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
from sin and Satan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but from the yoak of bondage which the Romans had then laid upon them Thus was it also with the whole body of his Disciples when convened together at the very time of his Ascension Wilt thou at this time say they restore again the Kingdome unto Israel The Kingdome What Regnum illud temporale quod ablatum erat a Iudaeis the temporall power which by the Romans lately had been taken from them And now I thinke it cannot reasonably be expected that the Gentiles should conceive otherwise of the Kingdome of Christ if they knew any thing at all of it then the whole nation of the Iews or his own Disciples Nam post Carthaginem vinci neminem puduit It was no shame for them to mistake in that which was not rightly understood by his friends and followers If they that satâ— in the light saw so obscurely how could they see at all that sat in darknesse and in the shadow of death There had continued in the East saith Tacitus and Suetonius both a received opinion fore ut Iudaea profecti rerum potirentur that out of Iewry should proceed a most puissant Prince who should in fine obtain the Empire over all the world A report founded questionlesse upon that of Micah and to this purpose cited in St. Matthews Gospel viz. that out of Judah there should come a Governour which shall rule my people Israel This prophecie the Roman Historians of those times referred in the accomplishment unto Vespasian and his sons who being the Provincial Governours of Iudaea did afeâ—rwards by force of the Eastern Armies obtain the empire But it wrought further as it seems upon Domitian who is reported to have sought out all those of the line of David which his care and diligence could discover and to have murdred them being found Which howsoever some ascribe to his accustomed cruelty without further aime yet I am verily perswaded that jealousie in point of state the better to secure himself from those on whom that prophecie did reflect originally did induce him to it And possible enough it is that Pilate grounding his proceedings on the same mistake might think quod scripsi scripsi an high part of wisedome and that therein he did great service to the Roman Emperors in terrifying others from aspiring to the name of King which Iesus upon so good title and without any prejudice unto their affaires had presumed to own But all this while he was a King in title only or a King designed We must next look upon him as inaugurated and put in full possession of the regal power And that this was not done till his resurrection is positively affirmed in two texts of St. Peter and very concludingly inferred by a text of St. Paul We will take that of St. Peter first delivered in the first Sermon that he preached on the Feast of Pentecost where speaking of the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour and having pressed the point home to their souls and consciences he concludeth thus Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucifyed both Lord and Christ Not made him Lord nor Christ till then neither King nor Priest The very same St. Paul affirmeth in more positive termes Who speaking of the promise which God made to David that viz. of the 132 Psalme that of the fruit of his body there should one sit upon his throne for evermore resolveth it thus The promise which God made unto our Fathers hath he fulfilled in us their children in that he hath raised up Jesus again as it is also written in the 2. Psalme Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Of this we have already spoken more fully in the 13. Chapter and therefore shall not need to repeat it here And if the word head be used in Scriptures and other creditable Authors to signifie the King or supreme Governour of a body politick as no doubt it is we have St. Paul as positive in this particular as St. Peter was That so the word head hath been oft times used I shall not need to prove out of many witnesses when two or three will be sufficient Of these the first shall be the Prophet Isaiah saying The head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Israel is Samaria they being the principall and commanding Cities of those severall Kingdomes And more then so the head of Damascus is Rezin and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah who were the Kings of those two Realms whereof Damascus and Samaria were the principal Cities Thus doth the Poet say of Rome Roma caput mundi that it was the head of the world i. e. the chief or commanding state to which all the residue of the world did owe subjection And thus doth Chrysostome say of Theodosius the Roman Emperour that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head of all people on the earth It followeth then that Christ being called in Scripture the head of his Church which is indeed his mystical body and exercising all that power and authority which the head hath upon the members of the body natural must needs be understood for the King thereof the Prince and Saviour of his people as St. Peter called him And that Christ was not made the head of his Church till the resurrection was accomplished it 's by St. Paul affirmed so plainly and in terminis that it needs no Commentary The God of our Lord IESVS CHRIST saith the Apostle hath raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places above all principalities and powers and might and dominions that is to say above the whole Hierarchie of the Angels c. And given him to be head over all things unto the Church which is his body This makes that clear and evident which before we said that though