with their hands in dishonour of Christ yea more for an instrument of his destruction Almightie God hath made it the in strument of their highest honour and happiest condition euen of their saluation and therefore the outward expression of this confession by a gesture Mat. 28 18 19 externall act or signe of the hands must needs be Christian and commendable Fourthly our Sauiour Christ commanding to teach and baptize both Iewes and Gentiles commandeth questionlesse to expresse and declare the nature and vse of Baptisme and consequently commandeth to vse the signe of the crosse for this ceremonie serueth to declare the nature and vse of this Sacrament in that thereby wee are baptized into the death of Christ vpon the crosse and that our olde man is crucified with him and euen nailed to his crosse as the Apostle speaketh saying Rom. 6.4 5 6 7 8 Philip. 2.8 Coloss 2.12 Galat. 2 19 5 24. Know ye not that all we which haue bin baptized into Iesus Christ haue beene baptized into his death we are buried then with him by Baptisme into his death that like as Christ was raised vp from the dead by the glory of the father so wee also should walke in newnesse of life For if wee be planted with him to the similitude of his death euen so shall wee bee to the simi-litude of his resurrection knowing this that our olde man is crucified with him that the body of sinne might bee destroyed Whereby wee are taught that in Baptisme their must bee a three-folde similitude or representation to wit of Christs dying burying and rising bodily and of our dying burying and rising spiritually with him Now I aske what similitude there is in Baptisme of Christs ignominous death vpon the crosse or of his bodily crucifying and of the spirituall crucifying of our old man with him setting aside the signe of the crosse The sprinkling on of the water doth represent only a shedding of his blood but not necessarily a shedding of it vntill death for Christ might haue shed his blood without dying And as for the immersion or dipping of the baptized body into the water it doth represent his burying directly like as the emersion or rising of the body out of the water representeth his rising out of the graue but it doth not directly represent his dying and though it doth by way of consequence represent his death in respect that ordinarily none are buried but the dead yet it doth not for all that set before our eyes the kinde of his death nor yet the accursed and ignominious manner thereof which are two circumstances of especiall moment and consideration For our Sauiours death was not a natural death for he died not in his bed as we say and so was buried but the death that hee died was a violent death and wrought by the hand of man Neither was it an easie or an honest violent death but the most painefull and shamefull of all other and euen an accursed death as both in the law and in the Epistle of the Gospell wee are taught all which circumstances are represented and set before our eyes only by this ceremonie of the signe of the crosse Deut. 2.23 Gal. 3.13 Fifthly if it be lawfull for a Minister to expresse the mysteries and meaning of the Scripture of God by a Sermon as euery one will grant that it is then shall it bee as lawfull to expresse the mysteries of Gods Sacrament by a ceremonie for there is the like reason for the one and for the other For seeing the Sacrament of God aswell as the word of God hath something to bee explicated and declared and that the best explication and declaration is made by things of the like nature it followeth that as the audible word is explicated and declared by a sermon and by words to the eare so the visible Sacrament being a ceremonie is to be explicated and declared by a ceremonie to the eye such as is the signe of the crosse hee that addeth vnto word or Sacrament for perfection is a blasphemer and a deceiuer but hee that addeth vnto word or Sacrament either other words and rites for explanation and declaration is a true Doctor Sixtly by this signe the Church doth confesse her owne miserie and wretchednesse in that wee did euen crucifie Christ with our sinful hands by our sinnes as much as the Iewes did that set vp the crosse with their vnhallowed hands this confession is lawfull and good and therefore the declaration of it by a sensible signe can not be vnlawfvll or euill Seauenthly Galat. 3.13 Ephes 2.14.15 16 17 by this signe the Church confesseth her faith in Christ crucified that hee hath redeemed vs from the curse of the law by the curse of his crosse and reconciled vs vnto God by the blessed peace of his crosse as the Apostle speaketh this confession is Christian and therefore the declaration thereof by a sensible signe externall act or gesture of the bodie cannot bee Antichristian as our Geneuians would haue vs to beleeue Eightly by this signe the Church declaclareth her Christian disposition and resolution of fighting vnder the banner of Christ against sinne and Sathan and of suffering persecution for the crosse of Christ as the Apostle speaketh shee declareth her Christian endeauour in crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Galat. 