f. 387. for consorti r. consortio f. 401. f. in their baptism r. in their infancy before baptism f. 414. f. most high Ghost r. most high God f. 391. f. Syrius r. Syria f. 396. f. a siquidem r. siquidem f. 397. f. Arminians r. Armenians f. 398 f. convenientem r. convenientium f. 416. f dum quo r. cum quo f. suppetas r. suppetias f. 456. f. declanative r. declarative f. 453. f an evitable r. unevitable f. 471. f. inventute r. injuventute f. 495. f. which continual r. with continual THE SUMME OF Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical CONTAINED IN THE Apostles CREED Or reducible to it IN THREE BOOKS By PETER HEYLYN 1 Joh. 5.7 There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1654. A PREFACE To the following Work CONCERNING The ANTIQVITY AVTHORITY OF THE CREED CALLED THE Apostles CREED With Answer to the chief Objections which are made against it The Drift and Project of the WORK IT was a saying of St. Ambrose Unus unum fecit qui unitatis ejus haberet imaginem that God made only one in the first beginning after the likenesse or similitude of his own unity The creation of the World was the pattern of Man Man of the Church the Almighty of all Being one himself or rather being unity he bestowed upon the World not a being only but his blessing with it that being it should be but one One in the generall comprehension of parts and therefore by the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latines call it universum a name of multitude indeed but of a multitude united Universi qui in uno loco versi say the old Grammarians One also in opposition unto numbers and so maintained by Aristotle in his first De Coelo against the errors of Empedocles and Democritus two old Philosophers Now as he made the world but one after the similitude of himself so out of the world and according to that pattern created he man Made by the Lord according to his own image and made but one because the Lord was so that made him because the world was so out of which he was taken The severall parts and members in him do but commend the unity of the whole Compositum for though they are many members yet but one body saith St. Paul Which mutuall resemblance and agreement as it occasioned many of the old Philosophers to call man an Abridgement of the world so might it no lesse justly have occasioned others to style the world an inlargement of man Nay more then this seeing that only man was without an helper the Lord resolved to make one for him and to make her out of his own body only that so he might preserve still the former unity Nor stayed he here but he did give her unto man to be one flesh with him that to the unity of Original he might add the union of affections Magnum mysterium saith the Apostle but I Speak only as he did touching Christ and the Church For this Creation of the woman as St. Augustine tells us was a most perfect type of the birth and being of the Church of Christ Christum enim et Ecclesiam tali facto jam tunc prophetari oportebat The woman was created out of the side of man at such time as the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall upon him the Church was also taken out of the wounded side of Christ being cast into a deeper sleep then that of Adam And as the woman was one body both in the composition of her parts and one with Adam both in the union of love and unity of being so is it also with the Church She is at perfect union with him in the union of her affections being marryed unto him for ever one with him in the unity of her original for we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bone and lastly one in the consent and harmony of all her parts acknowledging one Lord one Faith one Baptisme For though the Church consisted in those early days both of Iews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians bond and free men not alone of different countries but of different natures yet being all incorporated into that society of men which we call the Church they make but one body only as St. Paul hath testifyed And whence proceeds that unity of this visible body but in that uniformity which all those severall persons have which belong unto it by reason of that one Lord whose servants they do all professe themselves to be that one Faith of which they do all make confession and that one Baptisme wherewith they are initiated into that society the outward and uniforme profession of these three things which appertain to the very essence of Christianity being necessarily required of each Christian man Christians they neither are nor can be who call not Christ their Lord and Master From hence it came that first in Antioch and afterwards throughout all the world all who were of the visible Church were called Christians Autor nominis ejus Christus saith Cornelius Tacitus But the bare calling of CHRIST IESVS our Lord and Master is not enough to prove us to be Christians unlesse that we do also embrace that Faith which he delivered to his Apostles and was by them delivered unto all the world And though we are not reckoned members of this visible Church till we receive admittance by the door of Baptisme yet is the door of Baptisme opened unto none untill they make profession of their faith in Christ. It is not honestie of life nor morall righteousnesse which gives denomination to a Christian although the want thereof doth exclude from heaven because they are not proper unto Christian men as they are Christians but do concern them as they are men The moral Law was given to mankinde in the state of nature and after promulgated to the Iews in more solemn manner Hence was it that so many of the antient Gentiles not to say any thing of the Iews before the coming of our Saviour were eminent in so many parts of moral vertue But for the acts of Faith whereby we do confesse that IESVS CHRIST is Lord of all things and willingly believe all those sacred truths which he came to publish to the world and by confession of the which we carry as it were a key to the door of Baptisme that is the proper badge and cognizance of a Christian man by which it is made known unto all the world both to what Lord he appertaineth and by what means he was admitted for a member of his house and family Which faith or rather the doctrines of which faith being first delivered by our Saviour with this comfort and reward annexed that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have life
Esdras the springs above the firmament were broken up which on the abatement of the waters are said to have been stopped or shut up again Gen. 8.2 A thing saith he not to be understood of any subterraneous Abysse without an open defiance to the common principles of nature Besides it doth appear from the Text it self that at the first God had not caused it to rain on the earth at all perhaps not till those times of Noah but that a moysture went up and watered the whole face of the ground Gen. 2.5.6 as still it is observed of the land of Egypt And that it did continue thus till the days of Noah may be collected from the bow which God set in the Clouds which otherwise as Porphyrie did shrewdly gather had been there before and if no clouds nor rain in the times before the Cataracts of heaven spoken of Gen. 7. 11. 8.2 must have some other exposition then they have had formerly Nay he collects and indeed probably enough from his former principles that this aboundance of waters falling then from those heavenly treasuries and sunke into the secret receptacles of the earth have been the matter of those clouds which are and have been since occasioned and called forth by the heat and influence of the Sun and others of the stars and celestiall bodies These are the principall reasons he insists upon And unto those me thinks the Philosophical tradition of a Crystalline heaven the watery Firmament we may call it doth seem to add some strength or moment which hath been therefore interposed between the eighth sphere and the primum mobile that by the natural coolness and complexion of it it might repress and moderate the fervour of the primum mobile which otherwise by its violent and rapid motion might suddenly put all the world in a conflagration For though perhaps there may be no such thing in nature as this Crystalline heaven yet I am very apt to perswade my self that the opinion was first grounded on this Text of Moses where we are told of Waters above the Firmament but whether rightly understood I determine not But I desire to be excused for this excursion though pertinent enough to the point in hand which was to shew the power and wisdome of Almighty God in ordering the whole work of the Worlds Creation To proceed therefore where we left As we are told in holy Scripture that God made the World and of the time when and the manner how he did first create it so finde we there the speciall motions which induced him to it Of these the chief and ultimate is the glory of God which not only Men and Angels do dayly celebrate but all the Creatures else set forth in their severall kindes The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work saith the royall Psalmist And Benedicite domino opera ejus O blesse the Lord saith he all ye works of his Psal. 103.22 The second was to manifest his great power and wisdome which doth most clearly shew it self in the works of his hands there being no creature in the world no not the most contemptible and inconsiderable of all the rest in making or preserving which we do not finde a character of Gods power and goodness For not the Angels only and the Sun and Moon nor Dragons only and the Beasts of more noble nature but even the very worms are called on to extol Gods name All come within the compass of laudate Dominum and that upon this reason only He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were created In the third place comes in the Creation of Angels and men that as the inanimate and irrational creatures do afford sufficient matter to set forth Gods goodness so there might be some creatures of more excellent nature which might take all occasions to express the same who therefore are more frequently and more especially required to perform this duty Benedicite Domino omnes Angeli ejus O praise the Lord all ye Angels of his ye that excel in strength ye that fulfil his commandements for the Angels are but ministring spirits Psal. 104.4 and hearken to the voyce of his words And as for men he cals upon them four times in one only Psalm to discharge this Office which sheweth how earnestly he expecteth it from them O that men would therefore praise the LORD for his goodness and declare the wonders which he doth to the children of men Then follows his selecting of some men out of all the rest into that sacred body which we call the Church whom he hath therefore saved from the hands of their enemies that they might serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of their lives And therefore David doth not only call upon mankinde generally to set forth the goodness of the Lord but particularly on the Church Praise the Lord O Hierusalem Praise thy God O Sion And that not only with and amongst the rest but more then any other of the sons of men How so because he sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and his Ordinances unto Israel A favour not vouchsafed to other Nations nor have the Heathen knowledge of his laws for so it followeth in that Psalm v. 19 20. The Church then because most obliged is most bound to praise him according to that divine rule of eternal justice that unto whomsoever more is given of him the more shall be required And last of all the Lord did therefore in the time when it seemed best to him accomplish this great work of the Worlds Creation that as his infinite power was manifested in the very making so he might exercise his Providence and shew his most incomprehensible wisdome in the continual preservation and support thereof And certainly it is not easie to determine whether his Power were greater in the first Creation or his Providence more wonderful and of greater consequence in the continual goverance of the World so made which questionless had long before this time relapsed to its primitive nothing had he not hitherto supported it by his mighty hand For not alone these sublunary creatures which we daily see nor yet the heavenly bodies which we look on with such admiration but even the Heaven of Heavens and the Hosts thereof Archangels Angels Principalities Powers or by what name soever they are called in Scripture enjoy their actual existence and continual beeing not from their own nature or their proper Essence but from the goodness of their Maker For he it is as St. Paul telleth us in the Acts who hath not only made the World and all things therein but still gives life and breath unto every creature and hath determined of the times before appointed and also of the bounds of their habitation And so much Seneca Pauls dear friend if there be any truth in those letters which do bear their names hath affirmed also
very month and day of our Saviours birth transmitted to us from the best and purest times of the Christian Church though not recorded in the Scriptures Theophilus Caesariensis who lived about the latter end of the second Century doth place it on the eight of the Calends of Ianuary which is the 25. of December as we now observe it and reckoneth it as a festival of the Christian Church long before his time Natalem Domini quocunque die VIII Calend. Januar. venerit celebrare debemus as his own words are And Nyssen though he name not the day precisely yet cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the famous day of Christian solemnity and placeth it in that point of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he telleth us there in which the dayes wax longer and the nights grow shorter which is we know about the time of the Winter Solstice In an old Arabick copy of Apostolick Canons it is especially appointed that the Anniversary feast of the Lords Nativity be kept upon the 25. day of the first Canun which is the same with our December on which day he was born A Persian Calender or Ephemeris doth place it on the same day also The Syriack Churches do the like and so do the Aegyptian or Coptick Churches as Mr. Gregory hath observed out of their Records not to say any thing of Iohannes Antiochenus the Author of an old MS. Cosmography who doth affirme as much for the East parts of the Roman Empire A day so highly esteemed in the former times that the Greeks called it generally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the feast of Gods manifestation in the flesh Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother or Metropolis of all other festivals another of the Eastern Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the festival of the worlds salvation A day of such a solemn concourse in the Christian Church that the Tyrants in the 10. Persecution made choise thereof as an especial opportunity for committing the greater slaughter of poor innocent souls and therefore on that day in ipso natalis Dominici die as my Author hath it burnt down the Church of Nicomedia the then Regal City of the East with all that were assembled in it for Gods publick service I know great pains have been unprofitably took to no other purpose but to prove that Christ was born at some other time of the year at least not on the day which is now pretended But the Arguments on which the disproof is founded are so slight and trivial that it were losse of labour to insist upon them Suffice it that the Church had far better reason to celebrate the birth-day of the Son of God then any of the sons of men to suppresse the same And this I call the birth-day of the Son of God because from this day forwards he was so indeed though not publickly proclaimed or avowed for such till the day of his Baptisme when it was solemnly made known by a voice from heaven The Word before In the beginning was the Word Ioh. 1.1 The Word made flesh and born of the Virgin Mary and by that birth the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth said the same Evangelist v. 14. For though we did not look upon him as the word made flesh his being born in such a miraculous manner of an untouched Virgin would of it self assert him for the Son of God So said the Angel Gabriel the first Evangelist Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God The Son of God as soon as born of the Virgin Mary because conceived and born in so strange a manner so far above the course of nature that none but God the God of nature could lay claim unto him For here the great miracle of the incarnation doth receive improvement in that the WORD was not only made flesh and born of a woman but born of such a woman as was a Virgin That so it was we have the warrant of the Scripture In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a City of Galilee named Nazareth to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the Virgins name was MARY So far the Text informes us in the present business giving her in one verse twice the name of Virgin the better to imprint the same in our hearts and memories And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For although Miracles in themselves are above our reason because beyond the reach of all natural causes yet doth it stand with very good reason that since the WORD vouchsafed to descend so low as to be born of a woman he should receive that birth from the purest Virgin and be fashioned in a womb which was unpolluted The pious care of his Disciples did conceive it fitting that his dead body should be laid in a Tomb or Sepulchre where never man was laid before And was it not as fit or fitter that his living body great with Divinity and a soul for in him dwelt the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily should be conceived in such a womb which had not been defiled with the seed of man in whose most chast embraces and unblamable dalliances there is a mixture of Concupiscence and carnal lusts Most fit it was his Mother should be like his Spouse of whom we finde it written in the Song of Solomon that she is as a Garden inclosed a spring shut up a fountain â—ealed Besides the meanes and method of mans redemption was to hold some proportion with the meanes of his fall that so that Sex might have the honour of our restauration which had been the unhappy Author of our first calamity that as by woman the Devil took his opportunity to introduce death into the world for the woman being deceived was in the transgression saith St. Paul to Timothy so by a woman and a Virgin such as Eve was then did Gods foreknowing will determine that life even life eternall should be born into it Eve the first woman out of an ambitious desire to be like to God coveted after the forbidden tree of good and evill The second Eve if I may so call her as Christ is called the second Adam 1 Cor. 15.45 out of an obedient desire that God might be as one of us did gladly bear in her womb the tree of life of which whosoever eateth he shall live for ever Eve as her name importeth was the Mother of all living of all that live this temporal and mortal life the life of nature and MARY in due time became the mother of that living Spirit by whom we are begotten to the life of grace So true is that of Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that from the same Sex came our weal and wo. To drive this Parallel further yet Eve at the time of the
thus speak for Lent Can. 69. Si quis Episcopus aut Presbyter i. e. If a Bishop Priest or Deacon or of any other holy Order kept not the holy fast of Lent let him be degraded unless it be in case of sickness Si laicus sit Communione privetur but if a Layman do not keep it let him be debarred from the Communion Ignatius one of the Apostles scholars and one who as it is believed saw Christ in the flesh in his Epistle to the Philippians doth advise them thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let none despise the Fast of Lent for it contains the imitation of our Lords example which is full enough Tertullian the most antient of the Latine Fathers whose works are extant in the world speaks of it by the name of jejunium Paschatos or the Easter fast because it doth immediately precede that solemn festival and reckoneth it amongst those publick orders which the Church was bound to keep from the first beginning though then he was an enemie to all publick orders and an open Montanist St. Ambrose a most godly Bishop accounts it as a special gift and blessing of Almighty God Hanc quadragesiman largitus est nobis Dominus c. that he appointed Lent unto prayer and fasting And Leo a right good and godly man too though a Pope of Rome affirmeth positively Magna divinae institutionis salubritate provisum esse c. that it was ordained by divine Institution for the clensing and purging of the soul from the filths of sin Not that they thought there did occur any Precept for it delivered in the Volume of the Book of God we must not so conceive or conclude their meaning but that both for the time of the year and the set number of days they had a special eye to this fast of Christs as to the most convenient direction which the Church could give them St. Hierome though he make it not a divine institution yet reckoneth it for an Apostolical Tradition which is as much as the two former do affirm rightly understood saying Nos unam Quadragesimam secundum traditionem Apostolorum c. that is to say We fast one Lent in the whole year at a fit and seasonable time according to the tradition of the holy Apostles Finally St. Augustine speaks thereof as a most wholesome and religious institution of great antiquity and use in the Church of Christ not only in his 74. Sermon de Diversis and the 64. of those de Tempore whereof some question hath been made amongst learned men but also in his Epistle unto Ianuarius of the authority whereof never doubt was raised And here I might proceed to St. Basil Chrysostom and other the renowned lights of the Eastern Churches but that sufficient to this purpose hath been said already especially for us and for our instruction who have been always counted for a Member of the Western Church Now as the institution of this Lent-fast is of great antiquity so was it first ordained and instituted upon such warrantable grounds as kept it free from all debate and disputation till these later times save that Aerius would needs broach this monstrous Paradox for which he stils stands branded as a wretched Heretick Non celebranda esse statuta jejunia sed cum quisque voluerit jejunandum that no set fasts were to be kept neither Lent nor others but that it should be left to mens Christian liberty For whereas it is very fit as a learned man of this Church very well observes that there be a solemn time at least once in the year wherein men may call themselves to an account for their negligences repent them of all their evil doings and with prayers fasting and mourning turn unto the Lord this time was thought to be the fittest both because that herein we remember the sufferings of Christ for our sins which is the strongest and most prevailing motive that may be to make us hate sin and with tears of repentant sorrow to bewail it as also for that after this meditation of the sufferings of Christ and conforming of our selves unto them his joyful Resurrection for our justification doth immediately present it self unto us in the days insuing in the solemnities whereof men were wont with great devotion to approach the Lords Table and they which were not yet baptized were by Baptism admitted into the Church Thus then it was not without great confideration that men made choyce of this time wherein to recount all their negligences sins and transgressions and to prepare themselves by this solemn act of fasting both for the better performance of their own duties in those following days of joyful solemnity as also to obtain at the hands of God the gracious acceptance of those whom they offered unto him to be entred into his holy Covenant it being the use and manner of the Primitive Church never to present any unto Baptism unless it were in case of danger and necessity but only in the Feasts of Easter and Whitsontide Which being the reasons moving them to institute a set and solemn time of fasting and to appoint it at this time of the year rather then another they had an eye as for the limitation of the number of days to our Saviours fast of forty days in the dedicating of the new Covenant not as precisely tyed to that time at all by the intent and purpose of the Lords example but rather that by keeping the same number of days we may the better keep in remembrance his fasting and humiliation for the sake of man and thereby learn the better to express our duty and affections to him Some other reasons are alleadged for this yearly fast of which some are Political for the increase of Cattel in the Common-wealth that being as we know full well the great time of breed some Physical for qualifying of the bloud by a slender diet of fish hearbs and roots the bloud beginning at that time of the year to increase and boyl and some Spiritual shewing the use and necessity of mortification at that time of the year in which the bloud beginning to be hot and stirring as before was said is most easily inflamed with the heats of lust And on these great and weighty reasons as the Church did institute and all the States of Christendome confirm the strict keeping of it so hath it hitherto been retained in this Church of England as far as the condition of the times would bear in which there is a solemn and set form of service for the first day of Lent which the Antients called by the name of Caput jejunii as also for every Sunday of it and for each several day of the last week of it the holy week as commonly our Fathers called it and abstinence from flesh injoyned from the first day thereof till the very last according to the usage of the purest times and all this countenanced and confirmed by
