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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60588	A sermon preached before the right worshipful company of merchants trading into the Levant, at St. Olaves Hart-Street London, Tuesday June, 2. M.DC.LXVIII. By Tho. Smith, M.A. fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, and chaplain to the right honourable Sr. Daniel Harvey, His Majesties embassadour to Constantinople.	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1668 (1668)	Wing S4252; ESTC R222747	24,313	60

Seed of David according to the Flesh that is Christ as man the Son of a Virgin-Mother derived his descent and Pedigree from the Jewish Nation and particularly from the Royal Family the house of David and may be further explain'd by a Parallel place 2 Cor. XIII 4. Though he was Crucified through weakness that is by reason of the infirmity of the Humane Nature which is obnoxious to death yet he liveth by the Power of God where his being Crucified through weakness is the same with his being put to death in the Flesh and his living by the Power of God the same with his being quickned by the Spirit Hereupon the Apostle adds by which He that is Christ went and Preached to the Spirits in Prison 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by which which according to all Grammatical Analogy does plainly and necessarily refer to the word immediately foregoing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit and therefore I cannot but wonder at the Greek Scholiast who explains them by the Illative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were to make the Apostle argue at a very loose rate and is altogether inconsequent and besides his purpose who in the continued order of his discourse shews how Christ may be said to Preach to the Spirits in Prison Which reference being so plain and easy and natural this Notion of Spirit so agreeable to Scripture and the Articles of our Faith will serve for a Key to open the difficulties of the Text. By which also he went and Preached to the Spirits in Prison This for the Connexion which it was necessary for me to shew in order to the full meaning and understanding of the words which being difficult in themselves and made more so by the fancies and descants of Interpreters it will take up some time to explain them and settle and fix their true meaning before I can raise any doctrinal Propositions to build us up in our most holy Faith as in our ordinary building the Foundation must first be cleared before we can raise any strong or lasting Superstructure 1. Some there are and those great Names justly reverenced for their Learning and their Antiquity men that by their Writings and by their Sufferings have deserved well of the Church of God who relying too much on the Literal sence of the Words which they took in grosse and confounded without any distinction pleased themselves with this Interpretation That Christ in his Soul then really separate from his Body during the intervening space between his Death and his Resurrection Preached to the Souls of men below in Prison which they explain by Hell or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some place separate and distinct from Heaven and accordingly that the Patriarchs and their Posterity together with Plato and other good-natured and enlightned Heathen upon their owning of Him were freed and delivered from that Prison where they had been so long detained and redeemed from that state of Thraldom those only that rejected him continuing there upon the accompt of their Infidelity An Exposition received by several of the Ancients and so dispersed in their Writings that I shall not heap up Citations in the Proof of a Thing that is granted on all hands I shall therefore content my self with that single one of St. Clement of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Scriptures manifestly declare that our Lord preached the Gospel to those that perished in the Floud yea rather to all them that were enthralled and detained in Prison and held in Ward So that the Text is alleged as the end and design of Christs descent into Hell which They understood Locally and by which They explain it But whatever be the meaning of that Article which I am not in the least obliged to explain which Ruffinus tells us was left out of the Old Creed of the Roman Church and is not extant in the Nicene and was first found in that of Aquileia where He was a Presbyter their Interpretation of these words can no way stand For 1. It supposes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which to refer to the Soul of Christ which before has been sufficiently disproved and the Translating the words by vivens spiritu which perhaps might contribute to the mistake among the Latins is very untrue all the Greek Copyes having not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not living but made alive and by and by shall be more fully evidenced 2. Supposing the meaning of the Article in their sense there may be other ends of the descent assigned this of theirs to free the Patriarchs and to preach to those that were dead long before being impossible to be true As being 1. Repugnant to the plain words of the Text which says expresly that the Souls preached to were disobedient in the days of Noah marking out that Generation of men that was contemporary with Noah and the particular time of their being disobedient the time before the Floud while the Ark