of Articles and suffering him to put it forth with the glorious title of being published by authority considering that he permits all people in this Church and State to put what sense they will upon the Article so they keep the words Which as it gives a great advantage to the Papists in making them report with the greater confidence that this Church alloweth not of a local descent into hell contrary to the doctrine of the primitive times so have they charged it on us in some solemne conferences more then once or twice Nor doth the Church of England stand alone in this interpretation of the Article according to the literal and Grammatical sense but is therein countenanced and backed by the most eminent Doctors of the Protestant and reformed Churchs And first we will begin with Luther who speaking of those words of the royal Psalmist Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell and of those foolish glosses which were made upon them in those times adviseth thus that despising all such frivolous and impious trifles we simply understand the words of the Prophet of the being of Christs soul in hell as they were simply and plainly spoken and if we cannot understand them that howsoever we do faithfully believe the same Pomeranus commenting on the same words of the Prophet thus infers thereon Here hast thou that Article of our faith Christs descent into hell If thou aske what he did there I answer that he delivered thence not the Fathers only but all the faithful from the beginning of the world to the end thereof nor out of Limbus only but out of the lowest and neathermost hell to which all were condemned David Chytreus to this purpose that we are to understand this Article of the Creed plainly and simply as the words do seem to import and to resolve that the Son of God truly descended into hell to deliver us thence to which place we were condemned for sin in Adam as also from the power and tyranny of the Devill which held us captive in the same and for the proof hereof he referreth himself to Hierome Augustine and Fulgentius whose words he quoteth Vrbanus Regius saith the same The Church saith he delivereth out of holy Scripture that Christ after he was dead on the Crosse descended also into hell to suppresse Satan and hell to which we were condemned by the just judgment of God and to spoyle and destroy the kingdome of death More plainly Henricus Mollerus thus The descent of Christ to hell being one of the Articles of the Creed we understand simply without any allegory and believe that Christ truly descended to the lower parts of the earth as St. Paul speaketh Ephes. 4. It is enough for us to believe which Austin affirmeth in his Epistle to Dardanus that Christ therefore descended that he might help those which were to be holpen Of the same mind as touching the true and real descent into hell are Westhmerus in Psal. 16. Hemingius in Coloss. c. 2. Wolfgangus Musculus in Psal. 16. and the whole body of the Lutheran Divines in their book of Concord Artic. 9. But none more positively and significantly then Zacharias Scilterus though perhaps of lesse eminent note then those before who informes us thus The descent of Christ to hell whereof mention is made in the Apostles Creed after the death and burial of Christ is to be understood simply and without Allegory according to the literal sense of the manifestation and declaration of Christs victory no lesse glorious then terrible made to the Devils in hell or in the place of the damned and of Christs expugning spoyling disarming captivating the power of Satan and of his destroying hell and everting the whole kingdome of darkness and of his delivering us from the pains of death and eternal damnation and out of the pains of hell Nor is this only the opinion of the Lutheran Doctors but of those also which in matter of the Sacrament and some other points adhere rather to the Doctrine of Zuinglius Calvin and those other Churches who commonly do call themselves the reformed Churches And first we will begin with Peter Martyr not only because first in time but because purposely sent for hither by Arch-bishop Cranmer to travel in the great work of reformation which was then in hand As touching Christs soul saith he as soon as it departed from the body it rested not idle but descended ad inferos unto hell and certainly both the one and the other company as well of the godly as the damned found the presence of it For the souls of the faithful were much comforted and gave God thanks for delivering them by the hands of this Mediator and performing that which had so long before been promised and those which were adjudged to everlasting damnation animae Christi adventum praesenseruâ—t perceived the coming of Christs soul with as much discomfort Aretius next declaring that the Article of Christs descent into hell is delivered in plain termes in holy Scriptures and then repeating many other senses which had been obtruded on the Article he rejects them all and thus produceth Quare mea sententia est c. It is therefore mine opinion that Christ descended into hell after he had yeilded his soul on the Crosse into the hand of God his Father and hell in this place we affirme to be the very place appointed for the souls of the damned even for Satan and all his members Finally Zanchius doth not only hold for his own particular that though the powers and principalities spoken of Coloss. 2. were vanquished and conquered on the Crosse by Christ yet that the triumph there also mentioned was not performed till Christ in his soul entred the kingdome of hell as a glorious Victor bringing them out of their infernal Kingdome and carrying them along in the air in the sight of all the Angels and blessed souls but doth affirme that the Fathers for the most part were of that opinion Et ex nostris non pauci neque vulgares and of their own Expositers not a few and those no mean persons So that in him we have not only his own judgment opinion but the agreement and consent of almost al the rest of the considerable Divines of the reformed Churches Yet notwithstanding this agreement and consent both of the Antient Fathers and the Later writers this Article of Christs descent hath not wanted those who have endevoured with all care diligence either to make it of no authority by expunging it out of the old received Creeds or to dispute as well the possibility as the use and pertinencie of the said descent by pressing it with many studied Objections to that end and purpose or finally to put such a sense upon it as is utterly inconsistent with the meaning of it and as destructive in a manner as the first attempt of making it no part of the antient Creeds And
of Canaan on the Priests and Levites being his in his own right Originally by the law of Nature and by him challenged and appropriated as his own domaine All the Tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lords Here 's the Lords claim and title to them as his own propriety Behold I have given the children of Levi all the Tenth or Tithes in Israel for an inheritance for the service which they serve even the service of the Tabernacle of the Congregation There 's the collation of his right on the Tribe of Levi whom he made choyce of to attend in his holy Tabernacle and to do service at his Altar And they continued the inheritance of the Tribe of Levi until the Priesthood was translated unto Christ our Saviour who being made by God the true owner of Tithes a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech became invested ipso facto with that right of Tithing which God had formerly conferred on the Priests and Levites and consequently with a power of disposing of them to them that minister in his Name to the Congregation The second argument which the Apostle doth afford us in this case of Tithes is the Prerogative which Melchisedech haâ— iâ— that particular above Aaron and the sons of Levi. Levi also saith he which received Tithes paid Tithes in Abraham for he was yet in the loyns of his Father when Melchisedech met him Heb. 7.9 10. Then which there cannot be a stronger and more pregnant argument to prove that Tithes are no Mosaical institution or the peculiar maintenance of the Levites but that they are derived from an higher Author and are to be continued to the Ministers of a better Testament For the Apostle taking on him to prove this point that the Priesthood after the Ordâ—â— of Melchisedech was better and more perfect then that which was according to the Order of Aaron useth this argument to evince it and it is a weighty one indeed that Levi himself though he received Tithes of his brethren by the Lords appointment yet he and all his Tribe paid their Tithes to Melchisedech being all vertually and potentially in the loyns of Abraham at such time as Melchisedech met him and consequently being as effectually tithed in Abraham as all mankinde have sinned in Adam from whose loyns they sprung Nay we may work this argument to an higher pitch and make the full scope of it to amount to this That if the Tribe of Levi had been in full possession of the Tithes of their Brethren when Melchisedech met with Abraham and blessed him as became the High Priest of God to do or if Melchisedech had lived in Canaan till their setling in it they must and ought to have done as their Father did and paid their Tithes unto Melchisedâ—eh as the Type of Christ in reference to his everlasting and eternal Priesthood But seeing that this common place hath been so much beaten on I shall only alter some few words of that Noble Gentleman and great Antiquarie Sir Henry Spelman to make his argument more suitable to my present purpose and so close this point Insomuch saith he as Abraham did not pay his Tithes to a Priest that offered a Levitical Sacrifice of Bullocks and Goats but unto him that presented him with Bread and Wine which are the Elements of the Sacrament ordained by Christ this may serve well to intimate thus much unto us that we are to pay our Tithes unto that High Priest an High Priest of Melchisedechs Order who did ordain the Sacrament of Bread and Wine and unto them in his behalf who by his Ordinance and appointment in the Word Hoc facite administer the same unto us And so much for the Sacerdotal Office of our Lord and Saviour which he doth execute for our good at the right hand of God we now proceed unto the Regal which though it is most eminent in his coming to Iudgement and so more properly to be handled in the following Article yet for so much thereof as is exercised at the right hand of God we shall reduce it under this in the following chapter CHAP. XIV Of the Regal or Kingly Office of our Lord as far as it is executed before his coming unto Iudgement Of his Vice-gerents on the Earth and of the several Vice-roys put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians WE have not yet done with this branch of the Article that of our Saviours sitting at the right hand of God For of the three Offices allotted to him that of the Priest the Prince and the Prophet all which are comprehended in the name of CHRIST that of the Priest is wholly executed as he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty And so is so much also of the King or the Regal Office as doth concern the preservation of his Church from the hands of her enemies the Regulating of the same by his holy laws and indeed every act and branch thereof except 〈◊〉 of Iudicature which is most visibly discharged in the day of judgement Of all the rest we shall now speak and for our better method and proceeding in it must recall to minde that we told you in our former Chapter how both the Kingdome and the Priesthood of our Saviour Christ did take beginning at the time of his Resurrection He was before a King Elect designed by God to this great Office from before all worlds but not invested with the Crown nor put into the possession of the Throne 〈◊〉 David till he had conquered Death and swallowed up the grave in victory That he was King Elect and in designation is evident by that of the Royal Psalmist where he brings in God Almighty speaking of his only Son and saying I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion as evident by that of the Prophet Daniel where he telleth us that in those days those days which the Apostle calleth the fulness of time the God of Heaven shall set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed which can be meant of none but the Kingdome of Christ. And that we may not have the testimony only of Kings and Prophets which were mortall men but also of the blessed Angels those immortal Spirits we have the Angel Gabriel saying of him to his Virgin-Mother that the Lord would give unto him the Throne of his Father David and of his Kingdome there should be no end But yet he was but King Elect and in designation born to the Crown of the Celestial land of Canaan as the Heir apparent and by that name enquired for by the Wise men saying Vbi est ille qui natus est Rex Iudaeorum i. e. where is he that is born King of the Iews as our Englâ—sh reads it And so do all translations else which I have seen except Bezas and the French which doth follow him And he indeed doth
if they die in their Baptism in which respect they may be said to communicate with the rest of the faithful Concerning which the same St. Augustine hath most excellently resolved it thus No man in any wise may doubt but that every faithful man is then made partaker of Christs Body and Blood when in Baptism he is made a member of Christ And that he is not deprived of the Communion of that Bread and that Cup although before he either eat of that Bread or drink of that Cup he depart this world being in the unity of Christs Body For he is not deprived from partaking of the benefit of that Sacrament so long as he findeth in himself the things or the res Sacramenti as St. Cyprian calls it which the Sacrament signifieth As for the Union or Communion which the faithful have with one another though that arise upon their first incorporation in Iesus Christ by holy Baptism yet is more compleatly signified and more fully effected by that communion which they have in his Body and Blood And so St. Cyprian and St. Augustine and the rest of the Fathers do declare most plainly St. Cyprian as more antient shall begin the evidence and be the foreman of the Inquest That Christian men are joyned together with the inseparable bonds of charity the Lords Supper doth saith he declare St. Augustine generally first of all outward Sacraments In nullum nomen Religionis seu verum seu falsum coagulari possunt homines nisi aliquo signaculorum vel sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligantur Men saith he cannot be united into any Religion be it true or false unless they be joyned together in the bond of some visible Sacraments What he affirmeth of this particularly we shall see anon first taking with us that of Dionysius an Antient Writer doubtless whosoever he was Sancta illa unius ejusdem panis poculi communis pacifica distributio unitatem illis divinam tanquam unà enutritis praescribit that is to say That holy and peaceable distribution of the same one Bread and that common Cup prescribeth to them which are so fed and nourished together a most heavenly union More elegantly in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Pachymeres the Greek Paraphrast doth thus reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Because that common feeding together with such joynt consent bringeth to our remembrance the Lords Supper Nor doth the participation of this blessed Sacrament produce an union or communion between them alone who do receive the same together at one time and place but it doth joyn and knit together all the Saints of God how far soever they are distant and scattered far and near upon the face of the Earth For therein we profess that we are all servants in one House and resort all to one Table and feed all of one Spiritual Meat which is the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God The Prayers which are used in that holy action being so fitted and contrived in all Antient Liturgies that they extend not unto those onely which do then communicate but that they and the whole Church with them may by the death and merits of Iesus Christ and through Faith in his Blood obtain remission of their sins and all other the benefits of his passion as it is piously expressed in the Liturgy of the Church of England To this St. Ierom gives a clear and most ample testimony who being pressed by Iohn the then Bishop of Ierusalem with whom he had some personal quarrels to go to Rome and witness his integrity by communicating in the face of that Church A qua videmur communione separari from whose communion he had seemed to separate returns this Answer Non necesse esse ire tam longè that it was not needful for him to go so far How so Et hic in Palestina eodem modo ei jungimur In viculo enim Bethlehem Presbyteris ejus quantum in nobis est communion◠sociamur For here saith he in Palestine do we hold communion with that Church and I residing in this Village of Bethlehem am joyned in the communion with the Priests of Rome By which we see that whosoever doth worthily eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood according to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour communicates thereby with all Christian men of all Countreys and Nations whatsoever and that by vertue and effect of the said Communion they be all knit and joyned together as members of the same one Body in the bonds of love And this is that which is affirmed by St. Augustine Non mirum si absentes adsumus nobis ignoti no smet novimus cum unius corporis membra simus unum habeamus caput una perfundamur gratia uno pane vivamus una incedamus via eadem habitemus is domo It is no wonder saith the Father that being absent we be present together and being not acquainted do know each other considering that we be the Members of one Body have the same one Head an endowment of the self-same Spirit and that we live by one bread go the same way and dwell together in one House To testifie this Communion which they had with each other by vertue of the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper it was a custom of the Primitive and Purest times to send some part of the consecrated Elements unto them which were absent and joyned not with them in that action And sometimes for one Bishop to send to another a Loaf of Bread as a token of consent in the point of Faith and in all brotherly love and concord which he that did receive it if he thought it fitting might consecrate and use at the Ministration Touching the first of these it was well observed by Irenaeus that when any of the Eastern Bishops came to Rome the Popes thereof which preceded Victor did use to send them some of the blessed Sacrament although they differed in the observation of the Feast of Easter whereby a mutual concord and communion was preserved between them Of which he writeth thus to the said Pope Victor Qui fuerunt ante te Presbyteri etiam cum non ita observarent Presbyteris Ecclesiarum of the East he meaneth cum Romam acciderent Eucharistiam mittebant And of the other it is said in those Epistles which Paulinus wrote unto St. Augustine Panem unum quem unanimitatis indicio misimus charitati tuae rogamus ut accipiendo benedicas i. e. The Loaf of Bread which I have sent unto you as a token of unity I beseech you to receive and consecrate See also to what purpose he sent those five Loaves which were designed for the said St. Augustine and Licinius of which he speaketh in the Six and thirtieth Epistle of that Fathers works and that other single Loaf in the Five and thirtieth where it appeareth That the Loaves so sent and consecrated
