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A43554 Theologia veterum, or, The summe of Christian theologie, positive, polemical, and philological, contained in the Apostles creed, or reducible to it according to the tendries of the antients both Greeks and Latines : in three books / by Peter Heylyn. Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662. 1654 (1654) Wing H1738; ESTC R2191 813,321 541

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Fathers as do touch upon it as may appear by that of Hilarie and Ambrose before delivered By which the other passages of holy writ as Iude v. 6. Mat. 8.29 and Rom. 2.5 it is plain and manifest that the torments of the damned and the Devils too which are inflicted on them for the present time are far lesse then the vengeance of eternal and external fire reserved untill the day of judgement and then augmented upon all the reprobate both men and Angels For grant the most which had been said by any of the Antients as to this particular and we shall finde that it amounteth to no more then this that the souls of wicked men departed are presently made to understand by the righteous judge the sentence due unto their sins and what they are to look for at the day of doome Postquam anima de corpore est egressa subito judicium Christi de salute cognoscit as St. Augustine hath it Which being once made known to the sinfull soul standing before the throne of Christ in the sight of heaven she is forthwith hurried by the evill angels to the mansions of hell where she is kept as in a Prison under chaines and darknesse untill the judgement of the great and terrible day Iude v. 6. And so we are to understand those words of St. Cyril saying Anima damnata continuo invaditur a daemonibus qui eam crudelissime rapiunt ad infernum deducunt unlesse we rather choose to refer the same unto the executing of the sentence of their condemnation at the day of doome as perhaps some may But howsoever they be hurryed by the Devils into the darknesse of hell as to the place wherein they are to be secured till the day of judgement yet that they feel that misery and extremity of torments which after the last day shall be laid upon them neither they nor any of the Antients have delivered to us For of that day it is not the day of their death of which Scriptures doe report such terrible things saying that the heavens shall vanish away and be rolled up like a scroule that all the mountaines and the hils shall be moved out of their places and that the Kings of the earth and the mighty men c. that is to say the wicked of what sort soever shall say unto the hils and rocks Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come and who is able to endure it And certainly the terrors of that day must needs be great incomprehensible not only to the guilty conscience but even unto the righteous souls who joyfully expect the coming of their Lord and Saviour For in that day the Sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light the Stars shall fall from heaven and all the powers thereof shall be shaken And the signe of the Son of man shall appear in heaven and then shall all the kindred of the earth mourne and they shall see the son of man coming in the cloudes of heaven with great power and glory And he shall send his Angels with the great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together the Elect from the four windes from one end of the heaven to the other So far we have described the fashion of that dreadfull day from the Lords one mouth St. Luke unto these former terrors doth add the roaring of the Sea and the waters also St. Peter that the elements shall melt with fervent heat and that the earth also and the works thereof shall be utterly burned In this confusion of the world and general dissolution of the works of nature the Lord himself shall descend from heaven in a shout and in the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpe and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which live and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds for though we shall not all die we shall all be changed 1 Cor. 15.51 and all together shall meet the Lord Jesus in the Aire The meaning is that at the sounding of this last trump the very same bodies which the Elect had before though mangled by tyrants devoured by wild beasts or burnt to ashes shall be raised again and being united to their souls shall be made alive and rise out of the bed of sleep like so many Iosephs out of prison or Daniels from the den of the roaring Lyons But as for such of the Elect who at that sudden coming of our Lord shall be found alive the fire which burneth up the corruptions of the world and the works thereof shall in a moment in the twinkling of an eye as St. Paul telleth us overtake them as it findeth them at their several businesses and burning up the drosse and corruption of their natural bodies of mortall shall make them to be immortall which change shall be to them in the stead of death In this sort shall they meet the Lord coming in the cloudes of the Aire where the Tribunall or judgement-seat of Christ shall be erected that the ungodly man the impenitent sinner who is not capable of coming into heaven for so much as a moment for no unclean thing or any one that worketh abomination shal finde entrance there Apocal. 21.27 may stand before his throne to receive his sentence So witnesseth St. Iohn in the Revelation And I saw a great white throne and him that sate on it from whose face fled away both the earth and the heaven And I saw the dead both small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books according to their deeds And the Sea gave up the dead which were in her and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to his works And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire To the same purpose and effect doth Christ himself describe this day and the manner of his coming unto judgement in St. Matthews Gospell that which St. Iohn calleth the white throne being by Christ our Saviour called the throne of his majestie Mat. 25.31 At which time all the nations of the world being gathered together before him the good being separated from the bad and a brief repetition of their works being made unto them the righteous shall be called into the Kingdome prepared for them from the foundations of the world the wicked man be doomed to fire everlasting prepared for the Devil and his Angels For though Lactantius seem to think that the wicked shall not rise in the day of judgement and doth it as he sayeth himself literis sacris contestantibus
Reformers in Queen Elizabeths time say as much as this The Scriptures say the Papists in their Council of Trent for I regard not the unsavory Speeches of particular men Is not sufficient to Salvation without Traditions that is to say without such unwritten Doctrinals as have from hand to hand been delivered to us Said not the Puritans the same when they affirmed That Preaching onely viva voce which is verbum traditum is able to convert the sinner That the Word sermonized not written is alone the food which nourisheth to life eternal that reading of the Word of God is of no greater power to bring men to Heaven than studying of the Book of Nature that the Word written was written to no other end but to afford some Texts and Topicks for the Preachers descant If so as so they say it is then is the written word no better than an Ink-horn Scripture a Dead Letter or a Leaden Rule and whatsoever else the Papists in the height of scorn have been pleased to call it Nay of the two these last have more detracted from the perfection and sufficiency of the holy Scripture than the others did They onely did decree in the Council of Trent That Traditions were to be received Paripietatis affectu with equal Reverence and Affection to the written Word and proceed no further These magnifie their verbum traditum so much above it that in comparison thereof the Scripture is Gods Word in name but not in efficacy They onely adde Traditions in the way of Supplement where they conceive the Scriptures to be defective These make the Scriptures every where deficient to the work intended unless the Preacher do inspire them with a better Spirit than that which they received from the Holy Ghost Good God that the same breath should blow so hot upon the Papists and yet so cold upon the Scriptures that the same men who so much blame the Church of Rome for derogating from the dignity and perfection of the Holy Scriptures should yet prefer their own indigested crudities in the way of Salvation before the most divine dictates of the Word of God But such are men when they leave off the conduct of the Holy Ghost to follow the delusions of a private Spirit Articuli IX Pars Secunda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. The Holy Catholick Church CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the Title of Catholick The Church in what respects called Holy Touching the Head and Members of it The Government thereof Aristocratical IN the same Article in which we testifie our Faith in the Holy Ghost do we acknowledge That there is a Body or Society of faithful people which being animated by the power of that Blessed Spirit hath gained unto it self the name of the Church and with that name the attribute or title of Catholick in regard of the extent thereof over all the World of Holy in relation to that piety of life and manners which is or ought to be in each several Member And not unfitly are they joyned together in the self same Article the Holy Ghost being given to the Apostles for the use of the Church and the Church nothing but a dead and lifeless carcass without the powerful influence of the Holy Ghost As is the Soul in the Body of Man so is the Holy Ghost in the Church of Christ that which first gives it life that it may have a Being and afterward preserves it from the danger of putrefaction into which it would otherwise fall in small tract of time Having therefore spoken in the former Chapter of the Nature Property and Office of the Holy Ghost and therein also of the Volume of the Book of God dictated by that Blessed Spirit for that constant Rule by which the Church was to be guided both in Life and Doctrine We now proceed in order to the Church it self so guided and directed by it And first for the Quid nominis to begin with that it is a name not found in all the writings of the Old Testament in which the body of Gods people the Spiritual body is represented to us after a figurative manner of Speech in the names of Sion and Ierusalem as Pray for the peace of Jerusalem Psal. 121. And the Lord loveth the gates of Sion Psal. 87. The name of Church occurreth not till the time of the Gospel and then it was imposed by him who had power to call it what he pleased and to entitle it by a name which was fittest for it The Disciples gave themselves the name of Christians the name of Church was given them by our Saviour Christ. No sooner had St. Peter made this confession for himself and the rest of the Apostles Thou art Christ the Son of the living God but presently our Saviour added Upon this Rock that is to say The Rock of this Confession as most of the Antients and some Writers also of the darker times do expound the same will I build my Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek The word used by our Lord and Saviour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latines borrowed their Ecclesia the French their Eglise and signifieth Coetum evocatum a chosen or selected company a company chosen out of others derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as evocare to call out or segregate In that sense as the word is used to signifie a company of men called by the special Grace to the Faith in Christ and to the hopes of life eternal by his death and passion is the word Ecclesia taken in the writings of the holy Apostles and in most Christian Authors since the times they lived in though with some difference or variety rather in the application to their purposes But antiently it was of a larger extent by far and signified any Publick meeting of Citizens for the dispatch of business and affairs of State For so Thucidides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the Assembly being formed the different parties fell upon their disputes and so doth Aristophanes use it in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the people should now give the Thracians a Publick meeting in their Guild-hal or Common forum of the City St. Luke who understood the true propriety as well as the best Critick of them all gives it in this sense also Acts 19.32 where speaking of the tumult which was raised at Ephesus he telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Assembly was confused And in the 26. Psal. Ecclesia malignantium is used for the Congregation of ungodly men APPLICATION BUt after Christ had given this name unto the Body of the Faithful which confessed his Name and the Apostles in their writings had applied it so as to make it a word of Ecclesiastical use and notion the Fathers in the following Ages did so appropriate the same to the state of
this plea as a sorry shift which onely seemed to be excogitated for the present pinch If any ask me Where the Church was before Luthers time I answer generally First That if the Church had failed in these North-west parts of the world as indeed it did not yet were there many Christian Churches in the East and South the Greeks Nestorians Melchites Abassins with divers others with whom the first Reformers might have held communion though differing from them in some points of inferior moment And secondly I answer more particularly that our Church was before Luther where it hath been since in Germany France England Italy yea and Rome it self A sick Church then but since by Gods grace brought to more perfect health a corrupt Church then but since reformed of those particular abuses both in life and doctrine which seemed most offensive That the Church of Rome is a true Church though not the true Church no sober Protestant will deny Iunius grants it in his Book De Ecclesia cap. 19. and so doth Dr. Whitakers also Cont. 2. Qu. 3. cap. 2. as great an enemy as any of the Romish factions The like doth Dr. Raynolds in his fifth Thesis though he deny it as he might to be either the Catholick Church it self as they vainly boast or any found member of the same Nay even the very Separatists do not grutch them that as Francis Iohnson in his Treatise called A Christian Plea Printed 1627. pag. 123 c. A true Church in the verity of essence as the Church is a company of men which profess the Faith of Christ and are baptized into his Name but neither Orthodox in all points of doctrine nor sound or justifiable in all points of practise And a true Church in reference to the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith which they maintain as constantly and defend as strongly against the several Hereticks and Sectaries of this present age as any Doctor of the Protestant or Reformed Churches though in the Superstructures they are faln aside from the received opinions of the Catholick Church A true Church too in which Salvation may be had for why should we deny the possibility of their salvation who have been the chief instruments of ours saith judicious Hooker by those especially who ignorantly follow their blinde guides and do not pertinaciously embrace any Popish error either against their Science or against their Conscience Of whom as of the greatest numbers in the Church of Christ we may very safely say with Augustine Coeteram turbam non intelligendi vivacitas sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit i. e. That amongst ordinary men it is not the vivacity of understanding but the simplicity of believing which makes them safe Of this Church were the Protestants Members before they did withdraw themselves from the errors of it before by this their separating from the errors of it they were schismatically expelled and thrust out of the communion of the Church of Rome by those which had the conduct of the affairs thereof in the beginning of that breach And from this Church do we of the Church of England derive immediately our interess in Christ by the door of Baptism the Body of the holy Scriptures the Hierarchy or Publick Government our Liturgy and Solemn Forms of Administration not as originally theirs but as derived to them from the Primitive times and by them transmitted unto us This Bristo doth acknowledge in his Book of Motives and this we think it no reproach unto our Religion to acknowledge also That Aphorism of King Iames of most famous memory deserving to be writ in Letters of Gold viz. That no Church under colour of Reformation for of that he speaketh ought further to separate it self from the Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Ceremony than she had departed from her self when she was in her flourishing and best estate and from Iesus Christ our Lord and Head And yet I know not how it hath come to pass but so it is that instead of reforming of an old Church which is all we did the building of a new Church will we nill we is by some Zelots of bo●h sides obtruded on us Whereas the case if rightly stated is but like that of a sick and wounded man that had long lien weltering in his own blood or languishing under a tedious burden of diseases and afterwards by Gods great mercy and the skilful d●ligence of honest Chirurgions and Physitians is at the last restored to his former health No new man in this case created that is Gods sole privilege but the old man cured No new Church founded in the other that belongs to Christ but the old Reformed When Hezekiah purged the Temple and other godly Kings and Princes of the Land of Iudah did reform Religion as we know they did Neither did the one erect a new Temple or the others frame a new Religion but onely rectified in both what they found amiss And so it was also in the Reformation of the Church of Rome further than which we need not go to look where our Church was before Luthers time or to finde out that constant and perpetual visibility of the Church of Christ which hath been hitherto the subject of this Disquisition But put the case the worst that may be and let it be supposed this once That the Church of Rome had so apostated from the Faith of Christ that it ceased to be a Church at all both in name and nature yet were there many Christian Churches in the East and South all of them visible no doubt as they still continue which constantly maintained all those several Truths that had been banished and exploded in the Church of Rome For that the Vniversal Church should so fall away as to teach any doctrine contrary to the Faith and Gospel is plainly to the promise made by Christ our Saviour It is true indeed Christ hath not bound himself nor annexed his spirit so inseparably to a National or Provincial Church but that it may fall at last unto such desperate and dangerous Errors as finally may cut it off as an unsound Member from the residue of the Body Mystical The Candlestick may be removed as well out of any Church as from that of Ephesus if wilfully they put out the light which shined amongst them and so it is determined by the Church of England As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch hath erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith saith the Nineteenth Article But so it is not with the Universal the Body Collective of Gods people the Church essential nor can it be colourably inferred though it be the best Argument of Dr. Raynolds to evince his Thesis that because many of those who are outwardly called and some of the Elect themselves many of the Flock and some of the Pastors and that not
