〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unknowne sufferings Such I take it as no man in this life besides our Saviour alone did suffer nor shall ever any man suffer the like in the life to come in which the paines of Hell shall be too well knowne unto many But that our Saviour in this life should suffer such paines is incredible for this being granted the powers of darknesse had prevailed more against him than Satan did against Iob. For the actuall suffering such paines includes more then a taste a draught of the second death unto which no man is subject before he die the first death nor was it possible that our Saviour should ever taste them either dying or living or after death This error it seemes hath surprized some otherwaies good Divines through incogitancie or want of skill in Philosophie For by the unerring rules of true Philosophy the nature quality or measure of paines must bee taken not so much from the force or violence of the Agent as from the condition or temper of the Patient Actus agentium sunt in patiente rite disposito The fire hath not the same operation upon Gold as it hath upon Lead nor the same upon greene wood which it hath on dry Or if a man should deale his blowes with an eeven hand betweene one sound of body and of strong bones and another sickly crasie or wounded the paines though issuing from the equality of the blowes would be most unequall That which would hardly put the one to any paine at all might drive the other into the very pangs of death Goliath did looke as big did speake as roughly and every way behave himselfe as sternly against little David as hee had against Saul and the whole hoast of Israel Yet his presence though in it selfe terrible did make no such impression of terrour upon David as it had done upon Saul and the stoutest Champions in his hoast And the reason why it did not was because David was armed with the shield of faith and confidence in the Lord his God a secret Armour which was not then to be found in all the Kingdome of Israel besides But a farre greater then Goliath associated and seconded with a farre greater hoast both for number and strength than the Philistines in Davids time were able to make more maliciously bent against the whole race of Adam than the Philistines at this or any other time were against the seed of Abraham was now in field And all of us are bound to praise our gracious God that in that houre wee had a Sonne of David farre greater than his Father to stand betweene us and the brunt of the battell then pitched against us For if all mankinde from the East unto the West which have lived on earth since our Father Adams fall unto this present time or shall continue unto all future generations had been then mustred together all of us would have fled more swiftly and more confusedly from the sight or presence of this great Champion for the powers of darknesse than the hoast of Israel did from the Champion of the Philistines when hee bid a defiance unto them All of us had been routed at the first encounter without any slaughter been committed alive to perpetuall slavery and imprisonment But did this Sonne of David obtaine victory in this Duel with the Champion for the powers of darknesse at as easie a rate as his Father David had done over Goliath No If wee stretch the similitude thus farre wee shall dissolve the sweet harmony betweene the type and the Antitype The conquest which the Sonne of David had over Satan and the powers of darknesse whether in the garden or upon the Crosse was more glorious then that which David had over Goliath or Israel over the Philistines David was Master of the field sine sanguine sudore multo without blood or much sweat The Sonne of David did sweat much blood before hee foiled his potent Adversary And the present question is not about the measure but about the nature and quality of the pains which the Sonne of David in this long Combat suffered in respect of the paines which David or any other in the behalfe of Gods people had suffered As the glory of our Saviour Christ is now much greater than the glory of all his Saints which have been or shall be hereafter so no doubt his sufferings did farre exceed the sufferings of all his Martyrs But all this and much more being granted will not inferre that he suffered either the paines of Hell or hellish paines poenas infernales aut poenas inferorum such paines as the power of darknesse in that houre of extraordinary temptation had cast all mankinde into unlesse the Sonne of David had stood in the breach Admit the old Serpent had been in that houre permitted to exert his sting with all the might and malice he could against the promised womans seed that is the manhood of the Sonne of God yet seeing as the Apostle saith the sting of death is sinne not imputed but inherent it was impossible that the stinging paines of the second death should fasten upon his body or soule in whom there was neither seed nor relique neither root or branch of sinne Or againe admit hell fire whether materiall or immateriall be of a more violent and malignant quality than any materiall fire which we know in what subject soever it bee seated is and that the powers of darknesse with their entire and joint force had liberty to environ or begirt the Sonne of God with this fire or any other instruments of greater torture which they are enabled or permitted to use yet seeing