was a preparing But this cannot belong to the Fathers who lived in the Ages before Noah and yet they reckon Adam among those that ascended with Christ which they grounded on the XXVII St. Matthew 52. and the Graves were opened and many bodies of Saints which slept arose and consequently that He enjoyed the benefit of this descent nor can They be said to be disobedient or refractory Abel and Seth and Enoch served God in their Generations and had this testimony that They were righteous Heb. XI 13. These dyed in Faith 2. It is Repugnant to the condition of departed Souls whether those of the righteous or those of the disobedient 1. The Souls of the righteous were in a blissful and happy condition and needed not that Christ should be preached to them They had when they were upon Earth a praenotion and belief of Messias that was to be born in the fullness of Time and by his Merits they were saved who was The Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World that is in the Divine decree and appointment and to all intents and purposes the merits of his death were applicable to those that lived before his coming in the Flesh as to those that live after It was by virtue of his pretious bloud that was shed upon the Cross they were accepted that were accepted I know it was maintained of Old that notwithstanding this supposed descent and deliverance the Souls of departed Saints are still in abditis receptaculis exterioribus atriis in some secret recesses where they expect the Resurrection of the Body But the holy Scriptures make no mention of a Third estate no Limbus Patrum or Purgatory to be met with there 'T is true They are not in that perfection and glory in Heaven to which They shall be advanced after the Resurrection when their souls and bodyes shall be re-united yet however They are in a state of Bliss and Happiness The Souls of the Just are in the hands of

A SERMON Preached before the RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Company OF MERCHANTS Trading into the LEVANT AT St. OLAVES HART-STREET LONDON Tuesday JVNE 2. M.DC.LXVIII BY THO. SMITH M. A. Fellow of MAGDALEN COLLEGE in OXFORD and Chaplain to the RIGHT HONOURABLE Sr. DANIEL HARVEY His MAJESTIES EMBASSADOVR to CONSTANTINOPLE LONDON Printed by T. Roycroft for S. Mearn Book-binder to the KING' 's most Excellent Majesty 1668. INSIGNISSIMO VIRO Domino ANDREAE RICCARD Equiti Aurato Amplissimae Societatis Mercatorum Cum Imperatoris TURCARUM subditis In Oriente Commercia exercentium Praesidi longè dignissimo Clarissimo D. Vice-Praesidi D. ASSISTENTIBVS Reliquisque ejusdem Mercaturae Sociis Viris Eximiis Clarissimis Humanissimis THO. SMITH Hanc Concionem qualē qualem brevì ac tumultuariò conceptam Et coram Iis nuper habitam In 1 D. Pet. III. cap. 19 20. v. Quem difficilem locum pro pio erga Sacras literas amore Discutiendum voluere Jamque eorundem jussu Publici Juris factam L. MQ D. D. CQ IMPRIMATUR Sam. Parker RRmo in Christo Patri ac Domino D no Gilberto Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Ex. Aedibus Lambeth Jun. 15. 1668. A SERMON Preached before the Levant-Company 1. St. Peter III. 19 20. By which also he went and Preached unto the Spirits in Prison Which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the daies of Noah while the Ark was a preparing wherein few that is eight Souls were saved by Water THE First times of Christianity were times of great tryal and danger and the Gospel though it brought along with it the glad tydings of Salvation and laid down rules of Life beyond the strictest institutions of Philosophy so conducive to the improvements of reason which was Clouded and be-nighted with Error and had lost its command in the Soul and was become subject to the Sensitive appetite so directly tending to the advance of Humane nature and the peace and quiet and benefit of the Universe beyond the highest reaches and fetches of State-Policy yet every where met with opposition from the Civil Powers which might be enough to stagger and shake the weake faith of the newly-converted Christians and prove a dangerous temptation to make them Renounce that Christian Profession they had so lately taken up which they saw was pursued with Scorn and Persecution and Death To Obviate and prevent which is the design of St. Peter in this Epistle inscribed to the believing Jews and especially those of the Asian dispersion his peculiar charge and care as being the Apostle of the Circumcision and to encourage them to constancy and perseverance notwithstanding their present sufferings and hardships they were forced to indure and undergo Which as he does throughout the whole so especially he urges upon them in this Chapter from a double Consideration The one That to Suffer for righteousness sake and the Gospel to endure Persecutions and Crosses upon the accompt of the true Religion to bear witness to the Truth though it cost them their lives was indeed a seeming misery but a real happiness Verse 14. If ye suffer for Righteousness sake happy are ye In the eye of the World their condition might seem dolorous and sad but to them it was to be esteemed a matter of joy and triumph that They were accounted worthy to suffer for Christ. A good Conscience and the honour of being a Martyr and the hope of Glory promised as a reward of their sufferings and constancy should carry them through all difficulties only they were to be very sollicitous that they suffered as Christians that no base or unlawfull Act