THEOLOGIA VETERVM OR THE SUMME OF Christian Theologie Positive Polemical and Philological CONTAINED IN THE Apostles CREED Or reducible to it According to the tendries of the Antients both GREEKS and LATINES IN THREE BOOKS By PETER HEYLYN D. in D. JER 6.16 Stand in the ways and see and aske for the OLD PATHES where is the good way and walk therein and you shall finde rest for your souls VINCENT LIRIN Cap. 3. In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod UBIQUE quod SEMPER quod AB OMNIBUS creditum est LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet M. DC LIV. To the Right Honourable the LORD MARQUESSE of HARTFORD IT may seem strange unto your Lordship to see a name subscribed to this Dedication which neither hath an Interesse in your Noble and illustrious Family nor any relations to your Person But when I have acquainted you with the reasons of it I hope those reasons will not only justifie but indear my Confidence My large Cosmography having been Dedicated in the first Delineations and Essay thereof to one of the greatest Princes in the Christian world could not descend with any Fitnesse to a lower Patronage after so many Additions and so great Improvements And for such other Books of mine as have seen the light they were in justice and congruity to be Inscribed to him alone or to some of His by whose Appointment they were written and from whose service I was fain to borrow the greatest part of the time which I spent about them But being now unhappily at my own disposing and left unto the liberty of presenting the ensuing work as my own Genius should direct me I look upon your Lordship as a Person fitted with the best Capacities to receive this Present at my hands The Eminent zeal wherewith your Lordship stood so firmely for the established Doctrines and Devotions of the Church of England when there appeared so great a readinesse in too-many others to give them up as an Oblation or Peace-offering for their own security in the first place Entituleth you to the best performances in which the Orthodoxies of that Church and the Conformity thereof to the antient patterns are declared and vindicated To this as Seconds may come in your Lordships Interesse in that Vniversity where I had my breeding and more particularly in that Colledge whereof I had the happinesse to be once a Member your studiousnesse in the wayes of learning the faire esteem you hold of those which pretend unto it and the Incouragements you have given to the advancement of good letters in forwarding with a bountifull and liberall hand the new Impression of the holy Bible in so many Languages A work of such transcendent profit and so many advantages above all others of that kind as will not only redound to the honour of the Vndertakers but to the glory of the Furtherers and Promoters of it These are the motives which on your Lordships part have prompted me to this Dedication and there are reasons for it on my own part also Your Lordship cannot but remember what great cries were made At and before the beginning of the late long Parliament concerning a designe to bring in Popery the Bishops generally defamed as the chief Contrivers the regular and established Clergy my self as much if not more then any of my rank and quality traduced in publick Pamphlets as subsurvient Instruments And this was unicum eorum crimen qui crimine vacabant in the words of Tacitus the only Crimination laid upon those men who hitherto have been convicted of no crime at all How wrongfully accused even in that particular time which brings all things unto light hath now clearly evidenced For which is there of all the Bishops how few of all the Sequestred and exauctorated Clergy who notwithstanding all the provocations of want and scorn greater then which were never laid on generous and ingenuous Spirits have fallen off to Popery So few in all to the Eternall honour of both Orders be it spoken here that were the rekoning or account to be made in Greek it hardly would amount to a plurall number And for my self how free I am and have been alwayes from any Inclinations of that kind in my Epistle to the Reader I have shewn at large and manifested more particularly in this present work It had been else too great a folly or a frensie rather to present any thing of mine to your Lordships sight of whose sincerity in the true Protestant Religion here by Law established neither the jealousie nor malice of these last and worst times hath raised any suspicion And this I hope will be a full acquitment to me from all future clamours for where a Person of such eminent and known Integrity makes good the Entrance who dares suspect that any thing Popish or Profane is either harborred in the work or the Author of it And if I gain this point I have gained my purpose These are my Lord the principall Impulsions which have put me upon this Adventure And these I hope will be of so great prevalency with your Lordship also as to procure a favourable Entertainment to the following work that others may afford it the like fair Reception when they shall find it Owned and Countenanced by your Lordships name Which honour if your Lordship shall vouchsafe unto It the work shall have a sublunary Immortality beyond the Author who whatsoever he is now or shall be hereafter is and shall be at all times and on all occasions redeuable to your Lordship for so great a favour as best becomes My LORD Your Lordships most devoted And Most humble Servant Peter Heylyn Lacies Court in Abingdon Iune● 1654. TO THE READER AND now Reader I am come to thee who mayest perhaps wonder and I cannot blame thee to see me so soon again in Print and that too in a Volume of so large a bulke 'T is like enough thou mayest conceive me guilty of that vanity which a devout Author finds in some sort of men who desire knowledge only that they may be known possibly of that vanity of vanities which the Wiseman speaks of consisting in the writing of many books of which there was no end to be expected as he there informes us And if this vanity were so strong in the time of Solomon when the art of Writing was not vulgar the art of Printing not invented and that there wanted many helps which we now enjoy it cannot be but that the humour must be more predominant in these latter dayes wherein there are so many advantages for publishing our own conceptions to the view of others as were not granted unto those of the elder ages And we may say more truly then the Poet did by how much more we have those helps and opportunities which they had not then Scriptorum plus est hodie quam muscarum olim cum caletur
England as it was constituted and confirmed by the best Authority which the Laws could give it when I began to set my self to this imployment and had brought it in ● manner to a full conclusion And though some alterations have since happened in the face of this Church and those so great as make no small matter of astonishment to the Christian world yet being there is no establishment of any other Doctrine Discipline or new forme of Government and that God knows how soon the prudence of this State may think it fitting if not necessary to revive the old I look upon it now as in the same condition and constitution in which it shined and flourished with the greatest beauty that any National Church in Christendome could justly boast of In all such points which come within the compasse of this discourse wherein the Church hath positively declared her judgement I keep my self to her determinations and decisions according to the literal sense and Grammatical meaning of the words as was required in the Declaration to the book of Articles not putting my own sense upon them nor drawing them aside to propagate and defend any foraine Doctrines by what great name soever proposed and countenanced But in such points as come before me in which I finde that the Church hath not publickly determined I shall conceive my self to be left at liberty to follow the dictamen of my own genius but so that I shall regulate that liberty by the Traditions of the Church and the unanimous consent of the Antient Fathers though in so doing I shall differ from many of the common and received opinions which are now on foot For why should I deny my self that liberty which the times allow me in which not only Libertas opinandi but Libertas prophetandi the liberty of Prophecying t is I mean hath found so many advocates and so much indulgence Common opinions many times are but common errors and we may truely say of them as Calderinas did in Ludovicus Vives when he went to Masse Eamus ergo quia sic placet in communes errores And as I shall make bold to use this liberty in representing to thy view my own opinions so I shall leave thee to the like liberty also of liking or rejecting such of my opinions as are here presented Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim and good reason too for my opinions as they are but opinions so they are but mine As opinions I am not bound to stand to them my self as mine I have no reason to obtrude them on another man I may perhaps delight my self in some of my own fancies and possibly may think my self not unfortunate in them but I shall never be so wedded to my own opinions but that a clearer Judgement shall at any time divorce me from them As for the book which is now before thee I must confesse that there was nothing lesse in my first intention then to write a Comment on the Creed my purpose being only to informe my self in that part thereof which concernes Christs sufferings especially his descending into hell a question at that time very hotly agitated For having gotten the late Kings leave to retire to Winchester about the beginning of May An. 1645. I met there with the learned and laborious work of B. Bilsons entituled A Survey of Christs suffering for mans redemption c. which finding very copious and intermixed with many things not pertinent to the present subject though otherwise of great use and judgement I was resolved to extract out of it all such proofs and arguments as concerned the locall descent of Christ into hell ●o reduce them to a clearer Method and to add to them such conceptions and considerations which my own reading with the help of some other books could supply me with Which having finished and finding many things interspersed in the Bishops book touching the sufferings of Christ I thought it not amisse to collect out of him whatsoever did concerne that argument in the same manner as before and then to add to it such considerations and discourses upon the crucifixion death and burial of our Saviour Christ as might make the story of his Passion from the beginning of his sufferings under Pontius Pilate to his victorious triumph over Hell and Satan compleate and perfect And then considering with my self that not that Article alone of Christs descending into hell but the authority of the whole Creed had been lately quarrelled the opinion that it was not written by the holy Apostles being more openly maintained and more indulgently approved of then I could imagine I thought it of as great importance to vindicate the whole Creed as assert one part and then and not till then did I first entertain the thoughts of bringing the whole worke to that forme and order in which now thou feest it For though I knew it was an Argument much vexed and that many Commentaries and Expositions had been writ upon it yet I conceived that I was able by interweaving some Polemical Disputes and Philological Discourses to give it somewhat more then a new dresse only and that what other censure soever might be laid upon it that of Nil dictum est quod non dictum fuit prius should finde no place here But I had scarce gone through with the general Preface when the surrounding of Winchester by the forces of the Lords and Commons made me leave that City and with that City the thoughts and opportunities of proceeding forwards save that I made some entry on the first Article at a private friends house in a Parish of Wiltshire where I found some few tooles to begin the work with The miserable condition of the King my most gracious Master the impendent ruine of the Church my most pretious Mother the unsetledness of my own affaires and the dangers which every way did seem to threaten me were a sufficient Supersedeas to all matter of study even in the University it self to which I was again returned not without some difficulties where the war began to look more terrible then it had done formerly And I might say of writing books as the world then went as the Poet once did of making verses Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno Me mare me tellus me fera jactat hyems Carminibus metus omnis abest ego perditus ensem Haesurum jugulo jam puto jamque meo That is to say Verses proceed from minds compos'd and free Sea earth and tempests joyn to ruine me Poets must write secure from fears not feel As I do at my throat the threatning steel Yet so intent I was upon my designe that as soon as I had waded through my Composition and fixed my self on a certain dwelling near the place of my birth which was about the middle of April in the year 1647. I resumed the worke and there by Gods assistance as the necessity of my affaires gave me time and leasure put an end
somnum both when they rose when they betook themselves to sleep or put on their cloaths and diligently learning and retaining of it being commended also to all sorts of people omnis aetatis omnis sexus omnisque conditionis by the Councell holden in Friuli Ann. 791. And by a Canon superadded unto those of the last of the three Oecumenical Councels holden in Constantinople it was expresly ordered by the Fathers there not only that no person should be admitted unto Baptisme or to Confirmation or to stand Godfather for any in those sacred Acts except infants only who could not say the Creed and Lords prayer without book but also Catholicum esse non posse that he who was so negligent in the things which did so nearly concern him in the way of his salvation could not be a Catholick And yet this was not all the honour nor were these all the markes of difference which were put upon it to set it high in estimation above other Creeds For whereas that of Nice and Athanasius were ordered to be said or sung but at speciall times according to the usages of particular churches it was decreed by Damasus who sat Pope at Rome A. 370. or thereabouts that the Apostles Creed should be repeated every day in the publick Liturgies on the Canonicall houres of prayer And whereas it was ordered by Pope Anastasius that at the reading of the Gospell not the Priests only and the Ministers but all people present venerabiliter curvi in conspectu Evangelii starent should stand upon their feet and bow down their bodies as in the way of veneration it was not long before the same gesture had been taken up for I finde not that it was imposed by publick Sanction at the reading also of the Creed as being the summe and substance of the holy Gospels Et cum Symbolum est verbum Evangelicum quoad sensum ergo illud stando sicut Evangelium dicitur as Durandus hath it The like authority it had in all generall councels in which it is usuall to be recited as Baronius very well observeth quasi Basis et fundamentum totius Ecclesiae structurae as the foundation and ground-work of the whole Ecclesiasticall edifice and this he proves out of the acts of the Councels of Chalcedon Ephesus and Constantinople whither I refer you Finally as this Creed is sometimes called the Creed without any addition the Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by way of eminence all other being called for distinction sake the Constantinopolitan the Nicene the Creed of Athanasius or the Creed of Damasus so was this antiently esteemed the one and only Creed devised for the generall use of all the Church the rest being only made as Expositions or as Comments on it upon occasion of particular and emergent heresies And so much Perkins doth confesse though he be otherwise perswaded of the