said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called Abraham was ready to obey him upon this belief that God was able to raise him again from death to life and that Gods Word concerning him would not fall to ground What saith St. Iames to this great trial of the Patriarchs faith Abraham saith he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness In all those Texts where the Apostles speak of his Iustification or where the principal acts of his Faith are recited severally there is no intimation of his Faith in Christ nothing that seems to look that way more then that Gods first promise which was made in general to the Womans seed may seem to be restrained unto his particularly Whether these several imputations of the faith of Abraham do necessarily infer such an access of Iustification as is defended and maintained in the Schools of Rome I will not meddle for the present But in my minde Origen never spake more pertinently then where he gives this resolution of that doubt though not then proposed Quum multae fides Abrahae praecesserint in hoc nunc universa fides ejus collecta esse videtur ita in justitiam ei reputatur Whereas saith he many faiths of Abraham that is to say may acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so accounted unto him for righteousness And if no other faith but a faith in God without any explicite relation to the death of CHRIST concurred unto the justification of the faithful Abraham the like may be concluded of the house of Israel that they were only bound to believe in God the Father Almighty till by Christs coming in the flesh and suffering death upon the Cross for the sins of man all that concerns his death and passions with all the other specialties in the present Creed made up together with our faith in God the Father the full and entire object of a Christian faith For this is life eternal saith our Lord and Saviour to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Not God alone but God and Iesus Christ together are since the Preaching of the Gospel made the object of faith So that it is not now sufficient to believe in God unless we also do believe in the Son of God whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins as St. Paul hath told us But here perhaps it will be said that though we do not read expressely in the holy Scriptures that the Patriarchs before Moses and the Fathers afterwards did believe in Christ yet that the same may be inferred by good and undeniable consequence out of the frequent Sacrifices before the Law and the Mosaical offerings which continued after it all which together with the rest of the Levitical Ordinances were but shadows of the things to come the body being only CHRIST That God instructed our first father Adam in the duty of Sacrifice I shall easily grant there being such early mention of them in the Book of God in the several and respective offerings of Cain and Abel And I shall grant as easily that GOD proposed some other end of them in that institution then to receive them as a Quit-rent from the hands of men in testimony that they held their estates from him as the Supreme Land-lord though by Rupertus this be made the chief end thereof Dignum sane est ut donis suis honoretur ipse qui dedit as that Author hath it which possibly may hold well enough in those kinde of Sacrifices which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratulatory Eucharistical that is the Sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving for those signal benefits which GOD had graciously vouchsafed to bestow upon them But then there was another sort which they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expiatory or propitiatory ordained by God himself as the Types and figures of that one only real and propitiatory sacrifice which was to be performed in the death of CHRIST who through the eternal Spirit was to offer up himself once without spot to God for the redemption of the world yet were they not bare Types and figures and had no efficacy in themselves as to the taking away of the filth of sin for the Apostle doth acknowledge that the bloud of Buls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean did sanctifie as to the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13 but that such efficacy as they had was not natural to them but either in reference to the Sacrifice to be made of CHRIST or else extrinsecal and affixed by the divine Ordinance and institution of Almighty God And that they might be so in this last respect there want not very pregnant reasons in the Word of God For whereas God considered as the Supreme Law-giver had imposed a commandement on man under pain of death although it stood not with his wisdome to reverse the Law which with such infinite wisdome had been first ordained yet it seemed very sutable to his grace and goodness to commute the punishment and satisfie himself with the death of Beasts offered in sacrifice unto him by that sinful Creature Which kinde of Commutations are not rare in Scripture It pleased God to impose a command on Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac for a burnt offering to him upon one of the mountains and after to dispense with so great a rigour and in the stead of Isaac to send a Ram It pleased God to challenge to himself the first born of every creature both of man and beast but so that he was pleased in the way of exchange in stead of the first born of the sons of men to take a Lamb a pair of Turtle Doves or two young Pigeons Now that these commutations were allowed of also in the case of punishment is evident by many Texts of holy Writ And this not only in sins of ignorance the Expiation of the which is mentioned Levit. 5.17 18. but in those which were committed knowingly and with an high hand of presumptuous wickedness Lying and swearing falsely deceiving our neighbour and taking away his goods by violence are sins of high and dangerous nature against both Tables and therefore in themselves deserved no less punishment then eternal damnation yet was God pleased to accept of the bloud of Rams in commutation or exchange for the soul of man If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord and lye unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep or in fellowship or in a thing taken away by violence or hath deceived his neighbour or hath found that which was lost and lyeth concerning it and sweareth falsely in all these he doth sin and that greatly too there 's no question of it And yet of these it is
to have a speciall place in this short compendium this abstract of the Christian faith of our whole religion and that it had not been enough to have expressed his being crucifyed dead and buryed unlesse his sufferings under Pontius Pilate had been mentioned also Of which three points viz. his crucifying death and burial being the consummation of his sufferings and the last acts of his humiliation for the accomplishing of mans Redemption we are next to speak ARTICVLI 5. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Crucifixus mortuus sepultus i. e. Was crucified dead and buryed CHAP. VII Of the Crucifying death and burial of the Lord JESUS CHRIST with Disquisition of all particulars incident thereunto HItherto have we spoken of those afflictions which our Redeemer suffered under Pontius Pilate in his soul and body precedent to his Crucifixion We are now come to speak of those which he suffered on the Cross it self together with his death and burial being the last acts of his Humiliation for being dead and buryed once he could fall no lower But being his death upon the Cross was that only all-sufficient Sacrifice made for the satisfaction of Gods justice and the redemption of all mankinde from the powers of darkness typified in so many acts and figures of the Old Testament whereof some relate unto his death and others to the manner of it I shall first speak a word or two of those rites and sacrifices and other figures which might or did relate in Gods secret purpose to the coming of the promised Seed and all the benefits redounding to the world by his death and passion First for those types which might fore-signifie and represent the Messiahs death they did consist especially in those legal sacrifices which God himself had instituted in the Iewish Church for the expiation of the sins of that people and their reconciliation to their God yet so that even before the law there wanted not a type and figure of it every way as proportionable to the substance signified as any of the Legal and commanded sacrifices No sooner had God raised up seed to Adam thereby to give him hopes of the accomplishment of his deliverance and redemption by the seed of the woman but he was taught to represent the same in a solemn sacrifice assoon at least as his sons were come to age to assist him in it And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering to the Lord and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flocks and the fat thereof An offering from the hands of Cain to shew that even the wicked owe an homage to the Lord God Almighty from whose hands they receive all their temporal blessings and therefore were to pay back something in the way of a quit-rent or acknowledgment Donis suis honorandus est ipse qui dedit as Rupertus hath it A Sacrifice from the hands of Abel of righteous Abel as our Saviour did vouchsafe to call him who not long after was made a Sacrifice himself by his wicked brother As if the Lord intended in this double sacrifice to represent the death and passion of his Son Christ Iesus in that of Abel by his brother the bloudy and most barbarous fact of the wretched Iews upon their countryman their brother of the house of Iacob in that of Abels lamb the sacrifice of the Lamb of God slain from the beginning of the world as the Apostle in the Revelation Now for the Legal sacrifices prescribed the Iews and those which had been offered by Gods faithful servants before the giving of the Law they do so far agree in one as to be comprised in the same general definition For generally a sacrifice may be defined to be the offering of a creature to Almighty God by the hands of a lawful Minister to be spent or consumed in his service Which definition I desire the Reader to take notice of because we shall relate unto it when we come to speak of the Christian sacrifice or the Commemoration of this sacrifice in the Church of Christ. Bellarmine in more words saith no more then this His words be these Sacrificium est externa oblatio soli deo facta qua per Legitimum ministrum creatura aliqua sensibilis permaneâ—s ad agnitionem Divinae Majestatis infirmitatis humanae ritu mystico consecratur transmutatur Only the last word transmutatur was put in of purpose to countenance the change or transubstantiation of the outward Elements into the natural body and bloud of Câ—rist which notwithstanding he is fain after to expound by the word destruitur i. e. consumed or destroyed to make his Mass as true as proper and as real a Sacrifice of Christ our Saviour on the Altar as that which he himself once offered on the accursed Cross. But all the Sacrifices of Gods people before the Law were principally if not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were offered unto God by way of thankefulness and due acknowledgement for all his benefits conferred on their souls and bodies Of which kinde also were the peace-offerings Levit. 3. v. 1. the sacrifice of thanksgiving Levit. 7.12 and the free-wil offering vers 16. in use amongst the Iews when the Law was given in celebrating which they were left at liberty to offer either male or female as they would themselves God giving his increase of their flocks and herds by both the sexes male and female and pouring on both sexes man and woman both temporal and spiritual blessings Under the law the case was otherwise For then besides the Eucharistical sacrifices before remembred which for the substance and intent were before in use amongst their Ancestors the holy Patriarchs though not accompanied with so many ceremonies they had sacrifices of another kindâ— which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say expiatory or propitiatory for the taking away of their sins In which as they did signifie by the death of the beast the wages due to their iniquities for the wages of sin is death saith the great Apostle so by the shedding of his bloud did God please to intimate that they should have the pardon and forgiveness of their sins and acceptation of their service by the bloud of Christ. These then and only these were Typi venturae victimae the types and shadows of that great and perfect Sacrifice which Christ our Saviour was to offer for the sins of mankinde and were called expiatorie and propitiatorie non proprie sed relative not properly and in themselves as if there were in them any power or vertue either to expiate our offences or be a Propitiation for our sins for the bloud of Buls and Goats cannot take away sins saith the same Apostle but relatively in relation to the Ordinance of Almighty God by whom they had been instituted to that end and purpose as Baptism after was in the Church
to proceed with them by the authority of Scripture and of reason both To the old Testament and our proofs from thence we shal challenge an obedience from them because by them confessed for Scripture and reverenced as the Oracles of Almighty God And for the new the writings of the holy Evangelists we shall expect submission to the truths thereof so far forth as it shall appear to be built on reason and unavoydable Demonstration Now the old Testament consisteth in that part thereof which doth reflect upon the birth and actions of our blessed Saviour either of types and figures or else of Prophecies and examples and the first type which looks this way is that of Isaac the only son the only beloved son of a tender father a type both of his death and his resurrection In which observe how well the type and truth do agree together The Altar was prepared the fire kindled Isaac fast bound and ready to receive the blow the knife was in his Fathers hand and his arme stretched out to act the bloudy part of a Sacrificer And yet even in the very act and so near the danger God by his holy Angel and a voice from heaven delivered the poor innocent from the jawes of death and restored him back unto his father when all hopes had failed him How evidently doth this fact of Abrahams stretching out his hand to strike the blow and being withholden by the Angel from the blow it self fore-shadow those sacred fundamentall truths which we are bound to believe concerning the true bodily death and glorious resurrection of our Lord and Saviour The Iews themselves in memorie of this deliverance did celebrate the first of Tisri which is our September usually called the Feast of Trumpets with the sound of Rams hornes or Corners and counted it for one of the occasions of that great solemnity which shews that there was somewhat in it more then ordinary somewhat which did concern their nation in a speciall manner Needs therefore must the Iews of our Saviours time be blinde with malice at the least with prejudice that look upon this story of Isaac the child of promise only as the relation of a matter past not as a type and shadow of the things to come this only son of Abraham this child of promise the only hope or pledge of that promised seed which was expected from the beginning being to come thus near to death and yet to be delivered from the power thereof that so the faith of Abraham touching the death and resurrection of his son the heir of promise might be tryed and verifyed or rather that by experiment our Saviours death and resurrection might be truly represented and foreshadowed in Isaacs danger and delivery And this is that to which St. Paul alludeth saying By faith Abraham when he was tryed offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure i. e. a figure of the resurrection of Christ the promised seed represented by it though Abraham probably looked no further then the present mercy Isaac then was the true representation and foreshadowing of our Saviours death and resurrection And so the wonderfull increase of Isaacs seed in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed was as full an embleme of our Saviours seed and generation which cannot be numbred he having begotten unto God since his resurrection more sons and daughters throughout all nations then all the children of Abraham or Isaac according to the flesh though like unto the sands of the Sea for multitude But the circumstances of our Saviours selling and betraying his cruell persecution both by Priests and people the whole story of his humiliation unto death and exaltation after his resurrection are more perfectly foreshadowed by the cruel persecutions of Ioseph procured by his brethren by his calamity and advancement in Egypt The story is so well known it needs no repeating And the afflictions laid on both by the sonnes of Iacob in a manner parallel themselves Both of them were the first-born of their several Mothers both of them the best beloved sons of their Fathers and for this cause both of them envied and maligned by their wicked and ill natured brethren by whom they were both severally betrayed and sold for a contemptible piece of money So far the parallel holds exactly goe we further yet The pit whereinto Iosephs brethren cast him as also the pit or dungeon unto which he was doomed by a corrupt and partial Iudge on the complaint of an imperious whorish woman without proof or witnesse what was it but the picture of our Saviours grave to which he was condemned in the sentence of death by as corrupt a Judge as Potiphar on the bare accusation and complaint of an Adulterous generation as the Scripture cals them without proof or evidence And the deliverance of Ioseph from both pit and dungeon his exaltation by Pharaoh over all the land of Egypt and his beneficence to his Brethren whom he not only pardoned but preservation from famine what were they but the shadowes and resemblances of Christs resurrection his sitting at the right hand of God the Father by whom all power was given him both in heaven and earth and finally his mercie to the sons of men whose sins he doth not only pardon but preserve them also from the famine of the word of God The Kings ring put on Iosephs hand the gold chain put about his neck and the vesture of fine linnen or silke wherewith he was arraied by the Kings command what were they as the Antients have observed before but the resemblances of those glorious endowments with which the body or Humanity of Christ our Saviour hath been invested or apparelled since his resurrection More then this yet The name of Zaphnath Paaneah given to Ioseph by the Kings appointment and the Proclamation made by Pharaoh that every knee should bow before him what is it but a modell or a type of that honour which God the King of Kings hath ordered to be given to Christ to whom he hath given a name above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bowe of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Where by the way and that addeth something farther to the parallel also the name of Zaphnath Paaneah as the Hebrew reads it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psonthem Phanech as the Septuagint is naturally as the learned Mr. Gregory very well observeth a Coptick or Egyptian word and signifyeth an Interpreter of hidden things or a revealer of secrets And so not only the Babylonish Targum and others of the Rabbins do expound the word but we finde the same exposition in Theodoret also 〈◊〉