brought them into those sad instances that their Accusers objected to them no other crime but their Religion that they were not haled to the Barr and arraigned as Murderers or as Thieves or evil doers or busy-bodies in other mens matters not as Enemies to the Government under which they lived not as Seditious nor Pragmatical not as Invaders of other mens lives or Civil Rights and Proprieties nor as guilty of any of those flagitious Crimes that are justly punishable by Humane Laws The other From the Example of our Blessed Saviour in the verse before the Text For Christ also hath once suffered He came down from his Glory wherewith he was encircled and assumed our Nature and all its infirmities and was content to be cloistered up Nine months in a Virgins Womb and then came into the World a poor helpless Infant exposed to all the hardships and miseries of life to Hunger and Thirst and Cold and all the inconveniencies that attend Poverty and at last after he had spent very nigh Four and thirty years in sadness and disgrace was condemned to the ignominy and torment of the Cross. They could not faint so long as they had his blessed Example in their eye this must needs put life into them and add strength to their Faith and constancy to their Resolutions and especially if they would reflect for whose sake Christ underwent with such un-wearied patience all these sufferings Christ also hath once Suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the Flesh Innocence it self was arraigned that the Criminal might be acquitted and Justice condemned to dye that We that were the only Guilty might survive It was his Love to man even when at enmity with God that brought him dowm from Heaven and fastened him to the Cross and laid him in the Grave and all this that he might reconcile us to our Maker whom we had offended and bring us to God and shall not we follow after the Author and Finisher of our Faith this Captain of our Salvation who was thus consecrated by Suffering and endure a little for his sake that Suffered so much for ours The Apostle having pursued his Argument thus far from the Sufferings and Death of Christ immediately subjoyns the Article of his Resurrection Being put to Death in the Flesh but quickened by the Spirit that is though Christ as man died and there was a real disunion of Soul and Body yet he revived again by his Eternal Power and God-head for so much we must understand by those words quickened by the Spirit which cannot be meant of the Soul of Christ the other part of the Humanity which being immortal can in no wise whatever be said to be made alive but are in a direct opposition to the former Clause where Flesh signifies The whole Humane Nature as it doth in several places of Scripture which refer particularly to our Saviour 1 Tim. III. 16. Without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness God manifested in Flesh St. John I. 14. The Word was made Flesh that is the two Natures Divine and Humane were both united in the Person of Christ Rom. IX 5. Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came and Rom. I. 3. Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord who was made of the

the Lord and therefore there was no need they should long and wish for Christs descent into the lower Parts who before had been made Partakers of the benefits of his death and passion as some strangely gloss from Zach. IX 11 12. As for thee also by the bloud of thy Covenant I have sent for thy Prisoners out of the Pit wherein is no Water Turn ye to the strong hold ye Prisoners of Hope Which words in their Literal sense import only thus much That God either had or would for his Covenants sake free the Jews the People of the daughter of Sion v. 9. out of their Babylonian slavery bring them from the dry and parched and sandy places of Chaldaea where they were carried Captive according to their hopes and expectations And 2. For the Souls of the unfaithful and disobedient who dyed in their sins and at defiance with God They were shut up in Prison never to be released The Sentence was past upon Them and there is no hope or possibility of ever getting it reversed nor were they in a capacity of receiving benefit by the Preaching of Christ. There is no saving faith no effectual repentance in those infernal Regions Rivers of tears there poured out cannot wash off the stain and guilt of Sin After death immediately follows the Judgment and the Soul at its departure knows its Doom and what it must trust to for ever 3. It is contrary to the end and design of the Gospel which only respects the living in its Publication Go ye and teach all Nations St. Mat. XXVIII 19. and more fully St. Marke XVI 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature was the Commission Christ gave the Apostles after his Resurrection that is Publish the Gospel through all the Parts of the known and Habitable World make known the Doctrine of the Cross to all the Nations of the Earth and make Proselytes and Disciples by Baptism and instruct them in the true Faith it is not Descend into the Regions below and there Preach me as some have fancyed the Apostles to have done after their death that they might speak congruously to their Hypothesis But we know and are assured from Scripture that He that now refuses and slights the overtures of Life and Salvation that rejects the offers of a Saviour and prefers a few brutish Pleasures which perish in the enjoyment and yet leave a deadly sting