beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Fatâ—er which art in Hádes which I for my part will then beleeve to be true when I shall see one of those old copies with mine owne eyes But in the meane time for Hádes it hath beene sufficiently declared before out of good authors that it signifieth the place of soules departed in generall and so is of extent large enough to comprehend under it as well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascius speaketh that part of Hádes or the unseene vvorld which is in heaven as that which by Iosephus is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the darker Hades and in the Gospell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 outer darknesse And as for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other word in the Acts of the Apostles it is used ten times and in none of all those places signifieth anie descending from a higher place unto a lower but a removing simply from one place unto another Whereupon the Vulgar Latin edition which none of the Romanists upon any pretense may presume to reject doth render it there by the generall termes of abeo venio devenio supervenio and where it retayneth the word descendo it intendeth nothing lesse then to signifie thereby the lower situation of the place unto which the removeall is noted to be made If descending therfore in the Acts of the Apostles imply no such kind of thing what necessitie is there that thus of force it must be interpreted in the Creed of the Apostles Menelaus declared unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith King Antiochus in his epistle unto the Iewes 2. Maccab. 11.29 Velle vos descendere ad vestros it is in the Latin edition whereby what else is meant but that they had a desire to goe unto their owne I omitt the phrases of descending in praelium in forum in campum in amicitiam in caussam c. which are so usuall in good Latin authors yea and of descending into heaven it selfe if that be not a jeast which the Poet breaketh upon Claudius Ille senis tremulumque caput descendere jussit In coelum Others adde unto this that the phrase of descending ad inferos is a popular kinde of speech which sprung from the opinion that was vulgarly conceived of the situation of the receptâ—cle of the soules under the earth and that according to the rule of Aristoâ—le in his Topâ—cks we must speake as the vulgar but thinke as wise men doe Even as wee use to say commonly that the Sunne is under a cloude because it is a vulgar forme of speech and yet it is farre enough from our meaning for all that to imagine the cloude to bee indeede higher then the Sunne So Cicero they say where ever hee hath occasion to mention any thing that concerneth the dead speaketh still of Inferi according to the vulgar phrase although hee misliked the vulgar opinion which bred that maner of speaking and professed it to bee his judgement that the soules when they depart out of the body are carried up on high not downward unto any habitations under the earth So Chrysostom and Theophylact thinke that the Apostle tearmed the Death and Hell unto which our Saviour did descend the lower parts of the earth Ephes. 4.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the common opinion of men So in the translation of the holy Scripture S. Hierome sheweth that wee use the names of Arcturus and Orion not approving thereby the ridiculous and monstrous figments of the Poets in this matter but expressing the Hebrew names of these constellations by the vvords of heathenish fables because we cannot understand that which is sayd but by those words which we have learned by use and drunke in by error And just so standeth the case with this word Hades which with the Gâ—eeke Poets is the name of Pluto whom they fayned to be the God of the dead under the earth gave a denomination unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from riches because that all things comming to their dissolution there is nothing which is not at last brought unto him and made his possession Thus Homer and Hesiod with Plato and others after them say that Rhea brought forth three sonnes to Saturne Iupiter Neptune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and mightie Hades who inhabiteth the houses under the earth having a mercilesse heart for that attribute doth Hesiod give unto him because Death spareth no man So Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is also the description that Hesiod maketh of him in that verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades was afraid who raigneth over them that lye dead in the earth Now that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Creed is a phrase taken from the heathen and applied to expresse a Christian truth the very Grammaticaâ—l construction may seeme to intimate where the nowne is not put in the accusative case as otherwise it should but after the maner of the Greekes in the genitive case implying the defect of another word necessarily to be understood as if it had beene said He went unto the place or house of Hades as the Poets use to expresse it sometimes defectively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes more fully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the house or chambers of Hádes Thus then they that take Hádes for the common receptacle of soules doe interpret the context of the Creed as Cardinall Cajetan before did the narration of Moses touching Abrahams giving up the ghost being gathered to his people and being buried Genes 25.8 9. that the article of the death is to be râ—ferred to the whole manhood and the dissolution of the parts thereof that of the buriall to the body sâ—parated from the soule and this of the descending into Hádes to the soule separated fâ—om the body as if he had said He suffered death truely by a reall separation of his soule from his bodie and after this dissolution the same did befall him that useth to betide all other dead men his livelesse bodie was sent unto the place which is appointed to receive dead bodies and his immortall soule went unto the other world as the soules of other men use to doe Having now declared how the Greek Hádes and so the Latine Inferi and our English Hell is taken for the place of the bodies and of the soules of dead men severally it followeth that we shew how the common state of the dead is signified thereby and the place in generall which is answerable unto the parts of the whole man thus indefinitely considered in the state of separation Concerning which that place of Dionysius wherein he setteth forth the signification of our being dead and buried with Christ by Baptisme is to be considered Forasmuch as death is in us not an utter extinguishment of our being as others have thought but a separation of the united parts
granted to the faithfull and punishment to the unfaithfull Wee are not to put on black mourning garments here when our friends there have put on white This is not a going out but a passage and this temporall journey being finished a going over to eternitie Let us therefore embrace the day that bringeth every one to his owne house which having taken us away from hence and loosed us from the snares of this world returneth us to Paradise and to the kingdome of heaven The same holy Father in his Apologie which hee wrote for Christians unto Demetrian the proconsul of Africk affirmeth in like maner that the end of this temporall life being accomplished we are divided into the habitations of everlasting eyther death or immortalitie When we are once departed from hence there is now no farther place for repentance neyther any effect of satisfaction here life is eyther lost or obtayned But if thou saith he even at the very end and setting of thy temporall life dost pray for thy sinnes and call upon the onely true God with confession and faith pardon is given to thee confessing and saving forgivenesse is granted by the divine piety to thee beleeving and at thy very death thou hast a passage unto immortalitie This grace doth Christ impart this gift of his mercy doth he bestow by subduing death with the triumph of his crosse by redeeming the beleever with the price of his blood by reconciling man unto God the Father by quickening him that is mortall with heavenly regeneration Where Salomon sayeth Ecclesiast 12.5 that man goeth to his everlasting house and the mourners goe about in the street S. Gregory of Neocaesarea maketh this paraphrase upon those words The good man shall goe rejoycing unto his everlasting house but the wicked shall fill all with lamentations Therefore did the Fathers teach that men should rejoyce at their death and the ancient Christians framed their practise accordingly not celebrating the day of their nativitie which they accounted to be the entry of sorrowes and temptations but celebrating the day of death as being the putting away of all sorrowes and the escaping of all temptations And so being filled with a divine rejoycing they came to the extremitie of death as vnto the end of their holy combates where they did more clearely behold the way that ledd unto their immortalitie as being now made neerer and did therefore prayse the gifts of God and were replenished with divine joy as now not fearing any change to worse but knowing well that the good things which they possessed shall be firmely and everlastingly enjoyed by them The author of the Questions and Answeres attributed to Iustin Martyr writeth thus of this matter After the departure of the soule out of the body there is presently made a distinction betwixt the just and the unjust For they are brought by the Angels to places fit for them the soules of the righteous to Paradise vvhere they have the commerce and sight of Angels and Archangels c. the soules of the unjust to the places in hell That is not death saith Athanasius that befalleth the righteous but a translation for they are translated out of this world into everlasting rest and as a man would goe out of a prison so doe the Saints goe out of this troublesome life unto those good things that are prepared for them S. Hilary out of that which is related in the Gospell of the rich man and Lazarus observeth that as soone as this life is ended everie one without delay is sent over either to Abrahams bosome or to the place of torment and in that state reserved untill the day of judgement S. Ambrose in his booke of the good of Death teacheth us that death is a certaine haven to them who being tossed in the great Sea of this life desire a rode of safe quietnesse that it maketh not a mans state worse but such as in findeth in every one such it reserveth unto the future judgement and refresheth with rest that thereby a passage is made from corruption to incorruption from mortalitie to immortalitie from trouble to tranquillity Therefore he saith that where fooles doe feare death as the chiefe of evills wise men do desire it as a rest after labours and an end of their evills and upon these grounds exhorteth us that when that day commeth wee should goe without feare to Iesus our redeemer without feare to the Councell of the Patriarches without feare to Abraham our father that without feare wee should addresse our selves unto that assembly of Saints and congregation of the righteous forasmuch as we shall goe to our fathers we shall goe to those schoolemasters of our faith that albeit our workes fayle us yet faith may succour us and our title of inheritance defend us Macarius writing of the double state of those that depart out of this life affirmeth that when the soule goeth out of the bodie if it be guiltie of sinne the Divell carrieth it away with him unto his place but when the holy servants of God remove out of their bodie the quyers of Angells receive their soules unto their owne side unto the pure world and so bring them unto the Lord. and in another place moving the question concerning such as depart out of this world sustayning two persons in their soule to wit of sinne and of grace whither they shall go that are thus held by two parts hee maketh answere that thither they shall goe where they have their minde and affection setled For the Lord saith hee beholding thy minde that thou fightest and lovest him with thy whole soule separateth death from thy soule in one houre for this is not hard for him to doe and taketh thee into his owne bosome and unto light For he plucketh thee away in the minute of an houre from the mouth of darkenesse and presently translateth thee into his owne kingdome For God can easily doe all these things in the minute of an houre this provided only that thou bearest love unto him then which what can be more direct against the dreame of Popish Purgatorie This present world is the time of repentance the other of retribution this of working that of rewarding this of patient suffering that of receiving comfort saith S. Basil. Gregory Nazianzen in his funerall orations hath manie sayings to the same purpose being so farre from thinking of anie Purgatorie paynes prepared for men in the other world that hee plainely denieth that after the night of this present life there is any purging to be expected and therefore hee telleth us that it is better to be corrected and purged now than to be sent unto the torment there where the time of punishing is and not of purging S. Hierome comforteth Paula for the death of her daughter Blaesilla in this mater Let the dead be lamented but such a