resurrection is that he pleased to work that miracle upon himself in a terrible and fearfull earthquake an earthquake so extreme and so truely terrible that the graves did vomit up their dead whose ghastly apparitions wandered up and down Hierusalem and were seen by many of their friends and old acquaintance Which as it was an extraordinary dispensation and far above the Common law and course of nature so was it done by him for a speciall end and did not only verifie the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour ut Dominum ostenderent resurgentem as St. Hierome hath it but also served to assure Gods faithfull servants of the resurrection of their bodies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we read in Chrysostome So that the Earthquake of it self being great and terrible and made more terrible by the rising of so many dead men from the bonds of death no marvell if the Souldiers of the guard were amazed and terrifyed and in that fright betook themselves unto their heels and forsook their charge At first indeed the affright and astonishment was so great upon them that they seemed even as dead men as the text informes us But the first terrors being over we finde them presently in the City with the chief Priests and Elders declaring the sad news of their ill successe and publishing the glorious wonder of the resurrection So wonderfull was the providence of Almighty God that those means which were projected for an hinderance of the resurrection should add unto the fame and glory of so great a miracle and that those very Souldiers which were hired to guard the Sepulchre should be the first Evangelists if I may so call them by whom that miracle was signifyed to that stubborn nation And yet God had a further end then this in the great hast made by the affrighted Souldiers to the Priests and Elders which was by their departure from the holy Sepulchre to give the safer opportunity to his Disciples who were to be the witnesses of his resurrection both to Iew and Gentile to satisfie themselves in the truth thereof For though the women might presume on the Souldiers gentlenesse who commonly are faire conditioned to that sex yet for the Apostles to adventure thither till the Souldiers of the guard were removed from thence had been to run themselves in the mouth of danger and make themselves obnoxious to the accusation of the Priests and Pharisees And this was a remote cause of the honour which befell that sex in being first acquainted with the news of the resurrection and is another of the circumstances which attends the action God certainly had so disposed it in his heavenly wisdome that as a woman was first made the Devils instrument to perswade man to sin and consequently unto death so the same sex also should become the instruments of publishing this glad news that the Lord was risen and the assurance thereby given of a resurrection to all mankinde from the hands of death Withall observe the power of Almighty God never so clearly manifested in the sight of men as in the weaknesse of his iustruments and that although it was a work sufficient for the ablest Prophet to foretell the resurrection of the Messiah yet was it so easie when accomplished that ignorant and silly women and more then so that women laden with sins should be the first that did proclaime it And there was somewhat in that too that Christ first shewed himself unto Mary Magdalen a woman so infamous for her former life that she is branded in Scripture by the name of Peccatrix as one who had deserved to be so intituled and first of all men unto Simon Peter as great a sinner in his kinde as Mary Magdalen For this he did no doubt to let mankind know that there is no sinner so great whosoever he be to whom if he repent him of his former sinnes the fruit and benefit of Christs resurrection ought not to be extended and applyed though some restraine the same to some certain Quidams men more of their election then Almighty Gods Whereas the Scriptures plainly tell us that as in Adam all dyed so by Christ all men shall be restored to life who being risen from the dead is become the first fruits of all them that slept But here perhaps it will be said How can our Saviour Christ be called the first fruits of them that sleep considering how many severall persons had been raised from the dead before both in the old Testament and in the new The answer unto this is easie and the difference great between them and Christ their being raised from the dead and his resurrection For first our Saviour rose again from the dead virtute propria by his ownproper power and virtue but they were raised again to life virtute aliena by the power and ministry of some other In which regard we read notin the story of his resurrection that he was raised from the dead as if he had been wholly passive in the businesse and did contribute no more to it then did the Shunamites child or the daughter of Iairus but resurrexit he was risen or had raised himself which sheweth him to have been the principall Agent Nor let it stumble any one that in some places of the holy Scripture the Father is said to raise him as in Act. 11. Both will stand well enough together For by the same power that the Father is said to have done it by the same was it done also by the Son I and my Father are one but one power of both and therefore whether it were done by both or by either of them it comes all to one Secondly Christ our Saviour did so rise from the dead as to die no more to have an everlasting freedome from the power of death whereas others have been raised from death to life but to die again Christ being raised from the dead saith the great Apostle dyeth no more death hath no more dominion over him He is not only free from death or the act of dying but from the pains perils and the fears of death and all those sicknesses and sorrows which make way unto it But so it was not with the son of the widow of Sarepta or of the widow of Naim no nor with Lazarus his most dear friend neither who though they were restored again to this mortal life yet it was still a mortal life when it was at best and that mortality was to them as the Prisoners chain by which he is pulled back again though he chance to scape He only did so rise again as by his rising to destroy death and to cloath himself with immortality Thirdly though some were raised before under both Testaments yet that was but a private benefit to themselves alone or perhaps unto their Parents or some few of their friends yet the fruit and benefit thereof did extend no further But by the
was said out of Austin formerly that whosoever contradicted that which was there delivered Aut haereticus aut a Christi fide alienus was either an Heretick or an Infidel If none of these particulars may be justly quarrelled it must be then that the Apostles thought not fit to commit it to writing but left it to depend on tradition only And yet St. Augustine saith the same Catholica fides in Symbolo nota fidelibus memoriaeque mandata c. The Catholick faith contained in the Creed saith he so well known to all faithful people and by them committed unto memory is comprehended in as narrow a compass as the nature of it will bear St. Hierome no great friend of Ruffines as I said before is more plain then he who tels us that the Symbolum of our faith and hope delivered by Tradition from the Apostles Non scribitur in charta atramento sed in tabulis cordis was not committed in those times to ink and paper but writ in the tables of mens hearts Irenaeus cals it in plain tearms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Greek word for Tradition and Tertullian fetcheth it as high as from the first creating of the Gospel Hanc regulam ab initio Evangelii decurrisse as expressely he Compare these passages of Irenaeus and Tertullian whereof the first conversed with Polycarpus the Apostles Scholar with that which is told us by Ruffinus of Majores nostri that the relation which he makes came from the Tradition of their forefathers and we shall finde as strong as constant and as universal a Tradition for the antiquity and authority of the Creed in question as for the keeping of the Lords-Day or the baptizing of Infants and it may be also for the names and number of the Books of Canonical Scripture And yet behold two witnesses of more antiquity then Irenaeus and Tertullian The first Ignatius one of the Apostles scholars and successour unto St. Peter in the See of Antioch who summeth up those Articles which concern the knowledge of CHRIST IESVS in his incarnation birth and sufferings under Pontius Pilate his death and descending into Hell his rising on the third day c. as they stand in order in the Creed The second is Thaddeus whom St. Thomas the Apostle sent to Abgarus the King or Toparch of Edessa within few years after the death of our Redeemer who being to instruct that people in the Christian faith gives them the sum and abstract of it in the same words and method as concerning CHRIST in which we finde them in the Creed at this very day Nor shall I fear to fare the worse amongst knowing men for relying so far upon Traditions as if a gap were hereby opened for increase of Popery For there are many sorts of Traditions allowed of and received by the Protestant Doctors such as have laboured learnedly for the beating down of Popery and all Popish superstitions of what kinde soever Chemnitius that learned and laborious Canvasser of the Councel of Trent alloweth of six kindes of Tradition to be held in the Church with whom agreeth our learned Field in his fourth book of the Church and 20. chapter Of these he maketh the first kinde to be the Gospel it self delivered first by the Apostles viva voce by preaching conference and such ways of lively expressions Et postea literis consignata and after committed unto writing as they saw occasion The second is of such things as at first depend on the authority and approbation of the Church but after win credit of themselves and yeild sufficient satisfaction unto all men of their divine infallible truths contained in them and of this kinde is that Tradition which hath transmitted to us from time to time the names and number of the Books of Canonical Scripture The third is that which Irenaeus and Tertullian speak of and that saith he is the transmission of those Articles of the Christian faith quos Symbolum Apostolicum complectitur which are contained in the Apostles Creed or Symbol The fourth touching the Catholick sense and interpretation of the Word of God derived to us by the works and studies of the FATHERS by them received from the Apostles and recommended to posterity The fifth kinde is of such things as have been in continual practise whereof there is neither precept nor example in the holy Scripture though the grounds reasons and causes of such practise be therein contained of which sort is the Baptism of Infants and the keeping of the Lords-Day or first day of the week for which there is no manifest command in the Book of God but by way of probable deduction only The sixt and last sort is de quibusdam vetustis ritibus of many antient rites and customs which in regard of their Antiquity are usually referred unto the Apostles of which kind there were many in the Primitive times but alterable and dispensable according to the circumstances of times and persons And of this kinde are those Traditions spoken of in our Book of Articles where it is said that it is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one or utterly like in that at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversity of countreys times and mens manners so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word So that the question between us and the Church of Rome is not in this as many ignorant men are made believe wheâ—her there be or not any such Traditions as justly can derive themselves from the Apostles or whether such Traditions be to be admitted in a Church well constituted I know no moderate understanding Protestant who makes doubt of either The question briefly stated is no more but this that is to say whether the Traditions which the Church of Rome doth pretend unto be Apostolical or not Now for the finding out of such Traditions as are truly and undoubtedly Apostolical there are but these two rules to be considered the first St. Austins and is this Quod universa tenet Ecclesia that whatsoever the Church holdeth and hath alwayes held from time to time not being decreed in any Councel may justly be believed to proceed from no other ground then Apostolical authority The second rule is this and that 's a late learned Protestants that whatsoever all or the most famous and renowned in all Ages or at the least in divers ages have constantly delivered as from them that went before them no man gainsaying or doubting of it without check or censure that also is to be believed to be an Apostolical Tradition By which two rules if we do measure the Traditions of the Church of Rome such as they did ordain in the Councel of Trent to be imbraced and entertained pari pietatis affectu with the like ardor of affection as the written Word What will become of prayer for the dead and Purgatory the Invocation of the Saints departed the worshipping of Images adoration
the Spirit of prophesie as Minutius Felix well observeth Nay being spirits as they are of an excellent knowledge and either by a foresight which they have of some things in future or by conjecturing at events out of natural causes or coming by some other means to be made acquainted with the will of God they took upon them to effect what they knew would follow and to be the Authors of those publick blessings which were hard at hand so that indeed it was no wonder Si sibi Templa si honores si sacrificia tribuuntur if thereupon the people would erect them Temples and offer sacrifice unto them and yeild them other Divine honours fit for none but Gods By means whereof they did not only raise themselves into the Throne and Majesty of Almighty God and captivated almost all the world in a blinde obedience to their will and commands Sed veri ac singularis Dei notitiam apud omnes gentes inveteraverunt as the same Lactantius rightly noteth but in a manner had defaced the knowledge of the true one and only God over all the earth And in this blindeness and Idolatry did the world continue till the birth of CHRIST the Idols of Egypt falling down flat before him when he was carryed into that countrey in his Mothers arms as Palladius telleth us and all the Oracles of the Gentiles failing at the time of his death as is collected out of that work of Plutarchs inscribed De defectu Oraculorum Which preparation notwithstanding these Devils or Daemons call them which you will had gotten such possession of the mindes of men that the Apostles and Evangelists found it a far easier matter to cast the Devils out of their bodies then out of their souls and long it was before the rising of the Sun of righteousness was able to dispel those thick clowds of darkness wherewith they had thus overspread the whole face of the Earth Which with their power and influence in the acts of sin occasioned the Apostle to make this expression that he wrestled not against flesh and bloud but against Principalities and Powers against the Rulers not of this world but of the darknesse of this world and against spiritual wickednesses in high places By which words as he means the Devils and infernal spirits against which the man of God is to combate daily so by those words he gives me a just ground to think that the Angels which did fall from the primitive purity and have since laboured noithing more then the ruine of man were chiefly of those Orders of Aâ—gels which are called Principalities and Powers in the holy Scriptures And this I am the rather induced to think because I finde them called by those names in another place where the Apostle speaking of Christs victory over Hell and Satan describes it thus that having spoiled Principalities and Powers he made a shew of them openly and triumphed over them But of this argument enough It is now time that we proceed to the Creation and fall of man as that which more immediately conduceth to the following Articles of the Incarnation