Augustine doth informe us saying Id enim sacrificium est quod successit omnibus sacrificiis quae immolabantur in umbra futuri that this one sacrifice succeedeth in the place of all those which were offered in relation unto Christ to come But before him St. Ireneus did more plainly affirme that same who living in the next age to the Apostles is able to instruct us better in the mysteries of the Christian faith then any other more remote and of lesse antiquity And he tels us this viz. that as God caused his Gospel to be preached over all the world in stead of the innumerable ordinances of the Law of Moses so he ordained that for those several sorts of sacrifices which are there prescribed simplex oblatio panis et vini sufficiat the offering of bread and wine only should be held sufficient More plainly yet as plainly as he could expresse himself by words and writing he doth thus deliver it Sed suis Discipulis dans consilium c. Christ saith he giving his Disciples charge to offer the first fruits of every creature to the Lord their God not that God standeth in need of their oblations but that they might not be esteemed to be either unfruitfull or ungratefull tooke ordinary bread eum qui ex natura panis est and having given thanks said This is my body and taking the cup into his hands such as we use to drink of the fruit of the vine acknowledged it to be his bloud What then for this we know already It followeth Et novi testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo By doing which saith that old Father he taught us the new sacrifice of oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles doth offer unto God over all the world So that the holy Eucharist was ordained by Christ not only as a Sacrament but a sacrifice also and so esteemed and called by the most antient writers though many times by reason of several relations it hath either severall names or severall adjuncts that is to say a sacrifice a commemorative sacrifice an eucharisticall sacrifice a spiritual sacrifice the Supper of the Lord a Sacrament A sacrifice it is and so called commonly in reference unto the oblation or offering of the bread and wine made unto God in testimony and due acknowledgment that all which we possesse is received from him and that we tender these his creatures to him as no longer ours but to be his and to be spent in such employments and for such holy uses as he shall please to put it to In this respect it is entituled Oblatio panis et vini the offering or oblation of bread and wine as before we saw from Irenaeus the sacrifice offered by us Gentiles hostia quae ipsi a nobis Gentibus offertur of the bread and wine presented in the holy Eucharist as in Iustin Martyr Sacrificium panis vini the sacrifice in plain terms of bread and wine as Fulgentius hath it For clearing of which point we may please to know that antiently it was the custome of the Primitive Christians to bring their bread and wine to the Church of God and offer them to the Lord by the hands of the Priest or Minister part of the which was consecrated for the use of the Sacrament the rest being usually given to the poor and needy as having a letter of attorney from the Lord of heaven to receive our bounties For thus we read in Iustin Martyr who lived the next dore also to the Apostles Prayers being done saith he we salute one another with an holy kisse Then do we offer to the Bishop for such is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he speaks of there bread and wine mixt with water as the use then was which he receiving offered to God the sacrifice of praise and glory c. And thus St. Cyprian speaking of a rich but covetous Widow who came not with her offering to the Church as her poor neigbours did charged her that she came into Gods house without her sacrifice and eat of that which had been offered or sacrificed unto God by far poorer folke Locuples et dives Dominicum celebrare te dicis but there dominicum signifyeth the Lords day plainly qui corbonam omnino non respicis qui in dominicum there it is the Church sine sacrificio venis qui partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis are his words at large Where sacrificium in both places signifyeth the bread and wine which they used to offer to the Lord to be consecrated and employed in celebrating the memorial of our Saviours passion It is called next a commemorative sacrifice a Sacrifice commemorative and representative by Dr. Morton Ld. B. of Durham in his book of the Sacrament in regard that it was instituted by our Saviour Christ for a perpetual memory of that one perfect and al-sufficient sacrifice which he offered of himself upon the Crosse. And to this end it was that Chrysostome having called the Sacrament of the Lords supper by the name of a Sacrifice addes presently not by way of correction or retractation as I know some think but by way of explanation only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the remembrance rather of a sacrifiâ—e or a commemorative sacrifice as some others call it Which word commemorative as I take it detracts not from the nature of a sacrifice as if it were the lesse a sacrifice because commemorative but only signifyeth the end to which it is specially directed For as the sacrifices of the old law were true and proper sacrifices in respect of the beasts or â—owles or other things which were offered although prefigurative of that sacrifice made upon the Crosse which was then to come so are the sacrifices of the Gospel true and real sacrifices in reference to the oblation made of bread and wine for the service of God although commemorative of the same great sacrifice now already past It was called thirdly a spiritual and Eucharistical sacrifice by reason that Gods servants therein make profession of their due acknowledgements for all the blessings which he hath vouchsafed to bestow on their souls and bodies especially for the redemption of themselves and of all mankinde by the death of Christ and therewith offering up themselves their souls and bodies as a pleasing and most acceptable sacrifice to the Lord their God For thus we finde in Iustin Martyr that the Bishop or President of the Congregation having received the bread and wine from the hands of the faithful offered by them the sacrifice of praise and thanks to God the Father of all things in the name of the Son and the holy Ghost for all those blessings which he hath graciously from time to time bestowed upon them And thus Irenaeus Oportet nos
that Hierusalem was seated in the midst of the earth and thereupon is called by some Geographers Vmbilicus terrae and that aswell Mount Olivet as the Valley of Iehosaphat did both stand Eastward of that City From hence it is by some inferred and their illation backed by no mean authority that Christ our Saviour did ascend up into the East part of Heaven I mean that part of Heaven which answereth to the Equinoctial East upon the Earth that in that part of Heaven he sitteth at the right hand of the Throne of Almighty God and from the same shall also come in the day of Judgement The use that may be made out of this illation shall be interwoven in the file of this discourse and altogether left unto the judgement of the Christian Reader That he ascended up into the Eastern part of Heaven hath been a thing affirmed by many of the Antients and by several Churches not without some fair hints from the Scripture also Sing unto God ye Kingdomes of the earth c. saith the Royal Psalmist To him that rideth on the Heavens as it were upon an horse said our old Translation to him that rideth on the Heaven of Heavens from the beginning as our new would have it But in the Arabick it runs thus Sing unto the Lord that rideth on the Heaven of Heavens in the Eastern part And so the Septuagint that rideth on the Heavens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards the East This Origen who very well understood the Eastern languages applyeth to CHRIST utpote a mortuis post passionem resurgens in Coelum post Resurrectionem ad orientem ascendens i. e. who rose from the dead after his passion and ascended up into Heaven towards the East after his Resurrection And so the Aethiopick reads it also viz. Who ascended up into the Heaven of Heavens in the East Thus Damascen affirms expressely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when he was received into Heaven he was carryed up Eastward And unto this that of the Prophet Ezekiel may seem to allude where he saith that the glory of the God of Israel Remember who it is which is called in Scripture the Glory of his people Israel Luk. 2. passâ—d through the Eastern gate Therefore that gate was shut up and might not be opened but to the Prince That being thus ascended into Heaven above he sitteth in that part thereof at the right hand of God must needs be granted if God be most conspicuously seated in that part himself And to prove this we finde this in the Apostolical constitutions ascribed to Clemens take notice by the way of the Antiquity of the custom of turning towards the East in our publick prayers so generally received amongst us who describing the Order of Divine service then used in the Church concludes it thus Then rising up and turning towards the East Let them pray to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who sitteth upon the Heaven of Heavens in the Eastern part To this agreeth that of the Prophet Baruch saying Look about thee O Hierusalem towards the East and behold the joy that cometh unto thee from God Towards the East that is to say saith Olympiodorus an old Christian writer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards IESVS CHRIST our Lord the Sun of righteousness And this way also looketh that part of the old Tradition derived as Irenaeus telleth us who lived neer those times ab Apostolorum Discipulis from those which heard it of the Apostles that is to say that the receptacle of the just and perfect men is a certain Paradise in the Eastern part of the third Heaven An argument that the glory of God is most conspicuous in that part also of the Heaven of Heavens the proper mansion of the Highest as before was shewn Finally that from the Eastern part of Heaven he shall make his last and greatest appearance at this day of judgement although it followeth upon that which is said already hath much stronger evidence An Arabick Author writing on the duties of Christian Religion and particularly of that Prayer directeth us to turn our faces when we pray to the Eastern Coast because that is the Coast concerning which Christ said unto whom be glory that he would appear from thence at his second coming To the same purpose the Arabick Code hath a Canon saying When ye pray turn your selves towards the East For so the words of our Lord import who foretold that his return from Heaven at the later day should be like the Lightning which glittering from the East flasheth into the West His meaning is that we should expect his coming from the East Iohn Damascen to the same effect thus For as the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so also shall be the coming of the Son of man in which regard we worship him towards the East as expecting him from thence And this saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an unwritten tradition delivered to us from the very Apostles Take for a close this of an old Confession of the Eastern Church viz. We pray towards the East for that our Lord Christ when he ascended into heaven went up that way and there sitteth in the heaven of Heavens above the East And in very deed we make no doubt but that our Lord the Christ as respecting his humane nature hath his seat in the Eastern part of the Heaven of Heavens and sitteth with his face turned towards this world To pray therefore or worship towards the East is to pray and worship towards our Saviour Nor is this only the Tradition of the Eastern and Southern Churches as by the fore-cited Authors it may seem to be We had it also in the West For Paulus de Palacios a Spanish writer makes it the general Tenet of all Christian people quod in Oriente humanitas Christi-sedeat that Christ in reference to his humane nature sitteth in the Eastern part of Heaven and that he is to come from thence where now he sitteth And in an old Festival in this Church of England the Priest used thus upon the Wake days or Feasts of Dedication to exhort the people viz. Let us think that Christ dyed in the Este and therefore let us pray besely into the Este that we may be of the number that he died for Also let us think that he shall come out of the Este unto the Doom Wherefore let us pray heartily to him and besely that we may have grace of contrition in our hearts of our misdeeds with shrift and satisfaction that we may stand that day on the right hand of our Lord IESV CHRIST And so much for this Eastern passage for which I am principally beholding to that learned peece of Mr. Gregory late of Christs Church in Oxon whom as I much esteemed when he was alive so have I made this free acknowledgement to the honour of his memory now
it a greater condemnation to our selves than men were aware of So could I wish the like Caution in all others also lest unawares they utterly exclude themselves out of Christianity For as Pope Gregory the first said unto some of the Bishops of his time concerning the Patriarch of Constantinople who had then took unto himself the title of Oecumenical or Vniversal Bishop viz. Si ille universalis or which is the same Catholicus est restat ut vos non sitis Episcopi so may we also say in the present case if we once grant them to be Catholickâ— we thereby do conclude our selves to be no Christians or at best but Hereticks Christian perhaps they have no fancy to be called the name of Christian in most parts of Italy being grown so despicable that Fool and Christian in a manner are become Synonyma Italico Idiomate per Christianum hominem stupidum stolidum solent intelligere as Hospinian tells us from the mouth of one Christian Franken who had lived amongst them Since then they have no minde to be called Christians nor reason to be called Catholicks let us call them as they are by the name of Papists considering their dependance on the Popes decision for all points of Faith And possibly we may gratifie them as much in this as if we did permit them the name of Catholicks For Bellarmine seems very much delighted with the Appellation flattering himself that he can bring in Christ our most blessed Saviour within the Catalogue of Popes and that he hath found a Prophecy in St. Chrysostom to this effect Quandoque nos Papistas vocandos esse That Papist in the times then following should be the stile and title of a true Professor Great pity it is but he and his should have the honor of their own discovery and Papists let them be since the same so pleaseth Now as the Papists make ill use of the name of Catholick so do their opposite faction in the Church of Christ conclude as falsly and erroneously from the title of Holy The Church is called Holy and is called so justly because it trains men up in the ways of godliness because it is so in its most eminent and more noble parts whom God hath sanctified by the Graces of his holy Spirit and finally because redeemed by the blood of Christ to the intent that all the faithful Members of it being by him delivered from the hands of their enemies might serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of their lives Not holy in the sense of Corah and his factious complices who made all the Congregation holy and all holy alike nor holy in the sense of some Antient and Modern Sectary who fancy to themselves a Church without spot or wrinkle a Church wherein there are no vessels of wrath but election onely and where they finde not such a Church they desert it instantly for fear they should partake of the sins and wickednesses which they observe to be in some Members of it Our Saviour Christ who better knew the temper of his Church than so compares the same in holy Scripture to a threshing floor in which there is both Wheat and chaff and to a fold wherein there are both Sheep and Goats and to a casting net which being thrown into the Sea drew up all kinde of Fishes both good and bad and to an house in which there are not onely vessels of honor as Gold and Silver but also of dishonor and for unclean uses and to a field in which besides the good Seed which the Lord had sown Infelix lolium steriles dominantur avenae the enemy had sowed his Tares In all and every one of which heavenly Parables our Saviour represented unto his Disciples and in them to us the true condition of his Church to the end of the world in which the wicked person and the righteous man are so intermingled that there is no perfection to be looked for here In which erroneous doctrines are so mixt with truth that it can never be so perfectly reserved and purified but errors and corruptions will break out upon it Perplexae sunt istae duae civitates in hoc seculo invicemque permistae saith the great St. Augustine The City of the Lord and the City of Satan are so intermingled in this world that there is little hope to see them separated till the day of judgement Though the foundation of the Church be of precious stones yet there is wood and hay and stubble in her superstructures and those so interwoven and built up together that nothing but a fatal fire is of power to part them I mean the fire of conflagration not of Popish Purgatory Were it not thus we need not pray to God for the good estate of the Church Militant here on Earth but glory as in the Triumphant as they do in Heaven And yet the Church is counted Holy and called Catholick still this intermixture notwithstanding Catholick in regard of time place and persons in and by which the Gospel of our Saviour Christ is professed and propagated Holy secundùm nobiliores ejus partes in reference to the Saints departed and those who are most eminent for grace and piety And it is called Ecclesia una one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church though part thereof be Militant here upon the Earth and part Triumphant in the Heavens The same one Church in this World and in that â—o come The difference is that here it is imperfect mixt of good and bad there perfect and consisting of the righteous onely Accordingly it is determined by St. Augustine Eandem ipsam unam Sanctam Ecclesiam nunc habere malos mixtos tunc non habituram For then and not till then as Ierom Augustine and others do expound the place shall Christ present her to himself a most glorious Church without spot or wrinkle and marry her to himself for ever Till that day come it is not to be hoped or looked for but that many Hypocrites False Teachers and Licentious livers will shroud themselves under the shelter of the Church and pass for Members of it in the eye of men though not accounted such in the sight of God The eye of man can possibly discern no further than the outward shew and mark who joyn themselves to the Congregation to hear the Word of God and receive his Sacraments Dominus novit qui sunt sui The Lord knows onely who are his and who are those occulti intus whose hearts stand fast in his Commandments and carefully possess their Souls in Truth and Godliness And yet some men there are as there have been formerly who fancy to themselves a Church in this present world without spot or wrinkle and dream of such a Field as contains no Tares of such an House as hath no Vessels but of honor sanctified and prepared for the Masters use The Cathari in
by them retained are all the holy days and fasts observed in the Church of England kneeling at the Communion the Cross in Baptism a distinct kinde of habit for the Ministration and divers others which by retaining they declare to be free from sin but those men to be guilty both of sin and scandal who wilfully refuse to conform unto them The Bohemians in their Confession go as high as this Humanos ritus consuetudines quae nihil pietati adversantur in publicis conventibus servanda esse i. e. That all Rites and Customs of Humane or Ecclesiastical Institution which are not contrary unto Faith and Piety are still to be observed in the publick meetings of the Church And still say they we do retain many antient Ceremonies as prescribed Fasts Morning and Evening Prayer on all days of the week the Festivals of the Virgin Mary and the holy Apostles The Churches of the Zuinglian and Calvinian way as they have stript the Church of her antient Patrimony so have they utterly deprived her of her antient Customs not thinking their Religion plain enough till they left it naked nor themselves far enough from the pride of Rome till they had run away from all Primitive decency And yet the Switzers or Helvetian Churches which adhere to Zuinglius observe the Festivals of the Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord and Saviour as also of the coming of the Holy Ghost And those of the Genevian platform though they have utterly exploded all the antient Ceremonies under the colour of removing Popish Superstitions yet they like well enough of others of their own devising and therefore do reserve a power as appears by Calvin of setling orders in their Churches to which the people shall be bound for he calls them by the name of vincula quaedam to conform accordingly By which we see that there hath been a fault on both sides in the point of Ceremonies the Church of Rome enjoyning some and indeed too many Quae pietati adversantur which were repugnant to the rules of Faith and Piety and therefore not to be retained without manifest sin as the Augustane and Bohemian Confessions do expresly say and the Genevians either having none at all or such as altogether differ from the antient Forms Against these two extreams I shall set two Rules whereof the one is given in terminis by the Church of England the other by an eminent and renowned Member of it The Church declares her self in the point of Ceremonies but addes withal That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to the Word of God That makes directly against those of the Church of Rome who have obtruded many Ceremonies on the Church of Christ plainly repugnant to the Word and therefore not to be observed without deadly sin The other Rule is given by our Learned Andrews and that relates to those of the opposite faction Every Church saith he hath power to begin a custom and that custom power to binde her own children to it Provided that is the Rule that her private customs do not affront the general received by others the general Rites and Ceremonies of the Catholick Church which binding all may not be set light by any And this he doth infer from a Rule in the Mathematicks that Totum est majus sua parte that the whole is more considerable than any part and from another Rule in the Morals also that it is Turpis pars omnis toti non congrua an ugly and deformed part which agrees not with the whole So than according to the judgment of this Learned Prelate the customs of particular Churches have a power of binding so they run not cross against the general First Binding in regard of the outward man who if he wilfully refuse to conform unto them must though unwillingly submit to such pains and penalties as by the same power are ordained for those who contemn her Ordinances And they are binding too in regard of Conscience not that it is simply and absolutely sinful not to yeeld obedience or that the Makers of those Laws and Ordinances can command the Conscience Non ex sola legislatoris voluntate sed ex ipsa legum utilitate as it is well resolved by Stapleton but because the things which they command are of such a nature that not to yeeld obedience to them may be contrary unto Justice Charity and the desire we ought to have of procuring the common good of all men amongst whom we live of which our Conscience would accuse us in the sight of God who hath commanded us to obey the Magistrates or Governors whom he hath set over us in things not plainly contrary to his written Word To bring this business to an end in points of Faith and Moral Duties in Doctrines publickly proposed as necessary in the way of Salvation we say as did St. Ierom in another case Non credimus quia non legimus We dare not give admittance to it or make it any part of our Creed because we see no warrant for it in the Book of God In matters of exterior Order in the Worship of God we say as did the Fathers in the Nicene Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let antient customs be of force and prevail amongst us though we have no ground for it in the Scripture but this general warrant That all things be done decently and in order as St. Paul advised They that offend on either hand and either bring into the Church new Doctrines or cast out of the Church her antient and approved Ceremonies do violate that Communion of Saints which they ought to cherish and neither correspond with those in the Church Triumphant nor such as are alive in the Churches Militant Of which Communion of the Saints I am next to speak according to the course and method of the present Creed ARTICLE X. Of the Tenth Article OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. SIMON ZELOTES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctorum Communionem Remissionem peccatorum i. e. The Communion of Saints The forgiveness of Sins CHAP. IV. Of the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head Communion of Affections inferreth not a community of Goods and Fortunes Prayers to the Saints and Adoration of their Images an ill result of this Communion NExt to the clause touching the nature and authority of the Catholick Church followeth in order a recital of the principal benefits which are conferred upon the Members of that Mystical Body Two in this life and two in that which is to come Those in this life are first that most delightful Fellowship and Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head and secondly That forgiveness and remission of all their sins as well actual as original which Christ hath purchased for them by his death and passion and by the Ministery
of the Church is confirmed unto them Those in the world to come are the fruits of these that is to say A Resurrection of the Body held by the chains of sin in the shades of death and a more full Communion with the Saints departed than in this life can be enjoyed that Fellowship which we have with them being here but inchoate and imperfect there compleat and absolute Of these the first is the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head whereof before I shall discourse as it lieth before me I shall first take the words asunder and shew what is the true meaning of the word communio then who they be that are presented to us by the name of Saints First for the word communio it signifieth that sacred action in which the faithful do communicate of the Body and Blood of Christ in the holy Eucharist Thus Hugo Cardinalis hath it Post hoc dicatur communio quae appellatur ut omnes communicemus i. e. After this let the communion be said so called because all should communicate or let it be so said That all my communicate Micrologus before him to the same effect Non potest propriè dici communio c. It cannot properly be called a Communion unless many do receive together Cassiodorus before either in his Tripartite History Stant rei velut in lamentationibus constituti cum sacra celebratio fuerit adimpleta communionem non recipiant i. e. They which lay under the Churches censures stood a far off full of great heaviness and lamentation and when the service was concluded received not the Communion but when they had fulfilled the course of their penance Cum populo communionem participant they were then suffered to communicate with the rest of the people More antient than them all is that Dionysius whether the Areopagite or not I dispute not here who wrote the Books De Hierarchia Caelesti Ecclesiastica in whom we do not onely finde the name but the reason of it Dignissimum hoc Sacramentum c Most worthy saith he is this Sacrament and far to be preferred before any other and for that cause it is deservedly and alone Meritò singulariter saith the Latine Copies called the Communion For although every Sacrament aims at this especially to unite those that are divided to the Lord their God Attamen huic Sacramento Communionis vocabulum praecipuè peculiariter contingit yet to this Sacrament the name of the Communion doth chiefly and properly belong as that which doth more nearly joyn us unto Christ our Saviour and entirely unite us unto one another And so his meaning is expressed by Pachymeres an old Greek Writer who hath paraphrased on the whole works of this Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore saith he did Dionysius call it the Communion because all which were worthy did communicate of the holy Mysteries From which Communion of the Faithful in those holy Mysteries not onely the profession of the Christian Faith but that sweet Fellowship and Conjunction of heart and soul which was amongst them got the same name also and was generally called Communio from that sacred Action which was most solemnly used amongst them at their publick meetings In this sense it is used by St. Augustine saying Mulier illa est communionis nostrae That the woman which he there speaketh of was of their Communion And in another place to the same effect Donatus non nisi in sua communione baptismum esse credit That Donatus thought that Baptism was onely to be had in the Churches of his Profession In the same sense it is used by Ierome speaking of his relations to the same St. Augustine It is not meet saith he that I who have been trained up in a little Monastery from my youth till now Aliquid contra Episcopum Communionis meae scribere audeam should presume to write against a Bishop of the same Communion or Profession with me and such a Bishop whom I began to love before I knew him The like he writes also to Pope Damasus where saying that he followed no chief but Christ he yet acknowledgeth Beatitudini tuae i. e. Cathedrae Petri communione consâ—cior That he was joyned in communion or in love and fellowship or consent of Doctrine and Religion with his Holiness or Chair of Peter In both acceptions of the word that is to say In the communion or communication of the holy Mysteries and in that union of affections which usually is held by those of the same Profession There is a Communion of the Saints whether they be Activè or Passivè Sancti whether triumphant in the Heavens or finishing their natural course upon the Earth For the word Sancti also hath its various notions and must be looked upon in each or the chief at lest before we can proceed to a certain issue And first the word Sancti hath been used for those who onely have the outward calling called to be Saints as they are stiled by the Apostle Rom. 1.7 and 1 Cor. 1.2 Though neither Saints by the infusion of inherent holiness nor by the piety and sanctimony of their lives and actions In this sense all the Romans and Corinthians to whom St. Paul wrote his Epistles were Saints by calling or called to this end and purpose that they might be Saints though there were many profane and carnal persons amongst them Next it is used for those who are Sancti renovati Saints by the renovation of the holy Spirit by which co-operating in the Laver of Regeneration they are washed and sanctified And such were also some of you But ye are washed but ye are sanctified saith the same Apostle that is to say By the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he hath shed abundantly in us as himself expounds it These are Passivâ— Sancti as before I called them because both in the outward calling and the effusion of the inward graces of the Holy Ghost we are simply passive But if we do obey that calling and manifest the grace which is given unto us by our lives and actions If from our hearts we do obey that form of doctrine which hath been delivered and yeeld our members as servants of righteousness to holiness then are we not passivè but activè sancti right Saints indeed walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord without reproof And if the fruit be unto holiness there is no question but the end thereof will be life everlasting when we shall stand before the Throne of the Lord our God and serve him day and night in his holy Temple advanced to those felicities of eternal glory which is designed by White Robes and the Palms of victory in the Revelation Never so fully Saints as then though we must first be Saints in the Militant Church before we can
