men Angels in the world to come but we finde not anie where that his book of the Sacrament was condemned before the dayes of x Lanfranc who was the first that leavened that Church of England afterward with this corrupt doctrine of the carnall presence Till then this question of the reall presence continued still in debate and it was as free for anie man to follow the doctrine of Ratrannus or Iohannes Scotus therein as that of Paschasius Radbertus which since the time of Satans loosing obtayned the upper hand Men have often searched and doe yet often search how bread that is gathered of corne and through fires heate baked may be turned to Christs bodie or how wine that is pressed out of manie grapes is turned through one blessing to the Lords blood saith Aelfrick Abbat of Malmesburie in his Saxon Homily written about 650. yeares agoe His resolution is not onely the same with that of Ratrannus but also in manie places directly translated out of him as may appeare by these passages following compared with his Latin layd downe in the margent The bread and the wine which by the Priests ministery is hallowed shew one thing without to mens senses and another thing they call within to beleeving mindes Without they be seene bread wine both in figure and in taste and they be truely after their hallowing Christs body and his blood by spirituall mysterie So the holy font water that is called the well-spring of life is like in shape to other waters and is subject to corruption but the holy Ghosts might commeth to the corruptible water through the Priests blessing and it may after wash the body and soule from all sinne by spirituall vertue Behold now we see two things in this one creature in true nature that water is corruptible moisture and in spirituall mysterie hath healing vertue So also if we behold that holy housel after bodily sense then see wee that it is a creature corruptible and mutable If we acknowledge therein spirituall vertue then understand we that life is therein and that it giveth immortalitie to them that eate it with beleefe Much is betwixt the bodie Christ suffered in and the body that is hallowed to housel The body truely that Christ suffered in was borne of the flesh of Mary with blood and with bone with skin and with sinewes in humane limbs with a reasonable soule living and his spirituall body which we call the housel is gathered of many cornes without blood and bone without lim without soule and therefore nothing is to be understood therein bodily but spiriâ—ually Whatsoever is in that housel which giveth substance of life that is spirituall vertue and invisible doing Certainly Christs body which suffered death and rose from death shall never dye henceforth but is eternall and unpassible That housel is temporall not eternall corruptible dealed into sundry parts chewed betweene teeth and sent into the belly This mysterie is a pledge and a figure Christs bodie is truth it selfe This pledge wee doe keepe mystically untill that we be come to the truth it selfe and then is this pledge ended Christ hallowed bread and wine to housel before his suffering and said This is my body my blood Yet he had not then suffered but so notwithstanding hee turned through invisible vertue the bread to his owne body and that wine to his blood as he before did in the wildernesse before that he was borne to men when he turned that heavenly meate to his flesh and the flowing water from that stone to his owne blood Moses and Aaron and manie other of that people which pleased God did eate that heavenly bread and they died not the everlasting death though they dyed the common They saw that the heavenly meate was visible and corruptible and they spiritually understood by that visible thing and spiritually received it This Homily was appointed publikely to be read to the people in England on Easter day before they did receive the communion The like matter also was delivered to the Clergie by the Bishops at their Synods out of two other writings of the same Aelfrick in the one wherof directed to Wulfsine Bishop of Shyrburne we reade thus That housel is Christs bodie not bodily but spiritually Not the body which he suffered in but the bodie of which he spake when he blessed bread and wine to housel the night before his suffering and said by the blessed bread This is my body and againe by the holy wine This is my blood which is shed for many in forgivenesse of sinnes In the other written to Wulfstane Archbishop of Yorke thus The Lord which hallowed housel before his suffering and saith that the bread was his owne bodie and that the wine vvas truely his blood halloweth daily by the hands of the Priest bread to his body and wine to his blood in spirituall mysterie as wee reade in bookes And yet notwithstanding that lively bread is not bodily so nor the selfe same body that Christ suffered in nor that holy vvine is the Saviours blood which was shed for us in bodily thing but in spirituall understanding Both be truely that bread his body and that wine also his blood as was the heavenly bread which vve call Manna that fedde fortie yeares Gods people and the cleare water which did then runne from the stone in the vvildernesse vvas truely his blood as Paul wrote in one of his Epistles Thus was Priest and people taught to beleeve in the Church of England toward the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh age after the Incarnation of our Saviour Christ. And therefore it is not to be wondered that when Berengarius shortly after stood to maintaine this doctrine manie both by word and writing disputed for him and not onely the English but also all the French almost the Italians as Matthew of Westminster reporteth were so readie to entertaine that which hee delivered Who though they were so borne downe by the power of the Pope who now was growne to his height that they durst not make open profession of that which they beleeved yet manie continued even
more unlearned and unhappy If I bee not able to discover what feates the Divell wrought in that time of darkenesse wherin men were not so vigilant in marking his conveyances and such as might see somewhat were not so forward in writing bookes of their Observations must the infelicitie of that age wherein there was little learning and lesse writing yea which for want of Writers as Cardinal Baronius acknowledgeth hath been usually named the Obscure age must this I say inforce me to yeeld that the Divell brought in no tares all that while but let slip the opportunitie of so darke a night and slept himselfe for company There are other meanes left unto us whereby we may discerne the Tares brought in by the instruments of Satan from the good seed which was sowen by the Apostles of Christ beside this observation of times and seasons which will often faile vs. Ipsa doctrina eorum saith Tertullian cum Apostolicâ comparata ex diversitate contrarietate suâ pronuntiabit neque Apostoti alicujus auctoris esse neque Apostolici Their very doctrine it selfe being compared with the Apostolick by the diversitie and contrariety thereof will pronounce that it had for author neyther any Apostle nor any man Apostolicall For there cannot be a better prescription against Hereticall novelties then that which our Saviour Christ useth against the Pharisees From the beginning it vvas not so nor a better preservative against the infection of seducers that are crept in unawares then that which is prescribed by the Apostle Iude earnestly to contend for the faith vvhich vvas once delivered unto the Saints Now to the end we might know the certaintie of those things wherein the Saints were at the first instructed God hath provided that the memoriall thereof should be recorded in his owne Booke that it might remaine for the time to come for ever and ever He then who out of that Booke is able to demonstrate that the doctrine or practice now prevailing swarveth from that which was at first established in the Church by the Apostles of Christ doth as strongly prove that a change hath beene made in the middle times as if hee were able to nominate the place where the time when and the person by whom any such corruption was first brought in In the Apostles dayes when a man had examined himselfe hee was admitted unto the Lords Table there to eate of that bread and drinke of that cup as appeareth plainly 1. Cor. 11.28 In the Church of Rome at this day the people are indeed permitted to eate of the bread if bread they may call it but not allowed to drinke of the cup. Must all of us now shut our eyes and sing Sicut erat in principio nunc unlesse we be able to tell by whom and when this first institution was altered By S. Pauls order who would have all things done to edification Christians should pray with understanding and not in an unknowne language as may be seene in the fourteenth chapter of the same Epistle to the Corinthians The case is now so altered that the bringing in of a tongue not understood which hindred the edifying of Babel it selfe and scattered the builders thereof is accounted a good meanes to further the edifying of your Babel and to hold her followers together Is not this then a good ground to resolve a mans judgement that things are not now kept in that order wherin they were set at first by the Apostles although he be not able to point unto the first author of the disorder And as wee may thus discover innovations by having recourse unto the first and best times so may wee doe the like by comparing the state of things present with the middle times of the Church Thus I finde by the constant and approved practice of the auncient Church that all sorts of people men women and children had free libertic to reade the holy Scriptures I finde now the contrary among the Papists and shall I say for all this that they have not removed the bounds which were set by the Fathers because perhaps I cannot name the Pope that ventured to make the first inclosure of these commons of Gods people I heare S. Hierâ—me say Iudith Tobiae Macchabaeorum libros legit quidem Ecclesia sed eos inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipit The Church doth reade indeed the books of Iudith and Toby and the Macchabees but doth not receive them for Canonicall Scripture I see that at this day the Church of Rome receiveth them for such May not I then conclude that betwixt S. Hieromes time and ours there hath beene a change and that the Church of Rome now is not of the same judgement with the Church of God theâ— howsoever I cannot precisely lay downe the time wherein shee first thought her selfe to be wiser herein then her Forefathers But here our Adversary closeth with us and layeth downe a number of points held by them and denied by us which he undertaketh to make good as