our Saviour was designed to the Crown of David long before his birth yet was he not actually inaugurated till his resurrection nor inthronized at Gods right hand untill his ascension And this distinction serves most fitly to clear the meaning of St. Paul in that other place from which the same may be concludingly inferred It is a passage in his Sermon made unto the Pisidians where speaking of the promise which God made to David that viz. of the 132. Psal. That of the fruit of his body there should one sit upon his Throne for evermore v. 12 13. he resolves it thus The promise which was made unto the Fathers God hath fulfilled the same unto us their Children in that he hath raised up Jesus again as it is also written in the second Psalme Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Many Interpreters I know both antient and modern do expound these words of the eternal generation of the Son of God and fancie to
ab his putat exigendam fidem quos novit nullam propriam habere culpam The justice of Almighty God saith he doth not think it fitting that having committed no particular sin of their own he should exact of them a proper and particular faith of their own but as they were undone by anothers fault so they should be relieved by anothers faith To which effect though not so fully I have read somewhere I am sure in St. Ierome but cannot well remember where Qui peccavit in altero credat in altero That he which hath sinned in others may believe by others For the next point though we maintain the necessity of Baptism as the ordinary outward means to attain salvation and do correct those Ministers by the Churches censures by whose gross negligence or default if required to do it an Infant shall die unbaptized Yet we conceive it not so absolutely necessary in the way to Heaven but it is possible for a man to be saved without it For antiquity supplied in some the want of water by blood which many times was the case of Martyrs in others the inevitable want of Baptism by the Holy Ghost the earnestness of the desire if it might have been had supplying the defect of the outward Ceremony Hence came the old distinction of Baptismus fluminis Baptismus flaminis and Baptismus sanguinis Concerning which the Fathers teach us this in brief That where men are debarred by an evitable impossibility from the outward Sacrament Faith and the inward conversion of the heart flying unto God in IESUS CHRIST through the sweet motion and gracious instinct of the Holy Spirit may be reckoned for a kinde of Baptism because thereby they obtain all that which they so earnestly sought after in the Sacrament of Baptism if they could have been partakers of it And if it be so that an ordinary degree of Faith do sometime obtain salvation without the Baptism of Water much more may that which makes men willing to suffer death for Christs and the Gospels sake and be baptized as it were in their dearest blood It was not simply the want of Baptism but the neglect and contempt thereof which antiently in the Adulti men of riper years was accounted damnable But what may then be said in the case of Infants in whom are no such strong desires no such sanctified motions Shall we adjudge them with St. Augustine to eternal fire as some say he did who thereby worthily got the name of Infanto-mastyx or the scourge of Infants as he had gloriously gained the title of Malleus Pelagianorum The Maul or Hammer of the Pelagian Hereticks No God forbid that we should so restrain his most infinite mercies unto outward means Or shall we feign a third place for them near the skirts of Hell as our good Masters do in the Church of Rome We have as little ground for that in the holy Scripture Rather than so we may resolve and I think with safety that as the Faith of the Church and of those which do present such as are baptized is by God accepted for their own so the desire and willingness of the same Church and of their God-fathers and Parents where Baptism cannot possibly be had is reputed theirs also Or if not so yet we refer them full of hope to the grace of God in whose most rigorous constitutions and sharpest denunciations deepest mercies are hid and who is still the Father of mercies though the God of justice And so I shut up this discourse with these words of Hooker That for the Will of God to impart his grace to Infants without Baptism the very circumstance of their natural birth may serve in that case for a just Argument whereupon it is not to be misliked that men in a charitable presumption do gather a great likelihood of their salvation to whom the benefit of Christian parentage being given the rest that should follow is prevented by some such casualty as man hath no power himself to avoid So he of those which are descended of a Christian stock What may be thought of children born of unbelievers hath been said elswhere And so much of the first ordinary outward means ordained by Christ for the remission of our sins the holy Sacrament of Baptism Proceed we next unto the other which is the power of the Keys committed in the person of St. Peter to the Catholick Church and those which by the Churches order are authorized and appointed to it That miserable man being wrought upon unto repentance by the power and preaching of the Word may on confession of his sins be forgiven of God or have the benefit of absolution from the hands of his Ministers if their spiritual necessities do so require For certainly there is not a more ready way to forgiveness of sins than by sincere and sound repentance nor any speedier means to beget repentance than to present our sins unto us in their own deformity by the most righteous myrror of the