them from the miseries of this sinful world as also for those manifold and admirable gifts and graces which he hath manifested in them and those examples of good living which he hath pleased to leave us in their lives and actions Finally calling upon God That we by following their good examples in all vertuous and godly living may come to those unspeakable joyes which are prepared for them who unfeignedly love him that we with them and they with us may have one perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his everlasting and eternal Kingdom And more than this we still preserve an honorable remembrance of them as men that having fought a good fight against Sin and Satan have glorified their Saviour in his earthly members and to the memory of the principal and most chief amongst them have set apart some particuliar days that so the piety of their lives and conversations might redound more unto Gods glory and to the better stirring up of the sons of men to serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness as they did before all the days of their lives This was the judgment and the practise of the best times of the Church when superstitious vanities had not yet prevailed according as I finde it registred in the works of Augustine Honoramus sane memorias eorum tanquam sanctorum hominum Dei qui usque ad mortem corporum pro veritate certarunt And this they did unto the ends before remembred Vt sc. ea celebritate Deo vero gratias de eorum victoriis agamus nos ad imitationem talium coronarum eorum memoriae renovatione adhortemur Of this I know no sober man can make any question nor do I finde it scrupled at by any of the Reformation who have not wholly studied Innovations in the things of God For my part I shall venture a little further and think it no error in divinity to allow the Saints a little more particular intercession for us than possibly hath been granted in the Protestant Schools That those Celestial Spirits which are now with God do constantly recommend unto him the flourishing estate and safety of the Church in general I suppose as granted The current of Antiquity runs most clearly for it That some of them at some times and on some occasions do also pray for some of us in particular I think I have sufficient reasons to perswade me to so far forth as by revelation from the Lord their God or by remembrance of the state that they left us in or any other means whatever they can be made acquainted with our several wants If it should please God to take away a man that is ripe for Heaven whose bosom-friend is guilty of some known infirmities I little doubt but that the spirit of him departed will pray for the amendment of his friend in the Heavens above for whose wel-doing on the Earth he was so solicitous To think that any of the Saints in the state of bliss were utterly unmindful of such friends as they left behinde were to deprive them of a quality inseparable from the soul the memory And to suppose them negligent of such pious duties as the commending of a sinner to the throne of grace were to deprive them of a vertue inseparable from the Saints their charity Potaemiana a Virgin-Martyr in Eusebius promised the Executioner at the time of her death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That she would pray unto the Lord for his conversion The story doth not onely say that she kept her promise but prevailed also in her sute her Executioner his name was Basilides becoming thereupon a Christian and dying in defence of the Faith and Gospel Thus doth Ignatius write unto the Trallenses nor is the credit of the Epistle questioned by our nicer Criticks that he did daily pray for them to the Lord his God and that he would not onely do it whiles he was alive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that he would continue in the same good office even in the estate of immortality Origen for his part was of this opinion That the Saints helped us by their Prayers Ego sic abitror saith he quod nos adjuvant orationibus suis So was St. Cyprian too that most godly Martyr Sanctos defunctos jam de suâ immortalitate securos de nostro adhuc esse sollicitos The Saints saith he though sure of their own salvation are yet sollicitous for ours Which if it be too general to be brought in evidence he telleth us a solemn covenant made betwixt him and other Bishops to this effect Si quis nostrum prior hinc praecesserit c i. e. That he who first departed to the state of bliss should recommend to God the estate of those whom he left behinde him And so far we are right enough in my poor opinion and if our adversaries in the Church of Rome would proceed no further the difference between us would be soon made up The error is not in the Doctrine but the Application For as it hapneth many times that an ill use may be made of a very good doctrine so in the darker and declining times of the Church of Christ it was conceived to be a solecism in the way of piety not to commend our prayers and desires to them who had so carefully commended our estate to God And so at last as there is seldom any medium inter summa praecipitia in the words of Tacitus no stop in tumbling down an hill till we come to the bottom The Saints in Heaven against their wills and besides their knowledge became the ordinary Mediators between God and Man And this I finde to be the very process of the Council of Trent in drawing up the Article for the Invocation of Saints First That the Saints do pray for us Sanctos una cum Christo regnantes orationes suas pro hominibus Deo offerre And so far Orthodox enough had they gone no further but then comes in the Inference or Application which is all as dangerous That therefore we must pray to them Proinde bonum atque utile esse simpliciter eos invocare ob beneficia à Deo impetranda c. ad eorum orationes opem auxiliumque confugore And here we have the point in issue We grant because indeed we must unless we absolutely mean to renounce our Creed That the Saints pray for us in the general as being some part of that Communion which belongs to them as fellow-members with us of that Mystical Body whereof Christ is the Head But yet we do not think it lawful to pray to them but to praise God for them which is that part of the Communion which belongs to us And we grant this because we may that some of them at sometimes and on some occasions do pray for some of us particularly as before was noted but yet we do not think as the Papists do That in
Monuments of the Catholick Church to signifie the death and not the birth-day of the Saints departed And more particularly we are thus informed by St. Augustine Solius Domini Beati Iohannis dies nativitatis in universo mundo celebratur i. e. That onely the day of the nativity of our Lord and Saviour and of St. Iohn Baptist were celebrated in his time in the Church of Christ Of Christ because there is no doubt but that he was conceived and born without sin original and of the Baptist because sanctified in his Mothers womb as St. Luke saith of him And for particular men it is said by Origen Nemo ex sanctis invenitur hunc diem festum celebrasse c. That never any of the Saints did celebrate the day of their own nativity or of any of their sons and daughters with a Solemn Feast The reason was the same for both because they knew that even the best of them were conceived in sin and brought forth in wickedness and therefore with no comfort could observe that day which the sense of their original corruptions had made so unpleasing But on the other side those men who either knew not or regarded not their own natural sinfulness esteemed that day above all others in their lives as that which gave them their first-being to enjoy their pleasures and they as Pharaoh in the Old Testament and Herod in the New failed not to keep the same as a Publick Festival Soli peccatores super hujusmodi diem laetantur as it is in Origen And hereupon we may infer without doubt or scruple that having the authority of the Scripture and the Churches practise and that practise countenanced by Authors of unquestioned credit not to say any thing further in so clear a case from the concurrent Testimonies of the Antient Fathers That there is such a sin as Birth-sin or Original sin a Natural corruption radicated in the Seed of Adam which makes us subject to the wrath and indignation of God Thus have we seen the Introduction of sin the first act of the Tragedy let us next look upon the second on the Propagation the manner how it is derived from Adam unto our Fore-fathers and from them to us And this we finde to be a matter of greater difficulty St. Augustine in whose time these controversies were first raised by the Pelagians did very abundantly satisfie them in the quod sit of it but when they pressed him with the quo modo how it was propagated from Adam and from one man to another he was then fain to have recourse to Gods secret justice and his unsearchable dispensation Et hoc quidem libentius disco quam doceo ne audeam docere quod nescio as with great modesty and caution he declined the business For whereas sin is the contagion of the soul and the soul oweth its being unto God alone and is not begotten by our parents the Pelagians either would not or could not be answered in their Quere How Children should receive corruption from their Parents not could the good Father give them satisfaction unto their demand But as a Dwarf standing on the shoulders of a Giant may see many things far off not visible to the Giant himself so those of the ensuing times building on the foundations which were laid by Augustine have added to him the solution of such doubts and difficulties as in his time were not discovered Of these some have delivered That the soul contracts contagion from the flesh even in the very act of its first infusion the union of the soul and body nor is it any thing improbable that it should so be We see that the most excellent Wines retain their natural sweetness both of taste and colour as long as they are kept in some curious Vessel but if you put them into foul and musty bottles they lose forthwith their former sweetness participating of the uncleanness of the Vessel in which they are Besides it is a Maxim amongst Philosophers Quod mores animae sequuntur temperamentum corporis That the soul is much byassed and inclined in the actions of it unto the temper of the body and if the equal or unequal temper of the body of man can as it seems incline the minde unto the actual embracing of good or evil then may it also be believed that the corruptions of the flesh may dispose the soul even in the first infusion of it to some habitual inclinations unto sin and wickedness Than which though there may be a more solid there cannot be a more conceiveable Answer But others walking in a more Philosophical way conceive that the accomplishment of the great work of Generation consists not in the introduction of the form onely or in preparing of the matter but in the constituting the whole compositum the whole man as he doth consist both of soul and body And that a man is and may properly be said to beget a man notwithstanding the Creation of his soul by God because that the materials of the Birth do proceed from man and those materials so disposed and actuated by the emplastick vertue of the Seed that they are fitted for the soul and as it were produced unto Animation Which resolution though it be more obscure unto vulgar wits is more insisted on by the learned than the former is and possibly may have more countenance from holy Scripture When God made man it is said of him That he was created after Gods own Image that is to say Invested with an habit of Original Righteousness his understanding clear and his will naturally disposed to the love of God But Adam having by his fall lost all those excellent endowments both of grace and nature begot a Son like to himself And therefore it is said in the fifth of Genesis That he begot a son in his own likeness after his own image and he called his name Seth Though Adam was created after the Image of God and might have still preserved that Image in his whole posterity had he continued in that state wherein God created him yet being faln he could imprint no other Image in the fruit of his Body than that which now remained in him his own Image onely the understanding darkned and the will corrupted and the affections of the soul depraved and vitiated Qualis post lapsum Adam fuit tales etiam filios genuit such as himself was after his Apostasie such and no other were the Children which descended of him â—s Paraeus very well observeth And if it fall out commonly as we see it doth that a crooked Father doth beget a crook-backed Son that if the Father look a squint the Children seldom are right-sighted and that the childe doth not onely inherit the natural deformities but even the bodily diseases of his Parents too It is the less to be admired that they should be the heirs also of those sinful lusts with which their
from the Virgin Mary The only Son and the best beloved Son equivalent in holy Scripture Christ why entituled the first born of every creature The rights of Primogeniture what they were and how vested in him CHRIST so to be accounted the Son of God as to be also God the Son That the Messiah was to come in the form of man The testimony given by Christ to his own Divinity cleared from all exceptions The story of Theodosius the Iew in Suidas touching Christ our Saviour justified The testimony given to Christs Divinity by the Heathen Oracles The falling of the Egyptian Idols the Poet Virgil and the Roman Centurion The Heresies of Ebion Artemon and Samosatenus in making Christ our Saviour a meer natural man briefly recited and condemned The perplexed niceties of the School avoided purposely by the Author The name of LORD appropriated in the Old Testament unto God the Father but more peculiar since the time of the Gospel to God the Son The title of LORD disclaimed by the first Roman Emperours and upon what reasons CHRIST made our LORD not only in the right of purchase but also by the law of Arms. CHAP. III. Of Gods free mercy in the Redemption of man the WORD why fitted to effect it The Incarnation of the Word why attributed to the holy Ghost the Miracle thereof made credible both to Jews and Gentiles THe controversie between Mercy Peace Truth and Iustice on the fall of man made up and reconciled by the oblation of Christ then designed and promised That God could have saved mankinde by some other means then by the Incarnation and death of Christ had he been so minded The Oblation of Christ rather a voluntary act of his own meer goodness then necessitated by imposition or decree Some reasons why the work of the Incarnation was to be acted chiefly by the holy Ghost The manner of the Incarnation with a more genuine explication of the Virgins answer The miraculous obumbration of the holy Ghost made more intelligible by two parallel cases The impure fancies of some Romish Votaries touching this Obumbration and the blessed Virgin The large faculties of Frier Tekell Sleidan corrupted by the Papists The strange conceit of Estius in making Christ the principal if not only Agent in the Incarnation The miracle of the Incarnation made perceptible to the natural man to the Iews and Gentiles The Virgins Faith a great facilitating to the Incarnation The Antiquity of the feasts of Annuntiation Christ why not called the Son of the holy Ghost The body of Christ not formed all at once as some Popishs writers doe affirm and the reasons why CHAP. IV. Of the birth of CHRIST the Feast of his Nativity Why born of a Virgin The Prophesie of Esaiah the Parentage and priviledges of the blessed Virgin NO cause for the WORD to be made flesh but mans Redemption Our Saviour Christ not only born but made of the Virgin Mary and the manner how That several Heresies in the Primitive times touching this particular The time and place made happy by our Saviours birth That Christ was born upon the five and twentyeth day of December proved by the general consent of all Christian Churches The high opinion of that day in the Primitive times The miracle of Christ being born of a Virgin Mother made perceptible by some like cases in the Book of God A parallel between Eve and the Virgin Mary The promise made by God to Eve The clearest Prophesie in Scripture that Christ our Saviour should be born of a Virgin-Mother That so much celebrated Prophesie Behold a Virgin shall conceive c. not meant originally and literally of the birth of Christ. The genuine meaning of the Text and how it was fulfilled in our Saviours birth Whether Christ were the direct heir of the house of David The Genealogie of Christ why laid down in such different wayes by the two Evangelists The perpetual Virginity of Christs Mother asserted against the Hereticks of former times defended on wrong grounds by the Pontificians The Virgin freed from Original sin by some zealous Papists and of the controversie raised about it in the Church of Rome What may be warrantably thought touching that particular The extreme errours of Helvidius and the Antidicomaritani in giving too little and of the Collyridians and the Papists on the other side in giving too great honour to the blessed Virgin Some strange extraâ—vigancies of the learned and vulgar Papists The moderation in that kinde of the Church of England The body of Christ a real not an imaginary substance and subject to the passions and infirmities of a natural body CHAP. V. Of the sufferings of our Saviour under Pontius Pilate and first of those temptations which he suffered at the hands of the Devil ANnas and Caiaphas why said to be High Priests at the self same time Of Pontius Pilate his barbarous and rigid nature and of the slaughter which he made of the Galileans By what SPIRIT for what reasons and into what part of the Wilderness Christ was led to be tempted A parallel between Christ and the Scape-goat Reasons for our Redeemers fast why neither more nor less then just forty days Of the Ember weeks The institution and antiquity of the Lenten fast and why first ordained St. Luke and St. Matthew reconciled A short view of the three temptations with a removal of some difficulties which concern the same How Satan could shew Christ our Saviour from the top of a mountain and in so short a space of time the Kingdomes of the earth and the glories of them In what respects it is said of Christ that he was or could be tempted of the Devil CHAP. VI. Of the afflictions which our Saviour suffered both in his soul and body under Pontius Pilate in the great work of MANS REDEMPTION THe heaviness which fel on Christ not so great and terrible as to deprive him of his senses In what respect it is said of Christ in his holy Gospel that his soul was sorrowful to the death The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifieth in the holy Penmen The meaning of our Saviours words Ioh. 12.27 No contrariety in Christs Prayer to the will of God Why death appeared so terrible in our Saviours eye The judgement of the Antients on that Prayer of Christ. The doctrine of the Schools touching the natural fear of death Why Christ desired not to receive that Cup from the hands of the Iews Of the comfort which the Angel brought unto our Saviour in the time of his heaviness A passage of St. Paul expounded Heb. 57. The meaning of the word Agony in the best Greek Writers and in the usual style of Scripture Christs Agony and bloudy sweat rather to be imputed unto a fervency of zeal then an extremity of pain The sentence put upon our Saviour in the High Priests Hall and at the Iudgement Seat of Pilate A brief survey of Christs sufferings both in soul and
Viceroyes put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians THe title of King designed to Christ long before his birth given to him by the Souldiers and confirmed by Pilate The generall opinion of the Iews and of the Apostles and Disciples for a temporal Kingdome to be set up by their Messiah the like amongst the Gentiles also Christ called the head of the Church and upon what reasons The actuall possession of the Kingdome not conferred on Christ till his resurrection Severall texts of Scripture explained and applyed for the proof thereof Christ by his regall power defends his Church against all her enemies and what those enemies are against which he chiefly doth defend it Of the Legislative power of Christ of obedience to his lawes and the rewards and punishments appendent on them No Viceroy necessary on the earth to supply Christs absence The Monarchy of the Pope ill grounded under that pretence The many Viceroyes thrust upon the Church by the Presbyterians with the great prerogatives given unto them Bishops the Vicars of Christ in spirituall matters and Kings in the externall regiment of the holy Church That Kings are Deputies unto Christ not only unto God the Father proved both by Scriptures and by Fathers The Crosse why placed upon the top of the regall Crown How and in what respects Christs Kingdome is said to have an end Charity for what reasons greater then faith and hope The proper meaning of those words viz. Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father disputed canvassed and determined CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to judgement both of quick and dead the souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgement and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action THe severall degrees of CHRISTS exaltation A day of judgement granted by the sober Gentiles Considerations to induce a natural man to that perswasion and to inforce a Christian to it That Christ should execute his judgement kept as a mysterie from the Gentiles Reasons for which the act of judging both the quick and the dead should be conferred by God on his Son CHRIST IESVS That the souls of righteous men attain not to the highest degree of happinesse till the day of judgement proved by authority of Scriptures by the Greek Fathers and the Latine by Calvin and some leading men of the reformation The alteration of this Doctrine in the Church of Rome and the reason of it The torments of the wicked aggravated in the day of judgement The terrors of that day described with the manner of it The errour of Lactantius in the last particular How CHRIST is said to be ignorant of the time and hour of the day of judgement The grosse absurdity of Estius in his solution of the doubt and his aime therein The audaciousnesse of some late adventurers in pointing out the year and day of the finall judgement The valley of Iehosophat designed to the place of the generall judgement The Easterne part of heaven most honoured with our Saviours presence The use of praying towards the East of how great antiquity That by the signe of the Son of man Mat. 24.30 we are to understand the signe of the crosse proved by the Western Fathers and the Southerne Churches The sounding of the trumpet in the day of judgement whether Literally or Metaphorically to be understood The severall offices of the Angels in the day of judgement The Saints how said to judge the world The Method used by Christ in the act of judging The consideration of that day of what use and efficacy in the wayes of life LIBER III. CHAP. I. Touching the holy Ghost his divine nature power and office The controversie of his Procession laid down historically Of receiving the holy Ghost and of the severall Ministrations in the Church appointed by him SEverall significations of these words the holy Ghost in the new Testament The meaning of the Article according to the Doctrine of the Church of England The derivation of the name and the meaning of it in Greek Latine and English The generall extent of the word Spirit more appositely fitted to the holy Ghost The divinity of the holy Ghost clearly asserted from the constant current of the book of God The grosse absurdity of Harding in making the divinity of the holy Ghost to depend meerly upon tradition and humane authority The many differences among the writers of all ages and between St. Augustine with himself touching the sin or blasphemy against the holy Ghost The stating of the controversie by the learned Knight Sir R. F. That the differences between the Greek and Latine Churches concerning the procession of the holy Ghost are rather verball then material and so affirmed to be by most moderate men amongst the Papists The judgement of antiquity in the present controversie The clause a Filioque first added to the antient Creeds by some Spanish Prelates and after countenanced and confirby the Popes of Rome The great uncharitablenesse of the Romanists against the Grecians for not admitting of that clause The graces of the holy Ghost distributed into Gratis data and Gratum facientia with the use of either Why Simon Magus did assert the title of the great power of God Sanctification the peculiar work of the holy Ghost and where most descernible Christ the chief Pastor of the Church discharged not the Prophetical office untill he had received the unction of the holy Spirit The Ministration of holy things conferred by Christ on his Apostles actuated and inlarged by the holy Ghost The feast of Pentecost an holy Anniversary in the Church and of what antiquity The name and function of a Bishop in St. Pauls distribution of Ecclesiasticall offices included under that of Pastor None to officiate in the Church but those that have both mission and commission too The meaning and effect of those solemne words viz. receive the holy Ghost used in Ordination The use thereof asserted against factious Novelty The holy Ghost the primary Author of the whole Canon of the Scripture The Canon of the Evangelical and Prophetical writings closed and concluded by St. Iohn The dignity and sufficiency of the written word asserted both against some Prelates in the Church of Rome and our great Innovators in the Church of England 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 Aristocraticall THe name Church no where to be found in the old Testament The derivation of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what it signifyeth in old Authors The Christian Church called not improperly by the name of a Congregation The officiation of that word in our old Translators and the unsound construction of it by the Church of Rome Whence the word CHVRCH in English hath its derivation The word promiscuously used in the elder times
