together with the Father and the Son His other Errours are not so dangerous and are indeed common to him with some other of the Fathers as where he says that the Angels defiled themselves with Women and that from this their companying with them were born Demons or Devils As likewise where he teacheth That the Souls of Men after this life are all shut up together in one Common Prison where they are to continue till the Day of Judgment and That our Saviour Christ shall come again upon the Earth before the Last and Final Resurrection and that those who shall then be found alive shall not dye at all but shall be preserved alive and shall beget an infinite Number of Children during the space of a Thousand years living all of them peaceably together in a most happy City which shall abound with all good things under the Reign of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of some of the Saints who shall be raised from the Dead But what will you say if St. Hilary also himself who flourished about the middle of the Fourth Century hath his Tares also which are so much the more observable in him by how much the greater his estimation was among the Ancients The principal and most dangerous of all is that strange Opinion which he held touching the Nature of Christ's Body which he maintained had no sense or feeling of those stripes and torments which he suffered But that he really suffered indeed at that time when he was beaten and when he was put upon the Cross and fastned unto it and died upon it but that this Passion falling wholly upon his Body notwithstanding that it was a real Passion yet did it not shew upon him the Nature of a Passion and that while the furious strokes were dealt upon him the strength and vigour of his Body received the force of the strokes upon it yet without any sense of the pain I shall confess saith he that the Body of our Saviour had a Nature susceptible of our griefs if the Nature of our Body be such as that it is able to tread upon the water and to walk upon the stoods without sinking or without the Waters yielding to our Footsteps when we stand thereon if it can penetrate solid bodies or can pass with ease through doors that are shut And within two or three lines after Such is the Man sent from God having a Body capable of Suffering for he really suffered but not having a Nature capable of pain When the blows said he a little before fell upon him or a stripe pierced his skin it brought indeed with it the violence and impetuosity of Passion but yet it wrought no pain in him in like manner as when a sword is thrust through and through the water or through and through the fire it goes through indeed and pierceth the water or the fire but it woundeth it not these things having not a Nature that may be wounded or hurt notwithstanding that the Nature of the sword be to work the said effect And in conclusion that you may not think this to be a sudden fancy that he fell upon by chance before he was aware you must know that he repeats the same thing in divers several places as namely in his Comment upon the Psal 53. The Passion of Christ saith he was undergone by him voluntarily to make an acknowledgment that pains were due not that he that suffered was at all touched by them And again in another place Christ is thought to have felt pain because he suffered but he was really free from all pain because he is God Do but think now whereunto all this tendeth and what will become of our Salvation if the Passion of our Saviour Christ which is the only Foundation whereon it is built were but a meer imaginary Passion without any sense of pain at all And as one absurdity being granted there will necessarily others always follow upon it so hath this strange particular Fancy of his made him to corrupt and spoil the whole story of our Saviours Passion For he supposeth that in that dismal night wherein Christ was delivered up for our sins all his anguish his Distress and Drops of Bloody Sweats proceeded not from the consideration of the Torments and the Death which He was now going to suffer and indeed according to his Account since he will not allow him to have felt any Pain he was neither bound to be nor indeed could be in any Agony but rather from the fear that he was in lest his Disciples being scandalized at these Sad sights might haply have sinned against the Holy Ghost by denying his Godhead And that from hence it was that S Peter in his Denial of his Master used these words Non novi hominem I know him not as Man because that whatsoever is spoken against the Son of Man may be forgiven And so likewise in these words of our Saviour O my Father if it be Possible let this Cup pass from me His Opinion is that our Saviour did not here desire that He himself might be delivered from his Passion but rather that after He had suffered His Disciples might also suffer in like manner that this Cup might not rest at Him but that it might pass on to His Disciples also that is to say that it might be drunk by Them in the same manner as He himself was now going to taste of it to wit without any touch of Despair or Distrust and without any sense of Pain or fear of Death What could have been written more Coldly or more disagreeing with the Truth and Simplicity of the Gospel But yet I cannot sufficiently wonder at him that having thus ratified the Flesh of our Saviour Christ into a Spirit he should in another place condense Our Spirits into Bodies There is nothing saith he which is not Corporeal in its Substance and Creation c. For the Species of our Souls themselves whether they be united to the Body or are separated from them are still a Nature whose Substance is Corporeal He believeth also that Baptism doth not cleanse us from all our Sins and therefore he holds That all Men must at the last Day pass through the Fire We are Then saith he to endure an Indefatigable Fire Then is the time that we are to undergo those grievous Torments for the Expiation of our Sins and Purging our Souls A Sword shall pierce through the Soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the end that the Thoughts of many Hearts may be revealed Seeing therefore that That Virgin who was capable of receiving God shall taste of so-severe a Judgment where is he that dares desire to be judged of God I know not whether he might heretofore have perswaded any store of People to embrace this Doctrine of his or not but sure I am that were he alive at this day he would take but a vain