Authors of it then had been taught him by the greatest and most eminent Writers of the Primitive times For against this that hath been said many Objections have been studied both by him and others to make the Creed of latter standing and of lesse authority And first they say that if the Creed were indeed framed by the Apostles in that form of words in which it is come unto our hands it must be then a part of the Canonicall Scriptures as the residue of their writings are which also I finde granted and I wonder at it in our learned Bilson The Creed saith he we do not urge as undoubtedly written by all the Apostles for then it must needs be Canonicall Scripture Which being said he answereth himself in the words next following where he affirmeth that it is the best and perfectest forme of faith delivered to the Christians at the first planting of the Gospel by the direction of the Apostles and by their Agreement If so if it was framed by their direction and agreement it is as much to my intent as if it had been written by them all together it being not their pen but their authority and consent which makes it be entituled to them and called Apostolicall St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans were not else Canonical because written by the hand of Tertius as it is said Rom. 16.22 And as to the conclusion which is thence inferred I answer that not every thing which was writ by the Apostles or by any of them was ipso facto to be called canonical Scripture because writ by them but only that which they committed unto writing by the dictamen and direction of the holy Ghost with an intent that it should be Canonical and for such received For otherwise the Epistles of St. Paul to Seneca supposing them for his which I here dispute not and all the letters of intercourse betwixt them and their private friends of which no question need be made but they writ many in their time as occasion was had we the copies of them extant must have been Canonical as well as those upon record in the book of God And this is that which we finde written by St. Austin Quicquid ille de suis dictis factisve nos scire voluit hoc illis scribendum tanquam suis manibus reposuit and in another place to the same effect Deus quantum satis esse judicavit locutus scripturam condidit His meaning in both places doth amount to this that whatsoever God conceived to be fit and necessary for the edification of his Church he did impart to the Apostles and when he had communicated so much as was fit and necessary he closeth the Canon of the Scripture not giving way that any thing should be added to it as the word of God but that which he did so communicate and impart unto them It is objected secondly that in the Primitive times it had not any exact forme at all but that the Fathers varied in the repetition of the heads thereof and to this end Ignatius Irenaeus Tertullian Origen and others of the antients are brought in as witnesses but prove no such thing All that can be collected from those antient writers is no more then this that many times the Fathers as learned men and great discoursers use to do inlarge the words and syllables of the Creed as they saw occasion the better to deliver the true meaning of it and sometimes they contract into fewer words the whole summe thereof as thinking it not pertinent to the present purpose to tie themselves unto the words Which appears plainly by Tertullian who doth acknowledge that there was but one only Creed or set rule of faith affirmed by him to be unalterable and unchangeable yet having three occasions to repeat the heads thereof doth vary every time in the words and phrases And yet it cannot be inferred upon these variations that at the first or rather in the Primitive times the Creed had no exrct forme at all or not the same in which it is retained now in the Christian Church no more then any
thing in property they could call their own but were indeed a people of so extreme a poverty that they no more needed the helps of God or man then the Beasts of the field Fennis mira feritas foeda paupertas non arma non equi non penates as he tels us there And more then so they had attained saith he to the hardest point Vt ne voto quidem opus sit that they had no need nor use of prayers to the gods on high For what need they make supplication to the gods and goddesses for blessings on their Corn and their Wine or Oyl who neither sowed nor planted nor used any husbandry What should they do with houshold gods who had no houses but the Earth only for their bed and the Heavens for the Canopy And yet perhaps these Fenni were not altogether without the knowledge of GOD or to be counted absolute Atheists more then the barbarous people of other new discovered Countries but that they had this Character bestowed upon them because they shewed less signs of any Religion then those Nations did with whom the Romanes had had longer acquaintance and so were more experienced in their rites and customes And of all men that flourished before Tullies time there were none stigmatized with the brand of Atheism but only Diagoras Melius and Protagoras the Cyrenaean to whom some added Enhemerus the Tegaean also Of the two first indeed it is said by Lactantius Protagoras deos in dubium vocavit Diagoras exclusit that Protagoras first called the beeing of the gods in question and that Diagoras was the first who denyed it absolutely who therefore was surnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Atheist as Minutius hath it And yet perhaps it will be found upon further search that neither of the three did doubt or deny this truth that there was a God but that they got this ill repute amongst the Gentiles for scoffing and deriding those Idol-gods whom their neighbors worshipped For of Diagoras it is said that when he cast the Statua of Hercules into the fire he did it with this scoffe or jeere In hoc decimo tertio agone mihi inservias that he should serve him now in that thirteenth labor as he had done Eurystheus in the other twelve And as well known is that of Protagoras also who is said to have thus mocked at the Idolatries of the old Egyptians Si dii sunt cur plangitis si mortui cur adoratis i. e. If they be gods why do you lament them for in the rites and sacrifices of the goddess Isis they used to make great lamentations if dead why do you then adore them As for the third man Euhemerus for these were all of note who stand thus accused he was accounted guilty of Atheism for no other reason but because he had composed an history of the birth lives and actions of the Heathen gods proving that they had been no other then some famous men whose Statua's had been turned to Idols and themselves worshipped by the people in tract of time for some powers Divine Which book of his Lactantius and some others of the Primitive Writers do make very good use of in their discourses with and against the Gentiles 'T is true that on those grounds and on those occasions which are spoken of by Enhemerus the greatest part of the old Heroes as Saturn Iupiter Apollo Neptune Mars Hercules and the rest of that infinite rabble became by degrees to have divine honours conferred upon them And 't is as true that the Egyptians worshipped Apis in the form of an Oxe or the Oxe rather under the name of Apis as being of greatest use to them in the course of their tillage and so they did also Leekes and Onions and divers other of the fruits of the Earth also by which they lived and some strange creatures also which they dreaded most quis nescit qualia demens Aegyptus portenta colat as the Poet hath it As true it is that other Nations worshipped the Sun and Moon and all the rest on the heavenly bodies unto whose glorious light and influences they thought themselves so much heholding Which may be used as a further and most invincible argument to prove that the knowledge of this truth that there was a God was naturally ingraffed in the souls of all men and that this natural inclination was so powerful in them that they rather would have any gods then none at all and therefore made themselves such gods as came next to hand worshipping STOCKS and Stones and Leekes and Onyons and whatsoever else their blinde fancies dictated And this I take it gave the hint to Democritus first and after him to Epicurus and the whole Sect of the Stoicks to set up FATE and Fortune in the place of the Gods or otherwise to invest dame Nature with the powers of a Deity For finding that the biass of all sorts of people inclined them strongly to believe that there was a God they were content to let the gods hold their place in Heaven but then they robbed them of their power or supreme providence in governing the World and ordering the affairs thereof And this was the disease of Davids fool in the Book of Psalms who used to say in his heart that there was no God Not that he was so very a fool as to think there was no God at all but that he thought the God of Heaven was so far above him and so imployed in matters of an higher nature as neither to take care or notice of the things beneath Which therefore he● as Democritus and the Epicureans after did ascribed to Chance and Fortune or to Fate and Nature And as it seems this errour in the time of the Poet Iuvenal found such a general entertainment amongst the Romanes that he thought fit to tax it in his Satyres thus Sunt qui Fortunae jam casibus omnia ponunt Et Mundum nullo credunt Rectore moveri Natura volvente vices lucis anni Atque ideo intrepide quaecunque Altaria jurant That is to say Some think the World by slippery chance doth slide That days and years run round without more guide Then Natures Rule From whence without all fear Of Gods or men they by all Altars swear But howsoever this opinion carrying a less shew of impiety then that of Diagoras and Protagoras had done before became more generally to be received among the Gentiles yet in effect in rather changed then bettered the state of the question And though it did not strike down all the gods at a blow yet by degrees it lessened their authority amongst the people and brought them to depend wholly upon chance and fortune or on fate and destiny that in the end there might be no other God thought of none of the Heavenly Powers be sued to or adored at all Which plainly was their aim as St. Austin telleth us where notwithstanding their pretences he
other Writers of good credit Deus unus est Principium omnium rerum Animatio motus universi that there is but one God the beginning of all things who animateth and giveth motion to the whole World or Universe In the next rank come the Philosophers or Sages of the Antient Gentiles who speak no less divinely of this one God then the Poets or Sibylline Oracles have done before And in the first place we meet with Socrates who by Apollo himself was pronounced to be the wisest man of all the Grecians but yet so little a friend of his or any of the rest of the Heathen gods that he used openly to deride them upon all occasions and at the last was poysoned by Decree of the Senate of Athens because he disallowed the multitude of gods whom the people worshipped endevouring to bring them to the knowledge of the only God Tertullian hereupon doth put this witty scorn on their great Apollo for giving the testimony of the wisest man of all Greece to him who only of that Nation did deny him and others of his rank and quality to be Gods indeed O Apollinem inconsideratum saith he sapientiae testimonium reddidit ei viro qui Deos esse negabat And though it grew into a by-word in the following times when any man thought otherwise of their many gods then the vulgar did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Socrates his cup was ready for him yet Plato who was his scholar did not only follow him in the same opinion but publickly maintained it in his Books and Writings Nay he was so resolved to make good this point that he gave it out for a rule to his special friends how they should know whether the business which he writ to them about were seriously proposed or not Cum serio ordior Epistolam ab uno Deo cum secus a pluribus when I intend the matter seriously I then begin my letters in the name of the one God only when otherwise in the names of many And as his rule was such was his Divinity or Theology also calling the true God by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may be rightly Englished Beeing or existing and is the name by which the LORD doth call himself in the holy Scriptures but for the Idol-gods he affirms of them that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things which in very deed had no beeing at all which is the very same with that of St. Paul saying Idolum nihil est that an Idol is nothing In many places of his Writings he speaks of God as solely existing in himself the beginning and the end of all things by whom and for whom they were first created though otherwhiles especially in his Books de Legibus which were for every vulgar eye he seems to be inclinable to the vulgar errour The Platonists in general speak as divinely of this one God as their Master did Iamblicus affirming that there was one cause of all things and one God the Lord of all things whom he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both self-sufficient and self-being PROCLVS that this one God was the Supreme King who subsisting in and of himself gave life and beauty and perfection to all things besides Simplicuis that he was that one and only good from whence all goodness did proceed that unity from which all things took their Original the God of gods and the cause of causes Plotinus that there is one beginning of all things of self-sufficiency communicating life and beeing to all creatures else and that those others are no otherwise happy then by contemplating that intelligible light which shineth so gloriously in the God-head as the Moon borroweth all her light from the beams of the Sun Porphyrius the scholar of this Plotinus defining GOD to be both every where and no where filling all places whatsoever but contained in none and that from him alone do all things proceed which were and are and are to come Finally not to wander through more particular this seemeth to have been the general Tenet of all Plato's followers Quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ejusdem erant insaniae that Atheism and the worshipping of many gods were of equal madness Proceed we next unto the Peripateticks and their Master Aristotle who being loath to seem beholding to his Master Plato did purposely run cross to him in many things which otherwise his own excellent judgement would have gladly followed And yet though elsewhere a defender of their many gods yet in his Books of Metaphysicks and in that de Mundo he doth not only reduce all motion unto one first mover but doth expresly say of God that the World and the whole course of Nature is preserved by him that he gives motion to the Sun and Moon poiseth the Earth on her Basis and sustaineth all things And finally it is said of him that at the time of his death he brake out into this divine expression Ens entium miserere mei that is to say O thou eternal Beeing from whom all things exist have mercy upon me So many principles there are in his works and writings which may conduct a man to the knowledge of GOD and so divinely doth he speak of the Heavenly powers that the Divines of Colen have writ a Book but on what grounds and warrants it concerns them to look entituled De Salute Aristotelis of the Salvation of Aristotle Theophrastus that great Doctor in Physick but by Sect a Peripatetick maintaineth that there is one only Divine principle or beginning from whence all things exist one only God who out of nothing hath created all things And Alexander Aphrodiseus of the same Sect also composed a whole Tract of the divine Providence of God in which he sheweth that there is one God who ruleth all things and is of power to do whatsoever he pleaseth Let us next look upon the Academicks whose common guise it was to leave all things doubtful Qui omnia facerent incerta as Lactantius hath it and we shall finde it said by Tully who was one of that Sect Nihil est praestantius Deo c. that there was nothing more excellent then God and therefore that by him the whole world was governed who neither did subject himself unto FATE or Nature And Plutarch though much given to Fables doth advise expresly that we worship not the Heavens nor the heavenly bodies which are but as the Myrours or Looking-glasses in which we may behold his most wonderful Art who made and beautified the world Quid enim aliud est Mundus quam Templum ejus for what else is the World then the Temple of God Last of all for the antient Stoicks Zeno is said by Aristotle to have taught of God that there was only one or none and that this one God was Optimus Maximus both the best and greatest