behind them before the Promises of unmixt Joy and Glory must never expect the benefit of an after-Faith or Repentance in another World If we would be happy hereafter it must be procured in the time of life Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation even while we live and the night cometh that I may apply that of our blessed Saviour St. John IX 4. the night of death wherein no man can work Thus you see this First Exposition however it was so greedily swallowed down by some of the Antients and gained credit from their Authority is very weak and bottoms upon a Sandy Foundation and signifies just nothing as to the true sense and meaning of the Words 2. Others there are who rejecting the Literal sense fly to a Mystical one understanding by the Spirits in Prison sinners in general who are imprisoned and shut up in darkness and infidelity while they live and are in the Flesh and are slaves to their carnal desires who were disobedient after the manner and likeness of those that lived in the times of Noah But against this Exposition I have these Two things to allege 1. In General That it is a sure Rule of the Schools and ought to be followed in the explaining of Scripture Scripturae verba proprie accipienda sunt quando nihil inde absurdi sequitur that the words of Scripture are to be taken properly and according to their Literal meaning and as they are vulgary understood when nothing of absurdity nothing that is disagreeable to Faith or the common notices of Mankind can follow from such a literal acception And therefore to seek for Allegoryes in plain sense and find out Mysteries where none were intended is neither safe nor proper for if a liberty be once indulged herein what bounds can be set to a roving fancy which loves to sport it self with pleasing Idaeas and Phantasms it self has raised and men too are very favourable to the issue of their brain those fine and nice conjectures and interpretations that owe their conception and being to a strong and ungoverned imagination And how much Religion has been prejudiced and the truth of Scripture-story brought into question by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this vein and humour of Allegorizing which Origen by his great Name and Learning brought into the Church having borrowed it from Philo the Jew I wish there was no cause to complain especially in this Age of ours wherein every Pretender out of an itch of vain-glory to seem wiser then others presently sets up for an Origenian and vents his ill-grounded conjectures for proofs and demonstrations and revives Old opinions very uncertain and vain and heretical and justly condemned as such by the Zeal and Learning of former Ages as the great Truths of God as if Providence could not be justified without their admittance nor the Articles of Faith and the Attributes of God Salved unless we believe a Praeexistence of Souls Genii living in the Air and vehicles formed out of Aether by the Plastick life and virtue of the Soul after its departure out of the Body But it is to be feared that while they follow Origen too close even in his errors and take up his way of interpreting some parts of Scripture according to a pretended Cabbala and a mystick Theology fetched from Plato and Proclus they have given occasion to Atheists and profane Persons to deny the Truth of all 2. In special That the Text does expresly refer as was said before to the times of Noah and to those that lived in them and therefore cannot be meant as the learned Grotius would have it of Christs preaching by the Apostles to the Gentiles after his Ascension For this would be to confound two distant Ages of the World together and to make St. Peter speak unintelligibly and contrary to all usage and custom for who can rationally imagine that St. Peter when he saith Christ preached to the Spirits in prison which were sometimes disobedient should mean this preaching of his own and after Ages who is so careful first to tell us of what persons he meant it of and then is so express and punctual about the right timing of it for the Spirits that were preached to were disobedient but when why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Old which being a general reference of time and so might comprehend all from the Creation He limits and restrains to the Age just before the Floud Besides this there is another Figurative

Rom. IX 5. speaking of the Jews and their Privileges by reason of the Covenant God made with the Patriarchs Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed for ever A Text able to confound all the Sophistry and blasphemyes of Socinus and his Party who deny the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour and put them to an eternal silence who very presumptuously reject the Mysteries of Faith because they cannot fully comprehend them as if the shallow capacity of a man were to be the measure and standard of divine Truth when they can give no satisfactory Accompts of the ordinary Phaenomena of Nature much less of its secret operations and least of all of the Mysteries of Providence And if this were a sufficient reason to deny the Articles of Faith because They are above our capacity They may as well deny the being of a God because they cannot have full and comprehensive Notions of Infinity Eternity Omnipresence and the like But certainly we have the highest reason in the World to believe the Articles of the Christian Faith which are so plainly revealed in the