death and passion of our Lord and Saviour And first for mans Creation it was last in order though first in Gods intention of the six days work it being thought unfit in Gods heavenly wisdome to create man into the world before he was provided of a decent house and whatsoever else was necessary both for life and comfort For it we look unto the end for which God made many of the inferiour creatures reperâ—â—mus eum non necessitati modo sed oblectamento voluisse consulere as Calvin rightly hath observed we shall finde that he not only intended them for the necessities of mans life but also for the convenience and delight in living And whereas all the rest of the six days work were the acts only of his power the creating of man doth seem to be an act both of power and wisdome In all the rest there was nothing but a Dixit Deus he spake the word and they were made saith the Royal Psalmist But in the making of man there was somewhat more a Faciamus hominem a consultation called about it each Person of the Trinity did deliberate on it and every one contributed somewhat to his composition For God the Father as the chief workman or the principal agent gave him form and feature in which he did imprint his own heavenly Image The Son who is the living and eternal Word gave him voyce or speech that so he might be able to set forth Gods praises and the holy Ghost the Lord and giver of life as the Nicene Fathers truly call him did breath into his nosthrils the breath of life Or if we look upon it as one act of all we shall finde man agreeing with many of the creatures in the matter out of which he was made but very different from them all both in form and figure For though God pleased to make him of the dust of Earth to humble him and keep him from aspiring thoughts as oft as he reflected on his first Original yet did he make him of a straight and erected structure advanced his head up towards the Firmament and therein gave him the preheminence over all creatures else which had been made before of the same materials And this is that which Ovid the Poet thus expresseth Pronaque cum spectant animalia caetera terram Os homini sublime dedit coelumque videre Iussit erectos ad sydera tollere vultus That is to say And where all Creatures else with down cast eye Look towards th' Earth he rais'd mans Head on high And with a lofty look did him indue That so he might with ease Heavens glories view A thing of principal moment if considered rightly not only to the beeing but well being of man who is hereby instructed by the Lord his God that in the setling of his desires and affections he should take counsell of his making so to advance his meditations as God doth his head and not by fastning both his looks and thoughts on the things below him to disgrace as much as in him is the dignity of his creation and consequently merit to have had the countenance even of those very beasts whose minde he carryeth For I am verily perswaded that if the worldly minded man and such as are not well instructed in the things of God did but consider of the figure of his body only that very contemplation would promote him in the way of godliness and rectifie such errours and misperswasion wherewith his soul hath been misguided in the way of truth Certain I am that Lactantius whom I have so often cited in this present work examining the Original and growth of Atheism with which the world had been infected in the former times makes this amongst some other causes to be one of the principal that men had formerly neglected to look up
hath it that if he would he might continue in Gods grace and favour and attain all the blessedness which he could desire or otherwise might fall from both and so deprive himself of that sweet contentment which is not any where to be found but in God alone A greater liberty then this he had not given unto the Angels a more glorious creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Iustin Martyr And he as some of them before abused this liberty so given to his own destruction For being placed by God in the garden of Eden in Paradiso voluptatis as the vulgar reades it he had free power to eat of every tree but one in that glorious place and that tree only interdicted that God might have some tryall of his free obedience the interdiction being seconded with this commination that whensoever he did eat of it he should surely die What lesse could God have laid upon him unlesse he had discharged him of all obedience to his will and pleasure and left him independent of his supreme Power Father said the wise servant unto Naaman if the Prophet had commanded thee a great thing wouldst thou not have done it how much more then when all he saith unto thee is no more then this that thou shouldest wash and be clean Had God commanded Adam some impossible matter he might have been excused from the undertaking because it was a matter of impossibility Or had God bound him to the fruit of one tree alone and debarred him from the tast of all the rest he might have had some more excusable pretence for his flying out and giving satisfaction to a straitned appetite But the commandement being small makes his fault the greater the easiness of the one much aggravating the offence of the other For so it was that either out of unbelief as if God did not mean to sue him for so small a trespasse or that he had a proud ambition to be like to God or yeelded to the lusts of intemperate appetite or that he was not willing to offend his wife by whom he was invited to that deadly banquet he took the forbidden fruit into his mouth and greedily devoured his own destruction and so destroyed himself and his race for ever Not himselfe only but his race even his whole posterity For being the root and stock of mankinde in general which is descended from the loynes of this wretched man what he received of God in his first creation he received both for himself and them who descended from him and what he lost he lost like an unthrifty Father for the childe unborn And as the Scriptures say of Levi that he payed tithes in Abraham to Melchisedech because he was in the loynes of his father Abraham when Melchisedech met him so may we say of the posterity of this prodigal father that they were all undone by his great unthriftiness because they were all of them in his loynes when he lost Gods favour when he drew sin upon them all and consequently death the just wages of it And so saith Gregory Nazianzen surnamed the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We were so made saith he that we might be happy and such we were being made when first placed in Paradise in which we might have had the fruition of all kinds of happiness but forfeited the same by our own transgression If any aske St. Augustine makes the question and the answer too what death God threatned unto man on his disobedience whether the death of the body or of the soul or of the wholeman which is called the second death we must answer All For if saith he we understand that death only by which the soul is forsaken of God surely in that all other kinde of deaths were meant which without question were to follow For in that a disobedient motion rose in the flesh for which they covered their privy parts one death was perceived in which God did forsake the soul. And when the soul forsook the body now corrupted with time and wasted by the decaies of age another death was found by experience to ensue upon it that by these two deaths that first death of the whole man might be accomplished which the second death at last doth follow except Man be delivered by the grace of God And by the grace of God was poor man delivered from this body of death For as there is no deep valley but near so me high hill so near this vale of misery this valley of the shadow of death as the Psalmist calleth it was an hill of mercy a remedy proposed in the promised seed to Adam and the sons of Adam if with unfained faith they lay hold upon it God looketh upon them all at once in that wofull plight and when he saw them in their bloud had compassion on them and out of his meer love and mercy without other motives offered them all deliverance in a Mediator in the man CHRIST IESVS and that too on conditions far more easie then that of workes the condition and reward being this in brief that whosoever did believe in him should not perish but have life everlasting And this I take to be the method of Election unto life eternal through CHRIST IESVS our Lord. For although there be neither Prius or Posterius in the will of God who sees all things at once together and willeth at the first sight without more delay yet to apply his acts unto our capacities as were the acts of God in their right production so were they primitively in his intention But Creation without peradventure did foregoe the fall and the disease or death which ensued upon it was of necessity to be before there could a course be taken to prescribe the cure and the prescribing of the cure must first be finished before it could be fitted to particular persons And for the Fall which was the medium as it were between life and death the great occasion of mans misery and Gods infinite mercy God neither did decree it as a meanes or method of which he might make use to set forth his power in the immortal misery of a mortal creature nor did he so much as permit it in the strict sense of the word in which it differeth little from a plain command Quam longe quaeso est a jubente permittens How little differeth permitting from commanding saith devout Salvian considering he that which doth permit having power to hinder is guilty of the evill which doth follow on it God did not then permit the fall of unwary man as Moses did permit the Israelites a bill of divorce which manner of permission carryeth an allowance with it or a toleration at the least but so permit it only as the father in our Saviours parable permitted his younger Son to see strange Countries and having furnished him with a stock on which to traffick suffered him to depart and make up his fortunes whether good
unto certain ends And of this kind saith he was the death of the Crosse with all the wofull torments concurring with it which simply Christ shunned and declined but respectively to the end proposed did embrace it cheerfully So far and to this purpose and effect the said Reverend and Learned Doctor This being declared and the point thus stated by the Schoolmen we will next see how this agreeth with the sense of all the antient and orthodox writers who have delivered us their conceptions of this prayer of Christs And first saith Origen CHRIST taking to him the nature of mans flesh retained all the properties thereof according to which he prayed in this place that the cup might passe from him It is the property of every faithfull man to be unwilling to suffer any pain especially that tendeth unto death because he is a man and hath flesh about him but if God so will then to be content even against that will of his own because he is faithful There is also another exposition of this place which is this If it be possible that all these good things may come to effect without my passion which otherwise shall come by my death then let this passion passe from me but not otherwise And Athanasius thus As by death Christ abolished death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all humane miseries by suffering them as a man so by his fear he took away our fear and made men no longer to fear death But Cyril of Alexandria next Quando formidasse mortem videtur ut homo dicebat c. When Christ seemed to fear death he said as a man Father let this cup passe from me for though as a man he abhorred death yet as a man he refused not to performe the will of his Father and of himself being the word of God Then Beda thus agreeably to the sense of his Predecessors if death may die without my death in the flesh let this cup passe from me but because this will not otherwise be thy will be done not mine Then Damascen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These words saith he proceeded from a naturall fear for as a man CHRIST would have had the cup to passe Next him Euthymius Zigabenus thus As a man Christ said if it be possible i. e. so far as it is possible and in saying yet not as I will but as thou wilt he teacheth that we must follow the will of God though nature reclaime And in the close of all Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is incident to the nature of man to fear death for death entred besides or against nature and therefore nature flyeth death And in another place The common fear of mans nature Christ cured 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consuming it in himself and making it obedient to the will of God In which concurrent testimonies of the antient writers we have not only the full grounds of that distinction of the Schoolmen touching the superior and inferior Reason and the severall and adequate acts of each but also of the observation of Hugo de Sancto Victore and of those severall respects and reasons in which Christ may be said both to decline death and to embrace it But being there is so much speech amongst them of a naturall fears or the fears incident to nature we will once more repair unto the Schoolmen and enquire of them both what his natural fear was and in what respect it was he feared as also how this fear of his may be reconciled both with the will of God and his knowledg of it First then they say that natural fear ariseth in these three respects that is to say first in respect of things that cannot be avoided neither by resistance and incounter nor by flying from them secondly in respect of such things as may be escaped or overcome with a kind of uncertainty of event and danger of the issue thirdly in respect of such as may be escaped or overcome without any uncertainty of the event or issue but not without great conflict and extremity of labour Then they declare what things they were which Christ did fear and in what sort he feared them For first say they he feared death and the stroke of the justice of God his Father sitting on his tribunal or judgment seat to punish the sins of men for which he stood forth that day to answer and secondly he feared also that everlasting destruction which was due to mankind for those sins And finally they resolve it thus that the former of these two he feared as things impossible to be escaped in respect of the resolution and purpose of his heavenly Father which was that by his satisfactory death and sufferings and no other way man should be ransomed and delivered from the power of Satan and that he feared the latter that is to say declined it as a thing he knew he should escape without all doubt or uncertainty of the event though not without conflicting with the temptations of the Devil and the enduring of many bitter and grievous pangs which in that conflict might befall him Which resolution of the Schoolmen not only shews the reasons of CHRISTS natural fear but addes withall another reason why he was so amazed and sorrowfull and also why he prayed so long and with so great fervencie that the cup which was prepared for him might have passed over him And to say truth it must be somewhat more then the consideration and apprehension of a bodily death which could so much work upon our Saviour considering with how much gallantrie so many of the primitive Martyrs have defyed their torments and mounted on the scaffold with so clear a confidence as if they had not been to have suffered death but behold a Triumph And therefore first it may be said that besides the natural fear of death which is incident to the Saints of God however gallantly resolved to contemn the force of it by the assistance and support of the holy Spirit which he could not avoid and the avoidable fear of everlasting destruction which might be for a season presented to him he was to undergoe the whole wrath of God for the sins of mankind A wrath so infinite and just so far exceeding the strength and reach of mans nature to endure that our earthly infirmity to which for our sakes he submitted himself cannot conceive nor comprehend the greatnesse of it nor think upon the power thereof without fear and horror CHRIST saith a reverend and learned Prelate of this Church was not only to suffer that which in his Person should be thought sufficient in the righteous judgment of God to appease his anger and purge our sins but he was further to see and behold from what he delivered us even from the wrath to come For how should the price and force of his death be known unto him if he were ignorant what dreadfull and terrible vengeance was prepared