Rome relapsed to her antient Gentilism revived again so many of her Gods and Goddesses that both the Iews and Infidels may have cause to question whether she doth believe in one God alone or that he only is the Father Almighty whom the Creed here mentioneth Of which and other of the Attributes of Almighty God I am next to speak Articuli 1. pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Patrem Omnipotentem i. e. The Father Almighty CHAP. III. Of the Essence and Attributes of God according to the holy Scripture The name of Father how applyed unto God of his Mercy Justice and Omnipotency BY that which hath been said in the former Chapter out of the Monuments and Records of the antient Gentiles it is apparent that they knew that there is a GOD that he was one only and that this one God was an Eternal and Immortal Spirit existing of himself without any beginning invisible incomprehensible omnipotent without change or passion In which description we have all those Epithels summed up together out of the works and writings of those reverend Sages which Ruffinus a good Christian Writer of the Primitive times hath bestowed upon him in his Exposition of the Creed Deum cum audis substantiam intellige sine initio sine fine simplicem sine ulla admixtione invisibilem incorpoream ineffabilem inaestimabilem in quo nihil adjunctum nihil creatum And though it could not be expected that the Gentiles guided only by the light of Nature should have said so much yet for the better knowledge of the Essence Attributes and works of GOD we must not rest our selves contented with that measure of light which was discovered unto them but make a more exact search for it in the holy Scriptures Concerning which there is a memorable story of Iustin Martyr which he relateth in his Dialogue with Trypho the Iew. St. Paul hath noted of the Greeks that they seek after wisdome and never was the note more exactly true then in that particular For being inflamed with a desire of coming to a more perfect knowledge of the Nature of GOD then had been generally attained by the common people first he applyed himself unto the Stoicks who by the gravity and preciseness of their conversation did seem most likely to direct him But this knowledge was not with the Stoick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor could he learn much there of the nature of God Next he betook himself to the Peripateticks men most renowned for their knowledge in the works of Nature and the subtilties of disputation But there he profited less then before with the Stoicks the Peripateticks being more irresolute and speaking less divinely of the things of GOD then any of the other Sects of Philosophie Then had he severally recourse unto the Pythagorean and the Platonist who were most eminent in those times for the contemplative parts of learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the search of immaterials But true Divinity was not to be found in all the writings either of the Pythagoreans or the Platonists although these last did seeme to come more neer the truth then either the Peripatetick or the Stoick At last he was encountred by a Reverend old man a Christian Father and was by him directed to the Book of God writ by the Prophets and Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they which only knew the truth and which alone were able to unfold it rightly The counsel of which Reverend man he obeyed full gladly and profited so well in the Schools of CHRIST that he became a Martyr for the Faith and Gospel So we if we would come unto the perfect knowledge of GOD though we may sport our selves and refresh our thoughts in the pleasant walks and prospects of Philosophy must at the last apply our selves to the holy Scriptures where we shall be as far instructed in the things of GOD as he thinks fit to be communicated to the sons of men Now for our better method in the present search we will consider GOD in those names and Attributes by which he hath made known himself in his holy Covenants And first we meet with that of the Lord IEHOVAH which the Greeks usually called the Tetragrammaton or the name consisting of four letters for of no more it doth consist in the Hebrew language the Iews more properly nomen appropriatum gloriosum the most peculiar and most glorious name of the Lord our God appropriated unto him in so strict a manner that it was not lawful to communicate it unto any Creature By this name was he first pleased to make himself known unto Moses saying that he had appeared to Abraham Isaac and Jacob by the name of God Almighty but by this Name of Jehovah he had not made himself known unto them And in the Prophet Esay thus Ego sum Jehovah illud est nomen meum i. e. I am Jehovah that is my Name and my glory will I not give unto another Derived it is from Iah an old Hebrew root which signifieth ens existens Being or existing And hereupon was that when Moses in the third of Exod. v. 14. asked the name of GOD the Lord returned this answer to him I Am that I Am and thus shalt thou say unto the people I AM hath sent me unto you And hereupon it was that St. IOHN calleth him in the Book of the Revelation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is which was and which is to come Nor doth it signifie alone a self-existence by which he hath a Beeing in and of himself and doth communicate a beeing unto all the creatures but it is used in Scripture for a name of power by which he governeth all those creatures on which he hath been pleased to bestow a beeing And therefore if we mark it well though he appear unto us by the name of God in the first of Genesis when the Creation was an Embryo an imperfect work yet he is no where called by the name of the Lord Iehovah till the Creation was accomplished and his works made perfect The Fathers heereupon observe and the note is handsome that the name of GOD is absolute essential and coeternal with the Deitie but that of IEHOVAH or the Lord not used except in reference to the creature And it is noted by Tertullian in his Book against Hermogenes that in the first of Genesis it is often said Deus dixit Deus vidit Deus fecit God said and God saw and God created But that he was not called the Lord by the name of IEHOVAH till the second Chapter when he had finished all his works the Heaven and Earth and all things in the same contained and that there was some creature framed on which to exercise his Power and Supreme command Ex quo creata sunt in quae potestas ejus ageret ex eo factus est dictus DOMINVS for by the word Dominus do the Latines render
whom with thee and the holy Ghost be praise for ever But leaving these more intricate speculations to more subtill heads The name of Father in this sense is ascribed to God by two severall titles First Iure Creationis by the right of Creation by which he is the Father of all mankinde And secondly Iure Adoptionis by the right and title of Adoption by which he hath anew begotten us in St. Peters language to an inheritance immortall undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved for us in the Heavens First GOD is said to be our Father in the right of Creation by which as all the World and all things in the same contained may be called the workmanship of his hands so may all mankinde be called his children not only those which trust and believe in him but also those which know him not nor ever read so much of him as the Book of nature those which yet live as out-lawes from the rule of reason and barbarous and savage people of both the Indies Thus Malachi the last Prophet of the Iewes Have we not all one Father hath not God created us Thus the Apostle of the Gentiles doth affirme of GOD that out of one bloud he hath made all kindreds of men And CHRIST himself who brake down the partition wall between Iew and Gentile Call no man Father on Earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Not that the Lord would have us disobedient to our naturall Parents or ashamed to own them for this is plainly contrary both to Law and Gospe●t but that we should refer our being unto him alone which is the fountain of all beeing Solus vocandus est Pater qui creavit said Lactantius truly Now God is said to be our Father by the right of Creation for these following reasons as first because he was the Father of the first man Adam out of whose loyns we are descended or of whose likeness since the fall we are all begotten Therefore St. Luke when he had made the Genealogie of our Saviour CHRIST in the way of ascent doth conclude it thus which was the son of Seth which was the son of Adam which was the Son of God the son of God but not by generation for so our Saviour only was the Son of God and therefore it must be by Creation only Secondly GOD is called our Father because he hath implanted in our Parents the vertue Generative moulded and fashioned us in the secret closets of the Womb. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me Thine eyes did see my substance being yet imperfect and in thy book were all my members written saith the Royal Psalmist The bodies of us men are too brave a building for man and Nature to erect And therefore said Lactantius truly Hominem non patrem esse sed generandi ministrum Man only is the instrument which the Lord doth use for the effecting of his purpose to raise that godly edifice of flesh and bloud which he contemplates in his children Last of all for our souls which are the better part of us by which we live and move and have our beeing they are infused by GOD alone man hath no hand in it God breathes into our nosthrils the breath of life and by his mighty power doth animate and inform that matter which of it self is meerly passive in so great a wonder In each of these respects and in all together we may conclude with that of Aratus an old Greek Poet as he is cited by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for we are all his off-spring all of us his children The second Interest which GOD hath in us as a Father in the way of adoption by which we are regenerate or anew begotten to a lively hope of being heirs unto the promises and in the end partakers of eternal glories by which we are transplanted from our Fathers house and out of the Wilderness and unprofitable Thickets of this present world and graffed or inoculated on the Tree of life Adoptare enim est juxta delectum sibi quos quisque velit in filios eligere Adoption is the taking of a childe from another family to plant and cherish in our own say the Civil Lawyers and he that so adopteth may be called our Father by approbation of the laws though not by nature Examples of this case have been very ordinary from Moses who was adopted for her son by the daughter of Pharaoh though he refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter as St. Paul said of him down through all the stories both of Greece and Rome And if it may be lawful to make such resemblances the motives which induced GOD to proceed this way and other the particulars of most moment in it do seem to carry a fair proportion or correspondency with such inducements and particulars as hath been used by men on the same occasions For in the Laws adoption was to be allowed but in these four cases First Quod quidam Matrimonii onera detrectarent because some men could not away with the cares of Wedlock Secondly Quod conjugium esset sterile because God had not blessed the marriage with a fruitful issue Thirdly Quod liberi ipsorum morerentur because their own children by untimely death or the unluckie chance of War had been taken from them in which last case adoption by especial dispensation was allowed to women Fourthy Quod liberi ipsorum improbi essent degeneres because their own children were debauched and shameless likely to ruine that estate and disgrace that family into which they were born And upon such grounds as these is GOD in Scripture said to adopt the Gentiles to make them who by nature were the sons of wrath and seemed to be excluded from the Covenant which he made with Abraham to be the heirs of God and Coheirs with Christ. God looked upon the Iews as his natural children And at the first one might have known them easily for the sons of God by the exemplarie piety of their lives and actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as men know commonly their neighbour children by a resemblance to their Fathers St. Paul hath made a muster of some chiefs amongst them in the 11. chap. to the Heb. But they being took away by the hand of death there next succeeded in their room a g●neration little like them in the course of their lives and therefore little to the comfort of their heavenly Father For his part he was never wanting unto his Vineyard nor could there any thing be done to it which he did not do yet when he looked for grapes in their proper season it brought forth nothing but wilde grapes sit only for the wine-press of his indignation So that the Lord was either childless or else the Father of a stubborn and perverse generation of whose reclaim there was no hopes or but small if any
or bad The ill successe that followed the young Prodigals journey was no part of his fathers purpose of his will and absolute decree much lesse no nor so much as to be ascribed unto his permission which was but causa sine qua non as the Schooles call it if it were so much Only it gave the Father such an opportunity as Adams fall did GOD in the present case of entertaining him with joy at his coming home and killing the fa●ted Calfe for his better welcome T is true that God to whose eternal eye all things are present and fore-seen as if done already did perfectly fore-know to what unhappy end this poor man would come how far he would abuse that natural liberty wherewith he had endowed him at his first Creation Praescivit peccaturum sed non praedestinavit ad peccatum said Fulgentius truly And upon this fore-knowledge what would follow on it he did withall provide such a soveraign remedy as should restore collapsed man to his primitive hopes of living in Gods fear departing hence in his favour and coming through faith in Christ unto life eternall if he were not wanting to himself in the Application For this is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that CHRIST IESVS came into the World to save sinners of whom every man may say as St. Paul once did that he is the chief And it is as worthy of acceptance which came though from the same Spirit from a worthier person that God so loved the World the whole world of mankinde that He sent his only begouten Son into the World to the intent that whosoever did believe in him should live though he dyed and whosoever liveth and believeth in him should not die for ever but have as in another place everlasting life But what it is to believe in him and what a Christian man is bound to believe of him as it is all the subject of the six next Articles so must it be the argument of another book this touching our belief in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and all things therein with most of the material points which depend upon it beginning now to draw to a final period Chap. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the Salvation of the Gentiles and the Justifying power of Faith ANd yet before we pass to the following Articles there are some points to be disputed in reference to the several estates of the Church of God as it stood heretofore under the Law and since under the Gospel the influence which Faith had in their justification and the condition of those people which were Aliens to the law of Moses before Christs coming in the flesh For being that the Patriarchs before the time of Moses and those holy men of God that lived after him till the coming of Christ had not so clear and explicite a knowledge of the particulars of the Creed which concern our Saviour or the condition of the holy Catholick Church and the Members of it as hath been since revealed in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles it cannot be supposed that they should have universally the same object of faith which we Christians have or were bound to believe all those things distinctly touching Christ our Saviour and the benefits by him redounding to the sons of men which all Christians must believe if they will be saved And then considering that there is almost nothing contained in Scripture touching God the Father his Divine Power and Attributes the making and government of the World and all things therein which was to be believed by those of the line of Abraham but what hath been avowed and testified by the learned Gentiles it will not be unworthy of our disquisition to see wherein the differences and advantages lay which the Patriarchs and those of Iudah had above the Nations or whether the same light of truth did not shine on both through divers Mediums for the better fitting and preparing of both people to receive the Gospel In sifting and discussing of which principal points we shall consider what it is in faith it self which is said to justifie of what effect the Sacrifices both before and under the Law were to the satisfying of Gods wrath and expiating of the sins of the people by whom they were offered to the Lord and the relation which they had to the death of Christ the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world and finally what is to be conceived of those eminent men amongst the Gentiles who not extinguishing that light of nature which was planted in them but regulating all their actions by the beams thereof came to be very eminent in all kindes of learning and in the exercise of Iustice Temperance Mercy Fortitude and other Acts of Moral vertue Some other things will fall in incidently on the by which need not be presented in this general view And the mature consideration of all these particulars I have reserved unto this place that being situate in the midst between the Faith we have in God the Father Almighty and the belief required of us in his Son Christ Iesus it may either serve for an Appendix to the former part or a Preamble to the second or be in stead of a bond or ligament for knitting all the joints of this body together in the stronger coherence of discourse And first Faith being as appeareth by the definition before delivered a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed we cannot but conceive in reason that the Object of it is to be commensurable to the proportion and degree of the Revelation For as our Saviour said in another case that to whom much is given of him the more shall be required so may we also say in this that to whom more divine supernatural truths have been revealed of him there is a greater measure of belief expected Till the unhappy fall of Adam there was no faith required but in God alone For without faith it is impossible to please God saith the Apostle which Adam by the Law of his Creation was obliged to endeavour Nor could he come before the Lord or seek for the continuance of his grace and favours had he not first been fitted and prepared by faith For he that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him as in the same text saith the same Apostle Which words we may not understand of Faith in Christ at least not primarily with respect to Adam of whom such faith was not required in the state of Innocency for where there was no sin there was no need of a Saviour but only of a faith in Almighty God the stedfast confession and acknowledgement of whose beeing and bounty was to speak