well by the expresse testimonies of the Fathers of the Primitive Church of Rome as also by good and certaine grounds out of the sacred Scriptures if the Fathers authoritie will not suffice Where if hee would change his order and give the sacred Scriptures the precedency hee should therein do more right to God the author of them who well deserveth to have audience in the first place and withall ease both himselfe and us of a needlesse labour in seeking any further authority to compose our differences For if he can produce as he beareth us in hand he can good and certaine grounds oâ—t of the sacred Scriptures for the points in controversie the matter is at an end he that will not rest satisfied with such evidences as these may if he please travaile further and speed worse Therefore as S. Augustine heretofore provoked the Donatists so provoke I him Auferantur chartae humanae sonent voces divinae ede mihi unam Scripturae vocem pro parte Donati Let humane vvritings be removed let Gods voyce sound bring mee onâ—e voyce of the Scripture for the part of Donatus Produce but one cleere testimony of the sacred Scripture for the Popes part and it shall suffice alledge what authority you list without Scripture and it cannot suffice Wee reverence indeed the ancient Fathers as it is fit we should and hold it our duety to rise up before the hoare head and to honour the person of the aged but still with reservation of the respect we owe to their Father and ours that Ancient of dayes the hayre of vvhose head is like the pure vvooll We may not forget the lesson which our great Master hath taught us Call no man your Father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in heaven Him therefore alone doe wee acknowledge for the Father of our Faith no other Father doe we know upon whose bare credite
the writings of S. Cyrill Gennadius Olympiodorus and oâ—hers S. Cyrill from those last words of our Saviour upon the Crosse Father into thy hands I commend my spirit delivereth this as the certaine ground and foundation of our hope Wee ought to beleeve that the soules of the Saints when they are departed out of their bodies are commended unto Gods goodnesse as unto the hands of a most deare Father and doe not remaine in the earth as some of the unbeleevers have imagined untill they have had the honour of buriall neyther are carried as the soules of the wicked be unto a place of unmeasurable torment that is unto Hell but rather flye to the hands of the Father this way being first prepared for us by Christ. For hee delivered up his soule into the hands of his Father that from it and by it a beginning being made we might have certaine hope of this thing firmely beleeving that after death we shall be in the hands of God and shall live a farre better life for ever with Christ. for therefore Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Gennadius in a booke wherein hee purposely taketh upon him to reckon up the particular points of doctrine received by the Church in his time when he commeth to treat of the state of soules separated from the body maketh no mention at all of Purgatorie but layeth down this for one of his positions After the ascension of our Lord into heaven the soules of all the Saints are with Christ and departing out of the bodie goe unto Christ expecting the resurrection of their bodie that together with it they may be changed unto perfect and perpetuall blessednesse as the soules of the sinners also being placed in Hell under feare expect the resurrection of their body that with it they may be thrust unto everlasting paine In like maner Olympiodorus expounding that place of Ecclesiastes If the tree fall toward the South or toward the North in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be maketh this inference thereupon In whatsoever place therefore either lightsome or darke that is either in the foule station of sinnes or in the honest of vertues a man is taken when he dyeth in that degree and order he remaineth for ever For either hee resteth in the light of eternall felicitie with the just and with Christ our Lord or is tormented in darkenesse with the wicked and with the Divell the prince of this world The first whom we finde directly to have held that for certaine light faults there is a purgatory fire provided before the day of judgement was Gregory the first about the end of the sixth age after the birth of our Saviour Christ. It was his imagination that the end of the world was then at hand and that as when the night beginneth to be ended and the day to spring before the rising of the Sunne the darkenesse is in some sort mingled together with the light untill the remaines of the departing night be turned into the light of the following day so the end of this world was then intermingled with the beginning of the world to come and the very darkenes of the remaines thereof made transparent by a certaine mixture of spirituall things And this he assigneth for the reason why in those last times so many things were made cleare touching the soules which before lay hid so that by open revelations and apparitions the world to come might seeme to bring in and open it selfe unto them But as we see that he was plainly deceived in the one of his conceits so have we just cause to call into question the veritie of the other the Scripture especially having informed us that a people for enquiry of matters should not have recourse to the dead but to their God to the Law and to the Testimony it being not Gods manner to send men from the dead to instruct the living but to remit them unto Moses and the Prophets that they may heare them And the reason is well worth the observation which the author of the Questions to Antiochus rendreth why God would not permit the soule of any of those that departed from hence to returne backe unto us againe and to declare the state of things in Hell unto us least much errour might arise from thence unto us in this life For many of the Divels saith hee might transforme themselves into the shapes of those men that were deceased and say that they vvere risen from the dead and so might spred many false matters doctrines of the things there unto our seduction and destruction Neither is it to be passed over that in those apparitions and revelations related by Gregory there is no mention made of any common lodge in Hell appointed for purging of the dead which is that which the Church of Rome now striveth for but of certaine soules only that for their punishment were confined to bathes and other such places here upon earth which our Romanists may beleeve if they list but must seeke for the Purgatorie they looke for somewhere else And yet may they save themselves that labour if they will be advised by the Bishops assembled in the Councell of Aquisgran 240. yeares after these visions were published by Gregory who will resolve them out of the word of God how sinnes are punished in the world to come The sinnes of men say they are punished three maner of wayes two in this life and the third in the life to come Of those two the Apostle saith If we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. This is the punishment wherewith by the inspiration of God every sinner by repenting for his offences taketh revenge upon himselfe But where the Apostle consequently adjoyneth When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with this world this is the punishment which almightie God doth mercifully inflict upon a sinner according to that saying Whom God loveth he chasteneth and he scourgeth everie sonne that hee receiveth But the third is very fearefull and terrible which by the most just judgement of God shall be executed not in this world but in that which is to come vvhen the just Iudge shall say Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the Divell and his angells Adde hereunto the saying of the author of the booke De vanitate saeculi wrongly ascribed to S. Augustine Know that when the soule is separated from the body presently it is eyther placed in Paradise for his good merites or cast headlong into the bottom of hell for his sinnes and that in the dayes of Otto Frisingensis himselfe who wrote in the year of our Lord MCXLVI the doctrine of Purgatory was esteemed onely a private assertion held by some and not an article of faith generally received by the whole Church for why should hee
for you for the obtaining of which double blessing both of grace and of glory together with all outward prosperitie and happinesse in this life you shall never want the instant praiers of Your Majesties most faithfull subject and humble servant IA. MIDENSIS TO THE READER IT is now about six yeeres as I gather by the reckoning laid downe in the 25 th page of this booke since this following Challenge was brought unto me from a Iesuite and received that generall Answer which now serveth to make up the first chapter only of this present worke The particular points which were by him but barely named I meddled not withall at that time conceiving it to be his part as in the 34 th page is touched who sustained the person of the Assailant to bring forth his armes and give the first onset and mine as the Defendant to repell his encounter afterwards Only I then collected certaine materials out of the Scriptures and writings of the Fathers which I meant to make use of for a second conflict whensoever this Challenger should be pleased to descend to the handling of the particular articles by him proposed the truth of euery of which he had taken upon him to prove by the expresse testimonies of the Fathers of the primitiue Church as also by good and certaine grounds out of the sacred Scriptures if the Fathers authoritie would not suffice Thus this matter lay dead for diuers yeeres together and so would still have done but that some of high place in both Kingdomes having beene pleased to thinke farre better of that little which I had done than the thing deserved advised me to goe forward and to deliver the iudgement of Antiquitie touching those particular points in controversie wherein the Challenger was so confident that the whole current of the Doctors Pastors and Fathers of the Primitiue Church did mainly run on his side Hereupon I gathered my scattered notes together and as the multitude of my imployments would give mee leave now entred into the handling of one point and then of another treating of each either more briefly or more largely as the opportunitie of my present leisure would give me leave And so at last after many interruptions I have made up in such manner as thou seest a kinde of a Doctrinall History of those seuerall points which the Iesuite culled out as speciall instances of the consonancie of the doctrine now maintained in the Church of