merits as they shal be judged to be worthy some into the place which is called Hell others into Abrahams bosome and through diverse eyther places or mansions and in his Commentaries upon Leviticus hee addeth further Neyther have the Apostles themselves as yet received their joy but even they doe expect that I also may be made partaker of their joy For the Saincts departing from hence doe not presently obtaine the full rewards of their labours but they expect us likewise howsoever staying howsoever slacking Then touching the purging of men after the Resurrection he thus delivereth his minde in his Commentaries upon Luke I thinke that even after our resurrection from the dead we shall have need of a sacrament to wash and purge us for none can rise without pollutions and upon Ieremy If any one be saved in the second resurrection he is that sinner vvhich needeth the baptisme of fire which is purged with burning that whatsoever he hath of wood hay and stubble the fire may consume it Neither doth Lactantius shew himselfe to varie much from him in eyther of those points for thus he writeth When God shall judge the righteous he will examine them by fire Then they whose sinnes shall prevaile eyther in weight or number shall be touched with the fire and burned but they whom perfect righteousnesse and the ripenesse of vertue hath throughly seasoned shall not feele that fire for from thence have they something in them that will repell put back the force of the flame so great is the force of innocency that that fire shall flye back from it without doing anie harme vvhich hath received this power from God that it may burne the wicked and do service to the righteous Yet notwithstanding let no man thinke that the soules are presently judged after death All of them are detayned in one common custodie untill the time come wherein the great Iudge doth make tryall of their doings In like maner doth S. Hilary write of the one part All the faithfull when they are gone out of the bodie shall be reserved by the Lords custodie for that entry into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and thus of the other Being to render an account of every idle word shall we desire the day of judgement wherein that unwearied fire must be passed by us in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soule from sinnes must be endured for to such as have beene baptized with the holy Ghost it remaineth that they should be consummated with the fire of judgement In S. Ambrose also there are some passages to bee found which seeme to make directly for either of these points as these for the former The soule is loosed from the body and yet after the end of this life it is held as yet in suspence with the uncertainty of the future judgement so that there is no end where there is thought to be an end We reade in the books of Esdras that when the day of judgement shall come the earth shall restore the bodies of the deceased and the dust shall restore the reliques of the dead which doe rest in the graves and the habitacles shall restore the soules which were committed to them and the most high shall be revealed upon the seat of judgement Also that scripture nameth those habitacles of the soules Promptuaries or secret receptacles and meeting with the complaint of man that the just which have gone before may seeme to be defrauded untill the day of judgement which is a very long time of the reward due unto them saith wonderfully that the day of judgement is like unto a crowne wherein as there is no slackenesse of the last so is there no swiftnesse of the first For the day of crowning is expected by all that vvithin that day both they who are overcome may be ashamed and they who doe overcome may obtaine the palme of victory Therefore while the fulnesse of time is expected the soules expect their due reward Paine is provided for some of them for some glory and yet in the meane time neither are those without trouble nor these without fruite and these for the latter With fire shall the sonnes of Levi be purged with fire Ezechiel with fire Daniel But these although they shall be tryed with fire yet shall say We have passed through fire and water Others shall remaine in the fire And if the Lord shall save his servants we shall be saved by faith yet saved as it were by fire Although we shall not be burned up yet shall we be burned After the end of the vvorld when the Angells shall be sent to separate the good and the bad this baptisme shall be when iniquitie shal be burnt up by the furnace of fire that in the kingdome of God the righteous may shine as the Sunne in the kingdome of their Father And if any one be as Peter or as Iohn he is baptized with this fire Seeing therefore he that is purged here hath need to be purged again there let him purge us there also when the Lord may say Enter into my rest that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword not burned up when he is entred into that pleasure of Paradise may give thankes unto his Lord saying Thou hast brought us into a place of refreshment Hereunto wee may adjoine that observation of Suarez the Iesuite They who thinke that the soules of men are not judged at their death nor do receive reward or punishment but are reserved in hidden receptacles untill the generall judgement doe consequently say that as men do not receive their last reward or punishment so neyther are they also purged untill the generall Resurrection and Iudgement do come from vvhence they might say vvith reasonable good consequence that men are to be purged with the fire of Conflagration and with as good consequence also may we further adde that prayers were not to be made for the deliverie of the soules of the dead from any purgatorie paines supposed to be suffered by them betwixt the time of their death and their resurrection which be the only praiers which are now in question In the Resurrection when our workes like unto clusters of grapes shall be cast into the probatory fire as it were into the wine-presse every mans husbandry shall be made manifest saith Gregorius Cerameus sometime archbishop of Tauromenium in Sicilia and No man as yet is entred eyther into the torments of Hell or into the kingdome of Heaven untill the time of the resurrection of the bodies saith Anastasius Sinaita upon whom Gretser bestoweth this marginall annotation that this is the Error of certain of the ancient of latter Greece And we
Councells name the simpler sort might be more easily induced to mistake this Nicene for that other Catholick Nicene Creed And whereas the true Nicene fathers had in their Creed omitted the article of the descent into Hell which as we shall afterwards heare out of Ruffinus was not to be had in the Symbols of the Easterne Churches these bastard fatherlings in their Nicene Creed did not onely insert this clause Hee descended to the places under the earth but added also for further amplification Whom Hell it selfe trembled at The like did they with the words a little altered in another Creed set out in a Conventicle gathered at Constantinople and in a third Creed likewise framed by them at Sirmium and confirmed the same yeare in their great Councell at Ariminum they put it in with a more large augmentation after this maner He descended to the places under the earth and disposed things there vvhom the keepers of Hell gates seeing shooke for feare If therefore any fault were committed in the omission of this article it should touch the Orthodoxe Fathers of Nice and Constantinople rather whom the Latines disputing with the Grecians in the Councell of Ferrara do directly charge with subtracting this article from the Apostles Creed although they free them from blame in so doing because they that tooke it away say they did not denie it nor fight against the truth But first they should have shewed that the Fathers of Nice and Constantinople did finde this article of Christs descent into Hell in the Apostles Creed before they excused them from taking it away from thence For the Creed of the Councell of Constantinople which coÌ„monly goeth under the name of the Nicene Creed being nothing else but an explanation a more ample inlargement of the Creed Apostolicall yea and so fully expressing the same that it selfe hath beene heretofore accounted and named the Apostles Creed it is not to be thought that it would leave out any article eyther unexplained or altogether unnamed which was then commonly beleeved to have beene any parcell of the Creed received from the Apostles Adde hereunto the ingenuous confession of Busaeus the Iesuite in his positions touching Christs descent into Hell S. Cyprian or Ruffinus rather in his exposition of the Creed denyeth that this article is read in the Creed of the Church of Rome or the Churches of the East and some of the most ancient Fathers while either they gather up the summe of the Christian faith or expound the Creed of the Apostles have omitted this point of doctrine But at what time it was inserted in the Creed it cannot certainely bee determined The first particular Church that is knowne to have inserted this article into her Creeed is that of Aquileia which added also the attributes of invisible and impassible unto God the Father almightie in the beginning of the Creed as appeareth by Ruffinus who framed his exposition of the Creed according to the order used in that Church But whether any other Church in the world for 500. yeares after Christ did follow the Aquileians in putting the one of these additions to the Apostolicall Creed more then the other can hardly I suppose bee shewed by any approved testimonie of antiquitie Cardinall Bellarmine noteth that S. Augustine in his booke de Fide Symbolo and in his foure bookes de Symbolo ad Catechumenos maketh no mention of this part when hee doth expound the whole Creed fiue seuerall times Nay Petrus Chrysologus who was archbishop of Ravenna 450. years after Christ doth six severall times goe over the exposition of the Creed and yet never medleth with this article The like also may be observed in Maximus Taurinensis his exposition of the Creed For as for the two Latin expositions thereof that go under the name of S. Chrysostom the latter whereof hath it the former hath it not and the oâ—hers that are found in the tenth Tome of S Augustins works among the Sermons de Tempore foure of which doe repeat it two doe omitt it because the authors of them together with the time wherein they were written be altogether unknowne they can bring us little light in this inquiry Neyther is there heereby any whit more derogated from the credit of this article then there is from others whose authority is acknowledged to bee undoubted and â—eyond all exception as namely that of our Saviours death and the Communion of Saints the one whereof as sufficiently implied in the article of the Crucifixion as a consequent or the buriall as a necessarie antecedent thereof the other as virtually contayned in the article of the Church wee finde omitted not in the Constantinopolitan Symboll alone and in the ancient Apostolicall Creeds expounded by Ruffinus Maximus and Chrysologus but also in those that are extant in Venantius Fortunatus 580. and in Etherius and Beatus 785. yeares after Christ. In all which likewise may bee noted that the title of Maker of heaven and earth is not given to the Father in the beginning of the Creed which out of the Creed of Constantinople wee see is now every where added thereunto Of which additions as there is now no question any where made so by the consent of both sides this of the descent into Hell also is now numbred among the articles of the Apostles Creed For the Scripture having expressely testified that the prophecie of the Psalmist Thou shalt not leave my soule in Hell was verified in Christ S. Augustins conclusion must necessarily be inferred thereupon Who therefore but an Infidell will denie that Christ was in Hell Thus all agree that Christ did some maner of way descend into Hell saith Cardinall Bellarmine But the whole question is touching the exposition of this article The common exposition which the Romish Divines give thereof is this that by Hell is here understood not that place wherein the wicked are tormented but the bosome of Abraham wherein the godly Fathers of the old Testament rested for whose deliverie from thence they say our Saviour tooke his journey thither But S. Augustin in that same place wherein he counteth it a point of infidelitie to denie the going of Christ into Hell gain sayeth this exposition thereof professing that he could finde the name of Hell no where given unto that place wherein the soules of the righteous did rest Wherefore saith he if the holy Scripture had said that Christ being dead did come unto the bosome of Abraham not having named Hell and the paines thereof I marvayle vvhether any would have beene so bold as to have avouched that Christ descended into Hell But because evident testimonies doe make mention both of Hell and paines I see no cause why our Saviour should be beleeved to have come thither but that he should deliver men from the paines thereof And therefore what benefite