daughter of a Levite whose name was Isachar This I am sure may be affirmed in defence of the story that the Iews were not then so punctual in keeping themselves unto their Tribes as they had been formerly that even the High Priesthood it self had been bought and sold to persons both unworthy and uncapable of so high an honour that we finde IESVS to have preached in the Temple often and to have done in it other Ministerial Offices which questionless the Priests and Pharisees would never have suffered had he not had some calling to it which might authorize him And if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sacerdotes in the Text of Suidas we may have leave to understand some inferiour Ministers and not the very Priests themselves as possibly enough we may the story may then stand secure above all exceptions Next let us look amongst the Gentiles and they will tell us that Augustus the Roman Emperour in whose time the Lord CHRIST was born consulting with the Oracle of Apollo touching his successor received this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In English thus An Hebrew childe whom the blest Gods adore Commands me leave these shrines and back to Hel So that of Oracles I can no more In silence leave our Altars and farewell Which answer being so returned Augustus built an Altar in the Roman Capitol with this Inscription ARA PRIMOGENITI DEI i.e. the Altar of the first begotten of God The general ceasing of Oracles much about this time gives some strength to this And so doth that which we finde mentioned in Eusebius touching the falling of the Idols of Egypt upon our Saviours first coming into that countrey St. Ambrose in his Commentary on the 119. Psalm doth affirm as much Nor is it yet determined to the contrary by our greatest Criticks but that the Prophet Esaiah may allude to this where bringing in the burden of Egypts he saith Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift clowd and shall come into Egypt and the Idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence But whether the Prophet do allude unto this or not we have no reason to misdoubt of the truth of the story and the acknowledgement which the false Gods of the Gentiles made to the Divinity of the true In and about these times lived the Poet Virgil one of whose Eclogues being a meer extract of some fragments of the Sibylline Oracles hath many passages which cannot properly be applyed to any but our Saviour Christ though by him wrested to the honour of Marcellus the Nephew and designed Heir of Augustus Caesar. For example these Iam redit Virgo redeunt Saturnia regna Iam nova progenes Coelo demittitur alto Chara Deunt soboles magnum Iovis incrementum Which may be Englished in these words Now shines the Virgin now the times of peace Return again and from the Heaven on high Comes down a sacred and new Progenie The issue of the Gods Ioves blest increase More testimonies of this nature might be added here but these shall serve at this time for a tast of the rest And so we end with that of the Centurion of Pilates guard who noting all that hapned in our Saviours passion could not but make acknowledgement of so great a Prophet saying Surely this was the Son of God And this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as could possibly be delivered in so few words Which being so it is the more to be admired that such as take unto themselves the name of Christians should think and speak less honorably of their Lord and Saviour then the Iews Gentiles and the Devils themselves yet such vile miscreants have there been in the former ages and I doubt are still And of those Ebion was the first who savouring strongly of the Iew had made up such a mixture of Religion as might please their palates and taught no otherwise of CHRIST then that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ordinary natural man begotten in the common course of generation Eusebius so informs us of him St. Hierome addes that for the suppression of this heresie St. Iohn at the request of some Asian Bishops wrote his holy Gospel of purpose to assert the Divinity of CHRIST ut divinam ejus nativitatem ediceret are St. Hieromes words of which but little had been said by the other Evangelists After him there arose up Artemon or Artemas in the days of the Emperour Heliogabalus who held the same opinion concerning CHRIST as the Ebionites did affirming him to be no other then a meer natural man saving that he was born of the Virgin Mary after a more peculiar manner then the rest of mankinde and was to be preferred before all the Prophets And against him there was a Book written as Eusebius telleth us though the name of the Author came not to his hands But that which is a matter of most admiration is that Paulus Samosatenus a Christian Bishop a Bishop of one of the four Patriarchal Sees even of the City of Antioch should not only set on foot again this condemned Heresie but have the impudence to affirm that it had been the antient and approved Doctrine of the Church of Christ No wonder if the Prelates of the Church did best in themselves when such a foul contagion was got in amongst them and therefore they assembled in the City of Antioch that by the authority of their presence and the sincerity of their doctrine so dangerous a Monster might be quelled in the face of his people This was about the time of the Emperour Aurelianus Nor had there been a more celebrious Councel in the Church of Christ from that of the Apostles mentioned in the 15. of the Acts unto that of Nice The issue and success whereof was so blessed by God that from those times until these last and worst ages of the Church wherein Socinus Osterodius and their followers have again revived it this wretched heresie was scarce heard of but in antient Histories And on the other side some of the antient Writers and the later Schoolmen the better to beat down the dotages of such frantick Hereticks as had impugned the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour have so intangled the simplicity of the Christian faith within the Labyrinth of curious and intricate speculations that it became at last a matter of great wit and judgement to know what was to be believed in the things of Christ. And of this nature I conceive are those inexplicable and perplexed discourses about the consubstantiality and coequality of the Persons which how it can consist with the School-distinction that the Father doth all things authoritative and the Son all things sub-authoritative it is hard to say that the Son is coeternal with the Father as in the Creed of At●anasius and yet Principium a principio in the Schoolmens language that there should be two
of them in their severall Commentaries on the text saying the same thing though in divers words And finally it is so interpreted by St. Augustine also Nec frustra fortasse non satis fuit ut diceret mors aut infernus sed utrumque dictum est c. that is to say Nor happily without cause did he not think it enough to say that death or hell divisively had cast up their dead but he nameth both death for the just who might only suffer death and not also hell hell for the wicked and unrighteous who were there to be punished Thus have we looked over all those places where the word Hades doth occurre in the new Testament except that one which is in question whereof more anon and finde it constantly both englished and interpreted by that of hell according as we commonly understand the word for the place of torments T is true the word admits of other notions amongst some Greek Authors But that makes nothing to us Christians who are to use it in that sense in which it is presented to us in the book of God interpreted and expounded by the Antient Fathers and the tradition of the Church For though the sacred Penmen of the new Testament writing in Greek were of necessity to use such words as they found ready to their hands yet they restrained them many times to some certain and particular meaning which they retain unto this day as words of Ecclesiastical use and signification Of this kinde are Ecclesia Evangelium Episcopus Presbyter Diaconus Martyr and the like which being words of a more general signification in their first original are now restrained to such particular notions as the first Preachers of the Gospel thought most fit to reserve them for Of this kind also is Diabolus which properly and originally did signifie no more then an Accuser but is now used by all writers both in Greek and Latine to denote the Devil And of this kind is Hades also which whatsoever it might signifie in some old Greek writers more then the Place or Region of hell or the Prince thereof is now restrained in general speech to signifie only hell it self or the house of torments the habitation of the Devill and his Angels But this we shall the better see by taking a short view of the use and signification of the word amongst the best and most approved of the old Greek Ecclesiastical writers And first Iosephus though no Christian yet one that very well understood the difference between heaven and hell telleth us of those whose souls were cleansed and favoured of God that they inhabit in the holiest places of heaven but that they whose hands wax mad against themselves or who laid hands upon themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their soules were to be received in the dark vaults of hell or Hades Theophilus the sixt B. of Antioch about 170. years after Christ citeth this verse out of the works of the Sibyls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they sacrificed to the Devils in hell or Hades In the same times lived Iustin Martyr who doth thus informe us After the soul saith he is departed from the body straightwayes there is a separation of the unjust from the just both being carryed by the Angels into places meet for them that is to say the souls of the just into Paradise where is the fellowship and sight of Angels and Arch-angels with a kind of beholding of Christ our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the souls of the unjust to places in hell or Hades of which it was said in Scripture unto Nebuchadnezzar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Hades below was stirred to meet him Isa. 14. And to this purpose he both citeth and alloweth those words of Plato where he affirmes that when death draweth near to any man then tales are told 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the things in Hades how he that here doth deal unjustly shall there be punished c. Next him Eusebius speaks thus in the person of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I see my descent to hell or Hades approach and the rebellion against me of the contrary powers which are enemies to God And that we may be sure to know what he means by Hades he tels us out of Plato in another place that the souls of wicked men departing hence immediately after death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 endured the punishments of hell or Hades of their doings here After man was fallen saith Athanasius and by his fall death had prevailed from Adam to Christ the earth was accursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hell or Hades opened Paradise shut up and heaven offended but after all things were delivered by Christ the earth received a blessing Paradise was opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades or hell did shrink for fear and heaven set open to all believers And in another place he speaketh of two severall mansions provided by Almighty God for the wicked man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grave and Hades whereof one is to receive his body and the other his soul. St. Basil thus Death is not altogether evill except you speak of the death of a sinner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because that their departure hence is the beginning of their punishments in hell or Hades and besides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the evils which are in hell or Hades have not God for their cause but our selves c. And after shewing that Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up of the earth he addes that they were never a whit the better for this kind of punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for how could they be so that went down to Hades or hell but they made the rest wiser by their example Infinite more might be alleaged from the Fathers of the Eastern Church to shew that when they spake of Hades they meant nothing but hell and should be here produced were not these sufficient Only I shall make bold to add the evidence of two or three of the most eminent of the latter writers to shew that in all times and ages the word retained that notion only which had been given it in the Scriptures and the old Greek Fathers Thus then Cydonius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that there is in Hades hell vengeance for all sinnes committed not only the consent of all wise men but the equity of the divine justice doth most fully prove Aeneas Gazaeus he comes next and he tels us this that he who in a private life committeth smal sins and laments them escapeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the punishments that are in Hades And finally Gregentius thus Christ took a rod out of the earth viz. his precious Crosse and stretching forth his hand struck all his enemies therewith and conquered them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is to say Hades or hell death sin and that subtile serpent So
Article by their corrupt glosses and interpretations since the first wrestling of it from the native sense came principally and originally from the Church of Rome But far lesse reason had he to impose upon them a more grosse absurdity in making Calvin and Brentius both to deliver this interpretation of it that to descend into hell was nothing else but to be utterly annihilated and extinct ●or ever A folly shall I call it or a frenzie rather which never came within their dreams for as much as doth appear by their works and writings from whence the Cardinal must collect it Nor was the scene so well contrived as it should have been for the acting of this grand Imposture the book of Calvins which it cited for the proof thereof being that entituled Psychopannychia purposely written as appeareth by the Preface of it against the Anabaptists of those times by whom indeed that monstrous Paradox had been lately published This therefore being flung aside as a fraud or slander the first of those three new constructions which have been made of this descent into hell by the writers of the reformed Churches is that thereby the Authors of the Creed whosoever they were meant nothing but our Saviours burial Bucer I take it was the first though otherwise a moderate man and one not very apt to follow any new devise that puts this sense upon the Article Ad infernum descendere nil aliud est quam recendi corpus sub terra to deseend into hell saith he is nothing else but for the bodie to be buried under the ground And presently he gives this reason why he so expounds it Sheol enim pro quo in scripturis nos fere infernum legimus sepulchrum significat that the word Sheol in the Hebrew which in the Scriptures we interpret commonly by that of hell doth properly signifie the grave What the word Sheol signifyeth in the Hebrew tongue is not now the businesse but what was meant by the Apostles in the Greek word Hades by which St. Peter did translate it and that we proved before in the former Chapter to be meant literally of hell of the place of torments Or were it so that the word Hades might be used in some places to expresse the grave yet were it very improbable that descendere in infernum in this place of the Creed should signifie no more then to be buried And in my minde Calvin doth reason very strongly against this construction where he affirmes that what an unlikely thing it must needs be thought that in so short an Abstract of the Christian faith that of our Saviours burial should be twice expressed First in plain termes and after by a figurative Metaphorical speech Non est verisimile irrepere potuisse superfluam ejusmodi battologiam in compendium hoc ubi summatim quam fieri potuit paucissimus verbis praecipua fidei capita notantur So he judiciously and to the purpose But then withall I needs must say that though Calvin did reject this interpretation as inconsistent with the nature of so short a Summary having indeed a new devise of his own to set up in stead of it yet gave he much incouragement to others to expound it so who were too apt to learn from so great a Master For whereas in the old translation of the Psalmes of David which has so long been generally received in the Western Church the words ran thus Non derelinques animam meam in inferno i. e. thou shalt not leave my soul in hell Calvin in his translation was so bold as to change it thus Non deseres animam meam in sepulchro thou shalt not leave my soul in the grave or sepulchre and then by soul expounds himself to mean the whole person of David Which coming unto Bezas hands he saw no reason as indeed there was not but that he might make as bold with St. Peter in the book of the Acts as Calvin did with David in the book of Psalmes And therefore when he first put out his new translation of the new Testament he thus translated