superscription Jesus that Nazarene that King of the Jewes God would not it should be altered being a plain affirmation of his glory which otherwise Pilate might possibly have done as well as to crucifie him at their importunity Now in that God doth thus acknowledge his name Jesus upon the Crosse he thereby testified that he accepted him for our Saviour as Jesus signifieth Mat. 1.22 and will not deny those that beleeve on him yea God exalts him in that name which the Jewes despised so that he will honour those whom the world reproacheth yea he will have him now known to be that King his first born higher then the Kings of the earth and at this time of his disgrace too to shew his Kingdome stands not in outward observation nor is his roialty lost by outward abasements for even now like a King he paied the blood-roiall-ransome for his elect even among the Jewes themselves of whose repenting people he was King by whose power they were converted Acts 2. This title was written in the three generall known languages to shew that every tongue should confesse to his glory of Jesus Phil. 3.11 when the Gospell should be preached to the nations This title Pilate would not alter in one tittle to shew that we should not lose one jot of the faith of Christ and indeed whosoever doth it or suffers it to be done by Hereticks or Sectaries are worse then Pilate himselfe Again God honoured him by making nature suffer an eclipse of darknesse as if to shew the Sun of righteousnesse did now set and that the Jewes should be left in blindnesse and all others that did not beleeve in him Also that nature abhorred the fact and that God hereby did threaten the sins of men as Joel 2.10 and that he that now suffered was more then a man for whose sake such a miracle was wrought Next he was glorified by one of the malefactors conversion and confession which shewed Christs power and mercy and justice his power that he did and could work on him in the midst of his anguish his mercy that he would save one at the last gasp that none may despaire and his justice that he would save but one that none might presume upon late repentance Lastly he was glorified by the vaile of the most holy place rending of it selfe which shewed that God did now abhor the Jewes Temple and dissolve their religious rites and utterly rejected them for rejecting Christ his Son And that now we have free accesse to the mercy seat Heb. 4.16 Aequaliter pater arca calestis Helv. Yea heaven is set open to us which before was shut against sinners of Jewes and Gentiles but now open to both Mathe. But what necessiâ—y uas there of Christs death Phila. First to satisfie Gods justice who determined death to be the wages of sin Rom. 6.23 Christ therefore being mans surety Rom. 8.3 and taking on him the similitude of our sinfull flesh God condemns sin in his flesh by putting him to death and satisfieth his justice for all the elect by one who though he was but one yet being both God and Man his death is of infinite price to make satisfaction to Gods infinite justice who had told the first Adam that if he eat of the forbidden fruit he should die that day And that day he became mortall Rom. 5.12 for then death began to seize upon him and all his posterity But Christ comming in Adams stopped the issue of spirituall death by the merit of his death And this he did also to fulfill the prophecies of himself Esa 63.7 that he should be lead as a sheep to the slaughter as also to ratifie the New Testament which was as his last will whereby he grants by covenant with God all the blessed Legacies of spirituall and eternall happinesse to his Church Heb. 9.15 which Testament is of no force without the death of the Testator Also that he might destroy the power that death and the devill had over us Heb. 2.14 even to bring us under eternall death which death though he never suffered himself yet prevents it in us by the worthinesse of his person suffering externall death for us that beleeve upon his precious death which is of more value for one houre then the eternall death of all men in the world And so by this means he hath given us an antidote against the reigning power of sin that it shall not have dominion over us Rom. 6.14 but that by the vertue of his death we might die to sin Rom. 6.2 and that he might purchase life for the world of his elect who by the doctrine of his death receive the seed of eternall life and become the seed of Christ Esa 53.10 Mathe. But how did Christ die in his natures or in his person Phila. Herein you must beware what you conceive for if you think he died in both natures divine and humane or in his whole person as God and man you erre from the faith and prophane his divinity therefore you are to beleeve that though the flesh of Christ only died in respect of the nature that died yet this death having relation to the eternall word by union the Lord of life and glory may be said relatively to suffer in which respect his blood is called the blood of God Acts 20.28 Therefore though death made a separation of his humane soule from his humane body yet both ever subsisted in the divine nature firmly united For if there had been a new manner of subsisting then Christ must be conceived to have two persons as well as two natures Mathe. How shall I reconcile St Paul who saith Christ was slain towards the end of the world Heb. 9.26 and St John saith he was slaine from the beginning of the world Rev. 13.8 Phila. He was actually slain toward the end of the world namely in the year of the world Scalig. 3982. and in the 34. year of his age and on Friday the fifth day of our week which that year was the fifteenth day of the Jewes month called Nisan which that year was the seventh day of our April as some account yea at the ninth hour of that day the time of the evening sacrifice Mat. 27.46 But he was flain from the beginning of the world in Gods determination Gen. 3.15 for all that beleeved on him to come to whom his death proved as efficacious as the composition of a surety doth enlarge a debter out of prison though the debt be not paied a long time after Thus Christ was slain from the beginning in type of Abel slain by Cain and in all the sacrifices offered for sin which were as evidences to the faithfull of things not then seen Mathe. But the Evangelists take notice of many occurrences in his death of which I can find no great reason nor mystery infolded as that no bone of him was broken and that his side was pierced and the like Phila.
he died not for them Not for the good for they needed no sanctification by redemption though a preservation in their standing by the vertue of him in whom they were first called to immutability of estate who was the first born of every creature because he was eternally born of God before any creature was made Col. 1.15 and by him they were made and therefore must hold their estates but yet they cannot be of the redeemed Church in regard they were never captived nor did ever fall from nor fall out with God and so need him that was only a Mediator between God and man of whom this Church consisteth which is one holy Catholike Church built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ being the head corner stone This is the subject of all the benefits which God hath afforded us in Christ through his spirit and is called one because it is the one only mysticall body of Christ and hath but one faith to knit it to Christ and one spirit to agitate it one God by whom it is called to worship him and to be glorified of him one love by which all the members are gathered among themselves and one salvation the felicity thereof and one bond of divine love in Christ toward her in which respect she is called his friend his beloved and his Spouse So it is called Catholike in regard of the universall largnesse of it being tied to neither persons time nor place Therefore it is either ignorantly or arrogantly assumed by the Papists who call their Roman Church Catholike whereas it wants the Catholike extension of it as well as the Catholike truths of it So it is called holy because it hath a most holy and sanctifying head by which sin is not imputed and her corruptions by the Holy Ghost by degrees taken away that she may be presented to God without spot or wrinkle Eph. 1.27 So it is called Propheticall and Apostolicall because she is founded upon their doctrine Eph. 2.20 Now the parts of this Church are triumphant or militant The triumphant is that part which now triumpheth with Christ the head of the Church over all enemies and enjoieth with him all gladnesse and felicity of soule and after the resurrection shall enjoy the fulness of it in soule and body united That the soules of the just after death do enjoy heavenly felicity is plaine because it is said Rev. 7.15 that the soules of the dead were before Gods throne in white robes serving God day and night and because Christ promised the theefe that time he died that his soule should be with him in Paradise Luke 23.43 which Paradise St Paul calleth the third heavens 2 Cor. 12.2 4. And it is said Heb. 12.23 that the spirits of just men are in the heavenly Jerusalem and therefore when this tabernacle is dissolved i. our bodies we have an house in heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 or else St Paul had little reason to desire dissolution if not to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 But yet all this proveth nothing for the Popes canonization of Saints whose memoriall is esteemed of all good men and their examples imitated but we find no Scripture for their canonization nor for those honors the Pope gives them As 1. To be written in a Catalogue thereby commanding them to be called Saints 2. By calling on them in the praiers of the Church 3. By dedicating to their memory Temples and Altars 4. By offering any sacrifice in their honor And 5. Celebrating daies festivall to their memory 6. By setting up their pictures 7. By reserving their reliques to worship And all this must be done by the Pope and none else Bel. de heatitud sanct lib. 1. cap. 7. and 8. say his flatterers and he cannot err therein yet St Paul saith that only God knoweth who are his not the Pope for he canonizeth hypocrites whom he by his indulgence hath flattered to hell in their life time and then placeth them in heaven when they are dead though their souls be in the place of torment This kind of canonization came up by Pope Leo the third Bel. ut supra about eight hundred years since and then Antichrist was detected and so canonization is Antichristian So is their giving to them religious worship which in Scripture is neither commanded nor given by any good man farther then by esteeming them of blessed memory Luke 1.44 or by praising God for them Gal. 1.5 or by imitation of their faith and vertue yea Angels have refused it at the hands of men and Apostles also as Acts 10.26 and 14.15 and Rev. 19.10 and 22.8 And as bad is their doctrine of Saints interceeding for us for there is but one Mediator who maketh intercession in whose name only we expect salvation Acts 4.10 and receive remission Acts 17.31 He is a perfect Mediator and needeth nor requireth any copartners 1 Cor. 1.13 and Heb. 12.2 Beside Aug. lib. 10. conf cap. 42. Amb. de Isaac cap. 8. Aug. in Psal 118. who can insure us that the dead departed have any cognizance of our state or praiers Isa 63.16 surely Christ is our mouth to speak to God and our eie to see him and our hand to offer to him and that praier that is not offered by him is so far from blotting out sin that it becomes sin it selfe therefore the worshipping of Angels forbidden by St Paul Col. 2.18 is unlawfull and the invocation of Saints as bad Aug. lib. de cura pro mortuis agenda since the dead know not what the living do and that true Christians beleeve not on Peter himselfe but in him upon whom Peter beleeved as Aug. saith well in his book of the City of God lib. 18. cap. 58. But worse is the religious worship of their images though there may be a civill use of them for adorning of houses or keeping of them in memory Aug. de civit dei cap. 14 in Psal 36. in Psal 113. or painting of them historically But to set up their images or pictures in Temples and holy places under pretence of instructing the ignorant as did Pope Gregory the first they have degenerated to superstition and idolatry as Serenus Bishop of Massilus forewarned that Pope nor would suffer any to be in his Churches however those logs of which the images were made have better fortune then their fellowes who being as good as they yet are laied behind the fire There was none in Churches in the time of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea about the year 330. But the first painting of Church wass was done by Pontius Paulinus Bishop of Nola who painted the Churches with the story of the Israelites Sunfet in the wildernesse to deter the people from gluttony that came to the annuall Feast of St Faelix But surely he hath no religion that worshippeth an image though the image of Christ Lactant. de errore Orig. lib. 2. cap. 16. anno 300. for we are not to make images of things
