Roman Emperours who though they ruled the people by the advice of the Senate yet ruled the Senate as they pleased and made the intimation of their own will and pleasure to pass as currant as Law Quod Principi placuerit Legis habet valorem saith the book of Institutes And such almost is the conclusion of those Royal Edicts which daily is set out by the French Kings which generally ends with these formal words Car tel est nostre plaisir for such is our pleasure But this in these and other Princes of the like authority is rather a character of power then a Rule of justice the Rule of justice being to be straight and even and always constant to it self not alterable on occasions or turned aside by passions and humane affections The will of God is subject to no such vicissitudes to such turns and changes as the wils of men but an unalterable and most constant rule without variation such as the rule of equal and impartial justice is of right to be And by this rule it is that the Lord proceedeth in executing justice over all the World Which justice either doth consist in the performance of his promises for even a just and righteous man is as good as his word and then it may be called veracitas and is a species or kinde of Commutative justice or else in punishing or rewarding the sons of men according to the exigence of their several works and then it hath the name of distributiva or distributive justice That part thereof which doth consist in the performance of his promises and is called Veracitas may be defined to be a constant and unalterable purpose in Almighty God of bringing every thing to pass which he hath either promised to the sons of men or spoke concerning them by his holy Prophets which have been since the World began In the first sense it is said so often of him in the holy Scipture that he remembred the Covenant made with Abraham Isaac and Iacob performing to their seed and their children after them whatsoever he was pleased to promise more generally by the Royal Psalmist Custodit veritatem in seculum that he keepeth his promise for ever Psal. 146.6 And in the other sense it was said unto the Virgin Mary by her Cousin Elizabeth that there should be a performance of all those things which had been told her by the Lord Luk. 1.45 by the Apostle that all the Promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 by CHRIST himself that Heaven and earth should pass away but that there was not one Iod or title in the Word of God which in due time should not be accomplished If it consist in punishing the impenitent sinner or chastising his own dear children for their wilful follies we then call it punitive and so it comes within the compass of Gods heavenly anger which as St. Augustine doth define it non aliud est quam voluntas puniendi is nothing but the will of God to punish such as do offend against his Commandements If in rewarding those who conform themselves as far as humane frailty will permit to his laws and precepts it is called Remunerative and hath a great admixture in it both of love and mercy in passing by our faults to reward our faith that saying of St. Bernard being always true Semper invenies Deum benigniorem quam te culpabilem Nay even his anger or his punitive justice is so mixt with goodness that in the midst of judgement he remembreth mercy and dealeth not so extremely with us as we have deserved it being as true which I finde noted by Nicephorus Deum vindictae gladium oleo misericordiae semper acuere that God doth always scour the sword of his vengeance with the oyl of his mercy The World had been reduced by this time to its former nothing had not he sweetned the severity of his judgements by the balm of his mercies and grown into a Wilderness or vast confusion had he not held in by his Iustice the exorbitant power of those who make their lusts and their wils a Law And certainly if we consult the Monuments and Records of former times we shall finde no Age nor State of men or Nations which do not give us evident and plain examples of Gods proccedings in this kinde when the necessities of his Church or the sins of men do require it of him The subtle tyrannie of the Egyptians had not only taught them to oppress Gods people for the present but to extinguish the whole race of them for the time to come and therefore a command was given to the Midwives of Egypt to murder all the Male Children which were born to Israel Did not God scourge them with their own rod and pay them in their own coin as we use to say when he slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt And possibly the piety compassion of the Midwives of Egypt in sparing many of the Male children whom they might have murdered occasioned God to lay the fury of his vengeance on the first-born Male not on any of the Females throughout the Countrey When David surfeiting on plenty and the sweets of power not only had defiled the wife but destroyed the husband how fitly did God square the punishment unto the offence For presently a violent mixture of rape and incest is committed by one of his own sons on his daughter Tamar that rape revenged not long after in the death of the Ravisher the Murderer getting in short time such a potent party as to drive his Father out of Hierusalem