there was no fuell either in his soule or body whereon this fire could feed no paines could bee produced in him for nature or quality truely hellish or such as the damned suffer For these are supernaturall or more than so not only in respect of the Agents or causes which produce them but in respect of the Subject which endures them Satan findes alwayes some thing in them which he armes against them some inherent internall corruption which hee exasperates to greater malignity than any externall force or violence could effect in any creature not tainted with such internall corruption from which the promised womans seed was more free than his crucified body was from putrifaction The Prince of darknesse and this world could finde nothing which hee could exasperate or arme against him 4. In respect of Divine justice or of those eternall rules of equity which the Omnipotent Creator doth most strictly observe it was not expedient only but necessary that the Son of God should in our flesh vanquish Satan and vanquish him by suffering evills even all the evills incident to our mortall nature There was no necessity no congruity that the Sonne of God should vanquish this great Enemy of mankinde by suffering the very paines of Hell or hellish torments These properly taken or when they are suffered in
before the ordinary time of expiration by the ordinary course of nature in such as die that unnaturall and accursed death which he sought after But the Psalmist had thus prophecied and prayed against him Psalme 109.17 As he loved cursing so let it come unto him as hee delighted not in blessing so let it bee farre from him As hee clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment so let it come into his bowels like water and like oile into his bones Yet do we not reade nor have we any occasion to suspect that Iudas being a Companion of the blessed Apostles till his death and a continuall follower of Christ the blessed whilst hee lived on earth was accustomed to sweare curse or blaspheme His demeanor amongst them doubtlesse was civill not prophane How then were the Psalmists words punctually verified of him He loved cursing he delighted not in blessing The meaning is as in many other places of the Psalmists that however hee did not openly sweare curse or blaspheme or bewray his hate to goodnesse yet in his heart hee did abhorre the wayes which tend to peace and happinesse and set himself not immediatly or directly to cursednesse How then is he said to have loved cursing Because through avarice and stiffe adherence to sinister privat ends which hee had secretly proposed unto himself hee was diverted from the wayes of peace and happinesse which is the end that all men in the generall seek and wish for unto the crooked paths which winde to cursednesse and malediction As his addiction to these paths was secret and hid so was the disease whereof he died It gathered secretly though suddenly within his body It soaked like oile into his bones and into his bowells like water And as a good Author whose words and name I now remember not hath conjectured he died of a dropsie more acute and sudden then that disease naturally is Yet however it bred within him by causes naturall or supernaturall it might be the true and naturall cause of his bursting in the middle and of the gushing out of his bowels Of his sudden disease and destruction other Psalmists had likewise prophecied Now that these and the like Propheticall imprecations might be exactly and remarkably fulfilled in him the righteous Lord would not suffer him to die meerely of strangling or suffocation but smote him with these secret and sudden diseases of what kind soever they were CHAP. XXIX Of the Harmony betwixt the Evangelists narrations or historie from the time our Saviour was sentenced to death untill his expiration upon the Crosse and the Mosaicall prefigurations or Prophecies concerning his death and sufferings 1 THere is no knowledge comparable to the knowledge of CHRIST nor is there any other part of this knowledge more usefull then the contemplation of his Crosse A Theame of which no private Christian can meditate too often or too much so he follow the directions of the learned for his practice Of this argument a great many Interpreters have writ very much and a good many very well both for the doctrinall part and for the usefull which must bee grounded upon the doctrinall The expressions of my meditations upon this point or which is all one the use or application of this grand Article of belief for whom he died or what is to bee done by them who intend to be true partakers of this common salvation purchased by his Crosse These and the like I must deferre untill I have set downe as God shall enable me the doctrinall points of his humiliation whereof the Crosse is the period and his exaltation which was accomplisht by his ascension That which must confirme and cherish our belief as well of his crosse as of his resurrection and ascension is the cleare harmony betweene the Evangelicall histories themselves and the predictions or prefigurations of what they jointly or severally relate recorded in the books of Moses and the Prophets or the historicall volumes of the old Testament 2. Hee bearing his Crosse saith S. Iohn went forth unto a place called in the Hebrew Golgotha Chap. 19.17 When they had mocked him saith S. Mark they took off the purple from him