the Greeks and the antient Fathers The ireconcileable differences amongst the Papists and the fluctuation of St. Augustine in the point of Purgatory CHAP. V. Of the first Introduction of sin God not the Author of it Of the nature and contagion of Original sin No actual sin so great but it is capable of forgivenesse In what respect some sins may be accounted venial and others mortall FOrgivenesse of sins the first great benefit redounding unto mankind by our Saviours passion Man first made righteous in himself but left at liberty to follow or not to follow the ways of life Adam not God the author of the first transgression proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The heresie of the Cataphrygians and of Florinus in making God the Author of sin as also of Bardesenus and Priscilian imputing sin to fate and the stars of Heaven The impious heresie of Florinus revived by the Libertines The Founder of the Libertines a member of the Church of Rome not of Calvins Schoole Calvin and his Disciples not altogether free from the same strange tenets The sin of Adam propagated to his whole posterity Original sin defined by the Church of England and in what it specially consisteth That there is such a sin as original sin proved by the testimony of the Scriptures by the light of reason and by the Practise of the Church Private Baptisme why first used and the use thereof maintained in the Church of England Not the day of their birth but of the death of the Saints observed as Festivals by the Church and upon what reasons The word natalis what it signifyeth in the Martyrologies Original sin how propagated from one man to another and how to children borne of regenerate Parents The sin of Adam not made ours by imitation only but by propagation Of the distinction of sins in venial and mortal and how far abominable Equality of sins a Paradox in the Schoole of Christ. No sin considered in its self to be counted veniall but only by the grace and goodnesse of Almighty God No sin so great but what is capable of Pardon if repented of no not the murdering of Christ nor the sin against the holy Ghost Arguments from the holy Scriptures as Heb 6.4 6. and Heb. 10.26 27. and 1 Ioh. 5.16 to prove some sins to be uncapable of pardon produced and answered The proper application of the severall places with the error of our last Translators in the second Text. CHAP. VI. Of the remission of sins by the bloud of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptisme and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the authority Sacerdotal GOD the sole Author Christ the impulsive meritorious cause of the forgivenesse of sins Remission of sins how and in what respects ascribed to the bloud of Christ. Power to forgive sins conferred upon and exercised by the Apostles The doctrine of the Church of England touching the efficacy of Baptisme in the washing away of sin confirmed by the Scriptures and the Fathers and many eminent Divines of the reformed Churches Baptismal washings frequently used of old both by Iews and Gentiles as well to expiate their sins as to manifest and declare their innocence The waters of Baptisme in what respect made efficacious unto the washing away of the guilt of sin What it is which makes Baptisme to be efficacious unto the washing away of sin The rigor of the Primitive Church towards such as sinned after Baptisme The Clinici what they were and how then esteemed of The institution and antiquity of Infant Baptisme The old rule for determining in doubtfull cases how applyed to this Proofs for the Baptisme of Infants from St. Augustine up to Irenaeus inclusively What faith it is by which Infants are Baptized and justifyed Of the necessity of Baptisme the want thereof how supplyed or excused in the Primitive times and of the state of Infants dying unbaptized Repentance necessary and effectuall in men of riper years for remission of sins Confession in the first place to be made to God satisfaction for the wrong done to be given to man Satisfaction for sin in what sense to be given to God by the Penitent sinner Private confession to a Priest allowed of and required by the Church of England The Churches care in preserving the seal of confession from all violation Confession to a Priest defended by the best Divines of the Anglical Church approved by the Lutheranâ— not condemned by Calvin The disagreement of the Papists in the proofs of their auricular confession from the Texts of Scripture The severity of exacting all particular circumstances in confession with the inconveniences thereof That the power of sacerdotall Absolution in the opinion of the Fathers is not declarative only but judicial and that it is so also both in the Doctrine and the practise of the Church of England 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 THe resurrection of the body derided and contemned by the Antient Gentiles Proofs for the resurrection from the words of Iob from the Psalmes and Prophets and from the Argument of our Saviour in the holy Gospels Our Saviours Argument for the resurrection against the cavils of the Sadduces declared expounded and applyed to the present purpose Several Arguments to the same purpose and effect alledged by St. Paul in his Epistles and that too of the same numerical not another body Baptizing of or for the dead a pregnant proof or argument for the resurrection severall expositions of the place produced and which most probable Baptizing or washing of the dead antiently in use amongst the Iews the Gentiles and the Primitive Christians with the reasons of it Practical and natural truths for a resurrection The resurrection of the same bâ—dy denyed by Hereticks and justifyed with strong reasons by the Orthodox Christians Two strong and powerfull arguments for the resurrection produced from the Adamant and the art of Chymistry That the dead bodies shall be raised in a perfect stature and without those deformities which here they had and in their several sexes also contrary to the fancies of some vain disputers Considerations raised on the Doctrine of the resurrection with reference unto others and unto our selves The Doctrine of the Millenarians originally founded on some Iewish dotages by whom first set on foot in the Church of Christ how refined and propagated The Millenarian Kingdome described by Lactantius and countenanced by many of the antient writers till cryed down by Hierome The texts of Scripture on which the Millenarians found their fancies produced examined and lâ—yed by as unusefull for them The disagreement of the old Millenarians in the true stating of their Kingdome CHAP. VIII Of the immortality of the soul and the glories of Eternal life prepared for it as also of the place and torment of hell Hell
to him therefore must we sue and address our prayers as often as we stand in need of his help and succour either in stirring up the diligence of our own proper Angels or sending us such for their succour as the case requireth The Angels are his Ministers but not our Masters our Guardians at the best but by no means our Patrons Therefore we must not pray to them in our times of danger but to God that he would please to send them Not unto them because we know no warrant for it in the holy Scripture nor any means might it be done without such warrant to acquaint them ordinarily with our present need by which they may take notice of our distresses and come in to help us 'T is true the Daemons or evil Angels in the state of Gentilism were honoured both with Invocation and with Adoration and the Colossians being newly weaned from their Idolatries thought it no great impiety to change the subject and to transfer that honour on the Angels of light which formerly they had conferred on the Angels of darkness But doth St. Paul allow of this No he blames them for it Let no man saith he beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels Not in a voluntary humility as if we thought our selves unworthy to look up to God and therfore must employ the Angels for our Mediators For this was formerly alleadged as it seems by Zonaras by some weak Christians in the infancy and first days of the Church Of whom he telleth us that they were verily perswaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say That we ought not to invocate Christ to help us or to bring us to God but to desire that favour of the Angels rather immediate address to Christ being a thing too high for our great unworthiness Nor in the worshipping of Angels which being an effect of their former Gentilism Of which consult St. August Confess l. 10. cap. 42. De Civit. Dei l. 8 9 10. Theodoret upon the Text Clemens of Alexandr Strom. l. 3. Can. 35. Concil Laodicensis was therefore by St. Paul condemned and forbidden as a thing plainly derogatory to the honour of Christ whom they did hereby rob of the glorious Office of being the Mediator between God and man 'T is true that there were some in the Primitive times who were called Angelici who intermingled the Worship of God with the adoration of Angels and lived about the end of the second Century But then it is as true withall that they were reckoned Hereticks for so doing both by Epiphanius in his Pannaion and by St. Augustine in his 39. chap. ad quod vult Deum And not the adoration only but even the invocation of Angels also invocation being an act of Divine worship is by the same Epiphanius condemned for heresie Haer. 38. where he speaks of it as a thing in usual practise amongst the Hereticks called Caini Nor was this worshipping of Angels condemned only by them but by all the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea Canon 35. nor by them only who were guided by a fallible spirit nor by St. Paul only though directed by the Spirit of God but by the very Angels themselves who constantly have refused this honour whensoever by mistake or otherwise it was offered to them For when Manoah in testimony of his joy and thankfulness would have offered a Kid unto that Angel which brought him news from Heaven of the birth of his son the Angel did refuse it saying If thou wilt offer a Burnt-offering thou must offer it unto the Lord By which modest and religious refusal of so great an honour Manoah knew as the Text hath it that he was an Angel And if we may not offer to them the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving then certainly they do as little expect our incense or the oblation of our prayers And therefore it was both piously and acutely said by divine St. Augustine that if we would rightly worship Angels we must first learn of them that they will not be worshipped The like we also finde in the Revelation Where when St. Iohn astonished at the sight of the Angel fell down at his feet to worship him the Angel did refuse it saying See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy Brethren Concerning which we have this memorable passage of the same St. Augustine Quare honoramus eos c. We honour saith he the angels with love not service neither do we build Temples to their honour for they will not so be honoured by us because they know that we our selves are the Temples of God And therefore it is rightly written that a man was forbidden by an Angel that he should not worship him but one God alone under whom he was a fellow-servant with him They then which do invite us to serve and worship them as Gods and so do all which do invite us to pray unto them are like to proud men who would be worshipped if they might though to say truth to worship such men is less dangerous then to worship Angels Finally he resolves it thus and with his Resolution I shall close this point though much more might be said in the prosecution Let Religion therefore binde us to one God Omnipotent because between our mindes or that inward light by which we understand him to be the Father and the truth there is no creature interposed Pray to them then we may not we have no ground for it But pray to GOD we may to send them to our aid and succour when the extremity of danger doth invite us to it And having made our prayers we may rest assured that God will send them down from his holy hill from whence comes Salvation and give them charge to succour us as our need requireth Calvin himself alloweth of this and gives it for a Rule or Precept Vt in periculis constituti a Deo petamus protectionem Angelorum confidamus eos ex mandato Dei praesto fore But behold a greater then Calvin here For our most blessed Mother the Church of England not only doth allow of so good a rule but hath reduced his rule to as good a practise By whom we are taught to pray in the Collect for St. Michael the Archangels day that God who hath ordained and constituted the service of all Angels and men in a wonderful order would mercifully grant that they who always do him service in Heaven may by his appointment succour and defend us on earth through IESVS CHRIST our Lord. Amen Further then this we may not go without entrenching deeply upon Gods Prerogative which as these blessed spirits expect not from us so neither will they take it if it should be offered Non nobis Domine non nobis is the Angels song But so it is not with the Devil or the Angels of darkness who do not only accept of those
the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world
till the coming of CHRIST and after a more explicit faith in Christ when he had redeemed it then had been pressed before on the house of Iacob CHRIST hath redeemed us saith St. Paul from the curse of the Law that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles thorough IESVS CHRIST that is to say that as Abraham did believe in God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness even so the Gentiles thorow faith in IESVS CHRIST might be justifyed also And yet faith doth not justifie conceive not so out of any property that is natural or essential to it or any dignity or work inherent in it above other Theological vertues but out of somewhat that is adventitious and extrinsecal meerly that is to say the will good-pleasure or appointment of Almighty God This is the will of him that sent me saith our Saviour that every Man that seeth the Son and believeth in him should have life everlasting Where clearly he suspends the justifying property or power of faith not upon any quality or vertue that it hath in it self but only on the will and free grace of God which had it fallen in conjunction or cooperation with any other of Gods graces either hope or patience or any other whatsoever that act of grace or the act rather of that grace so by God appointed would have conduced as fully to our justification as now the act of faith or believing doth But now to trouble our selves with these speculations suffice it that as God was pleased to make choice of faith so he made choice not of the habit or the object but the act of faith to be imputed to us for our justification Abraham believed God saith the holy Scripture and it was counted unto him for righteousness Nor is it thus with Abraham only but with all the faithful who if they do believe on him that justifyeth the ungodly that faith of theirs shall be accounted unto them for righteousness also T is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere the very act of faith it self which God requireth of us for our justification in stead of all the workes of the Law and if we do believe as we ought to do that every act of our believing without the help of any of the workes of the Law shall be imputed to us for righteousness Seven times at least in the fourth Chapter of the Romans hath the Apostle used this phrase to account or impute faith for righteousness unto the believer We finde the same phrase also used in the 3. Chapter to the Galatians vers 5. and in the 2. of St. Iames vers 23. Scarce such another consonancy of expression in the holy Scripture Which certainly the holy Ghost had not stood upon not bound himself precisely to the words and syllables of if he had not meant to give this honour unto faith it self but rather to some other thing which faith layeth hold of and applyeth for our endlesse comfort And this as it is most agreeable to the Text and Context where faith is put in opposition unto workes that faith alone might have the honour of our justification so hath it been the constant Doctrine of the antient Writers who do ascribe the same to faith and to faith properly so called not as the word is taken tropically or metonymically for the object thereof For thus saith Iustin Martyr first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abraham saith he had not from God the testimony or commendation of righteousness because of his circumcision but because of his faith Tertullian next How saith he are we made the children of faith or of whose faith if not of Abrahams For if Abraham believed God and that was imputed unto him for righteousness and he deserved thereby to be made the Father of many nations Not autem credendo Deo magis pro inde justificamur sicut Abraham we by believing God more as having more things to believe then Abraham had for that I take it is his meaning are therefore also justifyed as Abraham was Next to him that of Origen which we had before Cum multae fides Abraham praecesserint c. Whereas many faiths or many acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so imputed unto him for his justification St. Ambrose in fewer words saith as much as any Sic decretum dicit a Deo ut cessante lege solam fidem gratia Dei posceret ad salutem God saith he hath so decreed that the Law ceasing the grace of God should require only faith of man towards his salvation Why was this writ saith St. Chrysostome of our father Abraham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that we may learn that we are also justifyed as Abraham was because we have believed the same God And in another place What was Abraham the worse for not being under the Law To which he answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was nothing the worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his faith was sufficient for his justification What saith St. Augustine of himself In eum credo qui justificat impium ut deputetur fides mea ad justitiam that is to say I do believe in him that justifyeth the ungodly that my faith may be imputed to me for righteousnesse What doth the same Father say of Abraham in another place if at the least the work be his Ecce sine opere justificatur ex fide et quicquid illi legali observatione potest conferri totum credulitas sua donavit Behold saith he Abraham is justifyed without works by faith and whatsoever could have been conferred upon him by the observation of the Law that his believing only hath wholly given him Primasius somewhat after him in the course of time Tam magna fuit dono dei fides Abrahami ut et pristina peccata ei donarentur et sola prae omni justitia doceretur accepta i. e. So great was Abrahams faith by the gift of God that both his former sins were pardoned and this his faith alone was preferred in acceptation before all righteousness And finally thus Haimo B. of Halberstad an Author of the 9. Century to descend no lower Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousnesse that is saith he unto remission of sinnes quia per ipsam fidem qua credidit justus effectus est because by that faith wherewith he believed he was made righteous By all which testimonies of the antients it is plain and evident that faith is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the very act of believing is that which is imputed to us for our justification and that this is no new interpretation excogitated by Arminius in these latter days as some please to tell us Nor is this contrary to the Church of England delivered in her book of Homilies though at the first appearance it may so be thought When we
make an atonement with him And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon his head and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins putting them upon the head of the Goat and shall send him away by the hands of a fit man into the Wilderness And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited and he shall let go the Goat in the Wilderness A Type or Figure most punctually agreeing with the Antitype with our Redeemers going into the Desert to a land not inhabited No sooner had he been declared by St. Iohn the Baptist to be the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world no sooner was the burden of our iniquities laid upon his head but presently he is led by the holy Spirit as by the hands of a fit man into the midst of the Wilderness And though some of the antient writers as Iustin Martyr and Tertullian refer this figure of the Scape-goat to our Saviours passion and some of later times to his resurrection yet in my minde Calvin hath hit more happily on the right application then any of those which went before him By whom it is conceived and rightly that of the two Goats which were brought before the Lord the one was offered for a Sacrifice after the manner of the Law the other was sent forth alive to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a thing devoted to destruction for others For though saith he a more curious speculation may be brought as that the sending away of the Scape-goat was a figure of Christs Resurrection yet I embrace that which is more plain and certain that the Goat sent away alive and free was vice piaculi as a thing devoted to bear the brunt for others that by his departure and leading away into the Wilderness the people might be assured that their sins did vanish and were carried away far out of sight A second cause of leading our Saviour into the Wilderness and to the parts thereof most retired from company was to the end as the same Calvin is of opinion that he might undertake the Office of a publick Teacher and an Embassadour from heaven with the more authority tanquam magise Coelo missus quam assumptus ex oppido aliquo communi hominum grege as being rather sent from heaven then taken out of any town or place of ordinary commerce For so was Moses taken up by God into Mount Sinai tanquam in Coeleste sacrarium as into one of the revestries of the highest heavens before the promulgating of the Law and so Elias in like manner Qui instaurandae legis Minister erat whom God made choyce of to restore his Law to its primitive lustre was by the Lord withdrawn aside to the Mount of Horeb situate in the remotest part of this very Wilderness In this particular both Moses and Elias had been types of Christ who was to be the Mediator of a better Covenant i. e. a Covenant established upon better promises and therefore Christ to be conform to them in this particular lest he should seem in any thing to fall short of them The third and last consideration which occasioned the leading of our Saviour into the Wilderness was to afford the better opportunity unto Satan to pursue his business to tempt and trie him to the purpose For as St. Chrysostome well observes the Devil never is more busie to tempt men to sin then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he findes them left unto themselves without help or company This opportunity he took to seduce poor Eve when she was all alone and without her husband and speeding then so well in that great attempt hath ever since made use of the like advantages He found our Saviour in the Wilderness and more then so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most inaccessible places of it saith the same St. Chrysostom so that the loneliness of the place seemed to concur with other circumstances especially his beginning to be hungry after so long and great a fast to animate the old Tempter to give the onset and to befool himself with the hopes of Victory But here the Devil was deceived in his expectation and gave himself the overthrow by his too much forwardness falling into the hands of that promised seed of which he had been told in the beginning of time it should break his head The second thing to be considered in this story of the Temptation of our Saviour is the Preparation which is thus laid down by the Evangelists And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterwards an hungred For then the Tempter came unto him so St. Matthew hath it But St. Luke thus He was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness being forty days tempted of the Devil and in those days he did eat nothing and when they were ended he afterwards hungred and the Devil said unto him c. St. Mark more briefly and with some difference from the other two And he was in the Wilderness forty days and was tempted of Satan Which different narration of these three Evangelists hath produced a doubt amongst the learned touching the very moment and point of time when the Devil first began his onset whereof more anon but they do all well agree in this that he fasted forty days and forty nights being the whole time that he continued in the Wilderness And herein divers things are to be considered First why our Saviour chose this time for so great a work Secondly Why he fasted forty days and forty nights neither more nor less And thirdly what was after done by the Church of God in reference to this great example And first it may be thought that he chose this time because he then began to set himself in more special manner to the great work of our Redemption which was not to be wrought but by humbling of himself for us under the mighty hand of his heavenly Father and fasting is a special act of humiliation in which respect the Church hath taught us thus to pray in her publick Liturgies O Lord which for our sakes did fast forty days and forty nights c. Secondly we may think that he chose this time that by this exercise of fasting he might prepare and fit himself for the discharge of the Prophetical Office the function of the holy Ministery which he was pleased to take upon him Not that he needed in himself to whom God had not given the spirit by rule or measure but partly to comply with the examples of Moses and Elias in the former times who had both betook themselves to fasting on the like occasions and partly to leave an example to his Church which they were to follow in calling men unto the Ministery of the Gospel Which Precedent as we finde it followed