for sin should he not redeeme us Since therefore he was at this time to bear the burden of our sins in his body and to have the chastisement of our peace laid upon him and did withall behold the fiercenesse of Gods wrath against sinfull man how could he choose but fear the effects thereof and pray against them For though he were assured that this wrath of God would not proceed against him unto condemnation yet he knew well that God had infinite means to presse and punish humane nature above that which it was able to bear And therefore he addressed himself to his heavenly Father being sure that God at his most earnest and fervent prayer would proportion the pain he was to suffer according to the weaknesse of that flesh which he bare about him that neither his obedience might be staggered nor patience overwhelmed and swallowed up in despair Besides there might be somewhat else in the cup provided for him then the wrath of God with all the fears and terrors which depend upon it which might make him so unwilling to tast thereof so earnestly desirous to decline the same For many of the Fathers think that Christ did pray more vehemently to have that cup passe from him because he saw the Iews so eagerly inclined to force it on him and knew that if he drank thereof and took it from their murderous and bloudy hands it could not but draw down upon them such most grievous punishments as the dispersing of their nation and the rejection of them from the Covenant and grace of God For thus saith Origen for those men then whom he would not have perish by his passion he said Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me that both the world might be saved which was the principal matter aimed at and the Jews not perish by his suffering St. Ambrose thus Therefore said Christ take this cup from me not because the Son of God feared death but for that he would not have the Jews though wicked to perish Ne exitialis esset populo Passio sua quae omnibus esset salutaris lest his passion should be destructive to them which was to be healthfull unto all Of the same minde is Hierome also Christ said not let the cup passe from me but let this cup passe from me i. e. this cup provided by the Jews which can have no excuse of ignorance if they put me to death considering that they have the Law and the Prophets which foretell of me So that Christ makes not this request as as fearing to suffer but in mercy to the former people Sed misericordia prioris populi ne calicem ab illis propinatum bibat that he might not drink the cup which was offered by them Whose judgement in this point is so well approved by venerable Bede our Country-man that he is loath to change the words And certainly this consideration of those worthies stands on very good reason For if he so much pitied the ruine of the City and desolation of their land by the hands of the Romans that he wept upon the thought thereof what sorrow and disconsolation shall we think he took to thinke of the perpertual destruction of so many thousands and their posterities for ever thorow their own madnesse in thirsting after his bloud What grief and anguish must it be unto him to foresee the rejection of that people from the favour of God by their rash and wicked desire to have his bloud upon them and upon their children at his arraignment before Pilate For if Moses and Paul so vehemently grieved at the fall of their Brethren according to the flesh that for their sakes the one wished to be wiped out of the book of God the other most sacredly protested the great heavinesse and continual anguish which he felt for them in his heart how much more might it grieve the Saviour of the world who much exceeded both the other in compassion and mercy to see himself who came to blesse them and to save them to be the rock and stone of offence that should stumble them and their children striking them with perpetual blindnesse and bruising them with everlasting perdition through their unbelief But whether this was so or not as it may be probable most sure it is that many things concurred together to make up the measure of those sarrowes fears and terrors which were then upon him and against which he prayed so fervently and with such prostration Insomuch that having offered up his prayers and supplication to him that was able to save him from death with strong crying and tears to him who was able had he pleased to take away that cup from him but howsoever able and willing both to mitigate the sharpnesse of it and abate the bitternesse the Lord thought fit to send him comfort from above by his heavenly Ministers And there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven strengthning him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek which by the vulgar Latine is translated confortans eum comforting him by the translatour of the Syriack confirmans eum strengthning or confirming him as our last translation The word in the Original will bear both constructions both being of especial use in the present businesse For if we look upon our Saviour in the middest of his anguish praying unto the Lord that if it were possible that cup might passe from him the Angel may be thought to be sent unto him with a message of Comfort touching the mitigation of his sorrows the speedy end they were to have and the inestimable benefit that by his sufferings should redound unto all the world and then it is confortans eâ—m as the vulgar Latine But if we look upon him as resolved to submit himself to his Fathers pleasure not my will but thy will be done and patiently to endure whatever he should lay upon him the Angel may be thought to be sent unto him to strengthen and confirme him in that resolution and then it is confirmans eum as the translatour of the Syriack reads it But which soever of the two it was certain it is that the appearance of the Angel had some special end God doth not use to send about those heavenly messengers but on businesses of great importance And though there be no constat in the book of God what this businesse was on which the Angel was sent down by the Lords appointment yet we may probably conceive that it was to give him this assurance that his prayers were heard whether they tended to the mitigation of his present sorrows or the accepting of his death and passion as a full perfect and sufficient satisfaction for the sinnes of the world For the Apostle having told us in the fift to the Hebrews that when in the days of his flesh he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from
is to be observed that Christ now seeing all was finished which God required at his hands to the satisfaction of his justice for the sins of man and having fulfilled all those things which were spoken of him by the Prophets did voluntarily of his own accord deliver up his soul into the hands of his Father He had before told us of himself that he was the good Shepheard which giveth his life for the sheep Ioh. 10.11 that no man had power to take it from him Si nemo utique nec mors and if none then not death as we read in Chrysostom but that he laid it down of himself vers 18. and that he gave his life as a ransome for many Matth. 20.28 And the event shewed that he was no braggard or had said more then he was able to perform For the Evangelists declare that he had sense and speech and voluntary motion to the last gasp of his breath all which do evidently fail in the sons of men before the soul parteth from the body Which breathing out of his soul so presently upon so strong a cry and so lowd a prayer seemed so miraculous to the Centurion who observed the same that without expecting any further Miracle he acknowledged presently that truly this was the Son of God And this St. Hierom noted rightly The Centurion hearing Christ say to his Father Into thy hands I commend my Spirit statim sponte dimisisse spiritum and presently of his own accord to give up the ghost moved with the greatness of the wonder said Truly this man was the Son of God The Fathers generally do affirm the same ascribing this last act of our Saviours Tragedy not to extremity of pain or loss of bloud to any outward violence or decay of spirits but as his own voluntary deed and that though God the Father had decreed he should die yet he did give him leave and power to lay down his life of his own accord that his obedience to the will and pleasure of his heavenly Father might appear more evidently and the oblation of himself be the more acceptable And to this purpose saith St. Ambrose Quasi arbiter exuendi suscipiendique corporis emisit spiritum non amisit i. e. he did not lose his soul though he breathed it forth as one that had it in his own power both to assume his body and to put it off Eusebius to the same purpose also When no man had power over Christs soul he himself of his own accord laid it down for man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so being free at his own disposing and not over-ruled by outward force he himself of himself made his departure from the body The judgement of the rest of the Fathers touching this particular he that list to see let him consult St. Augustine lib. 4 de Trinit c. 13. Victor Antiochen in Marc. c. 15. Leo de Passione Dom. serm 16. Fulgentius lib. 3. ad Thrasimundum Sedulius in Opere Paschali lib. 5. c. 17. Beda in Matth. c. 27. Bernard in Feria 4. Hebdom poenosae And for the Greeks Athanasius Orat. 4. contra Arianos Origen in Ioh. Hom. 19. Gregorie Nyssen in Orat. 1. de Christi Resurrectione Nazianzen in his Tragedy called Christus patiens Chrysostom in Matth. 27. Homil. 89. Theophylact on the 27. of Matth. and the 23. of Mark. and the 23. of Luke And for late Writers Erasmus on Luk. 23. and Mark 15. Musculus on the 27. of Matthew and Gualter Hom. 169. on Iohn all which attest most punctually to the truth of this that the death of Christ was not meerly natural proceeding either from any outward or inward causes but only from his own great power and his holy will And to what purpose note they this but first to shew the conquest which he had of death whom he thus swallowed up in victory as the Apostle doth express it and secondly to shew that whereas natural death was the wages of sin which could not be inflicted on him in whom no sin was he therefore did breath out his soul in another manner then is incident to the sons of men to make himself a free-will offering to the Lord his God and make himself a sacrifice for the sins of mankinde by yeelding willingly to that death which their sins deserved And to this death this voluntary but bodily death of the Lord CHRIST IESVS and to that alone the Scriptures do ascribe that great work of the worlds redemption For thus St. Paul unto the Romans When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.11 to the Hebrews thus For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 if by Christs death it must be by his bodily death by effusion of his bloud and by no other death or kinde of death of what sort soever And to this truth the Scriptures witness very frequently For thus St. Paul we have redemption through his bloud Ephes. 1.7 By his own bloud hath he entred into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.12 St. Peter thus Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Finally thus the Elders say unto the Lamb in the Revelation Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud Apocal. 5 9. Which being so it is most certain that Christ abolished sin and Satan by suffering his body to be slain his bloud to be shed unto the death or the sins of the world and not by any other way or means co-ordinate with it as some lately fable Yet so it is that some men not content with that way of Redemption which is delivered in the Scriptures have fancyed to themselves another and more likely means for perfecting that great work of the death of Christ and teach us that the shedding of his bloud to the death of his body had not been sufficient for the remission of our sins if he had not also suffered the death of the soul and thereby wholly ransomed us from the wrath of God Calvin first led the dance in this affirming very desperately that I say no worse Nihil actum esse si corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset that Christ had done nothing to the purpose if he had dyed no other then a bodâ—ly death He must then die the death of the soul seeing that his bodily death would not serve the turn and they who pretermit this part of our Redemption never known before and do insist so much externo carnis supplicio in the outward sacrifice of his flesh are insulsi nimis but silly fellows
cup of salvation and â—all upon the name of the Lord Psalm 116.13 But I crave pardon for this digression if at least it be one and passe from the commemoration to the thing remembred To return back therefore unto Christ our Saviour whom we left hanging on the Crosse and who by yielding up his soul into the hands of his Father had put a finall period unto all his sufferings it could not be but that his death being of so great consequence to the sons of men though most unjustly brought about by these sons of Belial must be accompanyed with some great and signal testimonies from the God of heaven And so accordingly it was For the text telleth us that the sun was darkned from the sixth hour to the nineth that the vail of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottome and the earth did quake and the rocks were rent It could not otherwise be supposed but that the whole fabrick of the world would be out of joynt and the course of nature suffer interruption when he by whom the world was made and nature put into an ordinary course did suffer such a dissolution of his body and soul and took his farewell of the world in so strange a manner Which wondrous accidents together with the circumstances of the time and place being so necessary to the knowledge of our Saviours passion and to the clearing of some difficulties which occurre therein shall be a little further enquired into for the readers satisfaction and mine one And first beginning with those signes and wonders which did accompany his death some of them were so generall as to be observed in parts far remote and by men that had no reference unto Christs affaires and other being of more private and particular nature not taking notice of but by those of Iewry whom it most principally concerned Of this last sort was the renting of the vail of the Temple in twain from the top to the bottome Concerning which we may please to know that the Temple of Hierusalem consisted of two parts besides the Courts that is to say the body of the Church which they called the holy and the quire or châ—ncell of the same which they called the Sanctum sanctorum or the holy of holies or the holiest of all Heb. 9.3 into which none might enter but the high Priest only and that but once a year neither when he made offerings for himself and for the errours of the people This parted from the other by a very high wall reaching to the top and glittering with gold and curiously engraved with the work of the carver having one only dore which opened inwardly into it before which hung the vail here mentioned being made of silk and artificially embroidered with most curious works to hinder the people from looking into the inmost Sanctuary of the Temple Now for the renting of this vail it either signifyed the discovery and laying open of the Iewish rites which before were hidden and concealed from the eyes of the Gentiles as Theophylact is of opinion or the abrogation of the Iewish ceremonies by the death of Christ as Calvin thinks or rather the breaking down of the partition-wall by which the Iews and Gentiles had before been separated and bringing both into one Church or Mystical body And unto this most probably alludeth the Apostle saying of Christ that he hath made of both one and hath broken down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that middle wall of partition which was between us that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Crosse. As for the earth-quake and that darknesse which the speaks of it was so general and remarkable over all the world that other writers of those times have observed the same and left their observations on record to confirme those truths left the Evangelists might have been suspected to have been partiall in relating the affaires of Christ. For Origen proves it out of Phlegon an old Greek writer of those times that in the reign of Tiberius Caesar under whom Christ suffered universum orbem tenebris offusum the whole world was covered with a prodigious darknesse and that many fatall earthquakes hapned in the same times also Eusebius doth observe the same out of Phlegon also adding withall that the sun never suffered such a notable defect of light as was then observed and that many Cities of Bithynia but specially the City of Nice were miserably shaken with those earthquakes Tertullian also speaking of this present Eclipse builds not alone on the Evangelists whose credit he conceived the Gentiles would not much relie on but doth appeal to the Records and Archives of the Roman Empire A darknesse or eclipse the more remarkable because so plainly contrary to the course of nature and therefore by St. Augustine called mirabilis et prodigtosus as being at the full of the Moone for at that time the Iewes did keep the feast of the Passeover whereas all Eclipses of the sun do naturally happen in the wane of the old moone or the first quarter of the new Touching the time of our Redeemers being fastned to the fatall Crosse there seems to be some difference between the Evangelists St. Marke saith It was the third hour and they crucifyed him Mark 15.25 St. Iohn that it was about the sixt hour when Palate delivered him unto them to be crucifyed cap. 16. v. 14 16. This hath occasioned some to think that the text in one of the Evangelists hath received a change and that the Copies differ from the first originall The Commentaries on the 77. Psal. ascribed to Hierome is of opinion that the text in Marke hath been corrupted by the carelesnesse of the Transcribers and the third hour put down in stead of the sixt and hereunto Cajetan on the place Sixtus Senensis Biblioth l. 6. Annotat. 131. and Canus in the second of â—is Common places cap. 18. do conform their judgments And on the other side Theophylact is of opinion that the corruption lyeth in the text of Iohn which antiently had spoken of the third houre in numeral figures not at length and that by the like fault of the transcribers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are the numeral figures were mistaken the sixt being there put down in stead of the third And though it cannot be denyed but that some very antient Copies do read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there as it is in Marke yet Beza who observes and approveth the same thinks it very unsafe to alter any thing in the text or depart only upon that authority from the usuall readings with great both piety and prudence So that the readings in both places as they stand now in our Bibles being very antient and extant in all the Fathers who have written on them or otherwise discoursed occasionally of our Saviours passion it hath exceedingly exercised the wits of judicious men