all them that are sanctified Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and nailed it to his cross for ever to the end that being mindful of the price wherewith we were bought and of the enemies from whom we were delivered by him We might glorifie God both in our bodies and our souls and serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh in the time of the Mosaical Ordinances How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God in the time of the Gospel This is the constant tenor of the Word of God touching remission of our sins by the Blood of Christ. And unto this we might here adde the consonant suffrages and consent of the antient Fathers If the addition of their Testimonies where the authority of the Scripture is so clear and evident might not be thought a thing unnecessary Suffice it that all of them from the first to the last ascribe the forgiveness of our sins to the death of Christ as to the meritorious cause thereof though unto God the Father as the principal Agent who challengeth to himself the power of forgiving sins as his own peculiar and prerogative Isai. 43.25 Peculiar to himself as his own prerogative in direct power essential and connatural to him but yet communicated by him to his Son CHRIST IESUS whilest he was conversant here on Earth who took upon himself the power of forgiving sins as part of that power which was given him both in Heaven and Earth Which as he exercised himself when he lived amongst us so at his going hence he left it as a standing Treasury to his holy Church to be distributed and dispensed by the Ministers of it according to the exigencies and necessities of particular persons For this we finde done by him as a matter of fact and after challenged by the Apostles as a matter of right belonging to them and to their successors in the Ministration First For the matter of fact it is plain and evident not onely by giving to St. Peter for himself and them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven annexing thereunto this promise That whatsoever he did binde on Earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he did loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven But saying to them all expresly Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as it was thus given them in the way of fact so was it after challenged by them in the way of right St. Paul affirming in plain terms That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by not imputing their trespasses unto them but that the Ministery of this reconciliation was committed unto him and others whom Christ had honored with the title of his Ambassadors and Legates here upon the Earth Now as the state of man is twofold in regard of sin so is the Ministery of reconciliation twofold also in regard of man As he is tainted with the guilt of original sinfulness the Sacrament of Baptism is to be applied the Laver of Regeneration by which a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost Iohn 3.5 As he lies under the burden of his actual sins the Preaching of the Word is the proper Physick to work him to repentance and newness of life that on confession of his sins he may receive the benefit of absolution Be it known unto you saith St. Paul that through this man CHRIST IESUS is preached unto you remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses And first for Baptism It is not onely a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others which be not Christned as some Anabaptists falsly taught but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the promises of the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by vertue of Prayer unto God This is the publick Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the authorised Book of Articles Anno 1562. In which lest any should object as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Iewel That we make Baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration and that we dare not say as the Catholick Church teacheth according to the holy Scriptures That in and by Baptism sins are fully and truly remitted and put away We will reply with the said most Reverend and Learned Prelate a man who very well understood the Churches meaning That we confess and have ever taught that in the Sacrament of Baptism by the death and Blood of Christ is given remission of all manner of sins and that not in half or in part or by way of imagination and fancy but full whole and perfect of all together and that if any man affirm that Baptism giveth not full remission of sins it is no part nor portion of our Doctrine To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end That they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness and also that infused divine vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispositions towards future newness of life But because these were private men neither of which for ought appears had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth though Bishop Iewel had in the second Edition when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeths time let us consult the Book of Homilies made and set out by those who composed the Articles And there we finde that by Gods mercy and the vertue of that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour CHRIST IESUS the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross we do obtain Gods grace and remission as well of our original sin in Baptism as of all actual sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto him again Which doctrine of the Church of England as it is consonant to the Word of God in holy Scripture so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure Antiquity For in the Scripture it is said
to the water but the institution nor to the Sacramental water of it self alone but to the holy Spirit which is active in it Et ipsi soli hujus efficienciae privilegium manet to which belongeth the prerogative in this great effect For as the Spirit of God moving upon the waters of the great Abyss did out of that imperfect matter produce the world so the same Spirit moving on the waters of Baptism doth by its mighty power produce a regenerate Creature From hence it is that in the setting forth of so great a work the water and the Spirit are oft joyned together as in St. Iohn Except a man be born again of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And in St. Paul accrrding to his mercy hath he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost And in St. Iohns Epistle also There be three that bear witness on the earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood And if the Spirit go along with the Waters of Baptism as we see them joyned together in the holy Scripture no question but it will be made effectual to the work intended which is the washing away of sins whether smal or great whether Original or Actual of what sort soever For proof whereof besides what hath been said of this Point already let us behold the practise of the Primitive times when the Discipline of the Church was grown so severe that some were hardly admitted at all unto publick Penance others removed from the communion of the Church for three four or seven years together and sometimes as the quality of the sin appeared for the whole time of their lives A Discipline which the Church used onely towards those which had given up their names in baptism to be visible members of that body whereof Christ was Head and that made more unpleasing to most sort of men upon the growth and spreading of the Novatian Heresie who mistaking the Apostles meaning declared all those to be uncapable of mercy who sinned after Baptism and therefore neither would admit them unto publick penance nor otherwise restore them to the Churches peace of whom St. Cyprian thus complaineth Sic obstinatos esse quosdam ut dandam non putent lapsis poenitentiam And though the Orthodox party did abominate these Novatian rigors yet were they too strait-laced towards those who fell into any publick or notorious sin after they had received the Sacrament of Regeneration it being conceived that after Baptism major in sordibus delictorum reatus as it is in Augustine the smalest sins seemed greater than indeed they were Upon this ground and an assurance which they had that all their sins whatever were expunged in Baptism it was the custom of too many to defer their Baptism till the hour of their death or till they lay so far past hope on the bed of sickness that nothing but the stroke of death was to be expected Thus doth the Story tell us of the Emperor Constantine that in extremo vitae die when he was even brought to the point of death he was baptized in Nicomedia by the hands of Eusebius the like of Theodosius a most pious Prince upon these grounds St. Austine did defer his baptism a long time together that so he might more freely enjoy those pleasures to which he was addicted in his younger years On the like fear of such relapses as were censured so severely in those rigid times he put off the baptizing of Adeodatus his own natural Son till he came to thirteen years of age at what time the severity of the Church began to slaken or rather the good Fathers judgement was then changed to the better on the right understanding of the use and nature of that holy Sacrament A custom as ill taken up so as much condemned and subject to the Churches censures when occasion served those which were so baptized and escaped from death whom they called Clinici because they were baptized on the bed of sickness being disabled by the Canons from the holy Ministery But whether censured or not censured it comes all to one as to the point I have in hand which was to shew that in the practise and opinion of those elder times the Sacrament of Baptism was held to be the general plaster for all manner of sins and though sometimes deferred till the hour of death on the occasion and mistakes before remembred yet then most earnestly desired ad delenda erratu illa quae quoniam mortales erant admiserant as the Historian saith of the Emperor Constantine for expiating of those sins which they had committed But on the other side as some did purposely defer it till the time of their death out of too great a fear of the Church's censures and a desire to injoy the pleasures of sin yet a little longer so others and those the generality of the people of God out of a greater care of their childrens safety procured it to be administred unto them in their â—endrest infancy almost as soon as they were born And this they did on very pious and prudential considerations though there be no express command nor positive precept for it in the holy Scripture for when we read that we were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin Psal. 51.5 that all men are by nature the children of wrath Ephes. 2.3 and that except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. 3.5 What Parent can so far put off all natural affections as not to bring his child to baptism especially if there be any danger of death as soon as all things fitting can be had in readiness for that ministration And though there be no positive precept nor express command for Infant-baptism in the holy Scripture it is sufficient ground for the Church to go on if it be proved to be an Apostolical practise and that it is at least an Apostolical practise there will appear sufficient evidence to any man not prepossessed with prejudice and mis-perswasions For when we finde particular mention of the baptizing of whole housholds as of that of Lydia Act. 16.15 of the Gaoler vers 33. of the same Chapter and of Stephanus 2 Cor. 1.16 Either we must exclude children from being part of the houshold which were very absurd or else admit them with the rest to this holy Sacrament But because many exceptions have been made against these instances some thinking it possible enough that those housholds had no children in them as we see many families in great Towns and Cities where no Infants are others restraining the administration of Baptism unto such of the houshold as by giving testimony of their Faith and Repentance were made capable of it we must for further proof make use of a Rule in Law and back that Rule of Law by a practical Maxim delivered by the
body CHAP. VII Of the crucifying death and burial of the Lord JESUS CHRIST with the diquisition of all particulars incident thereunto THe death of Christ prefigured both in that of Abel and of Abels lamb The definition of a Sacrifice how abused by Bellarmine and on what design The Sacrifices of the Law how accounted expiatory Several resemblances between the Sacrifices of Christ and the legal sacrifices A parallel beawixt Christ and Isaac and betwixt Christ and the Brazen Serpent Calvins interpretation and the practise of the Papists much alike unsound How Christ is said to be made a curse The cruel intention of the Iews to prolong Christs miseries under the false disguise of pity Several sorts of Dereliction and in what sort our Saviour Christ complained that he was forsaken Whether Christ spake those words in his own Person or in the person of his members the Schoolmen in this point very sound and solid Why vinegar was given to Christ at the time of his passion The meaning of those words Consummatum est That the death of Christ is rather to be counted voluntary then either violent or natural and upon what reasons The death of Christ upon the Cross a full Propitiation for the sins of man both in the judgement of Scriptures and the Antient Fathers That Christ suffered not the death of the soul as impiously is affirmed by some The Eucharist ordained for a Sacrifice by our Lord and Saviour The Sacrifice or Oblation of Bread and Wine used antiently by that very name in the Church of Christ why called Commemorative and why an Eucharistical sacrifice and why the Sacrament of the Altar The Sacrifice asserted by the Antient Writers corrupted by the Church of Rome and piously restored by the Church of England St. Cyprian wrested by the Papists to defend their Mass. A parallel between the Peace-offerings and the blessed Eucharist The renting of the Vail at our Saviours passion what it might portend The Earthquake and Eclipse then happening testified out of Heathen writers The reconciliation of St. Mark and St. Iohn about the time and hour of our Saviours suffering Various opinions in that point and which most improbable Vniversality of redemption defended by the Church of England Both Sacraments how said to issue from our Saviours side The breaking of our Saviours body in the holy Eucharist how it agreeth with the not breaking of his bones The true and proper meaning of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Certain considerations on our Saviours buriall and of the weekly fasting dayes thereupon occasioned That Iudas hanged himself made good from the antient Fathers against the new devise of Daniel Heinsius The fearfull and calamitous ends of Pontius Pilate Annas Cajaphas and the whole nation of the Iews CHAP. VIII Of the locall descent of Christ into hell Hades and inferi what they signifie in the best Greek and Latine authors and in the text of holy Scripture an examination and confutation of the contrary opinions CHrists descent into hell the first degree of his Exaltation and so esteemed by many of the antient Fathers The drift and project of this Chapter Severall Etymologies of the Greek word HADES The Greek word HADES used most commonly by the old Greek writers to signifie hell the place of torments sometimes to signifie Pluto the King of hell the word so used also by the sacred Penmen of the new Testament The faultinesse of our last translators in rendring the Greek HADES by the English grave 1 Cor. 15.55 c. contrary to the exposition of the best interpreters By HADES in the Ecclesiasticall notion of it is meant only hell in the opinion of all Greek writers of the elder and middle times The Latine word inferi whence derived and what it signifyeth Inferi generally used by the Antient writers for the place of torments not for the receptacles or repositories of the righteous souls The Greek word Hades generally rendered in the new Testament by the Latine inferi The meaning of these words viz. He descended into hell Grammatically gathered from the Premises Arguments for the locall descent of Christ into hell from St. Pauls words Rom. 10.6 7. and Ephes. 4.8 9 c. with the explication of both places The leading of captivity captive Ephes. 4. and the spoiling of principalities and powers Col. 2.15 used by the antients as arguments for Christs descent into hell the like proved by St Peters argument Act. 2.27 c. the pains of death mentioned vers 2.24 in the latter editions of that book the very same with the pains of hell in some antient copies The Locall descent of Christ into hell proved by the constant and successive testimonies of the old Greek Fathers and by the general current of the Latine writers together with the reasons which induced him to it Considerations on this point viz. whether Christ by his descent into hell delivered thence the souls of such holy men as either dyed under or before the Law Bullengers moderation in it CHAP. IX The Doctrine of the Church of England touching Christs descent into Hell asserted from all contrary opinions which are here examined and disproved THe Doctrine of the Church of England touching the local descent of Christ into Hell delivered in the book of Articles in the book of Homilies and Catechismes publickly allowed The errour of Mr. Rogers in that point charged upon the Church The Doctrine of a locall descent defended by the most eminent writers in the Protestant Churches and of some of the Reformed also The first objection against the locall descent viz. that there was no such clause in the old Creed or Symbol of the Church of Rome The second objection that our Saviour went on the day of his passion with the Theef to Paradise The third objection that Christ at the instant of his death commended his soul into the hands of God the Father The pertinency and profitablenesse of the locall descent declared and stated and freed from all the Cavils which are made against it The false construction of this Article by our Masters in the Church of Rome Brentius and Calvin falsly charged by Bellarmine The Article of Christs descent by whom first made the same with his burial the inconvenience of that sense and the absurdities of Beza in indevoring to make it good The new devise which makes the descent into hell to be nothing else but a continuance for three days in the state of death proposed and answered A Theologicall Dictionary necessary for young Divines The Author and progresse of the new opinion touching the suffering of hell paines in our Saviours soul. A particular of the torments in hell that is to say remorse of conscience 2. rejection from the favour of God 3. despaire of Gods mercy 4. the fiery flames there being That none of all these could finde place in our Saviours soul. The blasphemy of some who teach that Christ descended into hell to suffer there the torments of
