dead So that we may shut up this point with this perclose and with a distinction out of Peter Martyr from S. Augustine Death is so termed either properly or improperly compleatly or incompleatly If you take death properly and compleatly for that separation of the soul which cannot admit an other conjunction or union with the bodie till the generall resurrection then no man ever died but once or was come ad plenam mortem to that prefixed period and last houre of life but their former death was onely improper preparatorie and abortive Now if you take death improperly and incompleatly for any manner of true separation which indeed is the commonest acception a man may die twice and divers have died twice yea all they that ever were raised in the Old and New Testament except our Saviour onely who cooperated to his own resurrection all they and every of them died the second time 6. f Paucorum praerogativa non officit legi Naturae ut aliquoties monet Origines The priviledge of a few checketh not offendeth not the law of nature as Origen observeth more then once saith Erasmus on the 1. Thessal 4. or in Hieroms phrase g Singulorum privilegia legem efficere non possunt The prerogatives of singular men establish not a law or in the way of Augustine h Privilegium paucorum universali legi non derogat The priviledge of a few doth not derogate from the generall law Though it be ordinarily appointed for all men once to die yet extraordinarily some may not die at all and some must die twice For i Potens est Deus cum statuto communi dispensare God may and can dispense with a common statute of his own saith Holcot on Wisdome the 2. His hands are free who hath manicled the whole world by his laws he is not tied by Stoicall fatall necessitie who is Agens liberrimum a most voluntarie free agent HOly holy holy Lord God of Hosts I humbly implore thy favourable protection strengthen me O gracious God against all mine enemies bodily and ghostly and when I have by thy power fought a good fight when I have finished my course take me I beseech thee from being a member of thy Church militant in this Jerusalem below to be partaker of blessednesse with thy Church triumphant in Jerusalem above the Mother of us all which petition I earnestly present unto thy Sacred Majestie in the name and mediation of my onely Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Amen CHAP. XIX 1. Strange conceits concerning Nero from Suetonius Tacitus Hierom Augustine Nero supposed to be Antichrist 2. An other incredible relation of the Armenian who is said to have lived at Christs passion The Armenians have their holy frauds AS I began with two or three strange histories having some relation to the propounded question so I hold it not amisse to end with two or three which shall give some light to some other parts of this question or at least by their strangenesse shall afford delight though I end in a fable Suetonius in Nerone cap. 27. toward the end thus historifieth a Non defuerunt quì per longum tempus vernis aestivÃsque floribus tumulum Neronis ornarent ac modò imagines praetextatas in rostris proferrent modò edicta quasi viventis magno inimicorum malo reversuri Denique cùm post viginti annos adolescente me extitisset conditionis incertae qui se Neronem esse jactaret tam favorabile nomen ejus apud Parthos fuit ut vebementer adjutus vix redditus sit There were some who for a long time did deck the tombe of Nero with flowers both of the spring and summer and sometimes did bring his statues and resemblances adorned with long purple imbroydered robes into the pleading places now and then they would proclaim his Edicts as if he had been alive and would shortly return to the damage of his enemies To conclude After twentie yeares when I was but a youth when there appeared on the stage an odde fellow who bragged that he was Nero so great respect was shewed to his name and credit that he had great helps and aids and with much ado was delivered up So farre Suetonius Tacitus also Histor 2. reports that many did beleeve Nero did live long after he was dead S. Hierom to Algasia de undecim quaest quaest ultimâ makes Nero a fore-runner of Antichrist and he gives this sense to these words 2. Thess 2.7 b Jâ—m mysterium operatur miquitatis Multis malit peccatis quibus Nero impurissimus Caesarum mundum premit Antichristi parturitur adventus c. NOW THE MYSTERIE OF INIQUITIE WORKETH By those many harms and sinnes saith he by which Nero the worst of all the Cesars oppresseth the world Antichrists coming is breeding and readie to come to light and what Antichrist shall do hereafter Nero now in part accomplisheth S. Augustine his relation goeth one step further c Nonnulli illum resurrecturum futurum Antichristum suspicantur c. de Civit. 20.19 Some do suspect and imagine saith he that Nero shall rise again and be Antichrist Others think that Nero was not slain but was withdrawn when they thought he was murdered and that he lieth hid living in the vigour of that age wherein he was when they thought he was slain Which storie when I read it recalled to my minde a more uncouth relation of an other dive-dopper And this it is 2. In Matthew Paris on the eleventh yeare of Henry the third anno Christi 1228. in his greater historie printed at London pag. 470. it is said That an Arch-bishop of Armenia came into England in pilgrimage was entertained at S. Albans Abby Being there asked touching that Joseph of whom there was a common speech that he was present when Christ suffered and spake with him and that he yet liveth as a firm proof of the Christian faith the Arch-bishop answered That he knew Joseph well and the Antiochian who was the interpreter to the Arch-bishop told the whole storie thus to Henry Spigurnel his acquaintance and the Abbots servant That before the Arch-bishop came out of Armenia Joseph used to be at his table that at the Passion when Christ was haled from before Pilate to the crosse the said Joseph then called Cartaphilus being usher of the Court did most scornfully punch Christ on the back as he went out of the doore and mocking said Go faster Jesus Go Why stayest thou But Christ looking back with a stern eye and countenance on him said I go indeed but thou shalt expect or stay till I come As if he had said The Sonne of Man goeth indeed as it is written of him and must be crucified and die and shall live again but thou shalt abide and not die till my second coming It is further added that this Cartaphilus was at the time of Christs death about thirty yeares old and so often as he cometh to
the same epistle said Some shall not die but be snatcht out of this life that with changed and glorified bodies they might be with Christ Chrysostom on the 10. to the Romanes and on 1. Thess 4. and upon this place to the Corinthians saith Some shall escape death With him agreeth Epiphanius Haeresi 64. saying k Qui rapitur nondum mortuus est Who is suddenly snatched up is not yet dead And before them Origen lib. 2. contra Celsum so opineth Theophylact on 1. Corinth 15. thus l Etiam qui non morientur ad incorruptibilitatem transferentur Even they who shall not die shall be transchanged out of this corruptible life to incorruptibilitie And again m Nonnulli nè morientur quidem Some indeed shall not die at all To that effect S. Hierom in his epistle to Marcella quaest 3. num 148. and in his epistle to Minerius and Alexander bringeth the saying of Christ Matth. 24.37 c. of the dayes of Noah when the floud swept them away as they were eating and drinking to prove that at the last judgement some shall not die Theodoret evinceth the same truth producing the passage of Matth. 24.40 of two in the field one assumed the other rejected And Chrysostom in his Sermon de Ascensione Domini instanceth in the verse following of two in a mill one refused the other accepted which proofs aim at this That all shall not die Cajetan is rich in proofs That all shall not die See him on Act. 10. upon Timoth. 4. upon 1. Corinth 15. upon 1. Thessal 4. Tertullians words must not be omitted in his book de resurrectione carnis n Hujus gratiae privilegium illos manet qui ab adventu Domini deprehendentur in carne propter duritias temporum Antichristi merebuntur compendio mortis per demutationem expunctae concurrere cum resurgentibus This gracious priviledge belongs unto those who at the coming of our Lord and Saviour to judgement shall be found alive upon earth and for the grievous afflictions and pressures of the times under Antichrist they shall have granted unto them this indulgence That they shall not die but shall be suddenly changed and so go to meet Christ together with those which shall then be raised from the dead Salmeron being peremptorie That all and every one shall die properly upon 1. Thessal 4. hath a wilde crotchet That all who shall be alive toward the end of the world shall be consumed with the fire of conflagration which shall go before Christ and so dead and raised shall be snatched up But S. Augustine de Civitat Dei 20.16 setting down the order of the last judgement saith The fire of conflagration shall be after the last judgement I will close this point with the sound and learned words of Calvin which fully accord with what I rested on in the beginning of this chapter upon 1. Corinth 15. o Cùm mutatio fieri nequeat quin aboleatur prior natura ipsa mutatio meritò censetur species mortis sed cùm non sit animae à corpore solutio non reputatur in morte ordinaria Since there cannot be a change saith he but the former nature must be abolished the very change on good grounds may justly be accounted a kinde of death but since there is not a separation of the soul from the bodie it is not to be reputed as if it were the common and ordinarie death Upon 1. Thessal 4. he wittily observeth that they p Qui dormiunt aliquo temporis spatio exuunt corporis substantiam qui innovabuntur non nisi qualitatem who are dead or do die for some space of time or other longer or shorter their souls put off the substantiall clothing of the bodie or flesh but they who shall be changed shall put off onely the qualitie not the substance The summe of all is this The third main question by me at first propounded was Whether all and every one without exception must and shall die The Papists are obstinate for the affirmative I have proved the negative That some may be some have been and some others shall be excepted and not die And so I end my third and last Chapter of my third book of Miscellanies O Most gracious Lord God who hast committed all judgement to thy onely sonne our onely Lord and Saviour I beseech thee to have pitie upon me and for Jesus Christ his sake receive me into thy especiall favour O blessed JESU accept of these my poore and weak endeavours and receive my prayers and present them with mercie to the throne of Grace hasten thy coming and thy kingdome Come sweet JESU come quickly and prepare my soul to meet thee with joy If it be thy holy will let me be one of them that shall be changed and changed to the better from pain to comfort from sicknesse sorrow and labour to rest and blessednesse eternall Amen Amen Amen VNI-TRINO DEO LAVS ET GLORIA FINIS An Alphabeticall Table of the principall things contained in these three Books of Miscellanies A ABortion is a curse Book 1. pag. 103. Two kindes of Abortives ibid. pag. 98 99. Adams body was created immortall and how ibid. p. 11. Adams body was framed of other dust then the dust of Paradise ibid. p. 16. viz. out of the red earth of ager Damascenus ibid. p. 85. Book 2. p. 23. The contrarie disposition of Elements had not caused a dissolution of Adams body had Adam stood Book 1. p. 17 to 28. The naturall temper and constitution of Adams body in state of innocencie ibid. p. 18 and 20. Whether if Adam and Eve had stood confirmed in innocencie any of their children could have sinned ibid. p. 44 to 54. The endowments of Adam in state of innocencie ib. p. 55 56. Whether Adam and Eve foreknew their fall ibid. p. 59. Whether Adam and Eves sinne were the same ibid. p. 61. Whether of their sinnes were the greater ibid. p. 62 65 to 73. where also of Adams first sinne by which he fell ibid. Adam mourned 100 yeares for the murdered Abel ibid. p. 85 87. Adam was a type of Christ therefore saved ibid. Adam was buried in Golgotha and his skull found upon mount Calvary Book 2. from p. 13 to 29. Whether Adam could naturally understand all languages ibid. p. 47 48. Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Book 1. p. 2. Angels fell the second instant of their creation ib. p. 108 and 126. Christ merited for Angels ib. p. 189 190. Angels representing men are called men in the Scripture Book 2. chap. 16. Apocryphall books too much slighted Book 2. p. 145. They are to be preferred before any other humane Authours Book 3. p. 183. Of the diverse Appointment of things by God Book 1. p. 2 3. The Apostles represented the whole body of Christs Ministers ibid. p. 147 148. The Apostles were none of them learned before their calling Book 2. p. 87 88. Aristotle and Plato
MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITIE Divided into three books Wherein is explained at large the estate of the Soul in her origination separation particular judgement and conduct to eternall blisse or torment BY EDVVARD KELLET Doctour in Divinitie and one of the Canons of the Cathedrall Church of EXON S. AUGUST serm nov 24. de S. Paulo ¶ Omnibus hominibus natis constituit Deus mortem per quam de isto seculo emigrent Exceptus eris à morte si exceptus fueris à genere humano Iam homo es venisti Quomodo hinc exeas cogita HINC LVCEM ET POCLA SACRA ALMA MATER GANTA BRIGIA Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE and are to be sold by Robert Allot at the Beare in Pauls-Churchyard 1635. TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD MY VERY GOOD LORD THE LORD Archbishop of CANTERBURIE his Grace Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitane Most Reverend THE manifold graces which God hath plentifully poured on you enabling you even from your youth to be a fit instrument divers wayes to advance his glorie and blessing your great good labours with the favourable acceptance of our dread Soveraigne State and all who have well-wishing unto this our Sion have caused me a crazie old retired man who never saw you but once and that long since to leave behinde me a testimoniall to the world both of my heartie thanks to God that you have been of my humblest prayers that you may long continue a prop of our Church a favoured Ezra the prompt Scribe in the Law a powerfull Aaron to make an atonement for the people an Elijah zealous in your calling a provident guide to the Prophets to the sonnes and schools of the Prophets a father chariot horsemen of Israel as Elisha called Elijah as king Joash called Elisha May heavenly influences and divine irradiations say Amen Amen Your Graces in all dutie Edward Kellet The Contents of the first book CHAPTER I. Sect. 1. THe subject of the whole work The reason why I chose the text of Hebr. 9.27 to discourse upon The Division of it Fol. 1. c. 2. Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Death appointed by God yet for Adams fault The tree of life kept from Adam not by phantasticall Hob-goblins but by true Angels and a flaming sword brandishing it self Leviticall ceremonies dead buried deadly Things redeemed dispensed with yet still appointed 2 3. The Kingdome of Death reigning over all Bodily death here meant and onely once to be undergone 4 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth not necessarily the longinquitie of future times intercurrent but rather a demonstration that other things were precedent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After doth often signifie an immediate succession Judgement here taken for an act of justice 5 5. The generall judgement here understood by OEcumenius and Bellarmine The second book of Esdras apocryphall and justly refused More then the generall judgement is meant Even the particular judgement also is avouched by many authorities Three questions arising from the former part of these words 6 CHAP. II. 1. HOw God is immortall how Angels and the souls of men how Adams bodie was mortall and yet immortall though compounded of contraries 10 2. Aristotles last words his death Holcot or the Philosophers pray for him Aristotle canonized by his followers Plato and Aristotle compared Vives taxed Adams bodie was not framed of the earth or dust of Paradise 12 3. Adam should not have been subject to any externall force he was lord of the creatures inward distemper he could not have Adams bodily temperature Christs who was fairer then the children of Adam the helps for Adams bodie meat drink and sleep 17 4. Divers opinions of the tree of life If Adam had eaten of the tree of life before or after his fall he had lived for ever If he had not sinned he had not died though he had not tasted of the tree of life To what use the tree of life should have served 20 5. The Councel of Millan Cardinall Cajetan Richeomus the Jesuit Julianus Pomerius and Saint Augustine think that Adam could not have died if he had not sinned The book of Wisedome Holcot Doctour Estius and two passages of Scripture Canonicall are authorities evincing that Adam had in the state of innocencie an immortall bodie 24 CHAP. III. 1. DEath is a bitter-sweet Enoch and Elias Raptures were not painfull to them Christs transfiguration and the manner of it That it was not painfull to him Adams translation to a life celestiall and a bodie spirituall should not have been painfull if he had not sinned They who shall be changed at Christs coming shall by it finde no pain Death is painfull 28 2. Man-kinde died the first minute of their sinne God draweth good out of evil Death in some regard is changed from a punishment to be a favour and blessing of God 31 3. Not many or more sinnes but one caused death One onely David begotten in lawfull wedlock That this one sinne is not lesse in the godly nor greater in the wicked Death was appointed for one sinne onely of one person onely 33 4. This one person onely was man this man that sinned that one sinne was Adam Strange and curious speculations that Eve sinned not that sinne for which mankinde was appointed to death 36 5. Two School speculations propounded The second handled at large as expounding the former and determined against the School-men themselves viz. That the children of innocent Adam had been born confirm'd in grace The censure of Vives upon these and the like points A part of his censure censured 43 CHAP. IIII. 1. ADams perfection in innocencie Our imperfection after his fall contrary to his both in understanding and will and in the parts concupiscible and irascible 55 2. Adam had other laws given him but one above all and one onely concerning posteritie 57 3. What this law was Adam knew the danger to himself and his off-spring The first sinne was against this law 58 4. Eve sinned before How she sinned the same and not the same sinne with Adam 60 5. Zeno the Stoicks and Jovinian confuted Sinnes are not equally sinfull 62 6. Adam sinned farre more and worse then Eve 65 7. This sinne of Adam was not uxoriousnesse as Scotus maintained but disobedience or pride The branches of Adams sinne 66 CHAP. V. 1. ORiginall sinne is an obscure point The errours of the Schoolmen concerning it The over-sight of Bellarmine 73 2. Originall sinne described by its causes Distinguished from Adams actuall sinne 77 3. In what sense Adam had and his posteritie hath Originall sinne We were in Adam He stood for us idealiter Every one of us would have done exactly as Adam did We did sinne in Adam and how 78 4. Whether Christ was in Adam and how 82 5. We sinned not that sinne in Adam by imitation onely 84 6. Adams sinne as personall was not imputed Adam is saved Adams actuall sinne as it was ideall and
of which hereafter and yet for all this dispensation it is truely said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not It Was appointed as having reference to what onely was past but It Is appointed It is a yoke that neither our fathers did nor we shall ever shake off and not onely labour and travell is an * Ecclus 40. ◠heavy yoke upon the sonnes of Adam but much more death Neither hath the worlds redeemer freed us from the stroke but from the curse of death for even hitherto * Pallida morsaequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regúmque turres Horat. Carm. l. 1. O◠4. Pale death doth knock with equall power At th' poore mans doore and kingly tower The grave yet gapeth and though myriads of myriads have died before though Paracelsus promised immortality in this life and perhaps therefore was cut off in the prime of his yeares yet death is * Job 30.23 and 21.33 the house appointed for all living and every man shall draw after him as there are innumerable before him Of the longest liver hath been said in the end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His life is past or as the Romanes when they were loth to say one was dead spake significantly to the sense yet mildly by this word Vixit Ecclus 14.17 He had his time he did sometimes live And it is the condition of all times THOU SHALT DIE THE DEATH 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The universall note or particle is not added It is not said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet sure it is included and so meant Not Christ himself the destroyer of death is exempted nor his thrice-blessed Mother nor fair Absalom nor strong Sampson nor wise Solomon nor craftie Achitophel It is appointed to all men and women no sex is freed no nation priviledged no age excepted If some few have been dispensed withall I will say with S. Augustine * Alii sunt humanarum limites rerum alia divinarum signa virtutum alià naturaliter alia miral iliter siunt Aug lib. de Cura pro mortuls gerenda cap. 16 Other are the bounds of humane things other the signes of divine power some things are done naturally and some miraculously We speak of the ordinarie course It is appointed for all men TO DIE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death is a name of sundry significations and it is taken diversly for there is The last death by the losse of glory The death of the soul by the losse of grace The death of the body by the losse of the soul * Aug. De Civit. Dei lib. 13. cap. 12. If it be demanded saith S. Augustine what death God meaneth to our first parents Whether the death of the body or of the soul or of the whole man or that which is called THE SECOND DEATH we must Consitle si placet ingeniosum ejus Tractatum cap. 15. ejusdem libri saith he answer He threatneth all The death of the soul began immediately upon their eating and is evidenced by their hiding themselves and shame to be seen The death of the body presently seconded it Theod. in Gen. quaest 38. it suddenly becomes mortall saith Theodoret The sentence of mortality GOD called death in Symmachus his exposition For after the divine sentence every day that I may so speak he looked for death as it is in the same Theodoret. As we now expect the resurrection and life eternall every moment so Adam every minute looked for death I am sure he deserved it Peter Martyr on 1. Cor. 13.12 Our first parents perished * Primi parentes quum transgressi sunt illico periêre quoniam mors nequaquam alia censenda quà m recessus à vita nec vitam habemus citra Deum Quare mortui sunt quia à Deo recesserunt eorum anima non fuit à corpore avulsa sed in eo quodammodo sepulta in praesentia non vitam sed mortem vivimus so soon as they transgressed because no other death is to be imagined but a departure from life and we have no life out of God Therefore they died because they departed from God and their soul was not snatcht away from their bodie but in a manner buried in it For the present our life is not a life but a death Of the bodily death onely are the words of my Text to be understood being a prime commentarie on Genes 3.19 Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return It is appointed for men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Once to die * Quod casus in diabolo id in homine mors What fall is in the devil that death is in man They fell but once we die but once We must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again 2. Sam. 14.14 Waters once spilt embrace the dust and are not gathered up again nor can be spilt again Christ tasted death for every man Hebr. 2.9 As Christ being once dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him Rom. 6.9 so is it regularly and ordinarily with all other one corporall death sufficeth It is appointed unto men ONCE to die 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But after this the judgement Let me speak of the words severally and then in a lump or masse together That these articles Post tum mox modò After then anon presently and the like are taken at large for some yeares before or after you may see it proved in * Alb. Gent. disput ad 1. lib. Maccab. cap. 3. Al bericus Gentilis The Scripture thus Genes 38.1 At that time But it was ten yeares saith Tremellius Exod. 2.11 It came to passe in those dayes and he meaneth fourty yeares Matt. 3.1 In those dayes that is twenty and five yeares after Luke 23.43 To day is taken for presently Aretius hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpon that or presently after that And questionles that is the meaning for though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After may be interpreted long-after as the word proximus contrarilie doth not enforce necessarily a nearenes Proximus huic longo sed proximus intervallo said Virgil excellently He was next but a great distance between yet in the holy Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that doth most times rather intimate the procedure and order of things done then intend a large intercedencie of time John 19.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After that Jesus saith I thirst you must not understand it long after not yeares moneths weeks dayes or houres after that for our Saviour hung upon the crosse not above foure houres and many things were said and done before this So in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not evidently inferre a spacious distance of time but by the words after that we may say is meant not long after but presently or thereupon judgement cometh after death Which I the more confidently do so interpret because I know no place in the divine Writ where
after death excluding judgement in this life and placing death rather before judgement then any great distance betwixt death and judgement according to the native use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which before The second exposition is of Gregory de Valentia * Tom. 4. Disp 1. quaest 22. punct 9. who applieth the words to the particular judgement immediately upon death So doth Ludovicus de ponte Vallis Oletani * Part. 1. Meditat. medit 9. who sets it down as a veritie of faith * De particulari judicio animae quod sit proximè post mortem judicium singulorum exerceri invisibiliter statim post eujusque mortem Concerning the particular judgement of the soul which is done immediately after death every one is judged invisibly presently after his death and evinceth it by this Text. So doth Joannes * Viguer Instit pag. 692. Viguerius * Bus initio Panarii Antidotorum spiritual Busaeus the Jesuite likewise accounteth * Secundum novissimum est judicium particulare mortem proximè consequens the second last thing to be the particular judgement following death immediately the severitie whereof saith he Job the holy patient feared Job 31.14 What shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him S. Ambrose on this place hath it thus * Post mortem judicabitur unusquisque â—uxta userita sua Every one shall be judged after death according to their own deservings Which words do point at the particular judgement saith Suarez Lastly lest I may seem too eager against the second book of Esdras let me borrow a testimony or two from thence 2 Esdr 9.11 12. They that lothed my law while they had yet libertie and place of repentance open unto them must know it after death by pain And 2. Esdr 7.56 While we lived and committed sinne we considered not that we should BEGIN to suffer for it AFTER DEATH Whence we may probably collect That the beginning of punishment is immediately after death upon the particular judgement and the increase or additament at the generall judgement 2 That some are in torments before the generall day of retribution 3 That the beginning to suffer is not after a long time GOD onely knoweth how long but after death yea presently after it All these proofs on each side make way for the third and best interpretation That the Apostle meaneth not onely either of these judgements but both of them Benedictus Justinian on these words thus * Post eujusque obitum sequitur judicium privatum in quo quisque suarum actionum reddit urus estrationem post finem mundi erit judicium omnium tum hominum tum daemonum After every ones death private judgement follows in which every one is to give an account of his actions after the end of the world shall be the judgement of all both men and devils Of both the Apostle may be understood saith he So also Salmeron and Hugo Cardinalis and Carthusianus Oecolampadius thus * Sive speciale judicium intelligas sive generale uihil refert Whether you understand the speciall judgement or the gener all it matters not Thus have I brought you back to the point where I first began That this text is fitted to my intentions affording me just liberty to write whatsoever may be conceived or expressed concerning the estate of humane souls in their animation or in death or after it in the life future because the words must be expounded of both judgements And now the text being cleared from ambiguities the termes explained the state being made firm and sure not rolling and changeable and being fixed upon its basis and foundation three questions do seem to arise from the first words of the text and each of them to crave its answer before I come to my main intendment First How and when Death came to be appointed for us Secondly Whether Adam and his children all and every one without priviledge or exception must and shall die It is appointed for men to die Thirdly Whether they that were raised up from the dead at any time did die the second time It is appointed to men once to die O Gracious LORD who orderest all things sweetly and who dost dispose whatsoever man doth purpose I humbly implore thy powerfull guidance and enlightning assistance in all this work for his sake who is Alpha and Omega the Way the Truth and the Life thy onely SONNE my blessed SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST Amen CHAP. II. 1 How GOD is immortall how angels and the souls of men how Adams body was mortall and yet immortall though compounded of contraries 2 Aristotles last words his death Holcot or the Philosophers pray for him Aristotle canonized by his followers Plato and Aristotle compared Vives taxed Adams body was not framed of â—he earth or dust of Paradise 3. Adam should not have been subject to any externall force he was Lord of the creatures inward distemper he could not have Adams bodily temperature Christs who was fairer then the children of Adam the helps for Adams body meat drink and sleep 4. Divers opinions of the tree of life If Adam had eaten of the tree of life before or after his fall he had lived for ever If he had not sinned he had not died though he had not tasted of the tree of life To what use the tree of life should have served 5. The Councel of Millan Cardinall Cajetan Richeomus the Jesuite Julianus Pomerius and S. Augustine think that Adam could not have died if he had not sinned The book of Wisedome Holcot Doctor Estius and two passages of Scripture Canonical are authorities evincing that Adam had in the state of innocency an immortall body 1. TO the full answering of the first question how or why Death was appointed for us I shall need to cleare but these two points That Adam for sinne was appointed to die That Adams sinne and punishment was propagated to us Thus sinne was the mother of death thus we were appointed to die because of sinne As a preparative to the first of these two points I hold it fit to demonstrate that Adam at first was made an immortall creature Concerning Adams soul and the spirits of all men descended from him that they are immortall I hope to prove it so soundly in an other part of this tractate that I will fear no other reproof but this that I bring too much proof for it Therefore supposing or rather borrowing that truth which by GODS grace shall be repayed with interest I now come to shew that Adams bodie was created immortall Immortall I say not as GOD is immortall who neither had beginning nor shall have end with whom is no shadow of change much lesse any reall substantiall change who hath as all other good things else so immortalitie eminently and so eminently that our Apostle in some sort excludeth all others and appropriateth it to him saying 1.