and to defile his Wives and Concubines in the fight of the people When David was restored to his Crown again and growing vain in conceit of his own great power must needs command a general muster to be made of all his subjects that all the World might see of what strength he was and stand in fear of his displeasure how justly did God punish him and take down his pride in cutting off so many thousands of his people in whose strength he trusted and bringing him to this confession that all his strength and power was from God alone The loss of so many of his subjects was a loss to David the glory of a King consisting in the multitude of his subjects as the Wise-man tels us And though David interceded for them and took all the fault upon himself saying in the affliction of a troubled soul At oves istae quid fecerunt what had those sheep done yet was there none at all of that seventy thousand who had not many ways offended against Gods Commandements and therefore had deserved death as the wages of sin How patiently did God bear with the house of Iudah in their Idolatries and apostasie from his Laws and Precepts how frequently did he command them to rely on him in all times of danger By consequence how justly did
immaculate conception Ann. 1476. But for the further glory of it confirming a new festival on the 8 of December which in honour of her said conception the Canons of the Church of Lions had of late begun After when as the doctrine of original sin was agitated and debated in the Councell of Trent this Controversie was as hotly followed as if the Pope had never determined it Nor would the Councell bring it unto any conclusion for fear of giving offence to the side condemned and therefore very warily did so state the point as neither to exempt the Virgin from original sin nor include her under the obnoxiousness and guilt thereof Declarat Synodus non sibi esse propositum decreto hoc they mean the Canons which they made touching that particular B. Virginem comprehendere For my part I am loth to rob this most happy instrument of our Redemption of any priviledge or exemption whatsoever it be which may consist with the analogy of faith and the texts of Scripture But when I finde in holy Scripture that CHRIST came into the world to save sinners and that the Virgin did rejoyce in God her Saviour either I must conclude that she was a sinner if guilty only of original sin it shall serve my turn or else that she needed not a Saviour And when I read it in Nicephorus that she dyed in the 59. year of her age and was attended to her grave by all the Apostles met together not by chance but miracle I cannot but conclude her under the Law of sin or else she had not been subject to the stroke of death which is the wages of sin as St. Paul hath told us No Saviour if no sinner if no sin no death It must be either both or none there 's no question of it But it is easie to discern what this tends unto I mean the great care taken by the Church of Rome to free this blessed woman from all manner of sin and humane infirmitie Their meaning is to seat her in the throne of heaven and place her in the Mediatorship between God and man whereof she were not capable if she were a sinner By what degrees they came at last unto this height is not hard to shew They went it seemes on that old Philosophicall maxime that the way to make straight a crooked stick was to bend it quite the other way This way was followed first on mistaken zeal and afterwards pursued upon worldly prudence Helvidius and those other Hereticks before remembred would not allow her just attribute the Virgin Mary affirming with an high hand of impudence eam post Christum natum viro suo fuisse commixtam that after our Redeemers birth she was known by Ioseph This was encountred presently with another extreme the writers of the following times not only making her a Virgin in all mentall purity but in corporal integrity also contrary to the judgment of Tertullian Ambrose Hierom before remembred and generally of the Greek Fathers hardly one excepted the Schoolmen thereupon devising this trim distinction to reconcile those antients to their new opinion that Christ was brought into the world non fractione aliqua membrorum sed dilatatione meatuum The Antidicomaritani an old brood of Hereticks devested her as their name imports of all manner of righteousness making her not more holy then another woman And on the other side the Collyridians in dislike of this peevish humour placed her above the reach of nature afforded her divine honours a dressing up a foure square Chariot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as my Authour cals it did thereon sacrifice unto her as an heavenly Deity The Schoolmen treading in the steps of these Collyridians and having little else to do then to broach new fancies first freed her from all mortal then from venial sins from actual first and after from original also And this the Champions of that Church have more hotly followed because the Magdeburgians and some other of the Protestant Doctors have made a muster of many crimes infirmities they might have called them had they been so pleased with which they do as hotly charge her Nestorius once Patriarch of Constantinople though he allowed