Peters words into Calvins meaning and made the passage to run thus in Terminis without any disguise Non relinques corpus meum in sepulchro i. e. thou shalt not leave my body in the grave nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption But after finding how great clamour he had raised thereby in the next edition of that work he retained in words the old translation Non relinques animam meam in inferno but in his Notes or Annotations on the same did declare expressely that by infernus there he did mean sepulchrum and by anima the whole person whether Christs or Davids and then the glosse upon the text must in brief be this Non relinques animam meam in inferno i. e. Non relinques corpus meum in sepulchro A glosse like that of Orleans which corrupts the text and brings into my minde that with which we use sometimes to jeare the old glossary on the Canon-laws Statuimus i. e. abrogamus that is to say we do ordain that is we annul or abrogate A glosse not much unlike unto that of Bellarmine and hard it is to say which of the two is most absurd who being asked this question by some Protestant Doctors viz. to whom the Pope should make complaint when offence is given him if he be so supreme in the Church of Christ as they say he is returns this answer thereunto Papa potest dicere Ecclesiae i. e. sibi ipsi the Pope may tell the Church that is himselfe And indeed this interpretation of the Article seemed as absurd as either of these two fine glosses insomuch that Beza lived to see it every were deserted in some parts exploded And now and long before these times as Aretius very well observeth Tota Ecclesia ubique terrarum c. The whole Church thoughout the world doth receive this Article all opposition notwithstanding Et diversum a sepultura recitat and doth recite it as a different point from that of the burial Now that which Calvin said in the former case touching the unlikelyhood and improbability that in so short a Summary of the Christian faith the same thing should be twice repeated first in plain terms and presently in the very next words in a figurative speech the same may be returned to a second construction made by some late Divines on the present Article Who willing to be singular and in a way by themselves and finding that it would not down amongst knowing men that Christs descent into hell should be all one with his burial have ransacked all the Hebrew Rabbines to finde out their conceptions on the Hebrew Sheol and all the old Greek Philosophers and antient Poets to finde what they intended by the Greek word Hades And having made a general muster of collections out of several Heathenish and Iewish writers extracted out of them this sense of the
certainly this his sitting at the right hand of God will not do it for him For building on the grounds which before we laid though sitting at the right hand of a Prince or Potentate were a great honour to the man that sate there and gave him the next place to the Prince himself yet that it gave him an equality of power and Majesty neither the nature of Soveraignty which can brook no equals nor any of the instances before remembred can evince or evidence Not that of David and his Queen if of her he means it for David was too well acquainted with his own authority as to divide it with his wife and become joynt Tenant with her to the Crown of Israel Nor that of Solomon and his Mother which the Iesuite stands on for then the King had done her wrong to reject her suit and more then so to put his brother to the sword for whom and in whose cause she came a suiter Though Solomon was then very young and as much indebted to Bathsheba for the Crown of Israel as a son could be unto a Mother yet he knew how to keep his distance and preserve his power Young Princes have their jealousies in point of State aswell as those of riper years and can as ill endure or admit a Rivall Omnisque potestas impatiens consoriis erit as the Poet hath it Their hearts are equally made up of Caesar and Pompey as unable to endure an equal as admit a Superior Though Nero was advanced to the Empire of Rome by the power and practises of Agrippina his Mother and came as young unto the Crown as King Solomon did yet would he not permit her to be partner with him no not so much as in the outward signs and pomps of Majesty And therefore when he saw her come into the Senate with an intent to sit down with him as he thought in the Throne Imperial he cunningly rose up to meet her Atque ita specie pietatis obviam itum est dedecori saith the wise Historian and under pretence of doing his duty to her did prevent the infamy So then the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of God importing neither an equality with him nor any superiority at all above him the phrase being measured as it ought according to the standard of the Iewish Idiom and the received customes of that Nation we must enquire a little further to finde out the meaning Most like it is that by these words And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty is meant the exaltation of the man CHRIST IESVS our blessed Lord and Saviour in his humane nature to the next degree of power and glory unto God himself whereby he was made Lord and Christ the Prince and Saviour of his people as St. Peter cals him the head over all things unto his Church as St. Paul entitles him that to inable him the better to discharge those Offices wherewith by God he is intrusted he hath received withall a participation of Gods Almighty power and most infinite goodness for the defence and preservation of the Church committed to him with all those other powers and faculties which are in Scripture called the right hand of God and finally that sitting there in rest and quiet after all his labours he is continually intent on his Churches safety which he stands ready to defend against all its enemies to govern a●d direct it in the ways of godliness and to reward or punish as he sees occasion Which exaltation of our Saviour in his humane nature I can no better liken then to that of Ioseph when Pharaoh made him Ruler over all the land of Egypt and placed him also over his house that according to his word they might all be ruled and made him to ride in the second Charet that he had with an Officer to crie before him Bow the knee All he reserved unto himself was the Regal Throne in which he could not brook an equal Onely in the Throne said he will I be greater then thou So stands the case as I conceive it between God the Father and his Christ. Christ by his exaltation to the right hand of God hath gained the neerest place both of power and glory unto God himself a participation of Gods divine power and goodness an absolute command over all the Church consisting both of men and Angels Only the Divine Throne the Supreme transcendency the Lord God Almighty reserves unto himself not to part with that And if we look into the Scriptures with a careful eye we shall finde Christ standing neer the Throne of Almighty God but not sitting on it St. Paul informs us to that purpose where he saith of Christ that he sate down at the right hand of the Throne of God And St. Iohn telleth us in the Book of the Revelation that he saw in the right hand of him that sate upon the Throne which was God the Father a Book written within and on the backside And the Lamb which had been slain came and tooke the Book out of the right hand of him that sate on the Throne A matter which the strongest Angel mentioned in the second verse did not dare to meddle with knowing his distance from the Throne and how ill it became him to attempt too neer it For though the Angels of themselves are of a more excellent glorious nature and far surpassing all the children of the loyns of Adam yet in this point they fall short of those infinite glories which CHRIST acquired in his person to our humane Nature First in his birth God did in no wise take the Angels saith the great Apostle but the seed of Abraham he took the meaning is that when God was to send a Saviour to redeem the world and that both men and Angels stood at once before him both coveting to be advanced to so high a dignity he did confer that honour on the seed of Abraham on one descended from his loyns and not on any of the Angels of what rank soever Who being born into the world was honoured presently with the name of the Son of God the first begotten Son of the Lord most high and therein was much better and more excellent then the Angels were in that he did inherit a more excellent name That 's the first point in which our Saviour had the better of those glorious creatures For unto which of the Angels that is to say none at all said he at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Though he was made lower then the Angels of inferiour metal and for a while of less esteem in the eyes of men yet did they worship him at his birth by Gods own command and cheerfully proclaimed the news to the sons of men Now as God honoured him with a name above all the Angels so he advanced him to a place at his own right hand which
before the blessed Angels coming out to meet him the Saints incompassing him about to wait upon him the Devil and his Angels led in chaines behind After this comes his inthronizing at the right hand of God the Angel● and Archangels all the hosts of heaven falling down before him the Saints and Martyrs joyning to make up the consort and saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and strength and wisdome and honour and glory and blessing Blessing and honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for evermore The last and greatest as I said is his coming to judgment solemnized in the sight both of men and Angels of the unjust and righteous person yea and the Devill and his Ministers all which shall be attendant at that grand Assize some to receive their severall and particular sentences and some to put the same into execution In my discourse upon this Article I shall take for granted that there shall be a day of judgment He ill deserves the name of Christian that makes question of it And to say truth it is a point of so clear an evidence that the wiser and more sober men amongst the Gentiles though guided by no other light then that of natural reason did subscribe unto it For as Lactantius one much versed in their books and writings hath told us of them not only the Sibyls who may seem to have been inspired with the Spirit of Prophecie but Hydaspes and Mercurius surnamed Trismegistus were of that opinion delivering as with one assent this most certain truth that in the last age the godly being severed from the wicked men with tears and groans shall lift up their hands to Jupiter and implore his aide for their deliverance and that Jupiter shall hear their prayers and destroy the wicked And all these things saith he are true and shall accordingly come to passe as they have delivered nisi quod Iovem illa facturum dicunt quae deus faciet but that they do ascribe to Iupiter what belongs to God Nor want there pregnant reasons which may induce a natural man if wilfully he do not quench that light of reason which is planted in him to be perswaded strongly of a future judgment For granting that there is a God and that God is just and seeing that in this present world such men as were indued with most moral virtues were subject to disgrace and scorn and many times brought to calamitous ends and on the other side voluptuous persons who made their belly their God and their glory their shame to live in peace and plentie much reverenced and respected by all sorts of people right reason could not but conlude that certainly there must be some rewards and punishments after this life ended which God in his eternall justice would proportion to them according as they had deserved And this was Davids contemplation in the book of Psalmes He had observed of wicked and ungodly men that they came unto no misfortune like other folks neither were they plagued like other men that they did prosper in the world had riches in possession and left the rest of their substance to their babes but that he himself and other children of God who cleansed their hearts and washed their hands in innocencie were not only chastened every morning but punished also all day long Which though at first it made him stagger in the way of Godlinesse so that his feet had welnigh slipped yet upon further consideration he resolved it thus that God did set them up in slippery places but it was only to destroy them and cast them down and that at last for all their glories they should perish and be brought to a fearfull end The Parable of Dives and Lazarus serves for confirmation of this Upon whose different fortunes Abraham gave this censure Son remember that thou in thy life time enjoyedst thy good things and Lazarus received evili But now he is comforted and thou art tormented Some sins the Lord is pleased to punish in this present world left else the wicked man should grow too secure and think Gods justice were asleep and observed him not and some he leaves unpunished till the world to come to keep the righteous soul in hope of a better day in which he shall obtain the Crown of his well deserving And to this purpose the good Father reasoneth very strongly Should every sinner be punished in this present life nihil ultimo judicio reservari putaretur c. It would be thought that there was nothing for Christ to do at the day of judgment And on the other side if none the providence and justice of Almighty God would be called in question by each sensual man Qui numina sensu Ambiguo vel nulla putat vel nescia nostri And therefore it is necessary also in respect of God that there should be a day of judgement both of quick and dead at least as to vindicating of his Divine justice which else would suffer much in the eye of men when they observe what we have noted from the Psalmist with what prosperity and peace the ungodly flourish but go not as he did into the Sanctuary to understand of God what their end should be Add yet the Poets contemplation on this point was both good and pious and such as might become a right honest Christian had he intended that of eternal punishments which he speaks of temporal But howsoever thus he hath it Saepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem Curarent Superi terras an nullus inesset Rector incerto fluerent mortalia casu c. Abstulit hunc tandem Ruffini poena tumultum Absolvitque Deos jam non ad culmina rerum Injustos crevisse queror tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu gravore ruant Oft had I been perplex'd in minde to know Whether the Gods took charge of things below Or that uncertain chance the world did sway Finding no higher ruler to obey Ruffino's fall at last to this distraction Gave a full end and ample satisfaction To the wrong'd Gods I shall no more complain That wicked men to great power attain For now I see they are advanc'd on high To make their ruine look more wretchedly Something there also is which may make us Christians not only to believe but expect this day considering that we are told in the holy Scriptures that we shall all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ that every man may receive according to that which he hath done in his body whether good or evill The strength and efficacie of the Argument in brief is this The bodies of us men being the servants of the soul to righteousnesse or else the instruments to sin in justice ought to be partakers of that weal and woe which is adjudged unto the soul and therefore to be raised at the day of judgment