troup may I put in somewhat unthought of by others Some have said truly that the divine providence and preserving power which extendeth to the least things in our declined estate as to the lives of birds and beasts and the fall of every hair God not being * Contra eorum dogmata qui primos homines si non peccâssent immortales futuros fuisse non credunt De Civit. 13.19 lesse in the least things then he was in the greatest and governing all things in number weight and measure would have much more watcht over Adam and his ofspring continuing perfect But this is that which I propose Whether the good Angels did immediatly minister unto Adam in his integritie and should have done unto us to keep mankinde from harm To which I answer That since the Prophet Psal 91.11 describing the blessed estate of the godly maketh this one especiall branch He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes and verse 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone I can not but think that the same Angels should have watcht over us and friendly conversed with us in our innocencie For God reduceth * Deus non minor est in minimis quâ—m in maximis the lowest things to the highest by the middle working by subordination of causes Yea * Infima ad suprema per media grant that this is spoken of the Sonne of God onely which by the Evangelists Matt. 4.6 and Luke 4.9 seemeth to be the Devils argute inference yet it excludes not their watching over us and their ministerie if we had not fallen whose very office and name consist in being ministring Spirits All being sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1.14 which out of doubt both Adam and his issue continuing in perfection should have been But leaving these things Christs answer to Satan proves that unto whom these words were said He shall give his Angels charge over thee c. unto the same was also said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Matt. 4.7 which was not spoken to Christ alone or principally but in the plurall number to the Israëlites and others succeeding them as appeareth Deuter. 6.16 Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted him in Massah They are deceived whosoever imagine the ministerie of Angels should not have been any way necessarie if Adam had not sinned since Christ the immaculate Lambe of God who sinned not nor could sinne refused not their ministerie Matth. 4.11 and comfort or strength Luke 22.43 and since one Angel strengthneth himself with an other Dan. 10.21 and Revel 12.7 and since they might have ministred more matter of joy unto us by their most familiar conversation in assumed bodies Unto these authorities let me adde two memorable places out of the Apocrypha The first is Wisd 1.13 God made not death Satan begot it sinne brought it forth Adam and Eve nurst it The other passage is in Wisd 2.23 God created man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be immortall made him an image of his own eternity On which words Holcot thus Corporeall creatures have onely a footstep of God Man is the image of God Again * Quantum fuit ex parte Dei creavit hominem inexâ—crminabile msecundum corpus On Gods part he created him unperishable according to the body And there he hath a large discourse proving howsoever Aristotle Metaph. 8. defineth Man to be a reasonable creature mortall that the opposite is true and he resteth in it For Aristotle knew not Adams innocencie but spake of us as we are in the state of sin Whosoever desireth to read more curiosities strange and learned concerning the bodily immortalitie of Adam at the Creation let him read Estius on the second of the Sent. Distinct 19. But to confirm the truth delivered in the book of Wisdome the last and the best kinde of authoritie shall be produced out of the unquestionable Canon death is stiled our Enemy 1. Corinth 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inimicus as Hierome on the 27. of Esai readeth it hostis saith Valla therefore death is not naturall or kindly to us but rather a consort and fellow-souldier of Satan and sinne who fight against us But the sharp-pointed places are in Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die or dying thou shalt die Mortalis eris as Symmachus well translates it or morti obnoxius as Augustine well expounds it and Genes 3.3 Ye shall not touch it lest ye die therefore they should not have died if they had not touched the forbidden fruit And so they both were and ever might have been immortall When the woman of Sarepta said to Eliah * 1. Kings 17.18 Art thou come unto me to call my sinne to remembrance and to slay my sonne doth she not secretly intimate that sinne is a murtherer And if there had been no sinne there had also been no death * In 2. Sent. dist 19. quaest 1. in and by her evident confession that her sinne was the cause of his death Scotus shall determine the point Punishment can not be without fault but death is the punishment of sinne and during the state of innocency there could be no sinne therefore no death I have dwelt the longer on this part because every reason authoritie by which I have proved that Adams bodilie estate in the time of innocency was immortall affordeth also by way of preparative a binding argument to evince that Adam for sin was appointed to die which is the first of the two Propositions which I propounded In which words we intend to handle these things First somewhat concerning death Secondlie that Adam was appointed to die for one sinne onely Thirdly that it was for Adams own sinne onely and not for Eves Fourthly we will enquire what that sinne was O Onely-wise God who createdst Man in thine own likenes and madâ—st him the Image of thine own eternitie I beseech thee to renew in me that decaied Image make me like unto thee give me the favour to taste of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God and to drink of the pure River of the Water of Life clear as Crystall proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the LAMBE Heare me O blessed SAVIOUR for thine infinite Merit and mercies sake Amen CHAP. III. 1. Death is a bitter-sweet Enoch and Elias Raptures were not painfull to them Christs Transfiguration and the manner of it That it was not painfull to him Adams translation to a life celestiall and a body spirituall should not have been painfull if he had not sinned They who shall be changed at Christs coming shall by it finde no pain Death is painfull 2. Man-kinde died the first minute of their sinne God draweth good out of evill Death in some regard is changed from a
they received their dead raised to life again to live with them according to their desire But others were tortured and would not accept deliverance and cared not for the joyes of this life or the punishment unto death nor temporary raising that they might obtain the better resurrection not to die again as the others did but to live for evermore 4 But as for the third Tostatus saith He lived a long time and he was more healthie then he was before he died And he giveth this sound reason Because what things are done supernaturally are farre more perfect then they that are done naturally Never was there so good wine as the water turned into wine the choicenesse whereof was so easily discerned even when the palate was cloyed when the taste was corrupted and dull'd towards the end of a feast Joh. 2.10 Now as he lived a long time so out of doubt in the end he died tasting of mortalitie as truely as the Prophet did whose bones before had raised him O Blessed Jesu I beg not at thy hands the reuniting of my soul unto my body for a temporary life but if it be thy holy will let the vertue of thy Passion raise me first from the death of sinne to the life of righteousnesse and from a righteous temporary life to the life of immortall happinesse Grant this for thy glorious Names sake O holy Redeemer Amen CHAP. III. 1. Whilest Christ lived none raised any dead save himself onely 2. The Rulers daughter raised by Christ died again 3. So did the young man whom Christ recalled to life 4. Many miracles in that miracle of Lazarus his resurrection 5. Christ gave perfect health to those whom he healed or raised 6. Lazarus his holy life and his second death 1. THe next place of my division leadeth me to treat of those whom Christ himself raised For if Christ did give authoritie to his twelve Apostles to raise the dead Matth. 10.8 though both in the old Interpreter and Theophylact these words are wanting saith Beza yet did they not or the Seventie at their return to him say they had raised any which he himself did so sparingly though they healed the sick Mark 6.13 and the devils were subject unto them through his name Luk. 10.17 Neither did the Baptist nor any in Christs life-time raise up any so farre as can be gathered It was a work he appropriated to his own power for the act thereof whilest he lived and which he maketh to be an infallible token and proof that he was the Messiah as appeareth by the answer of the ambassage which Christ returned to the Baptist Luk. 7.22 The dead are raised by me or by my power Therefore I am he that should come For that is one member of his argument And indeed perhaps he raised divers whom the Scripture hath not particularized for he did very many things that are not written Joh. 21.25 Yea many signes truely did he in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book Joh. 20.30 and his Apostles after his death did actuate that power which habitually in his life they received 2. But those that are mentioned to be raised by Christ whilest he lived on earth are likewise three 1. A Rulers daughter Matth. 9.25 2. A dead man the onely sonne of his mother Luk. 7.15 3. Lazarus his friend Joh. 11.44 And all these returned to do their offices and follow their vocations in this life and in the end payed their due to nature and died again In the first we observe that she was a damsel of twelve yeares of age and being dead her spirit came again Luk. 8.55 She arose and walked Mark 5.42 and Christ commanded to give her meat in the same place of Luke And as the meat was commanded to be given her that they might see she was to live such a life as before she lived so out of doubt the commanded meat was offered unto her and she did eat and was strengthened by it both living and dying afterwards as other maids and men did and no way rising to immortall life 3. As for the second he was a young man on whose mother Christ had compassion Luk. 7.13 She was a widow the youth her onely sonne and when Christ touch'd but the coffin and said Young man arise that you may see both his vertue and his voice had a piercing and quickning power he that was dead sat up and began to speak and Christ delivered him to his mother vers 15. Now these are evident signes of a naturall life in a naturall body which must yeeld in the end to the stroke of death And the raising of this young man being bruited abroad was the especiall motive why the Baptist sent two disciples with a message unto Christ Luk. 7.17 c. 4. The third whom Christ raised was Lazarus who had been buried foure dayes ere Christ came unto him Joh. 11.17 that I may passe over the uncertain time from his death to his buriall d Foetens quairiduanut Stinking after foure dayes enterring saith S. Augustine Yet when Jesus cried with a loud voice Lazarus come forth he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin and Jesus saith unto them Loose him and let him go Joh. 11.44 In which miracle I finde foure or five wrapped up and involved That so suddenly his soul did come from its abode That the stinking ill-organized body was so soon so well prepared That the soul was so quickly united and no sooner united then exercising her faculties on the bodie which yeelded such ready obedience That he could see the way out of the grave and perchance approach towards our Saviour when his eyes were blinded That he was able to go and walk before he was loosed by them while his hands and his feet were bound with grave-clothes Yet that the miracle aimed not to raise him to an immortall life appeareth because he did not onely go from his grave to Bethanie to the house where his sisters Mary and Martha were but because he supped with our Saviour he being one of them that sat at the table with Jesus Joh. 12.2 where out of doubt he did eat as the rest did There is an argument yet left as undeniable as unanswerable That the then living did think Lazarus lived to die again For the chief Priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death as well as Christ Joh. 12.10 which they would not they could not have done if he had not lived and could not die like other men if he had been raised to life immortall and they knew he was once raised Joh. 11.45 47. 5. Concerning the sick that were healed and the dead raised by Christ worthy Writers further agree that Christ did integram corporis sanitatem conferre omni infirmitate rejectâ Left no reliques of sicknesse or infirmity when he healed Christ never healed any one man twice Joh.
7.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totum hominem sanum feci I made a man every whit whole Healed a man wholly say the Rhemists Perhaps I may adde that Christ never healed the body of any but he healed his soul likewise at least for the instant time I am sure Chrysostom Augustine and Beda to this purpose say The same man was healed by Christ Joh. 5.14 Qui foris ab infirmitate ipse etiam intus salvavit à scelere He saved the man from outward infirmitie and inward sinne He healed as I may comment on the words his body at the pool of Bethesda his soul in the Temple Christ himself said Totum hominem sanum feci I have healed the whole man and Beza on Joh. 7.23 saith He was healed both soul and body Corporaliter spiritualiter Both bodily and ghostly saith Hugo Cardinalis Even he who was impotent and had an infirmity thirty eight yeares upon Christs command immediately was made whole and took up his bed and walked Joh. 5.9 and immediately upon Christs word the blinde received his sight Mark 10.52 the deaf and ill-speaking man after Christ had said EPHPHATHA his eares were straightway opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spake plain Mark 7.35 The fever immediately left Simons wives mother after Christ took her by the hand and lift her up and she ministred unto them Mark 1.31 Christ left no relique of any old disease and whom he healed of any one infirmitie we never read that he complained of any other So though Lazarus before his death was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Languens longâ infirmitate fractus actu aegrotus Pining feeble sick saith Salmeron yet was he immediately and perfectly cured and as I imagine he was upon his resuscitation not onely in latitudine sanitatis Void of all weaknesse so that no part was sick or mis-affected by any dyscrasie but in perfectione salutis In full compleat health and had obtained by Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The height and fulnesse of health a constant setled habituall soundnesse in each part of his body For as art is but the ape of nature and naturall things are farre more absolute and perfect then artificiall so things miraculous as much exceed things naturall in perfection So that no naturall crasis no temper or temperature no health is so pure and exact as that which is wrought immediately by a divine finger In the vigour and strength whereof Lazarus might have lived as Adam and Eve did a long time 6. What do I speak of likelihoods or possibilities when we have good Authours which give us more light concerning Lazarus his life and concerning his death There is a manuscript of the English historie in the Vatican at Rome testifying That about the 35 yeare of Christ saith Baronius on the same yeare Lazarus Marie Magdalene and Martha with Marcella their waiting-woman with Maximinus their disciple with Joseph of Arimathea their companion e Imponebantur navi absque remigio were put into a little sciph or great boat without oares or fit tackling and so were in great danger at the sea but by Gods providence f Massiliam appulerunt they arrived at Marsillis a citie of Provance in France Tostatus upon 1. King 17. saith Lazarus was a Bishop and an holy Martyr Epiphanius in the catalogue of Manichaeus his assertions saith he hath it by tradition that Lazarus was thirty yeares old when he was raised up and that he lived afterward other thirty yeares See the same Epiphanius Haeres 66. Gregory the great Dialog lib. 4.28 addeth that Lazarus never laught after he was raised and he did so tame himself with fastings watchings and labours that his very conversation did seem to speak though he held his tongue that he had seen the infernall torments So farre Gregorie Yet under his correction he might as well and as much bring his bodie under and flee from the verie inclination to sinne because he had tasted of the joyes celestiall and peace unconceiveable Thus have you the life and death of Lazarus O Thou who art the Resurrection and the Life quicken me with thy Spirit lead me by thy grace and crown me with thy glory for thy tender mercy O my sweet Saviour my joy and delight the life of my soul my Mediatour and Advocate Jesu Christ Amen CHAP. IIII. 1. Tabitha died again 2. So did Eutychus 3. They who were raised about the Passion of Christ died not again as many ancient and late Writers do imagine Mr. Montague is more reserved 1. NOw am I come to speak of those who after Christs ascension were raised For though in his life time none of Christs inwardest disciples or friends raised any as Elisha's servant could not raise the Shunammites sonne but Elisha himself must do it and did it 2. King 4.31 c. And Elisha himself raised none while his master Elijah lived but Elijah himself did it 1. King 17.22 yet after Christs ascension by his power communicated to them the beleever shall do the works that I do and greater works then these shall he do saith Christ Joh. 14.12 One was raised by S. Peter an other by S. Paul You shall finde the first Act. 9.40 When Peter had kneeled and prayed and turned him to Tabitha her body and said Tabitha arise she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter she sat up Yet was she dead before and washt and laid in an upper chamber vers 37. 2. And for the other the storie is this Act. 20.9 As Paul was long preaching Eutychus sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead perchance broken in some parts of his bodie bruised certainly him S. Paul raised and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted vers 12. Of these two as well as of the rest there is no doubt but that they lived again again to die So thinks Aquinas 3. part Summ. Quaest 53. Artic. 3. and the whole School following him agree with us in this So Suarez Lorinus who not Take one of the ancients for all Cyprian reckoneth up those who were raised in the Old Testament and others raised by Christs command and saith of these h Aliquo tempore beneficio vitae usi iterum ad funera rediêre Pag. 523. de Resur Christi paragr 8. They lived a while and died again and a little before of them in the Old Testament i Ad mortem quam gustaverunt iterum redierunt They tasted of death the second time And therefore it needs the lesse proof because none denieth it and the contrary needeth the lesse disproof because none hath averred it 3. Now it is time to come to the third and last part of my main first division and to speak of them who arose about the time that Christ died for of them there is a deep and intricate question and the historie of them is set down at large
marginali 2. thus Sixtie eight yeares from Christs death S. John died at Ephesus as Hierom hath it de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis in Joanne And Polycrates a most ancient Divine writing to Victor then Bishop of Rome as Eusebius hath it 1.25 saith of S. John h Ephesi obdormivit He died at Ephesus Tertullian i Obiit Joannes quem in adventu Domini remansurum frustra fuerat spes in lib. de Anima cap. 5◠S. John died of whom some conceived a vain hope that he should live till Christ came again Eusebius 3.33 saith There were two Johns in Asia John the Apostle and John the Disciple and both their sepulchres were at Ephesus Chrysostom Homil. 26. in Epistolam ad Hebraeos saith The sepulchre of S. John is manifest as of other Apostles therefore he speaketh of S. John the Apostle But k Non nisi mortuorum solent esse sepulchra Sepulchres belong properly to them who are dead as Baronius well inferreth So much obiter concerning some unusuall passages about S. John occasioned by Holcots testimonie of the strange relation of his painlesse death but this I shall by Gods grace handle much more plentifully in my succeeding books wherein against Cardan and his Indian apples the procurers of death without any pain as he saith I shall I say under the tuition of the Almighty prove that the separation of the soul from the bodie is painfull that all death is bitter in one degree or other And now I return to our Enoch whom the Jewish Rabbin feigneth to have been dead without any pain against whom and all other Jewishly-affected I hope to demonstrate that Enoch did not die but is now living Heb. 11.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enoch was translated that he should not see death Ad non videndam mortem saith Montanus Nè videret mortem saith the Vulgat The end why he was translated was that he might not die and the reason is annexed why he did not die for God translated him Shall God intend to keep Enoch from death and did he yet die shall God be frustrated of his end shall things come to passe contrary to his will where is then his Omnipotencie It holds firmly God translated Enoch that he should not see death therefore he died not but liveth as yet A second argument though not so sharp-pointed is this Of the other Patriarchs it is said They died so it is recorded of Adam Mortuus est Genes 5.5 of Seth vers 8. of Enos vers 11. of Cainan vers 14. of Mehalaleel vers 17. of Jared Enochs father vers 20. of Methuselah Enochs sonne vers 27. of Lamech Enochs grandchilde vers 31. even of the whole holy Genealogie from Adam to Noah of every one it is said Mortuus est He dyed except onely when mention is made of Enoch and then it is not said He dyed but it is remarkably varied thus vers 24 Et non ipse which our later translation hath And he was not which words you must not take in too strict a sense for if he had died yet had he had a being but consisting of soul and bodie we may truly say He was How then shall we interpret Et non ipse I named you the Rabbin who expounds it He died not with pain as other men but died sweetly Others thus He was not on earth after the same manner as he was before This is true and well strengthened Ecclesiasticus 49.14 Vpon earth was no man created like Enoch for he was taken from the earth DE TERRA SVBLIMIS ASSVMPTVS EST He was lifted up on high from the earth saith Vatablus This is also certain that from the divers expressions used concerning Enoch and of others in the same Chapter that were not translated but died there is more signified of Enoch then of others and in that speciall unusuall phrase some speciall unusuall thing is involved concerning Enoch But no speciall unusall thing is spoken if it be onely meant of him as it is of others that he died Therefore certainly Enoch died not I will not recount more diversitie of opinions In all humblenesse I will present before you mine own conjecture First I say that there is an hiatus in the Hebrew and somewhat to be understood The Spirit would leave some things doubtfull and put us to the search Secondly a supply must be made one way or other if we will fix any sense on the place Thirdly I would have wary and probable supplements not of imagination and aire onely Scaliger Exercitat 81. Parag. 2. saith thus e In tabulis Mosis fractis dimidiati Samech pars altera erat in extrema ora tabulae altera in aere videbatur In the tables which Moses brake one halfe of the letter Samech was in the utmost brink of the table the other part of it was seen in the aire Or els Scaliger told an untruth say I give me fair likelihood and not the vastnes of a phansie Fourthly I say the words Et non ipse may commodiously be thus interpreted He was not found If any one ask where I finde ground for this Commentarie I answer first it is in the seventy Genes 5.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non apparuit saith the Interpreter in Vatablus or as himself commenteth Nusquam comparuit but it is better rendred Non est inventus He was not found And so it is rendred Hebr. 11.5 where S. Paul hath taken the same words letter for letter from the seventie whose authoritie by themselves considered I esteem somewhat above the ordinary humane and made them divine By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death And was not found because God had translated him Concerning Enoch these things I do further observe with some of the Fathers with Aquin and Cornelius à Lapide That he was a type of Christ so also was Elias and both their raptures or translations were figures of Christs ascension Again Hebr. 11.5 Enoch before his translation had this testimonie that he pleased God He did not onely please God but it was published and proclaimed and as it were letters testimoniall from heaven or a divine certificate was made that he pleased God And therefore I hold it very probable that as Elijahs assumption was known before-hand to the sonnes of the Prophets that were at Beth-el 2. Kings 2.3 and to the sonnes of the Prophets that were at Jericho vers 5. as well as to Elishah himself so was the translation of Enoch also known to those of his time unto whom God testified that Enoch pleased him And it is conformable also to the Antitype because Christ before told his Disciples concerning his departure John 14.28 c. John 16.5 c. and vers 16 c. and more punctually concerning his ascension John 20.17 I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God