and put his owne clothes on him and led him out to crucifie him and they compell one Simon a Cyrenian who passed by comming out of the Countrey the father of Alexander and Rufus to beare his Crosse Chap. 15.20 Betwixt these two relations of S. Iohn and S. Mark there is some variation no contradiction no such appearance of contradiction as might bee pickt betweene S. Matthew and the other Evangelists about his riding unto Jerusalem upon the Asse and the Colt as S. Matthew saith or as the others expresse upon the Colt onely But that appearance of contradiction as hath been set downe before will easily vanish to him that peruseth the Prophet Zachariah the Evangelists with an observant and cleare eye For he might ride part of the way upon the one and part upon the other In like manner seeing his progresse from the Common hall unto Golgotha was divisible as the locall distance between them was our Saviour himself might beare his Crosse some part of the way or for a while and Simon the Cyrenian perhaps a greater part of the way or for a longer time Againe seeing the Crosse it selfe was not onely divisible but actually divided our Saviour might beare one part of it all the way and Simon another for the most part of the way betweene the Praetorium and Golgotha Nor is it probable that either of them should for any time or for any portion of the way beare both the whole Crosse and the Chapiter whereon the title of his accusation was engrost by Pilar Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews That our Saviour did beare his Crosse out of the Praetorium or place of Judicature is cleare from the forecited place of S. Iohn And it is more then probable that he did beare it all along the City till he came to the publique gate where the Souldiers meeting with Simon comming out of the Countrey compell him to goe back againe with them and beare the Crosse to Golgotha And as they came out saith S. Matthew or rather as they were comming forth not from the Praetorium or Common-hall but from the gates of the City they found a man of Cyrene him they compeld to beare his Crosse It is cleare againe frome S. Luke 23.26 that Simon did beare the Crosse JESUS going before him Whether our Saviour did faint under it at the gate through feeblenesse of body or by long watching I will not dispute much lesse determine though some good Writers give this reason why Simon was compeld to beare it being first laid upon our Saviour But whether for this reason or some other they took it from our Saviours shoulders and laid it upon Simons there was a mysterie in it and at least an Emblematicall expression of what our Saviour before had said If any man
busie himselfe about small matters It must be a thing either visible or invisible and if it bee comprehended under either part of this division why are wee taught to beleeve that God the Father Almighty is the Maker not onely of heaven and earth but of all things visible and invisible in them If all things were made by him what could be left for Satan to work or make The apparance of this difficulty moved that acute and learned Father S. Austin sometime to say that sinne was nothing and oftentimes to allot it a cause deficient onely denying it any true positive efficient And many good Writers since his time in our dayes especially overswaid with this Fathers bare authority will have sinnes of what kinde soever to be privations onely no positive entities But they consider not that the selfe same difficulties besides other greater more inevitable inconveniences will presse them no lesse who make sinne to bee a meere privation or to have a cause deficient onely than they doe others who acknowledge it to have a positive efficient cause and a being more then meerly privation 6. What then bee the speciall inconveniencies wherewith their opinions are charged which make sinne either nothing or but a meere privation First wee account it a folly in man a folly incident to no man but an Heautontimorymenon to bee angry or chasing hot for nothing Hence seeing the Almighty Judge doth never punish either man or Devill but for sinne we shall cast a foule aspersion on his wisdome and Justice by maintaining sinne to bee nothing But fewer in our times there be though some I have heard out of the Pulpit which under pretence of St. Augustins authority make sinne to bee meere nothing But many there bee who hold it to be a meere privation which is a meane betweene meere nothing and a positive entitie Yet admitting not granting the nature of sinne to consist formally in privation meere privations for the most part have causes truely efficient fewer causes merely deficient if there can bee any causality in deficiencie Blindnesse deafenesse dumbnesse are privations and yet more men lose the sense of hearing sight or feeling in some particular members by violent blowes or by oppression of raging humours than by meere defect or decaying of spirits And where one man drops into his grave for meere age as ripe apples doe from the trees they grow on to the ground without blasts of winde or shaking a thousand die a violent or untimely death by true and positive efficient causes either externall or internall 7. That which either hath deceived or emboldned many Divines to allot sinne a being onely privative is a Philosophicall or metaphysicall Maxime most true in it selfe or in its proper sphere but most impertinently