the Greeks and the antient Fathers The ireconcileable differences amongst the Papists and the fluctuation of St. Augustine in the point of Purgatory CHAP. V. Of the first Introduction of sin God not the Author of it Of the nature and contagion of Original sin No actual sin so great but it is capable of forgivenesse In what respect some sins may be accounted venial and others mortall FOrgivenesse of sins the first great benefit redounding unto mankind by our Saviours passion Man first made righteous in himself but left at liberty to follow or not to follow the ways of life Adam not God the author of the first transgression proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The heresie of the Cataphrygians and of Florinus in making God the Author of sin as also of Bardesenus and Priscilian imputing sin to fate and the stars of Heaven The impious heresie of Florinus revived by the Libertines The Founder of the Libertines a member of the Church of Rome not of Calvins Schoole Calvin and his Disciples not altogether free from the same strange tenets The sin of Adam propagated to his whole posterity Original sin defined by the Church of England and in what it specially consisteth That there is such a sin as original sin proved by the testimony of the Scriptures by the light of reason and by the Practise of the Church Private Baptisme why first used and the use thereof maintained in the Church of England Not the day of their birth but of the death of the Saints observed as Festivals by the Church and upon what reasons The word natalis what it signifyeth in the Martyrologies Original sin how propagated from one man to another and how to children borne of regenerate Parents The sin of Adam not made ours by imitation only but by propagation Of the distinction of sins in venial and mortal and how far abominable Equality of sins a Paradox in the Schoole of Christ. No sin considered in its self to be counted veniall but only by the grace and goodnesse of Almighty God No sin so great but what is capable of Pardon if repented of no not the murdering of Christ nor the sin against the holy Ghost Arguments from the holy Scriptures as Heb 6.4 6. and Heb. 10.26 27. and 1 Ioh. 5.16 to prove some sins to be uncapable of pardon produced and answered The proper application of the severall places with the error of our last Translators in the second Text. CHAP. VI. Of the remission of sins by the bloud of Christ and of the Abolition of the body of sin by Baptisme and Repentance Of confession made unto the Priest and the authority Sacerdotal GOD the sole Author Christ the impulsive meritorious cause of the forgivenesse of sins Remission of sins how and in what respects ascribed to the bloud of Christ. Power to forgive sins conferred upon and exercised by the Apostles The doctrine of the Church of England touching the efficacy of Baptisme in the washing away of sin confirmed by the Scriptures and the Fathers and many eminent Divines of the reformed Churches Baptismal washings frequently used of old both by Iews and Gentiles as well to expiate their sins as to manifest and declare their innocence The waters of Baptisme in what respect made efficacious unto the washing away of the guilt of sin What it is which makes Baptisme to be efficacious unto the washing away of sin The rigor of the Primitive Church towards such as sinned after Baptisme The Clinici what they were and how then esteemed of The institution and antiquity of Infant Baptisme The old rule for determining in doubtfull cases how applyed to this Proofs for the Baptisme of Infants from St. Augustine up to Irenaeus inclusively What faith it is by which Infants are Baptized and justifyed Of the necessity of Baptisme the want thereof how supplyed or excused in the Primitive times and of the state of Infants dying unbaptized Repentance necessary and effectuall in men of riper years for remission of sins Confession in the first place to be made to God satisfaction for the wrong done to be given to man Satisfaction for sin in what sense to be given to God by the Penitent sinner Private confession to a Priest allowed of and required by the Church of England The Churches care in preserving the seal of confession from all violation Confession to a Priest defended by the best Divines of the Anglical Church approved by the Lutheranâ— not condemned by Calvin The disagreement of the Papists in the proofs of their auricular confession from the Texts of Scripture The severity of exacting all particular circumstances in confession with the inconveniences thereof That the power of sacerdotall Absolution in the opinion of the Fathers is not declarative only but judicial and that it is so also both in the Doctrine and the practise of the Church of England CHAP. VII Of the Resurrection of the body and the proofs thereof The objections against it answered Touching the circumstances and manner of it The History and grounds of the Millenarians THe resurrection of the body derided and contemned by the Antient Gentiles Proofs for the resurrection from the words of Iob from the Psalmes and Prophets and from the Argument of our Saviour in the holy Gospels Our Saviours Argument for the resurrection against the cavils of the Sadduces declared expounded and applyed to the present purpose Several Arguments to the same purpose and effect alledged by St. Paul in his Epistles and that too of the same numerical not another body Baptizing of or for the dead a pregnant proof or argument for the resurrection severall expositions of the place produced and which most probable Baptizing or washing of the dead antiently in use amongst the Iews the Gentiles and the Primitive Christians with the reasons of it Practical and natural truths for a resurrection The resurrection of the same bâ—dy denyed by Hereticks and justifyed with strong reasons by the Orthodox Christians Two strong and powerfull arguments for the resurrection produced from the Adamant and the art of Chymistry That the dead bodies shall be raised in a perfect stature and without those deformities which here they had and in their several sexes also contrary to the fancies of some vain disputers Considerations raised on the Doctrine of the resurrection with reference unto others and unto our selves The Doctrine of the Millenarians originally founded on some Iewish dotages by whom first set on foot in the Church of Christ how refined and propagated The Millenarian Kingdome described by Lactantius and countenanced by many of the antient writers till cryed down by Hierome The texts of Scripture on which the Millenarians found their fancies produced examined and lâ—yed by as unusefull for them The disagreement of the old Millenarians in the true stating of their Kingdome CHAP. VIII Of the immortality of the soul and the glories of Eternal life prepared for it as also of the place and torment of hell Hell
the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world
terris as St. Bernard hath it Who could be fitter to make us the Sons of God by adoption and grace then the word by which we were to be begotten unto life eternal or to repair the image of God decayed in us then he that was the brightnesse of his Fathers glory and the expresse image of his Person Finally who more fit to settle the minds of men in a certain and undoubted perswasion of the truth of such things as are necessary to be believed and thereby bring us into the way of life everlasting then he that was the way the truth and the life as himself telleth us of himself in St. Iohns Gospell Vt homo fidentius ambularet ad veritatem ipsa veritas Dei filius homine assumpto constituit et fundavit fidem as St. Augustine hath it That man saith he might with more confidence travell in the wayes of truth the truth it self even the Son of God taking the nature of man upon him did plant and found that faith which we are to beleive By which it is apparent that it was most agreeable both to our condition and the nature of the word it self that he should take upon himself the office of a Mediator between God and Man but so that he was bound thereto by no necessity but only out of his meer love and goodness to that wretched Creature The Scriptures and the Fathers are expresse in this Walke in love saith the Apostle as Christ hath also loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God a sweet smelling savour And anon after Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved his Church and gave himself for it And in pursuance of this love he took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. So that first out of his love and goodness towards us he offered himself to serve and suffer in our places and after out of the same love submitted himself unto the punishment which our sins deserved God not imposing this upon him by necessity of any inevitable decree but mercifully accepting his compassionate offer which did so powerfully conduce unto mans salvation and the most inexpressible honour of his only Son The sufferings of CHRIST in regard of man do take their value from his Person the excellency of which did prevail so far as to make the passion of one available for the sins of all But the merit of those sufferings in regard of himself is to be valued by that cheerful freedom with which he pleased to undergo them and had not been so acceptable nor effectual neither if they had not been voluntary For Fathers which affirm the same we need take no thought having both Reason and the Scriptures so expresly for it though this be universally the Doctrine of all Catholick wrirers some of whose words I shall recite and for the rest refer the Reader to their Books For the Greek Church thus saith Athanasius CHRIST seeing the goodness of his Father and his own sufficiency and power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was moved with compassion towards man and pitying our infirmities cloathed himself with the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and willingly took up his cross and went uncompelled unto his death And thus St. Augustine for the Latâ—ne The Word saith he was made flesh by his own power and was born suffered died and rose again nulla necessitate sed voluntate potestate by no necessity laid upon him but meerly of his own good will and that authority which he had to dispose of himself See to this purpose the same Augustine in Psal. 8. de Trinit l. 4. c. 10. Chrysost. in Gen. Hom. 55. in Ioh. Hom. 82. Amb. in Psal. 118. Serm. 6. De Fide l. 2. c. 1. Hieron in Isai. cap. 3. in Psal. 68. Not to descend to those of the later Ages The passages being thus laid open we now proceed to the great work of the incarnation wherein the holy Ghost was to have his part that so none of the Heavenly powers might be wanting to the restauration of collapsed man That our Redeemers Incarnation in the Virgins womb was the proper and peculiar work of the holy Ghost is positively affirmed in St. Matthews Gospel first in the way of an historical Narration Before they came together as man and wise she was found with childe of the holy Ghost ch l. 1. 18. and afterwards by way of declaration from an Angel of Heaven saying Ioseph thou son of David fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of the holy Ghost vers 20. Nor wanted there especial reason if at least any reasons may be given in matters of so high a nature why this miraculous Conception was committed rather to the holy Ghost then either acted by the sole power of God the Father or by the sole vertue of the Word who was aboundantly able to have wrought his own Incarnation For as the Word was pleased to offer himself to take humane flesh the better to accomplish the great work of the Worlds redemption and as God the Father knowing how unable poor man must be to work out his own salvation otherwise then by such a Saviour was graciously pleased to accept the offer so it seemed requisite that God the holy Ghost should prepare that flesh in which the Word of God was to be incarnate Besides the power of quickning and conferring fruitfulness is generally ascribed to the Spirit in the Book of God who therefore in the Nicene or rather the Constantinopolitane Creed is called the Lord and giver of life For thus saith David for the Old Testament Thou sendest forth thy Spirit and they are created and thus the son of David for the New Testament Spiritus est qui vivificat i. e. It is the Spirit that quickneth The holy Ghost then was the proper Agent in the Incarnation So St. Matthew tels us But for the manner and the means by which so wonderful a conception was brought to pass that we finde only in St. Luke The blessed Virgin as it seemed made a question of it how she should possibly conceive and bring forth a son considering that as yet she had not had the company of her husband Ioseph Quandoquidem virum non cognosco that is to say since as yet I do not know my husband for so I rather choose to read it then to translate it as it stands in our English Bibles seeing I know not a man For that both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek and Vir in Latine do sometimes signifie an Husband every Schoolboy knows and so the words are rendred in our English Bibles Ioh. 4.16 17 18. and in other places And
at the best be they what they will neither the Fathers nor Apostles no nor Christ himself for ought I can see to be excepted Which error being thus sprung up did in an Age so apt to novelties and innovations meet with many followers and some too many indeed in this Church of England some of them teaching as it is affirmed by their learned Adversary that Christ redeemed our souls by the death of his soul as our bodies by the death of his body Now whereas the soul is subject to a twofold death the one by sin prevailing on it in this life which is the natural depriving or voluntary renouncing of all grace the other by damnation in the world to come which is the just rejecting of all the wicked from any fellowship with God in his glory and fastning them to everlasting torments in hell fire I would fain know which of these deaths it was the first or second which our Saviour suffered in his soul. I think they do not mean the last and am sure they cannot prove the first for to talk as some of them have done that there may be a death of the soul a curse and separation from God which of it self is neither sin nor conjoyned with sin is such a Monster in Divinity as was never heard of till this Age. Certain I am the Scripture only speaks of two kindes of death the first and the second both which we finde expressed in the Revelation where it is said the fearful and the unbeleeving and the abominable and murtherers and sorcerers and whoremongers and Idolaters and all lyers all which no doubt are under the arrest of the first death whereof he speaketh chap. 2. vers 11. shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death And sure I am the Fathers if they may be credited are contrary in tearms express to this new device not only acknowledging no death in Christ but the death of the body but also utterly disclaiming this pretended death of the soul. In quo nisi in corpore expiavit populi peccata in quo passus est nisi in corpore Wherein saith Ambrose did he expiate the sins of the people but in his body wherein did he suffer death but in his body St. Austin to this purpose also Sacerdos propter victimam quam pro nobis offerret a nobis acceptam that Christ was made or called a Priest by reason of that sacrifice which he took of us that he might offer it for us which could be nothing but our body More plainly and exclusively Fulgentius thus Moriente carne non solum deitas sed nec anima Christi potest ostendi commâ—rtua that when Christ dyed in the flesh neither his Deity nor his soul can be demonstrated to have dyed also with it The greatest Doctors of the Greek Churches do affirm the same Christ saith Theodoret was called an high Priest in his humane nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and offered none other sacrifice but his body only And thus Theophylact A Priest may by no means be without a sacrifice It was necessary then that Christ should have somewhat to offer Quod autem offerretur praeter ejus corpus nihil quippiam erat and there was nothing which he had to offer but his body only Athanasius in his third Oration against the Ariâ—ns and Nazianzen on that text When Iesus had finished all those sayings do affirme the same but not so clearly and exclusively as the others did Now as here is no death of the soul which possibly may be imagined to have happened to Christ if we will be judged by the Scriptures and as the Fathers Greek and Latine do so significantly and expresly disclaime the same so is it such an horrid speech such a pang of blasphemy as should not come within the heart nor issue from the mouth of any Christian. But this I only touch at now We shall hear more of it in the next Article touching the descent into hell where it shall be presented to us in another colour I end this point at this time with that of Augustine There is a first death and there is a second The first death hath two parts one whereby the sinfull soul by transgressing departeth from her Creator the other whereby she is excluded from her body as a punishment inflicted on her by the judgment of God The second death is the everlasting torment of the body and soul. Either of these deaths had laid hold upon every man but that the righteous and immortall Son of God came to die for us in whose flesh because there could be no sin he suffered the punishment of sin without the guilt of it And to that end admitted or endured for us the second part of the first death that is to say the death of the body only by which he ransomed us from the dominion of sin and the pain of eternal punishment which was due unto it But yet there is another argument which concludes more fully against this new device of theirs then any testimonies of the Fathers before produced mamely the institution of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by the Lord himself in which there is a commemoration to be held for ever both of the breaking of his body and of the effusion of his bloud by which his bodily death is represented and set forth till his coming again but no remembrance instituted or commanded for the death of his soul. Which if it were of such an unquestionable truth as these men conceive and of such special use and efficacie to the worlds redemption as they gave it out would doubtlesse have been honoured with some special place in that commemoration of his Sacrifice which himself ordained Who in the same night he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thankes he brake it and said Take eate this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me and likewise after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying this cup is the new Testament sealed in my bloud which is shed for you this do as oft as ye drink in remembrance of me In which and more then this we finde not in the book there is not one word which doth reflect on the death of his soul or any commemoration or remembrance to be held of that Only we find that as our Saviour by his death which was then at hand did put an end to all the legal rites and sacrifices of the old Testament which were but the shadows of things to come as St. Paul cals them Coloss. 2.17 So having fulfilled in the flesh all that had been fore-signifyed and spoken of him in the Law and Prophets he did of all ordain and institute one only Eucharistical sacrifice for a perpetuall remembrance of his death and passion to his second coming And thus St.