〈◊〉 is taken Ezechiel 24.16 t Ecce ego aufero 〈◊〉 te desiderium oculorum tuorum Behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes Salmanticensis Judaeus in lib. Johasin 98.2 saith u Mortuus est Rabbi Emmi quia rapuit eum mors Rabbi Emmi died for death snatched him away And so it is in the Latine phrases Rapio and Aufero what in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quis Deus Octavi te nobis abstulit te Raptum Romanam flebimus historiam What God Octavius Took the away from us We will bemoan the death of thee And of our Romane historie So farre Drusius in the preface to his book called Henoch But this is no good exposition since God took away by death all the rest of the Patriarchs as well as Enoch and yet it is most singularly spoken of Enoch He was not found for God took him By death saith the shallow Jew but our divine Apostle saith He was translated that he might not see death What Christian or rationall man will doubt but we are to incline to the Apostle Again the third answer brought by Drusius against his own opinion as himself professeth to prove that VIDERE MORTEM To see death doth not signifie to die a naturall death where there is a true separation of the soul from the bodie and that NON VIDERE MORTEM Not to see death on the contrary doth not signifie To be kept alive from death which I with Drusius do say was the true intent of the Apostle draweth to this head Enoch saw not death that is died not because the holy Scriptures where they make mention of his rapture mention not his death I answer If all were true yet it followeth not that Enoch is dead or shall die which is the point questioned Moreover if Enoch were dead or to die the wisdome of the Divine Inspirer would never have singled out such a phrase among so many other thousand as should leade men to think the clean contrary He was translated that he should not see death For there resteth the period If it had been meant he should die it would have been added He should not see death for a long time or He should not see death till toward the end of the world or the like But He was translated that he should not see death Therefore he shall never see death Suarez in tertiam partem summae quaest 59. artic 6. sect 1. saith directly S. Paul meaned that Enoch should not die in that place into which he was translated True But why should he die in any other place or indeed why should he die at all who above other men was rapted purposely That he might not see death Surely the deferring of death for a time is not so great a favour The exempting one wholly from death is a blessing above ordinary Again it is said of Enoch Genes 5.23 All his dayes were 365. where dayes are taken for yeares as otherwhere in Scripture But these are not all his dayes if either he remove from one place of the earth into an other which Salianus fondly imagined or live now in a mortall corruptible bodie It is said of our blessed Saviour Hebr. 5.7 He poured out prayers in the dayes of his flesh that is whilest he lived on earth the life of nature in an elementary terrene humane passive bodie And of some other Patriarchs All the dayes of them were such and such Genes 5.17 20 c. that is all the dayes while they breathed on the earth the breath of life in mortall bodies Therefore even from the very phrase concerning Enoch All his dayes were 365. we may inferre He lived not in a mortall bodie any longer on the earth He liveth not now any where in a mortall bodie Somewhat must I say also of Elias severally Rabbi Solomon on the 5 of Genes saith When Elijah was hurried up in a fiery chariot his bodie was burnt up of that fire and Other Jews agree with him saith x De Romano Pontifice 3 6. Bellarmine For my part I say I will not embrace an unlikelihood though it runne toward my opinion I think the cloke might have been burnt as well as his bodie and Elishah could not have escaped scorching when the fire parted them Again the ashes might have fallen as well as his mantle And the Jew would account it no great favour to be burnt alive That fire certainly was rather conservative then destructive not penal and consuming as the fire from heaven drawn down by Elias 2. Kings 1.12 not punitive and conserving as the fire of hell Everlasting Matth. 25.41 Vnquenchable Mark 9.43 but like the fierie furnace in which the three children sang Daniel 3.25 or the fire in the bush Exod. 3.3 harmlesse yea gracious or the fire at the consummation of the world which one calleth Ignem rationalem The phrase then 2. Kings 2.11 importeth no lesse Elijah went up by a whirlwinde into heaven Elijah All Elijah Whole Elijah Soul and bodie His soul had no need of a whirlwinde Elijah went up It is varied 1. Maccab. 2.58 He was taken up into heaven His rapture excluded not his willingnes his willingnes had been insufficient without his rapture his ascension being grounded on assumption the power being Gods not his or his passively and Gods actively If it be true what Bellarmine avoucheth That some other Jews agree with Rabbi Solomon in this that Elijah was burned Yet I am sure y Bibliotheâ—â— Sanctae lib. 2. pag. 65. Sixtus Senensis citeth the opinion of other Jews to the contrarie For they said that the length of time from the beginning of man till the end of the world hath been and shall be measured by the severall lives of seven men and that there was never houre from mans creation to the generall resurrection but some one of these seven men did or shall live in it Adam lived to see Methuselah Methuselah was alive in Sems time Sem died not till Jacob was born Jacob lived till Amram Moses his father was born Amram expired not till Ahijah the Shilonite lived Ahijah lived with Elijah Elijah shall live till the end of the world Therefore they thought Elijah was not burnt is not dead But first the Papists themselves say that Elijah shall be slain by Antichrist before the end of world Therefore this maketh not for them Secondly the Jews might have tucked up the time shorter on this fashion Adam lived in the dayes of Enoch and Enoch to the end of the world And so their number of seven might be reduced unto two But let us leave these Rabbinicall speculations concerning Elijah and say somewhat of him not as he was in a Paradise of phansie but as he was with our blessed Saviour on the mount at that glorious transfiguration And this I set down for certain No passage in the Gospels proveth demonstratively that his bodie was immortall It is true it is said of
wicked in that 2. By the words of the Creed is proved that some shall never die The same is confirmed by other places of Scripture with the consent of S. Augustine and Cajetan The definitions Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum of the sentences and tenents of the Church leave the words doubtfully Rabanus his exposition rejected 3. The place of S. Paul 2. Corinth 5.4 evinceth That some shall not die Cajetan with us and against Aquinas Doctour Estius and Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit approve Cajetan S. Augustine is on our side and evinceth it by Adams estate before the fall which state Bellarmine denieth not Salmerons objections answered 4. Some shall be exempted from death as is manifested 1. Corinth 15.51 The place fully explicated The common Greek copies preferred The Greek reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall not all sleep standeth with all truth conveniencie probabilitie and sense The other Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall therefore all of us sleep and the more different Vulgat Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur Indeed we shall arise but we shall not all be changed justly exploded as adverse to sense 5. The Pelagians though accursed hereticks yet held truely That some shall not die S. Augustine dubious Others stick in his hesitancie Yet other Fathers and late Writers are constant That some shall be priviledged from death yet that change may be called a kinde of death 1. THe third main question being Whether Adam and his children all and every one of them without priviledge or exception must and shall die I have first answered and proved that there may be an exception of some who shall not die Secondly I have instanced in Enoch and Elias That they have been excepted and that they shall not die I am now come to the third branch of my answer That others also hereafter shall be excepted In the avouchment of this truth consisteth the labour till the end of this Chapter And first of all it must needs be acknowledged That all and every one of those who might have been or have been or shall be excepted may yet be said in a sort to die a Loco mortis erit momentanea commutatio The change which shall be in the twinkling of an eye shall be in the room and stead of death saith Aretius b In illis qui repentè immutantur immutatio illa erit species mortis The immutation of them who shall be suddenly changed shall be a kinde of death saith Beza Bosquier in his Terror Orbis maketh rapture to be a kinde of death we may more safely and properly call that sudden change by the name of death For in this it shall be like death That it shall take away from our bodies all corruptibilitie and mortalitie together with the defects now annexed to them and because it altereth if not abolisheth the former state or nature it shall go for a kinde of death But because this change doth not separate the soul from the bodie doth not dissolve the compositum we are bold to say It is not a true proper reall death The Papists will not be content with this immutation but urge a perfect naturall death a very disjunct separation of the soul from the bodie Aquinas goeth further and will have an incineration of the bodies from which dust and ashes incorruptible bodies shall arise But this is confuted by the Apostle 1. Thess 4.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Nos viventes relicti simul cum illis rapiemur in nubibus in occursum Domini in aera We who remain alive shall be hurried together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the aire as Montanus hath it The Vulgat differeth but in word not in sense d Qui vivimus qui relinquimur c. We which are alive and remain shall be caught up That the Apostle speaketh not this of himself and of his own person is confessed Occumenius citeth Methodius his opinion thus and addeth his reason For S. Paul was not alive corporally to that time But it cometh more home if we say as well we may that the blessed Apostle S. Paul knew that himself was none of them who were to endure alive on earth till the day of the generall judgement because he saith 2. Tim. 4.6 I am now readie to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand Yea 2. Thess 2.2 he exhorteth the same Thessalonians That though seducers should pretend his message or his letter yet they should not beleeve that Christs day was at hand His own time was at hand but Christs day was not The English translation jumpeth verbally in the contradiction At hand and Not at hand The Originall varieth but a little and that not in sense nor in the Verb it self but the Preposition and Montanus hath the word Instat by way of exposition in both places e Sed suam personam verbi gratiâ profert But he instanceth in his own person saith Methodius That he speaketh it onely of the godly is also apparent by the context for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we the remainder sheweth that a few shall be left at that time and if he had spoken of the wicked perhaps he would not have put in himself and other holy ones he would not have said Rapiemur We shall be taken up but Rapientur They shall be taken up Again when he saith Rapiemur cum illis We shall be taken up with them who are meant in those words save they onely who sleep in Jesus and whom God will bring with him 1. Thess 4.14 which are not the wicked but the godly onely They are the Saints with whom the Lord cometh Jude ver 14. The Rhemists themselves confesse that the Apostle speaketh of all the faithfull then living when Christ cometh to the last judgement Diodorus as it is in Hierom saith The Apostle f Apostolus Nos dixit pro eo quod justos de quorum ego sum numero said WE that is they who are just out of whose number I am not excluded A powerfull reason may confirm this because the wicked will wish mountains to cover them will quake and tremble at that houre and would not be willing to come to judgement if they could avoid it Therefore it is not likely that they would spring forth and put themselves forward to meet the Lord. The summe is The godly which shall be then left and be alive shall be taken up into the aire The Papists say this is not to be done g Sine media morte without intercurrent or intercedent death whereas the words are expresse We living and remaining shall be snatched up The argument of Gregorie de Valentia hath pith in it For he saith If the live men do die h Sequitur justos aliquantò pòst resurrecturos quà m alios fiquidem morientur atque adeò resurgent it followeth that the just shall arise somewhat after
justly suspected saith the worthy Estius the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being so easily turned into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a little dash And he findeth just fault with Acacius in Hierom for saying it was so read in most Greek copies when as certainly it was read so but in verie few copies whereof there is scarce one now extant and not many proofs that ever there were many copies of that extant Neither indeed doth the reading stand with sense For the Apostle solemnly premizeth Behold I shew you a mysterie and then subjoyneth immediately according to this new-fangled mis-writing We shall all therefore sleep or die Is this a mysterie that all shall sleep or all die Doth he promise mountains and bring forth a molehill Every Heathen knows that we shall die every Christian Turk and Jew that we shall be raised again But when God justly for sinne sentenced man to death with a morte morieris That some sinfull men should be excepted is a mysterie deserving such a watchword as Behold Behold I shew you a mysterie we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed Secondly from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thus argue That death if such a death there be any which is so speedily begun by separation of the soul from the bodie and ended as I may so say by the swift and momentanie reuniting of the same soul to the same bodie cannot handsomely be called a sleep Doth he sleep who in the twinkling of an eye is changed from mortalitie to immortalitie yea from being alive is made dead and from being dead is made alive and that incorruptibly Was ever sleep confined to an instant till now or may one be said to sleep in the midst of these great works It is not so much as Analogicall sleep The greatest sleepers have more then an instant ere they can begin to sleep Sleep creepeth or falleth on men by degrees heavinesse and dulnesse usher it and the spirits have a time to retire to their forts and cittadels the senses are not locked up nor do they deposite the use of their faculties in a moment And may that be called properly rest or sleep which resteth not above an instant and is as quick as thought Rest and sleep do couch upon the bed of time likewise it is as much as possibly can be done if so much can be done to awake one in an instant The Scripture useth the phrase of sleeping towards them who rest as it were in death in the earth in the grave Our friend Lazarus sleepeth saith Christ John 11.11 when indeed he was buried Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Dan. 12.2 Let one place of holy Writ be produced where one and the same instant beginneth sleep and endeth awaking and then I may say there may be some shadow for that reading But here is no pause no rest no quiet therefore no sleep therefore the word sleep in this place is applied to such as died before and not to such as are alive and shall die as the second lection implieth Thirdly it wanteth force to say in the whole conjoyned sentence We shall therefore all sleep or die but we shall all be changed If the Apostle had intended any such thing he would not have used the adversative particle But but the implicative word And We shall all therefore sleep AND we shall all be changed This had been sense if thus it had been but not being so we may the more confidently shake off the second lection of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as abhorrent from reason and cleave to the first of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnes quidem non dormiemus c. All we shall not die but all we shall be changed And so from the varietie of Greek copies I come to the Vulgat the Translation in Latine Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur Truely we shall all of us arise but we shall not all of us be changed First I say this differeth from all Greek copies whereas if it had been according to any sort of them it might have swayed us much that way Secondly the same argument toucht at before may also give a side-blow to this translation The Apostle raiseth up their considerations by promising to tell them a mysterie But it was no mysterie to tell them that they should all be raised when he had told it so pithily so divinely and so often beat upon it before by so many kindes of arguments as he did Thirdly where the Vulgat saith Non omnes immutabimur it is not true for Omnes immutabimur We shall all be changed from mortalitie to immortalitie from naturall bodies to spirituall If you say We shall not be all changed to glorie I say so with you I adde That is no mysterie all know that Therefore the Apostle speaketh not of a change to glorie eternall in the heavens whereunto some onely shall be changed but he speaketh of a change from mortalitie to immortalitie from corruptible bodies to incorruptible which even the wickedest men shall have And perhaps he meaneth that this generall immutation shall be made sine media morte without intercurrent or intercedent death even in the wicked that shall be then alive yet in the change you must alwaies make this diversitie The wicked shall be singled out to shame to losse to punishment eternall with their raised or changed bodies for even in their raising also there is a change from corruption to incorruption but in the change of the godly there is glorious incorruption joyfull immortalitie pleasurable eternitie The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a change of a thing from place to place as when we take a piece of wood from the earth and cast it into the water Thus the wicked shall be hurried from their graves to the judgement seat and shall be placed on the left hand of our Saviour and after sentence shall be haled and cast from earth into hell On the other side the righteous in their change shall be mounted up from their graves or from the earth into the aire to meet Christ and shall be at his right hand and after sentence be carried or ascend up into heaven in most glorious manner to live with Christ eternally Fourthly if we reade it with the Vulgat We shall all arise but we shall not all be changed we must also immediately annex the words In a moment in the twinkling of an eie at the last trump for there is the pause and stay to be made there is the full sentence The Vulgat hath done very ill to make the stay and full point at immutabimur for then the words following bear no construction at all if they be considered by themselves In a moment in the twinkling of an eie at the last trump For then cometh in new matter For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be
Tim. 6.16 GOD onely hath immortalitie Neither was the body of Adam immortall as the Angelicall spirits and souls of men which had a beginning but shall have no end Nor immortall as the counsels of GOD which had no beginning but shall have an end His bodie was not eternal but eviternal or immortall not absolutely immortall but conditionally it should never have tasted death if he had not first tasted of the forbidden fruit Immortall not as if it could not die but because it might and could have lived ever He had not non posse mori and so he was mortall he had posse non mori and so was immortall As mortall is taken for earthly animall and contra-distinct to spirituall so his bodie was mortall and terrene not spirituall or celestiall As he could not possibly die unlesse he had sinned his very bodie was immortall In the Schoole-phrase thus both mortall and immortall are taken two waies Mortall for one who must needs die thus Adam was not mortall in innocency but by sinne was made mortall who can die thus was he mortall yet onely in sensu diviso because he could sinne therefore could die Immortall for one who cannot die so Adam in innocency was not immortall save onely in sensu conjuncto * Adam in natura sua habuit mortalitatem quandam scilicet aptitudinem moriendi it à aliquam immortalitatem in natura sua habuit id est aptitudinem quâ poterat non mori he was immortall and could not die unlesse he sinned upon whom there is no necessity laid that he should die thus was he simply immortall Lumbard thus Adam had in his nature some mortalitie an aptnes to die so he had in his nature some immortality that is * Pet. Diac. de Gratia Christ lib. 1. cap. 6. Fulg. lib. 2. cap. 13. Max. Profess Fidei snae cap. 8. to wit an aptnes by which he might not die 2. Sent. dist 19. lit F. Further as some have said Adam was neither mortall nor immortall for thus wrote Petrus Diaconus and Fulgentius * Corpus Adae ante peccatum mortale secundum aliam immortale secundum aliam causam dici poterat De Genesi ad literam lib. 6. cap. 25. and Maxentius so others have written that Adam was made both mortall and â—â—mortall and all and every one of these in some sense is most true Augustine saith that Adams body before sinne may be said to be mortall in one respect and immortall in another as he there proveth at large Hierome hath a different strain and an unusuall phrase in one of his * Epist ad Paulum Concordiensem epistles wherein he maketh the body to be eternall till the serpent by his sinne prevailed against Adam and ascribeth a second kinde of immortality to the body because some of the first ages lived so long a time as about or above 900 yeares Even they who say Adams body was mortall agree in sense with me They distinguish thus It is one thing to be mortall and another thing to be subject to death If they grant to us that he was not obnoxious to death and could not die without finne I will not be offended much though they say he was mortall As this our flesh which now we have is not therefore not to be wounded because there is no necessitie that it should be wounded so the flesh of Adam in paradise was not therefore not mortall because there was no necessitie that it should die De peccat Meritis Remis l. 1. c. 3. saith Augustine So that this is but a meer logomachy They who call him mortall expound themselves that he could not mori unlesse he had sinned and I mean no more when I say he was immortall that is he could not have died in the state of innocencie without a precedent transgression he could not have been subject or obnoxius to death They say though he should not have died yet he was mortall I say he was therefore onely immortall because in that blessed estate he could not die Whether of these two contraries Mortall or Immortall do best fit Adam before he sinned let the reader judge As bodies are compounded of contrarieties they are subject to dissolution to the evidencing whereof let me recount what Holcot saith on Wisedome 12.22 upon these words We should look for mercy 2 Aristotle saith Holcot spake these his last words IREIOYCE THAT I GO OUT OF THE WORLD WHICH IS COMPOUNDED OF CONTRARIES BECAUSE BACH OF THE FOURE ELEMENTS IS CONTRARY TO OTHER AND THEREFORE HOW CAN THIS BODY COMPOUNDED OF THEM LONG ENDURE Then he dyed and the Philosophers prayed for him saith Holcot And because he did scorn to be behinde the Philosophers in love to Aristotle Holcot himself secondeth their prayers thus * Ille qui suscipit auimas philosophorum suscipiat animam tuam He that receiveth the souls of Philosophers let him receive thy soul This he speaketh to Aristotle by a part of that little Rhetorick that Holcot had or was used in his dayes or otherwise it might be the prayer of the Philosophers related by Holcot for the words are doubtfull No marvell therefore if after this our Christian Peripateticks the Divines of Culleyn have made Aristotle a Saint as they did if we beleeve * Corn. Agr. De Vanit Scient Cornelius Agrippa and perhaps prayed to him as devoutly as others prayed for him * Dinis annumerant They count him among the Gods saith Agrippa in his 45 Chapter though Agrippa himself be of a contrarie opinion for he saith * Ipsis Daemouibus dignum factus sacrificium Aristotle killed himself being made a sacrifice worthy of the Devils Sure I am I have read in a book Of the life and death of Aristotle in the beginning whereof the Poët prayeth to GOD from heaven to help him to write concerning Aristotle acceptable things and to speak in his words De sapiente viro cujus cor lumine miro Lustrâsti Divae super omnes Philosophiae Quem si non fractum lethi per flebilis actum Adventus prolis Divae veri quoque Solis Post se liquisset fidei qui vi micuisset Creditur à multis doctoribus artis adultis Quòd fidei lumen illustrans mentis acumen Defensatorem vix scivisset meliorem From whence the commenting questionist examineth Whether Aristotle would have been in an high degree the great champion of the Christian faith if he had lived after Christs time And he resolveth affirmatively because Aristotle had the best intellect among all the creatures under the sunne for supernaturals saith he are given according to the disposition of naturals * Cum conatu hominum with mens endeavour grace distilling on man according as he well useth the talent of nature But at the end of that book the Expositor strikes all dead in these words * Concludendo finaliter cum veritate dico c. Concluding
had a knowledge of the Trinitie and apprehended it above humane reach and therefore is by him stiled the divine man Augustine saith Plato and the Platonicks were so farre preferred before others in the judgement of posterity that when Aristotle a man of excellent wit and though not comparable to Plato for eloquence yet surmounting many others had set up the Peripatetick sect and even while his master lived by his excellent fame * Plurimos discipulos in suam haeresin congregâsset tamen recentiores Philosophi nobilissimi quibus Plato sectandus placuit noluerunt se dici Peripateticos aut Academicos sed Platonicos Aug. De Civitate Dei lib. 8. cap. 12. had gathered very many disciples unto his sect yet the most noble later Philosophers whom it pleased to follow Plato would not be called Peripateticks or Academicks but Platonicks Vives on this place of Augustine confesseth that Aristotle was before Plato in varietie of knowledge c. above most in wit and industry above all skilfull in arts that the Greeks called Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now both the same Greeks called Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines DIVINUM These things are ill observed by Vives First though Laërtius bringeth the saying of Plato * Aristoteles in nos recalcitravit ut in matrem pulli Aristotle hath kicked against us as colts against their damme yet others deny that he taught publickly in Platoes life-time Vives little remembreth that the precedent words of S. Augustine may incline to the contrarie besides other authorities aswell as Laërtius Secondly that Augustine his term haeresis in the Greek is but secta in the Latine yet by Vives his leave S. Augustine could would have said Congregâsset in suum Lycaeum in suam scholam partem sectam disciplinam or any othersuch word rather then in suam haeresim unlesse Augustine had intended to lay some aspersion upon Aristotle by the word of haeresis which is homonymous Thirdly Vives reporteth without his authour that Plato should say of his two disciples Xenocrates and Aristotle that the former needed the spurre and Aristotle the bridle whereas Cicero in his third book De Oratore ascribeth the saying to Isocrates concerning two of his disciples Theopompus and Ephorus Ephorus the dull Theopompus the witty and apprehensive more distinctly Suidas saith it was spoken of Theopompus Chius not Theopompus Gnidius Again Vives is mistaken in taxing Plotinus for obscuritie * Nè degeneraret à more sectae lest he should degenerate from the custome of the sect Whereby he would insinuate that either Plato was obscure or Plotinus an Aristotelian when S. Augustine accounteth Plotinus among the famous Platonicks in the same place which Suidas also confirmeth For Plotinus his disciples were the great Origen and Porphyrius and divers other famous Platonicks and as all the Platonicks did Pythagorize so did all the Fathers Platonize and Plato was in that high esteem that it was an ancient Proverb * Jovem Graecè loqui si vellet non aliter loquuturum quìm Platonem That if Jupiter would speak Greek he would speak no otherwise then Plato I return from the comparison of Plato with Aristotle and from the oscitancy of Vives to the old matter Strong delusions rightly befall them who make Philosophy equall to Divinity and ascribe asmuch authoritie to Aristotle as to Moses or the Prophets or to any Apostles or Evangelists and who do answer their Texts with equall reverence If they pray to them or for them let them see to it I proceed from the Philosophicall axiome That no Body compounded of contraries can perpetually endure which was spoken onely of the decayed estate beyond which Philosophers could not aspire and not of the state of integritie which is our Quaere and I come to a passage of Divinitie tending that way It is true that Adam was made of earth or rather of the dust of the ground Genes 2.7 of the worst of the elements and the worst part of it God framed man dust of the ground as it is there in the Original Not of the dust or earth of Paradise but of other earth Vives in Aug. De Civit 13.24 Pulvis aridus inidoneus erat ad plasmandum as it is in the Chaldee Targum saith Vives of earth severed and distinct from that blessed garden Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit saith Drie dust was unfit for to be formed as if God could not work but like a potter by fit and necessary materialls and he citeth Tertullians words God by adding some fat liquour Deus addito opimo liquore in limum quasi argillam coagulavit cruddled it into slime and clay as it were I say though God had done so yet he could have done otherwise he could have made Man of water without earth or of earth without water or of any some-thing or of nothing I will confesse de facto Pulvis humectus Aug. De Civit. 13.24 with Augustine it was wet dust because it is said Genes 2.6 There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground Augustine readeth it Fons ascendebat the Chaldee Paraphraze hath it Nubes but properly it is a vapour or a mist and immediately The Lord formed Man Now it was of earth out of Paradise for the Lord took the Man therefore he was before created and put him into the garden to dresse it and keep it Genes 2.15 therefore he was out of it ere he was put into it after Adam sinned God sent Adam forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground or that ground from whence he was taken Genes 3.23 therefore the ground from whence he was taken was a different ground from Eden from whence he was expelled and so Adam was not molded or framed of the earth or dust of Paradise All this being granted I say God could frame as lasting and as good a body and as durable against the force of contrarietie of the dust out of Paradise as of the dust of the Garden And questionles Adam was made of the earth before it was cursed and why not then equall to the earth of Paradise So that my Position is not yet shaken The contrarie disposition of the elements had not forced dissolution but Adam had an immortall body Which that you may the rather beleeve let me confirm it by reason and authoritie 3. The first reason is this Death cometh not but by outward violence or inward distemper in which regard Death is divided by Aristotle into these two branches Violent Arist lib. de vita morte Naturall But Adam should not have been subject to externall or internall force or dyscrasie if he had not sinned Therefore he had a bodie that during innocency was immortall and not subject to death The Assumption is onely questionable Concerning the former member of it I evidence it thus Before Man was created the dominion over the Creatures