no eternall happinesse God had made man in vain with so vast a mind which no finite thing can satisfie and then there must be a way to this happinesse or else that happinesse is ordained in vain also for man Mathe. Some think it is not necessary to know any more happiness then nature sheweth and dictates to us Phila. Nature sheweth in part that felicity which is necessary for man to know but not fully but as in the wrong end of an optick glass which makes things appear farther off or lesse then they are or else sheweth us a false felicity as in a magnifying or multiplying glasse wherein it appeareth bigger or more then it is all which sheweth there is an happinesse though nature mistakes it or cannot perfectly shew it though it be necessary for us to know it Mathe. How prove you it is necessary for us to know it Phila. 1. Because I have a soule capable of such a knowledge nor is an industrious soule quiet till it find either it or something like it wherein it may find a rest and content Therefore the spirit of a man is the candle of God to search hidden secrets Pro. 20.27 yea even the things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 and by desire a man having separated himselfe seeks and intermedleth with all wisedome Pro. 18.1 2. Because man is made for it God intended him for happinesse For as the world was made that God might be revealed so God was revealed that man might know him which is felicity God sought to bring man to it first by obedience wherein he failing thereby shewing the mutability of created nature God next set before him the object of beleeving viz. his promise of Christ to know whom in God is life eternall John 17.3 and felicity 3. Because man is a future not only a present creature for he hath a soul which will be existent after death in joy or sorrow and therefore necessary for him to know felicity and to avoid misery Mathe. How prove you that he hath such a soule Phila. From our immortall desires to live either in memory or posterity for ever which argueth the immortall nature of the soule though it be deceived in the choise of it by placing immortality where it is not So Absalom set up his monumentall pillar 2 Sam. 18.18 and some call their lands after their own names Psa 49.12 and men desire tombs which argueth a desire of perpetuall life No creature hath this desire but man for things without life desire to preserve themselves in their particular being Secundum numerum pronunc Vid. Scor. Dist 94. and beasts desire the continuance of their kind only for the present time but man desires a perpetuall being included in no bounds 2. Because it hath a kind of infinit apprehension comprehending singular things and universall things and the kinds of all things which argueth an immortall nature 3. Because God hath made a perpetuall covenant with man Numb 18.19 and therefore the soul hath a continuall being in or out of the body else is the Covenant ended But God is not the God of the dead Mat. 22.32.33 but of the living for all do live to him therefore he cals himselfe the God of the Patriarchs after their death Exod. 3.6 so some in scripture are said to be gathered to their fathers in peace though slaine as 2 Chron. 35. as good Josiah But it is meant to the spirit of the Fathers which were at rest and peace with God bound up in the bundle of life 2 Sam. 25.29 among the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 4. Because men undergo losse and crosse and death without cause joifully which were madnesse if the soule were not immortall and expected after death some felicity to enjoy 1 Cor. 15.19 But many love not their lives that they may find them hereafter Mar. 8.35 5. Because God in the last judgement may shew himselfe just as Gen. 18.23 for in this world good men suffer and evill men flourish Psal 37. Psal 71.2 3. so Jer. 12.1 yet it is but to fat them for the slaughter Jer. 12.3 Therefore the soule is immortall that every man may find the justice of God at last 6. The learned heathen did acknowledge this Arist Cic. Tusc 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling the soul the first motion as if it were the beginning of motion so by their letting an Eagle flie aloft when the bodies of their Heroes were put into the funerall fires It is true that the Scripture saith the soul that sinneth that shall die but the meaning is not that the soul shall be dissolved in his essentiall life but in the relative life to God-ward by whose goodness and mercy it obtaineth an eternall felicity Mathe. But how can I prove that it hath any existence after the death of the body Phila. Because it is distinguished in this by all wise men from the souls or life of bruits for the spirit of a man goeth upward and the spirit of a beast goeth downward Eccles 3.21 And again Eccles 12.7 the dust shall return to the earth and the spirit to God that gave it which returning to God signifies the souls immortality Psallus that is as God alwaies is so the soule is subsisting with God for if the soule be immortall it cannot wax old Phocylid but must live ever so that you must denie the soule to be immortall or else grant that it never dieth But the old Chaldeans and Egyptians shall rise against such Christians whose precept was that a man should make haste to the light and splendors of the Father and to seek Paradise which is the splendid and cleer region of the soule Trismegistus confirms the perpetuall being of the soul Cic. Tusc Pythagoras saith as much and Tully from him Epictetus saith we are the kinsmen of God and return from whence we came Plat. in Phaed. Comment Mor. Zill Hisp in Plat. Plato is more clear then any And St Paul himselfe makes use of Aratus in the Acts saying We are Gods off-spring Acts 17.28 But beside Christ gives us greater light in the point John 3.36 saying He that beleeveth in me hath life eternall and to the thief he said This day thou shalt be with me when as that day both their bodies were dead 2 Cor. 5.1 So St Paul saith We know when this earthly house is dissolved we have a building of God in the heavens He doth not say when this house shall be repaired as at the resurrection but so soon as it is dissolved So in the fifth verse saith he When we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord and therefore are willing to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord therefore he desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ And St Stephen praieth God to receive his spirit But beside all this if we beleeve that any who were raised from death in Scripture
were truly dead then their soule upon departure from the body had a subsisting or else were dissolved into nothing and if dissolved into nothing then they were newly created rather then reunited and so cannot properly be said to be raised but the soule was re-created and re-infused and so being a new something brought out of nothing into which it was dissolved we shall doubt whether they had their own souls again And again if the soul were dissolved at death in vain did Christ warn us not to feare them that kill the body or him that can damn the soul For what damnum or damage can there be to him that after death hath no soul to feel either sorrow of losse or pain of sense Mathe. I pray Sir what think you of the soul and how come we by it and then let me know what principles are left to lead it to felicity Phila. You propound too fast one of these three is enough at once and especially the first to know what the soul is since Christ saith it hath been with us ever since we were born and yet we know not what it is But I suppose he meaneth that we know it not by any perfect knowledge we have of the essence thereof for it is hard to know that by which we know any thing yet we may know it by its operation for no doubt it is an immateriall or spiritual substance which gives man next to God life sense motion and understanding How we came by this soule at first in our first parents must be understood from God who gives beginning to all things but how we have them since may be a question for though he made our first parents by creation yet he makes us mediately by generation of our parents but whether soule and body is a question too and yet we say one man begets another and if the whole man then body and soule but if the body only then is but halfe the man begotten by the parents Some think all souls were at first created Plato and are reserved as in a treasury I know not where and infused at mans generation or when the body is apt to receive them but then it is not the form of man nor doth work in the forming of mans body from his conception if it be not infused till the body be apt for it which they count forty daies after the conception Others Hilary that God creates it of nothing ex tempore upon every occasion of the females conception but then say others God is put to a new creation every day Zanchius Some say that God gives it essence and substance but the parents give it a beginning of being and existence Many or most of the Fathers did judge that it was created of God immediatly and infused yet Saint Augustine makes a stand at it Aug. in epist act Hieron 28. de orig peccato because he finds not how originall sin can be conveied if the soul come not by the parents to the child by propagation for if the body come only from them meer matter is not capable of sin neither is the body alone a person and so no person of man is tainted with originall sin in conception as Psal 51. In sin my mother conceived not my body only but me and if God make the soule of nothing and then infuseth it then it being of it selfe pure by his creation how can it stand with Gods justice to pour it into a tainted body and if the body as meer matter cannot be sinfull nor the soule neither being newly set out of Gods hand then meer uniting cannot make them so and then we shall find no originall sin at all These opinions being not plainly concluded by the Scripture nor the * Yet in Saint Hieromes time the Western Church was much inclined this way Church therefore as we are to hold that which Scripture reason or experience holdeth forth to us most evidently so where such evidence is not we are to hold that which is most probable which if we will not do I see no reason but we must be content without reason Now the Scriptures do not plainly evidence that the soule is immediately created of God and so infused but rather offers it as a thing not altogether from God nor altogether from man as you may see by divers phrases in Scripture as in Gen. 1.27 Be fruitfull and multiply and fill the earth viz. that is with mankind and persons of men as other creatures were to do ver 22. of that Chapter or else Gods word is not so effectuall in man the more excellent creature as it is in the beasts all which he intended by his resting from creating that they should ever persist of themselves and multiply their kinds Of which God gave the first instance when he framed Eve the first woman out of the first man and yet is not said to breath into her as into Adam a breath of life silently arguing that by his power concurring her whole substance was taken from Adam upon whom he had first and originally breathed * Spiraculum animarum the breath of souls as the originall text reads it yet other texts shew us also that God hath an especiall hand in it as Job 10.8 10. and Psal 139.13 15. Thy hands have made me Thou hast covered me in my mothers womb And Jeremy brings in God asserting that he formed him in the womb and Zach. 12.1 It is said God formeth the spirit of a man within him he doth not say creates it of nothing but he brings that into act which was there in the seed Arist but potentially as Aristotle held not much amisse though he leaves it doubtfull whether it be mortall or immortall so that we see both God and man hath an hand in the generation of the whole man together Mathe. I pray make that a little more plain Phila. The Philosophers say that the Sun and man begets man so we may say God and man do propagate mans soule God so far as to make it immortall and man so far as to make it sinfull not that there is any separation in their generation as if the body of the body and the soule of the soule but the whole of the whole through the special and meer immediat act of Gods providence then any in other creatures generation for generation in man sure is of persons not of parts Of which persons God in regard of the soule is the outward efficient and makes parents the procreating cause the materiall cause is spirituall matter of the parents souls which God blowing upon by his power lighteth one flame by another without any division or diminution of that spirituall lamp which is fed with the oile of animall spirits And thus it may be as well propagated as united God concurring in his spirituall power upon the soule to which at first he gave being and making man the instrument to produce it in the
seed Mathe. I pray give some places of Scripture to prove the production and some reasons drawn from thence for many places seem against it Phila. Some seem against it but are not so as Exod. 21.22 c. that a man if he hurt a woman with child and her fruit depart from her and yet mischief or death follow not i. upon the mother then the punishment shal be but a fine or mulct but if mischiefe or death follow then he shall pay life for life Now if this mischiefe or death be understood of the woman this place argueth nothing to the souls production by propagation If it be meant of the child then it must have life and how a reasonable creature can have life without the form of it viz. a reasonable soule I know not therefore the judgement surely was to be made upon the child quickning and so life was to answer for life but whether the soule be not infused before even at the conception is still questionable So Numb 27.16 he is called the God of spirits yet is he not also the God of our bodies yes sure as 1 Cor. 6.20 Glorifie God in your bodies for they are Gods But Eccles 12.7 seemeth to make a greater difference for the body is said there to return to the dust but the spirit to God that gave it yet this proves only the soules immortall estate after death not any immediate creation of it except he relates to Adam whose creation was immediate of dust and his soule immediate from God but our bodies are not so and the question still remains whether the soule be not conveied by Gods speciall concurrence in propagation So Isa 57.16 it is said of God I will not alwaies contend lest the soules that I have made faile before me but that is meant by the generall life of all creatures Beside who knoweth not that God makes us we teach our children so to answer us in their Catechisme because God did it originally and doth it still by his benediction of parentall seed yet we know also that the parents beget the children So Ezek. 18. it is said all souls are mine but that is all persons So Zach. 12.1 It is said God formeth the spirit of man within him which no man will deny but the question is still of what whether of nothing or of the parents substance corporall and spirituall Indeed that place of Zachary intends the first mans forming as we see by his alledging Gods stretching forth of the heavens and laying the foundation of the earth which was at the creation or if he meaneth the souls of men since the creation then by forming cannot â—e understood creating of nothing But you will say that God is called the Father of Spirits in opposition to the fathers of our flesh but the opposition is not made there between God and man or soule and body but between naturall life and casuall correction and spirituall but be it meant of God and naturall parents yet it proves nothing to the souls production for he is the God of our body as well as of our spirits Mathe. But if the soule be of a spirituall substance and nature how can it be propagated in generation Phila. Because it is not propagated after a bodily manner though the whole man begets the whole man for the soule consisting rather of power then parts the propagation of it is by promotion rather than decision nor is the soule so spirituall as to be simply simple for only God is so but hath a spirituall composition though not elementary which the God of spirits can blow up to a flame which kindles presently upon fit