consequently punishments in hell With whom Theodoret consents commending much the piety of the old Philosophers in that they sent all the souls of all those to heaven who lived well and vertuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but those that did the contrary unto hell below and saying particularly of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in many places he speaks of hell or Hades as a place of torments In which it is to be observed that when the Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are joyned with the word Hades in the Genitive case it is to be supplyed with some other word to make up the Grammaticall construction as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in the house or regions of Hades Let us next see what use the writers of the new Testament have made of Hades and in what sense and signification we shall finde it there And first we may observe that it is sometimes used not often to signifie the Prince of darknesse the very Beelzebub himself the king of Devils as in the 20. Chapter of the Revelation v. 14. were it is said according to the English translation that death and hell were cast into the lake of fire But in the Originall it runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that death and Hades that is to say the Gonervours of death and the Prince of hell received their finall condemnation and were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone And in this sense as I conceive it is also used in a former place of the said book in which we finde mention of a pale horse death sitting on his back and Hell or Hades saith the Greek that is to say the Prince of hell following after On which the antient Expositer in St. Augustines works gives this Glosse or Comment Hell followeth after i. e. Expectantes devorationem multarum animarum expecting to devour the souls of many of those who are slain by death And this doth very well agree with that of the Apostle saying that the Devill is like a roaring lyon walking up and down and seeking whom he may devoure But generally the word Hades is used in the new Testament to signifie hell it selfe or the place of torments according to the meaning of the word in common speech Thus read we in St. Matthews Gospel that the gates of hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek or the gates of Hades shall not prevaile against the Church and in St. Lukes Gospel it is said of the great rich glutton that he was in hell in Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Original which in in the same verse is affirmed to be a place of torments And in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments saith the text v. 23. and in the next verse he complaines to Abraham that he was tormented in those flames Now these two places are confessed on all sides to be so clearly meant of hell or the place of Devils that there is no exception to be made against them May we not prove the like also of all the rest I beleive we shall In the 11. Chapter of St. Matthew it is affirmed of Capernaum that it was exalted unto heaven but should be brought down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hell or Hades What should the meaning of this be but that whereas the Gospel of Christ was now preached unto them whereby that City was exalted above all the Cities of Iewrie their not receiving of the same being offered to them made them obnoxious to the righteous judgment of Christ and liable to everlasting damnation in hell in the day of doom which day should be more tolerable to the Land of Sodome then it would be to them In the first Epistle to the Corinthians we finde this question O death where is thy sting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is thy victory O Hades Here Hades in the new translation authorized by K. Iames is I know not why translated grave O grave where is thy victory But then you must observe with all that hell is added in the margin to shew that they abandoned not the old Translation where in plain termes we finde it thus Death where is thy sting Hell where is thy victory and so it standeth in the lesson appointed by the Liturgie to be read at burials And this translation of the word in that place to the Corinthians seems most agreeable to some Protestant Doctors of good name and credit Interim videas ordine quodam inimicos nostros recenseri infernum sive gehennam mortem peccatum legem In the mean time saith Peter Martyr we may behold our enemies here mustred in their rank and order that is to say hell or gehenna death sin and the law With whom agreeth Hyperius and Bullinger in their Comment on the words in question So then by Hades is meant hell in that place of St. Paul and so it is no question in two more of the Revelation in the first whereof Christ doth appear unto St. Iohn saying of himself that he had the keyes of hell and of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where we finde Hades englished hell by the new translators and nothing added in the margin as in that before to shew the place admitted of a different reading And that we may be sure to know that nothing is there meant by hell but the house of torments the place allotted to the damned Andreas B. of Caesarea an old Orthodox writer gives this Scholie on it I have the keyes of death and Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of the death of the body and of the soul. An other old Latine writer to this purpose also I have the keyes of death and hell because he that believeth and is baptized is delivered both from death and hell This writer whosoever he was is yet not resolved on but it goes for Augustines and is extant in the ninth Tome of that Fathers works With him agreeth Primasius Haymo and Lyra amongst the Authors of the middle and declining times of the Church of the late writers of the Protestant and reformed Churches Bullinger Chytraeus Osiander Aretius and Sebastian Meyer And last of all we have the word thus used in the 20. of the Revelation where it is said that death and Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek delivered up the dead which were in them Where though we finde the word grave added in the margin to shew that the Translators did admit of that reading yet by retaining hell in the text it self they shewed withall that they preferred the same before it And they had reason so to do so many of the antient writers expounding it of hell the place of the damned For so it is interpreted by venerable Beda Primasius St. Augustines Scholar and Haymo for the Latines by Aretas and Andreas Caesariensis for the Greeks all
to the woman And the third was in reference to the Elect that Satan might see he had now no right no not so much as to their bodies which Christ hereafter would be pleased to restore to life Mr. Nowel as before we saw gives three other reasons that is to say First that the souls of the faithlesse might perceive the condemnation of their unbelief to be just and righteous Secondly that Satan the chief Prince of hell might see all the power of his tyranny to be weakned and broken nay utterly ruined And thirdly that the dead who in their life time believed in Christ might perceive the work of their Redemption to be now finished and finde the force and fruit thereof with most certain comfort But against this it is objected that Christ obtained this victory against hell and Satan and all the benefits redounding to the godly by it by his death and passion on the Crosse and therefore it was needlesse that on those occasions which seem most considerable in this businesse he should make a journey unto hell To which it is replyed two wayes First that it belongeth not to us to know the depth of Gods counsels and the reasons of Christs doings in every thing as if we were to call him to a strict account of all his actions and that considering how the Scriptures do so clearly testifie that his soul was not left in hell we are not to reject this clause either as superfluous or impertinent although we cannot tell precisely the main end and purpose why he was pleased to descend thither And secondly that though the victory against Hell and Satan was perfected upon the Crosse yet the manifestation of the same to the souls of the damned and the triumph which was due upon it over Satan and all the powers of darknesse was not and could not be performed but in hell alone We shewed you this before from Zanchius a moderate and learned man where he affirmeth according to the mind of the best interpreters that though those enemies were vanquished on the Crosse by Christ yet the triumph for the same was not performed untill he forced and entred the kingdome of hell as a glorious Conquerour Nay more then so Christs victory over death and hell if Athanasius may be credited as I think he may was of too great moment and importance to be dispatched in one place and by one act only Therefore saith he As Christ performed the condemnation of sin on the Earth the abolition of the curse on the Crosse and the redemption of corruption in the grave so he accomplished the dissolution of death in hell omnia loca permeans that going unto every place he might in every place work mans salvation So that Christs victory not being compleat as this Father thinketh and the triumph due upon the victory not to be celebrated any where so properly as in hell it self the antients did not hold his descent into hell to be very necessary for the godly but much unto the honour and glory of our blessed Saviour and to that end joyned it together with the Article of his resurrection as being the first part of his exaltation For as George Mylius a learned Lutheran very well observeth there are two things to be considered in the Article of Christs descent into hell First that it was no metaphorical but a true and real descent whereby our Saviour did descend to the lower parts of the earth Eph. 4. ipsasque damnatorum sedes even to the mansions of the damned and secondly that this Article is no part of his passion and humiliation but of his victory and triumph So then the Article standing as it did in all antient Copies notwithstanding all these vain assaults and the doctrine in the same contained being neither impossible or impertinent as it was pretended the next attempt made by the Adversaries of the same was to put such a sense or senses on it as might make it either useless to the Church of Christ or inconsistent with that meaning in which it had been taken generally by the Catholick Church And though the Cardinal would very fain impose this project on the Protestant Doctors and make them the first Authors of those devises by which the true meaning of this Article hath been impugned and the Article it self as good as cast out of the Creed yet by his leave he must ascribe this practise if it were a practise to his great Masters and Dictators in the Schools of Rome For sure it is Durandus one of their great School men before Luthers time denied expressely that the soul of Christ descended into hell secundum substantiam suam really and according to the substance of it but doth restrain the same ad effectus quosdam according to some certain effects and influences as the illuminating and beatifying of the Saints in Limbo Thus much the Cardinal himself doth confess ingenuously and against that opinion of Durandus doth put up this Thesis viz. Animam Christi proprie reipsa descendisse ad inferos that is to say that the soul of Christ really and in very deed did descend into hell which he confirmes by many strong and weighty reasons And sure it is that before him Aquinas himself the great Master of the Roman Schooles did put such a sense upon the Article as utterly disagreeth with that of the Antient Fathers whose doctrines they would make us weak men believe they do so tenaciously if not pertinaciously imbrace and defend For whereas the Fathers do maintain a descent into hell and do expound themselves that they mean by hell the place and mansions of the damned Aquinas states the question thus that Christ descended only unto Limbus patrum according to a real presence secundum realem praesentiam as his words there are and to all other places of the infernal pit secundum effectus tantum only according to the influence and effects thereof And in this point he hath been so close followed by the most part of the Schoolmen that Bellarmine conceived it neither fit nor safe to run directly and expresly against the stream and therefore goeth no further then probabile est that in most likelihood our Saviours soul descended really to all parts of hell So that although the current of Antiquity run an other way and that the Fathers do deliver it for a Catholick verity that the soul of Christ did really and locally descend to all parts of hell even to the mansions of the damned as before was said yet if Aquinas and the Schoolmen like their own way better 't is but probable at the most a matter of probability only and no more then so Such is the great respect they bear after all their brags to the traditions of the Fathers Which being so the Cardinal had but little reason to impose it on the leading men of the reformed Churches that they perverted the true meaning of the
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
and some of them perhaps reduced to their primitive dust is more then probable for the text speaks of them as of men which had long been dead Now why a glorifyed soul should be re-united to a corrupt and putrefyed although new raised body unlesse it were to raise that body also to a share of glory I plainly must confesse I can see no reason Some of the Saints then as his Souldiers did attend this Pomp I take that for granted And I conceive it probable for I goe no further that every Saint or Souldier had his Crown or Coronet bestowed upon them by their Generall in testimony that they had fought a good fight against sinne and Satan For though in common course the Saints and servants of the Lord shall not have their Crowns untill the generall day of judgment yet here in this particular case it might be otherwise by speciall priviledge and extraordinary dispensation Next to the Saints and Souldiers look we on the Captives of whom the Psalmist and St. Paul both do expressely speak Duxit captivam captivitatem He led captivity captive saith the holy Scripture But who these captives were and what this captivity will aske a little more paines to declare aright though somewhat hath been said in this point before We shewed you in our Commentaries on the former Articles that by the unanimous consent of all the Fathers our Saviour spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell when he went down thither and there took captive both the Devill and his evill Angels The shewing of them openly and triumphing over them the leading of them captive when they were so taken that doubtlesse was the work of another day that was the work of the Ascension When he ascended up on high then not before he led them captive and when he led them captive then he triumphed over them The victory he obtained before now he made his triumph The great Battel which Paulus Aemilius won of Perseus the Macedonian did shrewdly shake the main foundations of his power and Empire the victory was not perfected nor the Realme subdued and made a Tributary Province of the state of Rome untill the King himself was taken in the Isle of Samothrace to which he had retired as his strongest hold immediately on his defeat near the City of Pidna The triumph followed not till after when he made his entrie into Rome the imperiall City the miserable King and all the flower of his Nobility being led like Captives in their chaines and doomed unto perpetuall prison And this saith the Historian was interpulcherrimos the happiest and most stately triumph that the Roman people ever saw the victory having also been of the greatest consequence So in this case The first main Battell after some previous skirmishes and velitations which our Redeemer sought with Satan was upon the Crosse in which he seemed for a time to have had the worse But it was only for a time For by his death saith the Apostle he overcame him which had power of death which was the Devill That was the first great blow which the Devill had But the victory was not perfected nor the Empire of the Prince of darknesse broke in pieces and brought under the command of the Son of man till he mastred hell it self and forced the Devill and his Angels in their strongest hold Then came he to demand his triumph at the hands of God who received him into heaven with the greatest glory that ever had been seen by the heavenly Citizens the Devill and rest of the powers of hell being led bound in chaines in triumphant wise whom he flung off as soon as he approached near the gates of Heaven and hath ever since reserved in chains under darknesse to the judgment of the great and terrible day If you will see this triumph set down more at large we have it in the 13. of the Prophet Hosea and out of him in St. Pauls first to the Corinthians death led captive without his sting Hell broken and defaced like the picture of a conquered City the strength of sinne the Law rent and fastned to his Crosse ensigne-wise the Serpents head broken and so born before him as was Goliahs head by David when he came from the victory Never so great a victory such a glorious triumph as that of Christ in his Ascension when having spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell he led this captivity captive in his march to Heaven making a shew of them openly unto men and Angels and triumphing over them in semet ipso in his own person saith the vulgar Reddunt inferna victorem superna suscipiunt triumphantem Hell restored him back a Conquerour and Heaven received him a Triumpher as faith St. Angustine happily if the work be his But there were other Captives which adorned this triumph besides the Devill and his Angels even the sons of men The Devill first began the war with our Father Adam foyled him in Paradise and made him of a Prince to become a Prisoner a slave to his own lusts and and loose affections And he prevailed so far upon his posterity that he brought all mankinde in a manner under his dominion their sins and wickednesses being grown unto such an height that God repented him at last of mans creation It angred him saith the text at the very heart David complained in his time that there was none that did good no not one and when the son of David came upon the Theatre he found the seed of Abraham so degenerated that they were become the slaves of Satan at best the children of the Devill as himself affirmed In this estate we were the whole race of man when with a mighty hand and an outstretched arme our Saviour Christ encountred with the powers of darknesse and subdued them all By this great victory of Christ over sin and Satan the Devill was not only taken and made a Captive but all mankinde even that captivity which was captive under him became his Prisoners jure belli even by the common law of war as being before part of the Devils goods of his train and vassalage So true is that of Aristotle in his book of Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those which are taken in the warres are in the power and at the pleasure of the Conquerour The Fathers many of them look this way directly but none more plainly to this purpose then Dorotheus an old Orthodox writer and he states it thus What means saith he the leading of captivitie captive And then he answereth It meaneth that by Adams transgression the enemie had made us all captives and held us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the enemies hands and conquered him who kept us captive So that the case of mankinde in this double captivitie was like that of Lot whom the five Kings when they took Sodom carried Prisoner with them Lot was then Captive to those Kings