to bury it the only means to weaken and unloose the bonds thereof that it should be no more a Prison but a place of rest wherein the bodies of Gods servants were to wait his pleasure in sure and certain hope of a Resurrection to eternal life But there was more in it yet then so The adding of these two words and buried seem unto me to have been done by the spirit of Prophecie for the preserving of a great part of the following Article which else had been in danger in these quarrel some times to be lost for ever Great pains is taken by some men and those of eminent parts and reputation to prove that nothing else is meant by Christs descent into hell but either his lying in the sepulchre or being made subject to the ignominy of the grave or his continuance for a while in the state of death as we shall see at large in the chapter following all which are fully comprehended in these words and buried What an advantage think we would these men have taken to put their own erroneous sense upon that Article had these words been wanting who have presumed to advance their own particular fancies above the Catholick Tradition of the Church of Christ notwithstanding these two words stand still to confute them in it But of this anon All I shall adde unto these Observations on Christs death and burial and his continuance in the grave is that in memory thereof the Church hath antiently appointed that Friday and Saturday should be fasted weekly the one in memory of the death and passion of our Lord CHRIST IESVS who on that day suffered for our sins the other in relation to the woful and disconsolate condition of the first followers of our Saviour who all that day distracted between hope and fear did seem to fit in darkness and the shadow of death And though the first Christians of the East did not fast the Saturday for fear of giving scandal to the Iews amongst whom they lived yet they made up the number of two days in the week by adding Wednesday to the Friday that being conceived to be the day on which he had been bought and sold by the Traytor Iudas But that concerns not us of the Western Churches in which the Friday and the Saturday fast are of such antiquity that it is generally believed by all moderate men to be derived from Apostolical Tradition Certain I am there is as much authority to keep those days fasting as the Canons of the Church can give them and the Statutes of this Realm can adde to those antient Canons and were accordingly observed by all Christian men till these wretched times in which the sons of the old Heretick Arius have turned all order out of dores and introduced a most unchristian or rather Antichristian licentiousnes under the colour and pretence of Christian liberty Thus have we brought our Saviour CHRIST unto the bottome of the grave the lowest step of his humiliation for the sons of men for lower then the grave he could hardly go And here we should conclude this Article but that as we began with some Observations touching Pontius Pilate under whom Christ suffered as also touching Annas and Caiaphas the High Priests two of the principal actors in this happy Tragedy so we will close this Article with the relation of that fearful and calamitous end which did most justly fall upon them and on the rest of their accomplices in this act of bloud But first we will begin with Iudas the Architect and chief contriver of the the plot of whom it is recorded in the holy Scriptures that being touched in conscience for so foul a treachery as the betraying of the innocent bloud of his Lord and Master he brought back his money to the Chief Priests and Elders and finding that they would not take it threw it down in the Temple went out and hanged himself S. Matthew there leavs off the story unto which Luke addes that falling headlong from the tree whether by the breaking of the rope or by some other way that the Scriptures say not he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out And certainly it was but just that he should lose his bowels who had so long before lost his compassion If now a man should ask what death Iudas dyed St. Matthew would make answer that he hanged himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek abiens laqueo se suspendit as the Latine hath it Which words lest they should seem of a doubtful sense and not import as much as the English makes them we will see what is noted of them by the Antient Fathers And first St. Hierom is express for this that Iudas laid violent hands upon himself and was the Author of his own death adding self-murder to the heap of his former crimes Ad prius scelus proprii homicidii crimen addidit so that Father hath it St. Augustine goeth more particularly to work Et laqueo vitam finivit and tels us in plain tearms that he hanged himself The Translator of Chrysostom doth affirm the same saying Projecta in Templo pecunia abiit gulam laqueo fregit that throwing down the wages of his iniquity upon the pavement of the Temple he went out and broke his neck with an halter which is the same with that of Augustine though in other tearms And finally Theophylact though many others might be named who doubtless understood his own language well doth resolve it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that putting his neck into the noose which himself had made he fell violently from off the tree and so burst asunder in the midst The general tradition of the Church doth run this way also Nor had I took this pains in a case so clear but that I see the Fathers put to school again by our modern Criticks who will not have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie that he hanged himself but that he fell into such an extremity of grief with remorse of conscience that the anguish of it stopped his breath so that falling flat upon the ground he broke asunder in the middle A death so much too good for so vile a Traytor and so improbable if not impossible in the last part of it that he is fain to bring in the Devil Diabolo operante to pull out his bowels But of this new devise enough look we next on Pilate who having so unjustly condemned the Innocent and drawn upon himself the vengeance of a most just Judge was not long after outed of his Government by L. Vitellius Lord President of Syria and sent back to Rome Where being come so many grievous complaints were made against him to the Senate that he was banished to Vienna a City of France The Roman Legends do relate that he was prosecuted at Rome by Veronica of whom they fable that our
consequently punishments in hell With whom Theodoret consents commending much the piety of the old Philosophers in that they sent all the souls of all those to heaven who lived well and vertuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but those that did the contrary unto hell below and saying particularly of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in many places he speaks of hell or Hades as a place of torments In which it is to be observed that when the Prepositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are joyned with the word Hades in the Genitive case it is to be supplyed with some other word to make up the Grammaticall construction as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in the house or regions of Hades Let us next see what use the writers of the new Testament have made of Hades and in what sense and signification we shall finde it there And first we may observe that it is sometimes used not often to signifie the Prince of darknesse the very Beelzebub himself the king of Devils as in the 20. Chapter of the Revelation v. 14. were it is said according to the English translation that death and hell were cast into the lake of fire But in the Originall it runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that death and Hades that is to say the Gonervours of death and the Prince of hell received their finall condemnation and were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone And in this sense as I conceive it is also used in a former place of the said book in which we finde mention of a pale horse death sitting on his back and Hell or Hades saith the Greek that is to say the Prince of hell following after On which the antient Expositer in St. Augustines works gives this Glosse or Comment Hell followeth after i. e. Expectantes devorationem multarum animarum expecting to devour the souls of many of those who are slain by death And this doth very well agree with that of the Apostle saying that the Devill is like a roaring lyon walking up and down and seeking whom he may devoure But generally the word Hades is used in the new Testament to signifie hell it selfe or the place of torments according to the meaning of the word in common speech Thus read we in St. Matthews Gospel that the gates of hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek or the gates of Hades shall not prevaile against the Church and in St. Lukes Gospel it is said of the great rich glutton that he was in hell in Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Original which in in the same verse is affirmed to be a place of torments And in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments saith the text v. 23. and in the next verse he complaines to Abraham that he was tormented in those flames Now these two places are confessed on all sides to be so clearly meant of hell or the place of Devils that there is no exception to be made against them May we not prove the like also of all the rest I beleive we shall In the 11. Chapter of St. Matthew it is affirmed of Capernaum that it was exalted unto heaven but should be brought down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hell or Hades What should the meaning of this be but that whereas the Gospel of Christ was now preached unto them whereby that City was exalted above all the Cities of Iewrie their not receiving of the same being offered to them made them obnoxious to the righteous judgment of Christ and liable to everlasting damnation in hell in the day of doom which day should be more tolerable to the Land of Sodome then it would be to them In the first Epistle to the Corinthians we finde this question O death where is thy sting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is thy victory O Hades Here Hades in the new translation authorized by K. Iames is I know not why translated grave O grave where is thy victory But then you must observe with all that hell is added in the margin to shew that they abandoned not the old Translation where in plain termes we finde it thus Death where is thy sting Hell where is thy victory and so it standeth in the lesson appointed by the Liturgie to be read at burials And this translation of the word in that place to the Corinthians seems most agreeable to some Protestant Doctors of good name and credit Interim videas ordine quodam inimicos nostros recenseri infernum sive gehennam mortem peccatum legem In the mean time saith Peter Martyr we may behold our enemies here mustred in their rank and order that is to say hell or gehenna death sin and the law With whom agreeth Hyperius and Bullinger in their Comment on the words in question So then by Hades is meant hell in that place of St. Paul and so it is no question in two more of the Revelation in the first whereof Christ doth appear unto St. Iohn saying of himself that he had the keyes of hell and of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where we finde Hades englished hell by the new translators and nothing added in the margin as in that before to shew the place admitted of a different reading And that we may be sure to know that nothing is there meant by hell but the house of torments the place allotted to the damned Andreas B. of Caesarea an old Orthodox writer gives this Scholie on it I have the keyes of death and Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of the death of the body and of the soul. An other old Latine writer to this purpose also I have the keyes of death and hell because he that believeth and is baptized is delivered both from death and hell This writer whosoever he was is yet not resolved on but it goes for Augustines and is extant in the ninth Tome of that Fathers works With him agreeth Primasius Haymo and Lyra amongst the Authors of the middle and declining times of the Church of the late writers of the Protestant and reformed Churches Bullinger Chytraeus Osiander Aretius and Sebastian Meyer And last of all we have the word thus used in the 20. of the Revelation where it is said that death and Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek delivered up the dead which were in them Where though we finde the word grave added in the margin to shew that the Translators did admit of that reading yet by retaining hell in the text it self they shewed withall that they preferred the same before it And they had reason so to do so many of the antient writers expounding it of hell the place of the damned For so it is interpreted by venerable Beda Primasius St. Augustines Scholar and Haymo for the Latines by Aretas and Andreas Caesariensis for the Greeks all
said he addes this of the Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thus in fine they saw Hell spoyled Epiphanius in this order marshalleth the acts of Christ He was crucified buried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he descended to places under the earth he took captivity captive and rose again the third day By which we see that the taking of captivity captive was one of the effects of his descent into Hell and that both his descent and victory over Hell and Satan are placed between his burial and Resurrection In the Homiliâ—s which Leo the Emperour made for the exercise of his style and the Confession of his Faith wherein no doubt he had the judgement and advice of the ablest men that were about him he doth thus deliver it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Christ is risen saith he bringing Hades or the Devil prisoner with him and proclaiming liberty to the Captives He that held others bound is now bound himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is now come from Hell or Hades with his ensign of triumph as appeareth by the sowre and heavy looks of those which were overthrown that is to say of Hades meaning there as first the old Satan himself together with Death also and the hateful Devils Dorotheus in his Book de Paschate very plainly thus What means this that he led captivity captive It means saith he that by Adams transgression the Enemy had made us all captives and had us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the Enemies hand and conquered him who made us captive And then concludes Erepti igitur sumus ab Inferis ob Christi humanitatem that we were then delivered from the power of Hell by the manhood or humanity of Christ our Saviour St. Cyprian though more antient and not so clear as he in this particular doth yet touch it thus Descendens ad inferos captivam ab antiquo duxit captivitatem that Christ descended into Hell brought back those captives which had before been captivated And in another place which we saw before When in the presence of Christ Hell was broken open and thereby captivity made captive his conquering soul being first presented to his Father returned unto his body without delay But to look back again to the old Greek Fathers who are far more positive and express in this then the Latines are we are thus told by Athanasius in another place that the Lord rose the third day from the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having spoyled hell trodden the enemy under foot dissolved death broken the chains of sin with which we were tyed and freed us which were bound from the chains thereof St. Cyril of Alexandria thus Our Lord saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. having spoyled death and loosed the number of souls which were detained in the dens of the earth rose again the third day from the dead Which words of Cyril are repeated and approved in the Councel of Ephesus and afterwards confirmed in the fifth General Councel holden at Constantinople St. Hierom finally on the parable of the strong man which was bound and spoiled Mat. 12. gives this observation which I had almost pretermitted viz. that this strong man was tyed and bound in Hell and trodden under the Lords feet and the Tyrants house being spoyled captivity also was led captive In which quotations from the Fathers we must take this with us that when they speaking of spoyling Hell and vanquishing the powers thereof they do allude as evidently to the spoyling of principalities and powers mentioned in that to the Colossians as they insist upon the taking of captivity captive expressed in that to the Ephesians In a word take the sum of all which by the Antients is delivered upon those two Texts in these words of Zanchius a very learned Writer of the Reformed Churches The Fathers saith he for the most part are of this opinion that Christ in his soul came to the place of the damned to signifie not in words but with his presence that the justice of God was satisfied by his death and bloudshed and that Satan had no longer power over his Elect whom he held captive c. As also that he might carry all the Devils with him in a triumph as it is Coloss. 2. He spoyled powers and principalities and made an open shew of them leading them as captives in a triumph by the vertue of his Cross by which he had purged away sins and appeased the justice of God So Zanchius But the most clear and pregnant place of holy Scripture for proof of Christâ— descent into Hell is that of the 2. of the Acts where the Apostle citing those words of David Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy One to see corruption applyeth it thus unto our Saviour that David seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in Hell neither did his flesh see corruption In which particular words those before recited it is clear and manifest that the soul and body of Christ were by God appointed to be superiour to all contrary powers that is the soul to Hell and the flesh to the grave and that from both Christ was to rise an absolute conquerour that he might sit on his heavenly Throne as Lord over all not by promise only as before but in fact and proof But for the whole Sermon of St. Peter made on this occasion it may be summed up briefly to this effect that is to say that the Prophesie of David neither was nor could be fulfilled in any no not in David himself but only in the promised Messiah for that his soul should not be left in Hell or Hades nor his flesh see corruption but was fulfilled in that Christ whom ye cruelly crucified He it is that is risen Lord of all in his own person the sorrows of death being loosed before him he is ascended up to Heaven as David likewise foretold of him and there sitteth on the right hand of God untill all that be his enemies in the rest of his Members be made his foot-stool and thence hath he shed forth this which you now see and hear even the promise of the holy Ghost received of the Father for all his And therefore know ye for a surety that God hath made him both Lord and Christ i. e. Lord over all in Heaven Earth Hell and Christ even the Anointed Saviour of all his Elect. And to this purpose saith St. Augustine Quamobrem teneamus firmissime c. Wherefore let us most firmly hold that which is comprehended in our Faith or the heads thereof confirmed by most sound authority namely that Christ dyed according to the Scriptures and was buried and according to the Scriptures also rose again the third day with the rest of those things which are most clearly testified of him in the written Word