matter by vertue of his first word given to the nature of man saying increase and multiply and by his continuall assistance to mans generation Mathe. But generation of souls argueth a corruption of souls and so it is not immortall Phila. It followeth not for the corruption of the soule in propagation is only a mutation from power to act and so is not corrupted by putrefaction but advanced by perfection it is the same as it was but not in the same manner as it was and so the soul propagated is not corrupted nor is the soule propagating corrupted for it is neither divided nor diminished no more then the flame of a lamp is by lighting another Mathe. But if it passe in propagation then if conception faile a soule is lost in the emission of seed for want of conception Phila. Not so for the soule is never procreated but in conception namely when the seed of male and female meet in one together with the efficient power of God concurring with all naturall causes for the production thereof therefore when conceptions faile the soule continueth as it was so in unlawfull copulations with other creatures God not conferring his power no rationall creature is brought forth but the soule remains without communication of it selfe Mathe. But if the soule be so traduced from the parents then from one of them or both and I see not how one soul can be divided nor yet how one soule can be made out of two Phila. It cannot be from one for the seed of neither male nor female alone conteins the matter and form of the creature to be produced but two do make one two in number and sex being united make a third and this is Gods ordinance in nature that mankind should be distinguished into two sexes and by their uniting again the whole kind should be preserved neither is the soule divided because it consists not of parts but powers and therefore the propagation of the soule is not done by decision Zanch. de tribus Elohim p. 2. l. 3. cap. 7. but by operation whereby the same power is effected in another which the soule hath in it selfe yet it is neither annihilated nor diminished because it is a spirituall nature as we understand God to beget his Son and communicates to him his whole essence and yet the Father retains his whole essence And this need not trouble us since we see the forms of other creatures are indivisible as well as mans soule and yet they beget their like without any division of their essentiall forms And for the making of one soule out of two you are to conceive how two in act may make one for man and wife is not only one flesh carnally but their very soules do so cleave together like Jonathan and David that they would become one which because they cannot do they by the assistance of God conspire with the fitnesse of other causes to produce another creature like themselves Athanas de var. p. 16. as flint and steel smote together begets fire which is the next creature that a fervent motion can beget Mathe. When do you judge the soule to be thus traduced Phila. At the first conception no doubt and uniting of the male and female seed the corporall parts whereof although they must have a time to ferment
can there be no ground for imputation and so it cannot passe but by propagation Mathe. But how prove you Christs soule not immediatly created Phila. Because he was to take mans nature body and soule that both by him might be redeemed Therefore he took whole humane nature of the blessed virgin as was promised The seed of the woman shal break the serpents head and Rom. 1.3 He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh Beside if soules and so his soule were immediately created of God then Adams sin must be imputed to him as he was man as well as to us and so he should be a sinner but sin was not imputed to him but only reputed his And then if it came not by immediate creation then it came by formation in the womans seed as ours by propagation And if we understand it not thus that it was immediately formed in the first conception i. when the holy Ghost separated that part of the blessed Virgins seed for his Manhood to the soule whereof the divinity was immediatly united to the body This dilemma will trouble us namely that either his divine nature was united to a bruit body or else the body subsisted by it selfe our of the Divine nature Mathe. But if Christs humane nature were thus formed or propagated I see not yet how he can ever the more escape the taint of originall sin Phila. I suppose you beleeve that he was conceived by the holy Ghost and so the matter of his humane nature was sanctified and purged from that stain Mathe. I beleeve he was conceived by the holy Ghost yet I know not how to beleeve that that conception was sanctifying or purging away of sin from his humane nature nor his humane nature from sin but only a separation and consecration of that part of the blessed Virgins substance to that holy work and endowment of it with all graces fit thereunto For there can be no sanctification without a Mediatour and there is but one Mediator 1 Tim. 2.5 by whose blood all are cleansed from sin yea the holy Ghost cleanseth none but by his blood so that if Christs nature did need sanctification then it also needed a Mediatour and then he must be a Mediatour for himselfe which he could not be for a Mediatour is not a Mediatour of one Phila. You say true and have almost wound your selfe out of this labyrinth For indeed the holy Ghost in this conception did not cleanse Christs nature from sin but did separate that substance which was not sinfull from a sinfull person for a person only is sinfull substance is not Now Christ did not take her person but substance only leaving the accident of sin which adhereth only to a person and so though Christs nature were in Adam and so in the Virgin who was of that sinfull line yet his person was in neither for he was the eternall son of God who in that instant that the humane nature was conceived or separated by the holy Ghost from the blessed Virgin Mary did assume it into himselfe to be one person and thus his nature could never be tainted with originall sin for his humane nature before that was never a person and when it was a person it was propagated not after the ordinary and naturall way and so without sin Nay more the substance of his humane nature though it were sinfull subsisting in the blessed Virgins person yet so it could not be Christs because personality cannot be imparted but it was made his by separation from her by the holy Ghost and his own immediate assumption and so great is the mystery of Godlinesse 1 Tim. 1.16 The not conceiving this rightly made the Marcionites and Manicheans say Christ had no true body and Apollinaris to say he had no humane soule Mathe. I thank you for these solutions but yet one thing stichs namely how the soule can be said to be immortall if it be propagated Phila. Consider that mortality proceeds not from generation so much as malediction of God for Adams sin who if he had not sinned his body might have been as immortall as the soule so that the propagation of the soule doth not make it meerly mortall but the act of Gods immediate power in the production of it makes it immortall because whatsoever is so produced cannot be dissolv'd but by the same power by which it first took life though the body may because it is bred only by the power of nature beside the soule is not made of any corporall matter and therefore is not corruptible though congenerate with the body Mathe. Now being somewhat satisfied about the soule I pray tell what principles are there to lead it to felicity Phila. Some principles there be which God hath given to nature and left in nature to seek felicity but as some know what happinesse is so others make no use of those principles Mathe. I pray what is felicity Phila. Mans soveraign and chiefest good consisteth in the enjoiment of God which confers to man concurrence of all good without any contrarieties which is opposed to that misery into which he is fallen by the first mans sin namely blindnesse of mind fondnesse of affection stubbornnesse of will inclineablenesse to all evill way wardnesse from all good for which cause we are subjected to vanity corruptibilitie all miseries of body and soul temporal and eternall death and damnation Now mans felicity is an estate contrary to all these After this many learned Philosophers searched but could not find it and why Because they knew not God from whom it proceeds and is the giver of it by redeeming man from all misery and from death to life by his free grace in Christ which is life eternall and true felicity to know aright John 17.3 Mathe. What principles lead thereunto Phila. Not the principles of nature only for they teach no further than there is a felicity but not what it is which made the Philosophers in such a labyrinth about it some placing it in pleasure some in poverty Vid. Varro some in knowledge some in riches some in honours as many people doe now For as some aim at no end or mark at all but like foolish children shoot their arrowes up in the aire some aim at a bad end in which can be no happinesse some at a seeming good which is not good in it selfe some at felicity in generall but go blindly and lamely about it wanting right leading principles The principles are such therefore as God hath revealed who is in himselfe the chiefest good and therefore can best ordaine the way whereby man may enjoy him This way is set down in the holy Scriptures for which Scriptures sake the world was made that so in time that might be revealed Polanus which in God was hidden at the beginning namely that Christ should come and redeem mankind from the wrath of God the slavery of Satan and the dominion of sin and death which
rightly to know and beleeve leads to life eternall Mathe. How may one attain this knowledge Phila. By right understanding the holy Scriptures in its propositions and consequences Now the Scripture tels us that the first man sinned and so incurred the wrath of God upon himselfe and all his posterity Rom. 5. yet he so graciously promised him that the seed of the woman should break the serpents head i. ruine the policies and works of the Devill wrought in and against man Now from whence commeth this doth God intend to put up this wrong and passe it over then how can his justice be satisfied or if infinite justice must be satisfied by some suffering for that sin then who must undergo it If we look upon God as absolutely one without distinction then the offended must mediate with himselfe and so put up this offence yea the Father God must be the sufferer without any mediator Gnosticks or Patrispassiani But this cannot be for a mediator is not of one but God is one Gal. 3.20 yet infinite justice must be satisfied by an infinite person The scriptures therefore declare that in the Godhead there be three persons Father Son and holy Ghost Now though we cannot so well apprehend how the essence divine can mediate to it selfe for man yet we may conceive how one person can mediate to another and so that the Son who lay hid in the bosome of the Father before all time did consult and mediate with the Father about it We must therefore understand first That God made man as perfect as a creature rationall could be made saving only that he gave him not immutability which is a portion beyond created nature For the very Angels that stood once were yet mutable in themselves and they that stand now are not immutable in themselves though they be in their estate and the reason is they that fell chose to stand by their own naturall power without dependency upon God they that stood chose to stand by dependency upon the Archangell the Son of God the first born of every creature Colos 1.15 and of whom the whole family of heaven and earth is named Eph. 3.15 these were the elect Angels Now as they stood by love so man must be recovered by faith in him Aug. Servans hos salvens illos that is the same Archangell and Son of God Jesus Christ who is the head of men and Angels Col. 1.18 creating both but preserving them and saving us from all the bitter effects of sin and leading us to eternall selicity by grace on earth to glory in heaven This is the way to felicity first To know God Then secondly my selfe and miserable condition and thirdly The remedy in Christ Mathe. How come men to wander so much in the seeking of it Phila. The reason of it is first The sin of Adam and Eve who sought to find the chief good in that which God the chiefe good prohibited Mans soule is troubled with a vertigo ever since and running round in a maze is not able to find the right object and if any time we come neer it yet like the Sun comming to his verticall point in the tropick we turn back to the old course Some men know nothing of felicity yet they aime at something they fansie to be good for them yea at a kind of immortality as in writing building or to practise Arts or Arms or purchasing and conquering all which are but shadowes of felicity and may keep our names alive while the soule may be damn'd as the body is dead Some are worse that place their felicity in carnall delights as in cating drinking Phil. 3.19 and wantonnesse which ends commonly in bitternesse shame and death Now though that felicity is thus divorsed by mans mistakings running round in a large circumference of mans vain apprehensions yet by serious consideration it may be reduced to one centrall point for when we have wearied our selves like Noah's Dove we must return to the Ark at last for rest and safety for only in God the soule takes rest Aratus for as we are the off-spring of God Acts 17.27 28. so he is not far from any of us and we may find him by nature if we would grope after him but especially by Scripture which teacheth us to know God in Christ for none can come to the father but by him otherwise we know not felicity at all or not rightly for as no man can divide a circle till he have found the center so neither the circumference of true felicity till we fix the foot of our affection in God like one foot of a compasse And as a man may find the center of a circle though he seeth it not so may one find God in the circumference of his works though he never saw him and felicity in Christ though he never yet knew it before Mathe. The knowledge of God being mans felicity it is not amisse to prove there is a God for he that commeth to God must beleeve that God is therefore I pray you prove to me there is a God Phila. I suppose you urge not this question because you doubt it but because you would have reason to satisfie others therein Therefore that there is a God fit to be known of all men I shall prove by reason for though Scriptures be enough to prove it to us that beleeve yet not to them who beleeve not therefore reason in this point is needfull for many will not beleeve unlesse their understanding be over-powred by miracle or revelation or by some extraordinary energeticall operation of God upon the soule they will not beleeve except their reason be convinced of the truth of Scriptures that they are of God and of divine revelation otherwise he thinks that his faith is but implicit or folded up in other mens beleefe or a weak yielding to antiquity or authority of Lawes and Customes without examination of their analogy and agreement with pure and primary reason and I beleeve if pure reason were not clouded by idlenesse ignorance or wilfulnesse it would prove a more impartiall judge of truth than the Pope himselfe who beleeves the Scripture by the ground of antiquity and forceth his conclusions drawn therefrom upon mens consciences by his own authority which men being made his vassals yield to any thing for quietnesse sake though themselves have no satisfaction therein From whence it is that most Christians profession of Religion is but either forced by fear of authority or voluntarily resigned up to another mans judgement or setled upon ones obstinate wilfulnesse neither which is saving faith For though we give some assent to Scriptures at first being moved by the authority of the Church to whom we owe respect and reverence as the people of Samaria first beleeved for the womans sake John 4.42 yet at last they beleeved for Christs sake So people within the pale of the Church first hear the voice of their mother the