may seem probable certain it is Christ wanted no comelines nor beautie though he had no womanish or effeminate shape Tom 4. Disput 1. quaest 14. punct 2. but such as was most befitting a man saith Gregorie de Valentia Thou art beautifull O my love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem Cant. 6.4 and Thou art all fair there is no spot in thee Cant 4.7 In which regard perhaps it was that though the humors of Christs body did increase with the increase of his bodie and grew up from infancie to puerilitie from it to juvenilitie thence to virilitie yet there was so harmonious a proportion if not of weight yet of justice that we read not any one part of Christs bodie to have been out of tune excepting in his Agonie and Passion when his very bones were out of joint nor is he recorded to have been sick at any time nor so much as inclining to sicknes all his life Non suscepit infirmitates individui sed speciei He took not upon him the infirmities of particular men but of mankinde as to be weary to mourn to weep to be hungry thirstie to suffer to die As for sinne and diseases flowing from sinne he was subject to none nor to personall defects but onely to the generall defects of humane bodies Indeed it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Reguâ—is breviorâ—â—us quaest 177. Esai 53.4 Surely he took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses but Basil expounds it thus He bare our sicknesses not that he did transferre them upon himself but because he healed those that were sick Where he semes to remove all sicknes from Christ Besides Adam his excellent temper consider his food he had all the trees of the garden for meat except the forbidden one The healthie waters about Paradise he had for drink Wholsome things he knew from hurtfull if any hurtfull things were His giving them names doth prove that he was acquainted with their natures As for taking too much or too little it could not be whilest his soul was innocent and spotlesse For he had originall justice which in the use of lawfull meats should subject his senses and his appetite unto reason As for clothing he needed it not Innocency apparelled him till he put off the robe of righteousnes and so it should have continued Lastly as Adam in Paradise had a deep sleep which fell upon him Genes 2.21 which I confesse was extraordinarie so Augustine Aug. De Civ t. 14.16 Tertul. De Anima cap. 24. Tertullian and the School after them do yeeld that ordinarie sleep was not excluded out of Paradise but in the night he was allowed sleep So that Adam enjoying all things necessarie delightfull or convenient which concerned his bodie we may safely conclude the first reason That since neither outward force nor inward distemper could befall Adams body if he had continued in innocencie his body should never have tasted of death and so was and so should have been immortall And this will yet more plainly appeare if we will weigh the reasons following 4. Among the trees of the garden there was the tree of life which Adam had libertie freely to eat of Some think it was appointed as a means to translate Adam to immortalitie without sicknes or death Others say it would hinder the losse of naturall heat and radicall moisture whereby though yeares or age yet weaknes or de crepitnes should not come nigh him Others say that it being once tasted should bring perfect immortalitie even such immortalitie as we should have after the Resur rection See Bellarmine de Gratia primi hominis cap. 28. and Mr. Salkeld in his Treatise of Paradise where in some whole Chapters he hath laboriously collected and copiously explained the various opinions concerning the tree of life Take my gleanings after their full vintage and taste what I have gathered Though Lumbard Sent. 2. Dist 29. Lit. F. questioneth Whether Adam before his sinne did eat of the tree of life and out of Augustine concludeth there That they did eat as it was commanded that they should eat of every tree fave one yet I can no way agree with him This his errour is grounded on an other which he hath cited Distinct 9. of the same book in the letters B and C That Adam was commanded to eat of the tree of life and that he should have sinned if he had not used it For first It was not a command but a permission God gave the use of the tree no otherwise to man Genes 1.29 then to the beasts and fowls the green herbs verse 21 but this was by way of indulgence not of command Secondly Genes 2.16 Of every tree of the garden thou may'st freely eat And though it be in the Hebrew Eating thou shalt eat yet it implieth no absolute precept Thirdly Genes 3.2 the woman saith We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden she saith not We musteat or We are charged much lesse presently so soon as we see them or before we do other things Fourthly Genes 9.3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things Are we commanded to eat every beast and every herb then whosoever forbeareth any one sinneth Or was there in this a difference between the grant unto Adam and the grant unto Noah and their posterities The second errour is of Lumbard That Adam did eat of the tree of life His proof out of Augustine falleth short even as it is cited though the place is mistaken by him and the words maym'd Indeed Augustine thus * Rectè profectò intelliguntur primi homines ante malignam persuasionem abstinuisse à cibo vetito atque usi fuisse concessis ac per hoc caeteris praecipuè ligno vitae De peccat Meritis Remis 2.21 Certainly it is well thought that our first parents before that malicious persuasion did abstain from the forbidden food and used such things as were granted them and consequently the rest specially the tree of life * Note first He saith granted not commanded as Noah ate not of every thing granted to him yet Noah spent many hundred yeares more time after the Floud then Adam did in Paradise Neither can I think Adam in that estate so addicted to his belly that he in so short a time would cat of so many of all and every tree Secondly Rupertus saith The eating of the tree of life but once Rup in Genes l. 3. cap. 30. had made them live for ever Augustine moreover addeth It is no where read in Genesis Aug. Cont. Adversar Legis Prophet 1.15 that Adam in Paradise did not eat of the fruit of the tree of life of which place by and by Now as Augustine is directly against me in the second point he is as directly against them in the first point * Vtendi ad escam omni ligno quod in Paradiso erat
its death and also to his future and more happie life which should never have end I summe up all with Augustines words * Cibus aderat nè Adam esuriret potus nè sitiret lignum vitae nè illum senecta dissolveret nullus intrinsecus morbus nullus ictus metucbatur extrinsecus De Civit. 14.20 There was meat lest Adam should hunger drink lest he should thirst a tree of life lest old age should dissolve him no inward disease no outward blow was feared A new Quaere may be made Whether if Adam after his sin had eaten of the tree life his posteritie as well as himself had lived for ever My answer setleth on the negative because Adams action had been personall not representative or ideall and his posteritie was neither to answer for his second sinne or after-offences nor to have received any benefit by his good deeds succeeding his fall but he stood alone for us and we were in him onely as he had power to keep or break the first commandement And now am I come to the second Topick place by which I undertook to prove that Adams body had been immortall if he had not sinned and that is Authoritie 5. Not S. Augustine alone but a whole Councell where he was present to wit the Milevitan Councell is strong on our side * Quicunque dixerit Adam primum hominem mortalem factum it à ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret moreretur in corpore hoe est de corpore exiret non peccati merito sed necessitate naturae Anathema sit Whosoever shall say that the first man Adam was made mortall so that whether he had sinned or no he should have died in body that is gone out of the body not for the desert of sinne but by the necessitie of nature let him be accursed And this curse fell heavy upon the Pelagians who did think that Adam should have died though he had not sinned for so they held saith * Lib. de Haeresibus cap. 88. Augustine Cajetan thus * In 1. Cor. 15.53 In the state of innocencie Adam had a corruptible body in regard of the flux of naturall moisture but not mortall Richeomus a Jesuit saith * In statu innocentiae Adam corpus habebat corruptibile quantum ad fluxum humidi naturalis sed non mortale If man was created mortall those threatnings where by God did denounce death unto him were unprofitable for Adam might have answered I know well enough that I shall die although I neither taste nor touch the tree of knowledge of good evill And again God in the production of every one of his works kept an exact and most beautifull symmetry between the matter and the form the body and the soul and such a symmetrie as was most fit and accommodate to * Si komo mortalis creatus fuit inutiles crant illae minae quibus ' Deus mortem illi intendebat poterat namque respondere c. In Valedictione animae devotae Colloq 32. obtain the end of everie creature furnishing the matter with qualities and instruments most apt and pliable to serve the vertues and faculties of the form Therefore the soul of man being immortall and the faculties and operations proportioned to the essence the body also then must needs be immortall Item In every good marriage two things are observed at least the qualities of the parties and their age Therefore unto the soul which is free from the tyranny of death God married the body which was free also from the grave-clothes and bands of death Death is the brood of sinne saith Julianus Pomerius Adam was so created * Colloq 34. that having discharged his duty of obedience without the intervention of death he should have been followed of Angelicall immortality and blessed eternity He had immortalitie * Etiam ipsam nobis corporis mortem non lege naturae sed merito inflictam esse peccati De Civit. Dei 13.15 yet changeable not Angelicall and eternall As I began with S. Augustine so with him will I end It is a constat among Christians holding the Catholick Faith * Adâ—ujusque creaturae finem consequendum that even the death of the body hath been inflicted upon us not by the law of nature but by the desert of sinne * Peccatum est pater mertis Otherwhere he saith * Colloq 35. Sinne is the father of death Again * Vt perfunctus obedientiae munere sine interventu mortis Angelica eum immortalitas aeteinitas sequeretur beata If Adam had not sinned he was not to be stripped of his body but clothed upon with immortalitie that mortalitie might be swallowed up of life that is that he might passe from a naturall to a spiritual estate from an earthly to an heavenly from a mortal to an immortall as I truly interpret his meaning For he taketh not Mortall for that which must die And Again * Si non peccâsset Adam non erat expoliandus corpore sed supervestiendus immertalitate ut absorberetur mortale à vita id est ab animali ad spirituale transiret à terreuo ad coeleste à mortali ad immortale De peccat Merit Remis l. 1. cap. 2. It was not to be feared if Adam had lived longer that he should have been troubled with age or death For if God was so gracious to the Israëlites that for fourty yeares their clothes waxed not old upon them nor their shoes waxed old upon their feet Deutero 29.5 what marvell were it if God granted to obedient Adam * Ibid. cap. 3. that having a naturall and mortall body he should have in it some state and condition that he might be old without imperfection and at what time it pleased God he should come from mortalitie to immortalitie * Vt animale ac mortale habens corpus haberet in eo quendam statum without passing through death Where though S. Augustine seemes to say Adam had a mortall body and should have passed from mortalitie yet he taketh Mortale for all one with Animale and opposeth it to Spirituale So that I confesse Adam in Paradise had not a spirituall body not such a bodie as he and we shall have after the Resurrection And thus the body which he had may be called Animale or Mortale and yet S. Augustine with us and we with him acknowledge this truth that the body of Adam could not have died if he had not sinned and in that regard Adams body may be justly termed immortall not with reference to that heavenly and spirituall bodie which he shall have hereafter but immortall therefore because except for sinne his body as it was was free from death And the same Augustine hath a whole Chapter intituled thus * Sine media morte Against the doctrines of those that beleeve not that the first men had been immortall if they had not sinned Among such a
punishment to be a favour and blessing of God 3. Not many or more sinnes but one caused death One onely David begotten in lawfull wedlock That this one sinne is not lesse in the godly nor greater in the wicked Death was appointed for one sinne onely of one person onely 4. This one person onely was Man this Man that sinned that one sinne was Adam Strange and curious speculations that Eve sinned not that sinne for which man-kinde was appointed to death 5. Two Schoole-speculations propounded The second handled at large as expounding the former and determined against the Schoolmen themselves viz. That the children of innocent Adam had been born confirm'd in grace The censure of Vives upon these and the like points A part of his censure censured 1. COncerning Death I mean in this place to touch onely the strange medly that is mixed in it of Sower Sweet The sowernes or bitternes of death is discerned because that manner of secession or departure is onely painfull whereas all other approaches unto glorie all other stairs steps and means inducing to blessednes are void of pain Let us see it exemplified in Enoch He walked with God and was not for God took him Genes 5.24 His manner of not-being as he was before whatsoever it were or howsoever was never held painfull Secondly the chariot of fire and the horses of fire which parted Eliah and Elisha both asunder 2. Kings 2.11 hurt neither of them Elijah saith the place went up by a whirlwinde into heaven the very form of words implying a willing-easie ascent nor did the whirlwinde molest him or pain him though Ecclesiasticus 48.9 it is said it was a whirlwinde of fire Christs Transfiguration comes next to be considered It was a true representation of that bodilie glorie which at the recollection retribution of all Saints God will adorn and cloth the faithfull withall Christ shewing them the mark at which they ought to shoot for we also are to be fashioned or configured to his transfiguration Philip. 3.21 * Qualis futurus est tempore judicandi talis Apostolis apparuit As he is to be at the time of judging such did he appeare to the Apostles saith Hierom on Matth. 17. And let not man think he lost his old form and face saith he or took a body spirituall or aëriall the splendor of his face was seen and the whitenes of his vestments described * Non substantia tollitur sed gloria commutatur The substance is not taken away but the glory is changed Or that I may utter it in Theophylacts words on Mark 9.2 By the transfiguration so Oecolampadius should translate it understand not the change of character and lineaments but the character remaining such as it was before an increase was made of unspeakable light This admirable light not coming from without to him as it did to Moses but flowing from his divinitie into his humane soul from it into his body and from it into his very clothes will you say his clothes were changed saith S. Hierom His raiment became shining exceeding white as snow so as no fuller on earth can white them Mark 9.3 And his face did shine as the Sunne Matth. 17.2 What S. Chrysostom saith of the spirituall bodies of the Saints I will much more rather say of Christs body transfigured for if starre differeth from starre in glorie man from man much more shall Christ shine above all other men by infinite degrees They shall shine as the Sunne not because they shall not exceed the splendor of the sunne Aquin part 3. q. 45. art 2. but because we see nothing more bright then the sunne he took the comparison thence And this shining saith Aquinas * Fuit gloriae claritas essentialiter licèt non secundum modum cùm suerit per modum transeuntis passionis was essentially a claritie of glory though not in the manner seeing it was by way of a transient passion as the aire is inlightned of the sunne whereas * Ad corpus glorificatum redundat claritas ab anima sicut qualitas quaedam permanens to a glorified body claritie from the soul doth accrue as some permanent qualitie Which essentiall claritie Christ had from his nativitie yea from his first conception yet by dispensation he ecclipsed it ever till he had accomplished our redemption except at this time when appeared a brightnes of glory though not a brightnes of a glorious body not imaginary unlesse you take imaginary as synonymall with representative but reall though transitorie Can any one think that herein was any pain or rather not infinite pleasure The beholders rejoyced they could not do so at the pain of Christ If there were any pain or grief it would rather have been so at the withdrawing of his unusuall claritie which not being likely the manifestation of this claritie at this transfiguration was lesse likely to be painfull The fourth and last kinde of degree to happines is translation not onely as Enoch was translated from one life to an other kinde of life but such a translation as should have been of Adam if he had not sinned and shall be of such as shall be alive at Christs coming Adams translation had been sine media morte Nor was his slumber painfull nor solutio continui at the drawing out of his rib nor the closing of the flesh again nor is it likely there was in Adams side any scar the badge of pain and sorrow much lesse should he have had pain at his translation Pain is the grand-child of sinne the daughter of punishment from both which the estate of innocency was priviledged Every thing in the Creation was very good Genes 1.31 Every tree was pleasant to the sight and good for food Genes 2.9 and could the tree of life cause pain By tasting the fruit thereof Adam and his ofspring had come to an higher and more unchangeable happines The middesse was then proportionate to the beginning and to the end Sorrow was part of the curse innocency could not feel pain much lesse shall eternall happines and should the tree of life have caused pain Then were there little difference between it and the tree of knowledge of good and evill Or what difference in that point would there be between Adams death which was painfull and his translation if it should have been painfull As concerning the translation of them that shall be found alive at the last day I am thus conceited That there shall be no true and reall separation of their souls from their bodies at least so much as concerneth the righteous That they shall be changed That they shall put on immortalitie If it be delightfull now to our bodies to receive ease shall it be painfull to be clothed with incorruptibility It shall be done in a moment in the twinkling of an eye 2. Cor. 5.4 Nolumus expoliari saith the Apostle shewing the unwillingnes of men to die sed supervestiri
desideramus or volumus for so must the Apostle be interpreted as appeareth vers 2 We grone earnestly desiring to be clothed upon Tertullian saith * Quiâ—uon desiderat adhuc in carne superinduere immortalitatem continuare vitam lucrifactam mortis vicariâ denuntiatione De Resur carnis Who desireth not being yet in the flesh to be clothed upon with immortalitie and to continue his life gained by a substituted denunciation of death Can so blessed a change be painfull or can we naturally desire pain shall we grone and grone earnestly that we may have pain Hierome in his Epistle to Minerius and Alexander saith thus of the word Rapiemur * Hoc verbo estendi puto subitum ad meliora transcensum ideirco raptum se voluisse dicere vt velocitas transcuntis sensum cogitantis excederet I think that this word sheweth a sudden passage to a better place and that he said he was caught up to signifie that his passing was swifter then his thinking not as if it were painfull to be taken as I imagine S. Paul speaketh of this translation and change as a matter worthie of thanks unto God 1. Corinth 15.51 c. Onely death of all other wayes by which God useth to call mankinde to glorie death onely is painfull Psal 116.3 The sorrows of death compassed me God loosed the pains of death Act. 2.24 and Hebr. 2.15 Some through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage And indeed this pain of death is part of the curse denounced But of this point more hereafter And thus do I make my approach towards it 2. * Aug. De. peccat Merit Remis 1.16 Augustine saith When disobedient Adam sinned then did his body lose the grace of being obedient to his soul Then arose that bestiall motion to be ashamed of by men which he blusht at in his nakednes Then also by a certain sicknes taken by a sudden and contagious corruption it came to passe that the stabilitie of age being lost in which they were created by the changes of ages they made a progresse to death For though they lived many yeares after yet they began to die the same day when they received the law of death by which they were to grow old For whatsoever by a continuall change and degrees runneth unto an end not perfecting or consummating stands not a moment but decayes without intermission Thus was fulfilled what God said Genes 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die So he Let me adde my conjecture First if God had not called Adam and Eve so sensibly to an account yet had they died by vertue of the former sentence For the later sentence inflicts not death which was then entred on them but labour and pain In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the dayes of thy life Genes 3.17 And though it be said vers 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Yet this is but an explication of the former sentence shewing that the manner of the death shall be by incineration which was not so exactly speciallized before Secondly the same instant that Adam had eaten I make no doubt but both their eyes were opened and they knew their nakednes which was the first sensible degree towards death and corruption For though the Scripture doth not say expressely Immediately their eyes were opened yet it implieth so much as may appeare by the implicative particle and Genes 3.6 c. Eve did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat and the eyes of them both were opened c. S. Augustine thus * Quomodo corpus nostrum dicit Apostolus mortuum Rom 8.10 cùm adhuc de viventibus loqueretur nisi quia jam ipsa conditio moriendi ex peccato parentum haesit in prole De Gen. ad lit 6.26 How doth the Apostle say that our body is dead Rom. 8.10 when he speaks of the living but because the condition of dying arising from the sinne of the parents sticks to the posteritie So we also die or are dying the first houre of our being And again * Corpus mortuum est propter peccatum Nec ibi ait Mortale sed Mortuum quamvis vtique mortale quia moriturum mox vbi praeceptum transgressi sunt ecrum membris velut aliqua aegritudo lethalis mors ipsa concepta est Quid enimaliud non dicam nati sed omnino concepti nisi aegritudinem quandam inchoavimus quâ sumus sine dubis morituri Ibid. 9 10 The body is dead because of sinne He saith not there It is mortall but dead albeit it is truely mortall because it shall die So soon as they transgressed the commandment death like some deadly disease was conceived in their members For as soon as we were I will not say born but even conceived what did weels but begin a certain sicknes by which we shall undoubtedly die IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH and now non vitam vivimus sed mortem which was toucht at before and must be handled again God who drew light out of darknes yea all things out of the unformed TOHV-BOHV and that masse or rude lump out of nothing is so good a God and so divine a goodnes that he would never have suffered sinne in this world but that he knew how to extract good out of evill and to turn mans sinne to his benefit Neither would he have permitted death to enter upon man but that he knew how to use the sting of death to mans greater happines and how to bring forth meat out of the eater and sweetnes out of the strong Judg. 14.14 As of the vipers flesh is made a preservative against the poison of the viper so from this bitter cup of death ariseth health joy and salvation to mankinde * Aug. De Civit. Dei 9.10 Augustine hath a witty collection from Plato and his follower Plotinus Plato in Timaeo writeth * Hominum animos mortalibus vinculis esse à dâ—is minoribus illigatos that the spirits of men are tied with mortall bands by the lesser gods So Vives on the place citeth Plato but Plotinus in lib. de dubijs Animae as he is also cited by Vives on that place of Augustine thus * Jupiter Pater laborantaâ— animas misâ—ratus earum vincula quibus laborant solubilia fabriâ—avit Father Jupiter having compassion of the afflicted souls hath made their bands soluble wherewith they are wearied These quotations at large give light to S. Augustines meaning which is subobscure for he saith * Plotinus Platenem prae caeteris intellexisse laudatur Is cùm de humanis animis ageret Pater in â—uit misericors mortalia illis vincula saciebat Plotinus is commended for having understood Plato above the rest He treating