in the Ordination of Paul and Barnabas and other Presbyters of the Church in the best and Apostolical times so gave it a fair hint to the times succeeding to institute four solemn times of publick fasting which they called jejunia quatuor temporum we the ember-Ember-weeks to be the set and solemn times of giving Orders in the Church and calling men unto the Ministry of the same to the end that all the people might by prayer and fasting apply themselves unto the Lord humbly beseeching him to direct the Fathers of the Church to make choyce of fit and able labourers to attend his harvest as also to enable those who are called unto it and give them gifts and graces fitting for so great a business Which antient institution of the Church of God as it is prudently retained in this Church of England according to the 32 Canon of the year 1603. in which all Ordinations of Presbyters and Deacons are restrained to those four set times so were it to be wished that the same authority would establish publick meetings and set forms of Prayer to be observed at those times that so with one consent of heart both Priests and people might commend that religious work to the care and blessings of the Lord according as it was directed in the Common-Prayer Book intended for the use of the Church of Scotland There was another reason which induced our Saviour to make choyce of this time for his fast which was the better to draw on the Tempter to begin his assault but this will better fall within the compass of the third general point to be considered in this story that is to say the main act of it or the temptation it self In the mean time we may consider what might be the reason why he fasted forty days and forty nights neither more nor less In which it is first to be observed that it is not only said that he fasted forty days and no more then so but forty days and forty nights Which caution was observed by St. Matthew for this reason chiefly left else it might be thought by some carnal Gospellers that he fasted only after the manner of the Iews whose use it was to eat a sparing meal at night having religiously fasted all the day before Si ergo diceretur quod Christus jejunaret quadraginta diebus without making mention of the nights intelligeretur quod per noctes comedebat sicut Judaeis solitum erat as Tostatus notes upon the Text which also is observed by Maldonat Iansenius and some other of the Romish Writers and then there had been little in it of a miracle either to work upon the Iews or confound the Devil As well then forty nights as forty days to avoid that cavil And there was very good reason too why he should fast just forty days and forty nights neither more nor less Had he fasted fewer days then forty he had fallen short of the examples which both Moses and Elias left behinde them on the like occasions on like occasion I confess but on less by far both which were by the Lord enabled to so long a fast that by the miracle thereof they might confirm unto the Iews the truth of their doctrine For seeing that they fasted longer then the strength of nature could endure it must needs be that they were both assisted by the God of nature whose service and employment they were called unto And though perhaps a longer and more wonderful fasting might have been expected from our Saviour considering both who he was and of how much a better and more glorious Ministery he was to be employed by the Lord his God yet he resolved not to exceed the former number nor to make use of that assistance which he might easily have had of those blessed Angels who as St. Mark saith ministred unto him And this he did upon two reasons First to demonstrate to the world Evangelium non dissentire a lege Prophetis as St. Austin hath it what an excellent harmonie there was between the Law and the Prophets whereof Moses and Elias were of most eminent consideration and that his own most glorious and holy Gospel of which he was to be the Preacher and secondly lest peradventure by a longer and more unusual kinde of fast then any of the former ages had given witness to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we read in Chrysostom the truth of his humanity his taking of our flesh upon him might be called in question Of any mystery which should be in the number of forty more then in another I am not Pythagorean enough to conceive a thought no not so much as in my dreams as never having been affected with that kinde of Theologie or the like curious and impertinent nothings Nor am I apt to think as many of the Papists do that men are bound by any Precept of our Saviour or of his Apostles to observe the like fast of forty days which we call commonly by the name of Lent Iejunium-Quadragesimale in the Latine Writers or that his glorious and divine example was purposely proposed unto us for our imitation as some others think The silence of the Evangelical Scriptures which say nothing in it and the unability of our weak nature to imitate an action of so vast a difficulty are arguments sufficient to perswade the contrary such as have finally prevailed on Iansenius and other modest Romanists to wave the plea of imitation and to ascribe the keeping of the Lent fast to such other reasons as shall be presently produced in maintenance of that antient and religious observance And on the other side I will not advocate for Calvin as I see some do who being at enmity with all the antient rites and Ordinances of the Church of Christ doth not alone affirm that the keeping of it in imitation of our Saviour is mera stultitia in plain tearms a flat piece of foolerie but tels us also of the Fathers who observed this fast that they did ludere ineptiis ut simiae play like old Apes with their own Anticks chargeth them with I know not what ridiculous zeal or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he cals it and finally affirms the whole fast so kept to be impium detestabile Christi ludibrium a detestable and ungodly mockage of our Saviour Christ whether with less charity or wisdome I can hardly say For that I may crave leave to digress a little most sure it is that the Lent fast according as it was observed in the Primitive times was not alone of special use to the advancement of true godliness and increase of piety but also of such reverend Antiquity that it hath very good right and title to be reckoned amongst the Apostolical Traditions which have been recommended to the Church of God The Canons attributed to the Apostles which if not theirs as many learned men do conceive they are are questionless of very venerable Antiquity do
to bury it the only means to weaken and unloose the bonds thereof that it should be no more a Prison but a place of rest wherein the bodies of Gods servants were to wait his pleasure in sure and certain hope of a Resurrection to eternal life But there was more in it yet then so The adding of these two words and buried seem unto me to have been done by the spirit of Prophecie for the preserving of a great part of the following Article which else had been in danger in these quarrel some times to be lost for ever Great pains is taken by some men and those of eminent parts and reputation to prove that nothing else is meant by Christs descent into hell but either his lying in the sepulchre or being made subject to the ignominy of the grave or his continuance for a while in the state of death as we shall see at large in the chapter following all which are fully comprehended in these words and buried What an advantage think we would these men have taken to put their own erroneous sense upon that Article had these words been wanting who have presumed to advance their own particular fancies above the Catholick Tradition of the Church of Christ notwithstanding these two words stand still to confute them in it But of this anon All I shall adde unto these Observations on Christs death and burial and his continuance in the grave is that in memory thereof the Church hath antiently appointed that Friday and Saturday should be fasted weekly the one in memory of the death and passion of our Lord CHRIST IESVS who on that day suffered for our sins the other in relation to the woful and disconsolate condition of the first followers of our Saviour who all that day distracted between hope and fear did seem to fit in darkness and the shadow of death And though the first Christians of the East did not fast the Saturday for fear of giving scandal to the Iews amongst whom they lived yet they made up the number of two days in the week by adding Wednesday to the Friday that being conceived to be the day on which he had been bought and sold by the Traytor Iudas But that concerns not us of the Western Churches in which the Friday and the Saturday fast are of such antiquity that it is generally believed by all moderate men to be derived from Apostolical Tradition Certain I am there is as much authority to keep those days fasting as the Canons of the Church can give them and the Statutes of this Realm can adde to those antient Canons and were accordingly observed by all Christian men till these wretched times in which the sons of the old Heretick Arius have turned all order out of dores and introduced a most unchristian or rather Antichristian licentiousnes under the colour and pretence of Christian liberty Thus have we brought our Saviour CHRIST unto the bottome of the grave the lowest step of his humiliation for the sons of men for lower then the grave he could hardly go And here we should conclude this Article but that as we began with some Observations touching Pontius Pilate under whom Christ suffered as also touching Annas and Caiaphas the High Priests two of the principal actors in this happy Tragedy so we will close this Article with the relation of that fearful and calamitous end which did most justly fall upon them and on the rest of their accomplices in this act of bloud But first we will begin with Iudas the Architect and chief contriver of the the plot of whom it is recorded in the holy Scriptures that being touched in conscience for so foul a treachery as the betraying of the innocent bloud of his Lord and Master he brought back his money to the Chief Priests and Elders and finding that they would not take it threw it down in the Temple went out and hanged himself S. Matthew there leavs off the story unto which Luke addes that falling headlong from the tree whether by the breaking of the rope or by some other way that the Scriptures say not he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out And certainly it was but just that he should lose his bowels who had so long before lost his compassion If now a man should ask what death Iudas dyed St. Matthew would make answer that he hanged himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek abiens laqueo se suspendit as the Latine hath it Which words lest they should seem of a doubtful sense and not import as much as the English makes them we will see what is noted of them by the Antient Fathers And first St. Hierom is express for this that Iudas laid violent hands upon himself and was the Author of his own death adding self-murder to the heap of his former crimes Ad prius scelus proprii homicidii crimen addidit so that Father hath it St. Augustine goeth more particularly to work Et laqueo vitam finivit and tels us in plain tearms that he hanged himself The Translator of Chrysostom doth affirm the same saying Projecta in Templo pecunia abiit gulam laqueo fregit that throwing down the wages of his iniquity upon the pavement of the Temple he went out and broke his neck with an halter which is the same with that of Augustine though in other tearms And finally Theophylact though many others might be named who doubtless understood his own language well doth resolve it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that putting his neck into the noose which himself had made he fell violently from off the tree and so burst asunder in the midst The general tradition of the Church doth run this way also Nor had I took this pains in a case so clear but that I see the Fathers put to school again by our modern Criticks who will not have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie that he hanged himself but that he fell into such an extremity of grief with remorse of conscience that the anguish of it stopped his breath so that falling flat upon the ground he broke asunder in the middle A death so much too good for so vile a Traytor and so improbable if not impossible in the last part of it that he is fain to bring in the Devil Diabolo operante to pull out his bowels But of this new devise enough look we next on Pilate who having so unjustly condemned the Innocent and drawn upon himself the vengeance of a most just Judge was not long after outed of his Government by L. Vitellius Lord President of Syria and sent back to Rome Where being come so many grievous complaints were made against him to the Senate that he was banished to Vienna a City of France The Roman Legends do relate that he was prosecuted at Rome by Veronica of whom they fable that our
Saviour going to his Passion gave her the print of his face in a linnen cloth for the death of Christ but the Greek Legends do ascribe this prosecution unto Mary Magdalen as being of more credit in those parts and both true alike Certain it is that in his hasty proceedings against CHRIST our Saviour he had most wilfully broke an Edict of Tiberius the then Roman Emperour by whom it was decreed Vt supplicia damnatorum in decimum usque diem differrentur as Suetonius hath it that the execution of the sentence upon men condemned should be deferred till the tenth day But I finde not this laid unto his charge He had guilt enough besides of more publick nature then the murder of one innocent person Iosephus telling of a great slaughter which he made of the Samaritans a little before his calling home and Philo accusing him to Caius of rapine bribery oppression many cruel murders of men uncondemned which were the things most likely to procure his banishment Nor could he live long quiet at Vienna neither the vengeance of the Lord still following after him his guilty conscience still condemning and Caius Caligula the Roman Emperour putting so many indignities upon him that he thought best to rid himself at once out of all his troubles and so slew himself as both Eusebius and Orosius do report the story For Caiaphas next Iosephus telleth us that he was deprived of the high Priesthood by the same Vitellius who removed Pilate from his Government the infamy and disgrace of which deprivation did so work upon him that he grew weary of his life and at last laid violent hands on himself also to save the Executioner a labour as we read in Clemens The like foul ends befell Annas together with the rest of the Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees who had an hand in the conspiracy against our Saviour of whom Nicephorus tels us but in generall only Quod ipsi dignas variasque dederunt poenas that they all came to just but miserable deaths as the wickedness of the fact deserved As for the whole Nation of the Iews who were so bent upon the death of their Messiah that they cryed aloud his bloud be upon us and our children what a miserable destruction fell upon them very shortly after and how they have been hunted since from one place to another is a thing so well known that I need not tell it All I shall note is this particular passage of the Divine justice that they who bought their Saviour for thirty peeces of silver were themselves sold at thirty for one peece of silver in the open Market A true but a most wonderful character of the finger of God And so I leave them to Gods mercy and proceed unto the following Article ARTICLE VI. Of the Sixt ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. THOMAS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Descendit ad inferos tertia die resurrexit a mortuis i. e. He descended into Hell the third day he rose again from the dead CHAP. VIII Of the locall descent of Christ into hell Hades and inferi what they signifie in the best Greek and Latine Authors and in the text of holy Scripture An examination and confutation of the contrary opinions WE made an end of the Humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the former Chapter for to a lower condition then that of the ignominie of the grave we could not possibly expect that he should be brought We must next look upon his exaltation the first degree or step to which was his descent into hell But this perhaps may seem to some to be a very strange kind of preferment a point so far from being any part of his exaltation that it may worthily be accounted his very lowest degree of humiliation a fall farre lower then the Grave And so it had been out of doubt had he descended down to hell to have felt the paines of it or to have been tormented though but for a moment in the flames thereof T is not the place but the intent not the descending but the businesse which he went about which makes the difference in this case and the intent and purpose of his going thither was to begin his triumph over Satan and all his Angels to beat the Devill in his own strongest hold and fortresse and take possession of that part of his kingdome whereof God had given the keyes unto him And to descend on such a businesse is I presume no matter of humiliation Doth not the Scripture tell us in another place that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Arch-angel and with the trumpet of God when he comes to judge the quick and the dead yet that descent of his upon that occasion will be the highest step of his exaltation there 's no doubt of that To descend then is no humiliation of and in it self but in relation to the businesse we descend about And the intent or purpose of his descent was to spoyle principalities and powers that is to say the Prince of the world and the powers of darknesse and having spoyled them to make a shew of them openly and triumph over them to shew himself unto the Devils and infernall spirits and to receive the homage of the knee from them as his slaves and vassals that being reckoned as a part of his exaltation that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow as well of things under the earth as either of things upon the earth or the things in heaven To this the Fathers do attest and some Councels also some of which shall be here produced Our Saviour Christ had power saith Athanasius to shew incorruption in the grave and in his descent to hell to dissolve death and proclaime resurrection unto all St. Cyprian thus When by the presence of Christ hell was broken open and the captivity made captive his conquering soul being presented to the sight of his Father returned again unto his body without delay St. Augustine more plainly yet Reddunt inferna victorem c. Hell returned back again her Conquerour and whiles his body lay in the grave his soul triumphed over hell And finally thus the fourth Councell of Toledo CHRIST say the Fathers there assembled descended to hell devicto mortis imperio and having subdued the kingdome of death rose again the third day More testimonies to this purpose might be here produced but that they are reserved to another place when we shall come to speak of those particular motives which did induce our Saviour to make this descent and of the benefits redounding to the Church thereby These are enough to let us see that his descending into hell is to be reckoned as a part of his exaltation which was the matter to be proved To which we shall make â—old to add this one reason more that is
nought else but the Port of Salvation which whether it were formerly in the heavens above an apud Inferos or in the places under the earth I determine not Yea I had rather be still ignorant of it then rashly to pronounce of that which I finde not expressed in the Scripture In these things as I will not be too curious so neither will I define any thing therein nor will I contend with any man about this matter It shall suffice me to understand and confess that the godly of the Old Testament were in a certain place of rest and not in torments before the Ascension of Christ although I know not what nor where it was So he with great both piety and Christian modesty and with him I shut up this dispute CHAP. IX The Doctrine of the Church of England touching Christs descent into Hell asserted from all contrary opinions which are here examined and disproved THus have we seen the doctrine of the Primitive Church touching the Article of Christs descent into hell so much disputed or indeed rather quarrelled in these later times Let us next look upon the Doctrine of of this Church of England which in this point as in all the rest which are in controversie doth tread exactly in the steps of most pure Antiquity And if we search into the publick monuments and records thereof we shall finde this doctrine of Christs local descent into hell to have been retained and established amongst many other Catholick verities ever since the first beginning of her Reformation For in the Synod of the year 1552. being the fourth year of King Edward the sixt it was declared and averred for the publick doctrine of this Church to be embraced by all the members of the same that the body of Christ until his Resurrection lay in the grave but that his soul being breathed out was with the spirits in prison or hell and preached to them as the place of Peter doth witness saying For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison c. 1 Pet. 3.18 19. But being the Articles of that year were set out in Latine take them according as they stand in the Original Nam corpus usque ad Resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit Spiritus ab illo emissus cum spiritibus qui in Carcere sive in Inferno detinebantur fuit illisque praedicavit ut testatur Petri locus c. So also in the year 1562. When Q. Elizabeth was somewhat setled in her state she caused her Clergy to be called together in a Synodical way to the intent they might agree upon a Body or Book of Articles for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion Who being met and having agreed upon the two first Articles touching Faith in the holy Trinity and the Word or Son of God which was made very man and having declared in this second that Christ who is very God and very man did truly suffer and was crucified dead and buryed to reconcile us to his Father addes for the title of the third of the going down of Christ into hell Which being an entire Article of it self runs thus in terminis viz. As Christ dyed for us and was buried so also it is to be believed that he went down into hell Which Article with the rest being publickly agreed upon and passed in the Convocations of both Provinces and confirmed under the broad Seal as the law required became the publick authorized Doctrine of this Church of England and afterwards received such countenance in the high Court of Parliament that there was a statute made unto this purpose that all who were to be admitted unto any Benefice with cure of souls or unto any holy Orders should publickly subscribe the same in the presence of the Bishop or Ordinary The like care was also taken after for subscribing to it by all such who were matriculated in either of the Universities or admitted into any Colledge or Hall or to any Academical degree whatsoever and so it stands unto this day confirmed and countenanced by as high and great authority aâ— the power of the Prince the Canons of the Church and the Sanctions of the Civil State can give it Nor stands it only on Record in the Book of Articles but is thus touched in the Book of Homilies specified and approved of for godly and wholesome Doctrine by those Articles and ratified and confirmed together with them Thus hath his Resurrection saith the Homilie wrought for us life and and righteousness He passed through death and hell to the intent to put us in good hope that by his strength we shall do the same He paid the ransome of sin that it should not be laid to our charge He destroyed the Devil and all his tyranny and openly triumphed over him and took away from him all his captives and hath raised and set them with himself among the heavenly Citizens above So far the Homily There was also published in the beginning of the said Queens Reign a Catechisme writ in Latine by Mr. Alexander Nowel Dean of Pauls and publickly authorized to be taught in all the Grammar Schooles of this kingdome though not by such a sacred and supreme authority as the books of Articles and Homilies had been before in which the doctrine of Christs descent into hell is thus delivered viz. That as Christs body was laid in the Bowels of the earth so his soul separated from his body descended ad inferos to hell and with all the force and efficacie of his death so pierced unto the dead atque inferos adeo ipsos and even to the spirits in hell that the souls of the unfaithful perceived the condemnation of their infidelity to be most sharp and just ipseque inferorum Princeps Satan and Satan himself the Prince of hell saw all the power of his tyranny and of darknesse to be weakned broken and destroyed and contrariwise the dead who whilest they lived believed in Christ understood the work of their Redemption to be performed and felt the fruit and force thereof with a most sweet and certain comfort So that the doctrine of Christs descent into hell being thus positively delivered in the Articles and Homilies and Catechisme publickly authorized to be taught in Schools and being thus solemnly confirmed and countenanced both by Laws and Canons and by the subscriptions of all the Clergie and other learned men of this Realm of England how great must we conceive the impudence to be of the Romish Gagger who charged this upon this Church that we denie the descent of Christ into hell Nor do I wonder lesse at the improvidence of those who were then in authority in licensing Mr. Rogers comment on this Book
plundered of their books during the Babylonian Captivity and thereby disabled from finding out the true course of the Moon otherwise then by such conjectures as the Eye and their observations did afford them and consequently failing oftentimes in celebrating of the Passeover at the time appointed by the Law ordained that that festival should be kept two whole days together that if they chanced to erre in the one they might hit right in the other And these two dayes they reckoned but for one alone as do the Romans at this time in the observation of the Bissextile or Leap-year as we use to call it who according to the Calculation of Iulius Caesar reckon the two days of the Bissextile but for one alone and so 't is also in the estimate of the Laws of England to this very day Insomuch that February for that year by the decree of the said Iulius Caesar is to have no more then 28 days as in other years because the day added unto that moneth or the dies intercalaris as the learned call it is to be reckoned for the same day with the day before both of them being called the sixt of the Calender of March in which respect the name of Dies Bissextilis was first given unto it And on this ground it was resolved by Celsus that famous Lawyer that if a man was born on the sixt of the Calends of March which is our 24. of February it mattered not whether he were born on the first or second day of the two that year because both days were counted in the Law for one So saith he in like manner did the Iews reckon those two days in which they solemnized the Passeover but for one day only both of them passing in their computation for the fifteenth day of the month in which that feast was to be celebrated by the law of Moses This he confirms not only by the practise of the modern Iews who for the most part hold themselves to this observation fathering it on Ezra the Scribe as ordained by him but also by the testimony of Rabbi Rava one of the most famous Doctors of that Nation for the times he lived in advising them Ne deserant consuetudinem a Patribus observatam not to forsake the old Tradition left them by their Ancestors of keeping the great festivals two whole days together according as Ezra had commanded And this they also did saith he if the Passeover fell upon the Sabbath in which case at the instance and perswasion of Gamaliel a man both learned in the laws and skilful in Astrological supputations they did not only double or re-iterate the feast of the Passeover but that of the weekly Sabbath also Which gave saith he occasion to that phrase of speech used by S. Mark where he cals the first day of the week una Sabbatorum that is to say the first day after both the Sabbaths He addes as in the way of super-aboundance that it was affirmed in the writing of Theophilus Caesariensis a man exceedingly well skilled in the Paschal Cycles that our Redeemer suffered on the eleventh of the Calends of April which is to us the 22. day of March and rose again March 25. being the 8. day of the Calends of April which make up three days and three nights in all but that his words were altered by Beda in his Translation of that piece to make it more conformable to the Tradition of the Church of Rome This is the sum of his discourse with which I must confess my self to be much delighted And were I aswell satisfied in the Allegation of Theophilus Caesariensis and the alteration made by Beda as I am in the residue of the proofs by him produced I might perhaps prefer this way before any other But being this depends on no other grounds then the bare ipse dixit or conjecture of my Author only I know not how to part with the Synecdoche commended to us by St. Augustine Hierome and others of the Antient Fathers and still retained and countenanced by so many men of eminence in all kindes of learning The Reader hath here choyce enough and may use his pleasure As for the difference which seems to be between the Evangelists touching the time of the day in which this wondrous work was wrought we will first lay down their several words and then see what is to be said for the reconcilement St. Matthew saith it was in the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week that Mary Magdalen and the other Marie came to see the sepulchre St. Mark that when the Sabbath was past they came very early in the morning the first day of the week at the rising of the Sun St. Luke that having bought their spices on the Eve of the Sabbath they came very early in the morning upon the first day of the week And finally St. Iohn that it was early on the first day of the week when it was yet dark In which we have not only an appearing difference between St. Iohn who telleth us that it was yet dark and those who that say it was in the morning as the Sun was rising but a seeming contradiction also in Matthew who maketh it to be on the end of the Sabbath which was Saturday Eve and yet upon the dawning of the first day of the week which is Sunday morning To reconcile St. Iohn to the other Evangelists St. Ambrose and Eusebius were of opinion that there were two Mary Magdalens of our Saviours acquaintance whereof one came unto the Sepulchre in the night and the other in the morning But then assuredly the Scriptures would have given us some mark of difference as in the case of Simon Peter and Simon the Canaanite Mary the Mother of IESVS and Mary the Mother of Iames and Ioses Iudas who wrote the Epistle extant in his name and Iudas Iscariot who betrayed him Others conceive that St. Markes text hath received some alteration in setting down the time of his Resurrection as before we saw it was supposed in the time of his passion and that in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the Sun-rising it should be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sun not being risen But such corrections as we said in the former case are not only unwarrantable but unsafe And if such Criticizing on the Text of Scripture might be used with safety the alteration were more easie if in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second Aorist St. Mark might be supposed to say in the present tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sun was rising when first his beams began to dispel that darkness which we finde mentioned in St. Iohn But leaving this correction also as matter dangerous the safest and most probable way to atone the difference is that the women did begin to set forwards towards the holy Sepulchre whilest it was yet