proved-first from the opposition that is between the life of a beast and a man A beasts life perisheth because it ends in the sensitive facultie whose organs being destroied their life is at an end for they cannot work beyond the sensitive faculty because they want reason and understanding Psal 32.9 Be not like the horse that hath no understanding or reason and you may see they have none because all creatures of the same kind work alike in all they do as the swallowes build all alike and the spiders weave all alike and beyond it they cannot proceed but mans operation is divers one from another Beside the desires of the creature is not to any eternity but to the present preservation of it selfe and it kind but mans desires reach higher So the delight of a beast is meerly in things sensuall and therefore it acteth only by the body because life is setled only in the blood Levit. 17.11 but man can delight in things beyond all sense naturall 1 Pet. 1.8 as to beleeve in Christ whom they have not yet seen And indeed if mans soule were not immortall then it might desire things beyond it selfe and so all its desires should be frustrate which is contrary to the end of natures operation who hath made nothing in vain and therefore whatsoever the soul doth naturally desire without sin is to be had either here or hereafter and therefore if the soule have a defire to be happy and free from misery or to have a being when the body is dissolved certainly it floweth from the immortality of its nature A shadowe whereof appears in mans desire to live in memory or in posterity in buildings or purchases Psal 49.12 and 2 Sam. 18.18 2. We find the soule to be incorporeall for it can comprehend things not only singular but universall and the kinds of all things 3. It is immortall that it may receive the justice of God which it hath not here for here the wicked flourish Ier. 12. as Dives did Luke 15. thou hadst thy pleasures and Lazarus pains 4. Beside it appears also by Gods covenant with his people it being everlasting they must also be so or else the covenant ceaseth to be but they never cease to exist as Mat. 22.32 all live to God he is God of the living of those soules that are bound up in the bundle of life 2 Sam. 25.29 with the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 Mathe. How is the soul united to the body Phila. By Gods divine concurrence in generation which being mans form doth by its two faculties of sense and vegetation in forty daies prepare the matter to receive its quickning power and so body and soule make one person the soule being so united to it as that the body can neither live nor be called man without it And her being in the body is wonderfull not as a man in his house which will stand though the man go out nor as a spider in the web who setting in the center of it feeleth the touch of every cord But as the light diffuseth it selfe through the whole aire and is neither corrupted nor divided so is the soule whole in the whole body and whole in every part of it and as the Sun hath divers operations in divers parts of the world making spring in one place and harvest in another so doth the soule work diversly in our body by attraction decoction quickning and making us to grow And by this union doth only animate that body in which it is nor can it any other as some learned have thought Pythag. and the Jewes as John 1.21 For every body of the same kind is determined to his own soul nor can receive any other nor can the soul animat any other body but its own to which it is determined therefore when separated they long for their own bodies Rev. 6.10 Mathe. What is the Image of God in man Phila. Some qualities that have analogy and bear some likeness with God and that was holy knowledge righteousnesse and dominion For you must know that this image was not Gods personall image for that is Christ as Heb. 1.1 2. but his essentiall Image and therefore saith he let us make man after our image not my image i. the image of God in Trinity but by regeneration he shall be conformed to his personall image that is unto Christ as Rom. 8. those whom he foreknew them he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son 2. That this image consisted not in bodily shape for God hath none nor to his perfect image but that he was made according to Gods image formally that is to the example that God purposed in his mind nor was he obsignated and sealed with the holy spirit by the grace of perseverance for then he could not have fallen But he was created in holinesse negatively as being no way guilty of vain knowledge nor injustice nor to slavery subjected Therefore St Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. that he was made but a living soule i. possible to live ever and to get children to the same image but could not convey to them any quickning grace to make them certain of ever standing but the second Adam was made a quickning spirit to perform that Mathe. To what end did God make man thus Phila. Surely that he might glorifie him by having respect to him that made him like a circle which is a most perfect figure because it returns to the point from whence it was first deduced All good men are like this but those that run strait on from and return not are in the way to hell God crieth to us to return O Shulamite return because he being a most wise spirit thought fit among all the creatures to have one kind of understanding creature that might return to him by praise and honour of him not passively as the common creature sets forth his praise occasionally but actively and directly to give him the honour due unto his name with our heart tongue and life Mathe. If the soule hath no existence till by generation and by Gods concurrence it be united to the body what existence hath it after death when it is separated from the body I conceive not Phila. God having an immediate act in the souls production though by propagation it cannot be dissolved but by that power who gave it first a beginning Now though he for sin dissolveth the body which consisteth of naturall principles for a while till he reunites it again to the soule at the resurrection in a greater perfection yet we read not that he doth so to the souls but they live to him who is not the God of the dead but of the living souls which cannot die though congenerated with the body through Gods powerfull efficacy the parents mediating the union And therefore as it is a spirituall being it may very well exist after separation from the body and live and understand though not as it did
in the body by conversion of it selfe to the phantasie which then it hath not nor by any formerly received species kept in memory for then the souls of children departed should understand nothing but the soule separated understandeth as Angels do know a new thing presented to them By which we may see plainly that souls separated know not what is done here on earth Aquin. p. 1. q. 89. art 8. further then God pleaseth to reveal to them and who can prove God doth any such thing continually by way of reflection upon them Mathe. How fell men from God being made so righteous Phila. Solomon saith they found out inventions i. Adam and all his successors did yea and Eve first who was called Adam of God as well as he Ishab Virago Gen. 5.2 But her husband Adam called her woman Gen. 2.23 and afterward Havah Evah the mother of all living Gen. 3.20 Her first invention was to open her eare too wide to the Devils subtile counsell who had fallen himselfe first from God and from heaven the place of blessednesse and cast down into these lower regions where finding man to be Gods favourite he was very industrious to bring him to destruction with himselfe And for this purpose makes the serpents body the organ of his speech and tempts the woman supposing her to be inferiour to the man in understanding but far more inclinable to curiosity His temptation of her was to eat of the tree God forbad Aug. de civ dei lib. 13. c. 20. and set apart as a token of his prerogative and their obedience she consented and gave to her husband upon which St Paul saith 1 Tim. 2. the man was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression That is the man was not deceived immediately by the serpent but the woman was nor did the woman deceive him but gave it him for she had no mind to make him transgre sse for she was so perswaded by the serpent as if she had not transgressed in eating thereof her selfe so he was tempted by her but not deceived by her nor the serpent For the serpent left that work to the woman knowing how prevalent she might be with him being his only companion This tree whose fruit was forbidden them was called the tree of knowledge of good and evill Moses Barcephas translated by Masius not that it had any such vertue to increase knowledge for the tree was naturall not metaphysicall but it is called so from that unhappy effect which they should find after the eating of it Junius For as Adam in his innocence knew good and might have obtained it and knew evill and might have avoided it so after his fall he knew the good he had lost and the evill he found the good of obedience the evill of disobedience not but he knew good before by prudence but not evill by experience till now Their sin therefore was not a precacious carnall knowledge one of another as some think for we find a command for it increase and multiply but no time set of abstinence or continence by breach whereof they might offend God Gen. 4.1 And we find also in Scripture that they had no carnall knowledge of each other till they had sinned for had Eve conceived in the state of innocency no doubt but the children had been innocent also which had been so conceived Mathe. What was it that most prevailed with Adam to do this Phila. 1. Perswasion of the woman filled with unquiet vanity 2. It may be the false understanding of Gods threatning who had said the day on which thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and perceiving Eve had eaten and yet was not dead he was the more easily perswaded to eat But God meant they should become mortall not die presently 3. A loathnesse to displease her or sad her spirit that was his only comfort 4. His own ambition of a farther knowledge in himselfe did betray and over-power his understanding so that he did not look seriously into the evils incident and the sorrowes emerging from that act but affecting the supposed glory to be obtained by tasting he was driven on and transported by the gentle gale of perswasion and so turned from the Creator to the creature and so fell under Gods infinite wrath to be poured eternally upon body and soule Mathe. How did he escape it Phila. Naturall death he could not for justice must have its course he having brought himselfe under the power of death yea his soule too but that God himselfe provided a plaister so soon as he was wounded by the serpent For since he could not stand by the Law he propounds to him a promised seed of the woman who should loose the bands of Satan in which they were tied purposed of God upon the foresight of their fall that so they might live by faith since they could not by works Not that God did hereby abolish mans duty but shewed that his duty was insufficient to justifie him in his sight whose infinite justice he had offended So that now all he did in pious practices was only a fruit of his faith not a cause of his justice Rom. 5.18 to shew his gratification not justification therefore did God shew forth his intent of this way of worship and religion from the beginning And therefore as he forbad them the tree of knowledge to shew that none could come to felicity by seeking curious and unnecessary knowledge so he barred them of the tree of life lest the carnall knowledge they had got should lead them into farther presumptuous error as to eat of the tree of life in hope that might bring them to eternity as they hoped the other tree should have made them wise and so abuse that for nutriment which God set rather for a Sacrament Mathe. How was the hope of Gods promise continued Phila. By Covenant Types Promises Prophecies till the fulnesse of time came 1. By Covenant This covenant did not appear plainly at first saving to Adam in the promise of Christ Gen. 3.15 called the seed of the woman For we find no covenant made by God with any of the Patriarchs about Religious worship till Abraham though they that were of the line of Sheth were called the sons of God because they professed that true Religion constantly which they had received from Adam by tradition But these mixing themselves with the daughters of men i. the linage of Cain God was displeased so that he drowned all the world save Noah and his family which were but eight persons in all This time was called an obscure or dark time Scaliger in Proleg in Euseb Varro de re rustica and it continued even after the flood till the time of Moses who first gave the true light of Gods proceeding with man It is true that there were many good men before and after the flood But as the flood obliterated the memory of some so the confounding of