of the souls of men saith The mercifull Father made them mortall bands Whether the particle Is aimeth at Plato or Plotinus appeareth not by Augustine Bartholomaeus * Barth Sib. Peregrin Quaest Decad. 1. c. 2. q. 2. Sibylla appropriateth the word Is to Plato I rather assigne it to Plotinus as the good Expositor of Plato Or it may be that S. Augustine taking some words from both of them into one sentence purposely left it doubtfull unto whom the Is must be referred Howsoever his collection as I said is ingenious and subtile * Ità hoc ipsum quòd mortales sint homines corpore ad misericordiam Dei Patris pertinere arbitratus est nè semper huâ—us vitae miseriâ teneantur So he thought that this very thing that men are mortall in body proceeds from the mercie of our divine Father lest they should be alwayes held with the miserie of this life Even as the very miserie of mankind from which no man is free could not pertain to the just judgement of the Almightie if there had been no originall sinne as Augustine saith otherwhere Gods judgement brought miserie and death for sinne yet in death God remembred mercie distilled good out of it I cannot omit this memorable speech of Gregory * Naz. Orat. 2. de Pasch Nazianzen Adam was expelled and extruded from this tree of life from Paradise at once by God for sinne And yet even in this case by death he gaineth the cutting off of sinne lest the evill should be immortall So was punishment turned into mercy He is excellently seconded by Rupert * Rup De Trinit 3.24 c. How should we turn away with deaf eares the care of the death of the soul and the generall judgement if we should never have died that are so proud to day dying to morrow Well therefore did our Lord God strike Man with the death of the flesh of the body lest he should be ignorant of the death of his soul and sleep securely in his pleasures till the dawning of the last day that at least Man might be waked even by the fear of the instantaneall death and that he might not like the immortall devil adde prevarication to prevarication but rather flee and avoid the pride height of sinne by humble repentance Let me adde Hence is the patience of the Saints Here are the crowns of the Martyrs saith Chrysostome This death causeth many vertues which had else never been * O munde immunde si sic me tenes breviter transeundo quid faceres diu permanendo O unclean World saith devout Bernard if thou holdest me so shortly passing what shouldest thou do long remaining If ye desire more proofs that death was appointed to Adam for sinne and that he was kept from the tree of life after he had sinned lest his miserable life should have been immortall consult with the authoritie of Irenaeus in his third book and 37. chap. of Hilarius in his commentarie on Psal 69.26 of Hierome on Esai 65. of Cyrill of Alexandria about the middle of his third book against Julian and they shall confirm you in this point That death is a bitter-sweet a compound of judgement and mercy a loathsom pill and a punishment yet wrapt up in gold and working out health and blessings for mankinde * A culpa natae sunt duae filiae Tristitia Mors quae duaefiliae pessimam matrem destruunt From the transgression two daughters are born Sorrow and Death which two daughters destroy their very ill mother Augustine against two Epistles of the Pelagians 4.4 * Quamvìs bonis conferatur per mortem plurimum boni unde nonnulli etiam DE BONO MORTIS Congruenter disputaverunt tamen hinc quae praedicanda est nisi misericordia Dei quòd in usus bonos convertitur poena peccati Although by death much good be bestowed on good men whereupon some have fitly discoursed even of the good of death yet what hence can we commend but Gods mercie that the punishment of sin is turned to good uses I will seal up all with the saying of Cicero in the beginning of his third book de Oratore where he spake wiser then he was aware of * Mihi non à diis immortalibus vita erepta sed mors donata est Life hath not been taken away from me by the immortall gods but death hath been given Death is a benefit though it was appointed unto Adam for sinne for one sinne onely which is the next point to be explained 3. It is true that the wages due to any one sinne is death and as true that we commit many sinnes which are rightly divided into originall and actuall Actuall sinnes are of a thousand kindes committed by us yet none of these our sinnes nor Adams after-sinnes but his first sinne onely produced death Likewise originall sin consisteth of two parts of Adams transgression of our corruption In Adams transgression were many sinnes involved our corruption consisteth both in the want of original justice in the positive ill-qualitie of our nature Adams sinne is imputed to us our corruption both inherent imputed His sin as a qualitie concerned himself as relation concerned us As he was an individual man it touched himself onely as a coÌ„mon person it drop't down upon us His actuall sin is not propagated his corrupting of our nature is deriv'd And this corruption is both a sin and a punishment of sinne Some late Divines have written Originall sinne is said to be twofold 1 Imputed which was inherently in Adam and charged upon his posteritie 2 Inherent which is naturally propagated to us So amongst others Scharpius pag. 463. But they speak improperlie for originall sinne is but one onely made up of two parts or branches indeed perchance parts constituent not ratione onely but re differentes yet not so natively to be call'd a double sinne as one sinne of two steps degrees sections composures parts or branches for originall sinne is not many not two but one onely viz for which death was inflicted And this is the point I must now insist upon and thus I prove it apodictically Rom. 5.12 Death entred by sinne and verse 21 Sinne reigned unto death Likewise Rom. 6.23 The wages of sinne is death and 1. Corint 15.56 The sting of death is sinne All in the singular number evincing it to be one onely sinne David complaineth Psal 51.5 I was shapen in iniquitie and in sinne did my mother conceive me In sinne not in sinnes both the Hebrew and the Vulgar Translation have all these places in the singular number Concerning David it is observable lest any one might imagine that Davids mother was lascivious and that therefore he complained and so this complaint concerned David himself onely and personally and not us that it was no part of Davids intent to disparage his mother and Aquinas saith David was born of a lawfull
our own implicit will we may draw on us a necessitie of after-sinning which most justly may be imputed to us and we may tie our selves with our own bonds To the former part this may give satisfaction That against the will of the soul the soul it self can not be corrupted for then the will should be forced and so no will at all but Noluntas and not Voluntas It is not necessary saith Bellarmine that our soul must needs come from Adam because we draw sinne from him if but one part come from him it is enough For a father doth not per se produce originall sinne in the childe but per accidens namely as by the act of generation it cometh to passe that his sonne is a member of mankinde which was overtaken in Adams corruption and that the propension unto evill of the earthly part traducted meeting with a soul not much resisting causeth this originall sinne to result thencefrom and death by this original sinne So that no sooner is the soul united to its body and the matter glewed to the form but the infant deserveth to be and is the childe of death by reason of the primigeneall corruption If you enquire after what manner the body worketh the soul unto this evill we may truly say * Corpus non agit in animam actione physicâ immediatâ The body worketh not upon the soul by a naturall and immediate action You heard what Hugo Eterianus said It is stricken or cast down onely by fellowship He enlargeth himself in the same Chapter thus * Vitium languor corruptio ante animae conjunctionem in carne persistunt ex qua tabe anima maculatur sicut si testa odore malo imbuta sit quemcunque liquorem susceperit suâ corruptione inficit Imperfection languishing and corruption abide in the flesh before the souls conjunction from which disease the soul is infected as if a vessel be tainted with an ill odour it infects therewith whatsoever liquour it receiveth Gerson thus * Anima ex conjunctione ad corpus contrabit illud vitium sicut quandoquis cadit in lutum foedatur maculatur Gers in Compend Theolog. The soul by the conjunction with the body contracteth that infection as when one falleth into the mire he is besmeared and stained Felisius thus * Pomum mundum in manu immunda positum foedatur Vinum bonum tranâ—fusum in vas acetosum suum naturalem perdendo saporem centrabit alienum sic anima quando incipit esse in carne unita suum naturalem amittit vigorem A clean apple put in an unclean hand is soiled Good wine poured into a fustie vessel contracts a strange taste and loses its own naturall so the soul loses its naturall vigour when it is united in the flesh Another thus Anima cum labente simul labitur frustra nititur dum innititur To the same effect another saith thus As the purest rain-water falling on dust is turned with the dust into a lump of mire so at the coadunation of the soul unto the earthly part both spirit and flesh are plunged in the durt of corruption Augustine against Julian the Pelagian 4.15 preferreth the very Heathen before Julian for he held That nothing was conveyed unto us from Adam and they held * Nos oh antiqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore poenarum luendarum causâ esse natos That we were born to be punished for old crimes committed in a former life And saith Augustine it is true which Aristotle relateth That we are punished like to those who fell among the Hetrurian robbers * Quorum corpora viva cum mortuis adversa adversis accommodata quà m optissimè colligabantur necabantur Whose living bodies being coupled face to face with dead mens carcases were so killed Of the Hetrurian Tyrant Mezentius Virgil Aeneid 8. recordeth the like Mortua corporibus jungebat corpora vivis Componens manibúsque manus at que oribus ora Tormenti genus sanie tabóque fluentes Complexu in misero longâ sic morte necabat But I return from this Digression The Heathen say as S. Augustine relateth * Nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse conjunctos That our souls united to our bodies are like the living coupled with the dead They saw somewhat saith he and commendeth their wisedome in discerning the miseries of mankinde to be for somewhat before committed in acknowledging the power and justice of God though without divine revelation they could not know that it was Adams offence which brought such a wrack both on our souls and on our bodies What hath been hitherto related seemeth too much to encline to the naturall physicall immediate working of the soul upon the body Others are as faultie who say The soul receiveth no annoyance from the body but by way of IMPEDITION onely where the spirituall faculties are hindered and the Musick spilt by reason of the untuneablenes of the organes But they wil not seem to heare That a spirituall substance can receive infection from a nature corporeall Both opinions may rest contented in the middesse or mean That as the body cannot go beyond the sphere of its activitie and work properly and physically upon the soul so by the interposition as it were of a middle nature the body not onely hindereth the faculties of the soul from working but sometimes worketh upon the soul Thus the naturall vitall and animall spirits do binde and unite the soul to the body that neither part can part from other though it would Thus bodily objects work on the minde but it is by the mediation of the outward and inward senses Shall corporeall outward and remote objects by degrees draw the soul into sinne even in our perfect age when our naturall reason is most vigorous and may not the corrupted seed having as great a propension to evill as Naphtha to take fire at the conjunction infect the soul with a participation of uncleannes though the operation be not physicall or immediate By Adams soul sinning was Adams flesh infected may not our soul be infected as well by our flesh A spirituall substance can produce a bodily effect Boëtius saith excellently Forms materiall came from forms immateriall Our will was moved by our intellect our appetite by our will and a bodily change conformable to our appetite And may not a bodily species work by the same degrees backward on the soul it self The reason is alike in the contrarietie Doth the corporeall fire of Hell torment and affect the incorporeall spirits of evill Angels and shall it of wicked men as most certainly it doth and must which shall be proved God willing otherwhere and may not the matter make some impression on the form the body upon the soul when there is such a sympathie in nature betwixt them If the soul do no way suffer from the body how doth it follow the
that is sought out and drawn into judgement and answereth as he ought to do truly without mentall reservation modestly and as befitteth him to answer unto his superiours if he receive no satisfaction in his conscience and his Judges doom him worthy to die what shall he now do Shall he be over-ruled by his superiours both spirituall and temporall doing as they do and thinking as they think shall he go against the dictates of his own conscience or shall he adventure his bloud and life What my self would do by Gods grace I will prescribe unto another First before I would sacrifice my life I would once more recollect my former thoughts for humblenesse and diligently consider whether the matters for which I am to suffer death be abstruse depths beyond my reach or capacity If they be very intricate I have cause to think that I am an unfit man to judge of things which I know not and cannot comprehend 2. Cor. 10 13 c. Secondly I would in this case before expense of bloud bring my intentions to the touchstone call to minde that good intentions alone cannot excuse me before God but good intentions well grounded and regulated S. Paul with good intentions persecuted the Church and was injurious but he did it ignorantly in unbelief 1. Tim. 1.13 where an ill belief though meaning well is counted unbelief In a good intention S. Peter would have disswaded our Saviour from death but he was called Satan for it Matth. 16.23 though Christ had blessed him before and promised him excellent gifts vers 17 c. I cannot think but they who offered their children unto Moloch did think they served God rightly though indeed they served the Devil yet God saith Levit. 20.3 I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people The priests of Baal who cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancers till the bloud gushed out upon them 1. King 18.28 did they not follow the ill guide of a misled conscience did they not think they were in the right do not millions of Turks Jews and of Pagans go to the Devil though they perswade themselves they be in the onely true way do not many think that to be constancie which in truth is obstinacie and that to be knowledge which is ignorant self-love There is great resemblance and manifold likely hood between some truth and some errour and the mistake is easie and there is a great difference between opinion and sound belief Thirdly I would endeavour to think humbly of my self and as the Apostle adviseth to preferre others before me I would ruminate on that which the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 13.3 Though I give my bodie to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing And shewing what he meaneth by charity addeth Charity suffereth long and is kinde charity envieth not charity is not rash or vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly So that he who behaveth himself unseemly who is puffed up who vaunteth himself or is rash who envieth and is unkinde and hasty hath not charity And though he give his bodie to be burned his death profiteth him nothing saith the Apostle Examine therefore and again I say examine thine own heart if thou finde any one of these sinnes beforenamed reigning in thee then know there is a spot in the sacrifice And till that be washed away rased out or reformed thou must suspect thy self and mayest well be dubious Self-conceit is a branch of pride pride never agreed with charity and no death profiteth a man any thing who hath not charity Oh but this enfeebleth the resolution of confessours and stoopeth down the constancy of martyrs to pendulousnesse it maketh them draw their hands back from the plough and to look backward to Sodom with lots wife No no my discourse intends onely to dull the edge of singularity to stop the mouths of pridie undertakers and ignorant praters to put a bridle into the teeth of such as revile Magistracie to reduce people to humblenesse and such thoughts as these If many may be deceived how much easier may I If the more learned be awrie how shall I be sure I am right They have souls to answer as well as I and charity bids me think they would not damn their own souls by damning mine have I alone a sound rectified conscience Self-deniall is a better schoolmaster to true knowledge then presumption An acceptable martyr is a reasonable sacrifice and an acceptable sacrifice is a reasonable martyr A conscience not founded on good causes not strengthened with understanding is like a fair house built on the sands a very apple of Sodom a painted sepulchre which appeares beautifull outward but is within full of dead mens bones and of all uncleannesse Matth. 23.27 My cautions are not remoraes of staying or withdrawing any man so farre as his knowledge can or doth aspire unto for so farre I allow them a judgement of discretion but necessary preparatives to the true perfect and glorious martyrdome He shall be no martyr in my estimate who without great motives runneth to death and posteth rashly to destruction But when pride with all her children singularity self-love vaunting rashnesse unseemly behaviour is cast out of the soul and the contrary graces the children of charitie possesse it then if thy conscience can no way be convicted if thou knowest thy cause to be good and the contrary to be apparently amisse follow not the multitude conform not thy self to the world keep thy conscience untainted poure out thy bloud unto death offer thy life and body as a reasonable sacrifice die and be a martyr be a martyr and be crowned crowned I say not onely with glory and immortality but with those gifts and aureolae which are prepared above others for true martyrs In this sort Whosoever shall confesse Christ before men him will Christ confesse also before his Father which is in heaven Matth. 10.32 The judgement of jurisdiction which is in superiours having authoritie and the judgement of direction which is in Pastours by way of eminency forbid not in this case the judgement of discretion which is and ought to be in every private man so farre as he hath discretion and knowledge or immediate inspirations of all which I would not have a man too presumptuous That which our Divines do term the judgement of discretion is in the words of z Contra Marcionem 4. post medium pag. 269. Tertullian Clavis Agnitionis He must never contrary this for this must he die What he knoweth let him as a good witnesse seal with his bloud if need be But in things beyond a simple mans capacitie I will say once more with a Serm. 20. de verbis Apostoli Augustine b Melior est fidelis ignorantia quà m temeraria scientia A faithfull ignorance is better then a rash knowledge In such things is he to be guided by his Pastours
to minde the miracles of Christ and born witnesse to his innocency rather then to set themselves forward in things beyond their reach and knowledge Philip de h Lib. 8. cap. 19. Commines telleth of two Franciscans who offered themselves to the fire to prove Savanorola to be an heretick and not to have had revelations divine and an other Frier a Jacobin presented himself also to the fire to uphold Savanorola though Savanorola did not then expose himself to that purgation by fire Which intendments of theirs seem rather to be the fruits of evil then of Christian fortitude For i Mater martyri est fides Catholica in qua illustres Athletae sanguine suo subscripserunt The mother of martyrdome is the Catholick faith to which those famous champions have subscribed with their bloud saith Aquin out of Maximus But those bravadoes of the Friers savoured of the transalpine and cisalpine factions some inclining to the French king with his adherents the other to the Pope and Venetians and their partakers Some drew death upon them when they needed not in the Primitive Church and the holy Fathers and Councels have disliked them for it The Elibertine Councel chap. 60. k Si quis idola fregerit ibidem fuerit occisus quia in Evangelio non est scriptum neque invenitur ab Apostolis unquam factum placuit in uumerum eum non recipi martyrum If any one break idols and be killed in the act we think it not fit that he be received into the number of martyrs because for his so doing he had neither warrant of Scripture nor example of the Apostles The Cicumcellions thrust themselves into the mouth of dangers ambitious of martyrdome to that height of infatuation that if no body would kill them they would murder and massacre themselves There were also certain women who to keep their chastity hastened their own deaths Sophconia killed her self lest the Emperour Maximinus should abuse her saith Eusebius Pelagia flung her self headlong into a river lest a souldier should violate her Such things ought not to be done and are sinfull and unlawfull to be done And yet because the Church hath accounted them martyrs we must conclude that the Church did think they had divine inspirations directly animating them to that course as Samson had in the Old Testament l Cùm Deus jubet séque jubere siue ullis ambagibus intimat quis obedientiam in erimen vocet When God commands and plainly intimates that it is his command who can blame him that obeyeth saith m De Civit. 1.26 S. Augustine Aquinas 2.2 Quaest 124. Artic. 1. in the third objection hath these words n Non est laudabile quòd aliquis martyrio se ingerat sed magìs videtur esse praesumptuosum periculosum It is not commendable for a man to offer himself to martyrdome but seems rather to be presumptuous and dangerous And in the answer he intimateth That a man ought not to seek death and saith expresly o Non debet homo occasionem dare alteri injustè agendi sed si alius injustè egerit ipse moderatè tolerare debet A man ought not to give occasion of doing unjustly but if another do unjustly he ought to endure it patiently The third and last sort of learned men in a Church and State full of errours are thus qualified They are pious towards God charitable towards men zealous according to their knowledge knowing so much as they can well learn mourners for sick and dead in Sion signing their cheeks with teares for the backsliding of the people having cornea genua knees hardned like horn by their frequent bendings at prayers that God would shew mercy to the misguided singing to God in their hearts when danger stoppeth their mouths not petulant or immodest against the Magistrates no prompt proterve undertakers no railers censurers or rash damners of others no factionists or disturbers of Commonweals avoiding the storms of persecution so farre as conveniently and conscionably they may keeping the unity of truth as much as is possible in the bond of peace thus farre flexible and pliable that they would willingly exchange any old errour if such be setled in them for apparent truth thus farre constant and irremoveable that they preferre the naked truth above their lives and can in all humblenesse and patience write the confession of their faith with their own bloud Such a life may I live such a death may I die greater glory then such shall have I desire not This is the true character of a martyr so perfect as usually flesh and bloud affords The last point concerneth unlearned men who live in a defiled Church Shall these be ruled by their Pastours leaving the dictates of their own consciences unpractised unbeleeved I answer There is not the simplest of the people to whom I will denie a judgement of discretion which he is bound to follow even unto death according to his conscience And among the unlearned there are some of excellent wits quick capacities and some endowments both of nature and grace surpassing divers learned men Yet let every one of these take this advice from me let them learn to be Christi-formes conformable to Christ which is a point that the godly and learned Cardinall Cusanus often and excellently inculcateth and let them labour to be every way equall to that famous martyr whom immediatly before I characterized and described By how much the lesse they have of knowledge let them have the more of humilitie and conformablenesse Lastly let them ponder how mercifull the Lord is to such as sinne of ignorance and on the contrarie that not onely divers of the unlearned but such as have had a fair competency of knowledge have been transported with self-love and treading out paths of singularity have runne headlong into damnation Witnesse divers Arians burnt in the dayes of Queen Elisabeth witnesse Hacket seduced by the Devil under a shew of long extemporary prayers and extraordinary holinesse till at the end he grew blasphemous and in the heat of it died Let him think of Sir John Oldcastle who intimated not onely a possibility but a likelihood of his rising again the third day after his hanging and burning if Stows chronicles had sufficient ground to write to that effect If I should repeat the like monsters in other Churches and Commonwealths I might much more enlarge this discourse which is too long already I conclude The simple unlearned good man who is bound up in invincible ignorance and is misled by his Pastours to whose guidance he hath subjected his conscience is lesse sinfull by many degrees then he who casteth himself violently singularly and proudly into the same errours or as bad And if it be dangerous to take from the people their discerning power in any cause as some imagine let them ponder whether it be not more dangerous to let every one of them to runne loose like the