her the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mother of Christ would not allowe her to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mother of God and t is an expression I confesse which at the first hearing doth not sound so handsomely In opposition unto whom Cyrill of Alexandria and the rest of the Prelates at that time having condemned his doctrine of the two natures in Christ in the third General Councel did heap upon her all those Attributes which might manifest their dislike of him and his cause together Insomuch as Cyril doth not stick to call her in these early dayes pretiosum totius orbis thesaurum i. e. the most precious treasure of the world a lampe which cannot be put out the crown of Chastity the very scepter of true doctrine sceptrum verae doctrinae and not the scepter of the Catholick faith as our Rhemists read it And so far there was no harm done as long as those of Rome would contain themselves within the bounds prescribed by the antient Fathers whose pious flourishes devout meditations and Rhetoricall Apostrophe's aimed at nothing else then the commemoration of her faith and piety But let us look on the extravagancies of the writers of succeeding times and we shall finde that Anselm giveth this reason why Christ when ascended left his Mother here Ne curiae coelesti veniret in dubium c. lest else the Court of heaven should have been distracted whom they should first goe out to meet their Lord or their Lady That Bernardin Senensis doth not stick to say Mariam plura fecisse Deo quam fecit Deus toti generi humano that she did more to Christ in being his Mother then Christ to all mankinde in being their Saviour That Gabriel Biel a Schoolman of good name and credit hath shared the government of the world betwixt God and her God keeping Iustice to himself Misericordia Virgini concessa and left to her the free dispensing of his Mercies That Petrus Damianus tels us that when she mediates with her Son for any of her special votaries Non rogat ut Ancilla sed imperat ut Domina she begs not of him as a handmaid but commands as a Mistresse that Bonaventure in composing our Ladies Psalter hath applyed to her whatever was intended by the holy Ghost to the advancement of the honour of her Lord and Saviour that she is called frequently in their publick Rituals Mater misericordiae Mater gratiae Regina coeli with other the like glorious title which she dares not own that in the vulgar translation made Authentick by the Councell of Trent in stead of He shall break thy head which relates to Christ they read it Ipsa
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
or bad The ill successe that followed the young Prodigals journey was no part of his fathers purpose of his will and absolute decree much lesse no nor so much as to be ascribed unto his permission which was but causa sine qua non as the Schooles call it if it were so much Only it gave the Father such an opportunity as Adams fall did GOD in the present case of entertaining him with joy at his coming home and killing the faâ—ted Calfe for his better welcome T is true that God to whose eternal eye all things are present and fore-seen as if done already did perfectly fore-know to what unhappy end this poor man would come how far he would abuse that natural liberty wherewith he had endowed him at his first Creation Praescivit peccaturum sed non praedestinavit ad peccatum said Fulgentius truly And upon this fore-knowledge what would follow on it he did withall provide such a soveraign remedy as should restore collapsed man to his primitive hopes of living in Gods fear departing hence in his favour and coming through faith in Christ unto life eternall if he were not wanting to himself in the Application For this is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that CHRIST IESVS came into the World to save sinners of whom every man may say as St. Paul once did that he is the chief And it is as worthy of acceptance which came though from the same Spirit from a worthier person that God so loved the World the whole world of mankinde that He sent his only begouten Son into the World to the intent that whosoever did believe in him should live though he dyed and whosoever liveth and believeth in him should not die for ever but have as in another place everlasting life But what it is to believe in him and what a Christian man is bound to believe of him as it is all the subject of the six next Articles so must it be the argument of another book this touching our belief in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and all things therein with most of the material points which depend upon it beginning now to draw to a final period Chap. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the Salvation of the Gentiles and the Justifying power of Faith ANd yet before we pass to the following Articles there are some points to be disputed in reference to the several estates of the Church of God as it stood heretofore under the Law and since under the Gospel the influence which Faith had in their justification and the condition of those people which were Aliens to the law of Moses before Christs coming in the flesh For being that the Patriarchs before the time of Moses and those holy men of God that lived after him till the coming of Christ had not so clear and explicite a knowledge of the particulars of the Creed which concern our Saviour or the condition of the holy Catholick Church and the Members of it as hath been since revealed in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles it cannot be supposed that they should have universally the same object of faith which we Christians have or were bound to believe all those things distinctly touching Christ our Saviour and the benefits by him redounding to the sons of men which all Christians must believe if they will be saved And then considering that there is almost nothing contained in Scripture touching God the Father his Divine Power and Attributes the making and government of the World and all things therein which was to be believed by those of the line of Abraham but what hath been avowed and testified by the learned Gentiles it will not be unworthy of our disquisition to see wherein the differences and advantages lay which the Patriarchs and those of Iudah had above the Nations or whether the same light of truth did not shine on both through divers Mediums for the better fitting and preparing of both people to receive the Gospel In sifting and discussing of which principal points we shall consider what it is in faith it self which is said to justifie of what effect the Sacrifices both before and under the Law were to the satisfying of Gods wrath and expiating of the sins of the people by whom they were offered to the Lord and the relation which they had to the death of Christ the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world and finally what is to be conceived of those eminent men amongst the Gentiles who not extinguishing that light of nature which was planted in them but regulating all their actions by the beams thereof came to be very eminent in all kindes of learning and in the exercise of Iustice Temperance Mercy Fortitude and other Acts of Moral vertue Some other things will fall in incidently on the by which need not be presented in this general view And the mature consideration of all these particulars I have reserved unto this place that being situate in the midst between the Faith we have in God the Father Almighty and the belief required of us in his Son Christ Iesus it may either serve for an Appendix to the former part or a Preamble to the second or be in stead of a bond or ligament for knitting all the joints of this body together in the stronger coherence of discourse And first Faith being as appeareth by the definition before delivered a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed we cannot but conceive in reason that the Object of it is to be commensurable to the proportion and degree of the Revelation For as our Saviour said in another case that to whom much is given of him the more shall be required so may we also say in this that to whom more divine supernatural truths have been revealed of him there is a greater measure of belief expected Till the unhappy fall of Adam there was no faith required but in God alone For without faith it is impossible to please God saith the Apostle which Adam by the Law of his Creation was obliged to endeavour Nor could he come before the Lord or seek for the continuance of his grace and favours had he not first been fitted and prepared by faith For he that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him as in the same text saith the same Apostle Which words we may not understand of Faith in Christ at least not primarily with respect to Adam of whom such faith was not required in the state of Innocency for where there was no sin there was no need of a Saviour but only of a faith in Almighty God the stedfast confession and acknowledgement of whose beeing and bounty was to speak
is to be observed that Christ now seeing all was finished which God required at his hands to the satisfaction of his justice for the sins of man and having fulfilled all those things which were spoken of him by the Prophets did voluntarily of his own accord deliver up his soul into the hands of his Father He had before told us of himself that he was the good Shepheard which giveth his life for the sheep Ioh. 10.11 that no man had power to take it from him Si nemo utique nec mors and if none then not death as we read in Chrysostom but that he laid it down of himself vers 18. and that he gave his life as a ransome for many Matth. 20.28 And the event shewed that he was no braggard or had said more then he was able to perform For the Evangelists declare that he had sense and speech and voluntary motion to the last gasp of his breath all which do evidently fail in the sons of men before the soul parteth from the body Which breathing out of his soul so presently upon so strong a cry and so lowd a prayer seemed so miraculous to the Centurion who observed the same that without expecting any further Miracle he acknowledged presently that truly this was the Son of God And this St. Hierom noted rightly The Centurion hearing Christ say to his Father Into thy hands I commend my Spirit statim sponte dimisisse spiritum and presently of his own accord to give up the ghost moved with the greatness of the wonder said Truly this man