not then be cheated by this new distinction that Kings are Gods Vice-roys but not Iesus Christs though the distinction be much hugged by our great Novators Who intend nothing else thereby but to throw down Crowns and lay them at the foot of their Presbyteries and to set up instead of the Regal power their own dear Tribunal a Soveraignty in all causes Ecclesiastical to over-rule it first and extirpe it afterwards as the right learned Bishop of Kell-Alla very well observeth In these ways and by these several means and subordinate Ministers doth Christ administer the Kingdome committed to him And this he doth continually sitting at the right hand of God the Father and there to sit untill his enemies be made his footstool This David did fore-see by the spirit of Prophecy The Lord saith he said unto my Lord i. e. the Lord God almighty said to my Lord CHRIST IESVS Sit thou on my right hand untill thy enemies be made thy footstool This the Apostle also verifieth and affirms of Christ. But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins is set down for ever on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool And this he also telleth us in another place saying of Christ that he must reign till he shall have put all his enemies under his feet Till then his Kingdome is to last and till that time he is to sit at the right hand of God in all power and Majesty If it be asked when that will be that all his enemies shall be subdued and subject to him we answer at the end of this present world when there is no enemie left to be destroyed Now the last enemie which is to be destroyed is death saith the same Apostle And thereupon we may inferre that while death reigneth in opposition to the Lord of life and sin in a defiance to the Lord of righteousness that hitherto we have not seen all things put under him and therefore must expect yet a little longer before he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father But then indeed when Death is utterly destroyed and all the Saints admitted to the glories of eternal life when all things are subdued unto him then also shall the Son himself be made subject to him that did put all things under him that is God the Father Then when he hath put down all rule and all authority and power then cometh the end and then he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father that God may be all in all This is the summe of St. Pauls argument in that point In which there being many things not easie to be understood I shall not think my time ill spent to make a short Paraphrase and discourse upon it that so we may perceive more fully the Apostles meaning And first he saith that CHRIST must reign till he hath put all things under his feet that being one of the especial parts of the Kingly function as before was shewn to save and defend his Church from the hands of her enemies and for the enemies themselves to crush them with a Scepter of iron and break them in pieces like a Potters vessel When this is done when he hath trodden under foot all his mortal enemies the persecutors of his Church false Prophets false Apostles and the great Antichrist himself which labour to seduce even the very Elect when he hath subjugated the powers of Hell and that sin hath no more dominion over us yet we shall still lie under the power of death untill the last and general Resurrection Death therefore is the last enemie to be destroyed that being delivered from his thraldome raised from the grave which is his prison and all those bonds and fetters broken by which we were held captive under his command we may be made partakers of eternal life and reign with Christ for ever in his heavenly glories When that time cometh when there are neither enemies from which to protect his Church nor any Church to be instructed in the wayes of godliness according to the Nomothetical part of the Regal Office then cometh the end the end of all things in this world which shall be no more the end of Christs Kingdome as the Mediator between God and man man having by the power of his mediation attained the end of his desires the guerdon and reward of his faith and piety This being done the rule of Satan and the authority of sin and the power of death being all broken and subdued he shall first raise our mortal bodies in despight of death pronounce the joyful sentence of absolution on them in despight of sin and finally advance them to that height of glory from which Satan fell to the confusion of the Devil and all his Angels And having so discharged the Office of a Mediator for executing which he sate at the right hand of God he shall deliver up unto God the Father the right and interest which he had in the Kingdome of Grace consisting in the building up of his Elect in faith hope and charity that they with him and he with them may reign forevermore in the Kingdome of glory Where there shall be no use of Faith for they shall see God face to face and faith is the existence of things not seen and less of hope for hope is the expectancy of things desired which being once obtained puts an end to hope Charity onely shall remain for that never ceaseth and therefore said to be the greatest of the three Theological vertues of which the Apostle there discourseth 1 Cor. 13.13 And so Primasius hath resolved it In this present life saith he there are three in the life to come onely the love of God and his Augels and of all the Saints That therefore is the greater which is alwayes necessary then that which once shall have an end The like St. Austin before him The greatest of all is charity because when every one shall come to eternal life the other two failing charity shall continue with increase and with greater certainty And finally before both thus St. Chrysostome and these three witnesses enough The greatest of these is Charity because they passe away but that continueth I must confess there is hardly a more difficult Text in all the Scripture then this of Christs delivering up the Kingdome unto God the Father nor which requires more care in the Exposition for fear of doing injurie unto God or Christ conceive me still of Christ in his humane nature For neither must we so understand the place as if God reigned not now at the present time nor was to reign at all untill this surrendry of the Kingdome by Christ our Saviour That were injurious to the power and Majesty of Almighty God by whom all things were made and by whom all made subject unto Christs command for he it is who did put all things
under him saith the Apostle Nor must we understand it so as it Christ delivering up the Kingdome had no more to doe but was reduced to the condition of a private Saint that were injurious to the dignity of our Lord CHRIST IESVS Nec sic arbitremur eum traâ—iturum Deo Patri ut adimat sibi as St. Austin hath it we must not think saith he that he will so deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father as to devest himself of all Power Majesty Not so His meaning is but this at most taking the word Kingdome in the usual and accustomed sense that the form of governing this Kingdome shall then be altered Sâ—n Hell and Death being all subdued as in himself before so in all his Members and Heaven replenished with those Saints for whose sakes principally he received the Kingdome And though this Exposition be both safe and general yet I conceive it may admit another sense and such as do most happily avoid those difficulties which otherwise it may seem to be subject to What then if we should say that by Regnum here we are so understand only filios Regni if by the word Kingdome in this place St. Paul meaneth those who are called the Children of the Kingdome in another place and that by the delivering up of the Kingdome unto God the Father we are to understand no more then the presenting of his children Behold I and the children whom thou hast given me to the fight of God to be received into his glories and crowned by him with immortality Assuredly if I should both say it and stand to it too I should not think the Exposition either forced nor new Not forced for Metonymies of this kinde in the Book of God and in all Classick Authors too are exceeding obvious For Classick Authors first to name two or three we have in Tacitus Matrimonium Principale pessimum principalis Matrimonii instrumentum for the Princes wife And in the Poet Coelum Heaven for Coelites the heavenly Citizens as Coelo gratissimus amnis a River very acceptable unto those in heaven O Coelo dilecta domus an house beloved of the Gods in another Poet. Thus also in the holy Scripture Regale Presbyterium a Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. vers 8. is put for a society of Royal Priests Regnum which is the word here used is in our English rendred Kings Fecit nos Regnum sacerdotes saith the Vulgar Latine He hath made us Kings and Priests saith our Translation Apoc. 1. vers 6. And more then so in the 13. of St. Matthewes Gospel the word Regnum is directly used by Christ our Saviour pro filiis Regni the Kingdome for the sons of the Kingdome The Kingdome of Heaven saith he is like a Merchant man i. e. the children of the Kingdome of Heaven are like to Merchant men seeking godly pearls vers 24. Use but the word so here as in that of St. Matthew and the delivery of the Kingdome unto God the Father will signifie no more then the presenting of the Saints as before I said or tendring Gods adopted Sonnes which are the children of the great King and the Kingdome too to their heavenly Father This shews the Exposition is not forced we are sure of that And we have hopes to prove that it is not new being I think as old as St. Augustines time For asking this question of himself What is the meaning of this Text Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father He makes this answer Quia justos omnes in quibus nunc regnat c. The meaning is that he shall bring the righteous persons in whom he reigns as Mediator between God and man unto the blessed Vision of Almighty God that they may see him face to face And in another place to the same effect It is as much as if he should have said in other words Cum perduxerit credentes ad contemplationem Dei Patris Then shall he bring the faithfull to behold the face of God the Father Which Faithfull or the body of his holy ones he cals plainly in another place by the name of Regnum the word here used by the Apostle affirming of the Saints of God eos ita esse in Regno ejus ut ipsi etiam sint Regnum ejus They are saith he estated in the Kingdome of God but so as to be his Kingdome also But this discourse is out of season though not out of the way For though our Saviour shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father in what sense soever we understand it yet shall not this be done till after the day of general Judgement till he hath judged the quick and dead and given to every one according to his works Which is the last act of his Regal Office and the subject of the following Article ARTICLE VIII Of the Eighth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed unto St. MATTHEW 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Inde venturus judicare vivos mortous i. e. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to Iudgement both of quick and dead The souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgment and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action WE are now come unto the last and greatest act of the Regal Office the supreme power of Iudicature and to the best part also of the Royall power potestas vitae mortis the power of life and death as the Lawyers call it All other acts of the Kingly function he executeth sitting at the right hand of God in the Heavenly places But when he cometh to judge both the quick and the dead his Judgement-seat shall be erected in some visible place though still at the right hand of Almighty God where both the wicked shall behold him to their finall confusion and his obedient Servants finde accesse unto him to their endlesse comforts And this is also the last and highest degree of his exaltation the last in order but the highest in esteem and honour The first step or degree of his exaltation was his descent into hell to beat the Devill at his own home in his strongest fortresse and take possession of that part of his Kingdome Devils as well as Men and Angels things under the earth as well as on the earth and above the heavens being to bow the knee before him and be subject to him This was done only in the fight of the Devils and the infernal fiends of hell but in the next which was his resurrection he had both men and Angels to bear witnesse to it and some raised purposely from the dead to attend him in it The third degree or step for he still went higher was his ascending into heaven performed openly in the sight of the people and so performed that it excelled all the triumphs which were gone
for ostentation of our Savious power in regard that every man receives his judgement either life or death as soon as he is freed from his earthly tabernacle For which there is sufficient proof in the book of God This day said Christ our Saviour to the penitent theef shalt thou be with me in paradise As plain is that of the Apostle It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgement The same we finde exemplifyed in the rich man and Lazarus the soul of the one as soon as dead being carried into Abrahams bosome the other being plunged in unquenchable flames If so as so it is most certain what use can be conceived of a general judgement when all particular persons have already received their sentence what further punishments or glory can be added to them then Paradise to Gods Saints and servants and the unquenchable flames of hell for impenitent sinners Which difficulty though removed in some part before as to the vindicating of the justice of Almighty God and the participation of the body in that blisse or misery which the soul presently is adjudged to on the separation and finally the manifesting of Christs power and glory in the sight of his enemies shall now be also cleared as to that part thereof which seems to place the soul in the height of happinesse as soon as separate from the body or in the depth of anguish and disconsolation And first that the souls of just and righteous persons are in the hands of God in Paradise in Abrahams bosome yea in the very heavens themselves I shall easily grant But that they are in the same place or in the same estate and degree of glory to which they shall be preferred by Christ in the day of judgement I neither have seen text nor reason which could yet perswade me Certain I am the Scripture seems to me to be quite against it the current of antiquity and not a few Moderns of good note and eminencie to incline very strongly to the other side For Scriptures first St. Paul doth speak indeed of a Crown of righteousnesse to be given to him and to all those that love the appearing of Christ but not to be given them till that day i. e. the day of his appearing St. Peter next informeth of an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in the heavens and more then so prepared already but not to be shewed till the last time In the last place we have St. Iohn acquainting us with the condition of the Saints as in matter of fact where he telleth us that the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar where they were willed to rest themselves till the number of their fellow servants was accomplished And though we grant the souls of righteous men departed are in heaven it self yet doth it not follow by any good consequence that therefore they are in the highest Heaven where God himselfe refideth in most perfect majesty The name of Heaven is variously used in holy Scriptures First for the Aire as where we finde mention of the birds of heaven Mat. 26. and the cloudes of heaven Mark 14. Next for the Firmament above in which the Lord hath placed those most glorious lights which frequently are called the Stars of heaven as Gen. 20. Then for that place which St. Paul calleth in one text by the name of the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 and in another place shortly after by the name of Paradise vers 4. which is conceived to be the habitations of the Angels their proper habitation as St. Iude calleth it vers 6. Into this place the soul of Lazarus was carried as to Abrahams bosom to this our Saviour promised to bring the soul of the penitent theef Hitherto Enoch and Eliah were translated by God and St. Paul taken up in an heavenly rapture And to this place or to some one or many of those heavenly mansion for in my Fathers house there are many mansions said our Lord and Saviour the souls of righteous men are carryed on the wings of Angels there to abide till they are called upon to meet their bodies in day of day of judgement And last of all it â—ignifyeth the highest heaven to which Christ our Saviour is ascended and sitteth at the right hand of God in most perfect glory Of which St. Paul telleth us that he was made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. and that he did ascend above all the heavens Ephes. 