immediately divine and infallible revelation there is none at all or if any be it is in some of those learned ones who are lawfully called to be the members of our Church representative And if any defects be in learned men there are more in unlearned But of this point otherwhere 8 Another observation there is That kings and supream Officers do represent the people committed to their charge And here I will tell you in honour of the Royall Majesty what z Lib. 2. contra Appionem Flavius Jose phus saith We offer daily sacrifices for the Emperours and that not onely on ordinary dayes of the common cost of all the Jews but also when we offer no other sacrifices of the common charge no not for our children We give this high honour to the Emperours onely which we do not give to any other man This he saith they practised in the behalf of heathen Emperours different from them in Religion how much more ought we by all lawfull means exceed them in the honouring of our Kings Espencaeus calleth a Prince columbam Dei Gods dove Saul is termed the beauty of Israel 2. Sam. 1.19 David is styled the light candle or lamp of Israel 2. Sam. 21.17 Josiah was the breath of our nostrils saith Jeremy Lament 4.20 Are not these two latter phrases ideall are their persons themselves onely Again is not Saul called the head of the Tribes of Israel 1. Sam. 15.17 and David the head over Nations 2. Sam. 22.44 a Hom. 2. ad popul Antioch Chrysostom intituled Theodosius The head and supream over all men on earth And therefore as the people reap benefits extraordinary by their Kings for Saul clothed you in scarlet with other delights he put on ornaments of gold upon your apparell saith David 2. Sam. 1.24 so for their Kings offences they justly may be punished 2. Sam. 24.17 Lo I have sinned saith David but these sheep what have they done Yet the pestilence worse then the bane or rot fell upon those sheep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Apollo being incensed against the King Agamemnon sent an evil disease upon his army and the people perished The story is memorable of Saul 1. Sam. 14.24 c. He took a foolish and rash oath hurtfull to his own souldiers profitable for the enemy Neither Jonathan nor the Captains nor the people did swear with him but in him and by him and through his oath yet it bound both the people and himself yea tied aswell Jonathan who heard it not and knew it not as those who were present and heard it for the lot from God drew Jonathan out as faulty and punishable for his fathers adjuration who sware expresly by name the death of Jonathan if he were faulty vers 39. yet the love of the people delivered him and as I think the father did not much care to break his oath In this fact Sauls person represented the whole army and the people for their own particular held themselves wrapped up to obedience in his oath But what do I instance in slighter matters when a proof is pregnant That the chief governours oaths binde the whole nation their posterity for evermore while their Polity lasted Joshua unadvisedly without counselling with God made peace and league with the Gibeonites the descendants of Canaan that servant of servants to let them live in the lowest rank of slaves and the Princes of the congregation sware unto them Josh 9.15 And though all the congregation murmured against the Princes vers 18. from whence I conclude that the people consented not to the treaty much lesse were sworn to it yet the Princes resolved justly and conscionably We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them vers 19. And vers 20. thus We will even let them live lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we sware unto them And accordingly Joshua freed them from the intended slaughter of the angry Israelites vers 26. That this oath concerned not the people then living onely but reached also unto posterity is apparent 2. Sam. 21.1 c. When for the breach of this oath committed about foure hundred yeares after the Lord himself taxeth Saul and his bloudy house because he slew the Gibeonites and therefore sent purposely a trienniall famine upon the land and Gods wrath was not satisfied till the Gibeonites were appeased by the death of Sauls posterity And these 5 things are yet observable First Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah v. 2. Secondly God commanded Moses to destroy all the inhabitants of the land whereof the Gibeonites were part as they themselves confessed Josh 9.24 Thirdly what was the oath of the Princes onely is said to be the oath of the children of Israel as it is 2. Sam. 21.2 because it concerned them for ever Fourthly after the punishment for this cause inflicted God was intreated for the land Fifthly it was about foure hundred yeares after the oath of Joshua and the Princes when God thus severely vindicated the breach thereof by Saul upon Sauls posterity 9 Lastly let us diligently consider how much Christ Jesus our blessed Saviour hath done for us representing as it were our persons and what we perform and shall obtain in him and by him Isa 53.4 Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows which is applied to him Matth. 8.19 The force of which words is expressed by the Apostle 1 Peter 2.24 Christ his own felf bare our sinnes in his own body on the tree or to the tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by his stripes ye were healed S. Paul saith Christ died for our sinnes 1. Corinth 15.3 Christ tasted death for every man Heb. 2.9 Christ died for us Rom. 5.8 And in the next verse We be justified by his bloud and We shall be saved from wrath by him He hath blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us which was contrary unto us and took it out of the way nailing it to his crosse Coloss 2.14 And By him God hath made peace through the bloud of his crosse and reconciled all things unto himself by Christ Coloss 1. vers 20. He hath reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight vers 22. He was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification Rom. 4.25 Ye are buried with him in baptisme wherein also ye are risen with him and you being dead he hath quickned with him as it is most divinely expressed Coloss 2.12.13 In Christ we are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit Ephes 2.22 Our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 And in the verse following Christ is our life Ye be risen with Christ Coloss 3.1 God hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up
shalt rest and stand in the lot at the end of the dayes IN FINE DIERUM Which words are applied by Vatablus to the resurrection of the last judgement which was mentioned Dan. 12.2 And lest any should interpret the rising out of the dust vers 2. as Porphyrie did for their creeping out of the holes and caverns in the time of the Maccabees Lyra expressely contradicteth it and saith it is to be understood c De resurrectione vera in fine mundi of the true resurrection in the end of the world implying that Daniel shall then arise as he arose not saith Lyra at the time of the Maccabees nor at the opening of the graves before Christs resurrection d Ergò resurrexit Job sanctissimus Therefore most holy Job arose also saith Pineda equalling Noah Daniel and Job in this priviledge But the consequence is lame for Ezechiel doth not mention the equall priviledges of these three in their resurrection though perhaps this latter is figured out but onely the delivery from famine or death by famine Ezech. 14.13 c. of Noah Daniel and Job or rather of other holy men also designed out by their names and like them in their severall vertues Noah overcoming the world Daniel the flesh and Job the devil Concerning Pineda his other proof That Gregorie Nissen in his third Oration of the resurrection saith That the day of their resurrection who arose out of the graves was much more joyfull to them then the day of the generall resurrection If I should grant that he said so and that he said so truely yet it followeth not necessarily scarce probably that they went with their bodies into heaven The day of the generall resurrection is not yet come and could not be rejoyced at but in hope More especially concerning Job though Salianus ad ann mundi 1544. num 783. makes Jobs tombe-stone speak thus e Clausit viator hoc marmor aliquando mortuum emis itque gloriosum eum Principe Messia resurgentem Jobum This stone O wayfaring man kept under it dead Job and sent forth also Job in glorie arising from the dead with Messiah our Prince though Pineda his fellow-Jesuite in the end of his Commentaries on Job saith That Jobs sepulchral pyramis and kingly monument was made for him by his seven sonnes and three daughters and was framed and erected f Ad pietatis memoriam sempiternä spémque resurrectionis cum Redemptore certissimain for an eternall memoriall of pietie and most certain hope of his resurrection with our Redeemer yet none is ignorant that these are tricks of wit panegyrick Eulogies poeticall Epitaphs even a little thwarting one another rather then divine truths or historicall relations 4. And further it is evident that Job spake of the generall resurrection when he said Job 19.25 c. I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this bodie yet in my flesh shall I see God By which latter or last day we may fitly expound not the last day of judgement saith Pineda but the state of the Evangelicall Law and of Christs suffering and rising ending by his death and resurrection the former times and beginning to appoint a new for he is THE FATHER OF THE WORLD TO COME Isa 9.6 Did ever man thus delude Scripture and make it a nose of wax It is scarcely worse used by our unlearned lay-Rabbies the Doctours of Doctours Who ever dreamed that Dies novissimus should signifie so unlikely a matter and if it did how vain is his proof The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater aeternitatis The father of eternitie as the Interlinearie Bible reads it and Vatablus with it expounding the words g Anthor vitae aeternae The authour of eternall life which hath no reference to Pineda's wilde Comment or the everlasting Father as we translate it 5. The Seventie indeed and the Book of Job thus Job died being old and full of dayes so farre also goeth the Hebrew and it is added in the Greek But it is written that he shall again be raised up with those whom the Lord shall raise These words are not in the Original nor in Aquila nor in Symmachus nor in the Seaventie used by Vatablus but Theodotion so reads it and the Vatican Edition of Sixtus so acknowledgeth it and Origen in his epistle to Africanus confirmeth it and Clemens Romanus cap. 5. lib. 6. approveth it Two wayes there are of expounding the word Rursus Again Francis Turrian the Jesuite on the place of Clement collecteth that Job shall not onely be raised up in the last day at the generall resurrection but that he should be first raised when Christ arose and afterward at the last day Nicetas saith better The word AGAIN was therefore put that his first resurrection might be understood to have been when he was delivered from his troubles Which way soever you follow we have it That Job shall be raised at the last day of the world And therefore he arose not with Christ or died again and so went not into the eternall happinesse of bodie and soul for glorified bodies shall not be raised 6. Lastly there is an opinion even to this day among the Turks grounded no doubt on some old Tradition That Jobs bodie was removed from the place of his buriall to that citie and place which is now called Constantinople as Mr. Fines Morison in the first part of his Itinerary pag. 243. witnesseth These are all that ever I read of by name that are thought by Pineda or others both to rise with Christ and to partake with him at that time of the eternall happinesse both in soul and bodie 7. Bartholomaeus Sybilla Peregrinarum quaestionum decade 1. cap. 3. quaest 7. dubio 3. citeth Henricus de Assia as Authour that Perhaps not onely Enoch and Elias are kept in Paradise to preach against Antichrist but both John the Evangelist and those that rose with Christ Observe saith Sybilla the word PERHAPS for S. Hierom saith formerly concerning S. John WE DOUBT BUT BOTH S. JOHN THE EVANGELIST AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARIE DO REJOYCE IN THEIR GLORIFIED FLESH VVITH CHRIST And Aquin. in 4. sentent distinct 43. artic 3. cited by Sybilla saith It is a point of faith holily to be beleeved concerning the blessed Virgin Marie and S. John the Evangelist that their resurrection is not deferred to the end of the world Also Holcot saith on Wisdome cap. 2.2 h Corpus benedictae Virginis non fuit resolvendum in cineres quia in ca fomes extiuctus extitit The bodie of the blessed Virgin was not to be turned into ashes because in her was no fountain of ill from whence her asportation into heaven may seem to be confirmed The feast-day of her assumption is greater and more festivall then any other holy-day for her saith Durandus Rational 7.24 Surely I must needs say we reade
nothing certain concerning her death nor is her bodie or her tombe-stone found on earth nor did S. John the Evangelist who out-lived her and the rest of the Apostles by all mens consents write any thing of her death much lesse of her assumption though as Christ committed her to him so he took her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his own home was a sonne unto her Joh. 19.26 27. Amongst those who assent to her assumption i Monstrosa quaedam discrepantia reperitur there is monstrous diversitie saith Baronius Anno Christi 48. num 4. Which words I wonder he would let drop from his pen or that others of their side would suffer to be printed Of the former instances I say the lesse because if all which was supposed were granted and if they had this priviledge to prevent others in their bodily glorie yet it was long after Christs ascension whereas my principall question was of those many that arose about Christs Passion Who in particular they were 8. The summe is Pineda hath taken great pains to little purpose hath presumed to name those whom the Scripture or any sound tradition hath left unnamed his proofs have been so slender as his conjectures have been bold He convinceth not exactly that any one of those whom he specializeth were raised much lesse to eternall happinesse and I have demonstrated that some of those whom he nameth did not then arise to a glorious immortalitie In the particular instancing in those who arose about Christs death his fellow-Jesuite dares not follow him k Non ausim de ullo particulatim definire I dare not say peremptorily that any such an one was raised saith Lorinus most modestly on Act. 7.29 Yet still it must be confest that many bodies which slept arose c. though the book be clasped the secret reserved and no absolute knowledge can inform us who they were O Lord who didst open the eyes of the blinde to thee do I confesse the blindenesse of my understanding open I beseech thee those eyes of my minde dispell the clouds leading me in the right way amidst by-paths and uncertainties even for thine own sake who art the onely way to the true life So be it Lord Jesus Amen Amen CHAP. XIIII 1. My conjecture that none of the Patriarchs or old Prophets were raised 2. An objection concerning Peters knowing of Moses and Elias on mount Tabor answered 3. A conjecture that the Saints who lived in Christs time and died before him were raised at his Passion Who they were in most likelihood When Joseph the reputed father of Christ did die 4. The end why they were raised To whom they appeared 5. A crotchet concerning the wives of dead men which have been raised IF still you presse the question Who those MANY were or Who were some of those MANY I answer with Lorinus that part of truth lieth hid and covered Amongst conjectures I propound this mine own as probable First negatively That none of the ancient Patriarchs Prophets or Types of Christ in the Old Testament arose for if one Who is he and why not others as well as he and if they had risen Who should have known them or how could they induce the then living to beleeve that they were the same Patriarchs or Prophets They might have been as well thought to have been incarnate spirits for the evil spirits also kept about the tombes and graves of the deceased Unlesse you will multiply miracles upon miracles and say God by miracle did reveal these to be true Patriarchs Otherwise they could not prove it to those who lived 2000 yeares after them And if there had been such miracles the Evangelists would not have slipt them 2. Yea but S. Peter knew Moses and Elias at Christs transfiguration though they were taken away from among men long before And therefore the then living might know the dead Patriarchs and holy men raised though they died long before I answer That S. Peter and the other Apostles James and John might know by the conference between Christ and Moses and Elias who they were Whereas Christ never conversed or conferred with those that were raised for ought that is recorded or probably to be maintained And it is a figment to say or imagine that there was any third person which knew both the then raised on the one side and the living which never had been dead on the other side or could give assurance that the raised were such and such Patriarchs and Fathers Nor were their testimonies to be taken one for another since the deniall or doubt concerning any one draweth in the deniall or doubt of all the rest and upon supposall of one false apparition any one and every one of the rest might be questioned Secondly S. Peter and S. John might know Moses and Elias by divine revelation which to them was not unfrequent as Christs Divinitie was revealed to Peter Matth. 16.17 and Ananias his heart Act. 5.3 c. or as Luke knew by the Spirit that Peter wept bitterly though Peter wept secretly for he went out first Luk. 22.62 and what he went out purposely to conceal shall we think that he did purposely reveal Now though the Apostles had supernall illumination guiding them into all truth yet that by divine revelation extraordinary every one of them then living at Jerusalem knew every one of them who were raised and appeared unto them is unnecessarily to multiply many miracles Now since they knew not the persons of the raised by Christ nor any other third person nor by heavenly instruction they could no way know the raised Patriarchs unlesse by their pictures or statues which of all other wayes is most unprobable as being a course not practised in those times and places The argument now hath received its answer Peter might many wayes and did some way know Moses and Elias and yet I finde not any way whereby the inhabitants of the holy citie could personally know the Patriarchs and Fathers being before buried and incinerated And therefore I probably conclude Not any one of these were raised 3. Secondly my positive probable conjecture is this which also seemeth more likely to Lucas Brugensis That many of those Saints who lived in Christs time and beleeved in him whose memorie was fresh and whose children kindred or acquaintance were yet living and who were known to adhere to Christ and to this opinion Bishop Bilson seemeth somewhat to encline Many I say of those dead Saints now arose and appeared unto many as it may be John the Baptist though the deceitfull miracle-mongers shew the false reliques of that good Saints head in divers places and Zacharie and Elisabeth his parents and those many Luk. 1.66 and those shepherds Luk. 2.8 and those wonderers to whom the shepherds told our Saviours nativitie Luk. 2.18 perhaps some would adde those wisemen who came to worship Christ Matth. 2.2 and old Simeon and Anna the Prophetesse and Joseph Christs reputed father though
ea resurrectio completa It is an holy belief of the Church that the blessed mother of Christ hath obtained a full and perfect resurrection Which words suffice to crosse other Papists who denie that any exception is to be made to the generall axioms though by us they are held as fables 3. Let us take a view of some indefinites and we shall not finde them to be universally applied The Prophets are dead John 8.53 yet Enoch was a Prophet Jude vers 14. and Elijah was chief among Prophets Notwithstanding these were not dead Revel 14.13 The dead rest from their labours yet divers have been raised from a true death and have returned again into this world of labour My very Text is fertile of more particulars to this purpose It is appointed unto men to die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sâ—MEL UNO TEMPORE as it is in the Syriack word for word yet some have died twice It is appointed unto men once to die and after that cometh JUDGEMENT but Christ was not judged after he died That he was judged in the particular judgement of souls cannot be since himself is there the Judge So shall he also be judge in the generall judgement But let us return to the universalls Matth. 26.33 Though all men shall be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended yet was he a man and if the words there be restrained to all Christs Disciples or Apostles yet Peter accounts himself none of that all and exempts himself from the number of them that would be scandalized 1. Corinth 15.27 He hath put all things under his feet But when he saith all things are put under him it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him Heb. 11.13 These All died in faith Yet Aquinas truely there excepteth Enoch Aquinas in 4. lib. Sentent dist 43. artic 4. thus By the same reasons by which we shewed that all should arise from the dead may we shew also that all shall arise A CINERIBVS in the generall resurrection unlesse by especiall grace the contrarie be granted to some as the hastening of the resurrection is granted to some Where Aquinas confesseth that some are dispensed withall both for incineration that their bodies should not be turned into dust and some also shall have a speedier resurrection by an especiall grace Why then by the especiall grace of the same God may not some be freed from the stroke of death 4. Salmeron tuggeth it out hard by the teeth to uphold that none shall be acquitted from death but without exception all must die Hearken to his reasons n Si Christo matri Christi mors non pepercit cui parcet If death spared not Christ and his Mother whom will death spare I answer Death spareth none so that no one can say I will not die Death spareth none but he that hath the power of death may spare whom he pleaseth Fire and water have no mercie yet the three children were preserved in the fire and S. Peter walked upon the sea The rivers have divided themselves yea the Red sea gathered it self together and was as a wall on the right hand and on the left in the passage of the children of Israel toward Canaan God above the pitch of humane reason may free whom he will from death and shut up the mouth of the grave that it shall not swallow some as he did the mouthes of the lions when he saved Daniel Again saith Salmeron o Qui cum Christo mortui non sunt non resurgent nec erunt membra ejus Who die not with Christ or as well as Christ shall not arise nor be members of his bodie All the Jesuits in the earth cannot demonstrate that proposition If they use S. Augustines reason p Resurrectio est solummodo mortuorum At omnes resurgent Ergòomnes morientur Onely the dead shall arise But all shall arise Therefore all shall die I answer with S. Augustine and many more what is handled at large in the third part q Immutatio erit vice resurrectionis Change shall be a kinde of resurrection and in the proposition The dead are not taken strictly but largely for any such as have changed their first life But take we the dead properly and natively for such onely as indeed have died the proposition is false and must be denied since we shall not all die but some shall be changed and yet both the one and the other sort shall be raised Salmeron again on 1. Cor. 15. thus objecteth r Tardante Sponso dormitaverunt omnes dormierunt While the bridegroom tarried they all slumbred and slept Matth. 25.5 Did not Salmeron sleep slumber and dream when he produceth these words to prove that all shall die when the words have apparent reference to the supine securitie of their mindes and perhaps if you will to their bodily sluggishnesse drowsinesse and sleep if there were any realitie in the parable Death was never meant in these words for Christ doth not there that is at the resurrection tarrie but he that shall come will come and will not tarrie Heb. 10.37 He continueth objecting thus f Stulte quod seminas non vivificatur nisi mortuum fuerit Ergò Omnes morâ—entur quia Omnes vivificabuntur THOU FOOL THAT WHICH THOU SO WEST IS NOT QUICKENED EXCEPT IT DIE 1. Cor. 15.36 Therefore All shall die because All shall be quickened I answer The Apostles drift in that place is not to shew whether any shall remain alive or all die but he onely proveth by naturall reason that resurrection may grow out of putrefaction Secondly even they themselves who say All must die cannot take the words exactly as they sound For then as the seed hath time to rot and rotteth ere it quicken so the bodies of men should suffer corruption and putrifaction as the seeds do which they dare not say Lastly seeds do not die properly there is no separation of a soul from a bodie they die analogally and improperly and so do even those who shall not die but shall be changed An other objection is Genes 3.19 Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Peter Martyr answereth t Id est Quamdiu orbis durare pergat nisi dies judicii cursum naturae intercipiat That is whilest this world lasteth and till the day of judgement break off the course of nature But I say that even such as maintain that every one must die will not say they shall reverti in terram Be incinerated and turned into dust and earth for they allow a very short time till the bodies reunion If any will still urge the generality and presse the extent of the words and force of the decree It is appointed unto men to die I answer with Bellarmine himself u Decreto satisfieri videtur si omnes Adae posteri morti obnoxiâ— sunt Tom. 3. de amissione grat stat
flcut sua eisque propter seipsos hoc velit quod sibi They say that an happy life is a sociable life which loveth the welfarre of friends as it doth its own good and wisheth as well to others as to it self Ludovicus Vives on the place saith They were the Stoicks who said so but I rather guesse they were the Peripateticks and Aristotle their cheif Chaunter Which blessed life the heathen meaned not of eternall blessednes after the resurrection but of a blessed naturall life in this world and on this earth such an one cannot Enoch and Elias have though they were in Paradise because they have no more companie of their kinde Enoch more especially had lesse happines by this argument if he be supposed to be in the earthly Paradise because he was long by himself ere Elias came to him by the space I say of above two thousand yeares To the further illustration of the former point I may truly say If Adam and Eve had lived in Paradise by themselves alone without any other companie at any other time I should not much have envied or wished that felicitie yea though he had not fallen whereby he became Radix Apostatica in the phrase of Augustine Yea such a blessednes there is in communication of happines that the all-blessed onely-blessed ever-blessed Deitie of the Vnitie would not be without the conjoyned happines of the Trinitie The singlenes of Nature would not be without the pluralitie of Persons Thirdly do they see those men and women and their actions who now live in the bounds of old Eden whilest themselves in their bodies are invisible Fourthly here is a multiplying of miracles daily that Angels shall keep them yet so that they cannot be seen From Enochs assumption which is now above 4000 yeares since have Angels kept him that he hath not been once seen Besides no one place of Scripture Canonicall saith they are in Paradise and it is so farre from a favour as it is rather a durance and captivitie if they be kept from all other parts of the world within the bounds of old Paradise since many places are now more delightfull then the place or places whereabouts Salianus himself now holdeth Paradise to be situated Moreover Elijah was taken up into heaven Suppose that to gratifie Bellarmine we grant Coelum aerium is there meant yet must he needs be taken up from the earth and so not abide on earth in the circuit of old Paradise as Salianus foolishly conceiveth Likewise Ecclesiasticus 49.14 Enoch was taken from the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Vatablus hath it and rendreth it De terra sublimis assumptus est He was taken up on high from the earth the Vulgat hath it Receptus est à terraâ— Eâ—terra had been more pithie When the Apostle saith He was translated Heb. 11.5 was he left on the same earth on which he was before Or after he was in heaven did he come again on the earth It was an excellent and true observation of our learned Whitaker That Bellarmine sometimes confuting his fellows answers confuteth farre better answers then himself bringeth And I will be bold to say of Salianus though he doth justly deride them who make Paradise in the aire as Cornelius à Lapide and Bellarmine or in the orb of the Moon as others Yet his crotchet is as foolish as any of theirs For in what part of Paradise were they kept when the floud was or was not all the earth overflown The Angels then kept them in the aire or else by an other miracle kept the water from over-flowing that place That the Angels kept people from entring into Paradise I have read that they kept any from going out of it and kept them in it I have not read k Nemiui conspicul esse possunt None can see them saith Salianus They may say I by the same divine power by which they are invisible if invisible they be Can they be seen by none How was Elias seen by our Saviour and his three Disciples at the Transfiguration Or were all they within Paradise or was Elias out of the bounds of the old Paradise when Christ was transfigured on the mount But these and greater inconveniences must these men run into who will maintain against Scripture that Enoch and Elias are in earthly or aeriall Paradise that they may uphold an other crotchet worse then this namely That Enoch and Elias shall hereafter die and be slain by Antichrist and are not l In coelo supercoelesti in the highest heaven which is the last question 6. Let us speak of them severally then joyntly Concernning Enoch the first of them who were rapti it seemeth to me that the Apostles words Heb. 11.5 not onely do reach home to that point unto which before I applyed them viz. That Enoch died not but evince also that he shall never die For it is not said Enoch was translated that he should not die for a good while but he was translated that he should not or might not see death Therefore he cannot he shall not die hereafter since the holy Ghost hath expressed and signed out the end of his translation Nè videret mortem That he should not see death Some may answer to that place of the Apostle first that he speaketh of THE DEATH OF SINNERS as if he had meant with the book of * Wisd 4.11 Wisdome to say NE MALITIA MVTARET INGENIVM EJVS LEST HE SHOVLD BE CHANGED TO THE WORSE for sinners are called DEAD MEN according to that saying l Improbi dum vivunt mortui sunt WICKED MEN EVEN WHILE THEY LIVE ARE DEAD So farre Drusius To whom let me adde that Christ saith Luke 9.60 Let the dead bury their dead And 1. Timoth. 5.6 She that liveth in pleasure is dead whilest she liveth And to the Angel of the Church of Sardis the Spirit saith Revel 3.1 Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead In all which places wicked men are taken for the dead yet in the place of the Apostle it cannot be so for he was speaking of the true lives and deaths of Gods Saints And if the literall sense can be admitted we must not flee to the mysterie but here is no inconvenience in the letter Moreover the same God who mercifully placed him in the state of Grace could as easily have kept him so without inflicting death on him Lastly the Apostle said Hebr. 11.4 Abel is dead and then descending to Noah and Abraham at the 13. verse These all died in faith I hope no man will say the word died is here taken for sinned but it is taken literally that their souls were parted from their bodies So the words That he should not see death prove that Enochs soul was not parted from his bodie Indeed he is one of them that are mentioned between Abel and Abraham but yet singled out by expresse words That he was translated lest he should or might see