Rome with the perpetuall and constant iudgement of all Antiquitie The doctrine that here I take upon me to defend what different opinions soever I relate of others is that which by publike authoritie is professed in the Church of England and comprised in the booke of Articles agreed upon in the Synod held at LONDON in the yeere 1562. concerning which I dare be bold to challenge our Challenger and all his complices that they shall never be able to prove that there is either any one article of Religion disallowed therein which the Saints and Fathers of the Primitive Church did generally hold to be true I use the words of my challenging Iesuit or any one point of doctrine allowed which by those Saints and Fathers was generally held to be untrue As for the testimonies of the Authors which I alleage I have beene carefull to set downe in the margent their owne words in their owne language such places of the Greeke Doctors only excepted whereof the originall text could not be had as well for the better satisfaction of the Readers who either cannot come by that variety of bookes whereof use is here made or will not take the paines to enter into a curious search of every particular allegation as for the preventing of those trifling quarrels that are commonly made against translations for if it fall out that word be not everie where precisely rendred by word as who would tie himselfe to such a pedanticall observation none but an idle caviller can obiect that this was done with any purpose to corrupt the meaning of the Author whose words he seeth laid downe before his eies to the end he may the better judge of the translation and rectifie it where there is cause Againe because it is a thing very materiall in the historicall handling of controversies both to understand the Times wherein the severall Authors lived and likewise what bookes be truly or falsly ascribed to each of them for some direction of the Reader in the first I have annexed at the end of this booke a Chronologicall Catalogue of the Authors cited therein wherein such as have no number of yeeres affixed unto them are thereby signified to be Incerti temporis their age being not found by me upon this sudden search to be noted by any and for the second I have seldome neglected in the worke it selfe whensoever a doubtfull or supposititious writing was alleaged to give some intimation whereby it might be discerned that it was not esteemed to be the booke of that Author unto whom it was intituled The exact discussion as well of the Authors Times as of the Censures of their workes I refer to my Theological Bibliotheque if God hereafter shall lend me life and leasure to make up that worke for the use of those that meane to give themselves to that Noble study of the doctrine and rites of the ancient Church In the meane time I commit this booke to thy favourable censure and thy selfe to Gods gracious direction earnestly advising thee that whatsoever other studies thou intermittest the carefull and conscionable reading of Gods booke may never be neglected by thee for whatsoever becommeth of our disputes touching other antiquities or novelties thou maiest stand assured that thou shalt there finde so much by Gods blessing as shall be able to make thee wise unto salvation and to build thee up and to give thee an inheritance among all them that are sanctified Which next under Gods glory is the utmost thing I know that thou aimest at and for the attaining whereunto I heartily wish that the word of Christ may dwell in thee richly in all wisedome THE CONTENTS of the BOOKE CHAP. I. A Generall answer to the Iesuites Challenge pag. 1. CHAP. II. Of Traditions pag. 35. CHAP. III. Of the Real presence pag. 44. CHAP. IIII. Of Confession pag. 81. CHAP. V. Of the Priests power to forgive sinnes pag. 109. CHAP. VI. Of Purgatorie pag. 163. CHAP. VII Of Praier for the dead pag. 182. CHAP. VIII Of Limbus Patrum and Christs descent into Hell pag. 252. CHAP. IX Of Praier to Saints pag. 377. CHAP. X. Of Images pag. 447. CHAP. XI Of Free-will pag. 464. CHAP. XII Of Merits pag. 492. THE IESVITES CHALLENGE How shall I answer to a Papist demaunding this Question YOur Doctors and Masters graunt that the Church of Rome for 400 or 500 years after Christ did hold the true Religion First then would I faine knowe what Bishop of Rome did first alter that Religion which you commend
The Confession therfore which is made unto God purgeth sins but that which is made unto the Priest teacheth in what sort those sinnes should be purged For God the author and bestower of salvation and health giveth the same sometime by the invisible administration of his power sometime by the operation of Physicians This Canon is cyted by Gratian out of the Penitentiall of Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury but clogged with some unnecessarie additions as when in the beginning thereof it is made the opinion of the Grecians that sinnes should be confessed onely unto God and of the rest of the Church that they should be confessed to Priests where those words ut Graeci in Gratian seeme unto Cardinall Bellarmine to have crept out of the margent into the text and to have beene a marginall annotation of some unskilfull man who gathered by the fact of Nectarius that Sacramentall Confession was wholly taken away among the Grecians For otherwise saith hee in the Capitular it selfe of Theodorus whence that Canon was transcribed those two words ut Graeci are not to be had nor are they also to be had in the second Councell of Cauaillon c. 33. whence Theodorus seemeth to have taken that chapter neyther yet doth the Master of the Sentences in his 4. booke and 17. distinction bringing in the same sentence adde those words ut Graeci But the Cardinalls conjecture of the translating of these words out of the margent into the text of Gratian is of little worth seeing wee finde them expressely laid downe in the elder collections of the Decrees made by Burchardus and Ivo from whence it is evident that Gratian borrowed this whole chapter as he hath done manie a one beside For as for the Capitular it selfe of Theodorus whence the Cardinall too too boldly affirmeth that Canon was transcribed as if hee had looked into the booke himselfe we are to know that no such Capitular of Theodorus is to be found onely Burchardus and Ivo in whom as we said those controverted words are extant setteth downe this whole chapter as taken out of Theodors Penitentiall so misguided Gratian. for indeed in Theodorus his Penitentiall which I did lately transcribe out of a most ancient copie kept in Sir Robert Cottons Threasurie no part of that chapter can be seene nor yet any thing else tending to the matter now in hand this short sentence onely excepted Confessionem suam Deo soli si necesse est licebit agere It is lawfull that Confession be made unto God alone if need require And to suppose as the Cardinall doth that Theodorus should take this chapter out of the second Councell of Cauaillon were an idle imagination seeing it is well knowne that Theodore died Archbishop of Canterbury in the yeare of our Lord 690 and the Councell of Cauaillon was held in the yeare 813. that is 123. yeares after the others death The truth is hee who made the additions to the Capitularia of Charles the great and Ludovicus Pius gathered by Ansegisus and Benedict translated this Canon out of that Councell into his Collection which Bellarmine as it seemeth having someway heard of knew not to distinguish between those Capitularia and Theodors Penitentiall being herein as negligent as in his allegation of the fourth book of the Sentences where the Master doth not bring in this sentence at all but having among other questions propounded this also for one Whether it be sufficient that a man confesse his sinnes to God alone or whether hee must confesse to a Priest doth thereupon set down the diversitie of mens opinions touching that matter and saith that unto some it seemed to suffice if confession vvere made to God onely without the judgement of the Priest or the confession of the Church because David said I said I will confesse unto the Lord he saith not Vnto the Priest and yet he sheweth that his sinne was forgiven him For in these points as the same author had before noted even the learned were found to hold diversly because the Doctors seemed to deliver diverse and almost contrarie judgementâ— therein The diverse sentences of the Doctors touching this question whether externall confession were necessarie or not are at large layd downe by Gratian who in the end leaveth the matter in suspense and concludeth in this maner Vpon what authorities or upon what strength of reasons both these opinions are grounded I have briefly layd open But to whether of them wee should rather cleave to is reserved to the judgement of the reader For both of them have for their favourers both wise and religious men And so the matter rested undetermined 1150. yeares after Christ howsoever the Romane Correctors of Gratian doe tell us that now the case is altered and that it is most certaine and must be held for most certaine that the sacramentall confession of mortall sinnes is necessary used in that maner and at such time as in the Councell of Trent after other Councels it is appointed But the first Councell wherein we finde any thing determined touching this necessitie is that of Lateran under Innocent the III. wherein wee heard that Transsubstantiation was established for there it was ordayned that Omnis utriusque sexus sidelis every faithfull one of eyther sex being come to yeares of discretion should by himselfe alone once in the yeare at least faithfully confesse his sinnes unto his owne Priest and indevour according to his strength to fulfill the penance injoyned unto him receiving reverently at least at Easter the sacrament of the Eucharist otherwise that both being alive hee should be kept from entring into the Church and being dead should want Christian buriall Since which determination Thomas Aquinas in his exposition of the text of the fourth booke of the Sentences distinct 17. holdeth the deniall of the necessitie of Confession unto salvation to be heresie which before that time saith Bonaventure in his disputations upon the same fourth booke was not hereticall forasmuch as manie Catholick Doctors did hold contrarie opinions therein as appeareth by Gratian. But Medina will not admit by anie meanes that it should be accounted strictly heresie but would have it said that it savours of heresie and for this decree of Confession to be made once in the yeare hee saith that it doth not declare nor interpret any divine right of the thing but rather appointeth the time of confessing Durand thinketh that it may be said that this statute contayneth an holy and wholsome exhortation of making confession and then adjoyneth a precept of the receiving of the Eucharist backed with a penaltie or if both of them be precepts that the penaltie respecteth onely the precept of communicating of the transgression whereof knowledge may be taken and not the precept of confession of the transgression whereof the Church can take no certaine notice and therefore can appoint no certaine penaltie for it