Word of God For when the sinner comes to know by the Word of God the heinousness of his misdeeds the wrath which God conceives against him for his gross offences together with the punishment which is due unto them according to his rigorous judgments The thought thereof must needs affect him both with fear and horror and make him truly sensible of his desperate state To whom then shall he flie for succor but to God alone humbly confessing unto him both his sins and sorrows How can he look to be recovered of the biting of these fiery Serpents but by looking with the eye of faith on that brazen Serpent which was exalted on the Cross for his Redemption Or if he finde his Conscience troubled and his minde afflicted and that he hath not confidence enough to draw near to God then let him go unto the Priest whom God hath made to be the Iudge between the unclean and the clean whom God hath authorized to minister the word of comfort to raise up them that be faln and support the weak to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide their feet in the way of peace This is the Method to be used the course to be pursued by those who do desire to profit in the School of repentance And about this as to the main and substance of it there is but little difference amongst knowing men For that Repentance is a necessary means required for the remission of sins committed after Baptism the Antients and the Moderns do agree in one The Fathers used to call it secundam tabulam post naufragium the second Table after Spiritual shipwrack on which all those who had made shipwrack of the Faith and a good conscience used to lay hold after they had foregone the benefit received in Baptism to keep them up from sinking in the depth of despair from being overwhelmed in the bottomless Ocean of sin and judgment
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
hath it that if he would he might continue in Gods grace and favour and attain all the blessedness which he could desire or otherwise might fall from both and so deprive himself of that sweet contentment which is not any where to be found but in God alone A greater liberty then this he had not given unto the Angels a more glorious creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Iustin Martyr And he as some of them before abused this liberty so given to his own destruction For being placed by God in the garden of Eden in Paradiso voluptatis as the vulgar reades it he had free power to eat of every tree but one in that glorious place and that tree only interdicted that God might have some tryall of his free obedience the interdiction being seconded with this commination that whensoever he did eat of it he should surely die What lesse could God have laid upon him unlesse he had discharged him of all obedience to his will and pleasure and left him independent of his supreme Power Father said the wise servant unto Naaman if the Prophet had commanded thee a great thing wouldst thou not have done it how much more then when all he saith unto thee is no more then this that thou shouldest wash and be clean Had God commanded Adam some impossible matter he might have been excused from the undertaking because it was a matter of impossibility Or had God bound him to the fruit of one tree alone and debarred him from the tast of all the rest he might have had some more excusable pretence for his flying out and giving satisfaction to a straitned appetite But the commandement being small makes his fault the greater the easiness of the one much aggravating the offence of the other For so it was that either out of unbelief as if God did not mean to sue him for so small a trespasse or that he had a proud ambition to be like to God or yeelded to the lusts of intemperate appetite or that he was not willing to offend his wife by whom he was invited to that deadly banquet he took the forbidden fruit into his mouth and greedily devoured his own destruction and so destroyed himself and his race for ever Not himselfe only but his race even his whole posterity For being the root and stock of mankinde in general which is descended from the loynes of this wretched man what he received of God in his first creation he received both for himself and them who descended from him and what he lost he lost like an unthrifty Father for the childe unborn And as the Scriptures say of Levi that he payed tithes in Abraham to Melchisedech because he was in the loynes of his father Abraham when Melchisedech met him so may we say of the posterity of this prodigal father that they were all undone by his great unthriftiness because they were all of them in his loynes when he lost Gods favour when he drew sin upon them all and consequently death the just wages of it And so saith Gregory Nazianzen surnamed the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We were so made saith he that we might be happy and such we were being made when first placed in Paradise in which we might have had the fruition of all kinds of happiness but forfeited the same by our own transgression If any aske St. Augustine makes the question and the answer too what death God threatned unto man on his disobedience whether the death of the body or of the soul or of the wholeman which is called the second death we must answer All For if saith he we understand that death only by which the soul is forsaken of God surely in that all other kinde of deaths were meant which without question were to follow For in that a disobedient motion rose in the flesh for which they covered their privy parts one death was perceived in which God did forsake the soul. And when the soul forsook the body now corrupted with