most secret seats of Tartarus or the dungeons of Hell Then comes the Renowned Athanasius There are saith he no other places but the grave and Hell out of which man was perfectly freed by Christ. And this appeareth not only in us but in the death of Christ also the body going to the grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and the soul descending unto Hell being places severed with a very great distance the grave receiving his body for there it was present and Hell or Hades his soul. Else how did Christ present his own soul to the souls in bands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might break in sunder the bands or chains of the souls detained in Hell St. Basil next When David said God will deliver my soul from the power of Hell he doth plainly prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the descent of the Lord to Hell or Hades to redeem the Prophets souls with others that they should not be detained there So Nazianzen Christ dyed but he restored to life and by his death abolished death he was buryed but he rose again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended into Hell but he brought back souls and ascended into Heaven Macarius to the same purpose also When thou hearest that Christ delivered souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of hell and darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Lord descended to Hell and performed an admirable work think that these things are not far from thine own soul. St. Chrysostom then being one of the Presbyters of the Church of Antioch composed two Homilies upon the Creed in one of which after he had spoken of the death and burial of our Saviour he addes this descendit ad infernum that he descended unto Hell that this also might not want a wonder Epiphanius though in other points his Enemie doth agree with him in this particular touching the descent of Christ into Hell though he differ both from him and others in making the Deity of Christ to be united with his soul in the performance of that action to the end that Hades so he calls the Devil the chief Ruler thereof thinking to lay hands on a man and not knowing that his Deity was united to his sacred soul Hades himself might be surprized and death dissolved and that fulfilled which was spoken Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell To this agrees St. Cyril of Alexandria thus The soul which was coupled and united to the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 descended into hell or Hades and using the power and the force of the Godhead shewed it self to the spirits there For we must not say that the Godhead of the only begotten which is a nature uncapable of death and no way conquerable by it was brought back from the dark caverns of the earth To the same also saith Iohn Damascene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. The deified soul of Christ descended to Hades that as to those upon the earth the Sun of righteousness was risen so to those who sate under the earth and in shades and darkness light might also shine Next look we on the Fathers of the Western Church and we shall finde as general consent amongst them for proof of Christs descent into hell as before we had amongst the Fathers of the Eastern And first beginning with Tertullian the most antient of the Latine Writers he doth not onely tell us in plain tearms Christum inferos adiisse that Christ went into hell but addes this reason of it also ne nos adiremus that we might not go thither St. Cyprians judgment in the point we have seen before where he declareth that Hell had been broken open in the presence of Christ when he led captivity captive c. Spolians inferos captivos praemittens ad superos first spoyling hell and then sending the captives before towards Heaven Arnobius thus Postea vidit inferos c. in Abyssi profunda descendens After his Passion he visited hell and not only became far off from heaven but even from the earth it self descending into the depth of the bottomeless pit Lactantius if the verse be his shewing how the darkness of hell vanished at the brightness of Christ then addes Hinc tumulum repetens post Tartara carne resumpta c. that after his being in hell he returned to his grave and resuming his body went to heaven like a noble Conquerer St. Hilarie of Poictiers next The powers of heaven saith he do incessantly glorifie the Name of God for conquering death and breaking the gates of hell for in hell he conquered death Christ saith St. Hierom destroyed and brake open the inclosed places of hell and put the Devil which had power over death out of his Kingdom and Dominion And in another place more plainly Hell saith he is the place of punishments and torments ad quem descendit Dominus ut vinctos de carcere dimitteret to which the Lord descneded to release those from prison who were therein bound St. Ambrose to the same effect Expers peccati Christus cum ad Tartari ima descenderet c. Christ saith he being void of sin when he descended to the lowest pit of hell destroying the Dominion of death recalled out of the Devils jaws to eternal life the souls of those who there lay bounden for their sins St. Austin living in those times though he assert as much as any the descent into hell yet gives a more unquestionable reason for it Quaeri solet si non nisi poenalia intelligantur inferna c. It is demanded if Infernus Hell be taken for no other then the place of punishment how we may safely believe that the Soul of our Lord Christ descended thither But it is answered ideo descendisse ut quibus oportuit subveniret that he descended into hell to succour those that were to be succoured And in another place more clearly as unto the reason There is saith he a lower hell whither the deceased use to go from whence God would deliver our souls by sending his Son thither Ideo enim ille usque ad infernum pervenit ne nos in inferno maneremus for therfore went Christ even unto hell that we should not remain in hell Vigilius shewing how our Saviour could be both in Hell and in the grave doth resolve it thus Dicimus ergo Dominum jacuisse in sepulchro sed in solo corpore descendisse ad infernum sed in sola anima viz. that the Lord lay in the grave as to his body alone but descended down to Hell in his soul only Ruffinus commenting on this Article of the Creed gives it briefly thus Quod in Infernum descendit audenter pronunciatur in Psalmis that Christs descent into hell is evidently foretold in the Psalmes and then eo usque ille miserando descendit usque quo tu
in anima cruciatus damnati perditi hominis pertulerit and felt most sensibly in his soul those miserable torments of a man utterly forlorne and damned to the pit of hell that being thus forsaken and estranged from the sight of God he was so cast down as in the anguish of his spirit to cry out afflictively My God my God why hast thou forsaken me as finding in himself omnia irati punientis Dei signa all the sure tokens of an angrie and avenging God finally that the fear and sorrow which did overwhelme him in the Garden his fervent prayer his Agonie and bloudy sweat were nothing but the signes and evidences of those horrid and unspeakable torments those diros horribiles cruciatus as he cals them there which he then suffered in his soul. And what could all this be but the pains of hell This he resolves to be the meaning of the Article condemning all exceptions which are or may be made against it either as frivolous and ridiculous Sect. 10. or to proceed ex malitia magis quam imscitia rather from malice then from ignorance and all that hath been said unto the contrary to be nothing but meer slander and calumniations and being most extremely pleased to see how those who did oppose him knew not where to fasten but were compelled to flie from one thing to another This is the summe of his dispute the substance of that dangerous innovation in the Christian faith which was by him first published for a truth undoubted and after taken up upon his Authority without further questioning or debate Which as it generally prevailed in most places else so did it no where finde more fast friends and followers then in this unhappy Church of England where it became in fine to be accounted the sole Orthodox Doctrine vented in Pulpits and in Catechisms that the death of Christ upon the Cross and his bloud shed for the remission of our sins were the least cause and means of our Redemption but that he did and ought to suffer the death of the sâ—ul and those very pains which the damned souls in hell do suffer before we could be ransomed from the wrath of God and that this was that descent into hell which in our Creed we are taught to believe A doctrine so directly contrary unto that of the Church of England delivered in her Articles and Books of Homilies solemnly authorized and ratified as before was said that Dr. Bilson the Reverend and learned Bishop of Winton then being thought himself obliged as well to undeceive the people as to assert the antient doctrine of the Church And to that end delivered in a Sermon at St. Pauls Cross London what he conceived to be the tenet of the Scriptures in this particular according to the Exposition of the holy Fathers Which as it first occasioned some unsavory Pamphlets and afterwards some set discourses to be writ against him so it necessitated him in his own defence to set out that laborious work entituled The survey of Christs sufferings for mans Redemption and of his descent to Hades or Hell for our deliverance I must confess my self indebted for the most part of those helps which I have had in the true stating both of this and the former Article Thus having shewn who was the Author what the progress of this so much applauded Exposition of Christs descent into hell we next proceed to the examining and confutation of the same And first the Reader may take notice that all the out-works to this Citadel esteemed so invincible and inexpugnable have by us been taken in already in the two former chapters where we have proved that neither the extreme fear or sorrow which did seize upon him in the Garden of Gethsemane nor any of his fervent prayers either there or on the Cross it self no nor the Agony it self nor the bloudy sweat were any signs or arguments of those hellish pains which they have fancied to themselves in our Saviours soul. And we have also proved in the last chapter of all not only that our Saviour did not die the death of the soul as these men blasphemously pretend but that the work of our Redemption was compleated fully by that bodily and bloudy sacrifice which he made of himself upon the Cross. So that there now remains no more but to prove this point which is indeed the main of all namely that Christ neither did nor ought to suffer the pains belonging to the damned or endured so much as for a moment the torments of hell And for the proof of this it is fit we know both what those pains and torments are which the damned do suffer and of what nature are those fires which the Scriptures declare to be in hell what punishments belong to the soul alone and what unto the soul and body being joyned together And first of all the torments which the damned suffer in their souls only though infinite and unexpressible in themselves may be reduced to these three heads 1 remorse of conscience 2 a sense of their rejection from the favour of God and 3 a despair of ever being eased of that consuming misery which is fallen upon them Remorse of conscience that 's the first and one of the most heavy torments suffered by those wretched souls who in their life time wholly renounced the Lord their God to enjoy their pleasures by which they are kept in a continual remembrance of that madness and folly wherewith they rebelled against the Lord and of the contumacy wherewithall they refused his mercies God punishing the souls of such wicked men with the evidence and conscience of their own uncleanness and with the sight and most infallible assurance of their now everlasting wretchedness Whether or not this be the Worm our Saviour speaks of and of which he telleth us in his Gospel that it never dyeth we shall speak more at large hereafter In the mean time observe we what the Fathers say touching this particular Quae poena gravior quam interioris vulnus conscientiae what pain more grievous saith St. Ambrose then the wounds of a convicted conscience Magna poena impiorum est conscientia the conscience of the wicked saith St. Augustine is one of their greatest pains or punishments And more then so amongst all the afflictions of mans soul saith he there is none greater then the conscience of sin How thinkest thou saith St. Chrysostom shall our conscience be bitten alluding to the Worm spoken of before and is not this worse then any torment whatsoever With whom agreeth Eusebius also in his Apologie for Origen published under the name of Pamphilus saying tunc ipsa conscientia propriis stimulis agitatur that then the conscience of a wicked man shall be pricked and pierced with the stings of their own proper sins The second torment which the damned suffer in the soul alone is the sense of their rejection from the
by unfaigned repentance Those of the first sort according to the rules of Divine justice must be eternal in regard of duration and by consequence accompanyed with desperation which is always found where there is an impossibility of ever coming to enjoy a better estate whereas it is not any way necessary nor doth the justice of God require it that the punishments of sin which is repented of ceasing and forsaken should be either everlasting or joyned with despair For as in every act of sin on the aversion from God who is objectively infinite and incommutably good there followeth poena damni or the loss of God which is an infinite loss and as to the inordinate conversion of the sinner to things transitory which must needs be finite there answereth poena sensus which though violent and bitter for a time is yet finite also so to the eternity of sin remaining everlastingly in sâ—ain or guilt answereth the eternity of punishment which followeth on it so to sins intermitted ceasing and repented of a suffering also for a time proportioned to it So that though every sinner sinneth in suo aeterno as St. Gregory speaketh in that he would sin ever might he live for ever and thereby casts himself into an impossibility of giving off in himself and consequently into an eternity of punishment which is due to him for the same yet if he make such use of the grace of God as to cease from sin and turn from his iniquities to the living Lord Gods justice may require extremity of punishment proportionable to the sin committed but the eternity of punishment it requireth not And therefore seeing our Saviour suffered for such sins and for such alone as might be broken off by grace and the benefit of true repentance it was no way necessary to the satisfaction of the Divine justice of God that he should endure eternal punishment Which being summed together make a perfect answer to the question formerly proposed that is to say Whether Christ ought to suffer all those punishments for the redemption of man which man himself must needs have suffered had not Christ come to redeem him The summe of which is briefly this that Christ suffered the whole general punishment of sin that onely excepted which is sin or consequent on the inherence and eternity of it as remorse of conscience and despair and that although he did not suffer the pains of Hell or any punishment of the damned either in specie or in loco yet did he undergo some punishments conformable and answerable to them in extremity as the apprehension of the wrath and anger of the Lord avenging himself upon the sinner but neither infinite nor eternal as the rejection of a sinner from the sight of God Against this truth thus stated and determined by us there remain only two objections the one relating generally to the doctrine of Christs descent into hell the other to it as it stands established in the Church of England And first as to the Doctrine generally it is thus objected that if there were no more in the sufferings of Christ then the submitting of himself to a bodily death and to the anger of the Lord for so short a season it could not possibly occasion such a consternation such a fear and horrour as he expressed both in the Garden and upon the Cross or if he did how infinitely short must he fall of that magnanimity which is found in ordinary Theeves and Robbers which is Calvins argument or of the gallantry of the Primitive Martyrs as other more modestly infer who most couragiously both did and do go forth continually to meet their deaths and satisfie the fury even of partial Judges For answer unto which though it may be said that those particulars of whom they speak endure a stronger conflict with the powers of death then we are conscious of which look on at random and are not sensible at all of the pains they feel or the extremities in the last act of their Tragedy yet we shall give a more particular and punctual answer And first we say for Malefactors that God doth many times give them over to a reprobate sense so that they carelessely seeme to contemn Gods judgements in this present world and so prepare themselves more fully for the judgments of the world to come As for the Martyrs they know well that the wrath of God towards them is appeased by Christ that they shall feel no more but the hands of men and that as the cruelty of men increaseth towards them so God doth give them strength and comfort to undergo what ever shall be laid upon them whereas CHRIST was to satisfie Gods wrath for the sins of mankinde to undergo the punishment which was due unto them according to the Rules and limitations before laid down and not alone to fall into the hands of men but to endure a bitter conflict with the powers of hell which did on every side assault him which never any Martyr was markt out to do Next in relation to this doctrine as now it stands established in the Church of England it is objected that howsoever the Articles of Religion in King Edwards days might seem to intimate a local descent into hell according to the sense of the Antient Fathers yet no such thing could be inferred from the present Article established in the form and manner declared before Their reason is because that allegation of St. Peters words touching Christs preaching to the spirits in prison which was contained in the Book of King Edwards time to shew what manner of descent it was they meant is totally left out in the present Article established in the reign of Queen Elizabeth This they conceive to be an evident declaration that the Church doth not now understand that Article as at first it did and therefore since it doth not mean such a local descent as hath been hitherto maintained in this discourse it may be construed in that sense which they put upon it To which we need but answer this that the words alleadged from St. Peter in the former Article were omitted by the Synod in the late Queenes times not because they did not so understand the Article as both their Predecessors and the Fathers did but either because Christs preaching to the spirits in prison seemed to be set down for the sole reason of his descent into hell or that they thought not fit to impose that for the meaning of St. Peters words to be beleived of necessity by all good people in the Church of England As for the putting their own sense upon it as indeed they do I will but adde this declaration or Injunction of his Sacred Majesty that is to say that no man shall hereafter either print or preach to draw the Articles aside any way but shall submit unto it in the plain and full meaning thereof and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning
dark as St. Iohn hath it or very early in the morning at the breaking or dawning of the day as St. Matthew tels us but that they came not to the Sepulchre till the Sun was risen Or else we may resolve it thus and perhaps with greater satisfaction to the text and truth that Mary Magdalen whose love was most impatient of a long delay went first alone for St. Iohn speaks of her alone when it was yet dark but having signified to Peter what she had discovered she went to make the other women acquainted with it and then came all together as the Sun was rising to behold the issue of the business As for the seeming contradiction in St. Matthews words we shall best see the way to discharge him of it if passing by the Vulgar Latine from whence the contradiction took its first Original we have recourse unto the Greek In the Vulgar Latine it is Vespere Sabbati in the Evening of the Sabbath and that according to the Iewish computation must be on Friday about six of the clock for with them the Evening did begin the day as we saw before But in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we English in the end of the Sabbath and then it is the same with St. Marks expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Sabbath was past And this construction comes more neer to the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which points unto a thing which is long since past as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hour being now a good while spent and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you lost your opportunity by your tardy coming And so the word is here interpreted by Gregory Nyssen by birth a Grecian and therefore doubtlesse one that well understood the Idiotisme of his own language in whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Matthew is made to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very hour and moment of the resurrection Which ground so laid let us subjoyne these words in St. Matthews Gospel Chap. 18. to the last words of St. Lukes Gospel Chap. 23. and then this seeming contradiction will be brought to nothing St. Luke informes us of the women who had attended on our Saviour at his death and burial that having bought spices to imbalme his body they rested on the Sabbath day according to the Scripture v. 56. And then comes in St. Matthew to make up the story as all the four Evangelists do make but one ful history of our Saviours actions which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Sabbath was now past and that the first day of the week did begin to dawn they went unto the Sepulchre as they first intended We have not done yet with the time of his resurrection although the difficulties which concern that time have been debated and passed over We finde it generally agreed on by all four Evangelists that the resurrection was accomplished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the first day of the week and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the dawning of the day as St. Matthew hath it or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about the rising of the Sun as St. Marke informes About the dawning of the day for certainly it was not fit that the Sun of Heaven should shine upon the earth before the heavenly Sun of righteousnesse Nay therefore did our Saviour prevent the sun by his early rising to teach us that the whole world is enlightned only by the beams of his most sacred Gospell and that he only is the light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of his people Israel And there was very good reason also why he should choose the first day of the week to be the day of the resurrection more then any other that as God the Father on that day did begin the creation of the world in which we live the life of nature so God the Son should on the same day also begin the creation of a new heaven and a new earth in the souls of men by which they live the life of grace here and are thereby prepared for the life of glory in the world to come The sixt day in which our father Adam did begin to live was the same day in which the second Adam did begin to die And the seventh day on which God rested from his labours in the great work of our Creation was also rested by our Saviour in the far greater businesse of our Redemption Rested I say by him not sanctifyed For Christ did therefore pretermit and sleep out as it were the Iewish Sabbath that from thenceforth the observation of that day should be laid aside and that in that neglect of his there should no further care be taken of the legal Ceremonies And as God sanctifyed that day in which he rested from the work of the worlds Creation so the Apostles first as it was conceived and afterwards the Church of Christ by their example did sanctifie and set apart that day for religious offices in which our Saviour cancelled the bonds of death and finished the great work of our Redemption The Israelites were commanded by the Lord their God immediately on their escape from the hands of Pharaoh to change the beginning of the year in a perpetuall memory of that deliverance With very good reason therefore did the Church determine to celebrate the Christian Sabbath if I may so call it upon a day not used before but changed in due remembrance of so great a miracle as that of our Saviours resurrection from the power of the grave and our deliverance thereby from the Prince of darknesse The Parallel of the worlds Creation and the Redemption on all mankind by Christ our Saviour with the change which followed thereupon in the day of worship is very happily expressed by Gregory Nyssen in his first Sermon upon Easter or the Resurrection where speaking of Gods rest of the Sabbath day he thus proceedeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By that first Sabbath saith the father thou mayest conjecture at the nature of this this day of rest which God hath blessed above all dayes For on this the only begotten Son of God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are who out of a divine purpose of restoring mankind did give his body rest in the house of death and afterwards revived again by his resurrection became the resurrection and the life the day-spring from on high the light to them that sit in darknesse and the shadow of death Finally to insist upon this point no longer three days our Saviour set apart for the performance of this work and wonder of the resurrection and answerably thereunto the Church did antiently set apart three days for the commemoration of that work and wonder which was then performed In which respect the feast of Easter is entituled by the said Gregory Nyssen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the three days festivall The next considerable circumstance of the