for ostentation of our Savious power in regard that every man receives his judgement either life or death as soon as he is freed from his earthly tabernacle For which there is sufficient proof in the book of God This day said Christ our Saviour to the penitent theef shalt thou be with me in paradise As plain is that of the Apostle It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgement The same we finde exemplifyed in the rich man and Lazarus the soul of the one as soon as dead being carried into Abrahams bosome the other being plunged in unquenchable flames If so as so it is most certain what use can be conceived of a general judgement when all particular persons have already received their sentence what further punishments or glory can be added to them then Paradise to Gods Saints and servants and the unquenchable flames of hell for impenitent sinners Which difficulty though removed in some part before as to the vindicating of the justice of Almighty God and the participation of the body in that blisse or misery which the soul presently is adjudged to on the separation and finally the manifesting of Christs power and glory in the sight of his enemies shall now be also cleared as to that part thereof which seems to place the soul in the height of happinesse as soon as separate from the body or in the depth of anguish and disconsolation And first that the souls of just and righteous persons are in the hands of God in Paradise in Abrahams bosome yea in the very heavens themselves I shall easily grant But that they are in the same place or in the same estate and degree of glory to which they shall be preferred by Christ in the day of judgement I neither have seen text nor reason which could yet perswade me Certain I am the Scripture seems to me to be quite against it the current of antiquity and not a few Moderns of good note and eminencie to incline very strongly to the other side For Scriptures first St. Paul doth speak indeed of a Crown of righteousnesse to be given to him and to all those that love the appearing of Christ but not to be given them till that day i. e. the day of his appearing St. Peter next informeth of an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in the heavens and more then so prepared already but not to be shewed till the last time In the last place we have St. Iohn acquainting us with the condition of the Saints as in matter of fact where he telleth us that the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar where they were willed to rest themselves till the number of their fellow servants was accomplished And though we grant the souls of righteous men departed are in heaven it self yet doth it not follow by any good consequence that therefore they are in the highest Heaven where God himselfe refideth in most perfect majesty The name of Heaven is variously used in holy Scriptures First for the Aire as where we finde mention of the birds of heaven Mat. 26. and the cloudes of heaven Mark 14. Next for the Firmament above in which the Lord hath placed those most glorious lights which frequently are called the Stars of heaven as Gen. 20. Then for that place which St. Paul calleth in one text by the name of the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 and in another place shortly after by the name of Paradise vers 4. which is conceived to be the habitations of the Angels their proper habitation as St. Iude calleth it vers 6. Into this place the soul of Lazarus was carried as to Abrahams bosom to this our Saviour promised to bring the soul of the penitent theef Hitherto Enoch and Eliah were translated by God and St. Paul taken up in an heavenly rapture And to this place or to some one or many of those heavenly mansion for in my Fathers house there are many mansions said our Lord and Saviour the souls of righteous men are carryed on the wings of Angels there to abide till they are called upon to meet their bodies in day of day of judgement And last of all it ●ignifyeth the highest heaven to which Christ our Saviour is ascended and sitteth at the right hand of God in most perfect glory Of which St. Paul telleth us that he was made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. and that he did ascend above all the heavens Ephes. 4. This is the seate or Palace of Almighty God called as by way of excellency the heaven of heavens where his divine glory and majesty is most plainly manifested and therefore called by the Prophet the habitation of his holinesse and of his glory So then the souls of righteous men deceased may be in Paradise in the third heaven in Abrahams bosome and yet not be admitted to the highest heaven wherein God reigns in perfect glory till Christ shall come again to judgment and take them for ever to himself into possession and participation of his heavenly Kingdome That in this sense the Fathers understand the Scriptures which mention the estate of the Saints departed will best be seen by looking over their own words according as they lived in the severall Churches First for the Eastern Cherches Iustin Marter telleth us that the the souls of the righteous are carryed to Paradise where they enjoy the company of Angels Archangels and the vision of Christ our Saviour and are kept in places fit for them till the day of the resurrection and compensation Next Origen The Saints saith he departing hence do not presently obtain the full reward of their labours but they expect us though staying and slacking For they have not perfect joy so long as they grieve at our Errours and lament our sins Then Chrysostome more then once or twice Though the soul were a thousand times immortall as it is yet shall she not enjoy those admirable good things without the body And if the body rise not again the soul remaineth uncrowned without heavenly blisse Theodoret lived in the same times and was of the same opinion also saying The Saints have not yet received their Crowns for the God of all expecteth the conflict of others that the race being ended he may at once pronounce all that overcome to be Conquerers and reward them together Finally not to look so low as Oecumenius and Theophylact who say almost as much as Theoderet did we have at once the judgement of many of the Fathers delivered by Andreas Caesariensis in a very few words It is saith he the judgement of many godly Fathers that every good man after this life hath a place fit for him by which he may conjecture at the glory which is prepared Look we now on the Western Churches and first we have Irenaeus B. of Lyons in France affirming positively thus Manifestum est c. It is manifest that the souls
first of the Evangelical Scriptures was the Epistle Decretory which we finde in the fifteenth of the Acts and that was countenanced by a visum est spiritui sancto i. e. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost And when St. Paul writ his Epistle unto those of Corinth for fear he might be thought by that factious people to injoyn any thing upon them without very good warrant he vouched the Spirit of God for his Author in it They preached the Gospel first to others as Christ did to them by word of mouth that being the more speedy way to promote the Work But being they could not live to the end of the world and that the purest waters will corrupt at last by passing through muddy or polluted Chanels they thought it best to leave so much thereof in writing as might serve in all succeeding Ages for the Rule of Faith Postea vero per voluntatem Dei in Scripturis nobis Evangelium tradiderunt firmamentum columnam fidei nostrae futuram as in Irenaeus A man might marvel why St. Iohn should give that testimony to the Gospel which was writ by him that it was written to the end That men might believe that JESUS is the CHRIST the Son of God and that believing they might have Faith through his Name considering that none of the rest of the Evangelists say the like of theirs or why he thundred at the end of his Revelation that most fearful curse against all those who should presume to adde anything to the words of that Book or take any thing from it being a course that none of all the sacred Pen-men had took but he But when I call to minde the Spirit by which Iohn was guided and the time in which those Books of his were first put in writing methinks the marvel is took off without more ado For seeing that his Gospel was writ after all the rest as is generally affirmed by all the Antients those words relate not as I guess to his own Book onely but to the whole Body of the Evangelical History now perfectly composed and finished for otherwise how impertinent had it been for him to say That IESVS did many other signs in the presence of his Disciples which were not written in that Book if he had spoken those words of his own Book onely Considering that he had neither written of the signs done in the way to Emaus mentioned by St. Luke or his appearing to the eleven in a Mountain of Galilee which St. Matthew speaks of or his Ascension into Heaven which St. Mark relateth which every vulgar Reader could not chuse but know The like I do conceive of those words of his in the Revelation viz. That they relate not to that Book alone but to the whole body of the Bible St. Iohn being the Survivor of that glorious company on whom the Holy Ghost descended in the Feast of Pentecost and the Apocalypse the last of those Sacred Volumes which were dictated by the Spirit of God for the use of his Church and now make up the Body of the holy Scriptures God had now said as much by the mouths and pens of the Prophets Evangelists and Apostles as he conceived sufficient for our salvation and so closed up the Canon of the Scriptures as St. Augustine telleth Deus quantum satis esse judicavit locutus Scripturam condidit as his own words are which certainly God had not done nor the Evangelist declared nor St. Augustine said had not the Scripture been a sufficient rule able to make us wise unto salvation and thoroughly furnished unto all good works Which being so it cannot but be a great dishonor to the Scripture and consequently to the Spirit of God who is Author of it to have it called as many of the Papists do Atramentariam Scripturam Plumbeam Regulam Literam Mortuam that is to say An Ink-horn Text a Leaden Rule and a Dead Letter Pighius for one as I remember gives it all these Titles or to affirm That it hath no authority in the Church of Christ but what it borroweth from the Pope without whose approbation it were scarce more estimable than the Fables of Aesop which was one of the blasphemous speeches of Wolf Hermannus or that is not a sufficient means to gain Souls to Christ or to instruct the Church in all duties necessary to salvation without the adding of Traditional Doctrines neither in terminis extant in the Book of God nor yet derived from thence by good Logical inference which is the general Tenet of the Church of Rome or that to make the Canon of the Scripture compleat and absolute the Church as it hath added to it already the Apocryphal Writings so may it adde and authorize for the Word of God the Decretals of the Antient Popes and their own Canon Law as some of the Professors of it have not sticked to say So strongly are they byassed with their private interess and a desire of carrying on their faction in the Church of Christ as to place the holy Spirit where he doth not move in their Traditions in Apochryphal and meer Humane writings and not to see and honor him where indeed he is in the holy Scriptures Of the Authority Sufficiency and Perspicuity of which holy Scriptures I do not purpose at the present any debate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a work more fit for another place and such as of it self would require a Volume onely I say that if the written Word be no rule at all but as it hath authority from the Church which it is to direct and then not an entire but a partial rule like a Noune Adjective in Grammar which cannot stand by it self but requireth somewhat else to be joyned with it in Construction and that too so obscure and difficult that men of ordinary wits cannot profit by it and therefore must not be permitted to consult the same the Holy Ghost might very well have spared his pains of speaking by the Prophets in the time of the Law or guiding the pens of the Apostles in the time of the Gospel and the great Body of the Scripture had been the most impertinent and imperfect peece the most unable to attain to the end it aims at that was ever writ in any Science since the world began Which what an horrid blasphemy it must needs be thought against the majesty and wisdom of the holy Spirit let any sober Christian judge And yet as horrid as those blasphemies may be thought to be some of the most profest enemies of the Church of Rome and such as think that the further they depart from Rome they are the nearer to Christ have faln upon the like if not worse extravagancies For to say nothing of the Anabaptists and that new brood of Sectaries which now swarms amongst us whom I look on onely as a company of Fanatical Spirits did not Cartwright and the rest of our new
all them that are sanctified Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and nailed it to his cross for ever to the end that being mindful of the price wherewith we were bought and of the enemies from whom we were delivered by him We might glorifie God both in our bodies and our souls and serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh in the time of the Mosaical Ordinances How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God in the time of the Gospel This is the constant tenor of the Word of God touching remission of our sins by the Blood of Christ. And unto this we might here adde the consonant suffrages and consent of the antient Fathers If the addition of their Testimonies where the authority of the Scripture is so clear and evident might not be thought a thing unnecessary Suffice it that all of them from the first to the last ascribe the forgiveness of our sins to the death of Christ as to the meritorious cause thereof though unto God the Father as the principal Agent who challengeth to himself the power of forgiving sins as his own peculiar and prerogative Isai. 43.25 Peculiar to himself as his own prerogative in direct power essential and connatural to him but yet communicated by him to his Son CHRIST IESUS whilest he was conversant here on Earth who took upon himself the power of forgiving sins as part of that power which was given him both in Heaven and Earth Which as he exercised himself when he lived amongst us so at his going hence he left it as a standing Treasury to his holy Church to be distributed and dispensed by the Ministers of it according to the exigencies and necessities of particular persons For this we finde done by him as a matter of fact and after challenged by the Apostles as a matter of right belonging to them and to their successors in the Ministration First For the matter of fact it is plain and evident not onely by giving to St. Peter for himself and them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven annexing thereunto this promise That whatsoever he did binde on Earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he did loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven But saying to them all expresly Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as it was thus given them in the way of fact so was it after challenged by them in the way of right St. Paul affirming in plain terms That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by not imputing their trespasses unto them but that the Ministery of this reconciliation was committed unto him and others whom Christ had honored with the title of his Ambassadors and Legates here upon the Earth Now as the state of man is twofold in regard of sin so is the Ministery of reconciliation twofold also in regard of man As he is tainted with the guilt of original sinfulness the Sacrament of Baptism is to be applied the Laver of Regeneration by which a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost Iohn 3.5 As he lies under the burden of his actual sins the Preaching of the Word is the proper Physick to work him to repentance and newness of life that on confession of his sins he may receive the benefit of absolution Be it known unto you saith St. Paul that through this man CHRIST IESUS is preached unto you remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses And first for Baptism It is not onely a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others which be not Christned as some Anabaptists falsly taught but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the promises of the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by vertue of Prayer unto God This is the publick Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the authorised Book of Articles Anno 1562. In which lest any should object as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Iewel That we make Baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration and that we dare not say as the Catholick Church teacheth according to the holy Scriptures That in and by Baptism sins are fully and truly remitted and put away We will reply with the said most Reverend and Learned Prelate a man who very well understood the Churches meaning That we confess and have ever taught that in the Sacrament of Baptism by the death and Blood of Christ is given remission of all manner of sins and that not in half or in part or by way of imagination and fancy but full whole and perfect of all together and that if any man affirm that Baptism giveth not full remission of sins it is no part nor portion of our Doctrine To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end That they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness and also that infused divine vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispositions towards future newness of life But because these were private men neither of which for ought appears had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth though Bishop Iewel had in the second Edition when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeths time let us consult the Book of Homilies made and set out by those who composed the Articles And there we finde that by Gods mercy and the vertue of that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour CHRIST IESUS the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross we do obtain Gods grace and remission as well of our original sin in Baptism as of all actual sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto him again Which doctrine of the Church of England as it is consonant to the Word of God in holy Scripture so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure Antiquity For in the Scripture it is said