time and wasted by the decaies of age another death was found by experience to ensue upon it that by these two deaths that first death of the whole man might be accomplished which the second death at last doth follow except Man be delivered by the grace of God And by the grace of God was poor man delivered from this body of death For as there is no deep valley but near so me high hill so near this vale of misery this valley of the shadow of death as the Psalmist calleth it was an hill of mercy a remedy proposed in the promised seed to Adam and the sons of Adam if with unfained faith they lay hold upon it God looketh upon them all at once in that wofull plight and when he saw them in their bloud had compassion on them and out of his meer love and mercy without other motives offered them all deliverance in a Mediator in the man CHRIST IESVS and that too on conditions far more easie then that of workes the condition and reward being this in brief that whosoever did believe in him should not perish but have life everlasting And this I take to be the method of Election unto life eternal through CHRIST IESVS our Lord. For although there be neither Prius or Posterius in the will of God who sees all things at once together and willeth at the first sight without more delay yet to apply his acts unto our capacities as were the acts of God in their right production so were they primitively in his intention But Creation without peradventure did foregoe the fall and the disease or death which ensued upon it was of necessity to be before there could a course be taken to prescribe the cure and the prescribing of the cure must first be finished before it could be fitted to particular persons And for the Fall which was the medium as it were between life and death the great occasion of mans misery and Gods infinite mercy God neither did decree it as a meanes or method of which he might make use to set forth his power in the immortal misery of a mortal creature nor did he so much as permit it in the strict sense of the word in which it differeth little from a plain command Quam longe quaeso est a jubente permittens How little differeth permitting from commanding saith devout Salvian considering he that which doth permit having power to hinder is guilty of the evill which doth follow on it God did not then permit the fall of unwary man as Moses did permit the Israelites a bill of divorce which manner of permission carryeth an allowance with it or a toleration at the least but so permit it only as the father in our Saviours parable permitted his younger Son to see strange Countries and having furnished him with a stock on which to traffick suffered him to depart and make up his fortunes whether good
to have a speciall place in this short compendium this abstract of the Christian faith of our whole religion and that it had not been enough to have expressed his being crucifyed dead and buryed unlesse his sufferings under Pontius Pilate had been mentioned also Of which three points viz. his crucifying death and burial being the consummation of his sufferings and the last acts of his humiliation for the accomplishing of mans Redemption we are next to speak ARTICVLI 5. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Crucifixus mortuus sepultus i. e. Was crucified dead and buryed CHAP. VII Of the Crucifying death and burial of the Lord JESUS CHRIST with Disquisition of all particulars incident thereunto HItherto have we spoken of those afflictions which our Redeemer suffered under Pontius Pilate in his soul and body precedent to his Crucifixion We are now come to speak of those which he suffered on the Cross it self together with his death and burial being the last acts of his Humiliation for being dead and buryed once he could fall no lower But being his death upon the Cross was that only all-sufficient Sacrifice made for the satisfaction of Gods justice and the redemption of all mankinde from the powers of darkness typified in so many acts and figures of the Old Testament whereof some relate unto his death and others to the manner of it I shall first speak a word or two of those rites and sacrifices and other figures which might or did relate in Gods secret purpose to the coming of the promised Seed and all the benefits redounding to the world by his death and passion First for those types which might fore-signifie and represent the Messiahs death they did consist especially in those legal sacrifices which God himself had instituted in the Iewish Church for the expiation of the sins of that people and their reconciliation to their God yet so that even before the law there wanted not a type and figure of it every way as proportionable to the substance signified as any of the Legal and commanded sacrifices No sooner had God raised up seed to Adam thereby to give him hopes of the accomplishment of his deliverance and redemption by the seed of the woman but he was taught to represent the same in a solemn sacrifice assoon at least as his sons were come to age to assist him in it And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering to the Lord and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flocks and the fat thereof An offering from the hands of Cain to shew that even the wicked owe an homage to the Lord God Almighty from whose hands they receive all their temporal blessings and therefore were to pay back something in the way of a quit-rent or acknowledgment Donis suis honorandus est ipse qui dedit as Rupertus hath it A Sacrifice from the hands of Abel of righteous Abel as our Saviour did vouchsafe to call him who not long after was made a Sacrifice himself by his wicked