5.24 6 12 14 and testifieth her faithfull affection in not being ashamed of the crosse of Christ but that shee glorieth and reioyceth in it according to that of the Apostle God forbid that I should reioyce Mat. 26.39 Mark 14.35 Act. 7.60 9.40 20.36 Ephes 3.14 Luk. 18.13 Mat. 14.19 Ioh. 11.41 17.1 1. Tim. 2.8 1. Cor. 11.4 but in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ whereby the world is crucified vnto mee and I vnto the world This disposition resolution endeuour and affection is most commendable and Christianâ— and therefore the testification declaration or notification thereof must needs be so likewise For if it be lawfull and laudable for the Church to declare the inward humilitie of the heart by the outward bowing of the body or knees and the casting downe of the eyes the inward sorrow of the soule for sinne by an externall beating of the breast the inward confidence or affiance in God in expecting at his hands euery good thing by the visible lifting vp of the hands and eyes vnto heauen and finally the internall reuerence of the heart by an externall bare head why may not the same Church aswell declare the inward reioycing and glorying of the heart in the crosse of Christ by such a sensible signe made with the hands especially it being made with the hands of the Minister who is the likest to vse it aright and the best able to free it from abuse Ninethly the Church may and ought to vse that outward act which the Spirit of God himselfe doth designe Eze. 9.4 5 6. Reuel 7.1 2 3 4
23.43.46 the other in that he said a dying Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit but neither doth the one nor the other argument conclude punctually First the argument doth not follow Christs Spirit was in his fathers hands Ergo it was not in hell for Gods hands is in hell aswell as in heauen according to that of the Psalmist speaking of our Sauiour belike by way of prophesie If I ascend into heauen thou art there if I lie downe in hell thou art there Psal 139 8 yea the hand of the Father was with his Sonne in hell in a fatherly manner fortifying him in his conflict against the furie of the whole infernall forces like as his hand and Spirit was with him to raise him vp from the dead Rom. 8.11 as the Apostle teacheth Neither doth the other argument follow Christ was that day or night in Paradise Ergo he did not descend into hell for to speake nothing of his beeing in Paradise in his Godhead I say that in his very soule hee might without all repugnancie haue gone first to Paradise which was the place due vnto him beeing considered as a most perfit and iust man free from sinne and afterwards to hell which was the place due to all sinners and euen to him in so farre as hee became the pledge and surety for sinners a sufferer for them both of death and dishonour and a deliuerer of them from sinne and Sathan from Gods hatred and hell But Godwilling in our Latine disputation of the Seate of soules we shall handle the point of our Sauiours going to Paradise more accurately where wee shall likewise dispute the question of the place situation existence and vse of the terrestriall Paradise and shall by certaine probable arguments make it apparant how that it was created in the heart of the world vpwards like as hell was created in the heart of the earth downwards And there shall wee refute an errour of the learned Spanish Iesuite Pererius and of our Geneuians touching the non-existence of Paradise like as in our worke called Dies Domini which deliuereth the doctrine of Hebrewes Greekes and Latines Theologians Philosophers and Historians touching the worlds beginning lasting and ending wee doe refute the same Iesuites and some of our owne Protestants common errour touching the worlds beginning in the moneth of September and that by diuers new arguments besides the authorities of Theologians Astrologians and Philosophers VI. Sixtly as the holy Scripture doth auouch our Sauiours descending into hell in his soule after death in the foresaid fiue respects so doth the Catholicke or vniuersall Churches common Confession of faith auerre it as may appeare by our common Creed commonly called the Creede of the Apostles wherein after the mention of our Sauiours buriall is immediately subioyned his descending into hell like as after his rising from the dead he is said to haue ascended into heauen Neither could this point haue beene expressed in plainer words then it is for plainnesse was fittest for the expression of the common faith of Christians The motion of ascending and the place thereof heauen are both of them taken literally and properly and therefore their contraries descending and hell must likewise be properly taken without running to a figure And we may as well denie that in the Creed ascending signifieth a local motion vpwards and that heauen signifieth the seate of God and the receptacle of the blessed Spirits and with all say that by our Sauiours ascending into heauen is signified no other thing else but his enioying of some spirituall solace and heauenly ioy as to denie that his descending is a locall motion downewards and that hell is the seate of Sathan and of his slaues and as to say with the Genenians that by Christs descending into hell is nothing else meant but his feeling of some spirituall sorrowes or hellish horror If hell must be taken by a figure in the Creed then heauen in the same Creede shall bee but another figure and so should our Creed be but a Creed of figures and our faith a faith of figures And to say that there are many Creedes and confessions of faith wherein there is no mention made of Christs descending into