seventh Chapter where we were purposely to treat of our Saviours sufferings And we have looked upon it also as an especial part of his Consecration unto the everlasting and eternal Priesthood after the Order of Melchisedech a Priesthood which consisted not in outward sacrifices but in prayers and blessings For when the Son of God our Saviour did offer himself upon the Cross for our Redemption he neither was a Priest after the Order of Aaron How could that be considering he was of the Tribe of Iudah nor after the Order of Melchisedech He was not qualified for that till his Resurrection but a Priest only in fieri as Logicians call it in the degrees and progress of his Consecration Which Consecration once performed he was no more to offer Sacrifice either bloudy or unbloudy whatsoever that so he might conform more fully to the Type of Melchisedech of whom we no where read that he offered sacrifice further then as it may be intimated in the name of Priest For though I will not say and I think I need not be put to it that Melchisedech never offered any Sacrifice yet since we do not read of any I may safely say that that part of his Sacerdotal function is purposely omitted by the holy Ghost that so he might more perfectly represent our Saviours Priesthood who after he was consecrated to that sacred Office had no more sacrifice to offer And possibly it might be done in the way of prevention to keep the Church from errour in this point of the Sacrifice who not content with the Commemoration of it the Eucharistical and Commemorative Sacrifice of his own ordaining might fall into a fancy of reiterating that one Sacrifice as is now practised and defended in the Church of Rome and make it expiatory of the sins both of quick and dead How guilty they of Rome have been in this particular and what strange positions they have broached in pursuit hereof would appear most fully if one would look no further then the Councel of Trent from the determinations whereof there lyeth no appeal though sometimes they will finde some evasions from it For in that Councel it is said that in the Masi our Saviour Christ is really offered by the Priest unto God the Father that it is the same propitiatory Sacrifice which was offered by Christ upon the Cross that it is propitiatory for all persons both quick and dead serving to purge them of their sins to ease them of their pains and satisfie for the punishment which they have deserved that being so beneficial and meritorious to all sorts of people it is to be reiterated and often offered not only day by day but many times in the same day as often as the Priest shall think fit to do it Which doctrine how plainly contrary it is unto our Apostle the scope and drift of the Epistle to the Hebrews especially the ninth and tenth Chapters of it do most clearly evidence And though it was a very uncharitable guess of our Rhemish Papists that the Protestants would have refused this whole Epistle but that they falsely imagine certain places thereof to make against the Sacrifice of the Mass yet we may finde by that where the shooe did wring them and that they thought there were some passages in this Epistle with which their Mass was inconsistent and which the Protestants might alleadge for I regard not the word falsely to their disadvantage Well therefore was it done of the Church of England not only to assert the true Catholick Doctrine of the one oblation of Christ finished on the Cross but to adde another Proposition to it in condemnation of the errours of Rome The Orthodox truth asserted is St. Pauls expressely viz. The offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world both Original and actual and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone The conclusion followeth naturally on the former evidence viz. Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits For what fable can be more blasphemous then that a poor Priest should have power to make his Maker that having made him with the breath of his mouth he should fall down and worship what himself had made that having worshipped him as God he should presume to lay hands on him and offer him in sacrifice assoon as worshipped that his oblation thus made should be efficacious both to quick and dead both to the absent and the present and finally that such as be present at it may if they finde their stomachs serve devour their God A thing of such reproach scandal to the Christian faith that Averroes the Moore but a very learned man and a great Philosopher hath laid this stain or brand on the Religion it self viz. that he had travelled over most parts of the world but never found a wickeder and more foolish Sect then that of the Christians His reason is Quia deum quem colunt dentibus devorant because they did devour the God whom they worshipped And what deceit can be more dangerous to a Christian soul then that which leads him blindfold into gross idolatry and teacheth him to give Divine honour to a Deity of a poor Creatures making for though the Elements be sanctified by the Word and prayer and are made unto the faithful receiver the very body and bloud of Christ yet are they still but bread and wine as before they were When therefore we incounter with some passages in the works of the FATHERS in which they either speak of the daily Sacrifice or say that Christ is daily offered on the Altar as sometimes they do we must not understand them of a Real Sacrifice as to the offering up of Christ unto God the Father a Sacrifice propitiatorie to the quick and dead such as is now maintained in the Church of Rome but only of an Eucharistical and Commemorative Sacrifice which by Christs death is represented to the eyes of the people which is the Sacrifice defended by the Church of England But here perhaps it will be asked that if our Saviour be to offer no more Sacrifice and that which he once offered upon the Cross be not to be reiterated as the Priest thinks necessary what use there is to us of his Priestly Office as concerning Sacrifice I answer with St. Paul on another occasion much every way For though he offereth no more Sacrifices then that made already yet the effect and fruit thereof is still to be applyed to the souls of men the merit of it still to be represented in the sight of God Of these the first may seeme to be the Office of the holy Ghost but the later most assuredly is the Office of our High Priest and of him
not then be cheated by this new distinction that Kings are Gods Vice-roys but not Iesus Christs though the distinction be much hugged by our great Novators Who intend nothing else thereby but to throw down Crowns and lay them at the foot of their Presbyteries and to set up instead of the Regal power their own dear Tribunal a Soveraignty in all causes Ecclesiastical to over-rule it first and extirpe it afterwards as the right learned Bishop of Kell-Alla very well observeth In these ways and by these several means and subordinate Ministers doth Christ administer the Kingdome committed to him And this he doth continually sitting at the right hand of God the Father and there to sit untill his enemies be made his footstool This David did fore-see by the spirit of Prophecy The Lord saith he said unto my Lord i. e. the Lord God almighty said to my Lord CHRIST IESVS Sit thou on my right hand untill thy enemies be made thy footstool This the Apostle also verifieth and affirms of Christ. But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins is set down for ever on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool And this he also telleth us in another place saying of Christ that he must reign till he shall have put all his enemies under his feet Till then his Kingdome is to last and till that time he is to sit at the right hand of God in all power and Majesty If it be asked when that will be that all his enemies shall be subdued and subject to him we answer at the end of this present world when there is no enemie left to be destroyed Now the last enemie which is to be destroyed is death saith the same Apostle And thereupon we may inferre that while death reigneth in opposition to the Lord of life and sin in a defiance to the Lord of righteousness that hitherto we have not seen all things put under him and therefore must expect yet a little longer before he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father But then indeed when Death is utterly destroyed and all the Saints admitted to the glories of eternal life when all things are subdued unto him then also shall the Son himself be made subject to him that did put all things under him that is God the Father Then when he hath put down all rule and all authority and power then cometh the end and then he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father that God may be all in all This is the summe of St. Pauls argument in that point In which there being many things not easie to be understood I shall not think my time ill spent to make a short Paraphrase and discourse upon it that so we may perceive more fully the Apostles meaning And first he saith that CHRIST must reign till he hath put all things under his feet that being one of the especial parts of the Kingly function as before was shewn to save and defend his Church from the hands of her enemies and for the enemies themselves to crush them with a Scepter of iron and break them in pieces like a Potters vessel When this is done when he hath trodden under foot all his mortal enemies the persecutors of his Church false Prophets false Apostles and the great Antichrist himself which labour to seduce even the very Elect when he hath subjugated the powers of Hell and that sin hath no more dominion over us yet we shall still lie under the power of death untill the last and general Resurrection Death therefore is the last enemie to be destroyed that being delivered from his thraldome raised from the grave which is his prison and all those bonds and fetters broken by which we were held captive under his command we may be made partakers of eternal life and reign with Christ for ever in his heavenly glories When that time cometh when there are neither enemies from which to protect his Church nor any Church to be instructed in the wayes of godliness according to the Nomothetical part of the Regal Office then cometh the end the end of all things in this world which shall be no more the end of Christs Kingdome as the Mediator between God and man man having by the power of his mediation attained the end of his desires the guerdon and reward of his faith and piety This being done the rule of Satan and the authority of sin and the power of death being all broken and subdued he shall first raise our mortal bodies in despight of death pronounce the joyful sentence of absolution on them in despight of sin and finally advance them to that height of glory from which Satan fell to the confusion of the Devil and all his Angels And having so discharged the Office of a Mediator for executing which he sate at the right hand of God he shall deliver up unto God the Father the right and interest which he had in the Kingdome of Grace consisting in the building up of his Elect in faith hope and charity that they with him and he with them may reign forevermore in the Kingdome of glory Where there shall be no use of Faith for they shall see God face to face and faith is the existence of things not seen and less of hope for hope is the expectancy of things desired which being once obtained puts an end to hope Charity onely shall remain for that never ceaseth and therefore said to be the greatest of the three Theological vertues of which the Apostle there discourseth 1 Cor. 13.13 And so Primasius hath resolved it In this present life saith he there are three in the life to come onely the love of God and his Augels and of all the Saints That therefore is the greater which is alwayes necessary then that which once shall have an end The like St. Austin before him The greatest of all is charity because when every one shall come to eternal life the other two failing charity shall continue with increase and with greater certainty And finally before both thus St. Chrysostome and these three witnesses enough The greatest of these is Charity because they passe away but that continueth I must confess there is hardly a more difficult Text in all the Scripture then this of Christs delivering up the Kingdome unto God the Father nor which requires more care in the Exposition for fear of doing injurie unto God or Christ conceive me still of Christ in his humane nature For neither must we so understand the place as if God reigned not now at the present time nor was to reign at all untill this surrendry of the Kingdome by Christ our Saviour That were injurious to the power and Majesty of Almighty God by whom all things were made and by whom all made subject unto Christs command for he it is who did put all things
this blessed Spirit on the particular Members of his Congregation that is to say the joyning of the Saints together in an holy Communion the free remission of our sins in this present life resurrection of the body after death and the uniting again of Soul and Body unto life eternal This is the sum and method of the following Articles and these we shall pursue in their order beginning first with that of the Holy Ghost Whose gracious assistance I implore to guide me in the waies of Truth that so the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart may be alwayes acceptable in the sight of God the Lord my strength and my Redeemer But because the word or notion of the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various signification in the Book of God we will first look upon it in those significations and then conclude on that which is chiefly pertinent to the intent and purpose of the present Article For certainly the Orators Rule is both good and useful viz. Prius dividenda antequam definienda sit oratio That we must first distinguish of the Termes in all Propositions before we come unto a positive definition of them According to which Rule if we search the Scripture we shall there find that the Holy Ghost is first taken personaliter or essentialiter for the third person in the Oeconomie of the glorious Trinity We find him in this sense in the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour as the principal Agent in that Work The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee Luk. 1.35 And in his Baptism descending on him like a Dove to fit him and prepare him for the Prophetical Office he was then to exercise And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luk. 3.22 From which descent St. Peter telleth us that he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power and that from thenceforth he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the Devil In the next place the Holy Ghost is used in Scripture to signifie the Gifts and Graces of the holy Spirit as in Act. 2. where it is said of the Apostles that they were all filled with the holy Ghost ver 4. not with his essence or his person but with the impressions of the Spirit the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost such as the Gift of Tongues mentioned in the following words The Gift of the Holy Ghost as it is called expresly Ver. 38. Thus read we also that the holy Ghost was given by the hands of Peter Act. 8.17 18. And by the hands of Paul Act. 19.6 In which we read that when Paul had laid his hands upon them the Holy Ghost came on them and they spoke with tongues and Prophesied which last words are a commentary upon those before and shew that by the holy Ghost which did come upon them is meant the Gift of Tongues and the power of Prophecying both which the holy Ghost then conferred upon them And lastly it is taken not onely for the ability of doing Miracles as speaking with strange Tongues Prophecying curing of Diseases and the like to these but for the Authority and Power which in the Church is given to some certain men to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people As when Christ breathed on his Apostles and said unto them Receive the holy Ghost that is to say Receive ye an holy and spiritual power over the soules of men a part whereof consisteth in the remitting and retaining of sins mentioned in the words next following and serving as a Comment to explaine the former In which respect the Holy Ghost said unto certain of the Elders in the Church of Antioch Segregate mihi Barnabam Saulum Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them Act. 13.2 It is the Holy Ghost which cals it is his work to which they were called and therefore separate mihi separate to me may not unfitly be expounded to my Work and Ministery and consequently to the authority and power which belongs unto it Which being premised the meaning of the Article will in briefe be this That we beleeve not onely that there is such a person as the Holy Ghost in the Oeconomy of the blessed Trinity though that be principally intended but that he doth so distribute and dispose of his Gifts and Graces as most conduceth to the edification of the Church of Christ. But this I cannot couch in a clearer way as to the sense and doctrine of the Church of England than in the words of Bishop Iewel who doth thus expresse it Credimus spiritum sanctum qui est tertia persona in sacra Triadi illum verum esse Deum c. i. e. we beleeve that the Holy Ghost who is the Third Person in the holy Trinity is very God not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding both from the Father and the Son by an unspeakable means and unknowne to man and that it is his property to mollifie and soften mans heart when he is once received thereinto either by the wholesome Preaching of the Gospel or by any other way that he doth give men light and guide them to the knowledge of God to the wayes of truth to newnesse of life and to everlasting hope of salvation This being the sum of that which is to be beleeved of the Holy Ghost both for his Person and his Office we will first look upon his Person on his Property or Office afterwards And yet before we come unto his Person I mean his Nature and his Essence We will first look a little on the quid Nominis the name by which he is expressed in the Book of God In the Original he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a double Article as Luk. 3.22 in Latine Spiritus sanctus or the Holy Spirit but generally in our English Idiom the Holy Ghost The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to breath and is the same with the Latine Spiro from whence comes Spiritus or the Spirit a name not given as I suppose because he doth proceed from the Father or the Son or both in the way of breathing though Christ be said to breath upon his Apostles when he said receive the Holy Ghost but because the breath being in it selfe an incorporeal substance and that which is the great preservative of all living creatures it got the name first of Spiritus vitae we read it in our English the breath of life Gen. 11.7 and afterwards came to be the name of all unbodyed incorporeal essences For thus is God said to be a Spirit God is a Spirit Ioh. 4.24 The Angels are called Ministring Spirits Heb. 1.14 the Soule of man is called his Spirit let us cleanse our selves saith the Apostle from all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit that is of the body and