one vvhom Gehenna doth receive whom Hell doth devoure for whose paine the everlasting fire doth burne Let us whose departure a troupe of Angells doth accompanie vvhom Christ commeth forth to meete be more grieved if we doe longer dwell in this tabernacle of death Because as long as wee remaine here vvee are pilgrims from God By all that hath beene said the indifferent Reader may easily discerne what may be thought of the craking Cardinall who would face us downe that all the ancients both Greek and Latine from the very time of the Apostles did constantly teach that there was a Purgatory whereas his owne partners could tell him in his eare that in the ancient writers there is almost no mention of Purgatory especially in the Greek writers and therefore that by the Grecians it is not beleeved untill this day He alledgeth indeed a number of authorities to bleare mâ—ns eyes withall which being narrowly looked into will be found eyther to be counterfeit stuffe or to make nothing at all to the purpose as belonging eyther to the point of praying for the dead onely which in those ancient times had no relation to Purgatory as in the handling of the next article wee shall see or unto the fire of affliction in this life or to the fire that shall burne the world at the last day or to the fire prepared for the Divell and his Angells or to some other fire then that which hee intended to kindle thereby This benefite onely have wee here gotten by his labours that hee hath saved us the paynes of seeking farre for the forge from whence the first sparkles of that purging fire of his brake forth For the ancientest memoriall that he bringeth thereof the places which he hath abused out of the Canonical and Apocryphal scriptures onely excepted is out of Plato in his Gorgias and Phaedo Cicero in the end of his fiction of the dreame of Scipio and Virgil in the sixth booke of his Aeneids and next after the Apostles times out of Tertullian in the seventeenth chapter of his booke de Animâ and Origen in diverse places Onely hee must give us leave to put him in minde with what spirit Tertullian was ledd when hee wrote that book de Animâ and with what authoritie hee strengtheneth that conceipt of mens paying in hell for their small faults before the resurrection namely of the Paraclete by whom if hee meane Montanus the arch hereticke as there is small cause to doubt that he doth we need not much envy the Cardinal for raising up so worshipfull a patron of his Purgatory But if Montanus come short in his testimonie Origen I am sure payes it home with full measure not pressed down only and shaken together but also running over For he was one of those as the Cardinall knoweth full well who approved of Purgatory so much that he acknowledged no other paines after this life but purgatory penalties onely and therefore in his iudgement Hell and Purgatorie being the selfe same thing such as blindely follow the Cardinall may do well to look that they stumble not upon Hell while they seeke for Purgatorie The Grecians professe that they are afrayde to tell their people of anie temporary fire after this life lest it should breed in them a spice of Origens disease and put out of their memorie the thought of eternall punishment and by this meanes occasioning them to be more carelesse of their conversation make them indeed fit fuell for those everlasting flames Which feare of theirs wee may perceive not to have beene altogether causelesse when the Purgatorie of Origen resembleth the Purgatorie of the Pope so neerely that the wisest of his Cardinalls is so readie to mistake the one for the other And to speake the truth the one is but an unhappie sprigge cut off from the rotten trunck of the other which sundry men long since endevoured to graffe upon other stockes but could not bring unto anie great perfection untill the Popes followers tryed their skill upon it with that successe which now we behold Some of the ancient that put their hand to this worke extended the benefite of this fiery purge unto all men in generall others thought fit to restrain it unto such as some way or other bare the name of Christians others to such Christians onely as had one time or other made profession of the Catholick faith and others to such alone as did continue in that profession untill their dying day Against all these S. Augustine doth learnedly dispute proving that wicked men of what profession soever shall be punished with everlasting perdition And whereas the defenders of the last opinion did ground themselves upon that place in the third chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians which the Pope also doth make the principall foundation of his Purgatory although it be a probatory and not a purgatory fire that the Apostle there treateth of S. Augustine maketh answere that this sentence of the Apostle is verie obscure to be reckoned among those things which S. Peter saith are hard to be understood in his writings which men ought not to pervert unto their owne destruction and freely confesseth that in this matter he would rather heare more intelligent and more learned men then himselfe Yet this he delivereth for his opinion that by vvood hay and stubble is understood that over-great love which the faithfull beare to the things of this life and by fire that temporall tribulation which causeth griefe unto them by the losse of those things upon which they had too much placed their affections But whether in this life onely saith he men suffer such things or whether some such judgements also doe follow after this life the meaning which I have given of this sentence as I suppose abhorreth not from the truth And againe Whether they finde the fire of transitorie tribulation burning those secular affections which are pardoned from damnation in the other world onely or vvhether here and there or vvhether therefore here that they may not finde them there I gainsay it not because peradventure it is true And in another place That some such thing should be after this life it is not incredible and whether it be so it may be inquired and either be found or remaine hidden that some of the faithfull by a certaine purgatory fire by how much more or lesse they have loved these perishing goods are so much the more slowly or sooner saved Wherein the learned Father dealeth no otherwise then when in disputing against the same men he is content if they would acknowledge that the wrath of God did remaine everlastingly upon the damned to give them leave to thinke that their paines might some way or other be lightned or mitigated Which yet notwithstanding saith he I doe not therefore affirme because I oppose it not What the Doctors of the next succeeding ages taught herein may appeare by
that Infidels and wicked men departed out of this life were no more to be prayed for then the Divell and his angells which were appointed unto everlasting punishment should in his practise be found to be so much different from his judgement The second tale toucheth upon the verie times of the Apostles wherein the Apostolesse Thecla is said to have prayed for Falconilla the daughter of Tryphaena whom S. Paul saluteth Rom. 16.12 a gentile and an Idolatresse altogether profane and a servitour of another God to this effect O God Sonne of the true God grant unto Tryphaena according to thy will that her daughter may live with thee time without end or as Basil Bishop of Seleucia doth expresse it Grant unto thy servant Tryphaena that her desire may be fulfilled concerning her daughter her desire therein being this that her soule may be numbred among the soules of those that have already beleeved in thee and may enjoy the life and pleasure that is in Paradise The third tale he produceth out of Palladius his historicall book written unto Lausus although neither in the Greek set out by Meursius nor in the three severall Latin editions of that historie published before theâ—e bee any such thing to be found touching a dead mans skull that should have uttered this speech unto Macarius the great Aegyptian anchorer When thou dost offer up thy prayers for the dead then doe wee feele some little consâ—lation A brainlesse answer you may well conceive it to be that must be thought to have proceeded from a dry skull lying by the highway side but as brainlâ—sse as it is it hath not a little troubled the quick heads of our Romish Divines and put mâ—ny an odd cratchet into their nimble braines Renatus Laurentius telleth us that without all doubt it was an Angell that did speake in this skull And I say quoth Alphonsus Mendoza that this head which lay in the way was not the head of one that was damned but of a just man remayning in Purgatory for Damascen doth not say in that sermon that iâ— was the head of a Gentile as it may there be seene And true it is indeed he neither saith that it was so neither yet that it was not so but the Grecians generally relate the matter thus that Macarius did heare this from the skull of one that had been a Priest of Idoles which he found lying in the wildernesse that by his prayers such as were with him in punishment received a little ease of their torment whensoever it fell out that he made the same for them and among the Latins Thomas Aquinas and other of the Schoolemen take this for granted because they found in the Lives of the Fathers that the speech which the dead skull used was this I was a Priest of the Gentiles so Iohn the Roman subdeacoâ— translateth it or as Rufinus is supposed to have rendred it I was the chiefe of the Priests of the Idoles which dwelt in this place and thou art abbot Macarius that art filled with the spirit of God At whatsoever houre therefore thou takest pitie of them that are in torments and prayest for them they then feele som consolation Well saith Mendoza then if S. Thomas relating this history out of the Lives of the Fathers doth say that this vvas the head of a Gentile he himselfe is bound to untye this knot And so hee doth resolving the matter thus that the damned get no true ease by the prayers made for them but such a phantasticall kinde of joy only as the Divels are said to have when they have seduced and deceived any man But peradventure saith Cardinall Bellarmine for the upshott the things which are brought touching that skull might better be rejected