Holy Scriptures because whatsoever God has been pleased to reveal is infallibly certain and therefore when proposed to me I am bound to believe it though I cannot comprehend the modus how it is so This for the Person He went and preached 2. The manner or means by which Christ is said to Preach by which Spirit that is by His eternal Power and Godhead as was shewn in the beginning and now shall be further proved For by the same Spirit by which Christ rose from the Dead He preached to the Spirits in Prison But Christ rose from the dead by virtue of his Godhead and divine Power Rom. I. 4. Declared to be the Son of God with Power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the dead Heb. IX 14. How much more shall the bloud of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your Conscience from dead works to serve the living God that is How much more available then the bloud of Bulls and Goats and Calves and all the Sacrifices offered up under the Mosaical oeconomy for the cleansing from sin and delivering from its Guilt and condemning Power and in order to the serving of God acceptably is the Bloud of Christ shed upon the Cross who after he had raised his Body out of the Grave by his divine Power presented himself a perfect Mediator to God in our behalf 3. That Hell is meant by this Prison is very easy to conceive having before proved it could not be meant of the Body much less can it of the Grave for the Soul at its departure takes a flight beyond the Grave and Regions of Death and cannot be pent up in those Charnel houses under ground nor does it sleep as some have fondly dreamed that is remain in a state of dulness and inactivity without any apprehension or knowledge till the Resurrection as we shall see anon but goes to the place and state allotted for it according to its deserving And the resemblance and comparison between Hell and a Prison is very fit and proper When men are legally Imprisoned it is either for their Crimes or for their Debts Now evey un-repenting Sinner that dyes in his Sins hath broken the Law of God hath made assaults upon his Attributes and rebelled against Heaven and by this means has contracted a guilt upon his Soul which binds over to punishment is a debtor to God and has forfeited his Soul to Justice and because He took no care to agree with God who was become his Adversary and impleaded him While He was in the Way with him did not in his life time compound for the Debt and get the Bond Cancell'd is justly cast into Hell A Prison because 1. Without Light which must needs add to the horrour of it There is utter darkness and the blackness of darkness for ever 2. Without Liberty Here Malefactors are secured and kept safe till their tryal Thus hath God reserved the Apostate Angels and the Souls of wicked men in everlasting Chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day But with this vast and great difference that They shall be remanded and sent back to this Prison where there will be no possibility of escape or ransom where they must undergo an eternal Imprisonment 3. Without Comfort Prisons usually are dismal and loathsom Places To be immured and shut up from company to be deprived of the benefits of converse and of the sweets and pleasures of liberty to spend ones days in sadness and melancholy and to measure out the slow minutes of ones wearisome life with sighs and Groans This is That that troubles nature and puts her into a fright to think of How dismal then How insupportable must it be to lye under the wrath of God under the quick apprehension of a guilty mind under the sting of Conscience to be gnawed upon by that worm that never dyes to have no other company but Fiends and damned Spirits equally miserable with themselves and to be in a continual expectation of the great Day of Accompt when the Body shall be raised to be partaker of the Punishment as it was of the Sin 4. Christ preached to the Spirits in Prison that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those men whose Souls are now in Prison cast into Hell but then were alive in their Bodyes those being long since dissolved and consumed in the Waters that overwhelmed them while their Souls survive as being immortal and are reserved in Hell for Judgement So that the Prison plainly refers to the place and condition in which their Souls are as a just punishment of their disobedience and not at all to the Preaching which will yet further appear from the IV. Chap. of this Epistle Vers. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this cause also was the Gospel Preached to the dead that is to those who are now dead but then were alive when the Gospel was preached to them Where that I may note this by the way the Apostle speaks not in general of Gods making known his will to the Ages before Christ but particularly mentions the Preaching of the Gospel which must be limited to the times of Messias and therefore those in that verse that are dead to whom the Gospel was Preached must be supposed to have lived since the coming of Christ in the Flesh and consequently this place is not parallel but only in the Phrase or form of speech with the Text as some imagine the one respecting the times of the Gospel the other the Age before the Floud It only remains to be satisfyed How Christ can be said to preach to those that lived in the Old World I Answer That it must not be understood as if Christ did actually preach and appear to the men of that Generation though