infernall sorrowes as the innocent surety of our salvation was capable of which no mention was made in the Creed but only by this Article or that by the efficacy of his death he did pierce into hell i. wheresoever the cursed spirits have their residence despoiling them of their power and confirm their damnation and to signifie the deliverance of his people from their captivity Ephes 4.8 And it seems to me that David intended this sense Psal 16.10 thou wilt not leave my soule in hell i. in sorrow and anguish nor suffer my body to know corruption All which should work in us sorrow for sin which put Christ to so much and make us to descend in all humility under the hand of God as he did that with him we be exalted in due time Also to shun despair since God can bring us from the sorrow of hell it selfe as he did our blessed Saviour Mathe. But I pray tell me the benefits obtained by his resurrection Phila. It is said Phil. 2.9 that for his sufferings God hath highly exalted him so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confesse that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father Now this exaltation consisteth 1. In his Resurrection 2. In his ascension 3. In his session at the right hand of God 4. In the outward and inward adoration of the intellectuall and rationall creature 5. In his comming to judge the world Mathe. Foure of these I agree to but the bowing at his name I doubt of as I doe also of many other gestures which have been used in the Church assemblies Phila. I know this outward gesture hath been much controverted But when I consider that God alloweth of outward visible as well as of the invisible worship and that St Paul saith we must glorifie God in our bodies as well as in our spirits and that this posture of bowing the knee is founded upon the glory of God in Christ Phil. 2.10 It may be practised by Christians yea Chrysost ad popu Antioch hom 61. and ought to be at certain times of devotion as a token of the same and to testifie our submission to Jesus Christ whom God hath so highly exalted and assigned him this worship as a part of his reward for suffering Theodo in Phil. 2. that by our humility he may be exalted who was exalted for his humility even to have him honoured in his name when absent in reference to his person I know that many objections are made against it As first that all things that are here spoken of have not knees as Angels below and above I answer nor have they tongues therefore shall not they confesse him The meaning then is that all in their severall manner shall willingly or unwillingly be subject to Christ whom God hath exalted by manifesting him to be the eternall son of God So that as we that have knees are to bowe them to the person that owns that name Jesus so shall all others do first or last willingly or forcibly to the same person and his power For the bowing to the name as a word or at the naming thereof alwaies I do not understand the text intends it but that Christians in old time did use to uncover their heads at divine service when this name was pronounced in signe that they did acknowledge his deity Zanc. in Phil. c. 2. against the blasphemy of the Jewes and Arrians who would not acknowledg his Godhead is plainly to be found Hiero. in Isa 45.23 and that they bowed the knee also which the Jew in pride would not doe which in time did degenerate to superstition Yet sure as it may be superstitiously used so it may be irreligiously neglected since that Christ hath said he that honoreth the Son honoreth the Father and that he will have all men worship the Son as they worship the Father and that God hath included his own name in Jesus I am Isa 43.11 and beside me there is no Saviour and therefore being Jesus the Savior he must be Jehovah too our righteousnesse Jer. 23.6 Upon this ground I beleeve our Church hath injoined this gesture as may be seen in the 52. injunction of Queen Elizabeth and in the eighteenth Canon But antiquity is antiquated and the Church authority disalowed and so Gods worship disanulled Mathe. Now I pray declare the manner and the benefits we have by his Resurrection and Ascension and his session in heaven and his comming to judgement Phila. First ye are to know that only Christs body can properly be said to rise because that only died although the soule and it were never disunited from the person of the Son of God though the soule was divided in death from the body of which rising there was testimony enough both of Angels and men The time of his rising was the third day neither sooner nor later And that first to fulfill both his type of Isaac who was taken alive from the altar the third day after he was destined for death Gen. 22.4 which receiving was in a figure Heb. 11.19 i. of Christs resurrection and also of that prophecie Hos 6.2 the third day he will raise us for by him we shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.22 Againe he rose this day as it were to give a new beginning to the world He died the day of the week that Adam was created and rose the first day of the week on which God began the world by which he enlightned Heaven and Earth with the grace and joy of his resurrection Also he rose with the sun to shew that he was the true Sun of righteousnesse that was to rise with healing in his wings Mal. 4.2 to enlighten the new Christian world after so long a night of dark legall shadowes spoken of Cant. 2.17 and Rom. 13.12 bringing life and immortality to light through the Gospell 2 Tim. 1.10 2 Tim. 1.10 The manner of his rising was admirable As first by his owne power John 2.19 dissolve this temple meaning the temple of his body and I will raise it up again the third day So John 10.18 I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up againe this he did as he was God He did it by himselfe from the Father through the eternall spirit Again he rose by such a way as never any man did before namely as the Prince of life as the first born of the dead as the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. He never saw corruption nor ever was to die any more as Lazarus and others He rose in the same body that was buried Luke 24.39 and in despight of his keeper as the Church shall do in despight of all opposers and with an earthquake to shew how he will shake the world first by the power of his word preached and next by the power of his last
rich mens estates and marking them out for destruction by fire and sword God keep his people from becomming their prey Mathe. What are our Antisabbatarians Phila. Such as are against the keeping of any Sabbath whether the Jewish Sabbath or the Christians Lords day Of which opinion was one Hetherington a Box-maker who said not only the Jewes Sabbath day was of no force since Christs time and the Apostles but also taught that every day was a Sabbath as much as the Lords day But he recanted his error at Pauls Crosse God be praised And good reason for though the Jewish Sabbath being but a shadow of Christ be now abolished and we are not to be judged by the keeping of it Col. 2.16 yet the morality of that Commandement is observed in keeping still one day in seven holy to the Lord for delivering us from the bondage of sin by Christs resurrection as the Jewes kept theirs in remembrance of their freedome from the bondage of Egypt Deut. 5.15 And thus the Law by the Christians observing the first day of the week Rom. 3.31 is not made void but established It is true that there is no precept for the changing of it because there was no need for the morall intent of the Law commanded only that one day in seven be kept so that if the Patriarchs before the Law was given by Moses kept a seventh day in respect to the creation and the Jewes kept a seventh in respect of their liberation from Egypt and the Christians keep their seventh day in relation to Christs redemption that Commandement is fulfilled so far as it requireth an holy seventh day And though we have no precept for changing yet we have their practice and examples who had the mind of Christ For the first day of the week called since Christs time the Lords day was first kept at Jerusalem Acts 2.1 upon which the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles Then again at Troas Acts 20.7 in which verse is declared that it was their usuall meeting day And the holy Fathers have alwaies observed it Epist ad Magnes and urged the keeping of it as Ignatius scholler to St Iohn the Apostle his auditor about thirty years the second Bishop of Antioch and a Martyr but 107 years after Christ in the raign of the Emperour Trajan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith let every one that loveth Christ instead of the Sabbath celebrate the Lords day And Basil saith that when all daies prescribed by the Law are abolished yet there remains one great day of the Lord which shall never be abolished Of this opinion for the seventh day Jewish Sabbath and against the celebration of the Lords day Traskilus was one Iohn Trask and Theophilus Brabourn but both recanted their errors for which glory be to God Trask preached against eating of blood and unclean creatures upon mistake of the injunction of the first Councill of the Apostles to the Gentiles Acts 15.2 where blood and things strangled do not relate to such things prepared for meat but to the barbarous or canibal eating of things halfe alive and halfe dead in their blood or eating any thing that was torn from a living creature therefore Paul saith that every creature of God is good Mathe. What are your Soule-sleepers Phila. Those that revive that Sect in the time of Origen Soul-sleepers in the third centurie of years after Christ who held the soule did sleep in the dust with the body after death because God said to Adam Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return not perceiving this was spoken of the body only not of the soule which came not from thence Gen. 2.7 And also because Solomon saith Eccle. 3.10 that man and beast all return to one place yet they might have considered that he saith also the spirit of a beast goeth downward and the spirit of a man goeth upward even to God that gave it Eccles 12. and that the soules of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord Wisd 3. In the sight of the unwise they seem to die but they are in peace Mathe. What are your seekers Phila. Surely people that have so long contended about truth and the Church Seekers that they have quite lost it and therefore they say there is no true Church nor Minister nor Ordinances yet they expect and seek with Loe here it is and then there it is and catch at every thing but hold nothing like one that leaps out of a boat into the water and then catches at every rush and flag to save himself Mathe. What are your Divorcers Phila. Another sprout of the Anabaptists Divorcers who like the Jewes would put away their wives for a small cause under pretence that he finds her not an help meet for him But this is contrary to Christs rule Mat. 5.31 and c. 19.9 that no man should put away his wife but for whoredome lest he cause her to commit adulterie or another man to marry her and so he commit adultery Mathe. Is there any more such weeds in the Churches field Phila. Yes surely for I hear of some that account the Scriptures a thing of nought both the holy books of the Old and New Testament such were put to death under Moses Law Heb. 5.28 But we live in greater times of liberty I may say Libertinisme The Lord hold the reine which Magistrates let too slack lest these unruly creatures hurry both the Church chariot and the horsemen of Israel to destruction Mathe. I pray what are the Shakers Phila. A kind of people that pretend to have the spirit by fits But what spirit it is that casts them into these seeming or swooning extasies I know not but I doubt much whether it be the spirit of God or of Satan or of dissembling I have read of the spirit of Apollo that used such feats upon the bodies of those whom he had possessed namely of shaking and quaking which being past they have spoken some words which have been received for his Oracles So I have read and heard of Nuns pretended to be possessed by evill spirits beyond the seas which the Friers can expell at their pleasure But I never knew nor ever read in any credible author that the spirit of God doth or hath entred the body of men in any such manner but hath enlightned the mind with sober knowledge and sound repentance and comfortable faith and well grounded speeches that are unreprovable and lead them in a life unblameable But these Quakers their speeches are confused and yet perverse and peremptorie Their lives erroneous not knowing or refusing to use the creature of God as lawfully they may I find them people of no sound knowledge yet despising learning and rejecting Gods Ministers and Ordinances by which they may be better instructed They dare not use their own native language as the word you either because the Scripture useth the word thou or else because they think