is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the grave for proofe whereof he alledgeth divers place of Scripture Where by the way you may note that in the last edition of the Masoriticall and Rabbinicall Bible printed by Bombergius both this and diverse other passages elsewhere have beene cut out by the Romish Correctors which I wish our Buxtorfius had understood when he followed that mangled and corrupted copie in his late renewed edition of that great worke R. Salomo Iarchi writing upon the same words Gen. 37.35 saith that according to the literall sense the interpretation thereof is the Grave In my mourning I will be buried and I will not be comforted all my dayes but after the Midrash or Allegoricall interpretation it is Gehenna In like maner R. David Kimchi expounding that place Psal. 9.17 The wicked shall turne into Hell and all the nations that forget God acknowledgeth that by the Derash or Allegoricall exposition into Hell is as much to say as into Gehenna but according to the literall meaning he expoundeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the grave intimating withall that the Prophet useth here the terme of turning or returning with reference to that sentence Gen. 3.19 Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou returne Out of which observation of Kimchi wee may further note that the Hebrewes when they expound Sheol to be the grave do not meane so much thereby an artificial grave to wit a pit digged in the earth or a tomb raysed above ground as a naturall sepulchre such as the Poët speaketh of in that verse Nec tumulum curo sepelit natura relictos and Seneca in his Controversies Nature hath given a buriall unto all men such as suffer shipwrack the same wave doth bury that cast them away the bodies of such as are crucified dropp away from the Crosses unto their buriall to such as are burnt alive their punishment is a funerall For this is the difference that is made by authors betwixt burying and interring that he is understood to be buried who is put away in any maner but hee to be interred who is covered with the earth Hence different kindes of burialls are mentioned by them according to the different usages of severall nations the name of a sepulture being given by them as well to the burning of the bodies of the dead used of old among the more civill nations as to the devouring of them by dogges which was the barbarous custome of the Hyrcanians Therefore Diogenes was wont to say that if the dogges did teare him he should have an Hyrcanian buriall and those beasts which were kept for this use the Bactrians did terme in their language Sepulchrall dogges as Strabo relateth out of Onesicritus So in the Scripture the Prophet Ionas calleth the belly of the Whale wherein he was devoured the belly of Sheol that is of Hell or the Grave For Ionas saith Basil of Seleuciae was carried in a living grave and dwelt in a swimming prison dwelling in the region of death the common lodge of the dead and not of the living while he dwelt in that bâ—lly which was the mother of death and in the prophecie of Ieremy King Iehojakim is said to bee buried although with the buriall of an asse when his carkasse was drawen and cast forth beyond the gates of Ierusalem capit omnia tellus Quae genuit coelo tegitur qui non habet urnaem The earth which begetteth all receiveth all and hee that wanteth a coffin hath the welkin for his winding sheet The earth is our great mother Omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulcrum the common mother out of whose wombe as naked we came so naked shall we returne thither according to that in Psalm 146.4 His spirit goeth forth he returneth to HIS earth and Psalm 104.29 Thou takest away their breath they die and returne to THEIR dust And this is the Sheol which Iob wayted for when he said Sheol or the grave for that is the Hell which is meant here as is confessed not by Lyranus only but by the Iesuite Pineda also is mine house I have made my bedde in the darkenesse I have said to corruption Thou art my father to the vvorme Thou art my mother and my sister This is that common sepulchre non factum sed natum not made by the hand of man but provided by nature it selfe betwixt which naturall and artificiall grave these differences may be observed The artificiall may be appropriated to this man or that man The Patriarch David is both dead and buried and his sepulcher is with us unto this day saith S. Peter Act. 2.29 and Yee build the tombes of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous saith our Saviour Matth. 23.29 But in the naturall there is no such distinction It cannot be said that this is such or such a mans Sheol it is considered as the common receptacle of all the dead as wee read in Iob I knowe that thou wilt bring mee to death and to the house appointed for all living For to everie man as Olympiodorus writeth upon that place the earth it selfe is appointed as a house for his grave There the prisoners rest together saith Iob they heare not the voyce of the oppressor The small and great are there and the servant free from his master Againe into a made grave a man may enter in alive and come out alive againe as Peter and Iohn did into the sepulcher of Christ but Sheol eyther findeth men dead when they come into it which is the ordinarie course or if they come into it alive which is a new and unwonted thing it bringeth death upon them as wee see it fell out in Korah and his complices who are said to have gone downe alive into Sheol when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up Numb 16.30.33 Lastly as many living men doe goe into the grave made with hands and yet in so doing they cannot bee said to goe into Sheol beacuse they come from thence alive againe so some dead men also want the honour of such a grave as it was the case of Gods servants whose bodies were kept from burial and yet thereby are not kept from Sheol which is the way that all flesh must goe to For all goe unto one place all are of the dust and all turne to dust againe Ecclesiast 3.20 We conclude therefore that when Sheol is said to signifie the grave the tearme of grave must bee taken in as large a sense as it is in that speech of our Saviour Iohn 5.28 All that are in the graves shall heare his voyce and shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evill unto the resurrection of damnation and in Esai 26.19 according to the Greeke reading The dead shall rise and they that are in the graves shall bee
But men do thinke that what doth grow from Hades into light is newly made and what is diminished from the light into Hades is perished by light understanding nothing else but the visible structure and existence of things and by Hádes that invisible and insensible thing which other Philosophers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius the Platonick translateth Sylvam the Aristotelians more fitly Materiam primam whence also it is supposed by Master Casaubon that those passages were borrowed which we meet withall in the bookes that beare the name of Hermes Trismegistus In the dissolution of a materiall bodie the body it selfe is brought to alteration and the forme which it had is made invisible and so there is a privation of the sense made not a destruction of the bodies I say then that the world is changed in as much as every day a part thereof is made invisible but never utterly dissolved wherewith wee may compare likewise that place of Plutarch in his booke of living privately Generation doth not make any of the things that be but manifesteth them neyther is corruption a translation of a thing from being to not being but rather a bringing of the thing that is dissolved unto that vvhich is unseene Whereupon men according to the ancient traditions of their fathers thinking the sunne to be Apollo called him Delius and Pythius namely from manifesting of things and the ruler of the contrary destinie whether he be a God or an Angel they named Hádes by reason that we when we are dissolved doe goe unto an unseene and invisible place By the Latins this Hádes is termed Dispiter or Diespiter which name they gave unto this lower ayre that is joyned to the earth vvhere all things have their beginning and ending quorum quòd finis ortus Orcus dictus saith Varro All this earthly power and nature saith Iulius Firmicus they named Ditem patrem because this is the nature of the earth that all things doe both fall into it and taking their originall from thence doe againe proceed out of it Whence the Earth is brought in using this speech unto God in Hermes I do receive the nature of all things For I according as thou hast commanded doe both beare all things and receive such as are deprived of life The use which we make of the testimony of Hippocrates those other authorities of the heathen is to shew that the Greek Interpreters of the old TestameÌ„t did most aptly assume the word Hádes to expresse that coÌ„mon state place of corruption which was signified by the Hebrew Sheol therfore in the last verse of the 17. of Iob where the Greeke maketh mention of descending into Hádes Comitolus the Iesuite noteth that S. Ambrose rendreth it in sepulchrum into the grave which agreeth well with the paraphrase that the Greeke Scholiasts make upon that place Is it not a thing common unto all mortall men to die is not Hell or Hádes the house of all doe not all finde there an end of their labours Yea some doe thinke that Homer himselfe doth take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the earth or the grave in those verses of the eighth of his Iliads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'le cast him downe as deepe As Tartarus the brood of night where Barathrum doth sleepe Torment in his profoundest sinks where is the floore of brasse And gates of iron the place for depth as far doth Hell surpasse As heaven for height exceeds the earth For Tartarus being coÌ„monly acknowledged to be a part of Hádes and to be the very Hell where the wicked spirits are tormented they thinke the Hell from whence Homer maketh it to be as farre distant as the heaven is from the earth can be referred to nothing so fitly as to the Earth or the Grave It is taken also for a tombe in that place of Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Other sacred Kings have gotten a tombe apart by themselves before the houses or before the gates of the Citie And therefore we see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Suidas in his Lexicon expressely interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tombe or a grave and in the Greeke Dictionary set out by the Romanists themselves for the better understanding of the Bible it is noted that Hádes doth not onely signifie that which we commonly call Hell but the sepulchre or grave also Of which because Stapleton and Bellarmine doe denie that any proofe can be brought these instances following may be considered In the booke of Tobi chap. 3.10 I shall bring my fathers old age with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Hell what can it import else but that which is in other wordes expressed chap. 6.14 I shall bring my fathers life with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the grave In the 93. and 113. Psalm according to the Greeke division or the 94. and 115. according to the Hebrew where the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of silence meaning the grave as our adversaries themselves do grant there the Greeke hath Hades or Hell In Esai 14.19 where the vulgar â—atin translateth out of the Hebrew Descenderunt ad fundamenta laci quasi cadaver putridum They descended unto the foundations of the lake or pit as a rotten carkeis in steed of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth the lake or pit the Greeke both there and in Esai 38.18 putteth in Hades or Hell and on the other side Ezech. 32.21 where the Hebrew saith The strong among the mightie shall speake to him out of the middest of Sheol or Hell there the Greeke readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the depth of the lake or pit by Hell lake and pit nothing but the grave being understood as appeareth by comparing this verse with the five that come after it So in these places following where in the Hebrew is Sheol in the Greeke Hades in the Latin Infernus or Inferi in the English Hell the place of dead bodies not of soules is to be understood Gen. 44.31 We shall bring downe the gray haires of our father with sorrow unto Hell where no lower Hell can be conceited into which gray haires may be brought then the Grave So 1. King 2.6 David giveth this charge unto Salomon concerning Ioab Let not his hoare head goe downe to Hell in peace and in the ninth verse concerning Shimei His hoare head bring thou downe to Hell with bloud Psalm 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Hell Esai 14.11 Thy pompe is brought downe to Hell the worme is spread under thee and the wormes cover thee Psal. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee
in Hell who shall give thee thankes of which there can bee no better paraphrase then that which is given in Psalm 88.11 12. Shall thy loving kindnesse bee declared in the grave or thy faithfulnesse in destruction Shall thy wonders bee knowne in the darke and thy righteousnesse in the land of forgetfulnesse Andradius in his defence of the faith of the Councell of Trent speaking of the difference of reading which is found in the sermon of S. Peter Act. 2.24 where God is sayd to have raysed up our Saviour loosing the sorrowes of death as the Greeke bookes commonly reade or the sorrowes of Hell as the Latin saith for reconciliation thereof that there will be no disagreement betwixt the Latin and Greeke copies if we do marke that Hell in this place is used for Death and the Grave according to the Hebrews maner of speaking as in the 15 th Psalme which Peter presently after citeth Because thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell and Esai 38. For Hell cannot confesse unto thee For when he disputeth saith hee of the resurrection of Christ he confirmeth by many and most evident testimonies of David that Christ did suffer death for mankinde in such sort that he could not be overwhelmed with death nor long lye hidden among the dead And it seemeth to me that by the sorrowes of Hell or Death a death full of sorrow and miseries is signified according to the Hebrewes maner of speaking as in Matthew 24. the abomination of desolation is taken for an abominable desolation Thus farre Andradius clearely forsaking herein his fellow-defenders of the Tridentine faith who by the one text of loosing the sorrowes of death would faine prove Christs descending to free the soules that were tormented in Purgatory and by the other of not leaving his soule in Hell his descending into Limbus to deliver the soules of the fathers that were at rest in Abrahams bosome The former of these texts Act. 2.24 is thus expounded by Ribera the Iesuite God raysed him up loosing and making voyde the sorrowes of death that is to say that which death by so many sorrowes had effected namely that the soule should bee separated from the bodie His fellow Sà interpreteth the loosing of the sorrowes of death to be the delivering of him from the troubles of death although sorrow saith hee may be the epithet of death because it useth to bee joyned with death The Apostles speech hath manifest reference to the wordes of David 2. Sam. 22.5 6. and Psalm 18. al. 17. 4 5. where in the former verse mention is made of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of death in the latter of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by the Septuagint is in the place of the Psalmes translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of Hell in 2. Sam 22.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of Death according to the explication following in the end of the selfe same verse The sorrowes of Hell compassed me about the snares of Death prevented me and in Psalm 116.3 The sorrowes of Death compassed me the paines of Hell found me or gate hold upon me where Lyranus hath this note In the Hebrew for Hell is put Sheol which doth not signifie onely Hell but signifieth also the pit or the grave and so it is taken heere by reason it followeth upon Death The like explicatorie repetition is noted also by the interpreters to have beene used by the Prophet in that other text alledged out of Psalm 16.10 as in Psalm 30. al. 29. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast brought up my soule from Hell thou hast kept me safe or alive from those that goe downe to the pit and Iob. 33.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His soule drew neere unto death and his life unto Hell whence that in the prayer of Iesus the sonne of Sirach is taken Ecclesiastic 51. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soule drew neere unto death my life was neere to Hell beneath And therefore for Hell doth Pagnin in his translation of the sixteenth Psalme put the Grave being therein also followed in the Interlineary Bible approved by the Censure of the Universitie of Lovaine in the notes upon the same that goe under the name of Vatablus the word Soule is by comparing of this with Levitic 21.1 expounded to be the Bodie So doth Arias Montanus directly interpret this text of the Psalme Thou shalt not leave my soule in the grave that is to say my body and Isidorus Clarius in his annotations upon the second of the Acts saith that My soule in hell in that place is according to the maner of speech used by the Hebrewes put for My bodie in the grave or tombe least any man should thinke that Master Beza was the first deviser or principall author of this interpretation Yet him alone doth Cardinall Bellarmine single out here to try his manhood upon but doth so miserably acquite himselfe in the encounter that it may well bee doubted whether he laboured therein more to crosse Beza then to strive with himselfe in the wilfull suppressing of the light of his owne knowledge For whereas Beza in his notes upon Act. 2.27 had shewed out of the 1. and 11. verses of the 21. Chapter of Leviticus and other places of Scripture that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which wee translate Soule is put for a dead bodie the Cardinall to rid himselfe handsomely of this which pinched him very shrewdly telleth us in sober sadnesse that there is a very great difference betwixt the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he is a most generall word and signifieth without any trope as well the soule as the living creature it selfe yea and the body it selfe also as by very many places of Scripture it doth appeare And therefore in Leviticus where that name is given unto dead bodies one part is not put for another to wit the soule for the body but a word which doth usually signifie the bodie it selfe or the whole at leastwise is put for the part namely the living creature for the body thereof But in the second of the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put which signifieth the soule alone Now did not the Cardinall know thinke you in his own conscience that as in the second of the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put where the originall text of the Psalme there alledged hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so on the other side in those places of Leviticus which he would faine make to be so different from this where the originall text readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there the Greeke also putteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doe we not there reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Levit. 21.1 and in the 11. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall not goe in to any dead soule that is to anie dead bodie The
fit time and he who granted unto him that his flesh should not see corruption will grant also unto us that our flesh shall not see corruption but that in fit time it shall bee freed from corruption Neyther is it any whit strange unto them that are conversant in the writings of the ancient Doctors to heare that our Saviour by his buriall descended into Hell spoyled Hell and brought away both his owne body and the bodies of the Saints from Hell Wee finde the question moved by Gregory Nyssen in his sermon upon the Resurrection of Christ how our Lord did dispose himselfe at the same time three maner of wayes both in the heart of the earth Matth. 12.40 and in Paradise with the thiefe Luk. 23.43 and in the hands of his Father Luk. 23.46 For neither will any man say quoth he that Paradise is in the places under the earth or the places under the earth in Paradise that at the same time he might be in both or that those infernall places are called the hand of the Father Now for the last of these hee saith the case is plaine that being in Paradise he must needs be in his Fathers hands also but the greatest doubt hee maketh to be how he should at the same time be both in Hades and in Paradise for with him the heart of the earth the places under the earth and Hades or Hell are in this question one and the same thing And his finall resolution is that in this Hell Christ remained with his dead body when with his soule hee brought the thiefe into the possession of Paradise For by his body saith he wherein he sustayned not the corruption that followeth upon death hee destroyed him that had the power of death but by his soule he ledd the thiefe into the entrance of Paradise And these two did worke at the selfe same time the Godhead accomplishing the good by them both namely by the incorruption of the body the dissolution of death and by the placing of the soule in his proper seat the bringing backe of men unto Paradise againe The like sentence doe wee meet withall in the same Fathers epistle unto Eustathia Ambrosia and Basilissa His body he caused by dispensation to be separated from his soule but the indivisible deitie being once knit with that subject was neyther dis-joyned from the body nor the soule but was with the soule in Paradise making way by the thiefe for an entrance unto mankinde thither and with the body in the heart of the earth destroying him that had the power of death Wherewith wee may compare that place which we meet withall in the workes of S. Gregory Bishop of Neocaesarea wherein our Saviour is brought in speaking after this maner I must descend into the very bottome of Hell for the dead that are detay-there I must by the three dayes death of my flesh overthrow the power of long continuing death I must light the lamp of my BODY unto them vvhich sit in darkenesse and in the shadow of death and that of S. Chrysostom who is accounted also to be the author of that other sermon attributed unto S. Gregory How vvere the brasen gates broken and the iron barres burst By his BODY For then appeared first a body immortall and dissolving the tyrannie of death it selfe whereby was shewed that the force of death was taken away not that the sinnes of those who dyed before his comming were dissolved and that which we reade in another place of his workes He spoyled Hell descending into Hell hee made it bitter when it tasted of his flesh Which Esay understanding before hand cryed out saying Hell was made bitter meeting thee below so the Septuagint render the words Esai 14.19 It was made bitter for it was destroyed It was made bitter for it was mocked It received a BODY and light upon God it received Earth and met with Heaven it received that vvhich it saw and fell from that which it did not see Thus Caesarius expounding the parable Luk. 13.21 wherein the kingdome of God is likened unto leaven vvhich a woman tooke and hid in three pecks of floure till all was leavened saith that the three pecks of floure are first the whole nature of mankind then death and lastly Hell wherein the divine BODY being hidden by BURIALL did leaven all unto resurrection and life Whereupon he bringeth in our Saviour in another place speaking thus I will therefore be buried for their sakes that be in Hell I will therefore as it were a stone strike the gates thereof bringing forth the prisoners in strength as my servant David hath said So S. Basil asketh How we do accomplish the descent into Hell and answereth that we doe it in imitating the BURIALL of Christ in Baptisme For the bodies of those that be baptized are as it were buried in the water saith he S. Hilary maketh mention of Christs flesh quickened out of Hell by himselfe and Arator in like maner Infernum Dominus cùm destructurus adiret Detulit inde suam spoliato funere carnem When the Lord went to Hell to destroy it He brought from THENCE his owne flesh spâ—yling the grave Philo Carpathius addeth that in his grave he spoyled Hell Whereupon the Emperour Leo in his oration upon the buriall of our Saviour wisheth us to honour it by adorning our selves with vertues and not by putting him in the grave againe For it behoved saith he that this should be once done to the end that Hell might be spoyled and it was done And the Grecians retaine the commemoration hereof in their Liturgies unto this day as their Octoëchon Anastasimon and Pentecostarion do testifie wherein such hymnes and prayers as these are frequent Thou didst receive death in thy flesh working thereby immortalitie for us O Saviour and didst dwell in the grave that thou mightest free us from Hell raysing us up together with thy selfe When thou vvast put in the tombe as a mortall man the keepers of Hell gates shooke for feare for having overthrowne the strength of Death thou diddest exhibite incorruption to all the dead by thy Resurrection Although thou didst descend into the grave as a mortall man ô giver of life yet didst thou dissolve the strength of hell ô Christ raysing up the dead together with thy selfe whom it had also swallowed and didst exhibit the resurrection as God unto all that in faith and desire doe magnifie thee Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Death and by thy life-bringing resurrectioÌ„ didst raise up corrupted man ô Christ our God as a lover of mankinde to thee be glory Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Hell and by thy resurrection didst save man have mercy upon me By thy three-dayes buriall the enemy was spoyled the dead loosed from the bands of Hell death deaded the palaces of hell voyded Therefore in hymnes doe we