was the Son of God The Fathers generally do affirm the same ascribing this last act of our Saviours Tragedy not to extremity of pain or loss of bloud to any outward violence or decay of spirits but as his own voluntary deed and that though God the Father had decreed he should die yet he did give him leave and power to lay down his life of his own accord that his obedience to the will and pleasure of his heavenly Father might appear more evidently and the oblation of himself be the more acceptable And to this purpose saith St. Ambrose Quasi arbiter exuendi suscipiendique corporis emisit spiritum non amisit i. e. he did not lose his soul though he breathed it forth as one that had it in his own power both to assume his body and to put it off Eusebius to the same purpose also When no man had power over Christs soul he himself of his own accord laid it down for man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so being free at his own disposing and not over-ruled by outward force he himself of himself made his departure from the body The judgement of the rest of the Fathers touching this particular he that list to see let him consult St. Augustine lib. 4 de Trinit c. 13. Victor Antiochen in Marc. c. 15. Leo de Passione Dom. serm 16. Fulgentius lib. 3. ad Thrasimundum Sedulius in Opere Paschali lib. 5. c. 17. Beda in Matth. c. 27. Bernard in Feria 4. Hebdom poenosae And for the Greeks Athanasius Orat. 4. contra Arianos Origen in Ioh. Hom. 19. Gregorie Nyssen in Orat. 1. de Christi Resurrectione Nazianzen in his Tragedy called Christus patiens Chrysostom in Matth. 27. Homil. 89. Theophylact on the 27. of Matth. and the 23. of Mark. and the 23. of Luke And for late Writers Erasmus on Luk. 23. and Mark 15. Musculus on the 27. of Matthew and Gualter Hom. 169. on Iohn all which attest most punctually to the truth of this that the death of Christ was not meerly natural proceeding either from any outward or inward causes but only from his own great power and his holy will And to what purpose note they this but first to shew the conquest which he had of death whom he thus swallowed up in victory as the Apostle doth express it and secondly to shew that whereas natural death was the wages of sin which could not be inflicted on him in whom no sin was he therefore did breath out his soul in another manner then is incident to the sons of men to make himself a free-will offering to the Lord his God and make himself a sacrifice for the sins of mankinde by yeelding willingly to that death which their sins deserved And to this death this voluntary but bodily death of the Lord CHRIST IESVS and to that alone the Scriptures do ascribe that great work of the worlds redemption For thus St. Paul unto the Romans When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.11 to the Hebrews thus For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 if by Christs death it must be by his bodily death by effusion of his bloud and by no other death or kinde of death of what sort soever And to this truth the Scriptures witness very frequently For thus St. Paul we have redemption through his bloud Ephes. 1.7 By his own bloud hath he entred into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.12 St. Peter thus Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Finally thus the Elders say unto the Lamb in the Revelation Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud Apocal. 5 9. Which being so it is most certain that Christ abolished sin and Satan by suffering his body to be slain his bloud to be shed unto the death or the sins of the world and not by any other way or means co-ordinate with it as some lately fable Yet so it is that some men not content with that way of Redemption which is delivered in the Scriptures have fancyed to themselves another and more likely means for perfecting that great work of the death of Christ and teach us that the shedding of his bloud to the death of his body had not been sufficient for the remission of our sins if he had not also suffered the death of the soul and thereby wholly ransomed us from the wrath of God Calvin first led the dance in this affirming very desperately that I say no worse Nihil actum esse si corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset that Christ had done nothing to the purpose if he had dyed no other then a bodâ—ly death He must then die the death of the soul seeing that his bodily death would not serve the turn and they who pretermit this part of our Redemption never known before and do insist so much externo carnis supplicio in the outward sacrifice of his flesh are insulsi nimis but silly fellows