4. This is the seate or Palace of Almighty God called as by way of excellency the heaven of heavens where his divine glory and majesty is most plainly manifested and therefore called by the Prophet the habitation of his holinesse and of his glory So then the souls of righteous men deceased may be in Paradise in the third heaven in Abrahams bosome and yet not be admitted to the highest heaven wherein God reigns in perfect glory till Christ shall come again to judgment and take them for ever to himself into possession and participation of his heavenly Kingdome That in this sense the Fathers understand the Scriptures which mention the estate of the Saints departed will best be seen by looking over their own words according as they lived in the severall Churches First for the Eastern Cherches Iustin Marter telleth us that the the souls of the righteous are carryed to Paradise where they enjoy the company of Angels Archangels and the vision of Christ our Saviour and are kept in places fit for them till the day of the resurrection and compensation Next Origen The Saints saith he departing hence do not presently obtain the full reward of their labours but they expect us though staying and slacking For they have not perfect joy so long as they grieve at our Errours and lament our sins Then Chrysostome more then once or twice Though the soul were a thousand times immortall as it is yet shall she not enjoy those admirable good things without the body And if the body rise not again the soul remaineth uncrowned without heavenly blisse Theodoret lived in the same times and was of the same opinion also saying The Saints have not yet received their Crowns for the God of all expecteth the conflict of others that the race being ended he may at once pronounce all that overcome to be Conquerers and reward them together Finally not to look so low as Oecumenius and Theophylact who say almost as much as Theoderet did we have at once the judgement of many of the Fathers delivered by Andreas Caesariensis in a very few words It is saith he the judgement of many godly Fathers that every good man after this life hath a place fit for him by which he may conjecture at the glory which is prepared Look we now on the Western Churches and first we have Irenaeus B. of Lyons in France affirming positively thus Manifestum est c. It is manifest that the souls
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
Reformers in Queen Elizabeths time say as much as this The Scriptures say the Papists in their Council of Trent for I regard not the unsavory Speeches of particular men Is not sufficient to Salvation without Traditions that is to say without such unwritten Doctrinals as have from hand to hand been delivered to us Said not the Puritans the same when they affirmed That Preaching onely viva voce which is verbum traditum is able to convert the sinner That the Word sermonized not written is alone the food which nourisheth to life eternal that reading of the Word of God is of no greater power to bring men to Heaven than studying of the Book of Nature that the Word written was written to no other end but to afford some Texts and Topicks for the Preachers descant If so as so they say it is then is the written word no better than an Ink-horn Scripture a Dead Letter or a Leaden Rule and whatsoever else the Papists in the height of scorn have been pleased to call it Nay of the two these last have more detracted from the perfection and sufficiency of the holy Scripture than the others did They onely did decree in the Council of Trent That Traditions were to be received Paripietatis affectu with equal Reverence and Affection to the written Word and proceed no further These magnifie their verbum traditum so much above it that in comparison thereof the Scripture is Gods Word in name but not in efficacy They onely adde Traditions in the way of Supplement where they conceive the Scriptures to be defective These make the Scriptures every where deficient to the work intended unless the Preacher do inspire them with a better Spirit than that which they received from the Holy Ghost Good God that the same breath should blow so hot upon the Papists and yet so cold upon the Scriptures that the same men who so much blame the Church of Rome for derogating from the dignity and perfection of the Holy Scriptures should yet prefer their own indigested crudities in the way of Salvation before the most divine dictates of the Word of God But such are men when they leave off the conduct of the Holy Ghost to follow the delusions of a private Spirit Articuli IX Pars Secunda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. The Holy Catholick Church CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the Title of Catholick The Church in what respects called Holy Touching the Head and Members of it The Government thereof Aristocratical IN the same Article in which we testifie our Faith in the Holy Ghost do we acknowledge That there is a Body or Society of faithful people which being animated by the power of that Blessed Spirit hath gained unto it self the name of the Church and with that name the attribute or title of Catholick in regard of the extent thereof over all the World of Holy in relation to that piety of life and manners which is or ought to be in each several Member And not unfitly are they joyned together in the self same Article the Holy Ghost being given to the Apostles for the use of the Church and the Church nothing but a dead and lifeless carcass without the powerful influence of the Holy Ghost As is the Soul in the Body of Man so is the Holy Ghost in the Church of Christ that which first gives it life that it may have a Being and afterward preserves it from the danger of putrefaction into which it would otherwise fall in small tract of time Having therefore spoken in the former Chapter of the Nature Property and Office of the Holy Ghost and therein also of the Volume of the Book of God dictated by that Blessed Spirit for that constant Rule by which the Church was to be guided both in Life and Doctrine We now proceed in order to the Church it self so guided and directed by it And first for the Quid nominis to begin with that it is a name not found in all the writings of the Old Testament in which the body of Gods people the Spiritual body is represented to us after a figurative manner of Speech in the names of Sion and Ierusalem as Pray for the peace of Jerusalem Psal. 121. And the Lord loveth the gates of Sion Psal. 87. The name of Church occurreth not till the time of the Gospel and then it was imposed by him who had power to call it what he pleased and to entitle it by a name which was fittest for it The Disciples gave themselves the name of Christians the name of Church was given them by our Saviour Christ. No sooner had St. Peter made this confession for himself and the rest of the Apostles Thou art Christ the Son of the living God but presently our Saviour added Upon this Rock that is to say The Rock of this Confession as most of the Antients and some Writers also of the darker times do expound the same will I build my Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek The word used by our Lord and Saviour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence the Latines borrowed their Ecclesia the French their Eglise and signifieth Coetum evocatum a chosen or selected company a company chosen out of others derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as evocare to call out or segregate In that sense as the word is used to signifie a company of men called by the special Grace to the Faith in Christ and to the hopes of life eternal by his death and passion is the word Ecclesia taken in the writings of the holy Apostles and in most Christian Authors since the times they lived in though with some difference or variety rather in the application to their purposes But antiently it was of a larger extent by far and signified any Publick meeting of Citizens for the dispatch of business and affairs of State For so Thucidides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the Assembly being formed the different parties fell upon their disputes and so doth Aristophanes use it in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That the people should now give the Thracians a Publick meeting in their Guild-hal or Common forum of the City St. Luke who understood the true propriety as well as the best Critick of them all gives it in this sense also Acts 19.32 where speaking of the tumult which was raised at Ephesus he telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Assembly was confused And in the 26. Psal. Ecclesia malignantium is used for the Congregation of ungodly men APPLICATION BUt after Christ had given this name unto the Body of the Faithful which confessed his Name and the Apostles in their writings had applied it so as to make it a word of Ecclesiastical use and notion the Fathers in the following Ages did so appropriate the same to the state of
Churches which either were in want or in any misery Such the Collection made at Antioch for the poor Brethren of Iudea of the Corinthians for the Saints which dwelt in Ierusalem and to the honor of the Romans it is recorded by Dionysius the then Bishop of Corinth That they did carefully relieve the wants and several necessities of all other Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he in an Epistle unto Soter the then Pope of Rome so fully were their souls united so excellent was the union or communion which was then amongst them that they all suffered in the miseries of the poorest members and did accordingly endeavor to relieve and comfort them Witness their carriage in that great and dreadful Plague which hapned at Alexandria in the reign of the Emperor Galienus in which the love and piety of the Christian people extended more unto their Brethren than unto themselves visiting those whom God had visited administring to their necessities when they were yet living embalming them with tears when they were departed and following them with all due ceremony to the Funeral pile Insomuch that even their very enemies could not but praise that noble act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and magnifie that God whom the Christians worshipped A needless thing it were to tell how willingly the faithful of those happy times used to accompany each other on the stage of death how frequently they would make offer of their own lives to reprieve their Brethren from the slaughter A thing not rarely known in those blessed days in which it pleased the Lord to set forth unto us the excellency of that communion which ought to be between the Saints of the most high Ghost in which he pleased to let us see for our imitation how much the love of God and the Saints of God could work upon a soul which was truly Christian And therefore it was rightly noted by Tertullian that as the Gentiles used to say in the way of envy Vide ut se invicem diligunt Look how these Christians love one another so in the way of admiration they did use to say Vide ut pro alterutro mori sunt parati See how they are prepared to die for one another also And now we have brought this part of the Communion of the Saints of God which did consist in the Communication of Affections unto the highest pitch which it can attain to For greater love than this hath no man saith our blessed Saviour than that a man lay down his life for his friend Nor had I said so much of a Theme so common but that I would fain give my self a little hope that by presenting to the sight of this present age the piety and eminent affections of the Primitive Christians it may be possibly revived and reduced to practise in these decaying times of true Christian Charity But here I would not be mistaken or thought to be the Author of such wretched counsels as under colour of Communion to introduce a community or to perswade that by communicating of our goods to the use of others we should make them common Such a Communion as is meant in the present Article doth aim at nothing less than so sad a ruine as the devesting of the faithful in the propriety and interess of their estates must needs bring upon them We leave this frenzy to the Fratricellians who first hatched this Cockatrice and taught amongst many other impious and absurd opinions Nihil proprii habendum esse that men were to have nothing in propriety not so much as wives But this not getting any ground at the first appearing was afterwards advanced and propagated by the Anabaptist Non posse aliquem salvum fieri nisi facultates omnes in commune deferat nihilque proprium possideâ—t That no man could be saved who brought not all his wealth to the common treasury or kept any thing several to himself though it were his wife was then if never else esteemed good Christian doctrine when frenzy and King Iohn of Leyden reigned in the City of Munster And yet as frantick as this doctrine may be thought to be it hath found Advocates to plead for it in these later times and to bring proofs in maintenance in defence thereof both from the Scripture and the practise of the Primitive times as also from the usage in the state of nature and the rules of reason From Scripture they allege that place of the Acts where it is said That the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common A Text much urged and stood upon by some antient Hereticks who under colour of these words maintained a community of all mens estates admitting none to their Communion who had either Wives or Goods in several to their proper use and would needs be called Apostolici as the revivers of the true Christian and Apostolick piety And they might have some further ground for it from the best and purest times of the Christian Church of which Tertullian saith expressly Indiscreta apud nos omnia praeter uxores That they had all things common except their wives in which they differed from the Gentiles who held their wives in common and their goods in several Nor was this the continual and general practise of the Gentiles neither the Commonwealth of Sparta being a right Commonwealth indeed wherein community of all things was established by Original Laws one of the Fundamentals of that Government And till this Iron-age came in as the Poets tell us there was no such matter as propriety as Land or Houses Communisque prius ceu lumina solis Aer The Earth being no less common in the state of nature before the natural liberty and rights of mankinde were limited and restrained by the Bonds of Law as was the Air they breathed in or the light of the Sun that shined upon them Nor was this natural liberty so wholly abrogated but that there did remain some Vestigia of it amongst the more amicable and intelligent men whose reason could not choose but tell them that where they setled their affections in a friendly way they were to interess the party whom they did affect in a joynt participation of their goods and fortunes For that all things ought to be common amongst friends such as all mankinde ought to be by the common principles of nature and the rules of Reason was one of the dictates of Pythagoras seconded by Tully not denied by Seneca besides that golden saying of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That wheresoever there was friendship there must be community But these although they seem in shew to be several Arguments may all be satisfied with one answer those specially which are borrowed from the practise of the Primitive and Apostolick Church and the