as false and apocryphall and Stephen Durant more peremptorily The things vvhich are told of Trajan and Falconilla delivered out of hell by the prayers of S Gregory and Thecla and of the dry skull spoken too by Macarius be fayned and commentitious Which last answere though it be the truest of all the rest yet is it not to be doubted for all that but that the generall credite which these fables obtained together with the countenance which the opinion of the Origenists did receive from Didymus Euagrius Gregory Nyssen if he be not corrupted and other Doctors inclined the minds of men verie much to apply the common use of praying for the dead unto this wrong end of hoping to relieve the damned thereby S. Augustine doth shew that in his time not onely some but exceeding many also did out of an humane affection take compassion of the eternall paines of the damned and would not beleeve that they should never have an end And notwithstanding this error was publickly condemned afterwards in the Origenists by the fifth generall Councell held at Constantinople yet by idle and voluptuous persons was it still greedily embraced as Climacus complaineth and even now also saith S. Gregory there be some who therefore neglect to put an end unto their sinnes because they imagine that the judgements which are to come upon them shall sometimes have an end Yea of late dayes this opinion was maintayned by the Porretanians as Thomas calleth them and some of the Canonists the one following therein Gilbert Porreta Bishop of Poictiers in his booke of Theological Questions the other Iohn Semeca in his Glosse upon Gratian that by the prayers and suffrages of the living the paines of some of the damned were continually diminished in such maner as infinite proportionable parts may be taken from a line without ever comming unto an end of the division which was in effect to take from them at the last all paine of sense or sense of paine For as Thomas observeth it rightly and Durand after him in the division of a Line at last we must come unto that which is not sensible considering that a sensible bodie cannot be divided infinitely and so it would folloâ— that after many suffrages that paine remayning should not be sensible and consequently should be no paine at all Neither is it to be forgotten that the invention of All Soules day of which you may reade if you please Polydore Vergil in his sixth booke of the Inventers of things and the ninth chapter that solemne day I say wherein our Romanists most devoutly perform all their superstitious observances for the dead was occasioned at the first by the apprehension of this same erroneous conceit that the soules of the damned might not onely be eased but fully also delivered by the almes prayers of the living The whole narration of the businesse is thus laid down by Sigebertus Gemblacensis in his Chronicâ—e at the yeare of our Lord 998. This time saith he a certaine religious man returning from Ierusalem being intertained for a while in Sicile by the courtesie of a certaine anchoret learned from him among
company of captives and thus was Hell spoyled and Adam delivered from his griefes Which is agreeable to that which we reade in the works of Athanasius that the soule of Adam was detayned in the condemnation of death and cryed continually unto the Lord such as had pleased God and were justified in the law of nature being detayned together with Adam and lamenting and crying out with him and that the Divell beholding himselfe spoyled did bemoane himselfe and beholding those that sometime were weeping under him now singing in the Lord did rent himselfe Others are more favourable to the soules of the Fathers though they place them in Hell for they hold them to have beene there in a state of blisse and not of miserie Thus the author of the Latin homily concerning the Rich man and Lazarus which is commonly fathered upon Chrysostom notwithstanding he affirmeth that Abraham was in Hell and that before the comming of Christ none ever entred into Paradise yet doth he acknowledge in the meane time that Lazarus did remaine there in a kinde of Paradise For the bosome of Abraham saith he vvas the poore mans Paradise and againe Some man may say unto me Is there a Paradise in Hell I say this that the bosome of Abraham is the truth of Paradise Yea and I confesse it to be a most holy Paradise So Tertullian in the fourth booke of his Verses against Marcion placeth Abrahams bosome under the earth but in an open and lightsome seate farre removed from the fire and from the darknesse of Hell sub corpore terrae In parte ignotâ quidam locus exstat apertus Luce sua fretus Abrahae sinus iste vocatur Altior á tenebris longé semotus ab igne Sub terrâ tamen Yea he maketh it to be one house with that which is eternall in the heaven distinguisht onely from it as the outer and the inner Temple or the Sanctum and the Sanctum Sanctorum were in the time of the Law by the Vayle that hung between which vayle being rent at the passion of Christ he saith these two were made one everlasting house Tempore divisa spatio ratione ligata Vna domus quamvis velo partita videtur Atque adeò passo Domino velamine rupto Coelestes patuere plagae coelataque sancta Atque duplex quondam facta est domus una perennis Yet elsewhere hee maketh up the partition againe maintaining very stiffly that the gates of Heaven remaine still shut against all men untill the end of the world come and the day of the last judgement Only Paradise he leaveth open for Martyrs as that other author of the latin Homily seemeth also to doe but the soules of the rest of the faithfull he sequestâ—eth into Hell there to remaine in Abrahams bosome untill the time of the generall resurrection And to this part of Hell doth he imagine Christ to have descended not with purpose to fetch the soules of the Fathers from thence which is the only errand that our Romanistes conceive he had thither but ut illic Patriarchas Prophetas compotes sui faceret that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of his presence S. Hierome saith that our Lord Iesus Christ descended into the furnace of Hell wherein the soules both of sinners and of just men were held shut that without any burning or hurt unto himselfe he might free from the bonds of death those that were held shut up in that place and that hee called upon the name of the Lord out of the lowermost lake when by the power of his divinitie hee descended into Hell and having destroyed the barres of Tartarus or the dungeon of Hell bringing from thence such of his as he found there ascended conquerour up againe He saith further that Hell is the place of punishments and tortures in which the rich man that was cloathed in puâ—ple is seeâ—e unto which also the Lord did descend that he might let forth those that were bound out of prison Lastly tâ—e Sonne of God saith he following Origen as it seemeth too unaduisedly here descended into the lowermost parts of the earth and ascended above all heavens that he might not only fulfill the law and the prophets but certaine other hidden dispensations also which hee alone doth know with the Father For wee cannot understand how the bloud of Christ did profite both the Angels and those that were in Hell and yet that it did profite them wee cannot be ignorant Thus farre S. Hierome touching Christs descent into the lowermost Hell which Thomas and the other Schoolemen will not admitt that hee ever came unto Yet this must they of force grant if they will stand to the authority of the Fathers It remayned saith Fulgentius for the full effecting of our redemption that man assumed by God without sinne should thither descend whither man separated from God should have fallen by the desert of sinne that is unto Hell where the soule of the sinner was wont to be tormented and to the Grave where the flesh of the sinner was accustomed to bee corrupted yet so that neyther the flesh of Christ should be corrupted in the Grave nor his soule be tormented with the paines of Hell Because the soule free from sinne was not to be subjected to such punishment neither ought corruption to tainte the flesh without sinne And this hee saith was done for this end that by the flesh of the just dying temporally everlasting life might be given to our flesh and by the soule of the just descending into Hell the paines of hell might be loosed It is the saying of S. Ambrose that Christ being voyd of sinne when hee did descend into the lowermost parts of Tartarus breaking the barres gates of Hell called backe unto life out of the jawes of the Divell the soules that were bound with sinne having destroyed the dominion of death and of Eusebius Emissenus or Gallicanus or who ever was the author of the sixt Paschall homily attributed to him that the sonne of man laying aside his body pierced the lowest hidden seates of Tartarus but where he was thought to have beene detained among the dead there binding death did hee loose the bonds of the dead Presently therefore saith Caesarius in his third Paschall homily w ch is the same with the first of those that goe under the name of the former Eusebius the everlasting night of Hell at Christs descending shined bright the gnashing of the mourners ceased the burthens of the chaines were loosed the bursted bands of the damned fell from them The tormentors astonished in minde were amazed the whole jmpious shoppe trembled together when they beheld Christ suddainly in their dwellings So Arnoldus Bonaevallensis in his booke de Cardinalibus operibus Christi commonly attributed to S. Cyprian noteth that at that time there was a cessation from infernall