for all that to call God his own It was still Deus meus Deus meus to the very last gasp And he that hath the confidence as to say my God to appropriate God unto himself as his own God is far enough off from being in despair there 's no question of it Nothing can then be left but the fires of hell and they could work no further then upon his body or the outside only of his soul if I may so call it the inward man being senseless of the heats thereof since it was neither subject to rejection or remorse at all though to say truth he suffered not the fires of hell neither in body nor in soul nor in both united Not in his Person in this life nor his soul singly by it self whilest he lived amongst us For hell fire is not to be found but in hell it self and neither soul nor body were in hell when he was alive Not in his body after his death and burial for that lay quiet in the Grave neither touched nor troubled Nor in his soul neither when he went to hell for none do suffer hell torments in the place of torments but they which are sentenced to DAMNATION and I have so much confidence of their Christianity as to believe they dare not say and as yet they do not that Christ was damned No Christian could endure such an horrid blasphemy especially if it were delivered in tearms express Yet I must tell you by the way that some come very neer it to a tantamont whose doctrine it is and 't is a doctrine built upon Calvins principles that Christ did locally descend to the place of torments ibi quoque poenas nostris peccatis debitas luisse and did there suffer the very pains which are due to us for our sins For otherwise say they which is Calvins reason non plena fuisset ipsius pro nobis satisfactio his satisfaction for our sins had not been sufficient Which were it true as Beza very well observeth Ne corpori quidem parcendum erat he was not to have spared his body but was to have descended into hell both in body and soul in regard that death eternal is the wages of sin and that not of the soul only but the body also Such horrible absurdities doe men fall into if once they stray aside from the paths of truth If then he neither suffered remorse in conscience nor rejection from the fight and favour of God nor had any reason to despair of Gods love to him which are properly the punishments or torments which do belong unto the damned if he suffered not so much as for a moment the very fire of hell in the place of torments assuredly he tasted no more of hell pains in his soul then his body in the grave did of grief and sorrow But then they say that he did struggle hard with the powers of darkness and trembled at the horrour of Gods dreadful judgements This we acknowledge to be true but this is short I trow of the pains of hell He struggled hard no doubt with the Prince of darkness both in his Temptation in the Wilderness and all those conflicts which he had with the powers of hell both in the Garden and on the Cross. He trembled also it is probable upon the apprehension of Gods anger against sinful man whose person he had taken on him and on the fight and knowledge of those dreadful punishments even eternal death which God in his just judgement did denounce against wilful and impenitent sinners If Calvin mean no more then this by his Oportuit eum cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore quasi consertis manibus luctari we assent unto him But who knows not that hath but common sense and reason how much the greatest conflict with the powers of Satan the greatest apprehension that a man can have of Gods wrath and anger against sin the greatest trembling that can possibly invade him on that apprehension fals short of all the least of those infinite torments which are prepared in hell for the damned souls But then the question will be asked whether Christ did not suffer all those punishments for the redemption of man which man himself must needs have suffered had not Christ come to redeem him if yea he must then suffer also the pains of hell which can be understood in no other sense then in that they take it if not there wanted somewhat to make up the scale for satisfaction of Gods justice To this I answer first in the way of negation in plain tearms he did not for he neither was nor could be damned and what else but damnation is the final punishment belonging to impenitent sinners I answer secondly with a limitation that he did suffer all those things which either were beseeming him or behooful for us all kinde of punishments whatsoever which did neitherâ— prejudice that plenitude of sanctity or science which was vested in him For further clearing of which point we must distinguish with the Schoolmen of three sorts of punishments whereof the first is called culpa which is plainly sin as when God punisheth one sin with another as the proud with envy the covetous man sometimes with miserable parsimony sometimes with ambition the second is ex culpa ad culpam something proceeding from sin and inducing to it as natural concupiscence an inclination to do evill a contrariety in the faculties of the soul c. The third is ex culpa sed nec culpa nec ad culpam as they phrase it that is to say that which proceeds from sin but neither is sin in it self nor doth incline him unto sin in whom it is As hunger thirst weakness and death it self which are the consequents of sin since the sin of Adam Of this sort only are the punishments which our Saviour suffered and they are likewise of two sorts for they are either suffered for sin imputed or for sin inherent a man being sometimes punished for his own offences and sometimes for anothers fault imputed to him He that is punished for his own faults hath remorse of conscience condemning himself of drawing such guilt upon his soul and with that guilt such miseries both on soul and body but he that suffereth for the fault of another man of which he is no cause at all either by perswasion help consent or example hath no such remorse Now our Redeemer suffered for the sins of other men and not for any of his own and consequently was not touched with remorse of conscience though it be generally found in all men at one time or another and be neither sin nor inducement to sin Lastly these punishments which are punishments only and not sin such as are common to the whole nature of man and suffered for the faults of another man are of two sorts also either the punishments of sin eternally remaining in stain or guilt or ceasing at the least broken off
