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
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
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
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
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 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
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
of Canaan on the Priests and Levites being his in his own right Originally by the law of Nature and by him challenged and appropriated as his own domaine All the Tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lords Here 's the Lords claim and title to them as his own propriety Behold I have given the children of Levi all the Tenth or Tithes in Israel for an inheritance for the service which they serve even the service of the Tabernacle of the Congregation There 's the collation of his right on the Tribe of Levi whom he made choyce of to attend in his holy Tabernacle and to do service at his Altar And they continued the inheritance of the Tribe of Levi until the Priesthood was translated unto Christ our Saviour who being made by God the true owner of Tithes a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech became invested ipso facto with that right of Tithing which God had formerly conferred on the Priests and Levites and consequently with a power of disposing of them to them that minister in his Name to the Congregation The second argument which the Apostle doth afford us in this case of Tithes is the Prerogative which Melchisedech haâ— iâ— that particular above Aaron and the sons of Levi. Levi also saith he which received Tithes paid Tithes in Abraham for he was yet in the loyns of his Father when Melchisedech met him Heb. 7.9 10. Then which there cannot be a stronger and more pregnant argument to prove that Tithes are no Mosaical institution or the peculiar maintenance of the Levites but that they are derived from an higher Author and are to be continued to the Ministers of a better Testament For the Apostle taking on him to prove this point that the Priesthood after the Ordâ—â— of Melchisedech was better and more perfect then that which was according to the Order of Aaron useth this argument to evince it and it is a weighty one indeed that Levi himself though he received Tithes of his brethren by the Lords appointment yet he and all his Tribe paid their Tithes to Melchisedech being all vertually and potentially in the loyns of Abraham at such time as Melchisedech met him and consequently being as effectually tithed in Abraham as all mankinde have sinned in Adam from whose loyns they sprung Nay we may work this argument to an higher pitch and make the full scope of it to amount to this That if the Tribe of Levi had been in full possession of the Tithes of their Brethren when Melchisedech met with Abraham and blessed him as became the High Priest of God to do or if Melchisedech had lived in Canaan till their setling in it they must and ought to have done as their Father did and paid their Tithes unto Melchisedâ—eh as the Type of Christ in reference to his everlasting and eternal Priesthood But seeing that this common place hath been so much beaten on I shall only alter some few words of that Noble Gentleman and great Antiquarie Sir Henry Spelman to make his argument more suitable to my present purpose and so close this point Insomuch saith he as Abraham did not pay his Tithes to a Priest that offered a Levitical Sacrifice of Bullocks and Goats but unto him that presented him with Bread and Wine which are the Elements of the Sacrament ordained by Christ this may serve well to intimate thus much unto us that we are to pay our Tithes unto that High Priest an High Priest of Melchisedechs Order who did ordain the Sacrament of Bread and Wine and unto them in his behalf who by his Ordinance and appointment in the Word Hoc facite administer the same unto us And so much for the Sacerdotal Office of our Lord and Saviour which he doth execute for our good at the right hand of God we now proceed unto the Regal which though it is most eminent in his coming to Iudgement and so more properly to be handled in the following Article yet for so much thereof as is exercised at the right hand of God we shall reduce it under this in the following chapter CHAP. XIV Of the Regal or Kingly Office of our Lord as far as it is executed before his coming unto Iudgement Of his Vice-gerents on the Earth and of the several Vice-roys put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians WE have not yet done with this branch of the Article that of our Saviours sitting at the right hand of God For of the three Offices allotted to him that of the Priest the Prince and the Prophet all which are comprehended in the name of CHRIST that of the Priest is wholly executed as he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty And so is so much also of the King or the Regal Office as doth concern the preservation of his Church from the hands of her enemies the Regulating of the same by his holy laws and indeed every act and branch thereof except 〈◊〉 of Iudicature which is most visibly discharged in the day of judgement Of all the rest we shall now speak and for our better method and proceeding in it must recall to minde that we told you in our former Chapter how both the Kingdome and the Priesthood of our Saviour Christ did take beginning at the time of his Resurrection He was before a King Elect designed by God to this great Office from before all worlds but not invested with the Crown nor put into the possession of the Throne 〈◊〉 David till he had conquered Death and swallowed up the grave in victory That he was King Elect and in designation is evident by that of the Royal Psalmist where he brings in God Almighty speaking of his only Son and saying I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion as evident by that of the Prophet Daniel where he telleth us that in those days those days which the Apostle calleth the fulness of time the God of Heaven shall set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed which can be meant of none but the Kingdome of Christ. And that we may not have the testimony only of Kings and Prophets which were mortall men but also of the blessed Angels those immortal Spirits we have the Angel Gabriel saying of him to his Virgin-Mother that the Lord would give unto him the Throne of his Father David and of his Kingdome there should be no end But yet he was but King Elect and in designation born to the Crown of the Celestial land of Canaan as the Heir apparent and by that name enquired for by the Wise men saying Vbi est ille qui natus est Rex Iudaeorum i. e. where is he that is born King of the Iews as our Englâ—sh reads it And so do all translations else which I have seen except Bezas and the French which doth follow him And he indeed doth
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
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
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