away speaketh he these things as if he were tâ— goe down into hell by dying For of Hell there is a great question and what the Scripture delivereth thereof in all the places where it hath occasion to make mention of it is to be observed Hitherto S. Augustin who had reference to this great question when he said as hath beene before alledged Of Hell neyther have I had any experience as yet nor you and peradventure there shal be another way and by Hell it shall not be For these things are uncertaine Neyther is there greater question among the Doctors of the Church concerning the Hell of the Fathers of the Old Testament then there is of the Hell of the faithfull now in the time of the New neyther are there greater differences betwixt them touching the Hell into which our Saviour went whether it were under the earth or above whether a darkesome place or a lightsome whether a prison or a paradise then there are of the mansions wherein the soules of the blessed do now continue S. Hierome interpreting those words of King Ezechias Esai 38.10 I shall goe to the gates of Hell saith that this is meant eyther of the common law of nature or else of those gates from which that he was delivered the Psalmist singeth Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death that I may shew forth all thy prayses in the gates of the daughter of Sion Psalm 9.13 14. Now as some of the Fathers doe expound our Saviours going to Hell of his descending into Gehenna so others expound it of his going to Hell according to the common law of nature the common law of nature I say which extendeth it selfe indifferently unto all the dead whether they belong to the state of the New Testament or of the Old For as Christs soule was in all points made like unto ours sinne onely excepted while it was joyned with his body here in the land of the living so when he had humbled himselfe unto the death it became him in all things to be made like unto his brethren even in that state of dissolution And so indeed the soule of Iesus had experience of both For it was in the place of humaine soules and being out of the flesh did live and subsist It was a reasonable soule therefore and of the same substance with the soules of men even as his flesh is of the same substance with the flesh of men proceeding from Mary saith Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch in his exposition of that text of the Psalme Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell you see he understandeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of humaine soules which is the Hebrewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or world of spirits and by the disposing of Christs soule there after the maner of other soules concludeth it to be of the same nature with other mens soules So S Hilary in his exposition of the 138. Psalme This is the law of humaine necessitie saith he that the bodies being buried the soules should goe to Hell Which descent the Lord did not refuse for the accomplishment of a true man and a little after he repeateth it that de supernis ad inferos mortis lege descendit he descended from the supernall to the infernall parts by the law of death and upon the 53. Psalme more fully To fulfill the nature of man he subjected himselfe to death that is to a departure as it were of the soule and body and pierced into the infernall seates which was a thing that seemed to be duâ— unto man So Leo in one of his Sermons upon our Lords passion Hee did undergoe the lawes of Hell by dying but did dissolve them by rising againe and so did cut off the perpetuitie of death that of eternall hee might make it temporall So Irenaeus having said that our Lord conversed three dayes where the dead were addeth that therein he observed the law of the dead that hee might be made the first begotten from the dead staying untill the third day in the lower parts of the earth and afterward rising in his flesh Then he draweth from thence this generall conclusion Seeing our Lord went in the midst of the shadow of death vvhere the soules of the dead were then afterward rose againe corporally and after his resurrection was assumed it is manifest that the soules of his disciples also for whose sake the Lord wrought these things shall goe to an invisible place appointed unto them by God and there shall abide untill the resurrection wayting for the resurrection and afterwards receaving their bodies and rising againe perfectly that is to say corporally even as our Lord did rise againe they shall so come unto the presence of God For there is no disciple above his master but every one shall be perfect if he be as his master The like collection doth Tertullian make in his booke of the Soule If Christ being God because he was also man dying according to the Scriptures and being buried according to the same did heere also satisfie the law by performing the course of an humane death in Hell neyther did ascend into the higher parts of the heavens before he descended into the lower parts of the earth that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of himselfe thou hast both to beleeve that there is a region of Hell under the earth and to push them with the elbowe who proudly enough doe not thinke the soules of the faithfull to be fit for Hell servants above their Lord and disciples above their Master scorning perhaps to take the comfort of expecting the resurrection in Abrahams bosome And in the same booke speaking of the soule What is that saith he which is translated unto the infernall parts or Hell after the separation of the body which is detayned there which is reserved unto the day of judgement unto which Christ by dying did descend to the soules of the Patriarches I thinke Where he maketh the Hell unto which our Saviour did descend to be the common receptacle not of the soules of the Patriarches alone but also of the soules that are now still separated from their bodies as being the place quò universa humanitas trahitur as he speaketh elsewhere in that booke unto which all mankinde is drawne So Novatianus after him affirmeth that the very places which lye under the earth be not voyde of distinguished and ordered powers For that is the place saith he whither the soules both of the godly and ungodly are led receiving the fore-judgements of their future dâ—ome Lactantius saith that our Saviour rose againe ab inferis from Hell but so he saith also that the dead Saints shall be raised up ab inferis at the time of the Resurrection S. Cyrill of Alexandria saith that the Iewes killed Christ and cast him into the deepe
bringing them unto that which is to us invisible the soule as being by the deprivation of the body made unseene and the body as eyther being covered in the earth or by some other of the alterations that are incident unto bodies being taken away from the sight of man the whole covering of the man in water is fitly assumed for an image of the death and buriall which is not seene Thus Dionysius concerning the separation of the united parts by Death and the bringing of them unto that which is invisible according whereunto as his paraphrast Pachymeres noteth it is called Hádes that is to say an invisible separation of the soule from the body And so indeed wee finde as well in forraine authors as in the Scriptures the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers that Hádes and Inferi are not only taken in as large a sense as Death and so extended unto all men indifferently whether good or bad but are likewise oftentimes indifferently used for it For proofe whereof out of heathen authors these testimonies following may suffice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Pindarus The man that doeth things befitting him forgetteth Hádes meaning that the remembrance of death doth no whit trouble him and againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sonne of Cleonicus wisheth that with such manners he may meet and receive Hades that is death and hoare old age So another Poet cyted by Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Death the soveraigne physician come for Hádes is in very truth the haven of the earth So the saying that the best thing were never to have been born and the next to that to dye quickly is thus expressed by Theognis in his elegies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sophocles in the beginning of his Trachiniae bringeth in Dâ—ianira affirming that howsoever it were an old saying among men that none could know whether a man life were happy or unhappy before he were dead yet she knew her own to be heavie and unfortunate before she went to Hádes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before death as both the ancient Scholiast and the matter it selfe doth shew So in his Ajax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is better that is hidden in Hádes that is to say he that is dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Scholiast rightly expoundeth it then he that is sick past recoverie and in his Antigone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My father and mother being layd in Hádes it is not possible that any brother should spring forth afterward Wherwith Clemens Alexandrinus doth fitly compare that speech of the wife of Intaphernes in Herodotus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My father and mother being now no longer living another brother by no maner of meanes can be had So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in Hádes with the one is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not now living in the other or as it is alledged by Clemens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not now being which is the Scripture phrase of them that have left this world Genes 5.24 and 42.36 Psal. 39.13 Ierem. 31.15 and 49.10 used also by Homer Iliad β. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Touching the use of the word Hell in the Scriptures thus writeth Iansenius expounding those words Proverb 15.11 Hell and destruction are before the Lord how much more then the hearts of the children of men It is to be knowen that by Hell and destruction which two in the Scriptures are often joyned together the state of the dead is signified and not of the damned only as wee commonly doe conceave when we heare these words but the state of the deceased in generall So Sanctius the Iesuite with Sà his fellow acknowledgeth that Hell in the Scripture is frequently taken for Death Therefore are these two joyned together Revel 1.18 I have the keyes of Hell and of Death or as other Greeke copies read agreeably to the old Latin and Aethiopian translation of Death and of Hell and Esai 28.15 We have made a covenant with Death and with Hell we are at agreement where the Septuagint to shew that the same thing is meant by both the words do place the one in the room of the other after this maner We have made a covenant with Hell and with Death an agreement The same things likewise are indifferently attributed unto them both as that they are unsatiable and never full spoken of Hell Proverb 27.20 and of Death Haback 2.5 So the gates of Hell Esai 38 10. are the gates of Death Psalm 9.13 and 107.18 and therefore where we reade in the book of Wisedome Thou leadest to the gates of Hell and bringest backe againe the Vulgar Latin translateth it Thou leadest to the gates of Death and bringest back againe So the sorrowes of Death Psal. 18.4 are in the verse following tearmed the sorrowes of Hell and therefore the LXX as hath beene shewed translating the selfe same words of David doe in the Psalme render them the sorrowes of Hell and in the historie 2. Sam. 22.6 where the same Psalme is repeated the sorrowes of Death Whence also that difference of reading came Act. 2.24 aswell in the copies of the text as in the citations of the ancient Fathers which was the lesse regarded because that varietie in the words bredd little or no difference at all in the sense Therefore Epiphanius in one place having respect to the beginning of the verse saith that Christ loosed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of Death and yet in another citing the later end of the verse because it was not possible he should be holden by it addeth this explication thereunto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say by Hell And the author of the Sermon upon Christs passion among the workes of Athanasius one where saith that he loosed the sorrowes of Hell and otherwhere that he loosed the sorrowes of Death unto whom wee may adjoyne Bede who is in like maner indifferent for eyther reading In the Proverbs where it is said There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end therof are the waies of Death Proverb 14.12 and 16.25 the LXX in both places for Death put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bottome of Hell and on the other side where it is said Thou shalt beate him with the rod and shalt deliver his soule from Hell Proverb 23.14 they reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt deliver his soule from Death So in Hose 13.14 where the Hebrew and Greeke both reade I will deliver