applied to the point now in question The Maxime is Omne ens quà ens est bonum Every entity in that it hath a being is good Most true if wee speake of transcendentall goodnesse or bonum entis for every thing which hath a true being is accompanied with a goodnesse entitative But the question amongst Divines is or should be about moral goodnesse or that goodnesse which is opposed to malum culpae that evill which wee call sinne Now if every positive entitie or nature were necessarily good according to this notion of goodnesse every intelligent rationall creature should be as impeccable as his Creator and wee should truely sinne if to speake untruly bee a sinne when wee say the Devill is a knave or any man dishonest For if every nature or entity as such were morally good it were impossible any nature or positive entity should bee evill qualified should be laden with sinne that is with that evill which is opposed to goodnesse moral or to holinesse whether this evill be a meere privation or positive entitie For in as much as the sight or visive facultie is the property of the eye or in as much as this proposition is true Oculus quà oculus videt this conclusion is most necessary when the eye hath lost the sight or visive facultie it is no more an eye unlesse in such an equivocall sense as wee say a picture hath eyes though not so properly If a man cannot see as we say stime but with one eye we account it no solecisme to say hee hath lost the other The case in the former instances is more cleare If Satan or man were morally good because they have a positive entity or nature neither of them could possibly be morally evill neither of them sinfull creatures albeit wee should grant sinne to bee as meere a privation as blindnesse is 8. It is a maxime in true Logick that is in the faculty or science of reasoning absolutely true and therefore true in Divinity also for truth is but one and it is her property not to contradict her selfe though examined in severall subjects Quicquid convenit subjecto quà tale non potest abesse sine subjecti interitu No naturall property can cease to bee or perish but together with the subject which supports it Whence if that Angel which is now the Devill had been truely good quà Angelus or if goodnesse moral had belonged unto him as he was a positive entitie or rationall creature hee had ceased to be either a rationall creature or any thing else when hee lost his goodnesse 9. Of sinnes of omission it is most true that they finde place in our nature rather by deficiency than efficiency and yet even this deficiencie for the most part is occasioned by some formall positive act or habit For this cause it is questioned among Schoolemen Whether there is or can bee any sinne of meere omission that is not occasioned by the commission of some other sinfull acts precedent or linked with some such act present To deny all sinnes of meere emission in nature already corrupted would bee more probable than in the first sinne whether of man or Angel Neither of them could possibly have committed sinne or done that which they ought not to have done without some precedent omission of that which they ought to have done But of this elswhere more at large and somewhat of it briefly in the next Chapter 10. Sure I am that the work which Satan wrought in our first Parents and in our nature had a cause truely efficient hath a being more than meerely privative For it was a work so really great and so cunningly contrived that the strength and wisdome of the Sonne of God was required as being onely all-sufficient to dissolve or destroy it and is it possible that any so great a work could be wrought by deficiencie or a defective worker Not Satan onely but his instruments are as positive as industrious efficients as effectuall workers of iniquity as the best man which ever lived the man CHRIST JESUS onely excepted was or is of righteousnesse But it is true againe that neither Satan nor his instruments can produce or make any substances or subjects these
righteously who his owne selfe bare our sinnes in his owne body on the tree 2. By this unspeakeable obedience of the Son of God in vouchsafing to suffer for us with unimitable patience what hee had in no degree deserved wee who were by naturall condition slaves to Satan were fully redeemed unto the liberty of the sonnes of God Of what kinde soever his sufferings were such and so many they were and all so patiently sustained by him that hee made a full and perfect satisfaction for the sinnes of the whole world as the ancient and our English Liturgie expresseth And that hee made a full and perfect satisfaction for all the sinnes whether of disobedience or impatience in sufferings of all those men who are in any degree redeemed by him is not questioned by any Christian whether in truth or profession onely who grant that the Sonne of God did make any true and proper satisfaction for the sonnes of men Concerning the extent of mans redemption by the Sonne of God or for his full satisfaction for their sinnes wee shall if God give leave discourse hereafter But whether unto this full and perfect satisfaction which hee undertook to make for men if not universally as our Church teacheth yet as all reformed Churches agree indefinitely taken it were necessary requisite or expedient that the Sonne of God should in our nature undergoe the same penalties or sufferings in kinde