of the Church is confirmed unto them Those in the world to come are the fruits of these that is to say A Resurrection of the Body held by the chains of sin in the shades of death and a more full Communion with the Saints departed than in this life can be enjoyed that Fellowship which we have with them being here but inchoate and imperfect there compleat and absolute Of these the first is the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with Christ their Head whereof before I shall discourse as it lieth before me I shall first take the words asunder and shew what is the true meaning of the word communio then who they be that are presented to us by the name of Saints First for the word communio it signifieth that sacred action in which the faithful do communicate of the Body and Blood of Christ in the holy Eucharist Thus Hugo Cardinalis hath it Post hoc dicatur communio quae appellatur ut omnes communicemus i. e. After this let the communion be said so called because all should communicate or let it be so said That all my communicate Micrologus before him to the same effect Non potest propriè dici communio c. It cannot properly be called a Communion unless many do receive together Cassiodorus before either in his Tripartite History Stant rei velut in lamentationibus constituti cum sacra celebratio fuerit adimpleta communionem non recipiant i. e. They which lay under the Churches censures stood a far off full of great heaviness and lamentation and when the service was concluded received not the Communion but when they had fulfilled the course of their penance Cum populo communionem participant they were then suffered to communicate with the rest of the people More antient than them all is that Dionysius whether the Areopagite or not I dispute not here who wrote the Books De Hierarchia Caelesti Ecclesiastica in whom we do not onely finde the name but the reason of it Dignissimum hoc Sacramentum c Most worthy saith he is this Sacrament and far to be preferred before any other and for that cause it is deservedly and alone Meritò singulariter saith the Latine Copies called the Communion For although every Sacrament aims at this especially to unite those that are divided to the Lord their God Attamen huic Sacramento Communionis vocabulum praecipuè peculiariter contingit yet to this Sacrament the name of the Communion doth chiefly and properly belong as that which doth more nearly joyn us unto Christ our Saviour and entirely unite us unto one another And so his meaning is expressed by Pachymeres an old Greek Writer who hath paraphrased on the whole works of this Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore saith he did Dionysius call it the Communion because all which were worthy did communicate of the holy Mysteries From which Communion of the Faithful in those holy Mysteries not onely the profession of the Christian Faith but that sweet Fellowship and Conjunction of heart and soul which was amongst them got the same name also and was generally called Communio from that sacred Action which was most solemnly used amongst them at their publick meetings In this sense it is used by St. Augustine saying Mulier illa est communionis nostrae That the woman which he there speaketh of was of their Communion And in another place to the same effect Donatus non nisi in sua communione baptismum esse credit That Donatus thought that Baptism was onely to be had in the Churches of his Profession In the same sense it is used by Ierome speaking of his relations to the same St. Augustine It is not meet saith he that I who have been trained up in a little Monastery from my youth till now Aliquid contra Episcopum Communionis meae scribere audeam should presume to write against a Bishop of the same Communion or Profession with me and such a Bishop whom I began to love before I knew him The like he writes also to Pope Damasus where saying that he followed no chief but Christ he yet acknowledgeth Beatitudini tuae i. e. Cathedrae Petri communione consâ—cior That he was joyned in communion or in love and fellowship or consent of Doctrine and Religion with his Holiness or Chair of Peter In both acceptions of the word that is to say In the communion or communication of the holy Mysteries and in that union of affections which usually is held by those of the same Profession There is a Communion of the Saints whether they be Activè or Passivè Sancti whether triumphant in the Heavens or finishing their natural course upon the Earth For the word Sancti also hath its various notions and must be looked upon in each or the chief at lest before we can proceed to a certain issue And first the word Sancti hath been used for those who onely have the outward calling called to be Saints as they are stiled by the Apostle Rom. 1.7 and 1 Cor. 1.2 Though neither Saints by the infusion of inherent holiness nor by the piety and sanctimony of their lives and actions In this sense all the Romans and Corinthians to whom St. Paul wrote his Epistles were Saints by calling or called to this end and purpose that they might be Saints though there were many profane and carnal persons amongst them Next it is used for those who are Sancti renovati Saints by the renovation of the holy Spirit by which co-operating in the Laver of Regeneration they are washed and sanctified And such were also some of you But ye are washed but ye are sanctified saith the same Apostle that is to say By the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he hath shed abundantly in us as himself expounds it These are Passivâ— Sancti as before I called them because both in the outward calling and the effusion of the inward graces of the Holy Ghost we are simply passive But if we do obey that calling and manifest the grace which is given unto us by our lives and actions If from our hearts we do obey that form of doctrine which hath been delivered and yeeld our members as servants of righteousness to holiness then are we not passivè but activè sancti right Saints indeed walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord without reproof And if the fruit be unto holiness there is no question but the end thereof will be life everlasting when we shall stand before the Throne of the Lord our God and serve him day and night in his holy Temple advanced to those felicities of eternal glory which is designed by White Robes and the Palms of victory in the Revelation Never so fully Saints as then though we must first be Saints in the Militant Church before we can
in every point come home to this Pagan Theology in the worshipping of those Daemonia they do not onely pray to the Saints departed but dedicate unto their proper and immediate service as the Gentiles did to their Daemonia Temples and Festivals and Altars and set forms of worship and at the last advance their Images also in the Church of God and give them the same veneration which they conceived was due to the Saints themselves For Instans est Theologorum sententia imaginem honore cultu eodem honorari coli quo colitur id cujus est imago as Azorias telleth us for all so that it is the common and received opinion of the Church of Rome and not of some particular Schoolmen as they use to plead in other cases And certainly they that shall seriously observe with what laborious Pilgrimages magnificent Processions solemn Offerings and in a word with what humble bendings of the body and affectionate kisses the Images of the Saints have been and are still worshipped in the Church of Rome cannot be otherwise perswaded but that that she is relapsed again to her antient Gentilism It is true the better to relieve themselvs in this desperate plunge they have excogitated many fine distinctions as Terminativè and Objectivè Propriè and Impropriè Per se per accidens which howsoever they may satisfie the more learned sort are not at all intelligible to poor simple people What said I That they may give satisfaction to their learned men No such matter verily For Bellarimine himself confesseth That they who hold that any of the Images of Christ our Saviour are to be honored with that kinde of worship which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are fain to finde out many a nice distinction Quas vix ipsi intelligunt ne dum populus imperitus which they themselves much less the silly ignorant people could not understand Which makes me think that sure the Cardinal was infatuated with the spirit of dotage himself defining positively in the self same page Imagines Christi impropriè per accidens posse honorari cultu latriae That by the help of a distinction our Saviours Image might be honored with the highest worship But this I do accompt a fruit of this Iconolatriae this Image-worship as they call it that it draws down on them who use it that most heavy curse That such as worship them are made like unto them Now as it is in Bellarmines judgment with the Image of Christ so is it also with the Images of the Saints departed The worship which is given unto them in the Church of Rome not being to be salved with a dark distinction which neither the poor ignorant people no nor the greatest Clerks which they have amongst them have light enough to understand And though perhaps some men of learning may be able to relieve themselves by these distinctions yet I can see no possibility how the common people who kneel and make their prayers directly to the image it self without being able to discern where the difference lieth between their Propriè and Impropriè or Per se per accidens can be excused from palpable and downright Idolatry Adde unto this the scandal which is thereby given unto Iews and Turks and the great hinderance which it doth occasion unto their conversion who do abominate nothing more in all Christianity than this prophane and impious adoration of Images In which respect we may affirm with safety of the modern Romans what St. Paul tells us of the antient viz. Nomen Dei per vos blasphemari inter gentes that by their means the Name of God is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles But of this Argument enough though neither improper nor impertinent to our present business both Invocation of the Saints and Adoration of their Images having been brought into the Church under colour of maintaining that communion which ought to be between the Saints upon the Earth and the Saints in bliss betwixt the members of the Militant Church and the Church Triumphant both of them making that one body whereof Christ is Head And under the same colour also have they obtruded on the Church their device of Purgatory and all the suffrages and prayers of the Saints alive for those which are deceased but not yet in glory For as it seems the prayers which many of the Saints in bliss make for them on Earth is but in way of a requital for some former courtesies because by reason of their prayers and devout oblations their souls had been delivered out of Purgatory and by that means exalted unto such a degree of happiness as to enable them to pray for their Benefactors This is Ka me ka thee as the saying is If by my prayers a soul hath been delivered from the fire of Purgatory it is all the reason in the world that he should remember me when he comes into his Kingdom or if he do not that I call upon him and put him in remembrance of his obligation It is true that prayer to and for the dead is of larger latitude than to refer to those onely who have been in Purgatory Our Masters in the Church of Rome requiring prayers unto some Saints who were never there as the blessed Virgin Mary the Apostles Martyrs and Primitive Antiquity allowing prayers and offerings for the Saints deceased when as these Purgatorian fires had not yet been kindled For prayer and offering for the dead there is little to be said against it It cannot be denied but that it is antient saith our Learned Andrews I can admit prayer for the dead and deny your purgatory I can give you reasons to pray for the dead and yet keep far enough from Purgatory saith as learned Montague It was indeed a custom of the Primitive Church not onely to make commemorations of the Saints departed for the instruction of the living and honor of the dead as before was said but to name them at the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist offering to God that reasonable service for them that had departed and did rest in peace in sure and certain hope of a Resurrection To this effect there is a passage in the Liturgy ascribed to St. Iames which as Brerewood very well observeth was questionless the Publick Liturgy of the Church of Ierusalem to this effect That God would remember all the faithful that are faln asleep in the sleep of death since Abel the just to this present day and that he would vouchsafe to place them in the Land of the living To this effect we do not onely finde in Cyprian Sacrificamus pro mortuis the offering of the Sacrifice of praise and prayer in behalf of the dead but an express order taken by him that Gemimus Victor who had made one of the Presbyters of the Church of Carthage executor of his last Will and Testament and thereby wholly taken him off
from the work of his Ministery should neither be named in the Offertory nor any prayer be made for him at the holy Altar Ne deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur as his words there are To this effect we have this clause or prayer in St. Chrysostoms Liturgy Offerimus tibi rationalem hunc cultum pro iis qui in fide requiescunt majoribus scilicet Patribus Patriarchis Prophetis Apostolis Praeconibus Evangelistis Martyribus Confessoribus c We offer this reasonable sacrifice unto thee O Lord for all that rest in the Faith of Christ even for our Ancestors and Predecessors the Patriarcks Prophets and Apostles Evangelists Preachers Martyrs Confessors c. And finally to this end served the antient Diptychs being Tables of two leaves apeece in the one of which were the names of such famous Popes Princes and Prelates men renowned for piety as were still alive and in the other a like Catalogue of such famous men as were departed in the Faith as is observed by Iosephus Vice Comes in his Observat. Eccles. de Missae apparatu Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 17. and by Sir H. Spelman in his learned Glossary Out of these Diptychs did they use to repeat the names both of the living and the dead at the time of the Eucharist as appears plainly by that passage of the Fift Council of Constantinople In which we finde first That the people came together about the Altar to hear the Diptychs Tempore Diptychorum cucurrit omnis multitudo circumcirca Altare and then that recital being made of the four General Councils as also of the Arch-Bishops of blessed memory Leo Euphemius Macedonius and other persons of chief note who had departed in the Faith of our Saviour Christ the people with a loud voice made this acclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory be to thee O Lord. Not that it was the meaning of the antient Church to pray for the deliverance of their souls from Purgatory since they never thought them to be there but partly to preserve their memory in the mindes of the living and partly to pray for their deliverance from the power of death which doth yet tyrannize over the bodies of the faithful the hastning of their Resurrection and the joyful publick acquitting of them in that great day wherein they shall stand to be judged at the Tribunal of Christ. These were the ends for which the Offerings and Prayers for the dead were made Which being very consonant to the rules of piety found such a general entertainment in the Primitive times that none but Aërius and his followers disallowed the same Of him indeed it is reported by St. Augustine Illo cum suis Asseclis Sacrificium quod pro defunctis offertur respuebat that he and his followers admitted not of Sacrifices in behalf of the dead the Sacrifices he meaneth are of praise and prayer for which and others of his Heterodox and unsound opinions he was condemned for an Heretick by the antient Father and so remains upon record Concerning which take here along the judgment of Dr. Field once Dean of Glocester who speaking of Aërius and his Heterodox doctrines resolves it thus For this his rash and inconsiderate boldness and presumption in condemning the Vniversal Church of Christ he was justly condemned For howsoever we dislike the Popish manner of praying for the dead which is to deliver them out of their feigned Purgatory yet do we not reprehend the Primitive Church nor the Pastors and Guides of it for naming them in their publick prayers thereby to nourish their hope of the Resurrection and to express their longing desires of the consummation of their own and their happiness which are gone before them in the Faith of Christ What Bishop Andrews and Bishop Montague have affirmed herein we have seen before and seen by that and by the judgment of this Reverend and Learned Doctor That the Church of England is no enemy to the antient practise of praying for the dead in the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist though on the apprehension of some inconveniences as her case then stood it was omitted in the second Liturgy of King Edward the sixt which is still in force But howsoever it was so omitted in the course of the Eucharist yet doth it still retain a place in our publick Liturgy and that in as significant terms as in any of the formulas of the Primitive times For in the Form of Burial Having given hearty thanks to Almighty God in that it hath pleased him to deliver that our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world We pray That it would please him of his infinite goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his Elect and to hasten his Kingdom that we with that our Brother and all others departed in the true Faith of Gods holy name may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory But Prayers and Offerings for the dead as before was said are no proofs for Purgatory The Church of England which alloweth of prayer for the dead in her Publick Liturgy hath in her Publick Articles rejected Purgatory as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the same The like do Montague of Norwich and the Dean of Glocester whose words we have before repeated and so doth Bishop Iewel the greatest ornament in his time of our Reformation And as for prayer for the dead saith he which you Dr. Harding say ye have received by tradition from the Apostles themselves notwithstanding it were granted to be true yet doth it not evermore import Purgatory Nor doth he onely say it but he proves it too For bringing in a prayer of St. Chrysostoms Liturgy in which there is not onely mention of the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors but of the blessed Virgin her self he addes I trow ye will not conclude hereof that the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles c. and the blessed Virgin Mary were all in Purgatory Of the same judgment is the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who telleth us That it is most certain that the antients had and gave other Reasons of prayer for the dead than freeing them out of Purgatory And this saith he is very learnedly and largely set down by the now learned Primate of Armagh Where we have the Primate of Armagh in the bargain too But what need such a search be made after the judgment and opinion of particular persons of the Church of England when it is manifest that the Greek Church at this day and almost all the Fathers of the Greek Church antiently though they admit of prayers for the dead yet believe no Purgatory Of which Alphonsus à Castro doth very ingenuously give this note De Purgatorio in antiquis Scriptoribus potissimum Graecis ferè nulla mentio est Qua de
us and his ear still open to our prayers which he hath both the will and the power to grant so far forth as he seeth it fitting and expedient for us He suffered for our sins as he is our Priest forgives them as he is our God and mediates as our Head with his Heavenly Father for the remission of those sins which he suffered for The medicine for our sins was tempered in his precious blood and therein we behold him in his Priestly Office the application of this medicine was committed to the sons of men whom he by his Prophetical Office authorized unto it The dispensation of the mercy thereof still remains in God as an inseparable flower of the Regal Diadem for who can forgive sins but God alone said the Pharisees truly And this forgiveness of our sins as it is the greatest blessing God ca◠give us in this present life because it openeth us a door to eternal glory so is it placed here as the first in order of those signal benefits which do descend upon the Church from her Head Christ Iesus For we may hopefully conclude that since Christ was not onely pleased to die for our sins but doth intercede also with his Heavenly Father that we may have the benefit of his death and passion those prayers of his will make that death and passion efficacious to us in the forgiveness of those sins under which we languish With the like hope we may conclude from the self-same Topick That if we have our part in the first Resurrection that namely from the death of sin to the life of righteousness we shall be made partakers of the second also that namely from the death of nature to the life of glory For Chrysostom hath truly noted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That where the Head is will the members be If therefore Christ our Head be risen from the grave of death the members shall be sure of a Resurrection If Christ our Head be glorified in his Fathers Kingdom the members in due time shall be glorified also So that as well the Article of the Forgiveness of sins as those of the Resurrection of the body and The life everlasting depend upon Christs being Head of this Mystical Body and that too in the method which is here proposed The forgiveness of sins being given us as a pledge or assurance that we shall have a joyful Resurrection in the day of judgment as that is but a way or passage to eternal life First then we are to speak of the Forgiveness of sins and therein we will first behold the whole body of sin in its own foul nature that so we may the better estimate the great mercies of God in the forgiveness of the same And for beholding the whole body of sin in its own foul nature we must first take notice That it pleased God in the beginning to exhibite to the world then but newly made a lively copy of himself a Creature fashioned ad similitudinem suam after his own Image saith the Text. In the creating of the which as he collected all the excellencies of inferior Creatures so did he also crown him with those heavenly graces with which he had before endued the most holy Angels that is to say a rectitude or clearness in his understanding whereby he was enabled to distinguish betwixt truth and error and with a freedom in his will in the choice of his own ways and counsels Ut suae faber esse possit fortunae That if he should forsake that station wherein God had placed him he might impute it unto none but his wretched-self It is true God said unto him in the way of Caution That in what day soever he did eat of the fruit forbidden he should die the death But he had neither undertaken to preserve him that he should not eat and so by consequence not sin much less had he ordained him to that end and purpose that he should eat thereof and so die for ever And true it is that God fore-knew from before all eternity unto what end this Liberty of man would come and therefore had provided a most excellent remedy for the restoring of lapsed man to his grace and favor Yet was not this foreknowledge in Almighty God that so it would be either a cause or a necessity or so much as an occasion that so it should be And it is therefore a good rule of Iustin Martyr seconded by Origen and divers others of the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Prescience of God say they is not cause or reason why things come to pass but because these and these things shall so come to pass therefore God fore-knows them So that God dealt no otherwise in this case with our Father Adam than did the Father in the Parable with his younger son gave him that portion of his goods which fell to his share and after left him to himself And as the Prodigal childe being an ill husband on the stock which his Father gave him did quickly waste the same by his riotous living suffered the extremities of cold and hunger and was fain to cast himself again on his Fathers goodness so man not using well that stock which the Lord had given him gave himself over to the Epicurism of his eye and appetite By means whereof he lost those excellent endowments of his first Creation was shamefully thrust out of Paradise without hope of return and in conclusion fain to cast himself on the mercies of God as well for his subsistence here as his salvation hereafter The story of mans fall makes this plain enough and wholly frees Almighty God from having any hand or counsel in so sad a ruine For there we finde how God created him after his own Image placed him in Paradise commanded him not to meddle with the Tree of good and evil threatned that in case he did eat thereof he should surely die and lastly with what grievous punishments he did chastise him for violating that Commandment All which had been too like a Pageant if God had laid upon him a necessity of sin and death and made him to no other end as some teach us now but by his fall to set the greater estimate on his own rich mercies So excellently true is that of Ecclesiasticus though the Author of it be Apocryphal That God made man in the begining and left him in the hands of his own counsels And this is the unanimous doctrine of the New Testament also where it is said That by man came death and that not onely of the body but of the soul 1 Cor. 15.21 That by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin Rom. 5.12 That by one mans disobedience many were made sinners Vers. 19. That all die in Adam Vers. 22. And in a word That no man ought to say when he is tempted that he is tempred of God for God tempteth no man but every