them from the hand of Hell the Vulgar Latin hath De manu mortis liberabo eos I will deliver them from the hand of Death which S. Cyrill of Alexandria sheweth to be the same in effect for he hath redeemed us saith he from the hand of Hell that is to say from the power of Death So out of the text Matth. 16.18 Eusebius noteth that the Church doth not give place to the gates of DEATH for that one saying which Christ did utter Vpon the rocke I will build my Church and the gates of HELL shall not prevaile against it S. Ambrose also from the same text collecteth thus that faith is the foundation of the Church For it was not said of the flesh of Peter but of the faith that the gates of DEATH should not prevaile against it but the confession of the faith overcame HELL So Theodoret noteth that the name of Hell is given unto Death in that place Cantic 8.6 Love is strong as death jealousie is hard or cruell as Hell which in the writings of the Fathers is a thing very usuall Take the Poems of Theodorus Prodromus for an instance where delivering an historie out of the life of S. Chrysostom of a woman that had lost foure of her sonnes he saith that they foure were gone unto Hádes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and relating how S. Basil had freed the countrey of Cappadocia from famine thus he expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and shewing how Gregory Nazianzen when he was a childe was recovered from death by being brought to the communion Table he saith he was brought unto the Sunne from Hádes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregory himselfe likewise in his Poems setting out the dangers of a sea-faring life saith that the greater part of them that saile the seas is in Hades Baesil of Seleucia speaking of the translation of Enoch and Elias saith in one place that Enoch remayned out of Deaths nett Elias obeyed not the lawes of nature and in another that Elias remayned superior to death Enoch by translation declined Hades making Death and Hades to be one and the same thing So he maketh Elias to pray thus at the raysing of the widowes sonne Shew ô Lord that Death is made gentle towards men let it learne the evidences of thy humanity let the documents of thy goodnesse come even to Hades And as he there noteth that Death received an overthrow from Elias so in another place he noteth that Hades received a like overthrow by Christs raysing of the dead whereupon he bringeth in S. Peter using this speech unto our Saviour Shall Death make any youthfull attempt against thee whose voyce Hades could not endure The other day thou didst call the widowes sonne that was dead and Death fled not being able to accompany him unto the grave whom he had overcome how shall Death therefore lay hold on him whom it feareth and our Saviour himselfe speaking thus unto his Disciples I will arise out of the grave renewing the Resurrection I will teach Hades that it must expect the Resurrection to succeed it For in me both Death ceaseth and immortalitie is planted So saith S. Cyrill of Alexandria Christ was raysed up for us for he could not be detayned by the gates of Hades nor taken at all by the bonds of Death And therefore Cyrill of Hierusalem having sayd that our Saviour did descend into Hades doth presently adde as an explication thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he did descend into Death He descended into Death as a man saith Athanasius The diuine nature saith Ruffinus meaning the divine person by his flesh descended into Death not that according to the law of mortall men he should be detayned of death but that rising againe by himselfe he might open the gates of death When thou didst descend into Death ô immortall Life say the Grecians in their Liturgie thou didst then mortifie Hades or Hell with the brightnesse of thy divinitie And thus if my memory do not faile me for at this present I have not the booke lying by me is the article expressed in the Hebrew Creed which is printed with Potkens Aethiopian Syllabarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended into the shadow of death where the Hebrew Interpreter doth render Hades by the shadow of death as the Greeke Interpreters in that text which by the Fathers is applied to our Saviours descent into Hell Iob. 38.17 doe render the shadow of death by Hades for where the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gates of the shadow of death they â—eade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the keepers of the gates of Hades seeing thee shranke for feare The resurrection from the dead therefore being the end of our Saviours sâ—ffering as Eusebius notes and so the beginning of his glorifying the first degree of his exaltation would thus very aptly answerâ— unto the last degree of his humiliation that as his Resurrection is an arising from the dead so his descending unto Hades or ad inferos should be no other thing but a going to the dead For further confirmation whereof let it be considered that S. Hierome in the vulgar Latin translation of the Bible hath ad inferos deducentur Ecclesiaâ—â—is 9.3 where the Hebrew and Greeke reade to the dead and in like manner Proverb 2.18 he hath ad inferos againe where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the Hebrew which being a word that somtimes signifieth the dead and somtimes Gyants the LXX doe joyne both together and reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hades â—ith the Giants So in the Sibylline verses cyted by Lactantius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may speake unto the dead is in Prosper translated Vt inferis lâ—quatur and those other veâ—ses touching our Saviours Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then comming forth from the Dead c. are thus turned into Latin in Prosper Tunc ab inferis regressus ad lucem veniet primus resurrectionis principio revocatis ostenso Then returning from Hell he shall come unto the light first shewing the beginning of the Resurrection unto those whoÌ„ he shall call back from thence for Christ returning backe a conqueror from Hádes unto life as Basil of Seleucia writeth the dead were taught the reviving againe unto life His rising from the Dead vvas the loosing of us from Hádes saith Gregory Nazianzen He was raysed from Hádes or from the dead and raysed me being dead with him saith Nectarius his successor in the See of Constantinople Therefore is he called the first begotten of the dead because he was the first that rose from Hádes as we also shall rise at his second comming saith the author of the Treatise of Definitions among the workes of Athanasius To lay downe all
the places of the Fathers wherein our Lords rising againe from the Dead is termed his rising againe from Hádes Inferi or Hell would be a needlesse labour for this we need go no further then to the Canon of the Masse it selfe where in the prayer that followeth next after the Consecration there being a Commemoration made of Christs passion resurrection and ascension the second is set out by the title ab inferis resurrectionis of the resurrection from Hell For as the Liturgies of the Easterne Churches doe here make mention 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the resurrection from the dead so those of the West retayne that other title of the resurrection ab inferis that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Liturgie that goeth under the name of S. Peter or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Gregorian Office translated into Greek by Codinus If then the resurrection frō the dead be the same with the resurrection from Hades Inferi or Hell why may not the going unto Hades Inferi or Hell be interpreted by the same reason to be the going unto the dead whereby no more is understood than what is intimated in that phrase w ch the Latins use of one that hath left this world Abijt ad plures or in that of the Hebrewes so frequent in the word of God He went or was gathered unto his people he went or was gathered unto his fathers which being applied unto a whole generation Iudg. 2.10 as well as in other places unto particular persons must of necessitie denote the common condition of men departed out of this life Now although Death and Hades dying and going to the dead be of neere affinitie one with the other yet be they not the same thing properly but the one a consequent of the other as it appeareth plainely by the vision Revelat. 6.8 where Hades is directly brought in as a follower of Death Death it selfe as wise men doe define it is nothing else but the separation of the soule from the body which is done in an instant but Hades is the continuation of the body and soule in this state of separation which lasteth all that space of time which is betwixt the day of death and the day of the resurrection For as the state of life is comprehended betwixt two extreames to wit the beginning thereof and the ending and there be two motions in nature answerable thereunto the one whereby the soule concurreth to the body which we call Generation the other whereby the body is severed from the soule which we call Death so the state of death in like maner is contained betwixt two bounds the beginning which is the very same with the ending of the other and the last end the motion whereunto is called the Resurrection whereby the body and soule formerly separated are joyned together againe Thus there be three tearmes here as it were in a kinde of a continued proportion the middlemost whereof hath relation to eyther of the extremes and by the motion to the first a man may be said to be natus to the second denatus to the third renatus The first the third have a like oppositiō unto the middle and therefore are like betwixt themselves the one being a generation the other a regeneration For that our Lord doth call the last Resurrection the Regeneration Matth. 19.28 S. Augustine supposeth that no man doubteth Neyther would our Lord himselfe have beene styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first borne from the dead unlesse the Resurrection were accounted to be a kinde of a new nativitie whereof he himselfe was in the first place to be made partaker that among all or in all things he might have the preeminence the rest of the sonnes of God being to be children of the Resurrection also but in their due time and in the order of Post-nati The middle distance betwixt the first and second terme that is to say the space of life which we lead in this world betwixt the time of our birth and the time of our death is opposite to the distance that is betwixt the second and third terme that is to say the state of death under which man lyeth from the time of his departure out of this life unto the time of his resurrection and see what difference there is betwixt our birth and the life which we spend here after wee are borne the same difference is there betwixt Death and Hades in that other state of our dissolution That which properly we call Death which is the parting a sunder of the soule and the body standeth as a middle terme betwixt the state of life and the state of death being nothing else but the ending of the one and the beginning of the other and as it were a common meare between lands or a communis terminus in a Geometricall magnitude dividing part from part but being it selfe a part of neyther and yet belonging equally unto eyther Which gave occasion to the question moved by Taurus the philosopher When a dying man might be said to die when he was now dead or while hee was yet living whereunto Gellius returneth an answere out of Plato that his dying was to be attributed neyther to the time of his life nor of his death because repugnances would arise eyther of those wayes but to the time which was in the confine betwixt both which Plato calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a moment or an instant and denieth to be properly any part of time at all Therefore Death doth his part in an instant as hath beene said but Hádes continueth that worke of his and holdeth the dead as it were under conquest untill the time of the resurrection wherein shall be brought to passe the saying that is written O Death where is thy sting O Hades where is thy victorie For these things shall rightly be spoken then saith Irenaeus when this mortall and corruptible flesh about which Death is and which is holden downe by a certaine dominion of Death rising up unto life shall put on incorruption and immortalitie for then shall death be truly overcome when the flesh that is holden by it shall come forth out of the Dominion thereof Death then as it importeth the separation of the soule from the body which is the proper acception of it is a thing distinguishable from Hades as an antecedent from his consequent but as it is taken for the whole state of death and the domination which it hath over the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basilius Seleuciensis calleth it in his oration upon Elias it is the selfe same thing that Hades is and in that respect as we have seene the words are sometimes indifferently put the one for the other As therefore our Sauiour that we may apply this now unto him after he was fastned and lifted up on the Crosse if he had come downe from