and really entred into those fierie mansions or burning chambers For both Ribera and Viegas will be ashamed to say that the grave burneth with fire and brimstone which they must be forced to say if they continue to hold that Antichrist and his fore-runner leave their bodies in the grave Andreas Caesariensis saith Viegas on Revel 13. thinketh that Antichrist and his fore-runner shall not die t Sed incorrupto corpore vivos ad infernum descensuros but with incorruptible bodies shall descend alive into hell And as concerning Korah and his fellow-mutiners though some think it cannot be understood literally of the nethermost hell because it is said Numb 16.33 They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit but their goods and their houses went not to hell therefore not their bodies Yet I answer The Text is too much wrung and strained for by the like wrench they may as well prove that their houses and goods were alive the letter will bear one as well as the other if they ground on some translation of the Seventie for of the Originall I shall speak anon But the true meaning is They and all their things came to that destruction which in their nature they were capable of their tents and goods were swallowed up and consumed their bodies were hurried to their own places not of rest as is the common death of all men till the judgement generall but extraordinarily they endured present punishment Our learned Doctour Raynolds Tom. 1. de libris Apocryphis praelect 81. pag. 973. relateth that Epiphanius in Ancorato held Korah Dathan and their rebellious troups u Dâ—scendisse viventes in orcum non corporibus solutis neque reliquiis traditis aut parte sed totis ipsis cum corpore anima traditis in supplicium descended living and quick into hell their souls not disunited from their bodies no remnant or part left behinde but they all and wholly souls and bodies were delivered up to torment And thus that most learned Professour discourseth x Descenderunt ipsi cum omnâ—bus quae ipsorum erant vivi in infernum quomodo babetur in Hebraico contextu Quae sunt illa omnia Tabernacala domus cpes ipsorum Atqui non dicent credo Pontificii domes corum facultates omnes in lscum animarum descendisse sed in locúm corporum They descended with all things that were theirs alive into hell as it is in the Hebrew What is meant by those words All things Their Tabernacles houses and goods But I beleeve the Papists will not say that their houses and goods descended into the place of souls but into the place of bodies Therefore Moses denoteth the place of bodies not of souls The honoured Doctour might also have considered that it may be as well said that their bodies went to hell as their souls to the sepulchre if the place of their descent had been understood onely of the receptacles of bodies and not of souls Secondly as I touched before may not as well their bodies go to hell alive as they and all that appertained to them went down as the Seventie in Vatablus have it alive into the pit Thirdly did their tabernacles houses beasts and goods go down into their graves Graves are not the proper places for tents beasts and goods but for humane bodies Those terms of locus corporum are obscure and culled out purposely for a starting-hole whereas if he had said Moses denoted their sepulchres onely and not hell which he doth in effect afterward we may presse him with this That they are much happier then other for whereas others bring nothing into this world nor carrie any thing out of it these men went not to hell in Moses his meaning but carried with them out of this world their beasts their goods yea their very tents But their miserie and curse extraordinarie is described and not their happinesse Lastly I could wish that the worthy Doctour had throughly weighed how divinely the Holy Writ discriminateth severall matters Moses prophesied Numb 16.30 If the earth swallow them up with all that appertain unto them and they go down quick into the pit c. where you must interpret it as if he had thus said The earth indeed shall swallow and cover alike both them and all their goods but the persons themselves shall go down alive VIVENTES living as the Interlinearie hath it vivi as Doctour Raynolds lower even to the pit And accordingly it came to passe vers 32. The earth swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods where you see the earth swallowed all alike the chief leaders and their goods the associates of Korah and all their goods Yet for the persons themselves it is said in the next verse by way of distinction remarkably They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit which you cannot possibly interpret of their goods and tabernacles for they never were alive and never could go down alive no not to the grave or to any pit whatsoever but of the principals and the accessaries viz. the chief rebels and their partakers for diverse men appertained to them as is apparent vers 32. and therefore what our English translation hath somewhat dubiously and ambiguously They and all that appertained to them where it is not significantly enough expressed whether men onely or men and goods are comprised under the words the Interlinearie hath exactly and truly determined y Descenderunt ipsi omnes qui eis viventes in infernum They descended and all the men which lived with them alive into hell and Vatablus z Descenderúntque ipsi quoâ—quot ad eospertinebant viventes in infernum And both they descended and as many men as were their partakers living and quick into hell the quot quot having reference to men onely not to other things for then it would have been viventia and not viventes and therefore in the margin of Vatablus it is thus varied a Omnes qui eis All they who belonged to them Where the masculine gender designeth out the men onely to go alive into the pit To be plain I care for no opinion as it is an opinion of Bellarmines or of the Pontificians but if they light upon a truth I will accept of it not as theirs but as true b Amicus Socrates amicus Plato sed magìs amica Veritaâ— Socrates shall be my companion Plato my friend truth my familiar friend and Vel veritas vel Virtus in hoste probatur Or truth or any vertue do I like Even in an enemie that would me strike And I hold Bellarmines opinion true That Korah his partisans and companie descended alive into hell And that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Numbers 16.30 and 33 verses signifieth hell properly c Ex manifestis loci circumstantiis intelligetis notari à Mose locum subterraneum
corporum non animarum You shall discern by the manifest circumstances of the place that Moses meaneth some place under the earth fitted or appointed as receptacles of bodies not of souls saith Doctour Raynolds Herein I must needs dissent And first I say What is this a Locus corporum place of bodies It must be either the grave or hell or let him designe us out a third place A third place he cannot name especially for humane bodies Some held concerning infants That in regard of their innocencie they are to have eternall life but because they were not baptized they should not be with Christ in his kingdome But Augustine saith That Christ himself confuted b istam nescio quam medietatem De peccator Merit Remis 1.28 this new-invented middle or third mansion and as he said a little before more generally c Nec est ulluâ— ulli medius locus ut possit essâ— nisi cum diabolo qâ—â— non est cum Christo It is impossible for any man to be in any middle place but he must needs be with the devil who is not with Christ so do I say of this Locus corporum It is either hell or the grave Tertium locum penitus ignoramus We know no third place The Papists erre to establish a Purgatorie for the soul besides hell and heaven And Doctour Raynolds doth not well to mention so often a Locus corporum where he ought to name Where it is and What bodies go into it Secondly it is plain that their souls did sinne their souls were punished and went down to hell Doth not the Apostle S. Jude vers 11. speak of such as perished in the gainsaying of Korah to whom not the wo of a sudden death is denounced but vers 13. the blacknesse of darknesse for ever is reserved doth not the place stand fair for the damnation of Korah and his fellows Though Doctour Raynolds minceth it in this doubtfull manner d Non inflcior quin eorum auimae si sint mortui pertinaces in scelerata sua obstinatione adjudicatae sint inferis cum Divite I denie not but their souls if they died obstinate in their wicked rebellion were adjudged to the hell where Dives was Again when the Scripture saith Si creationem creaverit Dominus Numb 16.30 If the Lord shall make a new thing or a strange thing as new almost as strange to sight almost as is the creation for I take so much to be implyed in that unusuall phrase what reason hath that grave Doctour to say e Illud quod propriè notatur in verbis DescenderÃntque viventes in infernum nihil est aliud quà m horribile tremendum judicium Dei divinitus illis inflictum iri ut cùm alii priùs moriantur quà m sepeliantur ipsi quasi vivi sepeliantur That which is properly meant by the words IF THEY GO DOWN QVICK INTO HELL is nothing else but that the horrible and dreadfull judgement of God divinely shall be inflicted on them viz. in such sort that whereas others first die and then are buried these shall be buried as it were alive Why so reservedly and cautelously is it added As it were alive Again e Locus fuit corporum non animarum in quem descenderunt Corah Dathan Abiram It was the place of bodies and not of souls into which Korah Dathan and Abiram descended as if their souls were in the place appointed for bodies which he further parallelleth with the burying alive of the deflowred Vestall virgins though he ought to distinguish between the extraordinary miraculous hand of God and the ordinary justice of men in such cases And the Vestall virgins were farre longer ere they died then Korah and his companie ere they were swallowed up Let the judicious reader ponder these words of that famous Doctour Is nothing else and Shall be buried as it were alive and Korah Dathan and Abiram descended not into the place of souls though the souls of all wicked men do so and their souls by his reason should have more priviledge then other wicked mens and I dare say he will think that Doctour Raynolds might more safely have held the other opinion That their souls and bodies went alive to hell properly so called That Moses denoteth the place of bodies I denie not for even that place is in hell for all the bodies of the wicked in due time and for these mens bodies extraordinarily before the generall judgement But I am loth to say Moses meant not the place of souls I am loth to entertain a thought That the Rebels themselves did repent for if they did so they are saved I would be loth to flee from rationable probabilitÃe to possibilitie which hath a farre-stretched almightie arm and to say as he doth g Fieri potest ut quidam eorum aut offines illi culpae non fuerint aut si fuerint poenitentiam egerint It may be that some of them were not faultie or if they were repented That they repented who were swallowed up alive seems not agreeable to S. Jude who ver 11. pronounceth a fearfull wo against such as are like unto them and perished in the gainsaying of Korah In which wo not temporall bodily punishment alone but eternall torment of the soul is included Compare the words with 2. Pet. 2.12 Moreover none dares denie the possibilitie of repentance but who can think it probable That God would send such an extraordinarie punishment on such as were innocent or repented when as the children of that Luciferian Arch-rebel Korah were exempted from that destruction Numb 26.11 Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not yea were eminent and famous among the Levites Were over the work of the service keepers of the gates of the Tabernacle and their fathers were over the hoste of the Lord and the Lord was with them 1. Chron. 9.19 c. And they were either excellent Musicians or Singers or Pen-men for Divine Service as may be collected from many Psalmes intituled To the sonnes of Korah as Psal 42. Psal 44. Psal 87. And when the Scripture saith They descended alive into the pit I would be loth to varie the phrase as he doth h Si sint mortui pertinaces If they died in their obstinacie I denie not but in a large sense they may be said to die and the Scripture saith They should not die the common death of all men Numb 16.29 yet also They descended alive into the pit which cannot be better reconciled then to say The state of their bodies was changed immortalitie swallowed up their mortalitie in the act of their descending or passion rather if you will so call it There was no true separation between their souls and their bodies and therefore they died not their change notwithstanding may be reputed for a death which perhaps also shall be the case of all the wicked who shall be alive at Christs second and glorious coming
and shall be certainly the estate of the righteous who shall be alive at that great and dreadfull day I would be loth also to say That nothing else is noted by the words but that Whereas others die first and then are buried these men were buried alive or as live men that I may passe by his amphibolous phrase i Non inficior quin eorum animae si sint mortui pertinaces in seelecata sua obstinatione adjudicatae sint inferis cum Divite I denie not but their souls if they died obstinate in their wicked rebellion were sentenced to hell with Dives Why doth he not specialize where those inferi are and in what place Dives is or did they go to a parabolicall hell for he could not be ignorant that many hold that historie of Dives to be but a parable The truth and summe of all is this By divine power extraordinarie the houses or tents the beasts and the goods of Korah and his complices were separated and secluded from the use of men were swallowed up and covered in the earth and came to that end and destruction which they were capable of No word of God saith expressely no inference or reason evinceth no probabilitie induceth us to think that their tents houshold-stuffe or utensils were alive or that they yea or the beasts of these conspiratours went into the graves of them if graves they had any much lesse did such trash descend into hell that place of torment that Tophet prepared for wicked men that Deep excruciating and affrighting both the Devil and his Angels That tents goods and faculties should go thither to what purpose were it but God doth nothing unlesse it be to some great end or purpose therefore to the lowest hell their goods descended not But as concerning the men themselves it is plainly said That both the earth did open its mouth and swallowed them up even as it did their tents or beasts or goods and after that most distinctly that they went down alive into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but their souls could not go into the graves and there reside and their bodies might go into hell and there reside therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needes there be expounded not of the grave nor of locus corporum as Doctour Raynolds phraseth it but of the hell of the damned of the locus animarum which place also must be the receptacle for all humane bodies of the wicked after the day of doom and retribution and may be the prison of those reprobate both souls and bodies whom God miraculously thither adjudgeth as he did this rebellious rout Though Lyra cited by Doctour Raynolds thinks the grave is meant because it is appointed for all men to die and after that cometh judgement yet I have many wayes proved that by especiall dispensation and by extraordinarie priviledge some may receive favour beyond the common rule or course of nature and contrarily I doubt not but upon so great a commotion and furious rebellion God could and did by way of exemplarie punishment punish these men bodily before the usuall time and sent their bodies to hell before the generall judgement If Cajetan and Hieronymus ab Oleastro cited by that Reverend Doctour expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the grave yet they want both weight and age to put down Epiphanius before recited and many other Ancients who place their bodies in hell I accept then of Suarez his confession before mentioned and agree with him That Korah Dathan and Abiram are now both in souls and bodies in hell And upon this ground I thus work If they be there they are there to be punished and are punished if they burn in hell-fire they have no longer mortall bodies But as at the last day the bodies of the wicked that are alive then shall put on immortalitie so the bodies of Korah Dathan and Abiram were not properly separated from their souls but were changed and fitted for such places of punishments in the instant of their descent and so they descended alive into the pit of hell Then why may not Enoch and Elias be in immortall and glorified bodies since they were assumed up into heaven especially since Suarez himself again ingenuously confesseth k Animae gloriosae connaturale est uniri corpori immortali glorioso It is convenient yea proper to nature that a glorified soul should be united to an immortall and glorified bodie And the souls of Enoch and Elias are now glorified by the like acknowledgement of our learned Adversaries Again where the souls of Enoch and Elias are there also are their bodies But their souls are in the highest heaven For our Saviour saith John 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am And John 12.26 Where I am there shall also my servant be But Christ is in the highest heavens Therefore both Enoch and Elias are with their bodies in the third heaven unlesse you can say They were not given by God to Christ and were not Christs servants Now since they are there in their bodies it is very unlikely that they should be there some thousands of yeares in bodies mortall and unglorified Hierom ad Pammachium avoucheth l Fruuntur divino consortio cibo coelesti They enjoy and have the fruition of the Deitie and are fed with heavenly food which is not meat for mortall bodies Besides S. Hierom Tom. 3. Epist pag. 189. in Epistola ad Minerium Alexandrum citeth Theodorus Heracleotes instancing in Enoch and Elias as carried to heaven and as having overcome death And Apollinarius fully agreeth with the other with this addition onely that Enoch and Elias have now glorified bodies Dorotheus in Synopsi de Elia thus m Qui humi iucedebat instar spiritus cum Angelis in coelis agit Who was on the earth as other men now as a spirit liveth in heaven with the Angels therefore he hath not a mortall bodie Again in most of the generall promises that God hath made he giveth some instance or other to be as it were a taste of what shall succeed lest mens hearts should fail in expectancie of that whereof they see no kinde of proof As for example because it was promised that there shall be a resurrection it was figured not onely more obscurely in Isaac his rising up from the Altar in the drawing of Joseph out of the pit in the Whales deliverie of Jonah in Samsons breaking from the cords in Daniels escape from the lions in the waters yeelding and giving up Moses to live in the Kings house and the like but more evidently by the reall and temporarie raising up of divers dead both in the Old and New Testament Likewise the glorification of our bodies being determined by God and by him promised yea Enoch himself prophesying that God cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all Jude 14 and 15 verses which is not
made quick But as I said the specializing of two sorts quick and dead evinceth that some shall not die and some have died These words of the Creed did much move Cajetan as himself confesseth and they are brought by S. Augustine to establish this point That some shall not die but shall be changed though I confesse the definitions Ecclesiasticorum Dogmatum cap. 8. leave it doubtfull For thus they say a Quod dicimus in symbolo in adveÌ„tu Domini vivos mortuos judicandos non solùm justos peccatores significari credimus sed vivos eos qui in carne invenienâ—i sunt qui adhuc morituri creduntur vel immutandi sunt ut alii volunt ut suscitati continuò vâ—l reformati cum antè mortuis judicentur What is said in the Creed That Christ at his coming shall judge the quick and the dead we beleeve doth signifie that not onely the just but the sinners also shall be judged And even those also who shall be found alive in their bodies of flesh of whom our belief is that they shall yet die or as others think be changed that being raised immediately or changed they may be judged with those who died before And yet me thinks another exposition of Ruffinus is as bad for quick and dead he understandeth of souls and bodies As if the souls were not sentenced before in the particular judgement as if the bodies were then dead or to be dead when they are judged 3. I have not yet ended with the words of the great S. Augustine but from the phrases used by him out of the Holy Writ of Expoliari Superindui To be unclothed and clothed upon I thus frame another argument S. Paul saith 2. Corinth 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We would not be unclothed but clothed upon that mortalitie might be swallowed up of life He who is not unclothed but clothed upon holdeth what he had layeth down nothing and hath somewhat added to him But by this garment Metaphorically is the bodie meant which shall not be cast off from the soul or the soul from it but in the change shall be arayed with immortalitie Now if there be not an expoliation if there be not a separation of the soul from the bodie there is no death But there is no such expoliation therefore they who have other clothing put upon them shall not die Cajetan upon the words SVPERINDVI CVPIENTES DESIRING TO BE CLOTHED VPON c. saith The same shall truly befall us b Si in die Domini vestiti corpore non nudi inventi fuerimus id est si tunc residui futuri sumus nondum mortui if at Christs coming we shall be found clothed with our bodies and not naked that is if we shall then remain alive and not be dead before And the same Cajetan confuteth Aquinas his exposition on the place Doctour Estius approveth Cajetan and so doth Cornelius Cornelii à Lapide on the words Lorinus on Act. 10. and Justinian upon these passages of S. Paul will by no means censure our opinion as Catharinus and Soto do and this they professe though they be Jesuits For indeed our opinion is confirmed by S. Augustine de peccatorum meritis remiss 1.2 c Si non peccâsset Adam non erat expoliandus corpore sed supervestiendus immortalitate incorruptione ut abscrberetur mortale à vita id est ab animali in spirituale transiret If Adam had not sinned his soul had never been disunited from his bodie but he had been clothed upon with immortalitie and incorruption so that the mortall part should have been swallowed up of life that is should be changed from a carnall life into a spirituall Otherwhere S. Augustine saith Adam had a state by which he might passe from mortalitie to immortalitie without tasting or partaking of death Bellarmine speaking of Adam citeth this and liketh it Why therefore may not they that shall be residui left be also without death translated into glorie If the Jesuits had had such an argument they would have said It were convenient for God so to do it yea necessarie that by plain demonstration mankinde might see and know what estate they had and what estate sometimes they lost in Adam and that all mankinde should have been so translated if sinne had not hindered and thrust death among us I will onely say It may be that some are therefore kept to be translated to shew the manner how Adam without death should have been changed Salmeron objecteth Children found alive at that time if they die not shall continue in the same stature which may not be beleeved I answer he derogateth from the power of God as if he were not able to make children to be men by the change as he is able by death Can God make children of stones and can he not make men of children Did he create Adam to be a full grown man of earth and will his hand be shortned in the immutation God out of the little dust of little children raiseth up by Salmerons confession intire perfect bodies of men therefore the same God may as well as easily and perhaps more easily if God doth such things more easily then other of the same living bodies of little children by that mysterious change produce and ampliate every member to the full growth of perfect men God caused the rod of Aaron to bud and it brought forth buds and bloomed blossomes and yeelded almonds Numb 17.8 and yet it was severed from the root and laid up in the Tabernacle of the Congregation before the testimonie free from water or earth to nourish it and this was done the morrow after it was there laid though it would not have born almonds if it had been still united to the stock perhaps for many moneths after Did the same God restore unto Jeroboam his hand which was dried up before so that he could not pull it back to him again 1. Kings 13.4 and that on a sudden at the prayer of the Prophet And will Salmeron think that if children do not die they shall continue still children although they be changed Who knoweth not that the change is as great a part of Gods power as the resurrection Salmeron again objecteth If the living or quick at that day shall not die The wicked ones d Ignem conflagrationis evadent shall avoid the fire of conflagration I answer first That the fire of conflagration shall be after judgement Secondly if they should escape that fire they cannot flee from the fire of hell Thirdly the wicked ones shall arise with the just all together The wicked ones may be changed also at the same instant that the just are and that is at the same instant of the resurrection Christ is the resurrection and the life John 11.25 The resurrection to them that are dead perhaps the life to them that are changed and die not The resurrection of the dead