dark as St. Iohn hath it or very early in the morning at the breaking or dawning of the day as St. Matthew tels us but that they came not to the Sepulchre till the Sun was risen Or else we may resolve it thus and perhaps with greater satisfaction to the text and truth that Mary Magdalen whose love was most impatient of a long delay went first alone for St. Iohn speaks of her alone when it was yet dark but having signified to Peter what she had discovered she went to make the other women acquainted with it and then came all together as the Sun was rising to behold the issue of the business As for the seeming contradiction in St. Matthews words we shall best see the way to discharge him of it if passing by the Vulgar Latine from whence the contradiction took its first Original we have recourse unto the Greek In the Vulgar Latine it is Vespere Sabbati in the Evening of the Sabbath and that according to the Iewish computation must be on Friday about six of the clock for with them the Evening did begin the day as we saw before But in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we English in the end of the Sabbath and then it is the same with St. Marks expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Sabbath was past And this construction comes more neer to the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which points unto a thing which is long since past as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hour being now a good while spent and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you lost your opportunity by your tardy coming And so the word is here interpreted by Gregory Nyssen by birth a Grecian and therefore doubtlesse one that well understood the Idiotisme of his own language in whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Matthew is made to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very hour and moment of the resurrection Which ground so laid let us subjoyne these words in St. Matthews Gospel Chap. 18. to the last words of St. Lukes Gospel Chap. 23. and then this seeming contradiction will be brought to nothing St. Luke informes us of the women who had attended on our Saviour at his death and burial that having bought spices to imbalme his body they rested on the Sabbath day according to the Scripture v. 56. And then comes in St. Matthew to make up the story as all the four Evangelists do make but one ful history of our Saviours actions which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Sabbath was now past and that the first day of the week did begin to dawn they went unto the Sepulchre as they first intended We have not done yet with the time of his resurrection although the difficulties which concern that time have been debated and passed over We finde it generally agreed on by all four Evangelists that the resurrection was accomplished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the first day of the week and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the dawning of the day as St. Matthew hath it or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the rising of the Sun as St. Marke informes About the dawning of the day for certainly it was not fit that the Sun of Heaven should shine upon the earth before the heavenly Sun of righteousnesse Nay therefore did our Saviour prevent the sun by his early rising to teach us that the whole world is enlightned only by the beams of his most sacred Gospell and that he only is the light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of his people Israel And there was very good reason also why he should choose the first day of the week to be the day of the resurrection more then any other that as God the Father on that day did begin the creation of the world in which we live the life of nature so God the Son should on the same day also begin the creation of a new heaven and a new earth in the souls of men by which they live the life of grace here and are thereby prepared for the life of glory in the world to come The sixt day in which our father Adam did begin to live was the same day in which the second Adam did begin to die And the seventh day on which God rested from his labours in the great work of our Creation was also rested by our Saviour in the far greater businesse of our Redemption Rested I say by him not sanctifyed For Christ did therefore pretermit and sleep out as it were the Iewish Sabbath that from thenceforth the observation of that day should be laid aside and that in that neglect of his there should no further care be taken of the legal Ceremonies And as God sanctifyed that day in which he rested from the work of the worlds Creation so the Apostles first as it was conceived and afterwards the Church of Christ by their example did sanctifie and set apart that day for religious offices in which our Saviour cancelled the bonds of death and finished the great work of our Redemption The Israelites were commanded by the Lord their God immediately on their escape from the hands of Pharaoh to change the beginning of the year in a perpetuall memory of that deliverance With very good reason therefore did the Church determine to celebrate the Christian Sabbath if I may so call it upon a day not used before but changed in due remembrance of so great a miracle as that of our Saviours resurrection from the power of the grave and our deliverance thereby from the Prince of darknesse The Parallel of the worlds Creation and the Redemption on all mankind by Christ our Saviour with the change which followed thereupon in the day of worship is very happily expressed by Gregory Nyssen in his first Sermon upon Easter or the Resurrection where speaking of Gods rest of the Sabbath day he thus proceedeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By that first Sabbath saith the father thou mayest conjecture at the nature of this this day of rest which God hath blessed above all dayes For on this the only begotten Son of God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are who out of a divine purpose of restoring mankind did give his body rest in the house of death and afterwards revived again by his resurrection became the resurrection and the life the day-spring from on high the light to them that sit in darknesse and the shadow of death Finally to insist upon this point no longer three days our Saviour set apart for the performance of this work and wonder of the resurrection and answerably thereunto the Church did antiently set apart three days for the commemoration of that work and wonder which was then performed In which respect the feast of Easter is entituled by the said Gregory Nyssen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the three days festivall The next considerable circumstance of the
Churches keeping it on the Sunday after in memory of the day of the resurrection Nor was there ever any sect or body of Hereticks but they kept the festival no not so much as the Novatians or Cathari as they call themselves but they kept an Easter though they left every one at liberty to keep it when he would so he kept it at all and therein differing from the Sect of the Quartodecimani who urged it as a matter necessary to celebrate it on the 14. day of the moon and upon no other The sharpe contentions raised in the Primitive times about this point and the great care took by the Prelates of those times to compose the difference are proof sufficient for the estimation which they held it in and the antiquity thereof were there no proof else And yet to set it clear above opposition we finde it upon good record that it was not celebrated by the Church not only during the lives of the Apostles but also by some of them in person For Polycarpus who conversed with the Apostles and was made Bishop of Smyrna by them as Irenaeus and Tertullian do expresly say affirmeth that he kept his Easter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with St. Iohn the Disciple of the Lord and others of the Apostles in whose times he lived and conversed with them St. Iohn by name the rest of the Apostles but in generals only And so Polycrates the Metropolitan of Ephesus doth as plainly say that St. Philip the Apostle kept it and he not only was a Bishop of most eminent note but a most famous Martyr also and so not likely to sophisticate or report a falshood This makes it clear and evident that the feast of Easter is of Apostolical Institution though possibly not ordained or instituted till toward the latter end of the first Century if perhaps Philip lived so long as Iohn doubtlesse did To goe a little higher yet it was received for a truth in the time of Constantine that Easter had been kept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the first day of our Saviours passion untill the very time that good Emperour lived in and more then so that they received it from our Saviour that Christ delivered it unto them So that the institution of the feast of Easter is not only of Divine Apostolicall right but in the opinion of those times and those the happiest of the Church both for peace and purity of a divine right in the highest degree Whether that so it were or not I dispute not here though possibly the high estimation which the Antient Fathers held it in and the honorable attributes which they give unto it may seem to intimate some such matter For St. Ignatius who lived near the Apostles times if he lived not with them calleth it expressely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ladie and Queen of all the feasts and that too in his Epistle ad Magnesianos against which no exception hath been made as yet in this captious age By Constantine it is called the most holy feast and that four times for failing in one Epistle By Epiphanius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great solemnity By Nazianzen to wander through no more particulars it is not only termed the Queen and Soveraigne of days which it seems he borrowed from Ignatius but thus set out and beautifyed in a fuller manner Easter day is come saith he Gods own Easter day and again I say Easter day is come in honour of the blessed Trinity the feast of feasts the solemnity of all solemnities as far surpassing all other feasts holden not only by or for men but even in honour of Christ himself as the sun the stars Nor was this great festival only solemnized in the world abroad but of as high an estimation also within this Island the errour of the Quartodecimani being condemned and the custome of the Western Church asserted in the Councell of Arles a Councell of more antiquity though of lesse authority perhaps then that of Nice to which subscribed amongst others Euborius B. of York Restitutus B. of London and Adelfus B. of Colchester And for the Scots they did receive the observation of this Festival together with the faith it self Sedulius a learned man of that nation who flourished not long after the conversion of it writing a Poem which he entituled Opus Paschale and did thus begin Paschales quicunque dapes c. In fifteen hundred years and more from our Saviours Passion never did man oppose or cry down this feast but Aerius only who for this and other of his dotages was held to be an heretick and a madman too his folly in this point being held so grosse that he had never any followers for ought I can finde So that the marvell is the greater that after so long a tract of time some people under colour of reformation should put down this feast and for the better and more effectuall obtaining of their end therein either extend the time of their Lent so far as to bring it within the compasse of that publick fast or else as some have also done forbid the Sacrament of the Lords supper to be administred on that day under paines and penalties to make it looked upon no otherwise then a common day And yet the wonder is the more that the same men who practise to beat down this feast with such heat and violence being kept upon the very day of the resurrection and consequently opus diei in die suo should withall labour with the utmost of their power and cunning to cry up the Sunday and scrue it to as high a pitch as the Iews did their Sabbath which is but the Epitome or the Abstract of it Of very congruity at the least it is to be regarded more then an other Sunday as was most notably observed by his sacred Majesty Who asking whether they that preached at Holdenby house on Easter day did preach according to the day of the resurrection and being answered that they did not he next desired to know what reason the new reformers had to put down Easter and continue Sunday For being both instituted by the same authority viz. the authority of the Church of Christ they might as well refuse to observe the weekly Sunday as not keep this feast The Moderate Intelligencer tels us of the Question but I never yet could hear any Answer to it though his Majestie gave it them in writing and I believe I never shall ARTICLE VII Of the Seventh ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. BARTHOLOMEW 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Ascendit ad Coelum sedet ad dextram Dei Patris Omnipotentis i. e. He Ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty CHAP. XI Of the Ascension of our Saviour with a Discussion of the points and other Circumstances which are most considerable in the same THE next great Festivals
power of God as our Saviour calleth it Luke 22.69 And as the right hand is applyed to God as the hand of power by which he ruleth all things both in heaven and earth so is it sometimes also ascribed unto him and not to him alone but to Christ nor Saviour as the hand of love by which he cherisheth and protecteth his faithful servants For what else is the reason why the sheep in the day of Judgement shall be placed at the right hand of the King of Heaven but to shew that they are his beloved ones his Benjamins the children of his right hand as that name doth signifie And for what reason is it said that he doth imbrace the Church his Spouse with his right hand but to shew that ardour and sincerity of affection wherewith he doth cherish and protect her Cant. 2.6 8.3 Be it the power of God or his fidelity and love it 's the right hand stâ—ll There is another word to be looked on yet before we shall finde out the full meaning of this branch of the Article which is the word Sâ—det which we render sitting In which we must not understand as I think some Protestant Writers do any constant posture of the Body of Christ at the right hand of God For he who in the Creed and in divers places of the Old and New Testament is said to sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty is by St. Stephen who saw him with a glorified eye affirmed to stand Behold saith he I see heaven opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand Sitting and standing then for both words are used denote not to us any certain posture of our Saviours body but serve to signifie that rest and quiet which he hath found in Heaven after all his labours For what was our most blessed Saviour in the whole course and passages of his life and death but a man of troubles transported from one Countrey to another in his very infancy and from one City to another when he preached the Gospel compelled to convey himself away from the sight of men to save his life exposed to scoffs and scorns at the hour of his death Noahs Dove and he were both alike No rest for either to be found on the face of the earth no ease till they were taken into the Ark again out of which they were sent And this St. Paul doth intimate where he tels us of him that for the joy which was set before him he endured the Cross and despised the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God And unto this construction of the word Sedere St. Ambrose very well agrees saying Secundum consuetudinem nostram illi consessus offertur qui aliquo opere perfecto victor adveniens honoris gratia promeretur ut sedeat It is saith he our usual custome to offer a chair or seat to him who having perfected the work which he had in hand doth deserve to sit And on this ground the man CHRIST IESVS having by his death and passion overcome the Devil and by his Resurrection broken open the gates of Hell having accomplished his work and returning unto Heaven a Conquerour was placed by God the Father at his own right hand Thus far and to this purpose he The like may be affirmed of standing or of standing still which doubtless is a great refreshment to a wearied Traveller a breathing bait as commonly we use to call it and many times is used in Scripture for a posture of ease as Quid statis toto die otiosi Why stand you here all the day idle But to proceed a little further in this disquisition there may be more found in the words then so For standing is the posture of a General or man of action ready to fall on upon the Enemy Oportet Imperatorem stantem mori said the Roman Emperour And it is also the posture which the Iews used in prayer as appears Matth. 6.5 Luk. 18.10.13 From whence they took that usual saying Sine stationibus non subsisteret mundus that were it not for such standings the world would not stand And sitting is we know the posture of a Judge or Magistrate in the act of Iudicature of Princes keeping state in the Throne Imperial And this appears as plainly by our Saviours words to his Apostles saying that they which followed him in the Regeneration should when the Son of man did sit in the Throne of his glory sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And so the word is also used in Heathen Authors as Consedere duces consâ—ssique ora tenebant in the Poet Ovid when the great cause was to be tryed for Achilles armour When therefore St. Stephen beheld our Saviour Christ and saw him standing at the right hand of God the Father he found him either ready as a Chief or General to lead on against the enemies of his persecuted and afflicted Church or as an Advocate Habemus enim Advocatum for we have an Advocate with the Father IESVS CHRIST the righteous pleading before Gods Throne in behalf thereof or offering up his prayers for the sins of his people And when St. Paul and other texts of holy Scripture do describe him sitting they look upon him in the nature of a Iudge or Magistrate the Supreme Governour of the Church and then sedere is as much as regnare as St. Hierome hath it to reign or rule And to this last St. Paul doth seem to give some countenance if we compare his words with those of the Royal Pâ—almist Sit thou at my right hand saith the Psalmist till I have made thy enemies thy footstool Psal. 110.1 Oportet eum regnare saith the Apostle For he must reign or it behoveth him to reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet 1 Cor. 15.25 Of this minde also was Sedulius an old Christian Poet Aethereas evectus abit sublimis in auras Et dextram subit ipse Patris mundumque gubernat Ascending into Heaven at Gods right hand He sits and all the World doth there command This said we will descend to those Expositions which have been made by several men on this branch of the Article and after pitch on that which we think most likely Some think this sitting at the right hand of God to signifie the fame with that which was said before of his ascending into Heaven which opinion Vrsin doth both recite and reject And he rejects it as I conceive upon very good reason it being very absurd as lie truly noteth in tam brevi Symbolo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 committi that a tautologie should be used in so short a summary It had been very absurd indeed and yet more absurd if they should intimate the same thing in a figurative and metaphorical form of speech which they had formerly expressed in so plain a way as was familiar
on the authority and warrant of the holy Scriptures yet certainely the Scripture as we see by these two last passages is against him in it That which occasioned his mistake if I guesse aright was those words of David viz. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement which is not to be meant of their not appearing but of their not daring to stand to their tryall but shrinking under the heavy burden of their sinnes and wickednesses Thus have I made a brief but a full description of Christs coming to judge both the quick and the dead according as it is laid down in the book of God The substance of it we have there delivered in so plain a way that every one that reads it understands it also unlesse he wilfully mistake and turn all to Allegories But for the Circumstances of this great and most glorious action that is to say the method and the manner of it the time and place and other things co-incident to those particulars in those I shall crave leave to enlarge my self a little further as well for my own satisfaction as the content of the reader And first beginning with the time there is but little I confesse to be said of that Our Saviour telleth us in plain termes that of that day and that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels which are in heaven neither the Son but the Father And yet as plain as these words are they have given great matter of dispute in the Christian Church especially that part of them which concernes the Son and his not knowing when that day and that hour should come The Arians hereupon concluded against CHRISTS divinity as being ignorant of some things which the Father knew But unto this the Fathers of that age answered very rightly that Christ speaks not of himself as God or as the Word both made and manifested in the flesh but as he was the Son of man to whom the Father had not pleased to communicate the knowledge of so great a mysterie And of this minde were Athanasius Serm. 4. cont Arium Ambrose l. 5. de fide c. 8. Nazianzen Orat. 4. de Theolog. Theodoret Anathem 4. cont Cyrill Cyril of Alexandâ— l. 9. Thesaur c. 4. the Author of the imperfect work on St. Matthews Gospel ascribed to Chrysostome Which though no doubt it was the most ready and most satisfactory answer which could be given unto the objection yet when the learning of the Schooles came to be in credit this answer was conceived to be derogatory to the honour of CHRIST and many quaint devises found to avoid the Argument some of them so derogatory to the honour of Christ that I think a greater scandall could not possibly be laid upon him And such I take to be that of Estius though I thinke him to be one of the modestest men that ever came out of the Schoole of Ignatius Loyala who telleth us that Christ is said to be ignorant of that day and hour quia non sic eum didicerat a Patre ut illum ulterius hominibus mâ—nifestare deberet because he had not so learned it of his Father as that he ought to make it known to us men More briefly thus Christ saith he doth doth not know of that day and that hour ut videlicet nobis notum faciat he doth not know it so as to tell it us Which is in plain termes neither better nor worse then to make Christ the author of equivocation so much in use amongst the Iesuits For though our Saviour was not bound nor did thinke it expedient to communicate all those things unto his Disciples which had been imparted to him by his heavenly Father yet to put such a speech in the mouth of Christ viz. I know it not that is to say I do not know it so as to tell it you is such a cunning piece of Iesuitisme that it is hardly to be matched in all their writings And therefore leaving them to their strange devises we will look back again upon the answere of the Antient Fathers which though both right and satisfactorie as before I said yet was it so deserted in the age next following that the Themistiani in the time of the Emperour Mauritius were accounted hereticks and nick-named commonly Agnâ—etae because they taught that Christ considered in his humane nature was ignorant of that day and hour of his own coming to judgment And possible enough it is they might still passe for hereticks did they live amongst us if they maintained this universally of Christs humane nature as if he neither did know it nor were capable of it and not with reference to the time in which he spake it there being many things communicated to him after his resurrection which before were not known unto him And therefore I for my part shall subscribe unto that of Origen who telleth us that when our Saviour spake these words he was indeed ignorant of the day of judgement post resurrectionem vero seivisse quod tunâ— Rex Judex a Patre constitutus sit but that he knew it after his Resurrection because he was then made by God both our King and Iudge But whether Christ did know of that day or not seemes not much materiall to some men who because they would be wiser then Christ our Saviour have marked us out the precise time of his coming to judgement And some there be who think they do not trespasse at all upon Gods prerogative to whom it only doth belong to know the times and the seasons Act. 1.7 if they content themselves with a certain year and do not look so narrowly into it as to name the day Of the first sort was a Dutch Priest in the parts near Noremburg who being skilful in Arithmetical calculations concluded out of the numerical letters of this prediction in the Gospel videbunt in quem pupugerunt Ioh. 19.38 that the world should end Ann. 1562. And having fooled himself in that he presumed so far as to name the very day nay the hour it self in which the world should end and Christ come to judgement so far prevailing on his Parish that they gave beliefe to his prediction and at the day and hour appointed met all together in the Chappel or Parish Church to hear their Prophet preach and expect Christs coming It were pity to leave the story so and therefore I will tell the successe thereof which in brief is this No sooner were the people assembled together but there fell a great storme with thunder and lightning and that in such a violent and fearfull manner that they looked every minute for the Lords appearing But the day waxing fair again and no Saviour coming the people finding how they had been abused fall on the Priest and had doubtlesse slain him in the place if some of the more moderate men had not stayed their fury and helped the silly Prophet to get out of their fingers Somewhat