thence as the standers by in mocking wise did wish him to doe might be truly said to have beene crucified but not to have dyed so when he gave up the ghost and layde downe his life if he had presently taken it up againe he might truly be said to have dyed but not to have gone to the dead or to have beene in Hádes His remayning under the power of Death untill the third day made this good Whom God did rayse up loosing the sorrowes of death forasmuch as it was not possible that he should be holden of it saith S. Peter and Christ being raysed from the dead dyeth now no more Death hath no more dominion over him saith S. Paul implying thereby that during the space of time that passed betwixt his death and his resurrection he was holden by death and death had some kinde of domination over him And therefore Athanasius or who ever else was author of that writing to Liberius the Roman Bishop having reference unto the former text affirmeth that he raysed up that buried body of his and presented it to his Father having freed it from Death of which it was holden and Maximus or he that collected the Dialogues against the Marcionites under the name of Origen out of him expounding the other text Over whom then had Death dominion saith he For the saying that it hath no more dominion sheweth that before it had dominion over him Not that Death could have any dominion over the Lord of Life further than he himselfe was pleased to give way unto it but as when Death did at the first sease upon him his life indeed vvas taken from the earth yet none could take it from him but he layd it downe of himselfe so his continuing to be Deaths prisoner for a time was a voluntarie commitment only unto which he freely yeelded himselfe for our sakes not anie yoake of miserable necessitie that Death was able to impose upon him For he had power to lay downe his life and he had power to take it again yet would he not take it againe before he had first not layd himselfe downe only upon Deaths bed but slept also upon it that arising afterward from thence he might become the first fruits of them that slept In which respect the Fathers apply unto him that text of the Psalme I layd me down and slept I awaked for the Lord sustained mee Psalm 3.5 and Lactantius that verse of Sibyll 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The tearme of death he shall finish when he hath slept unto the third day His dying or his burying at the farthest is that which here is answerable unto his lying downe but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius calleth it his his three-dayes buriall and his continuing for that time in the state of death is that which answereth unto his sleeping or being in Hádes And therefore the Fathers of the fourth Councell of Toledo declaring how in Baptisme the death and resurrection of Christ is signified do both affirme that the dipping in the water is as it were a descension into Hell and the rising out of the water againe a resurrection and adde likewise out of Gregory with whom many other Doctors doe herein agree that the three-fold dipping is used to signifie the three-dayes buriall which differeth as much from the simple buriall or putting into the earth as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transportation or leading into captivitie from the detayning in bondage the committing of one to prison from the holding of him there and the sowing of the seed from the remayning of it in ground And thus have I unfolded at large the generall acceptions of the word Hádes and Inferi and so the Ecclesiasticall use of the word Hell answering thereunto which being severally applyed to the point of our Saviours descent make up these three propositions that by the universall consent of Christians are acknowledged to be of undoubted verity His dead body though free from corruption yet did descend into the place of corruption as other bodies doe His soule being separated from his body departed hence into the other world as all other mens soules in that case use to doe He went unto the dead and remayned for a time in the state of death as other dead men doe There remayneth now the vulgar acception of the word Hell whereby it is taken for the place of torment prepared for the Divell and his Angells and touching this also all Christians do agree thus farre that Christ did descend thither at leastwise in a virtuall maner as God is said to descend when he doth any thing upon earth which being wonderfully done beyond the usuall course of nature may in some sort shew his presence or when he otherwise vouchsafeth to have care of humaine frailtie Thus when Christs flesh was in the tombe his power did worke from Heaven saith S. Ambrose which agreeth with that which was before cyted out of the Armenians Confession According to his body which was dead he descended into the grave but according to his DIVINITIE which did live he overcame Hell in the meane time and with that which was cyted out of Philo Carpathius upon Cantic 5.2 I sleepe but my heart waketh in the grave spoyling Hell for which in the Latin Collections that goe under his name we reade thus I sleepe to wit on the Crosse and my heart waketh vvhen my DIVINITIE spoyled Hell and brought rich spoyles from the triumph of everlasting death overcome and the Divells power overthrowne The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew attributeth this to the Divinitie not cloathed with any part of the Humanitie but naked as he speaketh Seeing the Divels feared him saith he while he was in the body saying What have we to doe with thee Iesus the sonne of the high God art thou come to torment us before our time how shall they be able to endure his NAKED DIVINITIE descending against them Behold after three dayes of his death he shall returne from Hell as a conqueror from the warre This conquest others do attribute to his Crosse others to his Death others to his Buriall others to the reall descent of his soule into the place of the damned others to his Resurrection and extend the effect therof not only to the deliverie of the Fathers of the old Testament but also to the freeing of our soules from Hell from whence how men may be said to have been delivered who never were there S. Augustin declareth by these similitudes Thou sayest rightly to the physician Thou hast freed me from this sicknesse not in vvhich thou wast but in which thou wast like to be Some bodie else having a troublesome businesse was to be cast into prison there commeth another and defendeth him vvhat saith he when he giveth thankes Thou
462.463 edit Colon. An. 1589. in the Romane Sacerdotall part 1. tract 5. cap. 13. fol. 116. edit Venet. An. 1585. in the booke intituled Sacra institutio Baptizandi juxta ritum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae ex decreto Concilij Tridentini restituta c. printed at Paris in the yeere 1575. and in a like booke intituled Ordo Baptizandi cum Modo visitandi printed at Venice the same yeere out of which the Spanish Inquisitors as well in their New as in their Old Expurgatory Index the one set out by Cardinall Quiroga in the yeere 1584. the other by the Cardinall of Sandoval and Roxas in the yeere 1612. command these interrogatories to be blotted out Dost thou beleeve to come to glory not by thine owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the passion of our Lord Iesus Christ and Dost thou beleeve that our Lord Iesus Christ did die for our salvation and that none can be saved by his owne merits or by any other meanes but by the merit of his passion Whereby we may observe how late it is since our Romanists in this maine and most substantiall point which is the very foundation of all our comfort have most shamefully departed from the faith of their fore-fathers In other copies of this same Instruction which are followed by Cassander Vlenbergius and Cardinall Hosius himselfe the last question propounded to the sicke man is this Dost thou beleeve that thou canst not be saved but by the death of Christ Whereunto when he hath made answer affirmatively he is presently directed to make use thereof in this manner Goe too therefore as long as thy soule remaineth in thee place thy whole confidence in this death only have confidence in no other thing commit thy selfe wholly to this death with this alone cover thy selfe wholly intermingle thy selfe wholly in this death fasten thy selfe wholly wrap thy whole selfe in this death And if the Lord God will judge thee say Lord I oppose the death of our Lord Iesus Christ betwixt mee and thy judgement no otherwise doe I contend with thee And if he say unto thee that thou art a sinner say Lord I put the death of the Lord Iesus Christ betwixt thee and my sinnes If he say unto thee that thou hast deserved damnation say Lord I set the death of our Lord Iesus Christ betwixt me and my bad merits and I offer his merit in stead of the merit which I ought to have but yet have not If he say that he is angrie with thee say Lord I interpose the death of our Lord Iesus Christ betwixt me and thine anger Adde hereunto the following sentences of the Doctors of these latter ages We cannot suffer or bring in any thing worthy of the reward that shall be saith Oecumenius So Petrus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bathe No trouble can be endured in this vitall death which is able equally to answer the joyes of heaven and Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury more fully before him If a man should serve God a thousand yeeres and that most fervently he should not deserve of condignitie to be halfe a day in the Kingdome of heaven Radulphus Ardens expounding those words of the Parable Matth. 20.13 Didst not thou agree with me for a peny Let no man out of these words saith he thinke that God is as it were tied by agreement to pay that which he hath promised For as God is free to promise so is he free to pay especially seeing as well merits as rewards are his grace For God doth crowne nothing else in us but his owne grace who if hee would deale strictly with us no man living should be justified in his sight Whereupon the Apostle who laboured more than all saith I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Therefore this agreement is nothing else but Gods voluntary promise And doe not wonder saith he in another Sermon if I call the merits of the just graces for as the Apostle witnesseth we have nothing which we have not received from God and that freely But because by one grace we come unto another they are called merits but improperly For as Augustine witnesseth God crowneth only his owne grace in us So Rupertus Tuitiensis The greatnesse or the eternitie of the heavenly glorie is not a matter of merit but of grace The same doth Bernardus Morlanensis expresse in these rhythmicall verses of his Vrbs Sion inclyta patria condita littore tuto Te peto te colo te flagro te volo canto saluto Nec meritis peto nam meritis meto morte perire Nec reticens tego quòd meritis ego filius irae Vita quidem mea vita nimis rea mortua vita Quippe reatibus exitialibus obruta trita Spe tamen ambulo praemia postulo speque fideque Illa perennia postulo praemia nocte dieque But Bernard of Claraevalle aboue others delivereth this doctrine most sweetly It is necessary saith hee that first of all thou shouldest beleeve that thou canst not have remission of sinnes but by the mercie of God then that thou canst not at all have any whit of a good worke unlesse he likewise give it thee lastly that by no workes thou canst merit eternall life unlesse that also be freely given unto thee Otherwise if wee will properly name those which wee call our merits they be certaine seminaries of hope incitements of love signes of secret predestination foretokens of future happinesse the way to the kingdome not the cause of reigning Dangerous is the dwelling of them that trust in their merits dangerous because ruinous For this is the whole merit of man if hee put all his trust in him who saveth the whole man Therefore my merit is the mercy of the Lord. I am not poore in merit so long as he is not poore in mercie and if the mercies of the Lord be many my merits also are many With which that passage of the Manuall falsly fathered upon S. Augustine doth accord so justly that the one appeareth to be plainly borrowed from the other All my hope is in the death of my Lord. His death is my merit my refuge my salvation life and resurrection My merit is the mercy of the Lord. I am not poore in merit so long as that Lord of mercies shall not faile and as long as his mercies are much much am I in merits Neither are the testimonies of the Schoolemen wanting in this cause For where God is affirmed to give the kingdome of heaven for good merits or good works some made here a difference betwixt pro bonis meritis and propter bona merita The former they said did note a signe or a way or some occasion and in that sense they admitted the proposition But according to the latter expression they would not receive it because