brother As if the Lord intended in this double sacrifice to represent the death and passion of his Son Christ Iesus in that of Abel by his brother the bloudy and most barbarous fact of the wretched Iews upon their countryman their brother of the house of Iacob in that of Abels lamb the sacrifice of the Lamb of God slain from the beginning of the world as the Apostle in the Revelation Now for the Legal sacrifices prescribed the Iews and those which had been offered by Gods faithful servants before the giving of the Law they do so far agree in one as to be comprised in the same general definition For generally a sacrifice may be defined to be the offering of a creature to Almighty God by the hands of a lawful Minister to be spent or consumed in his service Which definition I desire the Reader to take notice of because we shall relate unto it when we come to speak of the Christian sacrifice or the Commemoration of this sacrifice in the Church of Christ. Bellarmine in more words saith no more then this His words be these Sacrificium est externa oblatio soli deo facta qua per Legitimum ministrum creatura aliqua sensibilis permaneâ—s ad agnitionem Divinae Majestatis infirmitatis humanae ritu mystico consecratur transmutatur Only the last word transmutatur was put in of purpose to countenance the change or transubstantiation of the outward Elements into the natural body and bloud of Câ—rist which notwithstanding he is fain after to expound by the word destruitur i. e. consumed or destroyed to make his Mass as true as proper and as real a Sacrifice of Christ our Saviour on the Altar as that which he himself once offered on the accursed Cross. But all the Sacrifices of Gods people before the Law were principally if not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were offered unto God by way of thankefulness and due acknowledgement for all his benefits conferred on their souls and bodies Of which kinde also were the peace-offerings Levit. 3. v. 1. the sacrifice of thanksgiving Levit. 7.12 and the free-wil offering vers 16. in use amongst the Iews when the Law was given in celebrating which they were left at liberty to offer either male or female as they would themselves God giving his increase of their flocks and herds by both the sexes male and female and pouring on both sexes man and woman both temporal and spiritual blessings Under the law the case was otherwise For then besides the Eucharistical sacrifices before remembred which for the substance and intent were before in use amongst their Ancestors the holy Patriarchs though not accompanied with so many ceremonies they had sacrifices of another kindâ— which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say expiatory or propitiatory for the taking away of their sins In which as they did signifie by the death of the beast the wages due to their iniquities for the wages of sin is death saith the great Apostle so by the shedding of his bloud did God please to intimate that they should have the pardon and forgiveness of their sins and acceptation of their service by the bloud of Christ. These then and only these were Typi venturae victimae the types and shadows of that great and perfect Sacrifice which Christ our Saviour was to offer for the sins of mankinde and were called expiatorie and propitiatorie non proprie sed relative not properly and in themselves as if there were in them any power or vertue either to expiate our offences or be a Propitiation for our sins for the bloud of Buls and Goats cannot take away sins saith the same Apostle but relatively in relation to the Ordinance of Almighty God by whom they had been instituted to that end and purpose as Baptism after was in the Church
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.
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
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
to proceed with them by the authority of Scripture and of reason both To the old Testament and our proofs from thence we shal challenge an obedience from them because by them confessed for Scripture and reverenced as the Oracles of Almighty God And for the new the writings of the holy Evangelists we shall expect submission to the truths thereof so far forth as it shall appear to be built on reason and unavoydable Demonstration Now the old Testament consisteth in that part thereof which doth reflect upon the birth and actions of our blessed Saviour either of types and figures or else of Prophecies and examples and the first type which looks this way is that of Isaac the only son the only beloved son of a tender father a type both of his death and his resurrection In which observe how well the type and truth do agree together The Altar was prepared the fire kindled Isaac fast bound and ready to receive the blow the knife was in his Fathers hand and his arme stretched out to act the bloudy part of a Sacrificer And yet even in the very act and so near the danger God by his holy Angel and a voice from heaven delivered the poor innocent from the jawes of death and restored him back unto his father when all hopes had failed him How evidently doth this fact of Abrahams stretching out his hand to strike the blow and being withholden by the Angel from the blow it self fore-fore-shadow those sacred fundamentall truths which we are bound to believe concerning the true bodily death and glorious resurrection of our Lord and Saviour The Iews themselves in memorie of this deliverance did celebrate the first of Tisri which is our September usually called the Feast of Trumpets with the sound of Rams hornes or Corners and counted it for one of the occasions of that great solemnity