resurrection of our Lord and Saviour there came a signall benefit unto all the world which else had been fast bound for ever in the bonds of death without any hope of rising to a better life For being risen in our nature then our nature is riâ—en and if our nature be then our persons may be especially considering that he and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul hath told us so graffed into one another that he is part of us and we part of him And therefore very well said Bernard Resurrexit solus sed non totus Though he be only risen by his own proper power yet as yet he is not risen wholly nor will be untill we be raised together with him He is but risen in part by this resurrection and that he may rise all of him he must raise t is also In this respect our Saviour is entituled Primogenitus omnis Creaturae the first born or first begotten of every creature viz. first in the order of time he being the first that was ever raised from death unto life immortall and first also in the order of causality all others which have been or shall be raised or begotten to immortall life being so raised and begotten by vertue of his resurrection And in the same respect he is called Primitiae dormientium or the first fruits of them that sleep because his rising is not only the pledge and earnest of our rising also but that we shall be raised to the same state of happinesse and eternall glory which he hath attained since his rising The offering of the first fruits drew a blessing upon all the rest For if the first fruits be holy the lumpe saith the Apostle is also holy If then the first fruits of the dead be offered to Almighty God in Christ our Saviour no question but the after-fruits or the whole increase will be very acceptable and laid up in the barn of that heavenly husbandman according to the scope of our Saviours Parable And yet perhaps St. Paul might have a further aime in calling our Saviour the first-fruits of them that sleep then hath yet been spoke of it hapning so by the sweet disposition of Gods special providence that the day of his glorious resurrection did fall that year upon the second day of the feast of unleavened bread or the morrow after the Sabbath of that great solemnity upon which day the first-fruits were to be offered unto God by his own appointment Of which see Levit. 23.10 11. Here then we have the principall effect and fruit of Christs resurrection the resurrection of our own bodies from the power of death the resurrection both of soul and body to eternall life And yet there are some other intermediate benefits which redound to us some other motives and inducements which relate to him For his part first had he not risen from the dead he had still lain under the guilt of that imposture wherewith the Priests and Elders charged him when he was interred And who would then have preached his Gospel or embraced his doctrine or yeelded belief to any thing he had said before For if Christ be not risen from the dead again as St. Paul reasoneth very strongly then were our faith in vain and their preaching vain Had he not risen from the dead and manifested it by such signes and wonders he never had attained to the reputation of being generally accounted and believed in for the Son of God or such a God at best who doth die like men and fall like others of the Princes some earthly Magistrate at the most and no great one neither Nor was it necessary to his glory only but to our justification For how could we assure our selves of salvation by him or of redemption in his bloud had he been swallowed up in death and not appeared alive again for our consolation Manens in morte peccata non expiasset mortem non vicisset as the Father hath it and then how could we hope to be saved by him qui se ipsum servare non potuit who was not of ability to save himself How could we Christians of all men most miserable be possibly assured of this saving truth that Christ was delivered for our sins if he had not risen again for our justification that is to say if by his rising from the dead he had not setled and confirmed us in that assurance The reason is because the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour was as it were his actual absolution from those sins of ours for the which he dyed and his deliverance from that death which as the wages of sin we had all deserved Calvin hath very Orthodoxly resolved it so Resuscitatio Christi a mortuis ejus est actualis absolutio a peccatis nostris pro quibus mortuus est as he there determineth And he determineth it according unto that of the great Apostle saying if Christ be not risen your faith is vain yee