53.8 and made his soule an offering for sin Isa 53.10 After sixty two weeks said Daniel shall Messiah be cut off but not for himselfe Dan. 9.25 26. that is if you mark the verses the Angel allots seven weeks for rebuilding of the Temple which is forty nine years reckoned of the Jewes but forty six years Iohn 2.20 because they reckoned not the first three years when the foundation was but laid by Cyrus his edict and the work staied again by Artaxerxes Longimanus Ezra 4.7 till they had got a second Edict Ezra 6.1 from Darius Nothus Then the Angell allots to the former seven weeks sixty two weeks more which is about 434. years in all 483. or thereabout in the end whereof Christ suffered on the crosse to make an end of sin and finish transgression and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousnesse This scourging wounding and piercing was foreseen also by Isa 53.5 he was bruised for our iniquities and chastised for our peace And saith Zach. 12.12 they shall look on him whom they have pierced for a souldier pierced his side as well as others did his hands and feet when they nailed them to the crosse So his very carrying of his crosse John 19.34 was typed out by Isaac carrying the wood to sacrifice himself upon Gen. 22.9 10. And as Abraham stretched out his hand to slay his son so God loved the world that he gave his Son Iohn 3.16 and he himself became obedient to the death of the crosse Numb 21.9 And as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wildernesse for the curing of the people upon a pole John 12.32 John 14. so was Christ lift up on the crosse for the saving of us who were bitten by Satan and sin also So also his Resurrection had a type as Isaac taken from the Altar and restored safe and sound to Abraham the third day after that he was assigned to death Gen. 22.4 of whom it is said that Abraham received him again in a figure Heb. In what figure but only of him that was to come of his seed in whose death and resurrection all nations should be blessed So Ionah the first Prophet who lived in the time of Ieroboam the second 2 Kin. 14.25 and the first Prophet sent to the Gentiles to Niniveh who because he diverted to Tarsus was swallowed of a great fish in whose belly he remained till the third day after and for so long time the grave swallowed Christ but then he arose and so his flesh saw no corruption Psal 16. and that might well be without a miracle if the body be not accidentally corrupted before it be dead as in violent deaths commonly men are not Now Christ lay not in the grave above 40. hours and commonly dead bodies corrupt not til about seventy hours and this sheweth that he rose within three daies and so saw no corruption as the Psalmist said Psal 16. which is expounded plainly so by St Peter Acts 2.31 And as Isaiah had also foretold that the dead men should live and with Christs body they should come so they did Mat. 27.52 53. Thus Christ conquered death in his own Kingdome as said Hosea 13.14 and death had no more dominion over him Rom. 6.9 because he was now swallowed up into victory 1 Cor. 15.55 And thus as God spake to the great fish and it cast out Ionah on the dry land Jon. 2.10 so the temple of Christs body which the Jewes destroied he rebuilt in three daies And for his Ascension as it was prophecied so it was accomplished Eliah was a type of it 2 Kin. 2.11 being taken up in a fiery Chariot so Christ was taken up out of his disciples sight into heaven Luke 24.51 as was prophecied in Psal 68.18 Thou hast ascended up on high and led captivity captive So he was taken away his disciples beholding it at first Acts 1.9 but after a cloud took him out of their sight And now he sits on Gods right hand foretold Psal 110.1 and averred in Mark 16.19 And from him the Holy Ghost like a most gracious rain from heaven hath fallen upon his Apostles Acts 2.15 16. and upon many thousands of beleevers as was foreprophecied Joel 2.18 and typed forth by the spirit of Eliah resting upon Elisha 2 Kin. 1.13 5. Even so God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts baptizing us with the Holy Ghost and as blessed fire from heaven giving some the gift of tongue Acts 2.4 others to prophecie some to teach others to learn and increase in faith and the love and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ Mathe. Now as you have shewed the Promises Types and Prophecies and history of Christs Conception Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension shew me also the mystery of godlinesse intended thereby in relation to Christians And first of all I desire to understand rightly his Conception for therein lieth a great mystery wherein our understanding is easily lost if we be not rightly directed For how can one person in the Trinity be conceived or become incarnate without the other two seeing the divine nature is not divided but is in each person totally Phila. The divine nature cannot be divided for substance but in the manner of subsistence it is distinguished For it is after one manner in the Father i. unbegotten After another manner in the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because in him it is begotten i. communicated by divine generation After another manner in the Holy Ghost because proceeding from both John 15.16 Now we are to beleeve that the humane nature is assumed by the divine nature as considered only in the Son as he enjoieth it being the perfect image of the Father Heb. 1.1 2 3. and so being the naturall Son of God was most fit to be the son of man and so thereby restore the sons of men by adoption to be made the sons of God Yet we are to beleeve that all the Trinity had a hand in it John 1.12 for the Father wrought it by the holy Ghost but the Son only assumed it as three folks may make one garment and yet but one of the three wear it Mathe. But the Conception is applied to the Holy Ghost and so I am apt to beleeve that the Holy Ghost was his Father Phila. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost effectually not materially he caused it to be but gave not any matter out of himselfe to the nature of Christ so that he was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost uniting the natures divine and humane together Bernard Damascen not by generation but by institution and benediction and operation not spermatically as other fathers beget children So it is said Rom. 11.36 all things are of God yet not of his substance but by his power so that we are to beleeve that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost in regard that his humane nature
sanctified from sin without the blood of the covenant Heb. 9.22 and Ephe. 1.7 and so there must have been another Mediator beside himselfe which St Paul denieth 1 Tim. 2.5 there is but one Mediator even the Man Christ Jesus the High Priest who is in himselfe holy innocent and undefiled and separate from sinners Heb. Mathe. But if Christs humane nature came from the blessed Virgin and from Adam he could not avoid the taint of sin no more then he could death Phila. We are to consider as I said before that sin cleaving not to substance alone but to persons and considering that he took no person of the Virgin but her substance which was immediately united to his Godhead in subsistence and only so made a person it will follow that though his substance yet his person was never in Adam and so never sinned in Adam and so never tainted with originall sin For as it could not be propagated by his manner of conception so neither could it be justly imputed to his person which was both God and man And for his death it was voluntary Death did not by his own power prevaile over him but he laid it down John 10.17 18. Nor did death fall upon him as a sinner but as the surety for sin Mathe. What effect worketh this conception for us Phila. 1. It hides the impurity of our conceptions from Gods anger because this satisfieth Gods justice for originall sin for the righteousnesse hereof is imputed to us and by it is constituted holinesse of nature for in this he was qualified with all habits of grace and vertue which by his spirit he powreth also upon us For this purpose he took an humane body because sacrifice and offerings would not satisfie Psal 40. and Heb. 10.5 2. This conception worketh a spirituall life and conception in us For our nature in him being conceived and quickned by the holy Ghost in the womb from thence proceeds the power of our regeneration from him that is the originall of spirituall life in our nature for the spirit that formed him in the womb doth beget us again to live in him and so doth justifie us before God from the evils that cleave to our nature Mathe. He is oftentimes called in the Gospell even by himselfe too the Son of man how then shall I conceive his conception to be more then humane Phila. His Conception and Birth are full of wonder yet may be discerned with distinction for it seems a new creation For as he was the Son of God no woman was his mother and as he was man he had no father He is called the Son of man because he took our nature of the blessed Virgins substance Yet he is called the Son of the most High Mat. 1. because he is the second person in the holy Trinity Which title is given to the nature assumed because it had no subsistence but in his person that was the naturall Son of God In which regard the blessed Virgin is called the mother of God not of his deity but of this union of God and man yet his person was not circumscribed in her womb though the humane nature was But as his body is heaven locally and is in the Word substantially and in the Sacrament mystically and in the heart of a beleever spiritually so it was in her body naturally Mathe. How am I to conceive of the birth of Christ Phila. He was born three waies of his Father of his Mother and in the mind of man Of his Father eternally of his Mother temporally and in mans mind spiritually For three things have relation to his birth Deity Flesh and Spirit Of his Father he is born God for ever of his Mother flesh once and in mans mind he is born Spirit figuratively often In respect of his divine nature he had a Father without a Mother in regard of the humane nature he had a Mother without a Father in respect of his spirituall nativity he hath both Father and Mother i. they that do his will Paul saith God was manifested in flesh 1. From the bosome of his Father in whom he was concealed 2. From the shadowes of the Law in which he was prefigured 3. From the womb of his Mother in which he was covered This was the greatest and the most gracious work considered in all the consequences of it as his death and resurrection which without this could not have been that ever God wrought who for these humiliations gave him a name above all names Jesus the Saviour Phil. 2.9 Which name although others had as well as he in the Old Testament yet they were but figures of him yea the name Jehovah signifieth but essence i. God as he is the author of being but Jesus signifieth God our well being a Saviour then which there is no other name of salvation given Act. It was the name of the eternall Word incarnate it contains in it the whole oeconomy of the work of redemption wherein the attributes of God are united wisedome justice peace Psal 85. mercy and truth This was well called his great work of a woman compassing a man And wonderfull great it was in effect For in the Creation God made man in his image and so earth was honoured but in Christs birth God made himselfe in our image and so heaven was debased In creation God made all without resistance he spake but the word and they were made Heb. 12. But in redemption he suffered contradictions of sinners against himselfe In this work he did both speak work and suffer speak graciously work wonderfully suffer unworthily In creation the Word made flesh but in Jesus our Redeemer John 1.3 the Word was made flesh John 1.14 In the creation God took man out of the earth and placed him in Paradise In the redemption he took man out of hell and placed him in heaven through Jesus the Saviour Mathe. What were the effects of his birth Phila. Many For among the heathen voices were heard saying that the great God was about to be born At Rome a woman was seen about the Sun having a child in her arms And the Sybil told Augustus the Emperour that that same child was greater then he and bade him to adore him He would never after be called Lord. The Temple of peace fell down at his birth because he brought better peace to the world The Oracles were all struck dumb by the birth of this eternall Word Jupiters Oak in Dodona was shaken the Caldron smitten with the rod in the hand of Jupiter The Tripode in Delphis Nazi in Julian annotat Nomi the Laurell and fountain of Daphne and the ramfaced image of Jupiter Ammon could utter nothing so that one effect of Christs birth was Gods glory and Satans confusion But further another effect was the good mans peace and salvation For he was born to bring both to passe 1. His salvation being he was born to be a King a Priest and a
lying in the grave three daies was to answer to Ionas his type in the whales belly and to make good the prophecie of Hosea 6.2 after two daies he will revive us and the third day he will raise us and we shall live in his sight But you will say he did not lie in the grave three whole daies and nights yet according to the Jewish account he might be said so to do for a day is reckoned by evening and morning Now the former evening and Good Friday on which he was buried made the first day then Friday evening and the Sabbath following made the second day and the Sabbath evening and the next morning of his Resurrection was the third day It may be you may think it strange that Christ would lie in the grave on the Sabbath day but this he did to shew the work of redemption was finished and therefore he rested the seventh day as God was said to do after the six daies work of creation Also to shew that with him was buried the ceremoniall part of the Sabbath namely the seventh day formerly appointed And surely the first Christians so understood it and therefore they kept their holy meeting afterward upon the first day of the week Rev. 1. which St Iohn called the Lords day Now in all this time Christs body corrupted not First because he was without sin which is the cause of corruption and therefore he was preserved by the power of God Psal 16.10 Beside men that die violent deaths are not so apt to corrupt as those that die of diseases by which they are partly corrupted before they are dead otherwise a dead body may possibly be without corruption sixty hours and upwards and Christ was dead not much above forty and so might justly be said not to see corruption By all which he gave us a pledge of an eternall sabbath of rest and that our bodies after death should rise incorruptible And this doctrin of Christs buriall is full of comfort and instruction Of comfort because that now this storm of Gods anger is allaied by our Jonas being cast into this whales belly of the grave which by his body is fanctified for us It teacheth us also to bury our sins with Christ Rom. 6.4 and there let them lie as dead carcasses separated from us for ever and grow loathsome and at last wear out of memory in respect of either by affection or practice and we may live to newnesse of life by vertue of Christs resurrection Mathe. But before I enquire of you the mystery of Christs resurrection I pray resolve me what you think of Christs descending into hell which is an Article of that Creed commonly called the Apostles and in that of Athanasius but not in the Nicene Creed nor in any other that I know Phila. You put a Question of great controversie yet of more then needs if the phrase of hell were rightly understood For in the Old Testament it hath two names given to it namely 1. The congregation of the dead Pro. 21.16 according to which translation it may be understood for the grave and if it be translated word for word with the Hebrew then it may be taken for the depths of water In caetu Riphaim or Gigantum in which the rebell giants of the old world were drowned which Job calleth Sheol infernus or the low place Job 26.7 and so doth David Sheol Psal 16.10 which is translated the grave Afterward about the captivity it is called Tophet or Gehinnom Gebenna which are only words borrowed from that execrable place in the vallie of Hinnom where the Jews burned their children in sacrifice to Moloch i. the devill to expresse hell which