hell it doth not argue that the authors and makers of those confessions did not beleeue this point for other clauses are likewise often wanting as namely in the Nicene Creede these words Borne of the Virgin Mary he was buried hee sitteth on the right hand of God I beleeue the Catholike Church the communion of Saints the resurrestion of the body and the life euerlasting aswell as those wordes he descended into hell And yet the Fathers no doubt were aswell perswaded of these things they left out as they were of those things they put in Againe it is sufficient that in none of the Creedes and confessions that euer were published aboue threescore the descending of Christ into hell is denied for yee shall not reade in one of them all such a clause I beleeue that Christs soule beeing seuered from the body went not downe into hell but ascended vp into heauen But not onely is it not denied so much as in one Creede of many but also it is affirmed expressely in some Creedes as namely in that of the Apostles and in that of Saint Athanasius and implicitly it is in all the Creedes and confessions that euer were made for more then fifteene hundreth yeares together for it is implied in the word suffered and in the word died For in Christ the Mediatours death are these three parts the separation of the soule from the body the collocation of the body being dead in the graue as being the bodies chamber of death and the migration of the seuered soule into the blacke house of death which is hell where it behooued the soules of all men to bee imprisoned except the Sonne of God by descending into that dungeon had deliuered and exempted all beleeuing soules from descending Psal 107.14 16. Iob 38.17 For he it was that brake those gates of brasse and brast the barres of yron asunder and to him the gates of hell and of death were opened for feare It is certaine that Christs soule went to some place after death and in the Creede wee finde no place mentioned but hell or heauen now in it there is mention made of his descending into hell after death but there is no mention made of his soules ascending vntill at what time being risen after forty daies aboade with his Disciples hee ascended visibly in his whole humane nature And that he ascended not into heauen before that time wee may gather it out of his owne wordes to Mary Magdalen Ioh. 20.17 saying Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father there is not so much as one letter in the whole Scripture that sheweth that our Sauiour was to ascend twice to heauen or that his soule was to descend twice from heauen the which double
partly to binde Sathan in chaines of darkenesse and to triumph ouer him in his strongest hold The which doctrine is verified and iustified both by Scriptures authoritie and Churches testimony euen both by Gods word and mans First by typicall prefiguration secondly by propheticall prediction thirdly by pregnant historicall allusion fourthly by euangelicall explication and application fiftly by apostolicall asseueration sixtly by all ancient Christians common and Catholike confession seuenthly by Primitiue Doctors consent vnanime profession eightly by the most part of learned Protestants ingenuous reception subscription ninthly by irrefragable reason and demonstration tenthly and lastly by the consideration of such opposions dissentions and contradictions as the oppugners of our Sauiours locall descending haue fallen into about this point and of the absurde vnlearned and ridiculous yea impious expositions that the Genenians haue deuised of such Scriptures as do most cleerly euince the truth of this article The impiousnesse of which their doctrine shall appeare by our showing how in some things they doe iumpe with the Iewish enemies and opposers of the Messias his suffering death and descending into hell to destroy the author of death and in some things with the ancient Hereticks Arrians and Apollinarians which did denie our Sauiours humane reasonable soule and therefore did expound those places of Scripture wherin mention is made of the beeing of our Sauiours soule in hell after his death in the same manner that the Geneuians and other vpstarts haue done of the preciser sort Whereas the Doctors of the Primitiue Church which oppugned those heretickes did expound them as the Church of England I meane the reuerend Bishops and other learned Doctors thereof that haue beene since the daies of King Edward the sixt of famous memorie vntill this present time of the happie raigne of our most learned and religious Soueraigne King Iames the sixt Which being well considered the Church of Scotland shall see how that they haue a thousand times better reason for them to ioyne with the Church of England and with the ancient orthodoxe and true Catholike Christians then to iumpe with the new Geneuians or any of the condemned hereticks in the expounding such places of Scripture I. And first I say that there is in the Scripture Gen. 37.24 Ionah 1.17 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 typicall prefiguration both personall and reall of our Sauiours descending into hell namely Iosephs putting into the pit without water by his brethren mentioned in the 37. chapter of Genesis and Ionah his being in the belly of the Whale in the midst of the sea three daies three nights as it is in the first and second chapters of his prophesie And therein