Councells name the simpler sort might be more easily induced to mistake this Nicene for that other Catholick Nicene Creed And whereas the true Nicene fathers had in their Creed omitted the article of the descent into Hell which as we shall afterwards heare out of Ruffinus was not to be had in the Symbols of the Easterne Churches these bastard fatherlings in their Nicene Creed did not onely insert this clause Hee descended to the places under the earth but added also for further amplification Whom Hell it selfe trembled at The like did they with the words a little altered in another Creed set out in a Conventicle gathered at Constantinople and in a third Creed likewise framed by them at Sirmium and confirmed the same yeare in their great Councell at Ariminum they put it in with a more large augmentation after this maner He descended to the places under the earth and disposed things there vvhom the keepers of Hell gates seeing shooke for feare If therefore any fault were committed in the omission of this article it should touch the Orthodoxe Fathers of Nice and Constantinople rather whom the Latines disputing with the Grecians in the Councell of Ferrara do directly charge with subtracting this article from the Apostles Creed although they free them from blame in so doing because they that tooke it away say they did not denie it nor fight against the truth But first they should have shewed that the Fathers of Nice and Constantinople did finde this article of Christs descent into Hell in the Apostles Creed before they excused them from taking it away from thence For the Creed of the Councell of Constantinople which coÌ„monly goeth under the name of the Nicene Creed being nothing else but an explanation a more ample inlargement of the Creed Apostolicall yea and so fully expressing the same that it selfe hath beene heretofore accounted and named the Apostles Creed it is not to be thought that it would leave out any article eyther unexplained or altogether unnamed which was then commonly beleeved to have beene any parcell of the Creed received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the ingenuous confession of Busaeus the Iesuite in his positions touching Christs descent into Hell S. Cyprian or Ruffinus rather in his exposition of the Creed denyeth that this article is read in the Creed of the Church of Rome or the Churches of the East and some of the most ancient Fathers while either they gather up the summe of the Christian faith or expound the Creed of the Apostles have omitted this point of doctrine But at what time it was inserted in the Creed it cannot certainely bee determined The first particular Church that is knowne to have inserted this article into her Creeed is that of Aquileia which added also the attributes of invisible and impassible unto God the Father almightie in the beginning of the Creed as appeareth by Ruffinus who framed his exposition of the Creed according to the order used in that Church But whether any other Church in the world for 500. yeares after Christ did follow the Aquileians in putting the one of these additions to the Apostolicall Creed more then the other can hardly I suppose bee shewed by any approved testimonie of antiquitie Cardinall Bellarmine noteth that S. Augustine in his booke de Fide Symbolo and in his foure bookes de Symbolo ad Catechumenos maketh no mention of this part when hee doth expound the whole Creed fiue seuerall times Nay Petrus Chrysologus who was archbishop of Ravenna 450. years after Christ doth six severall times goe over the exposition of the Creed and yet never medleth with this article The like also may be observed in Maximus Taurinensis his exposition of the Creed For as for the two Latin expositions thereof that go under the name of S. Chrysostom the latter whereof hath it the former hath it not and the oâ—hers that are found in the tenth Tome of S Augustins works among the Sermons de Tempore foure of which doe repeat it two doe omitt it because the authors of them together with the time wherein they were written be altogether unknowne they can bring us little light in this inquiry Neyther is there heereby any whit more derogated from the credit of this article then there is from others whose authority is acknowledged to bee undoubted and â—eyond all exception as namely that of our Saviours death and the Communion of Saints the one whereof as sufficiently implied in the article of the Crucifixion as a consequent or the buriall as a necessarie antecedent thereof the other as virtually contayned in the article of the Church wee finde omitted not in the Constantinopolitan Symboll alone and in the ancient Apostolicall Creeds expounded by Ruffinus Maximus and Chrysologus but also in those that are extant in Venantius Fortunatus 580. and in Etherius and Beatus 785. yeares after Christ. In all which likewise may bee noted that the title of Maker of heaven and earth is not given to the Father in the beginning of the Creed which out of the Creed of Constantinople wee see is now every where added thereunto Of which additions as there is now no question any where made so by the consent of both sides this of the descent into Hell also is now numbred among the articles of the Apostles Creed For the Scripture having expressely testified that the prophecie of the Psalmist Thou shalt not leave my soule in Hell was verified in Christ S. Augustins conclusion must necessarily be inferred thereupon Who therefore but an Infidell will denie that Christ was in Hell Thus all agree that Christ did some maner of way descend into Hell saith Cardinall Bellarmine But the whole question is touching the exposition of this article The common exposition which the Romish Divines give thereof is this that by Hell is here understood not that place wherein the wicked are tormented but the bosome of Abraham wherein the godly Fathers of the old Testament rested for whose deliverie from thence they say our Saviour tooke his journey thither But S. Augustin in that same place wherein he counteth it a point of infidelitie to denie the going of Christ into Hell gain sayeth this exposition thereof professing that he could finde the name of Hell no where given unto that place wherein the soules of the righteous did rest Wherefore saith he if the holy Scripture had said that Christ being dead did come unto the bosome of Abraham not having named Hell and the paines thereof I marvayle vvhether any would have beene so bold as to have avouched that Christ descended into Hell But because evident testimonies doe make mention both of Hell and paines I see no cause why our Saviour should be beleeved to have come thither but that he should deliver men from the paines thereof And therefore what benefite
raised up upon which place Origen writeth thus In this place and in many others likewise the graves of the dead are to be understood according to the more certaine meaning of the Scripture not such onely as wee see are builded for the receiving of mens bodies eyther cut out in stones or digged downe in the earth but every place wherein a mans bodie lyeth eyther entire or in any part albeit it fell out that one body should be dispersed through many places it being no absurditie at all that all those places in which any part of the body lyeth should bee called the sepulchres of that bodie For if wee do not thus understand the dead to bee raysed by the power of God out of their graves they which are not committed to buriall nor layd in graves but have ended their life either in shipwrackes or in some desart places so as they could not be committed to buriall should not seeme to bee recokoned among them who are said should bee raysed up out of their graves which would bee a very great absurditie Thus Origen Now you shall heare if you please what our Romish Doctors doe deliver touching this point There be two opinions saith Pererius upon Genes 37.35 concerning this question The one of the Hebrewes and of many of the Christians in this our age but especially of the Heretickes affirming that the word Sheol signifieth nothing else in the Scripture but the pit or the grave and from thence reasoning falsly that our Lord did not descend into Hell The other opinion is of undoubted and certaine truth that the Hebrew word Sheol and the Latin Infernus answering to it both in this place of Scripture and elsewhere oftentimes doth signifie not the pit or the grave but the place of Hell and the places under the earth wherein the soules are after death Wheresoever Hiâ—rome saith Augustinus Steuchus upon the same place and the Sâ—ptuagint have translated Hell it is in the Hebrewe Sheol that is the pit or the grave For it doth not signifie that place wherein Antiquitie hath thought that the soules of the wicked are received The Hebrew word properly signifieth the grave saith Iansenius upon Proverb 15.12 the Grave properly and Hell onely metaphorically saith Arias Montanus in his answere unto Leo á Castro and in the old Testament the name of Hell doth alwayes almost import the Grave saith Alphonsus Mendoza The Iesuite Pineda commendeth one Cyprian a Cistercian monke as a man famous for learning and pietie yet holdeth him worthie to be censured for affirming that Sheol or Hell is in all the old Testament taken for the Grave Another croaking monke Crocquet they call him crieth out on the other side that we shall never be able to prove by the producing of as much as one place of Scripture that Sheol doth signifie the Grave Cardinall Bellarmine is a little and but a verie little more modest heerein The Hebrewe Sheol hee saith is ordinarily taken for the place of soules under the earth and eyther rarely or never for the grave but the Greeke word Hades alwayes signifieth Hell never the grave But Stapleton will stand to it stoutly that neyther Hades nor Sheol is in the Scriptures ever taken for the grave but alwayes for Hell The word Infernus Hades Sheol saith hee is never taken for the grave The grave is called in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hebrewe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore all the Paraphrastes of the Hebrewes also doe expound that word Sheol by the word Gehenna as Genebrard doth shew at large in his third Booke of the Trinity Where yet hee might have learned some more moderation from Genebrard himselfe unto whom hee referreth us who thus layeth downe his judgement of the matter in the place by him alledged As they be in an error who contend that Sheol doth never designe the grave so have they a shamelesse forehead who denie that it doth any where signifie the region of the damned or Gehenna It is an error therefore in Stapleton by his owne authors confession to maintayne that Sheol is never taken for the grave and in so doing hee doth but bewray his old wrangling disposition But least any other should take the shamelesse forehead from him hee faceth it downe that all the paraphrastes of the Hebrewes do interpret Sheol by the word Gehenna Whereas it is well knowne that the two Paraphrastes that are of greatest antiquitie and credit with the Hebrewes Onkelos the interpreter of Moses and Ionathan ben Vzziel of the Prophets never translate it so Beside that of Onkelos wee have two other Chaldee Paraphrases which expound the harder places of Moses the one called the Targum of Ierusalem the other attributed unto Ionathan in neyther of of these can wee finde that Sheol is expounded by Gehenna but in the latter of them we see it twise expounded by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave In the Arabicke interpretations of Moses where the translator out of the Greek hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 al-gehim Hell there the translator out of the Hebrew putteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 al-tharai which signifieth earth or clay Iacobus Tawosius in his Persian translation