and Martyrs approving and applauding as before I said that most righteous judgement which CHRIST shall then pronounce against all the wicked saying Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This dreadful sentence thus pronounced and the condemned persons being delivered over by the Angels of God to the Devil and his according to the sentence of that righteous Iudge CHRIST shall arise from his Tribunal and together with his elect Angels and most blessed Saints shall in an orderly and triumphant manner ascend into the Heaven of Heavens where unto every one of his glorious Saints he shall bestow the immarcessible Crown of glory and make them Kings and Priests unto God the Father When all the Princes of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of CHRIST God shall be still a King of Kings a King indeed of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium always but most amply them For then shall CHRIST deliver up the Kingdom unto God the Father which how it must be understood we have shewn before And the Saints laying down their Crowns at the feet of Christ shall worship and fall down before him saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to God to reign with thee in thy Kingdome for evermore Thus have I made a brief but a plain discovery so far forth as the light of Scripture could direct me in it both of the manner of our Saviours coming unto Judgement and of the Method he shall use in the act of judging That which comes after Iudgement whether life or death whether it be the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell will fall more properly under the consideration of the last Article of the Creed that of Life Everlasting and there we mean to handle all those particulars which I think pertinent thereunto In the mean time a due and serious consideration of this day of Iudgement will be exceeding necessary to all sorts of people and be the strongest bridle to restrain them from the acts of sin that ever was put into the mouths of ungodly men For what a bridle think we must it be unto them to keep them from unlawful lusts nay from sinful purposes when they consider with themselves that in that day the hearts of all men shall be opened their desires made known and that no secrets shall be hid but all laid open as it were to the publick view What a strong bridle must it be to curb them and to hold them in when they are in the full careere and race of wickedness when they consider with themselves that there will be no way nor means to escape this Judgement Though they procure the Rocks to fall upon them and the Hils to hide them yet will Gods Angels finde them out and gather them from every corner of the World be they where they will Though they have flattered their poor souls and said Tush God will not see it or have disguised themselves with fig-leaves out of a silly hope to conceal their nakedness or wiped their lips so cunningly with the harlot in the Book of Proverbs that no man can discern a stollen kiss upon them yet all this will not serve the turn God will for all this bring them unto judgement and apprehend them by his Angels when they go a gathering There shall not one of them escape the hands of these diligent Sergeants Ne unus quidem no not one And finally what a bridle must it be unto them to hold them from exorbitant wickedness as either the crucifying again of the Lord of glory the persecuting of the Saints their mischievous plots against the Church in her peace and Patrimony when they consider with themselves that he whom thus they crucifie is to be their Iudge and that those poor souls whom they now contemn shall give a vote or suffrage on their condemnation and that the poor afflicted Church which they made truly militant by their foul oppressions malgre their tyranny and confederacies shall become Triumphant And on the other side what a great comfort must it be to the righteous man to think that Christ who all this while hath been his Mediator with Almighty God shall one day come to be his Iudge What a great consolation must it be unto him in the time of trouble to think that all his groans are registred his tears kept in a bottle and his sighs recorded and that there is a Iudge above who will wipe all the tears from his eyes and give him mirth in stead of mourning What an incouragement must it be unto him in the way of godliness when he considereth with himself that there is laid up for him a Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day and give it him in the fight both of men and Angels Finally what strength and animation must it put into them to make them stand couragiously in the cause of Christ and to contemn what ever misery can be laid upon them in the defence of Christs and the Churches cause when they consider with themselves that there is no man who hath lost Father or Mother or wife or children or lands and possessions for the sake of Christ but shall receive much more in this present world and in the world to come life everlasting For behold he cometh quickly as himself hath told us and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his work shall be Even so Lord Jesus So be it Amen THE SUM Of Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical Contained in the APOSTLES CREED or Reducible to it THE THIRD PART By Peter Heylyn 1 Cor. 12.13 For by one Spirit are we all Baptized into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit LONDON Printed for Henry Seyle 1654. ARTICLE IX Of the Ninth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES the Son of ALPHEVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church CHAP. I. Touching the Holy Ghost his divine Nature Power and Office the Controversie of his Procession laid down Historically Of Receiving the Holy Ghost and of the severall ministrations in the Church appointed by him WE are now come unto the third and last part of this Discourse containing in the first place the Article of the Holy Ghost and of the holy Catholick Church gathered together and preserved by the power thereof And in the rest those several Gifts and special Benefits which Christ conferreth by the operation of
both be the witnesses of his Life and Doctrine and afterwards discharge so much of the Prophetical Office as he should please to delegate and entrust unto them To these he shewed himself after his Resurrection and conversed with them for the space of forty days to the intent he might the better fit them for so great a work And being even upon the instant of departing from them it seemed good to him to invest them with a sacred Power and by some outward Ceremony and set Form of words to dedicate them to the Ministry of such holy things as were not to be meddled with by vulgar hands He breathed on them saith the Text and said unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained The meaning of these words we have shewn before and need repeat no more but this That in the number of those gifts whereof the Holy Ghost is Author there is contained that sacred Power by which some men are made the Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people When therefore Christ breathed on his Apostles and said Receive the Holy Ghost he did as it were breathe out that power of Preaching the Word of Truth and doing other holy Offices in the Church of God which he had formerly received from the Holy Ghost Receive said he the Holy Ghost i. e. Such a sublime power as no Prince nor Potentate can bestow a power which gives you such an influence on the Souls of men as that of the remitting and retaining sin In which it is to be observed That our Saviour puts not down this act of remitting and retaining sins for the whole entire and adequate subject about which the Apostolical or Prophetical Office was to be employed but onely as one chief part thereof in the name of all that by the weightiness of that they might judge the better of the importance of the other He had promised them the Keys before but now he hangs them at their girdle and puts them absolutely and fully into their possession Ability and power to perform the rest they were to tarry for yet a little longer and then immediately to receive both from the Holy Ghost whom he did promise to send them after his departure And so accordingly he did the Holy Ghost descending on them upon the tenth day after his Ascension in the likeness of fiery cloven tongues and furnishing them with all those extraordinary gifts and graces which were necessary for the first propagation of our Saviours Gospel By his own breathing on them and the words that followed he gave them jus ad rem as the Lawyers call it a power to exercise a Spiritual Function in his holy Church and put them into possession of so much thereof as concerned the remitting and retaining of sins But for the jus in re the actual execution of that holy Function together with those supernatural endowments by which they were to be fitted and prepared for it that they received upon this coming of the Holy Ghost and did not onely receive it as before from Christ but repleti sunt omnes they were all filled with it saith the Text This coming of the Holy Ghost as Pope Leo noteth Was Cumulans non inchoans nec novus opere sed dives largitate rather by way of augmenting the former power and abilities which Christ had given them than of beginning a new For it is a known rule of the Antient Fathers That where the Holy Ghost had been given before and yet is said to come again it is to be understood either of an increase of the former in weight or measure or of some new gift which before men had not but was conferred after for some new effect as it is noted out of St. Ierom and Sâ— Cyril by our Learned Andrews And to say truth there was good reason why we must understand this coming of the Holy Ghost in both these respects both in regard of measure and addition too Before when Christ breathed on them and therewith said Receive ye the Holy Ghost their Ministry was confined within the Land of Iudea Go not into the way of the Gentiles or into any City of the Samaritans but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel A less proportion of the Spirit would have served for that But when he was to leave them he inlarged their bounds and put the whole world under their jurisdiction Go saith he into all the world and Preach the Gospel unto every Creature Go therefore teach all Nations as St. Matthew hath it chap. 28.19 And if they were to travel over all the World and to teach all Nations good reason they should be inabled to speak the Tongues of all Nations also and be replenished with so great a measure of the Holy Spirit as might make the conquest of the world the more easie to them Which work as it was wrought in the Feast of Penticost so hath the anniversary of that day been celebrated ever since in the Christian Church though under other names according to the language of particular Countries as the Birthâ—day of the Gospel of Christ the day on which it was preached after his Ascension after the great work of our Redemption was accomplished by him It had before been kept as a solemn Festival one of the three great Festivals ordained by Moses in memory of the giving of the Law that day upon Mount Sinai And hath been since observed as a solemne Festival one of the three great Festivals of the Christian Church in memory of the promulgation of the Gospel from Mount Sion on the same day also A day it was of so great solemnity that there were then assembled at Ierusalem of every Nation under heaven as the Text informes us The Gospell was not to be published but in such a generall concourse of people Therefore the day thereof to be solemnized by all Nations also and made a day of holy assembly to the Lord our God But our Redeemer staid not here as if he had sufficiently discharged his Propheticall Office by furnishing his Apostles with the Gifts of the Spirit and meant from henceforth to betake himselfe to the execution of the Priestly or the Kingly Offices as being in themselves more glorious and to him more honorable When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive and gave Gifts to men not unto Twelve alone which was the number of his Apostles nor to an hundred and twenty onely which was the whole number of his Disciples at that time The Harvest being great did require more labourers and therefore Gifts must be bestowed on more men than so And if we will beleeve St. Paul so it was indeed For having cited those words of the royall Psalmist he addes immediately And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some
30. And in his Regulae Compend Respons 310. St. Ierom in 1 Cor. St. Chrysostom also on the place Theodoret Theophylact and Oecumenius on the same Text also Nor is the word so used onely in the best Christian Writers but did admit also of the same signification amongst the best learned and most critical of the Heathen Greeks Of whom take Lucian for a taste who speaking of the adorning of the Court or Senate-house expresseth the place it self by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot possibly be meant of the men that met but of the place of the Assembly A thing which here I had not noted because not pertinent to the sense of the present Article but onely to encounter with the peevish humor of our Modern Sectaries who will by no means yet yeeld the name of Churches to those sacred places but call them Steeple-houses in the way of scorn But to proceed the word Ecclesia or Church in the Genuine sense as it denotes the Body Collective of Gods Servants since the coming of Christ is variously taken in the Book of God and also in the Writings of the purest times For first it signifieth a particular Congregation of men assembled together in some certain and determinate place for Gods publick service In this sense it is taken in those several Texts where St. Paul speaketh of the Church in the house of Nymphas Col. 4.15 To the Church in the house of Philemon Vers. 5. The Church which was in the house of Aquila and Priscilla Rom. 16. and 1 Cor. 16.19 I know that this is commonly expounded of their private Families as if the house and family of each Faithful Christian were in St. Pauls esteem reputed for a Church of Christ. But herein I prefer Mr. Medes opinion before all men else who understands those words of the Congregation of Saints which were wont to assemble at such houses for the performance of Divine Duties it being not unusual with some principal Christians in those early days to dedicate or set apart some private place within their own houses for the residue of the Church to assemble in And this he proveth first from the singularity of the expression which must needs include somewhat more than ordinary somewhat which was not common to the rest of the Saints whom St. Paul salutes in his Epistles For in so large a Bedrol as is made in the last to the Romans it is very probable that many if not most of them were Masters of Families and then must all their Families be Churches too as well as that of Aquila and Priscilla or else we must finde some other meaning of the words than that which hath hitherto been delivered Secondly Had St. Paul intended by those words The Church which is in their house nothing but the Family of Nymphas Philemon and the rest we should have found it put in the same expression which he doth elswhere use on the same occasion as viz. The houshold of Aristobulus the houshold of Narcissus Rom. 16.10 11. The houshold of Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 4.19 Patrobas Hermes and the Brethren which are with them Rom. 16.14 Nereus and Olympas and all the Saints which are with them Vers. 15. The difference of expressions makes a different case of it and plainly doth conclude in my apprehension That by the Church in such an house the Apostle meaneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church assembled at such houses as he there expounds it And though he cite no antient Author to confirm him in this opinion but Oecumenius and he none of the antientest neither Yet in a matter of this nature I may say of him as Maldonat doth of Euthymius in a greater point whose single judgement he preferreth before all the rest of the Fathers viz. Quem minorem licet solum autorem verisimilia tamen dicentem quam plures majoresque illos sequi malo But to proceed unto the other acceptions of the word Ecclesia it is also used to signifie in holy Scripture The Church of some City with the Region or Country round about it a National or Provincial Church under the Government of one or many Bishops and subordinate Ministers as the Churches of the Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Thessalonians Romans and the rest mentioned in the Acts and St. Pauls Epistles Thirdly It is also used to signifie not the Church it self or the whole Body of the people of a City or Province agreeing in the Faith of Christ but for the principal Officers and Rulers of it such as possess the place of Iudicature in the Court or Consistory In this sense it is used in the 18 of Matthew where the party wronged and able to get no remedy otherwise is willed by Christ to tell the Church that is to say to make his complaint to them who having the chief place and power in Spiritual matters are able to compel the wrong-doer to make satisfaction by menacing and inflicting the Churches Censures Tell the Church That is saith Chrysostom the Prelates and Pastors of the Church who have the power of binding and loosing such offenders which is mentioned in the verse next following And in this sense the name of Church became appropriated to the Clergy in the latter times and hath been used to signifie the State Ecclesiastick Ecclesiae nomen ad Clerum solere restringi as Gerson noted in his time not without regret as being men most versed in the Church affairs And lastly it is used for the Body Collective or Diffusive of the people of God made up of several Congregations States and Nations consisting both of Priests and People of men as well under as in Authority In this respect Christ is said to be the head of the Church Eph. 5.23 The husband of the Church V. 32. To love his Church and to give himself for his Church V. 25. That is to say not onely of a National or Provincial Church and much less of a Congregational onely but of the Universal Church which consists of all dispersed and distressed over all the World And this we do define to be the whole Congregation of Christian people called by the grace and goodness of Almighty God to a participation of his Word and Sacraments and other outward means of eternal life This Universal Church being thus found out is represented to us in the present Article by two marks or characters by which she is to be discerned from such Publick meetings which otherwise might claim that title Of which the one denotes the generality of extent and latitude and is that of Catholick by which it is distinguished from the Iewish Synagogue being shut up in the bounds of that Country onely and from the private Conventicles of Schismatical persons The other doth express the quality of the whole compositum by the piety and integrity of its several members and is that of Holy by which it is distinguished from the Assemblies of ungodly men from the
Ecclesia malignantium as the Psalmist calls it Or if you will we may by these behold the Church in her chief ingredients which are the sanctimony of life and conversation it is an holy Church and the integrity of her doctrine free from all Heresie and Error in the title Catholick For the word Catholick is not onely used to signifie Universality of extent but purity of doctrine also The first in the natural the second in the borrowed sense of the word In the first sense the Church is called Catholick in respect of place Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kinred and tongue and people and nation To which accordeth that of an Antient writer saying Ab ortu solis ad occasum lex Christiana suscepta est That the Gospel of Christ had been admitted from the rising of the Sun to the setting of it that is to say In all parts of the world And it is called Catholick too in respect of persons who are promiscuously and indefinitely called to the knowledge of Christ In whom there is neither Iew nor Gentile bond nor free male nor female but all called alike And so Lactantius telleth us also Universos homines sine discrimine sexus vel aetatis Minutius addes Aut dignitatis ad coeleste pabulum convocamus Lastly it hath the name of Catholick in respect of times as comprehending all the faithful since our Saviours days unto the age in which we live and to continue from henceforth to the end of the world Of which duration or extent of the Church of Christ the Angel Gabriel did fore-signifie to his Virgin-mother that he should reign in the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there should be no end And in this sense it doth not onely include that part of the Church which is now Militant on the Earth but also that which is Triumphant in the Heaven of Glories Both they with us and we with them make but one Body Mystical whereof Christ is Head and all together together with the Antient Patriarcks and other holy men of God which lived under the Law shall make up that one glorious Church which is entituled in the Scriptures The general Assembly the Church of the first-born whose names are written in the Heavens For the better clearing of which Vnion or Concorporation which is between these different Members of the Body Mystical the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan Council added the word One unto the Article reading it thus And I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Catholick then the Church may be rightly called in regard to extent whether it do refer to time place or persons and it is called Catholick too in respect of Doctrine with reference to the same extensions that being the true Catholick Doctrine of the Church of Christ Quae semper quae ubique quae ab omnibus credita est which hath always and in every place been received as Orthodox and that too by all manner of men according to the Golden Rule of Lerinensis Catholick in this sense is the same with Orthodox a Catholick Christian just the same with a true Professor by which the Doctrine is distinguished from Heretical and the men from Hereticks Iustinian in the Code doth apply it so Omnes hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti That for the persons the Professors it followeth after for the Doctrine Is autem Nicenae adsertor fidei Catholicae Religionis verus cultor accipiendus est c. A National or Topical Church may be called Catholick in this sense and are often times entituled so in Ecclesiastical Authors For Constantine the Emperor writing to the Alexandrians superscribed his Letters in this form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. To the Catholick Church of Alexandria And Gregory Nazianzen being then Bishop of Constantinople calls himself in his last Will and Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Bishop of the Catholick Church in the City of Constantine Of this word Catholick in this sense there hath been different use made as the times have varied The Fathers of the purest times made use of it to distinguish themselves from Hereticks according to that so celebrated saying of Pacianus Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen Christian saith he is my name and Catholick my sirname by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks And so long as the main body of Christianity retained the form of wholesome words and kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace it served exceeding fitly for a mark distinctive to known an Orthodox Professor from those who followed after Heretical and Schismatical Factions But when the main Body of the Church was once torn in peeces and every leading faction would be thought the true Church of Christ they took unto themselves the names of Catholicks also as if the truth was not more Orthodoxly held by the soundest Christians than it was by them And this hath been a device so stale and common that the Nestorians in the East though antiently condemned for Hereticks in the Third General Council do call their Patriark by the name of Catholick that is to say The Catholick or Orthodox Bishop as Leunclavius telleth us very rightly not Iacelich as the Copies of Brochardus and Paulus Venetus do corruptly read it In the same Error are our great Masters in the Church of Rome who having appropriated to themselves the name of Catholicks and counting all men Hereticks but themselves alone First cast all others out of the Church by the name of Hereticks who do not hold communion with them in their sins and errors and then defend themselves by the name of Catholicks from having dealt unjustly with their Fellow-Christians men every way more Orthodox than they be themselves Just so the Collier justified himself for a true Believer because he believed as the Church believed though he knew not the doctrine of the Church and the Church believed as he believed though the Church troubled not it self about his opinions I know the great Cardinal presumes very much on the name of Catholick making it to be one of the signs of the true Church now because an adjunct of the true Church in the Primitive times And wonder it is that we are grown so prodigal of late as to give it to them A courtesie which they receive with a great deal of joy and turn the bare acknowledgement to their great advantage there being no Argument more convincing than that which is drawn from the confession of an adversary Upon this ground doth Barclay build his Triumph for the cause of Rome Adeo probanda est ecclesia nostra à nomine Catholicae quod extorquet etiam ab invitis hareticis as he brags it there For my part as I never gave it them in writing nor in common speech as thinking
Nullum Schisma non sibi aliquam confingit haeresin ut rectè ab Ecclesia recessisse videatur as St. Ierom notes it we have no reason to exclude him absolutely from the Church of Christ For so long as he falleth not into dangerous error but holds by the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which the Church is built on He is and may be still a member of the Church of God though not of this or that particular Church or Congregation from which he hath disjoyned himself by his wilful folly nor yet so absolutely and fully of the Church of God as they who do communicate entirely in all things necessary As long as the Schismatick retaineth the profession of the Christian Faith in all the Fundamental Points and Articles of it gives ear unto the Word and receives the Sacraments according to the institution of our Lord and Saviour and performs other acts of Religious Worship though in a separate Church or Congregation of his own assembling I dare not shut him out from the hopes of Heaven or rashly say He is no subject of the Kingdom of Grace He may be still a member of the Militant Church and one day have his part in the Church Triumphant notwithstanding his offence in separating from his Fellow-Christians in case he do it not out of pride and against the clear light of his own Conscience But the Church from which he makes his separation may lawfully proceed against him as a great offender for breaking the bond of peace and unity which ought so carefully to be preserved in a Church well constituted With Hereticks the case is worse though not quite desperate for they not onely violate the Churches peace but wilfully defend some pernicious Error which tends to the destruction of the Faith it self So Haeresis aliquod dogma perversum habe◠saith the same St. Ierom. But here we must distinguish first of Heresies before we venture to resolve of the point in Question it being so That neither every erroneous opinion may be called an Heresie nor every Heresie of it self is so great and capital as to exclude the man that holds it from the Church of Christ. Many in all ages have been branded and condemned for Hereticks because they were not wholly of the same opinions with those of greatest reputation in their several Churches though oftentimes in matters of inferior nature in which diversity of opinions might have been admitted whom it were both uncharitable and unchristian too to bar from all their right and interess in the Christian Church Nay granting that the Heresie be in Fundamentals not taken up upon mistake but wilfully and maliciously invented for some private ends yet in regard they still retain amongst them the profession of other Divine verities which they hold and believe in common with the rest of the faithful for should they erre in all points of the Christian Faith they were no longer to be called Hereticks but Apostate Infidels they pertain still unto the Church and were so counted and esteemed of in the strictest times An Argument whereof may be that when an Heretick recanted of his sin and heresie and sought to be again admitted to the Churches Ordinances he was not entred as at first by the door of Baptism nor any of his acts made void if a Priest or Minister which he had done by vertue of his holy orders And so far were the Antients from this new opinion of making Hereticks no members of the Church at all That the Rebaptization of an Heretick or of such as had been formerly baptized by Hereticks was counted an error in St. Cyprian and afterwards condemned for Heresie in those that wilfully maintained it upon his Authority The stories of those times make this plain enough especially St. Augustine's works against the Donatists where this point is very fully handled and with his resolution in it I conclude this controversie Isti in quibusdam rebus nobiscum sunt in quibusdam à nobis exierunt c In some things saith the Father they are with us still in others they are departed from us In those things wherein they agree with us they are a part of that great building whereof the chief Corner-stone is Christ our Saviour In those wherein they disagree they are parted from it And if they draw any more unto them even they are fastned in those joynts to the rest of that Body c. In qua nec illi separati sunt in which their Teachers are not separated from that Sacred Body But yet although the Romanists are extreamly out in excluding all whom they call Schismaticks or condemn for Hereticks from having any place in the Church of Christ to make the more Elbow-room for themselves The Donatist and his followers are more out than they in making none but the Elect to be members of it and so monopolizing the whole Kingdom of Heaven to their faction onely In which it is most strange to see with what precipitancy and inadvertency many in the Reformed Churches of great name and credit not looking into the design and ill consequents of it have labored to promote this Tenet as most true and Orthodox especially after Iohn Wicliff and Hus his follower had set the same on foot again in these latter ages That Wicliff was of this opinion is evidently to be seen in Thomas Waldensis who doth not onely so report him but doth his best endeavor to confute him in it And that Hus also taught the same is no less evident by the proceedings had against him in the Council of Constance in which amongst others of his doctrines they condemned this one viz. Unicam esse sanctam universalem ecclesiam eamque Praedestinatorum Vniversitatem that is to say That there is one onely holy Universal Church which is the general body of Gods Elect. Thus they nor did there want some reason which might move them to it For noting many Errors and Corruptions in the Church of Rome which made them think it very unsafe to communicate any longer with it and being withal unwilling to be so esteemed of as men out of the Church They fell upon this new way to bear off that blow by making the true Church of God to be always invisible because consisting onely of Elect and praedestinate persons which were known onely unto God But on what grounds soever it was first excogitated the fame and piety of the men have so indeered it to the Doctors of the Calvinian Churches and others which profess most enmity to the Church of Rome that generally they make no other definition of the Catholick Church than that it is the Body Collective of Gods Elect. Ecclesia est coetus hominum ab aeterno electus à Deo ad vitam eternam as Vrsine in his Comment on the Palatine Catechism Ecclesia est coetus hominum sanctorum qui ex gratuita Dei electione vocati sunt in unionem cum Christo 〈◊〉