which shews that there was somewhat in it more then ordinary somewhat which did concern their nation in a speciall manner Needs therefore must the Iews of our Saviours time be blinde with malice at the least with prejudice that look upon this story of Isaac the child of promise only as the relation of a matter past not as a type and shadow of the things to come this only son of Abraham this child of promise the only hope or pledge of that promised seed which was expected from the beginning being to come thus near to death and yet to be delivered from the power thereof that so the faith of Abraham touching the death and resurrection of his son the heir of promise might be tryed and verifyed or rather that by experiment our Saviours death and resurrection might be truly represented and foreshadowed in Isaacs danger and delivery And this is that to which St. Paul alludeth saying By faith Abraham when he was tryed offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure i. e. a figure of the resurrection of Christ the promised seed represented by it though Abraham probably looked no further then the present mercy Isaac then was the true representation and foreshadowing of our Saviours death and resurrection And so the wonderfull increase of Isaacs seed in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed was as full an embleme of our Saviours seed and generation which cannot be numbred he having begotten unto God since his resurrection more sons and daughters throughout all nations then all the children of Abraham or Isaac according to the flesh though like unto the sands of the Sea for multitude But the circumstances of our Saviours selling and betraying his cruell persecution both by Priests and people the whole story of his humiliation unto death and exaltation after his resurrection are more perfectly foreshadowed by the cruel persecutions of Ioseph procured by his brethren by his calamity and advancement in Egypt The story is so well known it needs no repeating And the afflictions laid on both by the sonnes of Iacob in a manner parallel themselves Both of them were the first-born of their several Mothers both of them the best beloved sons of their Fathers and for this cause both of them envied and maligned by their wicked and ill natured brethren by whom they were both severally betrayed and sold for a contemptible piece of money So far the parallel holds exactly goe we further yet The pit whereinto Iosephs brethren cast him as also the pit or dungeon unto which he was doomed by a corrupt and partial Iudge on the complaint of an imperious whorish woman without proof or witnesse what was it but the picture of our Saviours grave to which he was condemned in the sentence of death by as corrupt a Judge as Potiphar on the bare accusation and complaint of an Adulterous generation as the Scripture cals them without proof or evidence And the deliverance of Ioseph from both pit and dungeon his exaltation by Pharaoh over all the land of Egypt and his beneficence to his Brethren whom he not only pardoned but preservation from famine what were they but the shadowes and resemblances of Christs resurrection his sitting at the right hand of God the Father by whom all power was given him both in heaven and earth and finally his mercie to the sons of men whose sins he doth not only pardon but preserve them also from the famine of the word of God The Kings ring put on Iosephs hand the gold chain put about his neck and the vesture of fine linnen or silke wherewith he was arraied by the Kings command what were they as the Antients have observed before but the resemblances of those glorious endowments with which the body or Humanity of Christ our Saviour hath been invested or apparelled since his resurrection More then this yet The name of Zaphnath Paaneah given to Ioseph by the Kings appointment and the Proclamation made by Pharaoh that every knee should bow before him what is it but a modell or a type of that honour which God the King of Kings hath ordered to be given to Christ to whom he hath given a name above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bowe of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Where by the way and that addeth something farther to the parallel also the name of Zaphnath Paaneah as the Hebrew reads it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psonthem Phanech as the Septuagint is naturally as the learned Mr. Gregory very well observeth a Coptick or Egyptian word and signifyeth an Interpreter of hidden things or a revealer of secrets And so not only the Babylonish Targum and others of the Rabbins do expound the word but we finde the same exposition in Theodoret also 〈◊〉
and some of them perhaps reduced to their primitive dust is more then probable for the text speaks of them as of men which had long been dead Now why a glorifyed soul should be re-united to a corrupt and putrefyed although new raised body unlesse it were to raise that body also to a share of glory I plainly must confesse I can see no reason Some of the Saints then as his Souldiers did attend this Pomp I take that for granted And I conceive it probable for I goe no further that every Saint or Souldier had his Crown or Coronet bestowed upon them by their Generall in testimony that they had fought a good fight against sinne and Satan For though in common course the Saints and servants of the Lord shall not have their Crowns untill the generall day of judgment yet here in this particular case it might be otherwise by speciall priviledge and extraordinary dispensation Next to the Saints and Souldiers look we on the Captives of whom the Psalmist and St. Paul