raised incorruptible and we shall be changed For this corruptible must put on incorruption c. What coherence subsequent then shall you make unto these words None at all The coherence must be with the antecedent words But say I take the antecedent words as the Vulgat hath them and reade as you must the connexion in this sort We shall indeed all arise but shall not all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump For the trumpet shall sound c. I say even in this reading there is little sense also yea much untruth Is it not certain that we shall be changed in a moment Or how long shall the time of change be There is no way to avoid this foul absurditie which cometh by the Vulgat edition unlesse it be by a greater that is by saying that you will make an Hyperbaton and include these words We shall not all be changed in a Parenthesis and then the sense will be We shall arise in a moment c. For though it be true that we shall arise in a moment yet there is no ground that we shall not be changed in a moment In all likelihood a change may rather be more speedie which is without death then that change which is made through death and resurrection If they may be and shall be raised and changed in a moment they may in a moment be changed and not raised Secondly no authoritie that I know runneth for such a needlesse Parenthesis and I deem it as a violence offered to the Text so to strain it when the sense will runne fairly otherwise according to the best Greek copies We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump Let this also serve to have been spoken against the Latin Vulgat edition and its bad reading Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur In momento in ictu oculi in novissima tuba canet enim tuba mortui resurgent incorrupti c. By how much the lesse sense is in this by so much the more are we bound to adhere to the Originall and the most common and best copies of it This I may be bold to averre That if some shall not die and yet be changed there shall be an infallible yea demonstrative proof unto sense That the very self same bodie which man had shall inherit eternall glorie For if they die not they must needs keep and have the same bodies from which they are not parted by immutation Yea the identicall resurrection of the same very bodies which were dead may thus farre be proved That if the changed bodies shall be still the same in substance though differing in qualities the raised bodies also shall be no otherwise nor any way different and Pythagoras will then disprove his * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transmigration of souls into diverse bodies and his heathenish * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration to which Nicodemus seemed to have an eye Joh. 3.4 when every soul cometh arayed with its own bodie and when they who by change put not off their bodies shall come alive to judgement 5. The Pelagians were wont thus to argue If sinne came in by Adam then all must needs die But some shall not die namely those y Qui reperientur vivi who shall be found remaining alive Therefore sinne came not into the world by Adam S. Augustine answereth this argument very sufficiently otherwise and it may easily and briefly be answered All shall die reatu though not actu Yet that holy Father and that great just enemie of the accursed Pelagians z In majorem cautelam for the greater and better securitie and safetie would seem to rest doubtfull of their assumption which he needed not Whereupon de Civitat 20.20 he saith a Dormitio praecedit quamvìs brevissima non tamen nulla Death goeth before a most short and speedie one yet a death And in the same place b Per mortem ad immortalitatem mirâ celeritate transibunt They shall slip sail or passe over by death to immortalitie with wonderfull speed Again de peccat merit remiss 2.31 c Hoc quibusdam in sine largietur Deus ut mortem istam repentiuâ commutatione non sentient God at the end of the world shall grant this priviledge unto some That by reason of their sudden change they shall not feel death And Retract 2.33 d Aut non morientur aut de vita ista in mortem de morte in aeternam vitam celerrimâ commutatione tanquam in ictu oculi transeundo mortem non sentient Either they die not or otherwise they glide from this life into death and from death into eternall life as it were in the twinkling of an eye by a most speedie alteration taking no notice or sense of death He leaves it doubtfull as you see in these his last books though sometimes before he thought That all should die and otherwhere as ad Dulcitium quaest 3. That they should not die The Master of the Sentences saith concerning the question Whether the change be by death or without it e Horum quid sit verius non est humani judicii definire Man cannot determine certainly which of these is truest Rabanus lib. 4. de sermon proprietat having alledged the consent of divers Fathers to establish his own opinion That all must die yet annexeth this Because there are others alike Catholick and learned men who beleeve That the soul remaining in the bodie those shall be changed to immortalitie who shall be found alive at the coming of our Lord f Et hoc eis reputari pro resurrectione ex mortuis quòd mortalitatem immutatione deponant non morte c. and that it stands them in stead of rising from the dead that they cast away mortalitie by change not by death Let any man rest on which opinion he pleaseth c. Which very words also you shall finde in the book de Ecclesiast Dogmat. cap. 7. Now though S. Augustine was dubious and some with him and though some also have imbraced the contrary opinion yet equally Catholick and learned men have been constant to maintain That some shall not die but be changed as you have heard confessed If you please you may take a view of some more particularly The afore named Theodorus Heracleotes cited by Hierom in his epistle to Minerius and Alexander hath it thus i Sancti qui in die judicii in corporibus reperiendi sunt non gustabunt mortem erúnt que cum Domino gravissimâ mortis necessitate calcatâ The Saints who in the day of the last judgement shall be found to be alive and remain in their earthly bodies shall not see death or taste of it and shall be with the Lord kicking and spurning at death and the greatest inforcing necessitie thereof Apollinaris cited in
Assumption most honoured among the Papists and yet there is monstrous disagreeing among them who favour her Assumption The last instances concern not our question ibid. 8. Pineda presumed too farre upon uncertainties Lorinus dareth not name any particularly that were raised It cannot be known certainly 136 CHAP. XIIII 1. MY conjecture that none of the Patriarchs or old Prophets were raised 137 2. An objection concerning Peters knowing of Moses and Elias on mount Tabor answered ibid. 3. A conjecture that the Saints who lived in Christs time and died before him were raised at his Passion Who they were in most likelihood When Joseph the reputed father of Christ did die 138 4. The end why they were raised To whom they appeared 139 5. A crotchet concerning the wives of dead men which have been raised 140 CHAP. XV. 1. THe raised Saints ascended not into heaven with Christ as is proved by Scripture and reason Suarez his shallow answer Epiphanius strengthening my former positive conjectures 141 2. If the raised ascended bodily into heaven the Patriarchs should not be left behinde 142 3. The ascending bodily of the Saints into heaven not necessarie or behooffull ibid. 4. Onely Christs bodie was seen ascending 143 5. In likelihood Christ would have shewed the Patriarchs unto some of his Apostles ibid. CHAP. XVI 1. ANgels taken for men Angels representing men are called men 144 2. The name JEHOVAH ascribed to an Angel representing JEHOVAH say Estius and Thyraeus Picking of faults in the Apocryphall Scriptures to be abhorred ibid. 3. Drusius his povertie The Apocrypha is too little esteemed The Angel who guided young Tobie defended 145 4. The great difference between Christs manner of rising and Lazarus his 146 CHAP. XVII 1. THe place of Matth. 27.53 is diversly pointed and according to the pointing is the diversitie of meaning The first implieth that the Saints arose with Christ though their graves were opened before This interpretation is not so likely though received generally 148 2. The second inferreth that they arose before Christ though they went not into the citie till after his resurrection This is favoured by the Syriack and is more agreeable to reason ibid. 3. That the raised Saints died again proved by reasons and Heb. 11.40 149 4. Christ the first-fruits of the dead and of the raised Angelicall assumed bodies were seen and heard much rather should mens bodies ascending with Christ 150 5. S. Augustine Aquinas Hierom Chrysostom Theophylact Euthymius Prosper Soto Salmeron Barradius Pererius Valentian affirm that the raised Saints died again Franciscus Lucas Brugensis holds it likely 151 CHAP. XVIII 1. THe arguments of the contrarie opinion answered Suarez and especially Cajetan censured 152 2. That by the holy Citie Jerusalem below was meant proved at large Josephus and the Jews erring about the name of Jerusalem Hierom uncertain 154 3. How the raised appeared A difference between appearing as men And appearing as newly raised men Franciscus Lucas Brugensis rejected 156 4. An argument of Maldonat answered by the prodigious Legend of Christina who died twice No hurt is to man if God will send his soul from an heavenly place to live a while on earth again 157 5. No harm to die twice The difference between death compleat and incompleat 159 6. God can dispense with his own laws 160 CHAP. XIX 1. STrange conceits concerning Nero from Suetonius Tacitus Hierom Augustine Nero supposed to be Antichrist 161 2. Another incredible relation of the Armenian who is said to have lived at Christs passion The Armenians have their holy frauds ibid. The Contents of the third book CHAPTER I. Sect. 1. MAny Papists are very peremptorie that all and every one must die Melchior Canus is more moderate The words are onely indefinite not universall 165 2. Objections brought to prove that universally all shall die Their answers Generall rules have exception Even many learned Papists have acknowledged so much The point handled especially against Bellarmine 166 3. Indefinites have not the force of universals Even universals are restrained 169 4. Salmeron bringeth many objections to prove an absolute necessitie that every one shall die All his objections answered Mans living in miserie is a kinde of death ibid. CHAP. II. 1. THe third question resumed Whether every one must die The second part of the answer unto it That some have been excepted as Enoch and Elias The controversie hath been exquisitely handled by King James and Bishop Andrews 173 2. Bellarmines third demonstration that Antichrist is not yet come propounded The place of Malachi 4.5 expounded by Bishop Andrews and enlarged by my additions The Papists objection answered 174 3. The place of Ecclesiasticus 48.10 concerning Elias examined 178 4. Another place of Ecclesiasticus 44.16 concerning Enoch handled at large against Bellarmine Enoch was never any notorious sinner in some mens opinions Others otherwise Their arguments for both opinions are onely probable and answered My opinion and it confirmed Some think Enoch died Strange and various opinions concerning S. John the Evangelist his living death and miraculous grave More miracles or else mistakings in the Temples of Christs Sepulchre and his Assumption about Jerusalem S. John did die Enoch did not die but is living Mine own opinion of the place Genes 5.24 Et non ipse and it confirmed A comparison between Enochs Elijahs and Christs ascension The posture and circumstances of Christs ascending 180 5. Bellarmine and others say Paradise is now extant In the earth or in the aire saith Lapide the Jesuit The old translation censured The heaven into which Enoch and Elias were carried was not Aërium nor Coeleste but Supercoeleste The earthly Paradise is not extant as it was Salianus with others say truely The materiall remaineth not the formall Superest quoad Essentiam non quoad Ornatum The Place is not removed but the Pleasure and Amenitie Salianus his grosse errour That Enoch and Elias are kept by Angels within the bounds of old Paradise on earth 194 6. Enoch shall never die as is proved from Hebr. 11.5 Three evasions in answer to that place confuted Melchizedech and strange things of him The East-Indian language hath great affinitie with the Hebrew An errour of moment in Guilielmus Postellus Barentonius Elias was not burnt by that fire which rapted him Soul and bodie concur to make a man saith Augustine from the great Marcus Varro Vives taxed Moses at the transfiguration appeared in his own bodie An idle conceit of Bellarmine concerning Moses his face and good observations of Origen upon that point It is probable that Elias was changed at his rapture and had then a glorified bodie An humane soul may possibly be in a mortall bodie in the third heaven Corah Dathan and Abiram are in their bodies in hell properly so called and alive in the hell of the damned Ribera and Viegas confuted Our Doctour Raynolds was not in the right in this matter Some kinde of proofs That Enoch and Elias are in glorified bodies
in heaven The place of Revel 11.7 concerning the two Witnesses winnowed by Bishop Andrews Enoch and Elias are not those two witnesses 200 CHAP. III. 1. SOme others hereafter shall be excepted from death The change may be accounted in a generall large sense a kinde of death The Papists will have a reall proper death Aquinas an incineration This is disproved 1. Thessal 4.17 which place is handled at large The rapture of the godly is sine media morte without death The resurrection is of all together The righteous prevent not the wicked in that 224 2. By the words of the Creed is proved that some shall never die The same is confirmed by other places of Scripture with the consent of S. Augustine and Cajetan The definitions Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum of the sentences and tenents of the Church leave the words doubtfully Rabanus his exposition rejected 227 3. The place of S. Paul 2. Corinth 5.4 evinceth That some shall not die Cajetan with us and against Aquinas Doctour Estius and Cornelius à Lapide the Jesuit approve Cajetan S. Augustine is on our side and evinceth it by Adams estate before the fall which state Bellarmine denieth not Salmerons objections answered 228 4. Some shall be exempted from death as is manifested 1. Corinth 15.51 The place fully explicated The common Greek copies preferred The Greek reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall not all sleep standeth with all truth conveniencie probabilitie and sense The other Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall therefore all of us sleep and the more different Vulgat Omnes quidem resurgemus sed non omnes immutabimur Indeed we shall all arise but we shall not all be changed justly exploded as adverse to sense 230 5. The Pelagians though accursed hereticks yet held truely That some shall not die S. Augustine dubious Others stick in his hesitancie Yet other Fathers and late Writers are constant That some shall be priviledged from death yet that change may be called a kinde of death 235 FINIS A Catalogue of the severall Authours quoted in these three books of MISCELLANIES A ABen Ezra Abraham de Balmis Abulensis Adrichomius Cornelius Agrippa Albericus Gentilis Albertus Magnus Alchabitius Alexander ab Alexandro Ambrosius Bishop Andrews Anselmus Apollinaris Appianus Alexandrinus Aquila Aquinas Petronius Arbiter Arboreus Franciscus Aretinus Aretius Arias Montanus Aristoteles Athanasius Avenarius Augustinus B BAlthasar Bambach Moses Bar Cepha Baronius Barradius Basilius Beda Bellarminus Bernardus Bertram Beza Bilson Boëtius Bolducus Bonaventura Bosquier Brentius Broughton Lucas Brugensis Bucer Bullinger Busaeus C Coelius secundus Curio Caesaris commentaria Cajetanus Calvinus Melchior Canus Carafa Carthusianus Casaubonus Cassander Cassiodorus Catharinus Centuriatores Cevallerius Chaldee Targum Christopher Castrensis Chrysostomus Cicero Clemens Romanus Clemens Alexandrinus Joannes Climachus Philip de Comines Concilium Elibertinum Concilium Milevetanum Franciscus Collius Coverdale Cusanus Cyprianus Cyrillus Alexandrinus D DAmianus à Goës Rabbi David Del Rio. Demosthenes Petrus Diaconus Didymus Dionysius Areopagita Dorotheus Drusius Andreas Dudithius Durandus E ELias Levita Epimenides Epiphanius Erasmus Espencaeus Estius Eugubinus Eusebius Eustathius Antiochenus Euthymius F FAber Stapulensis Felisius Fernelius Ferus Festus Feuardentius Dr. Field Dr. Fox Fulgentius Dr. Fulk G GAgneius Galenus Gasparus Sanctius Genebrardus Gerson Gorranus Gregorius Greg. Nyssenus Greg. de Valentia Gretser H HAlensis Haymo Heinsius Helvicus Hermogenes Hieronymus Hilarius Hippocrates Hippolytus Holcot Homerus Horatius Hugo Cardinalis Hugo Eterianus I JAcobus de Valentia K. James Jansenius Ignatius Illyricus Irenaeus Isidorus Isidorus Pelusiota Josephus Justinus Benedictus Justinianus K KEmnitius Kimchi L LAertius Cornelius à Lapide Laurentii historia Anatomica Joannes Leo. Rabbi Levi. Libavius Livius Lombardus Lorinus Ludolphus Carthusianus Ludovicus de Ponte vallis Oletani Ludovicus Vives Lutherus Lyranus M MAjoranus Maldonatus Marianus Scotus Marsilius Andreasius Martin Marre-prelate Martinus Cantipretensis Justin Martyr Masius Matthew Paris Melchior Flavius Rabbi Menachem Mercer Minshew Mollerus Bishop Mountague Lord Michael de Montaigne Montanus Peter Morales Mr. Fines Morison Rabbi Moses Peter Moulin Muncer Musculus N HIer. Natalis Nazianzenus Nicephorus Nicetas Nonnus O OCkam Oecolampadius Oecumenius Jofrancus Offusius Olympiodorus Origenes P PAcianus Pagninus Paracelsus Paulinus Pererius Peter Martyr Petrus Pomponatius Philo Judaeus Photius Pighius Pineda Plato Plinius Plotinus Plutarchus Polybius Julianus Pomerius Porphyrius Postellus Primasius Procopius Gazaeus Propertius Prosper Ptolomeus R Dr. Raynolds Ribera Richeomus Jesuita Rodulphus Cluniacensis Monachus Rosinus Ruffinus Rupertus S EMmanuel Sa. Salianus Mr. Salkeld Salmanticensis Judaeus Salmeron Rabbi Salomon Mr. Sands Sasbout Scaliger Scharpius Dr. Sclater Scotus Mr. Selden Seneca Septuaginta Mr. Sheldon Barthol Sibylla Sixtus Senensis Sleidanus Socrates Sohnius Sophronius Soto Stapleton Robertus Stephanus Stow. Strabo Suarez Suetonius Suidas Surius Symmachus T TAcitus Tertullian Theodoretus Theodosius Theophylactus Petrus Thyraeus Tichonius Titus Bostrensis Toletus Tostatus Solomo Trecensis Tremellius Trelcatius Historie of the councell of Trent Turrianus V VAlla Terentius Varro Vasques Vatablus Didacus Vega. Ludovicus Vertomannus Blasius Viegas Joannes Viguerius Godfridus Abbas Vindocinensis Virgilius Vorstius Bishop Usher Leonardus de Utino W WHitakerus Willet Z ZAnchius Zimenes O Blessed God Father Sonne and holy Ghost whose deserving mercie to me hath been so infinite that nothing in earth which I enjoy is worthy enough to be offered unto thee yet because thou hast so plentifully rewarded the widow of Sarepta for sharing that little which she had unto the Prophet and hast promised even the kingdome of heaven to them who in thy name give a cup of water of cold water and hast most graciously accepted the poorest oblations both of the goats hair toward thy Tabernacle and the widows two mites into the treasurie receive I most humbly beseech thee the free-will-offering of my heart and weak endeavours of my hand in this intended service and as thou didst fill Bezaleel and Aholiab with an excellent spirit of wisdome and subtill inventions to finde out all curious works to the beautifying of thy Tabernacle so I most meekly desire thee to enlighten my soul to elevate my dull understanding that I may search for such secret things as may be found and finde such things as may be searched for lawfully and modestly and that I may like Joshuahs good spies acquaint my self and others with the desert wayes and the severall tracts and paths which our souls immediately after death must travell and passe over toward the Celestiall Canaan O God my good God grant me to accomplish this through the safe conduct of Him who is the faithfull Guide the onely Way the Light and Joy of my soul my Lord and Saviour JESVS CHRIST So be it most gracious Redeemer So be it MISCELLANIES OF DIVINITIE THE FIRST BOOK CHAP. I. Sect. 1. THe subject of the whole Work The reason why I chose the Text of Hebrews 9.27 to discourse upon The division of it 2 Amphibologie prejudiciall to truth Death appointed by GOD yet for Adams fault The tree
death and therefore he is exempted out of the compasse of that word All by speciall dispensation and onely Abel Noah Abraham are the All there meant Secondly saith Drusius in his Preface It may be said the Apostle spake m De morte calamitatum agritudinum ut sententia sit Nè videret mortem hoc est ea incommoda quae mortâ—m comitari solent of calamities crosses and sicknesses which may be accounted as a death as if he had said Lest he might see death that is THE DISCOMMODITIES AND INCONVENIENCIES WHICH ACCOMPANY DEATH For who are continually sick are accounted as dead First I say this is a forced interpretation Enoch was translated lest he should see death that is lest he should be continually sick and that he might not feel the discommodities which accompany death Secondly that opinion leadeth Enoch to death but not the dolorous way to it which indeed rather beggeth the question then proveth any thing against me Lastly there is no circumstance inducing us to think that the Apostle by the word death aimed at the large and extended signification of it for calamities or sicknes Sure about Enoch his time there were no such notable calamities upon the Saints and the generations of the world were then strong and healthfull Thirdly saith Drusius in the same place It may be said Enoch died not because the Scripture when it mentioneth his rapture mentioneth not his death so the Jews say Jacob is not dead because the Scripture useth the word of EXPIRING not of DYING This is ridiculous for what is expiring but dying Genes 49.33 Jacob yeelded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people doth not either of these phrases do not both evince that he died Oh but the Jews say Jacob non est mortuus I am sure the Apostle Hebr. 11.21 speaking of Jacob saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he was dying he blessed his children or when he was a dying as it is in our last translation It evinceth he died within a while after And I am sure again that Christ Luke 20.37 from the testimonie of Moses proveth that Jacob died I am also sure that S. Stephen saith Act. 7.15 Jacob went down into Egypt and died Surely these crotchets of misbeleeving Jews should not have the least countenance against pregnant proofs both of the Old and New Testament Drusius yet inforceth this third answer thus The same Apostle saith of Melchisedech Heb. 7.3 HE WAS WITHOVT FATHER WITHOVT MOTHER WITHOVT DESCENT HAVING NEITHER BEGINNING OF DAYES NOR END OF LIFE Wherefore without doubt because in Scripture there is no mention of his parents and kindred of his birth or of his death I answer First If it be said of all whose progenitours issues kindreds birth and death are unrevealed in Scripture that they were without father mother descent having neither beginning of dayes nor end of life we should have many very many more Melchisedechs in those respects Demetrius the silversmith and Alexander the coppersmith and troups of the wicked Daniel Sidrach Misach and Abednego Nathanael and Joseph of Arimathea S. Mark and S. Luke and divers others For what mention is there of their parents their children their genealogies their birth-dayes or of their death-dayes in the sacred Writ Therefore these words may be said of Melchisedech without any reference at all to that reason and the words may not be said of others though the divine Scripture omitteth as much as it did of Melchisedech Secondly if we grant that it is in part the reason why he is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a father c. yet it may be said also because no other record before S. Pauls time no sacred or profane Authour no tradition no book Apocryphall historified his parents or issue so farre as yet appeareth And because S. Paul who knew the names of Jannes and Jambres some such way or by revelation immediate and by no such way knew Melchisedechs pedegree he might say as he did Thirdly Erasmus saith Melchisedech came of obscure parents not worthy to be named Before him Eustatius Antiochenus said the same and perhaps it may be a reason why David called his Nephews Joab and Abishai the sonnes of Zeruiah 2. Samuel 19.22 for Zeruiah was Davids own sister 1. Chron. 2.16 and omitted their father for his unworthinesse yea the Divine historie where David is silent often mentioneth Joab and Abishai with the addition of their mothers name but alwayes omitteth the fathers name This I cannot think to be Melchisedechs case for being a King and so glorious a Priest both in one it is most unlikely that he had obscure and poore parents yet he might descend from cursed Cham as well as Christ from Moabitish Ruth or from Rahab the harlot of Canaan Fourthly the Jews say He was a bastard But it is sooner said then proved for never bastard attained as called by God to those two highest conjoyned titles of King and Priest Many men have thought him to be Noah and more to be Sem Noahs sonne as some Jews Lyra and Abulensis when indeed he can be neither n Quidam admodum stultè opinantur Sem esse Melchisedechum Vâ—rùm id impossibile est suprà enim cùm ejus genealogiam explicaremus patuit quòd nec Tharrae tempora assequi potuit Some very foolishly think that Sem was Melchisedech saith Procopius But that is impossible for when I set down his genealogie it appeareth that he lived not to the time of Terah or Thara Genesis 11.24 So he who hitteth the truth that Melchisedech was not Sem but is out in the genealogie for both Noah and Sem lived in Abrahams time See Cornelius à Lapide on the Hebrews and the learned Helvicus Noah saith Helvicus died the 57 yeare of Abraham and Sem out-lived Abraham That neither Noah nor Sem could be Melchisedech is demonstrable from Hebr. 7.6 Melchisedechs descent or pedegree is not counted saith the Apostle Hebr. 7. from Levi or Abraham or their Progenitours who came from Arphaxad the sonne of Sem the sonne of Noah Secondly both Noah and Sem and their genealogie and generations are perfectly and exactly set down but Melchisedech is without descent or pedegree or genealogie Hebr. 7.3 as undescribed say they Thirdly we know Sems father was Noah Noahs father was Lamech but Melchisedechs father is not known Fourthly Noah died Genes 9.29 and Sem lived not 603 yeares as it is apparent Genes 11.10 c. Helvicus maketh his death fall on his six hundredth yeare but there is no end known of Melchisedechs dayes Origen in likelihood fore-seeing the inconveniences accompanying the fore-recited and commonly received opinion inventeth a new trick That Melchisedech was an Angel After him ran Didymus But no Angel was ever a temporall earthly King no Angel was ever a Priest offering up bread and wine and receiving tithes or had an order of Priesthood annexed to any of them no Angel had ever pedigree from