Of the Eleventh Article OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IVDE the Brother of IAMES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Carnis Resurrectionem i. e. The Resurrection of the Body CHAP. VII Of the Resurrection of the Body and the Proofs thereof The Objections against it answered Touching the circumstances and manner of it The History and grounds of the Millenarians WE are now come unto that Article of the Christian Faith which hath received most opposition both at home and abroad Abroad amongst the Gentiles of the Primitive times who used all their wit and learning to cry down this Doctrine at home within the pale of the Church it self by some who had the name of Christians but did adulterate the prime Articles of Christian belief by their wicked Heresies First for the Gentiles it was a thing much quarrelled and opposed amongst them that Christ himself should be affirmed to have risen again insomuch that St. Paul was counted mad by Festus and but a babler at the best by the great wits of Athens for venturing to Preach before them of IESUS and the Resurrection i.e. of Iesus and his resurrection for of that onely he did speak when they so judged of him but of this quarrel they grew soon weary and so gave it off For being it was a matter of fact confirmed at the first by so many witnesses who had seen him and converted with him after his raising from the dead and thereupon received in the Church with such unanimity that the faithful rather chose to lay down their lives than to alter their Beleef in that particular the world became the sooner satisfied in the truth thereof But for the Resurrection of the dead which was grounded on it and that his Resurrection was of so great efficacy as that by vertue of it all the dead should rise which had deceased from the beginning of the world to the end thereof that they accounted such a monstrous and ridiculous paradox as could not find admittance amongst men of reason For this it was which was so scoffed at by Cecilius in that witty Dialogue Re●ase ferunt post mortem post favillas they give it out saith he that they shall live again after death and that they shall resume those very bodies which now they have though burnt to ashes or devoured by wilde beasts or howsoever putrified and brought to nothing Putes eos jam revixisse And this saith he they speak with so great a confidence as if they were already raised from the dust of the grave and spake as of a matter past not of things to come And it did stomack them the worse in that the Christians did not onely promise a Resurrection and new life to the bodies of men which all Philosophers and men of ordinary sense knew to be subject to corruption but threaten and foretel of the destruction of the Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon and all the glorious Lights in the starry Firmament which most Philosophers did hold to be incorruptible as the same Cecilius doth object in the aforesaid Dialogue That Christ was raised from the dead besides the many witnesses which gave credit to it the Gentiles could not well deny especially as to the possibility of such a thing without calling some of their own gods in question For not onely the deity of Romulus did depend on the bare testimony of one Proculus who made Oath in the Senate that he had seen him ascend up into heaven augustiore forma quam fuisset in a more glorious shape than before he had but that of Drusilla and Augustus and Tiberius Caesar which were all Roman gods of the last Edition must fall unto the ground also for lack of evidence if either it were impossible for a dead man to be raised to life again or taken up into the Heavens as our Saviour was But that from this particular instance supposing it for true as it might be possibly they should infer a general Doctrine that all the dead should rise again at the Day of Judgement this would not sink into their heads unless it might be made apparent as they thought it could not that any of that sect had been raised again to confirm all the rest in that opinion Without some such Protesilaus no credit to be given to the resurrection preach it they that would It seems the Gentiles in this point were like the rich man mentioned in our Saviours Parable Except one rise up from the dead they will not beleeve It was not Moses and the Prophets nor Christ and his Apostles that could do the deed Leaving these therefore for a while and keeping those who did assume the name of Christians and yet denied this Article of the Christian Faith unto the close of this discourse Let us for our parts rest our selves on the Word of God and see what Moses and the Prophets what CHRIST and his Apostles have delivered to us in affirmation of this Doctrine For Moses first it is the general opinion of most learned men that he was the Author of the Book of Iob and that he wrote it purposely for a Cordial to the house of Israel whom he found very apt to despair of Gods mercies towards them and easily out of comfort in all times of trouble Which granted we shall have from Moses a most ample testimony where he reports these words of that Myrror of patience I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me St. Hierom notes upon these words that no man since Christs time did ever speak so clearly of Christs resurrection and his own as Iob doth here before Christs coming Nullum tam apertè post Christum quam ipse hic ante Christum de Christi resurrectione loquitur sua as the Father hath it And on the same a Reverend Father of our own makes this glosse or descant It is affirmed saith he by Iob that his Redeemer liveth and shall rise again which is as much as to say He is the resurrection and the life St. Iohn could say no more It is his hope He is by it regenerate to a lively hope St. Peter could say no more than that He enters into such particulars this flesh and these eyes which is as much as was or could be said by St. Paul himself There is not in all the Old there is not in all the New Testament a more pregnant and direct proof for the resurrection St. Hierom as we saw before was of this opinion St. Gregory comes not much behind who on these words of Iob gives us this short Paraphrase Victurum me certa fide credo libera voce profiteor quia Redemptor mens
and beams of our Heavenly Father who hath bestowed our souls upon us indued with such a perfect measure of understanding and who not onely doth direct our mindes in the ways of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in due time also will save our Bodies The Divine Plato and his followers borrowed a great deal of their light from this Zoroaster and the like Dictates of the rest of the Chaldean Sages which grounded him in his opinion of the Souls immortality and the account it was to give to the dreadful Iudge in the world to come whereof he speaketh in his second Epistle and eleventh Book De Legibus Pythagoras though sometimes he held the transmigration of the soul into other Bodies yet in his better thoughts he disposed it otherwise and placed the souls of vertuous men in the Heavens above where they should be immortal and like the gods saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Leaving the Body they to Heaven shall flie Where they shall be immortal never die And to this purpose also that of Epicharmus may be here alleged assuring us That if we live a life conform to the rules of vertue death shall not be able to do us hurt because our souls shall live in a blessed life in the highest Heavens Upon these grounds but specially upon the reading of some Books of Plato Cleombrotus is said to have been so ravished with the contemplation of the glories of that other life that for the more speedy attaining of them he cast himself down from the top of a Mountain with greater zeal by far than wisdom And therefore much more commendable was the death and dying speech of one Chalcedius another of those old Platonicks Revertar in patriam ubi meliores Progenitores Parentes I am saith he returning into my own Country where I shall finde the bettet sort of my Progenitors and deceased Parents Nor was this such a point of divine knowledge as was attainable onely by the wise men of Greece the sober men amongst the Romans had attained it also For Cicero affirms expresly Certum esse ac definitum in coelo locum ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur That there is a certain and determinate place in Heaven where the blessed souls of those who deserve well of the publick shall injoy everlasting rest and happiness And Seneca speaks thus of death intermittit vitam non eripit that it onely interrupteth the course of life but destroyeth it not because there will come a day at last qui nos iterum in lucem reponat which will restore us again to the light of Heaven Finally Not to add more testimonies in so clear a case Homer makes Hercules a companion of the gods above with whom he lives in endless solace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ennius saith the like of Romulus Romulus in Coelo longum cum diis agit aevum If we would know what their opinion was of the place it self in which eternal life was to be enjoyed we have a glimpse or shadow of it in the fiction of the Elysian fields so memorized and chanted by the antient Poets Locos laetos amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas A place conceived to be replenished with all variety of pleasures and divine contentments which possibly the soul of man could aspire unto the ground continually covered with the choycest Tapistry of Nature the Trees perpetually furnished with the richest fruits excellent both for taste and colour the Rivers running Nectar and most heavenly Wines fit for the Palat of the gods And which did add to all these beauties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sweets thereof not blasted by untimely dewes or interrupted by the inclemency of a bitter winter A place by them designed for the soules of those who had been careful of Religion or lost their lives in the defence and preservation of their natural Country or otherwise deserved nobly of the publick Nay even the rude Americans and savage Indians whom we may justly call jumenta rationalia a kind of reasonable beasts retain amongst them a Tradition thar beyond some certain hils but they know not where there is a glorious place reserved for the soules of those who had lived vertuously and justly in this present life or sacrificed their lives to defend their Country or were the Authors of any notable and signal benefit which tended to the good of mankind If then not onely the Philosophers and learned Gentiles but even the Barbarians and rude Americans have spooken so divinely of the place and state of good men departed there is no question to be made but that the Patriarchs Prophets and other holy men of God were very well assured of the truth hereof although they lived before or under the Law as well assured as we that have the happiness to live under the Gospel For St. Paul telleth us of the Fathers which were under the cloud that they all passed thorow the red Sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them and that Rock was Christ Not that they had the same Sacraments in specie which we Cristians have but others which conduced to the same effect and did produce the same fruits both of Faith and Piety The Mysteries of salvation the hopes and promises of eternal life are frequently expressed in the Old Testament quamvis obscuriores longè though more obscure by far than in the forms of speech in which they are presented to us in the New Testament as Peter Martyr well observes And he notes too that many were the temporal promises or the promises concerning temporal blessings but so as to conduct and train them up in the hopes of happines eternal The temporal blessings which they had were but the types and figures of those endless comforts which were reserved for them in the Heavens above the land of Promise but a shadow of that promised land of which they were to be heirs in the Kingdom of God Hierusalem but a Map of that glorious City whose Author and founder is the Lord. Enoch had neither been translated before the Law nor Elias under it had not both of them stedfastly beleeved this truth that they should see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living And yet some men there were and I doubt still are who teach that the holy men of God which lived before Christ our Saviours time did fix their hopes only upon temporal blessings and not at all upon spiritual or if upon spiritual as the peace of conscience yet not upon eternal happiness which is the crown and glory of that peace The Anabaptists and the Familists were of this opinion against whom the Church of England hath declared her self in the Seventh Article of her Confession saying That they are not to be
heard which feign that the old Fathers did onely look for transitory promises Of this opinion also was that wretched Servetus who thought no otherwise of the people of the house of Israel quam de aliquo porcorum grege than other men would do of an herd of Swine whom he conceived the Lord did fatten in the Land of Canaan Citra ullam spem coelestis immortalitatis Without breeding them in any hopes of the life eternal And against him doth Calvin who hath given us this knowledge of him intend his whole tenth Chapter of his second Book of Institutions Nor do I find but that our Masters in the Church of Rome like it well enough though they keep more aloof in the tendrie of it For neither doth Prateolus nor Alphonsus à Castro nor any other of their Writers for ought I can finde in reckoning up the errors of the Anabaptists or of Servetus and his followers account this for one nor do they give such efficacy to the Iewish Sacraments as to confer Grace or spiritual gifts on them that were partakers of them And Harding telleth us in plain terms That the body is not raised to eternal life but by the real and substantial eating of the flesh of Christ Which were it so as Bishop Iewel well observeth what life could Abraham Isaac and Iacob and other holy Patriarchs and Prophets have which were before the coming of Christ and therefore could not really and substantially eat his flesh Must we not needs conclude by this strange Divinity that they have no life but are dead for ever without any hope of resurrection unto Life everlasting But what need such deductions though most clear and evident when one of their infallible and Authentick Records speaks it out so plainly that every ordinary understanding cannot but perceive it I mean the Roman Catechism published by the order and authority of the Council of Trent The Authors whereof abusing the authority of St. Augustine in his Comment on the 77th Psalm will have the Iewish Church to be called the Synagogue Quia pecudum more quibus magis congregari convenit terrena tantum caduca bona spectarent i. e. Because like brute beasts who properly are said to be congregated or gathered together for so the word Synagogue doth import they sought after nothing but transitory and temporal things Than which no Anabaptist in the world could have spoke more plainly A Tenet very contrary to plain Texts of Scripture which speak no otherwise of the Patriarchs Prophets and other holy men of God which lived before and under the Law than of those to whom pertained the adoption of Sons and the glory and the service of God and the same Promises which are made to us who live under the Gospel For doth not God say to our Father Abraham that he was both his shield and his great reward his shield or his Protector as the Vulgar reads it to save him from all danger in this present world and his exceeding great reward in the world to come And doth not Iob whose history was writ by the hand of Moses as it is generally conceived by men of learning profess a more than ordinary confidence in the Resurrection and of his seeing God with those very eyes which were to be consumed with worms Doth not the Royall Psalmist tell us of himself that he did verily beleeve to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And doth not the Prophet tell us of the blessed Land where men live for ever that the eye hath not seen nor the ear heard neither can the heart of man conceive those things which God hath prepared for them that love him Sufficient evidence to prove that as well in the Old Testament as in the New Everlasting Life is offered to mankinde by God according to the Doctrine of this Church of England It is true the Promises of Everlasting Life to us which live under the Gospel are delivered in more clear expressions than those which were delivered to our Fathers which lived under the Law for which we have the greater cause to give thanks to God who speaks so plainly to us without Tropes and Figures without Types and Ceremonies the shadows of those things which we have in substance For what can be more plain than that of our Lord and Saviour saying That the righteous shall go into life everlasting Matth. 25.46 That they which do forsake all for his sake shall in the world to come have eternal life Mark 10.30 That whosoever believeth in the onely begotten Son of God shall not perish but have life everlasting John 3.6 That he which hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal Chap. 12.25 Or what can be more plain than those words of St. Paul in the first to Timothy advising us That we lay up in store for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that we may lay hold on eternal life Chap. 6.19 Or those to Titus That being justified by his grace we shall be made heirs according to the hopes of life eternal Chap. 3.7 Or that in the second to the Corinthians We know that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Chap. 5.1 Finally What can be more plain than that of St. Peter assuring us That by the Resurrection of Christ from the dead we are begotten again to an inheritance immortal undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved for us in the Heavens 1 Pet. 5.3 4. Or that in the same Epistle where he telleth his Presbyters That if they feed the flock of Christ committed to them when the chief Shepherd shall appear they shall receive immarcessibilem coronam gloriae an immarcessible Crown of glory or a Crown of glory which withereth not as our English reads it Chap. 5.4 How much more might be added from the Revelations and other passages of the New Testament where the same thing is either figuratively expressed or easily inferred by logical and necessary consequences but that I was to shew that eternal life was promised unto those who lived under the Law although not every where nor altogether in such clear expressions as it is held forth unto us who live under the Gospel As clear are those expressions also which do set forth the nature and condition of this life to come as those which do deliver the eternity and duration of it For in some places it is called the joy of the Lord Enter into thy masters joy Matth. 25.5 Where there is fulness of joy and at his right hand there is pleasure for evermore as the Psalmist hath it Et nunquam turbata quies gaudia firma in the Poets language Sometimes it is called a Kingdom and a Crown of glory A Kingdom by our Saviour in St. Matthews Gospel Chap. 25.5 A Crown of glory by St. Paul