the Protestant Doctors Yet true it is for magna veritas praevalebit that some and those of no small name in such Protestant Churches as would be thought a pattern unto all the rest have given too just a ground for so great a scandal And well it were they had observed that Caution in their Publick Writings which Caesar looked for in his Wife and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they had been as free from the suspition of it as the crime it self For howsoever they affirm it not in termes expresse which was the desperate boldness of that Florinus yet they come very near it to a tantamont by way of necessary consequence and deduction which was the Artifice of Bardesanes and Priscillian For if God before all eternity as they plainly say did purpose and decree the fall of our Father Adam Vt sua defectione periret Adam in the words of Calvin there was in Adam a necessity of committing sin because the Lord had so decreed it If without consideration of the sin of man he hath by his determinate sentence ordained so many millions of men to everlasting damnation and that too necessariò inevitabiliter as they please to phrase it he must needs pre-ordain them to sin also there being as themselves confess no way unto the end but by the means And then what can the wicked and impenitent do but ascribe all their sins to God by whose enevitable Will they were lost in Adam by whom they were particularly and personally necessitated unto death and so by consequence to sin For thus Lyconides in Plautus pleaded for himself when he deflowred old Euclios daughter Deus mihi impulsor fuit is me ad illam illexit It was Gods doing none of his that he was so vicious I hope I need not press this further or shew the true or real difference between the laying the burthen of our sins upon Christ our Savior as the Iews theirs upon the Scape-Goat by Gods own appointment and laying the whole blame and guilt of them on our own affections He is but ill trained up in the School of Piety who will not take upon himself the blame of his own transgressions and fly to God onely on the hopes of pardon And yet I shall make bold to add and indeed the rather that they who first did broach this Doctrine of the necessity and decree of Adams fall and consequently making God the prime Author of sin confess they have no warrant for it in the Holy Scripture For whereas some objected upon Gods behalf disertis verbis non extare that the decree of Adams fall had no foundation in the express words of Holy Writ Calvin returns no other Answer than a Quasi vero as if saith he God made and created man the most exact peece of his Heavenly Workmanship without determining of his end Nay himself calls it for a farewel horrible decretum a cruel and horrible Decree as indeed it is A cruel and horrible Decree to pre-ordain so many millions to destruction and consequently unto sin that he might destroy them If then the introduction of the body of sin came by no other means but by man alone and that the charging of it upon Gods Decrees have no foundation in the Scriptures If it run cross unto the constant current of Antiquity and that the like Errâ—neous and Blasphemous Tenets were reckoned of as Heresies by the Antient Fathers If it be founded onely on the ipse dixit or the why nots and Quasi veros of a private man and by him reckoned for an horrible and cruel Decree Nay more if it be contrary to the Word of God and increase of Piety and tend apparently to the dishonor of God and bolstring wicked men in their sinful courses then certainly we may conclude that God could have no hand in this woful Tragedie that man alone is Author of his own calamity and can accuse himself onely and his own affections for giving way to those temptations which brought sin upon him and not upon himself alone but his whole Posterity For if we look into the Scripture we find that sin did not content it self with the person of Adam as if it had been a sufficient victory to have brought him under unless in him his whole Race and Off-spring which were then radically and potentially in the loyns of Adam had been infected also with the same contagion For Adam is not here considered as a private person who was to stand or fall to himself alone without occasioning either good or evill unto any more than in way of imitation of his great Example But as the stock of all mankinde who were to have a share in his weal or woe For being the original and root as before was said of all mankind descended from him whom he did represent at his first Creation he did receive that stock of righteousness which God gave unto him not for himself onely and his own particular benefit had he used it well but as the common Patrimony and Inheritance of himself and his And having so improvidently lost both himself and it by yeelding to the motions of that flesh which he was to govern he lost it not onely for himself when he came under the attainture which the Law brought on him but he did wholly forfeit it for himself and them his Race or Off-spring which were then radically in his Loins being involved with him in the same perdition For as the Scripture saith of Levi that he paid Tithes in Abraham unto Melchisedech because he was in the Loyns of Abraham when Melchisedech met him so may we also say in the present case that all men sinned and lost themselves in our Father Adam because they were all of them in the Loyns of Adam when he lost himself The Scripture saith not onely that sin came to man or fell on him onely as if the power thereof had terminated in that one mans person on whom it first did come or fall but that it came by man as a Pipe or Conduit by which it passed also unto others By one man sin entred into the world saith the Apostle to the Romans By man came death saith the Apostle to the Corinthians that is to say By that one man our Father Adam both sin and death found opportunity to enter on his whole posterity Et per Adamum ex quo omnes mortales originem ducunt dicitur peccatum introiisse as it is in Origen This sin thus miserably derived from our father Adam we call Original sin or the Birth-sin as in the Ninth Article of the Church of England A sin because it is a taint or stain in the soul of man by which we are adjudged impure in the sight of God The Birth-sin or Original sin as being naturally and originally inherent in the very birth and therein different from the sins of our own committing which for distinction sake are
the sin against the Holy Ghost or utterly past hope of pardon Nor is the case much better if we read it wilfully though better with some sort of men than it is with others For miserable were the state of us mortal men if every sin that is committed wilfully which too often hapneth either against the truth of science or the light of conscience should make a man uncapable of the mercy of God as one that blasphemed or sinned take which word you will against the power and vertue of the Holy Ghost A doctrine never countenanced in the Primitive times the Church extending her indulgence to the worst of Hereticks and opening both her arms and bosom unto those Apostataes which with true sorrow for their sins did return unto her condemning the Novatians for too rigid and severe in their bitter Tenet touching the non-admittance of them unto publick penance and after that unto the Sacraments of the Church again Which being premised the meaning of the Text will appear to be onely this That they who willingly offend after they have received the knowledge of the truth and Gospel must not expect another Christ to die for them or that he who died once for their sins should again die for them St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom do expound it so Out of whom Clictoveus in his Continuation of St. Cyrils Commentaries upon the Gospel of St. Iohn informs us That the Apostle doth not hereby take away the second or third remission of sins for he is not such an enemy to our Salvation but saith onely that Christ our Sacrifice shall not be offered any more upon the Cross for the man so sinning And this is further proved to be the very meaning of the Apostle in the place disputed out of the scope and purpose of his discourse which was to shew unto the Iews that it was not with them now as it was under the Law For under the Law they had daily Sacrifices for their sins but under the Gospel they had but one Sacrifice once for all Every Priest saith he doth stand daily ministring and offering often times the same sacrifice but this man JESUS after he had offered one sacrifice sate down for ever at the right-hand of God than which there cannot be a clearer explanation of the Text in question Though Sacrifices were often reiterated in the times of the Law Hic vero nec baptismus repetitur neque Christus bis nisi cum ludibrio mori pro peccato yet neither is Baptism to be reiterated in the times of the Gospel nor can Christ be exposed for sin to a second death without a great deal of scorn as Heinsius hath observed from Chrysostom Some light doth also rise to this Exposition from the words immmediately succeeding where the Apostle speaks of a certain expectation of a fearful judgment Which joyned unto the former verse have this sense between them That he which doth not put his whole trust and confidence in the sufficiency of the Sacrifice already offered but for every sin expects a new Sacrifice also must look for nothing in the end but a fearful judgment which most undoubtedly first or last shall fall upon him The third and last place which is commonly alleged for proof that there are some sins irremissible in their own nature is that of St. Iohn If any man saith he see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask and God shall give life for them that sin not unto death There is a sin unto death I do not say he shall pray for it In which words we finde two sorts of sins a sin to death and a sin that is not to death a sin which is not unto death for the remission of the which a man is bound to pray in behalf of his Brother a sin to death concerning which it seems unlawful for one man to pray for another And yet it doth but seem so neither For the Apostles words I do not say he shall pray for it amount not to a Negative that he shall not pray for it as the fautors of the contrary opinion would full gladly have it 〈◊〉 â—ather to a toleration that they might pray if they would the business being of 〈◊〉 a nature that the Apostle had no minde to encourage them in it because he could not promise them the success desired but leaving every man to himself to pray or not to pray as his affections to the party or Christian pity of the case might induce him to That by peccatum ad mortem somewhat more is meant than ordinary mortal sins is a thing past question but what it is is not so easie to discover St. Augustine will have the sin which is here called a sin unto death to be that sin wherein a mam continueth until his death without repentance but addes withal That in as much as the name of the sin is not expressed many and different things may be thought to be it Pacianus an old Catholick writer interprets it of peccata manentia Such sins as men continue in till the hour of death St. Ierom reckoneth such men to commit this sin Qui in sceliribus permanent who abide in their wickedness and express no sense nor sorrow of their lost estate The Protestant writers do expound it generally of the sin against the Holy Ghost For which say they no man ought to pray because our Saviour hath testified it to be irremissible And to this end they do allege a place from Ierom affirming Stultum esse pro eo orare qui peccaverit ad mortem That it is a foolish thing to pray for him which sins unto death because the man that is marked out to some visible ruine nullis precibus erui potest cannot possibly be reprieved by prayer But herein Ierom is not consonant to himself elswhere for in another place he telleth us with more probability that nothing else is here meant but that a prayer for such a sin whatsoever it be is very difficulty heard And this I take to be the truer or at least the more probable meaning of the Apostle who saith immediately before This is the confidence which we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us 1 Iohn 5.14 And therefore lest we should conceive that this holds true in all Petitions whatsoever which we make for others he addes That if it be a great sin such as is not ordinarily forgiven but punished with death I dare not say that you can either pray with confidence or that I can give you any great hopes of prevailing in it According as God said to the Prophet Ieremy Pray not for this people for I will not hear thee And though St. Augustine sometimes thought this sin to be final impenitency or a continuance in sin till death without repentance yet in his Book of Retractations he resolves the contrary affirming That
we must despair of no body no not of the wickedest as long as he lives and that we may safely pray for him of whom we do not despair So that for ought we see by these Texts of Scripture there is no sin which properly may be said to be irremissible And therefore I resolve with Maldnonate though he were a Iesuite Tenendam esse regulam fidei quae nullum peccatum esse docet quod à Deo remitti non possit That it is to be imbraced as a rule of Faith that there is no sin so great whatsoever it be which God cannot pardon for which if heartily bewailed and repented of there is no mercy and forgiveness to be found from God I shut up all with that of the Christian Poet Spem capio sore quicquid ago veniabile apud te Quamlibet indignum venia faciamve loquarve In English thus My words O Christ and deeds I hope with thee Though they deserve no pardon venial be CHAP. VI. Of the Remission of sins by the Blood of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptism and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the Authority Sacerdotal THus have we in the former Chapter discoursed at large of the Introduction and Propagation of Sin and of the several species or kindes thereof and also proved by way of ground-work and foundation that albeit sin in its own nature be so odious in the sight of God as to draw upon the sinner everlasting damnation yet that there is no sin so mortal so deserving death which is not capable of pardon or forgiveness by the mercy of God We next descend unto those means whereby the pardon and remission of our sins is conveyed unto us the means by which so great a benefit is estated on us The principal agent in this work is Almighty God of whom the Scripture saith expresly That it is one God which shall justifie the circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith that it is God which justifieth the Elect and that the Scriptures did foresee That God would justifie the Heathen In all which Texts to justifie the Elect the Iews the Gentiles doth import no more than freely to forgive them all the sins which they had committed against the Law and to acquit them absolutely from all blame and punishment due by the Law to such offences Which appears plainly by that passage of the same Apostle where speaking of Almighty God as of him that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4.5 he sheweth immediately by way of gloss or exposition in what that justifying doth consist saying out of David Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin And this God doth not out of any superadded or acquired principle which is not naturally in him but out of that authority and supream power which is natural and essential to him In which respect no Creature can be said to forgive sins no not our Saviour Christ himself in his meer humane nature but must refer that work unto God alone For who can so forgive sins but God onely said the Pharisees truly And as God is the onely natural and efficient cause of this justification the principal Agent in this great work of the remission of sins so is the onely moral and internal impulsive cause which inclines him to it to be found onely in himself that is to say his infinite mercy love and graciousness toward his poor creature Man whom he looks on as the miserable object of grace and pitty languishing under the guilt and condemnation of sin Upon which Motives and no other he gave his onely begotten Son to die for our sins to be a ransom and propitiation for the sins of the world That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but through forgiveness in his Blood have life everlasting But for the external impulsive efficient cause of this act of Gods the meritorious cause thereof that indeed is no other than our Lord JESUS CHRIST the death and sufferings of our most blessed Lord and Saviour For God beholding Christ as such and so great a sufferer for the sins of men is thereby moved and induced to deliver those that believe in him both from the burden of their sins and that condemnation which legally and justly is due unto them This testified most clearly by that holy Scripture Be ye kinde saith the Apostle unto one another forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Where plainly the impulsive cause inclining God to pardon us our sins and trespasses is the respect he hath unto the sufferings of our Saviour Christ. Thus the Apostle tells us in another place That we are freely justified by the grace of God through the Redemption which is in CHRIST IESUS Justified freely by Gods grace as by the internal impulsive cause of our Iustification by which he is first moved to forgive us our sins through the Redemption procured for us by the death and sufferings of CHRIST IESUS as the external moving or impulsive cause of so great a mercy In this respect the pardon and forgiveness of the sins of men is frequently ascribed in Scripture to the Blood of Christ as in the Institution of the Sacrament by the Lord himself This is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Thus the Apostle to the Romans Whom JESUS CHRIST did God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God And thus to the Ephesians also In whom we have redemption through his Blood the remission of sins according to the riches of his grace To this effect St. Peter also For ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious Blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And so St. Iohn The Blood of Iesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin and he hath washed us from our sins in his own Blood in another place Infinite other places might be here produced in which the forgiveness of our sins is positively and expresly ascribed to the Blood of Christ or to his death and sufferings for us which comes all to one But these will serve sufficiently to confirm this truth that the main end for which Christ suffered such a shameful ignominious death accompanied with so many scorns and torments was thereby to attone or reconcile us to his Heavenly Father to make us capable of the remission of our sins through the mercy of God and to assure us by that means of the favor of God and our adoption to the glories of eternal life By that one offering of himself hath he for ever perfected