of the Pentateuch for Sheol doth alwaies put Gor that is the grave The Chaldee Paraphrase upon the Proverbs keepeth still the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deflected a little from the Hebrew the Paraphrast upon Iob useth that word thrise but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie the grave in steed thereof five severall times In Ecclesiastes the word commeth but once there the Chaldee Paraphrast rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave R. Ioseph Coecus doth the like in his paraphrase upon Psalm 31.17 and 89.48 In Psalm 141.7 he rendreth it by the simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grave but in the 15. and 16. verses of the 49. Psalme by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gehenna And only there and in Cantic 8.6 is Sheol in the Chaldee paraphrases expounded by Gehenna whereby if we shall understand the place not of dead bodies as in that place of the Psalme the Paraphrast maketh expresse mention of the bodies waxing old or consuming in Gehenna but of tormented soules as the Rabbines more commonly doe take it yet doe our Romanists get little advantage thereby who would faine have the Sheól into which our Saviour went be conceived to have beene a place of rest and not of torment the bosome of Abraham and not Gehenna the seat of the damned As for the Greek word Hádes it is used by Hippocrates to expresse the first matter of things from which they have their beginning and into which afterwards being dissolved they make their ending For having said that in nature nothing properly may be held to be newly made or to perish he addeth this
But men do thinke that what doth grow from Hades into light is newly made and what is diminished from the light into Hades is perished by light understanding nothing else but the visible structure and existence of things and by Hádes that invisible and insensible thing which other Philosophers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius the Platonick translateth Sylvam the Aristotelians more fitly Materiam primam whence also it is supposed by Master Casaubon that those passages were borrowed which we meet withall in the bookes that beare the name of Hermes Trismegistus In the dissolution of a materiall bodie the body it selfe is brought to alteration and the forme which it had is made invisible and so there is a privation of the sense made not a destruction of the bodies I say then that the world is changed in as much as every day a part thereof is made invisible but never utterly dissolved wherewith wee may compare likewise that place of Plutarch in his booke of living privately Generation doth not make any of the things that be but manifesteth them neyther is corruption a translation of a thing from being to not being but rather a bringing of the thing that is dissolved unto that vvhich is unseene Whereupon men according to the ancient traditions of their fathers thinking the sunne to be Apollo called him Delius and Pythius namely from manifesting of things and the ruler of the contrary destinie whether he be a God or an Angel they named Hádes by reason that we when we are dissolved doe goe unto an unseene and invisible place By the Latins this Hádes is termed Dispiter or Diespiter which name they gave unto this lower ayre that is joyned to the earth vvhere all things have their beginning and ending quorum quòd finis ortus Orcus dictus saith Varro All this earthly power and nature saith Iulius Firmicus they named Ditem patrem because this is the nature of the earth that all things doe both fall into it and taking their originall from thence doe againe proceed out of it Whence the Earth is brought in using this speech unto God in Hermes I do receive the nature of all things For I according as thou hast commanded doe both beare all things and receive such as are deprived of life The use which we make of the testimony of Hippocrates those other authorities of the heathen is to shew that the Greek Interpreters of the old TestameÌ„t did most aptly assume the word Hádes to expresse that coÌ„mon state place of corruption which was signified by the Hebrew Sheol therfore in the last verse of the 17. of Iob where the Greeke maketh mention of descending into Hádes Comitolus the Iesuite noteth that S. Ambrose rendreth it in sepulchrum into the grave which agreeth well with the paraphrase that the Greeke Scholiasts make upon that place Is it not a thing common unto all mortall men to die is not Hell or Hádes the house of all doe not all finde there an end of their labours Yea some doe thinke that Homer himselfe doth take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the earth or the grave in those verses of the eighth of his Iliads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'le cast him downe as deepe As Tartarus the brood of night where Barathrum doth sleepe Torment in his profoundest sinks where is the floore of brasse And gates of iron the place for depth as far doth Hell surpasse As heaven for height exceeds the earth For Tartarus being coÌ„monly acknowledged to be a part of Hádes and to be the very Hell where the wicked spirits are tormented they thinke the Hell from whence Homer maketh it to be as farre distant as the heaven is from the earth can be referred to nothing so fitly as to the Earth or the Grave It is taken also for a tombe in that place of Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Other sacred Kings have gotten a tombe apart by themselves before the houses or before the gates of the Citie And therefore we see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Suidas in his Lexicon expressely interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tombe or a grave and in the Greeke Dictionary set out by the Romanists themselves for the better understanding of the Bible it is noted that Hádes doth not onely signifie that which we commonly call Hell but the sepulchre or grave also Of which because Stapleton and Bellarmine doe denie that any proofe can be brought these instances following may be considered In the booke of Tobi chap. 3.10 I shall bring my fathers old age with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Hell what can it import else but that which is in other wordes expressed chap. 6.14 I shall bring my fathers life with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the grave In the 93. and 113. Psalm according to the Greeke division or the 94. and 115. according to the Hebrew where the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of silence meaning the grave as our adversaries themselves do grant there the Greeke hath Hades or Hell In Esai 14.19 where the vulgar â—atin translateth out of the Hebrew Descenderunt ad fundamenta laci quasi cadaver putridum They descended unto the foundations of the lake or pit as a rotten carkeis in steed of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth the lake or pit the Greeke both there and in Esai 38.18 putteth in Hades or Hell and on the other side Ezech. 32.21 where the Hebrew saith The strong among the mightie shall speake to him out of the middest of Sheol or Hell there the Greeke readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the depth of the lake or pit by Hell lake and pit nothing but the grave being understood as appeareth by comparing this verse with the five that come after it So in these places following where in the Hebrew is Sheol in the Greeke Hades in the Latin Infernus or Inferi in the English Hell the place of dead bodies not of soules is to be understood Gen. 44.31 We shall bring downe the gray haires of our father with sorrow unto Hell where no lower Hell can be conceited into which gray haires may be brought then the Grave So 1. King 2.6 David giveth this charge unto Salomon concerning Ioab Let not his hoare head goe downe to Hell in peace and in the ninth verse concerning Shimei His hoare head bring thou downe to Hell with bloud Psalm 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Hell Esai 14.11 Thy pompe is brought downe to Hell the worme is spread under thee and the wormes cover thee Psal. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee
afterwards invented by the Popish Schoolmen yet was it reiected as repugnant to the doctrine of the Church of God by the Princes and Bishops of England first about the yeare 792. and by Charles the great afterward and the Bishops of Italy France Germany which by his appointment were gathered together in the Councell of Frankford the yeare of our Lord. 794. The foure bookes which by his authoritie were published against that Nicene Synod and the adoration of Images defended therein are yet to be seene as the Resolution also of the Doctors of France assembled at Paris by the command of his sonne Ludovicus Pius in the yeare 824. and the booke of Agobardus Bishop of Lions concerning Pictures and Images written about the same time the argument whereof is thus delivered by Papirius Massonus the setter out of it Detecting most manifestly the errors of the Grecians touching images and pictures he denieth that they ought to be worshipped which opinion all wee Catholickes doe allowe and follow the testimonie of Gregory the great concerning them This passage together with the larger view of the contents of this Treatise following afterwards the Spanish Inquisitors in their Index Expurgatorius commande to be blotted out which wee finde to be accordingly performed by the Divines of Cullen in their late corrupt edition of the great Bibliothecke of the ancient Fathers Gretser professeth that he extreamely vvondereth that this judgement of the booke of Agobardus should proceed from a Catholicke man For Agobardus saith he in that wâ—ole booke doth nothing else but endevour to demonstrate although with a vaine labour that images are not to be worshipped And who be these Grecians whose errors touching images Agobardus doth refell as this Publisher saith Surely these Grecians are the Fathers of the Nicene Councell who decreed that Images should be adored and worshipped Against whom whosoever disputeth doth mainely dissent from right beleevers To which blinde censure of the Iesuite we may oppose not onely the generall judgement of the ancient Almaines his owne countriemen who within these foure or five hundred yeares did flatly disclayme this Image-worship as by Nicetas Choniates is witnessed but also the testimonie of the Divines and Historians of England France and Germanie touching the Nicene Councell in particular rejecting it as a Pseudo-synode because it concluded that Images should be worshipped which thing say our Chroniclers the Church of God doth utterly detest And yet for all that we have newes lately brought us from Rome that it is most certaine