they beleeved to be a place of torment This term or word held long among the Jewes and Christ used it as the vulgar expression in his time Mat. 5.22 yet Luke 16.23 he useth another word as it is in the Greek text namely Hades which there signifieth hell for it is said Hades the rich man was in hell in torments But it is taken oftner for the grave and the condition of men deceased as Gen. 42.38 Iob 7.9 Psal â—â— â— Pro. 23.14 Acts 2.31 1 Cor. 15.55 and most plainly Rev. 20.13 death and Hades i. the grave shall be cast into the lake of fire Now see how Christ may be said to descend into these for into the grave he had descended and therefore it need not be said again in relation thereunto that he descended into hell If taken for the waters what should he do there 1 Pet. 3.19 except you will suppose that he went to preach to the rebellious spirits that were there imprisoned for their disobedience in the daies of Noah But how he went and when and wherefore how whether in soule or body or both then in what time whether before he rose or afterward and why whether to preach for their conversion or to confirm their damnation would be resolved or whether he went thither to suffer any thing or to triumph surely not to suffer for us for on the crosse all his sufferings were finished nor to triumph for that he did upon his crosse Col. 2.14 15. Beside we are to consider where Hell should be if Christ descended locally thither for we conceive it to be a place ordained for the devill and his angels and wicked men Now if the Devill and his be not yet confined thither what should Christ descend thither for either to confirm damnation or to triumph over them that were not there Now that they are not yet confined to the place appointed is plain because St Paul calleth him the Prince that ruleth in the aire because yet they have great liberty in tempting men Also because the devill besought Christ not to torment him before the time And because both St Peter 2 Pet. 2.4 and St Iude ver 6. say that they are as yet only reserved in chains of darknesse to the judgement of the great day Just Mart. Iren. l. 5. c. 26. Hieron in 6. cap. Ephes Drusius Aug. lib. de civit dei l. 8. c. 22 23. And so held the fathers of the first 400. yeers after Christ St Peter in his second Epistle the second chapter the ninth and seventeenth verses saith so of wicked people Therefore some writers of great account have said that from the earth to the firmament is not a meer empty space but full of spirits which were cast down from the high heavens into these lower parts of the aire as into a prison till the last judgement together with other wicked of their society Now descension cannot properly be applied to the aire but rather ascention Therefore by Christs descending into hell we may as I judge safely understand those inward sorrowes which he suffered in his agony in the garden and on the crosse which pressed him to cry so bitterly my God my God why hast thou forsaken me which internall sorrowes were as neer
comming to judgement Mathe. What benefits have we by his resurrection Phila. Surely very many as first the confirmation of our faith in Christ that he was the Son of God because he raised himselfe from the dead and that we are justified from our sins or else why is our surety let out of the prison of his grave but that Gods justice is fully satisfied Rom. 4. and the last verse Again it causeth a twofold resurrection in us first from sin to a new life of grace Rom. 6.4 Secondly of our bodies from the grave 1 Thes 4.14 so it gives us an hope of heavenly inheritance 1 Pet. 1.3 4. The reason whereof is because Christ sustained our persons in himselfe and so we have our part both in his death and resurrection Rom. 8.11 Therefore this doctrine ought ever to be remembred 2 Tim. 2.8 not only in our head but in our life by standing up from the dead Eph. 5.14 lest if we have no part in the first resurrection we lose also our part in the second And remembred it ought to be the rather because it may comfort against the most sad afflictions Esa 26.19 from whence Christ can raise us So against the fear of Gods wrath because it is fully satisfied from which baptism a type of the ark and of our rising with Christ above the deluge of Gods justice doth now save us 1 Pet. 3.21 and against the power of death Rom. 8.11 which by vertue hereof is so subdued that it shall not alwaies suppresse us Mathe. For what end or purpose did Christ ascend into heaven Phila. To fulfill what was foreshewed in legall types and shadowes of him As the high Priest of the Jewes entring into the most holy place Heb. 7.26 which was a type of heaven as he himselfe was of Christ So to shew that he fulfilled all things on earth which concerned our redemption and reconciliation and therefore now ascended in triumph leading captivity captive as Abraham did the forces of the four Kings Psal 68.18 and as Barack did the Midianites and so enter into his glory prepared Iohn 17.5 through the gates of heaven intimated Psal 24.7 and so demonstrate that Angels and principalities and powers were made subject to him 1 Pet. 3.22 Also that in Heaven he might make intercession for us Heb. 9.24 who yet are in this world as in the outward court of the most holy place where the Jewes stood when the High Priest entred to make an attonement for them he being sprinkled with blood having the holy censer with sweet incense in his hand by which means he hath opened a way for us into heaven Heb. 10.10 as he had promised and now performed it John 14.2 3 Eph. 2.6 by carrying our flesh into heaven as a pledge that we should all follow that beleeve in him also that we might place our mind where our treasure is and not misplace them on earthly things Col. 3.1 nor to dream of his bodily presence in this world as if we would know him still after the flesh This doctrine of Christs ascension should make us to forsake sin and satan not be subject to that slave which Christ hath led captive So to be willing to die that we may go to the place which Christ hath entred for us and therefore not to mourn immoderately for the dead in Christ who are seized of heaven already Mathe. What is meant by Christs sitting on Gods right hand for I conceive not God to have either right or left hand nor how Christ is tied to any such posture Phila. You are to understand that sitting so importeth in Scripture abiding or habitations as Luke 24.49 sometime judiciary power as Solomon was said to sit on the throne of his Father though he was not alwaies tied to that posture 1 Kin. 2.30 So by right hand is understood power and help and glory Psal 44.3 Sometimes therefore as man is said to be helped by Gods power and protected when he standeth on his right hand Psal 16.8 or holdeth by his right hand Psal 73.23 So one is exalted when one is said to be on Christs right hand Psal 45.29 which is spoken of the Church So Christ by his sitting is understood to rest in felicity from all his labor and pain and on Gods right hand having dignity imperiall and power judiciall so that we are to understand by his sitting on Gods right hand that he doth not only rest in joy and felicity but hath obtained the highest dignity above all men and Angels Eph. 1.28 and that he is copartner with his father in his Kingdome and therefore he hath power over all things in heaven and in earth Mat. 28.18 not that God the Father ceaseth to rule but that he pleaseth to administer his Kingdome by his Son yet he also makes Christs enemies his footstool Psal 110.1 till which time Christ must reign by and in the Kingdome of grace 1 Cor. 15. but then he shall deliver up this Kingdome to God the Father i. the rule which he exerciseth now by Gospell means shal cease when his enemies are subdued and the elect fully gathered and glorified not that his Kingdome by which he is equall with God shall cease for of that his Kingdome shall be no end but of that Kingdome by which he governeth by means and holy methods of Word and Sacraments and mysteries of godlinesse Now then who can be ashamed of Christs service who is so great a potentate but rather to submit to his government with all reverence and conscience of his greatnesse and power that so we may shew our selves worthy subjects and servants to him lest we cause that blessed name to be blasphemed by which we are called And who can choose but trust in him for provision in all wants and deliverance in all temptations of satan or any adversity since our Saviour hath an universall power by sitting at the right hand of God Mathe. Whether is this the uttermost degree of Christs honor and exaltation Phila. No for he shall come from thence to judge the world In which we are to consider many things for the terror of some and the comfort of others Mathe. What need or why must there be a judgement day Phila. First for the confusion of wicked men who have mocked at it 2 Pet. 3.3 whom he confutes in that chapter first of being ignorant that the world was made by the Word of God and that he destroied once by water Gen. 7.11 in the 600. year of Noahs life and that the world which is now is reserved for fire unto the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men foretold by Isa 66.15 Dan. 7.10 Mal. 4.1 and threatning a fire that shall consume the wicked both root and branch Secondly he shewes the reason why God deferreth it not that he is slack in his purpose but because he would not have them all to perish by a sudden surprize but that Jew and Gentile
was learned He like some schismaticks now accounted humane learning heresie and so they may see their error is popish while they condemn learning as if it were popery Next comes Sixtus the fourth Innocentius the eight Alexander the sixt who imprisoned and banished many Cardinals Then followed Pius the third and next Julius the second who by the Emperour Maximilian and the King of Spain and France's aids spoiled the Venetians of many territories yet he received them again into favor and so discontented the Emperour and the King of France that they thought to depose him by their Councill at Pisa But he called another Councill at Rome which disanulled all they did at Pisa He lived in wars all his time Leo the tenth succeeds him He endevoured to suppresse Martin Luther but could not Adrianus the sixt followed and threatned the Duke of Saxony for maintaining Martin Luther Clement the seventh succeeds who poisoned many and was poisoned himselfe Paulus the third followeth whose authority in England was abrogated by King Henry the eighth who called himselfe supreme head in his own dominions in all causes Ecclesiastick and Civill He cursed King Henry the eighth of England therefore and interdicted the Kingdome ratified the order of Jesuites and called a Councill at Trent where the Protestants would not appear because they said that Councill was not lawfully called and the Pope sate Judge who was the party they were to accuse of errors and abusing the Church He carried the Councill to Bononia Iulius the third followed who brought it back again to Trent and sent in Queen Maries daies Cardinall Pool to absolve England from the interdiction of Paul the third But havock was made in England of Protestants Paulus the fourth followed who hated Charls the Emperour who resigned his government to his son Ferdinand and died in a Monastery The Pope approved not this election but Ferdinand esteemed not of his approbation Pius the fourth followed In his time the Councill of Trent called by Paul the third was dissolved which had sate six yeers only of eighteen But before that he sent an Embassador into England to invite the Clergy to that Councill but Queen Elizabeth would not suffer him to land Nor would the Germans send any Scotland also revolted from popery He massacred Protestants at Montalto in Italy to the number of eighty because they met at an house to hear a Sermon They were drawn out one by one and their throats cut but none recanted their Religion Pius the fifth followed who with the Venetians and the King of Spain and his own aids overcame the Turks at Lepanto under the conduct of John of Austria Gregory the thirteenth followed He founded a new Colledge for Jesuites and gave it great revenues to bring up schollers to convert the Germans The Guises faction and the Queen Mother made an horrid massacre in Paris of the Protestants whom they called Huguenots 1572. Which act this Pope commended and sent Charls King of France 40000. Duckats to set forward the war against them This Pope set forth a new Kalender Sixtus the fift followed who excommunicated the King of Navar and the Prince of Condie both Protestants Now was Henry the third killed by a Frier Clement the eighth absolved Henry the fourth King of France from the excommunication of Sixtus the fifth upon his abjuration of the protestation by his Orators which King was slain by a proselyte of the Jesuits called Ravilack Mathe. I desire to know how the Protestant Religion came in and whether it be ancient and how it hath been persecuted by the Pope his adherents whether Princes or Prelates and by what heresies opposed for the Papists still upbraid us that our Religion was begun by Luther who began an innovation in the time of Pope Leo the tenth Against whom Henry the eighth of England did write and obtained the title from the Pope of Defender of the faith Phila. You are to understand that the substantiall points of the Protestant Religion are the same which are grounded upon Scripture and maintained from the Primitive times by the Church Christian but obscured in tract of time by divers heresies and popish traditions which like tares and weeds over-grew the good seed which yet still appeared in divers places of the field of the Catholike Church plain enough to prove a visible being both of the truth and professors of it till the Protestants made a more full declaration of it by refining the old truths from the drosse of heresie and popish superstition Mathe. I desire to have a more plain view of those hereticks that turned from Gospell truths And secondly how the Pope sell off being that the Roman Church did oftentimes excommunicate those hereticks And thirdly how the Protestants came to reform themselves they being once in the bowels of the Romish Church Phila. You know I have shewed many already among the persecuting hereticks yet it shall not be irksome to me if it be not to you to view them a little better especially the Manicheans who sprung up before Arrius with which heresie Augustine was entangled but the Lord God that bringeth good out of evill converted him by the pains of Ambrose Bishop of Millain and he became a great light to Gods people and a confuter of that cursed heresie Manicheus opinions were that there were two beginnings one evil and the other good which is all one as to say there be two Gods No wonder if their patron Manes called himselfe the Holy Ghost Maniches as Montanus did if he proceeded from such principles This Manes forbade flesh and wine neglected the old Testament ascribed the sin of man not to his free will Vid. Aug. cont Mani but necessity because he said mans body was made of the substance of the Prince of darknesse He died a fearfull death Theo. l. 4. c. 4. For as Arrius voided his guts at a draught-house before he came to dispute against the truth so this Manes was sent for being a Persian by the King of Persia to cure his son who died in his hands and he was imprisoned but escaped yet heard of in Mesopotamia was taken and flead Socrat. l. 1. c. 21. and his skin stuffed and set up at the gate of the City Mathe. Sir lest it be too much trouble to you and no great benefit to me to recite all the heresies I desire only the chiefe of them which do directly oppose true Religion Phila. I intend so and therefore first I will shew you the ancient heresies and then the modern that you may see how far the latter are raked out of the former We find some holding God to be like a man because Gen. 1.21 God is said to make man after his image Anthropomorphites but that in the soule and the endowments thereof wisedome and righteousnesse The Author of this heresie was one Ardaeus a Syrian Then followed the Messalians called Euchitae because they thought the whole duty of