which without his satisfaction for them all mankinde should have suffered is a question which of late yeares hath troubled even those reformed Churches which agree upon this generall that his satisfaction was most full and all-sufficient The heat of this contention is unto this day rather abated than extinguished Now the paines which all the sonnes of Adam and Adam himselfe without full satisfaction made by the Sonne of God should in justice have suffered were the paines of Hell perpetuall durance in that unquenchable fire which was of old prepared for the Devill and his Angels Whether this fire be it materiall or immateriall or more then equivalent perhaps unto materiall fire did seize upon the humane soule or body of the Son of God or upon both either in his Agony in the garden or upon the Crosse is the point or probleme now in question The affirmative part of this probleme hath been averred by some in their publike writings under the title of the Holy Cause so dignified for no other reason as I conceive but because it was in those daies maintained stiffly by such as deemed thēselves more holy than other men at least more Orthodoxall in points of sacred doctrine than their Fathers in Christ and by confession of their owne consciences more learned than themselves Others taking this for granted that Christ did suffer all the pains of the damned have been so farre overswaid with their adherence unto this doctrine as to misdeem that Article in the Apostles Creed concerning Christs descending into Hell or ad inferos to incline this way as if to beleeve Christ did descend into hell had been all one as if he had suffered the paines of hell in his Agony in the garden or upon the crosse But if this had been any part of the true meaning of that Article the Apostles or whosoever were the first Composers of the Apostolique Creed as we now have it in the Latin especially in the English would haue exprest thēselves in plainer termes For if by Hell in that Article the paines of Hell had been by them meant or intended they would not have said that the Son of God descended into hell but rather that hell had ascended up unto him whether in the garden or on the Crosse That the Son of God our Saviour Christ did truely descend into the nethermost Hell may with greater ease and more probability bee proved out of the Canonicall Scriptures as well of the old Testament as of the New than his suffring the pains of hell can be inferred from either Testament or from the Apostles Creed That Christ did after his death or dissolution of body and soule descend into hell such as maintain his suffering the very paines of Hell do generally deny But to omit this incongruous paradox or this preposterous expression of it that Christs descention into hell should intimate his suffering of Hell-paine before his death it shall suffice to examine the reasons which have been or may be brought that hee did or was to suffer such paines whensoever or in what place soever All the reasons which can bee alledged that hee did suffer such pains must either be drawen from the event or some experiments recorded in the new Testament or from some predictions in the Old or from a necessity or expediencie whether in justice in equity or out of his abundant love to mankinde that he was to suffer them 3. No necessity or expediency of such sufferings can bee as I conceive pretended but either for satisfying Gods justice or for his full and absolute conquest over Satan or for his consecration to his everlasting Priesthood that hee might bee a mercifull and faithfull high Priest in things concerning God or a sweet comforter of all such as suffer whether in body or soule for his sake The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the former question that hee did suffer the very paines of Hell must bee proved or attempted from his speeches gesture or other experiments related by the Evangelists in their accurate descriptions of his Agony and sufferings upon the Crosse To begin then with the relation of his Agony That is related at large by S. Matthew and S. Luke which is scarce mentioned by S. Iohn whose speciall part in penning this sacred tragedie it was to remember that divine discourse with his Disciples being at his last Supper with them and his repaire to the garden beyond Cedron which he had so often frequented before that the opportunity of this place made Iudas of a secret thiefe an open Traytor 4. The maner circumstances of the Agony it self are most fully related by S. Luk. cap. 22. ver 39 c. And he came out and went as he was wont to the mount of Olives and his disciples also followed And when he was at the place he said unto thē Pray that ye enter not into temptation And he was withdrawn from thē about a stones cast and kneeled down prayed c. Not to dispute about the phrase here used by S. Lu. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as whether it imports some violent withdrawing by impulsion or some extraordinary instinct or whether in true construction it be no more than thus he did voluntarily withdraw himselfe questionlesse he was by the one meanes or other now led the second time to be tempted The temptation was grievous and more extraordinary then his former temptation in the wildernesse Thus much is intimated by that peremptory monition to his Apostles Pray that yee enter not into temptation partly from the maner of his