both do expressely speak Duxit captivam captivitatem He led captivity captive saith the holy Scripture But who these captives were and what this captivity will aske a little more paines to declare aright though somewhat hath been said in this point before We shewed you in our Commentaries on the former Articles that by the unanimous consent of all the Fathers our Saviour spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell when he went down thither and there took captive both the Devill and his evill Angels The shewing of them openly and triumphing over them the leading of them captive when they were so taken that doubtlesse was the work of another day that was the work of the Ascension When he ascended up on high then not before he led them captive and when he led them captive then he triumphed over them The victory he obtained before now he made his triumph The great Battel which Paulus Aemilius won of Perseus the Macedonian did shrewdly shake the main foundations of his power and Empire the victory was not perfected nor the Realme subdued and made a Tributary Province of the state of Rome untill the King himself was taken in the Isle of Samothrace to which he had retired as his strongest hold immediately on his defeat near the City of Pidna The triumph followed not till after when he made his entrie into Rome the imperiall City the miserable King and all the flower of his Nobility being led like Captives in their chaines and doomed unto perpetuall prison And this saith the Historian was interpulcherrimos the happiest and most stately triumph that the Roman people ever saw the victory having also been of the greatest consequence So in this case The first main Battell after some previous skirmishes and velitations which our Redeemer sought with Satan was upon the Crosse in which he seemed for a time to have had the worse But it was only for a time For by his death saith the Apostle he overcame him which had power of death which was the Devill That was the first great blow which the Devill had But the victory was not perfected nor the Empire of the Prince of darknesse broke in pieces and brought under the command of the Son of man till he mastred hell it self and forced the Devill and his Angels in their strongest hold Then came he to demand his triumph at the hands of God who received him into heaven with the greatest glory that ever had been seen by the heavenly Citizens the Devill and rest of the powers of hell being led bound in chaines in triumphant wise whom he flung off as soon as he approached near the gates of Heaven and hath ever since reserved in chains under darknesse to the judgment of the great and terrible day If you will see this triumph set down more at large we have it in the 13. of the Prophet Hosea and out of him in St. Pauls first to the Corinthians death led captive without his sting Hell broken and defaced like the picture of a conquered City the strength of sinne the Law rent and fastned to his Crosse ensigne-wise the Serpents head broken and so born before him as was Goliahs head by David when he came from the victory Never so great a victory such a glorious triumph as that of Christ in his Ascension when having spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell he led this captivity captive in his march to Heaven making a shew of them openly unto men and Angels and triumphing over them in semet ipso in his own person saith the vulgar Reddunt inferna victorem superna suscipiunt triumphantem Hell restored him back a Conquerour and Heaven received him a Triumpher as faith St. Angustine happily if the work be his But there were other Captives which adorned this triumph besides the Devill and his Angels even the sons of men The Devill first began the war with our Father Adam foyled him in Paradise and made him of a Prince to become a Prisoner a slave to his own lusts and and loose affections And he prevailed so far upon his posterity that he brought all mankinde in a manner under his dominion their sins and wickednesses being grown unto such an height that God repented him at last of mans creation It angred him saith the text at the very heart David complained in his time that there was none that did good no not one and when the son of David came upon the Theatre he found the seed of Abraham so degenerated that they were become the slaves of Satan at best the children of the Devill as himself affirmed In this estate we were the whole race of man when with a mighty hand and an outstretched arme our Saviour Christ encountred with the powers of darknesse and subdued them all By this great victory of Christ over sin and Satan the Devill was not only taken and made a Captive but all mankinde even that captivity which was captive under him became his Prisoners jure belli even by the common law of war as being before part of the Devils goods of his train and vassalage So true is that of Aristotle in his book of Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those which are taken in the warres are in the power and at the pleasure of the Conquerour The Fathers many of them look this way directly but none more plainly to this purpose then Dorotheus an old Orthodox writer and he states it thus What means saith he the leading of captivitie captive And then he answereth It meaneth that by Adams transgression the enemie had made us all captives and held us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the enemies hands and conquered him who kept us captive So that the case of mankinde in this double captivitie was like that of Lot whom the five Kings when they took Sodom carried Prisoner with them Lot was then Captive to those Kings