Ceremonies and authority in Controversies of Faith And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to the Word of God neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed as necessary to salvation So stands the Article in the very Acts and Records of the Convocation An. 1562. where by the way the Book of Articles being Re-printed in Latine An. 1571. when the Puritan Faction did begin to shew it self in its colours the first clause touching the authority of the Church in Controversies of Faith and in Decreeing Rites and Ceremonies was clean omitted and stands so maimed in the Book called The Harmony of Confessions for the Protestant and Reformed Churches According to which false and corrupted Copies I know not by what indirect means or by whose procurement it was so Printed too at Oxon An. 1636. when the Grandees of that Faction did begin to put forth again But to proceed The Church or Body Collective of the people of God having devolved this Power on her Representatives doth thereby binde her self to stand to such Conclusions as by them are made till on the sight of any inconvenience which doth thence arise or upon notice of some irregularity in the form and manner of proceeding she do again assemble in a new Convention review the Acts agreed on in the former Meeting and rectifie what was amiss by the Word of God And this is that which St. Augustine averreth against the Donatists men apt enough to flie in the Churches face if any thing were concluded or agreed upon against their Tenets Concilia quae per singulas provincias fiunt plenariorum Conciliorum autoritati cedere ipsaque plenaria saepe priora à posterioribus emendari cum aliquo experimento aperitur quod clausum erat cognoscitur quod latebat Provincial Councils saith the Father ought to submit unto the General And of the Generals themselves the former are oftentimes corrected by some that follow when any thing is opened which before was shut or any truth made known which before was hidden For otherwise it was not lawful nor allowable to particular men to hold off from conformity to the publick Order which had been setled in the Church nor to make publick opposition unto her conclusions which as the late most Reverend Father in God the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury very well resolves it Are with all submission to be observed by every Christian that is as he expounds himself in another place to have external obedience yeelded to it at least where Scripture or evident demonstration do not come against it And this hath been the judgment of the purest times and the practise of the best men for the times they lived in For thus said Constantine the Emperor to the point in hand Quicquid in sanctis Episcoporum Conciliis decernitur c Whatsoever is decreed in the holy Councils of Bishops ought wholly to be attributed to the Will of God More plainly Martianus Caesar Injuriam eos facere Reverendissimae Synodi judicio qui semel judicata in dubium vocent That they commit a great affront against the dignity and judgment of the most Reverend Council who shall presume to call in question what is there determined Which words of his are well enough allowed by Doctor Whitakers if understood of those things onely as they ought to be which are determined according to the Word of God St. Augustine to this purpose also Insolentissimae est insaniae c It is saith he an insolent madness for any man to dispute whether that be to be done or not which is determined to be done and therefore usually is done by the whole Catholick Church of Christ. St. Bernard also thus for the darker times Quae major superbia c What greater pride than that one man should prefer his own private judgment before the judgment of the Church Tanquam ipse solus Spiritum Dei habeat as if he onely were possessed of the Spirit of God And this holds also good in National and Provincial Councils which being the full Representative of the Church of that State or Nation hath power sufficient to compose such controversies as do arise amongst themselves and to require obedience of the Represented according to the limitations laid down before in the case of Oecumenical or General Councils The practise of all times and Nations make this plain enough in which many several Heresies have been concluded against as in that of Milevis wherein the Pelagians were condemned Anno 416. Matters of Faith have been resolved on as in the third of Toledo Anno 589. wherein many Anathemaes were thundred out against the Arians and finally Constitutions made for regulating the whole Body of Christian people in the worship of God as in the General Code of the African Councils Or were there no Record thereof in the times fore-going yet may we finde this power asserted in these later days and that by some of the most eminent Doctors of the Reformed Churches For the Divines of the Classis of Delph assembled amongst others in the Synod of Dort do declare expresly Ordinem nullum nullam pacem in Ecclesia Dei esse posse c That there would be no peace nor order in the Church of God if every man were suffered to Preach what he listed without being bound to render an accompt of his doctrine and submitting himself unto the judgment and determination of Synodical meetings Why so For if Paul and Barnabas say they being endued with the same Spirit as the rest of the Apostles were endued withal were content to go unto Ierusalem to know the judgment of the rest in the point then questioned Quanto aequius est ut Pastores alii qui Apostoli non sunt hujusmodi Synodicis Conventibus se subjiciant How much more fitting must it be for other Ministers which are no Apostles to captivate their own judgments unto that of a publick Synod Nor was the Synod it self less careful to provide for her own authority than the Delphenses were to promote the same And thereupon decreed in the close of all Abdicandos esse omnes ab officiis suis c That every man should be deprived as well of Ecclesiastical as Scholastical Offices who did not punctually submit to the Acts of the Synod and that no man should be admitted to the Ministery for the time to come who refused to subscribe unto the doctrine which was there declared and Preach according to the same And in pursuance of this final determination no fewer than Two hundred of the opposite party who did refuse to yeeld conformity to the Acts thereof were forthwith banished the
from the work of his Ministery should neither be named in the Offertory nor any prayer be made for him at the holy Altar Ne deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur as his words there are To this effect we have this clause or prayer in St. Chrysostoms Liturgy Offerimus tibi rationalem hunc cultum pro iis qui in fide requiescunt majoribus scilicet Patribus Patriarchis Prophetis Apostolis Praeconibus Evangelistis Martyribus Confessoribus c We offer this reasonable sacrifice unto thee O Lord for all that rest in the Faith of Christ even for our Ancestors and Predecessors the Patriarcks Prophets and Apostles Evangelists Preachers Martyrs Confessors c. And finally to this end served the antient Diptychs being Tables of two leaves apeece in the one of which were the names of such famous Popes Princes and Prelates men renowned for piety as were still alive and in the other a like Catalogue of such famous men as were departed in the Faith as is observed by Iosephus Vice Comes in his Observat. Eccles. de Missae apparatu Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 17. and by Sir H. Spelman in his learned Glossary Out of these Diptychs did they use to repeat the names both of the living and the dead at the time of the Eucharist as appears plainly by that passage of the Fift Council of Constantinople In which we finde first That the people came together about the Altar to hear the Diptychs Tempore Diptychorum cucurrit omnis multitudo circumcirca Altare and then that recital being made of the four General Councils as also of the Arch-Bishops of blessed memory Leo Euphemius Macedonius and other persons of chief note who had departed in the Faith of our Saviour Christ the people with a loud voice made this acclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory be to thee O Lord. Not that it was the meaning of the antient Church to pray for the deliverance of their souls from Purgatory since they never thought them to be there but partly to preserve their memory in the mindes of the living and partly to pray for their deliverance from the power of death which doth yet tyrannize over the bodies of the faithful the hastning of their Resurrection and the joyful publick acquitting of them in that great day wherein they shall stand to be judged at the Tribunal of Christ. These were the ends for which the Offerings and Prayers for the dead were made Which being very consonant to the rules of piety found such a general entertainment in the Primitive times that none but Aërius and his followers disallowed the same Of him indeed it is reported by St. Augustine Illo cum suis Asseclis Sacrificium quod pro defunctis offertur respuebat that he and his followers admitted not of Sacrifices in behalf of the dead the Sacrifices he meaneth are of praise and prayer for which and others of his Heterodox and unsound opinions he was condemned for an Heretick by the antient Father and so remains upon record Concerning which take here along the judgment of Dr. Field once Dean of Glocester who speaking of Aërius and his Heterodox doctrines resolves it thus For this his rash and inconsiderate boldness and presumption in condemning the Vniversal Church of Christ he was justly condemned For howsoever we dislike the Popish manner of praying for the dead which is to deliver them out of their feigned Purgatory yet do we not reprehend the Primitive Church nor the Pastors and Guides of it for naming them in their publick prayers thereby to nourish their hope of the Resurrection and to express their longing desires of the consummation of their own and their happiness which are gone before them in the Faith of Christ What Bishop Andrews and Bishop Montague have affirmed herein we have seen before and seen by that and by the judgment of this Reverend and Learned Doctor That the Church of England is no enemy to the antient practise of praying for the dead in the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist though on the apprehension of some inconveniences as her case then stood it was omitted in the second Liturgy of King Edward the sixt which is still in force But howsoever it was so omitted in the course of the Eucharist yet doth it still retain a place in our publick Liturgy and that in as significant terms as in any of the formulas of the Primitive times For in the Form of Burial Having given hearty thanks to Almighty God in that it hath pleased him to deliver that our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world We pray That it would please him of his infinite goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his Elect and to hasten his Kingdom that we with that our Brother and all others departed in the true Faith of Gods holy name may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory But Prayers and Offerings for the dead as before was said are no proofs for Purgatory The Church of England which alloweth of prayer for the dead in her Publick Liturgy hath in her Publick Articles rejected Purgatory as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the same The like do Montague of Norwich and the Dean of Glocester whose words we have before repeated and so doth Bishop Iewel the greatest ornament in his time of our Reformation And as for prayer for the dead saith he which you Dr. Harding say ye have received by tradition from the Apostles themselves notwithstanding it were granted to be true yet doth it not evermore import Purgatory Nor doth he onely say it but he proves it too For bringing in a prayer of St. Chrysostoms Liturgy in which there is not onely mention of the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors but of the blessed Virgin her self he addes I trow ye will not conclude hereof that the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles c. and the blessed Virgin Mary were all in Purgatory Of the same judgment is the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who telleth us That it is most certain that the antients had and gave other Reasons of prayer for the dead than freeing them out of Purgatory And this saith he is very learnedly and largely set down by the now learned Primate of Armagh Where we have the Primate of Armagh in the bargain too But what need such a search be made after the judgment and opinion of particular persons of the Church of England when it is manifest that the Greek Church at this day and almost all the Fathers of the Greek Church antiently though they admit of prayers for the dead yet believe no Purgatory Of which Alphonsus à Castro doth very ingenuously give this note De Purgatorio in antiquis Scriptoribus potissimum Graecis ferè nulla mentio est Qua de
entituled actual The nature of which Birth-sin or Original sin is by the Church of England in her publick Articles defined to be the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the Of-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and inclined to evill In which description we may find the whole nature of it as first that it is a corruption of our nature and of the nature of every man descended from the Loyns of Adam Secondly That it is a departure from and even a loss or forfieture of that stock of Original Iustice wherewith the Lord enriched our first Father Adam and our selves in him And thirdly That it is an inclination unto evil to the works of wickedness by means whereof as afterwards the Article explains it self the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and both together do incur the indignation of God So that if we speak of Original sin formally it is the privation of those excellent gifts of divine Grace inabling us to know love serve honor and trust in God and to do the things that God delights in which Adam once had but did shortly lose If materially it is that habitual inclination which is found in men most averse from God carrying them to the inordinate love and desire of finite things of the creature more than the Creator which is so properly a sin that it makes guilty of condemnation the person whosoever it be in whom it is found And this habitual inclination to the inordinate love of the creature is named Concupiscence which being two-fold as Alensis notes it out of Hugo that is to say Concupiscentia spiritus a concupiscience of the spirit or superior and concupiscentia carnis a concupiscence of the flesh or inferior faculties the first of these is onely sin but the latter is both sin and punishment For what can be more consonant to the Rules of Iustice than that the Will refusing to be ordered by God and desiring what he would not have it should finde the inferior faculties rebellious against it self and inclinable to desire those things in a violent way which the Will would have to be declined Now that all of us from the womb are tainted with this original corruption and depravation of nature is manifest unto us by the Scriptures and by some Arguments derived from the practise of the Catholick Church countenanced and confirmed by the antient Doctors In Scripture first we find how passionately David makes complaint that he was shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin Where we may note in the Greek and Vulgar Latine it is in sins and wickednesses in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek in peccatis in iniquitatibus as the Latine hath it And that to shew us as Becanus hath right well observed Quod unum illud peccatum quasi fons sit aliorum that this one sin is as it were the Spring and Fountain from whence all others are derived Next St. Paul tels us in plain words that by the offence of one of this one man Adam Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation and Judgement could not come upon all or any were it not in regard of sin Not that all men in whom Original sin is found without the addition of Actual and Personal guiltiness are actually made subject unto condemnation and can expect no mercy at the hands of God but that they are all guilty of it should God deal extreamly and take the forfeiture of the Bond which we all entred into in our Father Adam Thus finde we in the same Apostle that we are by nature the children of wrath polluted and unclean from the very womb our very nature being so inclinable to the works of wickedness that it disposeth us to evil from the first conception and makes us subject to the wrath and displeasure of God Last of all we are told by the same Apostle for we will clog this point with no further evidence That the wages of sin is death that sin entred into the world and death by sin and that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And thereupon we may conclude That wheresoever we behold a spectacle of death there was a receptacle of some sin Now we all know that death doth spare no more the Infant than the Elder man and that sometimes our children are deprived of life assoon almost as they enjoy it sometimes born dead and sometimes dead assoon as born Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit in the Poets language A wages no way due to Infants for their actual sins for actually as yet they have not offended and therefore there must needs be in them some original guilt some Birth-sin as the Article calls it which brings so quick a death upon them And this is further verified from the constant and continual practise of the Church of Christ which hath provided That the Sacrament of Baptism be conferred on Infants before they come unto the use of Speech or Reason yea and at some times and on some occasions as namely in cases of extremity and the danger of death to Christen them assoon as born For by so doing she did charitably and not unwarrantably conceive that they are received into the number of Gods children and in a state of good assurance which could not be so hopefully determined of them should they depart without the same And with this that of Origen doth agree exactly Si nihil esset in parvulis quod ad remissionem deberet indulgentiam pertinere gratia Baptismi superflua videretur Were there not something in an Infant which required forgiveness the Sacrament of Baptism were superfluously administred to him Upon which grounds the Church of England hath maintained the necessity of Baptism against the Sectaries of this age allowing it to be administred in private houses as oft as any danger or necessity doth require it of her A second thing we finde in the Churches practise and in the practise of particular persons of most note and evidence which serves exceeding fitly to confirm this point and that is That neither the Church in general doth celebrate the birth-day of the Saints departed but the day onely of their deaths nor any of the Saints themselves did solemnize the day of their own Nativity with Feasts and Triumphs First for the practise of the Church we may take this general rule once for all Non nativitatem sed mortem sanctorum ecclesia pretiosam judicat beatam That the Church reckoneth not the day of their birth but the death-day if I may so call it of the Saints to be blest and precious According unto that of the Royal Psalmist Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Upon which grounds the word Natalis hath been used in the Martyrologies and other publick
resurrection of our Lord and Saviour there came a signall benefit unto all the world which else had been fast bound for ever in the bonds of death without any hope of rising to a better life For being risen in our nature then our nature is riâ—en and if our nature be then our persons may be especially considering that he and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul hath told us so graffed into one another that he is part of us and we part of him And therefore very well said Bernard Resurrexit solus sed non totus Though he be only risen by his own proper power yet as yet he is not risen wholly nor will be untill we be raised together with him He is but risen in part by this resurrection and that he may rise all of him he must raise t is also In this respect our Saviour is entituled Primogenitus omnis Creaturae the first born or first begotten of every creature viz. first in the order of time he being the first that was ever raised from death unto life immortall and first also in the order of causality all others which have been or shall be raised or begotten to immortall life being so raised and begotten by vertue of his resurrection And in the same respect he is called Primitiae dormientium or the first fruits of them that sleep because his rising is not only the pledge and earnest of our rising also but that we shall be raised to the same state of happinesse and eternall glory which he hath attained since his rising The offering of the first fruits drew a blessing upon all the rest For if the first fruits be holy the lumpe saith the Apostle is also holy If then the first fruits of the dead be offered to Almighty God in Christ our Saviour no question but the after-fruits or the whole increase will be very acceptable and laid up in the barn of that heavenly husbandman according to the scope of our Saviours Parable And yet perhaps St. Paul might have a further aime in calling our Saviour the first-fruits of them that sleep then hath yet been spoke of it hapning so by the sweet disposition of Gods special providence that the day of his glorious resurrection did fall that year upon the second day of the feast of unleavened bread or the morrow after the Sabbath of that great solemnity upon which day the first-fruits were to be offered unto God by his own appointment Of which see Levit. 23.10 11. Here then we have the principall effect and fruit of Christs resurrection the resurrection of our own bodies from the power of death the resurrection both of soul and body to eternall life And yet there are some other intermediate benefits which redound to us some other motives and inducements which relate to him For his part first had he not risen from the dead he had still lain under the guilt of that imposture wherewith the Priests and Elders charged him when he was interred And who would then have preached his Gospel or embraced his doctrine or yeelded belief to any thing he had said before For if Christ be not risen from the dead again as St. Paul reasoneth very strongly then were our faith in vain and their preaching vain Had he not risen from the dead and manifested it by such signes and wonders he never had attained to the reputation of being generally accounted and believed in for the Son of God or such a God at best who doth die like men and fall like others of the Princes some earthly Magistrate at the most and no great one neither Nor was it necessary to his glory only but to our justification For how could we assure our selves of salvation by him or of redemption in his bloud had he been swallowed up in death and not appeared alive again for our consolation Manens in morte peccata non expiasset mortem non vicisset as the Father hath it and then how could we hope to be saved by him qui se ipsum servare non potuit who was not of ability to save himself How could we Christians of all men most miserable be possibly assured of this saving truth that Christ was delivered for our sins if he had not risen again for our justification that is to say if by his rising from the dead he had not setled and confirmed us in that assurance The reason is because the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour was as it were his actual absolution from those sins of ours for the which he dyed and his deliverance from that death which as the wages of sin we had all deserved Calvin hath very Orthodoxly resolved it so Resuscitatio Christi a mortuis ejus est actualis absolutio a peccatis nostris pro quibus mortuus est as he there determineth And he determineth it according unto that of the great Apostle saying if Christ be not risen your faith is vain yee are yet in your sins that is to say still under the command and the guilt of sin from which you have no other assurance to be absolved and quitted in the day of judgment then only by the vertue of his resurrection How wretched then is the condition of the Iews and those other Hereticks who either utterly denie the resurrection as did Simon Magus and the Maniches or post it off as not yet past till some further time which was one of the heresies of Cerinthus or make it but an allegory no true reall action as do the Family of love Assuredly the least we can affirme of them and the like vile miscreans is that they have no inheritance in the house of Iesse nor any portion at all in the son of David that they who wilfully deny his resurrection shall never finde other resurrection but to shame and torment But on the contrary the Orthodox Professors in the Chrrstian Church not only have believed this Article and stood up in defence thereof to the last drop of their bloud as often as the Princes of the earth have conspired together against the Lord and his anointed but for the better imprinting of it in the souls of simple and unlearned people and for perpetuall commemoration of so great a mercy did institute the feast of Easter A festival of all others the most antient in the Christian Church ordained and celebrated in the purest ages of the same while some of the Apostles were yet living A feast received with so unanimous affection throughout the world that though some difference happened about the time when it should be celebrated yet there was never any question made of the feast it self All of them kept an Easter though not all at a time some of the Eastern Churches in compliance with the Iews amongst whom they lived keeping it on the 14. day of the Moon as the Iews did the Passeover â—ll other