of the godly where is the inheritance of the mercifull where is the blisse of the undefiled where is the joy and consolation of such as love the truth Thither will I goe where is light and life where is glory jocundnesse where is joy and exultation whence griefe and heavinesse and groning flie away where they forgett the former tribulations that they sustayned in their body upon the earth Thither will I goe where there is a laying aside of tribulations where there this a recompense of labors where is the bosome of Abraham where the proprietie of Isaac where the familiarity of Israel where be the soules of the Saints vvhere the quire of Angels where the voyces of Archangels where the illumination of the holy Ghost where the kingdome of Christ where the endlesse glory and blessed sight of the eternall God the father What difference I pray you now is there betwixt this Limbus Patrum and Heaven it selfe Of Abrahams bosome Gregory Nyssen writeth after this maner As by a certaine abuse of speech we call a baye of the sea an arme or bosome so it seemeth to me that the word doth signifie the exhibitioÌ„ of those unmeasurable good things by the name of a bosome into which good bosome or baye all men that sayle by a vertuous course through this present life when they loose from hence put in their soules as it were into a haven free from danger of waves and tempests and in another place If one hearing of a bosome as it were a certaine large baye of the sea should conceive the fulnesse of good things to be meant thereby where the Patriarch is named and that Lazarus is therein he should not thinke amisse True it is indeed that diverse of the Doctors who make Abrahams bosome to be a place of glorie do yet distinguish it from Heaven but it is to be considered withall that they hold the same opinion indifferently of the place whereunto the soules of all godly men are received aswell under the state of the New as of the Old Testament For they did not hold as our Romanistes doe now that Christ by his descension emptyed Limbus removed the bosome of Abraham from Hell into Heaven their Limbus is now as full of Fathers as ever it was and is the common receptacle wherein they suppose all good soules to remaine untill the generall resurrection before which time they admit neyther the Fathers nor us unto the possession of the kingdome of Heaven For Abraham saith Gregory Nyssen and the other Patriarches although they had a desire to see those good things and never left seeking that heavenly countrey as the Apostle saith yet are they notwithstanding that even yet in expectancie of this favour God having provided some better thing for us according to the saying of S. Paul that they without us should not be made perfect So Tertullian It appeareth to every wise man that hath ever heard of the Elysian fields that there is some locall determination which is called Abâ—ahams bosome to receive the soules of his sonnes even of the Gentiles he being the Father of many nations that were to bee accounted of Abrahams family and of the same faith wherewith Abraham beleeved God under no yoke of the law nor in tâ—e signe of Circumcision That region tâ—erefore doe I call the bosome of Abraham although not heavenly yet higher than hell which shall give rest in the meane season to the soules of the righteous untill the consummation of thinâ—s doe finish the resurrection of all with the fulnesse of reward And we have heard S. Hilary say before that all the faithfull when they are gone out of the body shall be reserved by the Lords custody for that entrie into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and againe The rich and the poore man in the Gospell do serve us for witnesses one of whom the Angels did place in the seates of the Blessed and in Abrahams bosome the other the region of punishment did presently receive For the day of judgement is the everlasting retribution eyther of blisse or paine but the time of death hath every one under his lawes while eyther Abraham or punishment reserveth every one unto judgement The difference betwixt the Doctors in their iudgement concerning the bosome of Abraham and the resting of the ancient Fathers therein wee finde noted in part in those expositions upon the Gospell which goe under the name of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch and Eucherius Bishop of Lyons In that the rich man say they did in Hell behold Abraham this by some is thought to be the reason because all the Saints before the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ are said to have descended into Hell although into a place of refreshment Others thinke that the place wherein Abraham was did lye apart from those places of Hell situated in places above for which the Lord should say of that rich man that lifting up his eyes when he was in torments he saw Abraham a far off The former of these opinions is delivered by some of the Doctors doubtfully by others more resolutely Primasius setteth it downe with S. Augustins qualification It sâ—emâ—th that without absurditie it may be beleeved The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew saith that peradventure the just did ascend into heaveâ— before the comming of Christ yet that he doth thinke â—hat no soule before Christ did ascend into heaven since Adam sinned and the heavens were shut against him but all were detayned in Hell and as I doe thinke saith the Greeke expositor of Zacharies Hymne likewise even our fathers Abraham Isaac and Iacob and the whole queere of the holy Prophets and just men did enjoy the comming of Christ. Of which comming to visite the Fathers in Hell S. Hierome Ruffinus Venantius Fortunatus Gregory Iulianus Toletanus and Eusebius Emissenus as he is commonly called interpret that question propounded by the Baptist unto our Saviour Art thou he that should come or looke we for another which exposition is by S. Chrysostome iustly reiected as utterly impertinent and ridiculous Anastasius Sinaita affirmeth very boldly that all the soules aswell of the just as the unjust were under the hand of the Divell untill Christ descending into Hell said unto those that vvere in bonds Come forth and to those that were indurance Be at libertie For he did not only saith he in another place dissolve the corruption of the bodies in the grave but also delivered the captive soules out of Hell vvherein they were by tyrannie detained and peradventure not by tyrannie neyther but for many debts which being payed he that descended for their deliverie brought backe with him a great
company of captives and thus was Hell spoyled and Adam delivered from his griefes Which is agreeable to that which we reade in the works of Athanasius that the soule of Adam was detayned in the condemnation of death and cryed continually unto the Lord such as had pleased God and were justified in the law of nature being detayned together with Adam and lamenting and crying out with him and that the Divell beholding himselfe spoyled did bemoane himselfe and beholding those that sometime were weeping under him now singing in the Lord did rent himselfe Others are more favourable to the soules of the Fathers though they place them in Hell for they hold them to have beene there in a state of blisse and not of miserie Thus the author of the Latin homily concerning the Rich man and Lazarus which is commonly fathered upon Chrysostom notwithstanding he affirmeth that Abraham was in Hell and that before the comming of Christ none ever entred into Paradise yet doth he acknowledge in the meane time that Lazarus did remaine there in a kinde of Paradise For the bosome of Abraham saith he vvas the poore mans Paradise and againe Some man may say unto me Is there a Paradise in Hell I say this that the bosome of Abraham is the truth of Paradise Yea and I confesse it to be a most holy Paradise So Tertullian in the fourth booke of his Verses against Marcion placeth Abrahams bosome under the earth but in an open and lightsome seate farre removed from the fire and from the darknesse of Hell sub corpore terrae In parte ignotâ quidam locus exstat apertus Luce sua fretus Abrahae sinus iste vocatur Altior á tenebris longé semotus ab igne Sub terrâ tamen Yea he maketh it to be one house with that which is eternall in the heaven distinguisht onely from it as the outer and the inner Temple or the Sanctum and the Sanctum Sanctorum were in the time of the Law by the Vayle that hung between which vayle being rent at the passion of Christ he saith these two were made one everlasting house Tempore divisa spatio ratione ligata Vna domus quamvis velo partita videtur Atque adeò passo Domino velamine rupto Coelestes patuere plagae coelataque sancta Atque duplex quondam facta est domus una perennis Yet elsewhere hee maketh up the partition againe maintaining very stiffly that the gates of Heaven remaine still shut against all men untill the end of the world come and the day of the last judgement Only Paradise he leaveth open for Martyrs as that other author of the latin Homily seemeth also to doe but the soules of the rest of the faithfull he sequestâ—eth into Hell there to remaine in Abrahams bosome untill the time of the generall resurrection And to this part of Hell doth he imagine Christ to have descended not with purpose to fetch the soules of the Fathers from thence which is the only errand that our Romanistes conceive he had thither but ut illic Patriarchas Prophetas compotes sui faceret that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of his presence S. Hierome saith that our Lord Iesus Christ descended into the furnace of Hell wherein the soules both of sinners and of just men were held shut that without any burning or hurt unto himselfe he might free from the bonds of death those that were held shut up in that place and that hee called upon the name of the Lord out of the lowermost lake when by the power of his divinitie hee descended into Hell and having destroyed the barres of Tartarus or the dungeon of Hell bringing from thence such of his as he found there ascended conquerour up againe He saith further that Hell is the place of punishments and tortures in which the rich man that was cloathed in puâ—ple is seeâ—e unto which also the Lord did descend that he might let forth those that were bound out of prison Lastly tâ—e Sonne of God saith he following Origen as it seemeth too unaduisedly here descended into the lowermost parts of the earth and ascended above all heavens that he might not only fulfill the law and the prophets but certaine other hidden dispensations also which hee alone doth know with the Father For wee cannot understand how the bloud of Christ did profite both the Angels and those that were in Hell and yet that it did profite them wee cannot be ignorant Thus farre S. Hierome touching Christs descent into the lowermost Hell which Thomas and the other Schoolemen will not admitt that hee ever came unto Yet this must they of force grant if they will stand to the authority of the Fathers It remayned saith Fulgentius for the full effecting of our redemption that man assumed by God without sinne should thither descend whither man separated from God should have fallen by the desert of sinne that is unto Hell where the soule of the sinner was wont to be tormented and to the Grave where the flesh of the sinner was accustomed to bee corrupted yet so that neyther the flesh of Christ should be corrupted in the Grave nor his soule be tormented with the paines of Hell Because the soule free from sinne was not to be subjected to such punishment neither ought corruption to tainte the flesh without sinne And this hee saith was done for this end that by the flesh of the just dying temporally everlasting life might be given to our flesh and by the soule of the just descending into Hell the paines of hell might be loosed It is the saying of S. Ambrose that Christ being voyd of sinne when hee did descend into the lowermost parts of Tartarus breaking the barres gates of Hell called backe unto life out of the jawes of the Divell the soules that were bound with sinne having destroyed the dominion of death and of Eusebius Emissenus or Gallicanus or who ever was the author of the sixt Paschall homily attributed to him that the sonne of man laying aside his body pierced the lowest hidden seates of Tartarus but where he was thought to have beene detained among the dead there binding death did hee loose the bonds of the dead Presently therefore saith Caesarius in his third Paschall homily w ch is the same with the first of those that goe under the name of the former Eusebius the everlasting night of Hell at Christs descending shined bright the gnashing of the mourners ceased the burthens of the chaines were loosed the bursted bands of the damned fell from them The tormentors astonished in minde were amazed the whole jmpious shoppe trembled together when they beheld Christ suddainly in their dwellings So Arnoldus Bonaevallensis in his booke de Cardinalibus operibus Christi commonly attributed to S. Cyprian noteth that at that time there was a cessation from infernall