them in the one why dost thou blot them out in the other What can the meaning be of so strange a way of proceeding in so Wise Men But yet who sees not the reason of it For these Sentences which these Men â—hus boldly and rudely correct are as displeasing to them in the Ancients as in the Moderns and where they may safely do it they expunge them as well out of the one as out of the other But this they dare not do openly for fear of giving too much scandal to the World which they are unwilling to do because if they should deal so uncivilly and make so bold with Antiquity they would quite take off that respect which all people bear toward it which being a matter which very nearly concerns themselves it is a special point of wisdom in them carefully to keep up the Reputation of it But in lashing the poor Moderns who have made Indexes to all the Works of the Fathers they save their Credit and do their business too ruining the opinions which they hate by chastising the one and yet withal preserving the venerable Esteem of Antiquity which they cannot subsist without by sparing the other And yet I cannot see why Bertram a Priest who lived in the time of the Emperour Charles the Bold which is about some seven hundred and fifty years since should be reckoned among the Moderns and yet his Book De Corpore Sanguine Domini is absolutely and without any limitation forbidden to be read in the Index of the Council of Trent in the Letter Bâ— among the Authorsof the second Classis as they call them But yet the Censors of the Low Countries have dealt with him more gently shall I say or rather more cruelly not taking his life away quite only maiming him in the sâ—veral parts of his Body and leaving him in the like sad condition with Deiphobus in the Poet Lacerum crudeliter ora Ora manusque ambas populataque tempora raptis Auribus truncas inbonesto vulnere nares For they have cut you off with one single dash of their Pen two long Passages consisting each of them of twenty eight or thirty Lines a piece and which are large enough to make up a very considerable part of a small Treatise such as his is And that the Reader may the better judge of the business I shall here set down one of these Passages entire as it is We ought further to consider saith Bertram speaking of the Holy Eucharist that in this Bread is represented not only the Body of Christ but the Body of the People also that believe in him And hence it is that it is made up of many several grains of wheat because that the whole Body of believing People is united together and made into one by the word of Christ And therefore as it is by a Mystery that we receive this Bread for the Body of Christ in like manner it is by a Mystery also that the Members of the People believing in Christ are here figured out unto us And as this Bread is called the Body of Believers not corporally but spirituâ—lly so is the Body of Christ also necessarily to be understood to be represented here not corporally but spiritually In like manner is it in the Wine which is called the Blood of Christ and with which it is ordained that water be mixed it being forbidden to offer the one without the other because that as the Head cannot subsist without the Body nor the Body without the Head in like manner neither can the People be without Christ nor Christ without the People so that in this Sacrament the Water representeth the Image of the People If then the Wine after it is consecrated by the Office of Ministers be corporally changed into the Blood of Christ of necessity then must the Water also be changed corporally into the Body of the Believing people because that where there is but one only and the same Sanctification there can be but one and the same Operation and where the Reason is equal the Mystery also that fellows it is equal But now as for the Water we see that there is no such corporal change wrought in it it therefore follows that neither in the Wine is there any corporal Transmutation Whatsoever then of the Body of the People is signified unto us by the Water is taken spiritually it followeth therefore necessarily that we must in like manner take spiritually whatsoever the Wine representeth unto us of the Blood of Christ Again those things which differ among themselves are not the same Now the Body of Christ which died and was raised up to life again now dieth no more being become immortal and Death having no more power over it it is eternal and free from further suffering But this which is Consecrated in the Church is Temporal not Eternal corruptible not free from corruption in its journey and not in its native country These two things therefore are different one from the other and consequently cannot be one and the same thing And if they be not one and the same thing how can any man say that this is the Real Body and Real Blood of Christ For if it be the Body of Christ and if it may be truly said that this Body of Christ is really and truly the Body of Chriâ—t the Real Body of Christ being Incorruptible and Impassible and therefore Eternal consequently this Body of Christ which is consecrateâ— in the Church must of necessity also be both Incorruptible and Eternal But it cannot be denied but that it doth corrupt seeing it is cut into small pieces and distributed to the Communicants who bruise it very small with their teeth and so take it down into their Body Thus Bertram His other passage which is longer yet than this is of the same Nature but I shall not here set it down to avoid prolixity Now these Gentlemen finding that the language of both these passages did very ill accord with the business of Transubstantiation they thought it the best way to cut them clear out for fear lest coming to the Peoples knowledge they might imagine that there had been Sacramentarians in the Church ever since the time of Charles the Bald. Thou then whoever thou art that thinkest thy self bound to search in the Writings of the Fathers for the Doctrine of thy Salvation learn from this Artifice of theirs and those many other Cheats which we to their great grief are now searching into what an extreme desire they have to keep from us the Opinion and sense of the Ancients in all those Particulars where they never so little contradict their own Doctrine and remembring withal how they have had and still have every day such opportunities of doing what they please in this kind thou canst not doubt but that they have struck deep enough where there was cause which blows of theirs together with the Alterations and Changes that Time the Malice of