our Sauiour himselfe affirmeth that Ionah was a type or figure of him and that his foresaid condition was a figure or signe of his owne being after death in the hart of the earth Mat. 12.39.40 as it is in the twelfth of S. Matthewes Gospell for as Ionas saith our Sauiour was three daies and three nights in the whales belly so shall the sonne of man be three daies and three nights in the bea rt of the earth The which cannot be vnderstood of our Sauiours buriall as our Geneuians would make vs beleeue for his graue was not neere the heart of the earth nor Christs body was not in the belly of the earth but both were in the head face or top of the earth and not within it but without it for it was a tombe hewen out of a rocke as it is in the Gospell and so those words of Ionah were verified in the person of Iesus really Mat. 27.60 Out of the belly of hell cried I and againe Thou hast brought vp my soule from the pit for as Ionab was in the middest of danger without danger in the bottome of the sea without being drowned so was our Redeemer Iesus in the middest of danger without danger and euen in the bottome of the fiery pit without being burned or consumed thereby as Ionah was in the belly of the Whale without being destroyed so was Iesus his soule in Leuiathans belly which is hell without being deuoured of Leuiathan the roaring and denouring Lyon And as Ionah as brought vp from the bottome of the sea so was Iesus his soule brought vp from the bottome of the pit wherein is no water but all fire and is so deepe that it is said to bee without bottome And as Iosephs being in that pit without water and Ionahs being in the Whales belly and in the bottome of the sea were personall types and prefigurations of our Sauiours beeing in hell so haue we in the Scripture reall types and prefigurations thereof for as the bloody Sacrifices of the law did shaddow out our Sauiours bloody sacrificing of his blessed Body vpon the Crosse for our sins in which doing he shut vp all those bodily and bloody sacrifices with a solemne Consummatum est saying it is finished so the burnt offerings of the law did fore shew how our Sauiour should offer his soule for an holocaust or burnt offering Ioh. 19.30 according as the Euangelical Prophet Isay had fore tolde saying in the fiftie three chapter He was taken out from prison and from iudgement and was cut out of the land of the liuing for the transgression of my people was he plagued Isay 53.8 9 10.11.12 hee made his graue with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no wickednesse and hee shall make his soule an offering for sinne c. Hee shall diuide the spoile with the strong because hee had powred out his soule vnto death In which words the Prophet pointeth out our Sauiours imprisonment araignement iudgement execution the crucifying and burying of his bodie which was the bloody sacrifice that put an end vnto all bloody sacrifices with his powring out of his soule vnto death and making it an offering for sinne to wit a burnt offering Where obserue well that though our Sauiour offered his very soule to be a burnt offering for the expiation of the sinnes of our soules as hee had done before his bodie for a bloody sacrifice to expiate the sinnes of our bodies yet had not the flames of hel any power thereupon in which respect the three children were a type of him in their walking in the midst of the seuen times hote fiery furnace Dan. 3.21 22 23 24 25 26 27 6 16 22 23 without any hurt as it is in the third of Daniel Yea Daniel himselfe being in the Lyons den without any harme as it is in the sixt chapter was a type and figure of our Sauiours conquering condition in hell that though hee had offered the Lambe of his blessed body to the shambles of the shame full and accursed crosse to be slaine and the Turtleedoue of his diuine soule to the hote furnace to be burnt such burning loue he bare vs yet could not hell fire take any hold
of Geneua doth obscure and diminish the Maiestie thereof For who knoweth not but that it is a greater glorie for a King or Captaine to vanquish and conquer his enemie in his owne kingdome and to make his enemies owne pallace his prison then to doe it elsewhere Wherefore seeing our Sauiour atchieued the greatest and the most glorious conquest that euer was and triumphed the most magnificently Mat. 12.29 we must needs beleeue that he did it in Sathans the strong ones owne house castle and kingdome as it is in the Gospell and as the Church of England together with the Primitiue doth beleeue and teach and not that he did it out of hell or on the crosse as they iargon at Geneua X. Tenthly and lastly the veritie of the Church of Englands doctrine touching our Sauiours descending into hell may appeare by the contradictions oppositions and dissentions and fanaticall expositions of such as haue oppugned it or dissented from it some expounding those words hee descended into hell of our Sauiours buriall others of his detention in the graue and the most part of his suffering the paines and torments of hell in the garden and on the crosse some haue expounded it of his translating into the state of the dead and some haue beene so fanaticall as to say that his descending into hell meaneth no other matter but the ascending of his soule into heauen after death And as some of them haue most vnlearnedly and ridiculously vnderstood heauen by hell in the Creed