will their law and Gods word their rule otherwise whereas they might be the balm of the Church they prove her bane as many have done namely the second Nicen Synod and that of Constance and the Roman under Innocent the third and many others so that the outward communion of the Church hath been often dissolved though the inward hath and must hold among the faithfull Mathe. I desire to know what the Communion of Saints is Phila. The participation of those benefits to which the Saints only have a right in common and this communion they have with God and of his benefits among themselves That they have a communion with God you may see 1 John 1.3 7. by which we have a connexion and union with him by love of him towards us and our love to him and his word and service and so as it were cohabiting and dwelling one in and with another Iohn 14.23 as a father with his children by providence children with their father by a loving obedience And this communion is express in Scripture particularly with the blessed Trinity As first with the father by being made his sons 1 Iohn 3.1 through Christ by faith Iohn 1.12 and by the vertue of the Holy Ghost who leadeth us into all saving truth Iohn 16.13 and testifieth to us that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 17. For as the Father by his love to us draweth us to Christ Iohn 6.44 so Christ dwels in our heart by faith Eph. 3.12 and the spirit acteth and perfecteth this union and communion by his operation through his spirituall graces Rom. 8.14 Therefore as God the Father hath given us his Son so his Son hath united our nature to himselfe by an union indissoluble as a body and members to the head 1 Cor. 12.12 So the Holy Ghost doth combine him and the Saints by a true and reall union and communion of his substance not by his body being in ours or ours in his but as the branches are in the vine which though differing in sight yet agree in connexion communication and assimulation By this spirit we have communion with Christs divine nature because it dwels in us and conforms us to it selfe 2 Pet. 1.4 and also with his human nature as children are partakers of the same flesh blood Heb. 2.14 yea of the same spirit 1. Cor. 6.17 and of his sufferings also Rom. 8.17 that we may be glorified with him For by the union we have with Christ is obtained all the benefits of his birth death resurrection and ascension spoken of before together with all the blessed effects thereof wronght in us as free justification regeneration adoption and freedome from sin satan and the sinfull world with all the consequents thereof which is remission of sin resurrection of our bodies and life eternall all which is sealed to us by the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper by both which we have communion with Christ for all that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ Gal. 3.27 and the cup of blessing and the sacramentall bread is the blood and body of Christ to faith 1 Cor. 10.16 Mathe. What need was there of two Sacraments since both of them have relation to the death of Christ Phila. He that did first institute them knew best the reason of appointing two and the Scripture which is the expresse mind of Christ sets forth baptisme to us as the Sacrament of initiation or entrance or first grafting into Christ and his mysticall body the Church The other as the Sacrament of sustentation by which we are with the word nourished up to life eternall Therefore St Paul Rom. 6.5 cals baptisme a planting into the similitude of Christs death and Rom. 11.17 he saith the Gentiles were grafted into the true olive which no doubt was at first by the word of faith preached and baptisme received And the Sacrament of the communion is represented to us as food to which Christ had some respect John 6.55 saying my flesh is meat indeed though he explains it afterward in a spirituall sense ver 63. saying the spirit quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing It is true that there is no clear analogy between grafting and washing except we consider the subject of that Sacrament in divers respects 1. As a wild tree and so by baptisme one is said to be grafted because it is a means ordained for our admittance into the stock 2. If we consider man as a polluted infant in birth naturall so washing is proper Ezek. 16.4 5. and therefore baptisme is called the washing of regeneration or the new birth and differs as much from the other Sacrament in the thing signified as in the sign for the sign of one is water of the other wine So the thing signified in the one is the all-cleansing spirit of God John 3.5 which in effectuall baptisme operates with the water the thing signified by the other is the all-cleansing blood of Christ not but that both are in both the blood of Christ concurring with baptisme through the efficacy of it though not signified by it and the Holy Ghost in the communion by his powerfull operation conveying the efficacy of his body and blood to every beleever Mathe. Though Baptisme be but the Sacrament of entrance yet there be many tender minds who cannot comfortally bring children to it as there be many being fearfull of their own unworthiness and to partake with such as are not fit as they suppose to abstain from the Lords Table I pray therefore to help me therein that I being strengthened I may comfort others Phil. First I know no reason why any Christians should doubt of bringing their children to baptisme for the reasons I have already shewed But beside if Christ did admit children that were carried in peoples arms to his person for a blessing Luke 18.15 no doubt they may be admitted to baptisme where his blessing is to be expected especially there being no other ordinance appointed whereby we may bring children to him but this and that we find no prohibition in Scripture against it And whereas some say they may not because they have not faith they cannot prove they have none because Christ saith there be little ones that beleeve in him Greg. Decret lib. 3. cap. â— de baptis Nor can they prove that none may be baptized that beleeve not for Simon Magus was If they say that he made a confession of it I say they may make a better confession and profession by their parents and witnesses than he did by himselfe Or if there were a Text containing these words he that beleeveth not shall not be baptized would discreet men think it meant only of those that could hear and understand and not of Infants who cannot understand no more then that place of St Mark 16.16 includes infants damnation where Christ saith he that beleeveth not shall be damned And what forbids us to beleeve that being God worketh without means upon
of base mettall are made valuable by the power of Kings and a small piece of parchment by law enabled to convey an inheritance The elements are mean and poor the better to resemble him that had neither form nor beauty in his passion and also to set forth his power who can do wonders and miracles by weak means yet they be doubled to confirm our comfort and they be the elements of our sustentation to present to us his vertue by which the soule is nourished to everlasting life Next we are to consider what relation the actions of Christ in the consecration hath to himselfe and of the receiver to Christ namely in that he eateth and drinketh the Sacrament The actions of Christ in his consecration of the elements to a sacramentall use are First his taking and blessing of the elements Luke 22.19 20. There is another cup named in the 17 verse which was only the cup of thanksgiving used by the Jewes in all their solemn feasts But this was the cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10.16 the cup of the New Testament in his blood which blessing caused it to cease from being a common drink and to become sacramentall signifying that he took our nature and sanctified it to undertake the work of redemption and yet altered not the elements in their nature but use not in their substance but efficacy no more then he altered the nature of man by taking it into the deity though he advanced it in quality above the common capacity of humane nature So he brake it Aug. tom 8. in Psal tom 9. tract 7. in Ep. Johannis to shew what violence should be used to his body and poured out the wine to set forth the effusion of his blood So he gave it to his disciples to shew that he freely bestowed himselfe upon the Church with all his merits Secondly we are to consider in the actions of the receiver what relation they have to Christ Their action is taking eating drinking Taking shewes the beleevers hand of faith apprehending Christ Then he eats and drinks the Sacrament to signifie the benefit we get by Christ whose precious death is exhibited to us in the Sacrament and proves to us either like physick to prevent evill or to purge us of it 1 John 1.7 or else is like ordinary food to sustain us or like dainty meat to refresh and restore us Again it is eaten and drunk to shew that he is like meat without which we cannot live and after which we should most earnestly long and eagerly desire as hungry men do after victuals as also to shew what conformity our spirituall stomack hath with Christ for as that which we eat is retained if it agree with our stomack else it is repelled so if our stomacks spirituall do agree with Christ we retaine him because he agreeth with it and pleaseth it and contents it which the world doth not Beside it is eaten and drunk to shew that Christ must incorporate with us not that we turn him into our nature as we do other meat but by our receiving him he turneth our nature to his likenesse as leaven doth turn the bread into its own likenesse the bread doth not turn it and in this respect the Kingdome of God is like a leven Mat. 13. By this is also set forth that rare union that we have with Christ he concorporating himselfe with us by faith in a wonderfull manner Aug. Ep. 23. Aug. in tract 26. in Joh. for though we eat him not with our mouth yet we do by our mind Therefore Christ said take eat this is my body which indeed is not his body till it be eaten nor then his naturall but his sacramentall body which men feed on by faith and not by sense by which faith Christ is there present to every beleever and that not only by his infinite and unlimited presence by which he filleth all places nor by that reall presence which the Lutherans imagine as if Christs body did partake of the incommunicable properties of the deity such as ubiquity by which they beleeve Christ to be in or under the elements nor is Christ present in the Sacrament by the change of the elements into his body as the papists hold A strange opinion to make Christ subject to orall eating and gutterall swallowing and to make God do things not only contrary to nature which all men grant he can but things contrary in nature which he cannot do because that implieth a contradiction As we read that God made the Sun and Moon stand still it was contrary to nature But he never did nor never will make the Sun to stand and go at one and the same instant so neither make Christs body infinite like the deity to be every where at one time Nor certainly will he so far debase the body of Christ as to make it a generall food for all in the Sacrament which was intended only for the spirituall nourishment of the faithfull And farther Christ is present energetically i. by vertue and power so he is among those that are gathered together in his name by the working of his holy spirit but in the Sacrament he is relatively present as being represented thereby as Kings are in their officers of State whose act is counted as the Kings own though he be personally present in his Court only Amb. de Incar cap. 5. So when his body was in the grave his vertue wrought from heaven to quicken it so now his body though in heaven yet his power worketh in every faithfull receiver as the Sun enlightneth the eie though the body of the Sun be in heaven Again our eating and drinking the Sacrament must intimate to us that as food makes a uniting continue between soule and body so doth the Sacrament between Christ and us by faith and as food doth more strongly unite one member to another so doth the Sacrament one member mysticall of Christ to another by love because we being many are one bread and one body being all partakers of that one bread and as by one spirit we are all baptized into one body so we all have been made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 that so we having all one food of life so we be of one mind and souse and one affection which is the spirit of life Moreover by partaking of this Sacrament by eating and drinking is sealed to us our right to the covenant of grace as sure as that which we eat is our own and concorporated with us Therefore it is the duty of a communicant to consider how he understands the end of the Sacrament and the effects of it that so he may not receive only but perceive the Lords body and so do it in remembrance of him In which duty it is required that we remember his death and the benefits thereof which not being done the Sacrament is slighted and profaned because that to which it relates hath no impression in us