and most assured that the Christian Church even the most Ancient the Whole and the Vniversall Church did with wonderfull consent without any opposition or contradiction worship statues and images Which if the cauterized conscience of a wretched Apostata would give him leave to utter yet the extreame shamelessenesse of the assertion might have withhelde their wisedomes whom he sought to please thereby from giving him leave to publish it But it may be I seeke for shamefastnesse in a place where it is not be founde and therefore leaving them to their Images like to like for they that make them are like unto them and so is every one that trusteth in them I proceede from this point unto that which followeth OF FREE-VVILL THat man hath Free-will is not by us gainesayd though wee dare not give him so large a freedome as the Iesuites presume to doe Freedome of will wee knowe doth as essentially belong unto a man as reason it selfe and he that spoyleth him of that power doth in effect make him a verie beast For this is the difference betwixt reasonable and unreasonable creatures as Damascen rightly noteth The unreasonable are rather ledd by nature then themselves leaders of it and therefore doe they never contradict their naturall appetite but as soone as they affect any thing they rush to the prosecution of it But man being indued with reason doth rather lead nature then is ledd by it and therefore being moved with appetite if he will he hath power to restraine his appetite or to follow it Hereby he is inabled to doe the things which he doth neither by a brute instinct of nature not yeâ— by any compulsion but by advise and deliberation the Minde first taking into consideration the grounds and circumstances of each action freely debating on eyther side what in this case were best to be done or not done and then the Will inclining it selfe to put in execution the last and conclusive judgement of the practicall Vnderstanding This libertie we acknowledge a man may exercise in all actions that are within his power to doe whether they be lawfull unlawfull or indifferent whether done by the strength of nature or of grace for even in doing the workes of grace our free-will suspendeth not her action but being moved and guided by grace doeth that which is fit for her to doe grace not taking away the libertie which commeth by Gods creation but the pravitie of the Will which ariseth from Mans corruption In a word as we condemne Agapius and the rest of that mad sect of the Manichees for bringing in such a kinde of necessitie of sinning whereby men were made to offend against their wils so likewise with Polychronius and other men of understanding we defend that vertue is a voluntarie thing and free from all necessitie and with the author of the bookes De vocatione Gentium attributed unto Prosper we both beleeve and feele by experience that Grace is so powerfull that yet we conceive it no way to be violent But it is one thing to inquire of the nature another to dispute of the strength and abilitie of Free-will We say with Adamantius in the Dialogues collected out of Maximus against the Marcionites that God made Angels and Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee indued them with freedome of Will but not with abilitie to doe all things And now since the fall of Adam wee say further that freedome of Will remayneth still among men but the abilitie which once it had to performe spirituall duties and things pertayning to salvation is quite lost and extinguished For vvho is there of us saith S. Augustine which would say that by the sinne of the first Man Free-will is utterly perished from mankinde Freedome indeed is perished by sinne but that freedome which was in Paradise of having full righteousnesse with immortalitie for vvhich cause Mans nature standeth in neede of Gods grace according to the saying of our Lord If the Sonne shall free you then yee shall be free indeed namely free to live well and righteously For free-will is so farre from having perished in the sinner that by it they sinne all they especially who sinne with delight and for the love of sinne that pleaseth them which liketh them When we denie therefore that a naturall man hath any free-will unto good by
knocke therefore dearely beloved as much as we can because we cannot as much as we ought the future blisse may be acquired but estimated it cannot be Albeit thou hadst good deeds equall in number to the starres saith Agapetus the Deacon to the Emperour Iustinian yet shalt thou never goe beyond the goodnesse of God For whatsoever any man shall bring unto God he doth but offer unto him his owne things out of his owne store and as one cannot outstrip his own shadow in the Sunne which preventeth him alwaies although he make never so much speed so neither can men by their good doings outstrip the unmatchable bountie of God All the righteousnesse of man saith Gregory is convicted to bee unrighteousnesse if it be strictly judged It needeth therefore prayer after righteousnesse that that which being sifted might faile by the meere pitie of the Iudge might stand for good Let him therefore say Although I had any righteous thing I would not answer but I would make supplication to my Iudge Iob 9.15 as if he should more plainly confesse and say Albeit I did grow up unto the worke of vertue I should be enabled unto life not by merits but by pardon But you will say If this blisse of the Saints be mercie and is not obtained by merits how shall that stand which is written And thou shalt render unto every one according to his workes If it be rendred according to workes how shall it be accounted mercie But it is one thing to render according to workes and another thing to render for the works themselves For when it is said According to works the qualitie it selfe of the worke is understood that whose workes appeare good his reward way be glorious For unto that blessed life wherein wee are to live with God and by God no labour can be equalled no workes compared seeing the Apostle saith The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us By the righteousnesse of works no man shall be saved but only by the righteousnesse of faith saith Bede and therefore no man should beleeve that either his freedome of will or his merits are sufficient to bring him unto blisse but understand that he can be saved by the grace of God only The same Author writing upon those words of David Psalm 24.5 He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousnesse from the God of his salvation expoundeth the blessing to be this that for the present time he shall merit or worke well and for the future shall be rewarded well and that not by merits but by grace only To the same purpose Elias Cretensis the interpreter of Gregory Nazianzen writeth thus By mercy we ought to understand that reward which God doth repay unto us For wee as servants doe owe vertue that the best things and such as are gratefull wee should pay and offer unto God as a certaine debt considering that wee haue nothing which we have not received from him and God on the other side as our Lord and Master hath pitie on us and doth bestow rather than repay unto us This therefore is true humilitie saith Anastasius Sinaita or Nicaenus to doe good workes but to account ones selfe uncleane and unworthy of Gods favour thinking to be saved by his goodnesse alone For whatsoever good things we doe wee answer not God for the very aire alone which we doe breathe And when we have offered unto him all the things that we have he doth not owe us any reward for all things are his and none receiving the things that are his owne is bound to give a reward unto them that bring the same unto him In the booke set out by the authoritie of Charles the Great against Images the Arke of the Covenant is said to signifie our Lord and Saviour in whom alone we have the Covenant of peace with the Father Over which the Propitiatory is said to be placed because aboue the Commandements either of the Law or of the Gospell which are founded in him the mercy of the said Mediator taketh place by which not by the workes of the Law which we have done neither willing nor running but by his having mercy upon us we are saved So Ambrosius Ansbertus expounding that place Rev. 19.7 Let us be glad and rejoyce and give glory to him for the mariage of the Lambe is come and his wife hath made her selfe readie In this saith he doe we give glory to him when we doe confesse that by no precedent merits of our good deeds but by his mercie only we have attained unto so great a dignitie And Rabanus in his Commentaries upon the Lament of Ieremie Lest they should say Our Fathers were accepted for their merit and therefore they obtained such great things at the hand of the Lord he adjoyneth that this was not given to their merits but because it so pleased God whose free gift is whatsoever he bestoweth Haymo writing upon those words Psalm 132.10 For thy servant Davids sake refuse not the face of thine Anointed saith that For thy servant Davids sake is as much to say as For the merit of Christ himselfe and froâ— thence collecteth this doctrine that none ought to presume of his owne merits but expect all his salvation from the merits of Christ. So in another place When we performe our repentance saith he let us know that we can give nothing that is worthy for the aâ—peasing of God but that only in the bloud of that immaculate and singular Lambe we can be saved And againe Eternall life is rendred to none by debt but given by free mercie It is of necessitie that beleevers should be saved only by the faith of Christ saith Smaragdus the Abbot By grace not by merits are we saved of God saith the Author of the Commentaries upon S. Marke falsely attributed to S. Hierome That this doctrine was by Gods great mercie preserved in the Church the next 500. yeares also as well as in those middle times appeareth most evidently by those Instructions and Consolations which were prescribed to be used unto such as were readie to depart out of this life This forme of preparing men for their death was commonly to be had in all Libraries and particularly was found inserted among the Epistles of Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury who was commonly accounted to bee the Author of it The substance thereof may be seene for the copies varie some being shorter and some larger than others in a Tractate written by a Cistercian Monke of the Art of dying well which I have in written hand and have seene also printed in the yeere 1483. and 1504. in the booke called Hortulus animae in Cassanders Appendix to the booke of Iohn Fisher Bishop of Rochester de fiduciâ misericordiâ Dei edit Colon. An. 1556. Caspar Vlenbergius his Motives caus 14. pag.