entituled actual The nature of which Birth-sin or Original sin is by the Church of England in her publick Articles defined to be the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the Of-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and inclined to evill In which description we may find the whole nature of it as first that it is a corruption of our nature and of the nature of every man descended from the Loyns of Adam Secondly That it is a departure from and even a loss or forfieture of that stock of Original Iustice wherewith the Lord enriched our first Father Adam and our selves in him And thirdly That it is an inclination unto evil to the works of wickedness by means whereof as afterwards the Article explains it self the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and both together do incur the indignation of God So that if we speak of Original sin formally it is the privation of those excellent gifts of divine Grace inabling us to know love serve honor and trust in God and to do the things that God delights in which Adam once had but did shortly lose If materially it is that habitual inclination which is found in men most averse from God carrying them to the inordinate love and desire of finite things of the creature more than the Creator which is so properly a sin that it makes guilty of condemnation the person whosoever it be in whom it is found And this habitual inclination to the inordinate love of the creature is named Concupiscence which being two-fold as Alensis notes it out of Hugo that is to say Concupiscentia spiritus a concupiscience of the spirit or superior and concupiscentia carnis a concupiscence of the flesh or inferior faculties the first of these is onely sin but the latter is both sin and punishment For what can be more consonant to the Rules of Iustice than that the Will refusing to be ordered by God and desiring what he would not have it should finde the inferior faculties rebellious against it self and inclinable to desire those things in a violent way which the Will would have to be declined Now that all of us from the womb are tainted with this original corruption and depravation of nature is manifest unto us by the Scriptures and by some Arguments derived from the practise of the Catholick Church countenanced and confirmed by the antient Doctors In Scripture first we find how passionately David makes complaint that he was shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin Where we may note in the Greek and Vulgar Latine it is in sins and wickednesses in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek in peccatis in iniquitatibus as the Latine hath it And that to shew us as Becanus hath right well observed Quod unum illud peccatum quasi fons sit aliorum that this one sin is as it were the Spring and Fountain from whence all others are derived Next St. Paul tels us in plain words that by the offence of one of this one man Adam Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation and Judgement could not come upon all or any were it not in regard of sin Not that all men in whom Original sin is found without the addition of Actual and Personal guiltiness are actually made subject unto condemnation and can expect no mercy at the hands of God but that they are all guilty of it should God deal extreamly and take the forfeiture of the Bond which we all entred into in our Father Adam Thus finde we in the same Apostle that we are by nature the children of wrath polluted and unclean from the very womb our very nature being so inclinable to the works of wickedness that it disposeth us to evil from the first conception and makes us subject to the wrath and displeasure of God Last of all we are told by the same Apostle for we will clog this point with no further evidence That the wages of sin is death that sin entred into the world and death by sin and that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And thereupon we may conclude That wheresoever we behold a spectacle of death there was a receptacle of some sin Now we all know that death doth spare no more the Infant than the Elder man and that sometimes our children are deprived of life assoon almost as they enjoy it sometimes born dead and sometimes dead assoon as born Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit in the Poets language A wages no way due to Infants for their actual sins for actually as yet they have not offended and therefore there must needs be in them some original guilt some Birth-sin as the Article calls it which brings so quick a death upon them And this is further verified from the constant and continual practise of the Church of Christ which hath provided That the Sacrament of Baptism be conferred on Infants before they come unto the use of Speech or Reason yea and at some times and on some occasions as namely in cases of extremity and the danger of death to Christen them assoon as born For by so doing she did charitably and not unwarrantably conceive that they are received into the number of Gods children and in a state of good assurance which could not be so hopefully determined of them should they depart without the same And with this that of Origen doth agree exactly Si nihil esset in parvulis quod ad remissionem deberet indulgentiam pertinere gratia Baptismi superflua videretur Were there not something in an Infant which required forgiveness the Sacrament of Baptism were superfluously administred to him Upon which grounds the Church of England hath maintained the necessity of Baptism against the Sectaries of this age allowing it to be administred in private houses as oft as any danger or necessity doth require it of her A second thing we finde in the Churches practise and in the practise of particular persons of most note and evidence which serves exceeding fitly to confirm this point and that is That neither the Church in general doth celebrate the birth-day of the Saints departed but the day onely of their deaths nor any of the Saints themselves did solemnize the day of their own Nativity with Feasts and Triumphs First for the practise of the Church we may take this general rule once for all Non nativitatem sed mortem sanctorum ecclesia pretiosam judicat beatam That the Church reckoneth not the day of their birth but the death-day if I may so call it of the Saints to be blest and precious According unto that of the Royal Psalmist Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Upon which grounds the word Natalis hath been used in the Martyrologies and other publick
Monuments of the Catholick Church to signifie the death and not the birth-day of the Saints departed And more particularly we are thus informed by St. Augustine Solius Domini Beati Iohannis dies nativitatis in universo mundo celebratur i. e. That onely the day of the nativity of our Lord and Saviour and of St. Iohn Baptist were celebrated in his time in the Church of Christ Of Christ because there is no doubt but that he was conceived and born without sin original and of the Baptist because sanctified in his Mothers womb as St. Luke saith of him And for particular men it is said by Origen Nemo ex sanctis invenitur hunc diem festum celebrasse c. That never any of the Saints did celebrate the day of their own nativity or of any of their sons and daughters with a Solemn Feast The reason was the same for both because they knew that even the best of them were conceived in sin and brought forth in wickedness and therefore with no comfort could observe that day which the sense of their original corruptions had made so unpleasing But on the other side those men who either knew not or regarded not their own natural sinfulness esteemed that day above all others in their lives as that which gave them their first-being to enjoy their pleasures and they as Pharaoh in the Old Testament and Herod in the New failed not to keep the same as a Publick Festival Soli peccatores super hujusmodi diem laetantur as it is in Origen And hereupon we may infer without doubt or scruple that having the authority of the Scripture and the Churches practise and that practise countenanced by Authors of unquestioned credit not to say any thing further in so clear a case from the concurrent Testimonies of the Antient Fathers That there is such a sin as Birth-sin or Original sin a Natural corruption radicated in the Seed of Adam which makes us subject to the wrath and indignation of God Thus have we seen the Introduction of sin the first act of the Tragedy let us next look upon the second on the Propagation the manner how it is derived from Adam unto our Fore-fathers and from them to us And this we finde to be a matter of greater difficulty St. Augustine in whose time these controversies were first raised by the Pelagians did very abundantly satisfie them in the quod sit of it but when they pressed him with the quo modo how it was propagated from Adam and from one man to another he was then fain to have recourse to Gods secret justice and his unsearchable dispensation Et hoc quidem libentius disco quam doceo ne audeam docere quod nescio as with great modesty and caution he declined the business For whereas sin is the contagion of the soul and the soul oweth its being unto God alone and is not begotten by our parents the Pelagians either would not or could not be answered in their Quere How Children should receive corruption from their Parents not could the good Father give them satisfaction unto their demand But as a Dwarf standing on the shoulders of a Giant may see many things far off not visible to the Giant himself so those of the ensuing times building on the foundations which were laid by Augustine have added to him the solution of such doubts and difficulties as in his time were not discovered Of these some have delivered That the soul contracts contagion from the flesh even in the very act of its first infusion the union of the soul and body nor is it any thing improbable that it should so be We see that the most excellent Wines retain their natural sweetness both of taste and colour as long as they are kept in some curious Vessel but if you put them into foul and musty bottles they lose forthwith their former sweetness participating of the uncleanness of the Vessel in which they are Besides it is a Maxim amongst Philosophers Quod mores animae sequuntur temperamentum corporis That the soul is much byassed and inclined in the actions of it unto the temper of the body and if the equal or unequal temper of the body of man can as it seems incline the minde unto the actual embracing of good or evil then may it also be believed that the corruptions of the flesh may dispose the soul even in the first infusion of it to some habitual inclinations unto sin and wickedness Than which though there may be a more solid there cannot be a more conceiveable Answer But others walking in a more Philosophical way conceive that the accomplishment of the great work of Generation consists not in the introduction of the form onely or in preparing of the matter but in the constituting the whole compositum the whole man as he doth consist both of soul and body And that a man is and may properly be said to beget a man notwithstanding the Creation of his soul by God because that the materials of the Birth do proceed from man and those materials so disposed and actuated by the emplastick vertue of the Seed that they are fitted for the soul and as it were produced unto Animation Which resolution though it be more obscure unto vulgar wits is more insisted on by the learned than the former is and possibly may have more countenance from holy Scripture When God made man it is said of him That he was created after Gods own Image that is to say Invested with an habit of Original Righteousness his understanding clear and his will naturally disposed to the love of God But Adam having by his fall lost all those excellent endowments both of grace and nature begot a Son like to himself And therefore it is said in the fifth of Genesis That he begot a son in his own likeness after his own image and he called his name Seth Though Adam was created after the Image of God and might have still preserved that Image in his whole posterity had he continued in that state wherein God created him yet being faln he could imprint no other Image in the fruit of his Body than that which now remained in him his own Image onely the understanding darkned and the will corrupted and the affections of the soul depraved and vitiated Qualis post lapsum Adam fuit tales etiam filios genuit such as himself was after his Apostasie such and no other were the Children which descended of him â—s Paraeus very well observeth And if it fall out commonly as we see it doth that a crooked Father doth beget a crook-backed Son that if the Father look a squint the Children seldom are right-sighted and that the childe doth not onely inherit the natural deformities but even the bodily diseases of his Parents too It is the less to be admired that they should be the heirs also of those sinful lusts with which their
and Martyrs approving and applauding as before I said that most righteous judgement which CHRIST shall then pronounce against all the wicked saying Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This dreadful sentence thus pronounced and the condemned persons being delivered over by the Angels of God to the Devil and his according to the sentence of that righteous Iudge CHRIST shall arise from his Tribunal and together with his elect Angels and most blessed Saints shall in an orderly and triumphant manner ascend into the Heaven of Heavens where unto every one of his glorious Saints he shall bestow the immarcessible Crown of glory and make them Kings and Priests unto God the Father When all the Princes of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of CHRIST God shall be still a King of Kings a King indeed of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium always but most amply them For then shall CHRIST deliver up the Kingdom unto God the Father which how it must be understood we have shewn before And the Saints laying down their Crowns at the feet of Christ shall worship and fall down before him saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to God to reign with thee in thy Kingdome for evermore Thus have I made a brief but a plain discovery so far forth as the light of Scripture could direct me in it both of the manner of our Saviours coming unto Judgement and of the Method he shall use in the act of judging That which comes after Iudgement whether life or death whether it be the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell will fall more properly under the consideration of the last Article of the Creed that of Life Everlasting and there we mean to handle all those particulars which I think pertinent thereunto In the mean time a due and serious consideration of this day of Iudgement will be exceeding necessary to all sorts of people and be the strongest bridle to restrain them from the acts of sin that ever was put into the mouths of ungodly men For what a bridle think we must it be unto them to keep them from unlawful lusts nay from sinful purposes when they consider with themselves that in that day the hearts of all men shall be opened their desires made known and that no secrets shall be hid but all laid open as it were to the publick view What a strong bridle must it be to curb them and to hold them in when they are in the full careere and race of wickedness when they consider with themselves that there will be no way nor means to escape this Judgement Though they procure the Rocks to fall upon them and the Hils to hide them yet will Gods Angels finde them out and gather them from every corner of the World be they where they will Though they have flattered their poor souls and said Tush God will not see it or have disguised themselves with fig-leaves out of a silly hope to conceal their nakedness or wiped their lips so cunningly with the harlot in the Book of Proverbs that no man can discern a stollen kiss upon them yet all this will not serve the turn God will for all this bring them unto judgement and apprehend them by his Angels when they go a gathering There shall not one of them escape the hands of these diligent Sergeants Ne unus quidem no not one And finally what a bridle must it be unto them to hold them from exorbitant wickedness as either the crucifying again of the Lord of glory the persecuting of the Saints their mischievous plots against the Church in her peace and Patrimony when they consider with themselves that he whom thus they crucifie is to be their Iudge and that those poor souls whom they now contemn shall give a vote or suffrage on their condemnation and that the poor afflicted Church which they made truly militant by their foul oppressions malgre their tyranny and confederacies shall become Triumphant And on the other side what a great comfort must it be to the righteous man to think that Christ who all this while hath been his Mediator with Almighty God shall one day come to be his Iudge What a great consolation must it be unto him in the time of trouble to think that all his groans are registred his tears kept in a bottle and his sighs recorded and that there is a Iudge above who will wipe all the tears from his eyes and give him mirth in stead of mourning What an incouragement must it be unto him in the way of godliness when he considereth with himself that there is laid up for him a Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day and give it him in the fight both of men and Angels Finally what strength and animation must it put into them to make them stand couragiously in the cause of Christ and to contemn what ever misery can be laid upon them in the defence of Christs and the Churches cause when they consider with themselves that there is no man who hath lost Father or Mother or wife or children or lands and possessions for the sake of Christ but shall receive much more in this present world and in the world to come life everlasting For behold he cometh quickly as himself hath told us and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his work shall be Even so Lord Jesus So be it Amen THE SUM Of Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical Contained in the APOSTLES CREED or Reducible to it THE THIRD PART By Peter Heylyn 1 Cor. 12.13 For by one Spirit are we all Baptized into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit LONDON Printed for Henry Seyle 1654. ARTICLE IX Of the Ninth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES the Son of ALPHEVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church CHAP. I. Touching the Holy Ghost his divine Nature Power and Office the Controversie of his Procession laid down Historically Of Receiving the Holy Ghost and of the severall ministrations in the Church appointed by him WE are now come unto the third and last part of this Discourse containing in the first place the Article of the Holy Ghost and of the holy Catholick Church gathered together and preserved by the power thereof And in the rest those several Gifts and special Benefits which Christ conferreth by the operation of