and ascending by descending which is all one with the taking water for fire or God for the diuell so haue they as vnlearnedly and ridiculously construed diuers other places of Scripture In the sixteene Psalme by the Hebrew word NEPHESH Psal 16 10. Act. 2.27 and in the second of the Actes by the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which doe signifie the soule they vnderstand the body which is the contrary part and the other halfe of man a thing that no learning diuine or humane will suffer And though a man perhaps might excuse such a simple or single Ignoramus as this yet how can he excuse it when it is doubled for those Geneuians will haue the word soule to signifie the body and a dead body which in all learning diuine or humane signifieth alwaies a liuing substance and either the principall part which is the soule and that properly or else the whole person figuratiuely And as these admirable Metamorphosers of Geneua turne in one place hell into heauen and descending into ascending euen blacke into white and in another place Christs liuing soule they turne into his dead Body so doe they turne hell into the graue for the Hebrew word SHEOL and the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which doe properly and principally signifie hell as the learned in these languages doe well know and as we shall show particularly otherwhere by alleadging the testimonies of the best Hebricians and Grecians but especially when the word of Soule is thereunto annexed as it is in the sixteenth Psalme and in the second of the Actes they do translate Graue and not Hell which is not only the secondary and improper signification of those two words but also quite repugnant to those texts of Scripture wherein mention is made of the conditiō of Christs soule For though it be true that the said two words doe sometimes signifie the graue yet it is but secondarily and improperly and when the word of Body or flesh is ioyned thereunto but neuer when the word of Soule is annexed as it is in those two places of Scripture and because they see the absurditie that should insue of saying that Christs soule should be buried in a graue therefore for preuenting one absurditie they runne into another for as they turne hell into graue so doe they Christs liuing soule into his dead body the most blockish and stockish abusing of Scripture that euer was heard tell off yea more the most impious for in so doing they ioyne with the professed enemies of Christ both Iewes Arrian and Apollinarian Heretickes For first such Geneuian expositors ioyne with the Iewes who as Aepinus the Protestant Superintendent of Hamburge writeth vpon the sixteenth Psalme to ouerthrow the certainty of our faith concerning Christs descension into hell and his resurrection did by the word soule vnderstand life though it bee not so bad nor so farre fetcht as Bezas dead bodie and by the word hell they vnderstand graue as the Geneuians doe And next they ioyne and iumpe with the old Arrian and Apollinarian Heretickes which denied our Sauiours true humane soule and therefore vnderstood those Scriptures as the Geneuians doe and not as the orthodoxe fathers vnderstood them that out of those Scriptures refuted their fooleries as Athanasius Theodoretus Epiphanius Cyprianus Augustinus Fulgentius Hieronymus Ambrosius Philippus Presbyter Ruffinus Cassiodorus Euthymius Beda Petrus Chrysologus and others whom the Church of England doth follow all which shall be God-willing particularly prooued in our Latine worke And the Geneuians doe ioyne with the same Apollinarian heretickes in vnderstanding by the Spirit of Christ in the third chapter of the first Epistle of Saint Peter 1. Pet. 3.18.19 his Diuinitie or God-head and not his humane Spirit though the other halfe of his humanitie to wit his flesh bee there mentioned with it like as in the same text they turne Christs person into Noahs and Christs preaching in Spirit vnto dead mens spirits after his passion into Noahs preaching in body vnto liuing men many hundreth yeares before the passion and incarnation Where note how that contrary to all learning diuine and humane they expound the word Spirit of a liuing man and not of the soule of one deceased And in the same absurd manner they turne Christs wrastling vpon the crosse into triumphing and make him to sing his owne triumph before his full and absolute victorie Finally as in expounding the Gospel they turne the heart or middle of the earth into a Tombe Math. 12.40 27.60 which was not so much as within the foreskin if I may so speake of the earth so in expounding the Epistle they turne the lower or lowest parts of the earth Eph. 4.8.9 whereinto our Sauiours soule descended into the vpmost parts or surface of the earth where in body hee conuersed when hee was vpon earth So that they turning thus vpside downe both in Gospell and Epistle as they doe we haue as little cause to iumpe or ioyne with Geneua in this point as wee haue to runne with Rome for the finding out of their fanaticall Limbus Patrum And thus I haue by a ten-fold probation cleered the truth of the doctrine of the Church of England touching our Sauiours descending into hell and haue with all dispelled the cloudes and mistes both of Romane and Geneuian opinions For as it is most certaine that our Sauiours soule did after death descend into hell which our Geneuians doe most vnlearnedly and