Book of his De Anima He also with Irenaeus shuts up the Souls of Men after they are departed this Life into a certain Subterraneous place where they are to remain till the Day of Judgment the Heavens not being to be opened to any of the Faithful till the end of the World onely he allows the Martyrs their entrance into Paradise which he fancies to be some place beneath the Heavens and here he will have them continue till the Last Day It is thy Blood saith he which is the onely Key of Paradise And this place whither the Souls of the Dead go is to continue close shut up till the end of the World according to him who besides is of a quite contrary Opinion from that of Justin Martyr spoken of before and maintains That all Apparitions of Dead Men are onely meer Illusions and Deceits of the Devil and that this Inclosure of the Souls of Men shall continue till such time as the City of the New Jerusalem which is to be all of Precious Stones shall descend Miraculously from Heaven upon the Earth and shall there continue a Thousand years the Saints so long living in it in very great Glory and that during this space the Resurrection of the Faithful is to be accomplished by degrees some of them rising up sooner and some later according to the difference of their Merits And hence are we to interpret that which he says in another place to wit That small Sins shall be punished in Men by the Lateness of their Resurrection and That when the Thousand years are expired and the Destruction of the World and the Conflagration of the Day of Judgment is past we shall all be changed in a moment into the Nature of Angels I pass by his Invectives against Second Marriages and also his evil Opinion of all Marriage in General these Fancies being a part of the Discipline of Montanus his Paraclete But as for his Opinions touching the Baptism of Hereticks he hath many Fellows among the Fathers who held the same namely That their Baptism signified nothing and therefore they never received any Heretick into the Communion of the Catholick Church but they first rebaptized him Cleansing him saith he both in the one and in the other Man that is to say both in Body and Soul by the Baptism of the Truth accounting an Heretick to be in the same or rather in a worse condition than any Pagan And as for the rest he is so far from pressing Men to the Baptizing of their Children while they are young which yet is the present Custom of these Times that he allows and indeed perswades the Contrary not onely in Children but even in Persons of Riper years counselling them to defer it every Man according to his Condition Disposition and Age. And as his Opinion touching this Particular is not much different from that of the Anabaptists of our Time so doth he not much dissent from them neither in some other For he will not allow no more than they do that a Christian should take upon him or execute any Office of Judicature or That he should condemn or bind or imprison or examine any Man or that he should make War upon any or serve in War under any other saying expresly That our Saviour Christ by disarming S. Peter hath from henceforth taken off every Soldiers Belt Which is as much as to say That the Discipline of Christ alloweth not of the Profession of Soldiery So that I cannot but extremely wonder at the Confidence shall I say or rather the Inadvertency of some who will needs perswade us from a certain Passage of this Author which themselves have very much mistaken that this so Innocent and Peaceable Father maintained That Hereticks are to be punished and to be suppressed by inflicting upon them temporal punishments which rigorous proceeding was as far from his thoughts as Heaven is from Earth I shall add here before I go any further that he held that our Saviour Christ suffered death in the Thirtieth year of his Age which is manifestly contrary to the Gospel And he thought also that the Heavenly Grace and Prophecy ended in St. John Baptist the Fulness of the Spirit being from henceforth transferred unto our Saviour Christ St. Cyprian who was Tertullians very great Admirer calling him absolutely The Master and who never let any day pass over his head without reading something of him hath confidently also maintained some of the aforesaid Opinions as namely among others that of the Nullity of Baptism by Hereticks which he desendeth every where very stiffely having also the most Eminent Men of his time consenting with him in this Point as namely Firmilianus Metropolitan of Cappadocia Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria together with the Councils of Africk Cappadocia Pamphilia and Bithynia notwithstanding all the Anger and the Excommunication also of Stephen Bishop of Rome who for his part held a particular Opinion of his own allowing of the Baptism of all sorts of Hereticks without rebaptizing any of them as it appeareth by the Beginning of the LXXIV Epistle of St. Cyprian whereas the Church about some LXV years after at the Council of Nice declared Null the Baptism of the Samosatenians by permitting as it seems that all other Hereticks whatsoever should be received into the Church without being rebaptized But the Fathers of the * II. General Council went yet further rebaptizing all those no otherwise than they would have done Pagans who came in from the Communion either of the Eunomians Montanists Phrygians or Sabellians or indeed any other Hereticks whatsoever save only the Arrians Macedonians Sabbatians Novatians Quartodecimani and Apollinarians all which they received without Rebaptization as you may see in the Greek Copies of the said Council and the VII Canon which Canon you also have in the Greek Code of the Church Universal Num. CLXX And thus you see that Stephen and Cyprian maintained each of them their own particular Opinion in this point the one of them admitting and the other utterly rejecting the Baptism of all manner of Hereticks whereas the two aforenamed General Councils neither admitted nor rejected save only the Baptism of some certain Hereticks only But St. Cyprian however seems to have dealt herein much more fairly than his Adversary seeing that He patiently endured and was not offended with any of those who were of the contrary Opinion as it appears clearly by the Synod of Carthage and as it is also proved by St. Hierome whereas Stephen according to his own hot cholerick Temper declared publickly against Firmilianus his Opinion and Excommunicated all those that dissented from himself The same blessed Martyr of our Saviour Jesus Christ was carried away with that Errour also of his time touching the Necessity of administring the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to all persons when they were Baptized and