are yet in your sins that is to say still under the command and the guilt of sin from which you have no other assurance to be absolved and quitted in the day of judgment then only by the vertue of his resurrection How wretched then is the condition of the Iews and those other Hereticks who either utterly denie the resurrection as did Simon Magus and the Maniches or post it off as not yet past till some further time which was one of the heresies of Cerinthus or make it but an allegory no true reall action as do the Family of love Assuredly the least we can affirme of them and the like vile miscreans is that they have no inheritance in the house of Iesse nor any portion at all in the son of David that they who wilfully deny his resurrection shall never finde other resurrection but to shame and torment But on the contrary the Orthodox Professors in the Chrrstian Church not only have believed this Article and stood up in defence thereof to the last drop of their bloud as often as the Princes of the earth have conspired together against the Lord and his anointed but for the better imprinting of it in the souls of simple and unlearned people and for perpetuall commemoration of so great a mercy did institute the feast of Easter A festival of all others the most antient in the Christian Church ordained and celebrated in the purest ages of the same while some of the Apostles were yet living A feast received with so unanimous affection throughout the world that though some difference happened about the time when it should be celebrated yet there was never any question made of the feast it self All of them kept an Easter though not all at a time some of the Eastern Churches in compliance with the Iews amongst whom they lived keeping it on the 14. day of the Moon as the Iews did the Passeover â—ll other
the sin against the Holy Ghost or utterly past hope of pardon Nor is the case much better if we read it wilfully though better with some sort of men than it is with others For miserable were the state of us mortal men if every sin that is committed wilfully which too often hapneth either against the truth of science or the light of conscience should make a man uncapable of the mercy of God as one that blasphemed or sinned take which word you will against the power and vertue of the Holy Ghost A doctrine never countenanced in the Primitive times the Church extending her indulgence to the worst of Hereticks and opening both her arms and bosom unto those Apostataes which with true sorrow for their sins did return unto her condemning the Novatians for too rigid and severe in their bitter Tenet touching the non-admittance of them unto publick penance and after that unto the Sacraments of the Church again Which being premised the meaning of the Text will appear to be onely this That they who willingly offend after they have received the knowledge of the truth and Gospel must not expect another Christ to die for them or that he who died once for their sins should again die for them St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom do expound it so Out of whom Clictoveus in his Continuation of St. Cyrils Commentaries upon the Gospel of St. Iohn informs us That the Apostle doth not hereby take away the second or third remission of sins for he is not such an enemy to our Salvation but saith onely that Christ our Sacrifice shall not be offered any more upon the Cross for the man so sinning And this is further proved to be the very meaning of the Apostle in the place disputed out of the scope and purpose of his discourse which was to shew unto the Iews that it was not with them now as it was under the Law For under the Law they had daily Sacrifices for their sins but under the Gospel they had but one Sacrifice once for all Every Priest saith he doth stand daily ministring and offering often times the same sacrifice but this man JESUS after he had offered one sacrifice sate down for ever at the right-hand of God than which there cannot be a clearer explanation of the Text in question Though Sacrifices were often reiterated in the times of the Law Hic vero nec baptismus repetitur neque Christus bis nisi cum ludibrio mori pro peccato yet neither is Baptism to be reiterated in the times of the Gospel nor can Christ be exposed for sin to a second death without a great deal of scorn as Heinsius hath observed from Chrysostom Some light doth also rise to this Exposition from the words immmediately succeeding where the Apostle speaks of a certain expectation of a fearful judgment Which joyned unto the former verse have this sense between them That he which doth not put his whole trust and confidence in the sufficiency of the Sacrifice already offered but for every sin expects a new Sacrifice also must look for nothing in the end but a fearful judgment which most undoubtedly first or last shall fall upon him The third and last place which is commonly alleged for proof that there are some sins irremissible in their own nature is that of St. Iohn If any man saith he see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask and God shall give life for them that sin not unto death There is a sin unto death I do not say he shall pray for it In which words we finde two sorts of sins a sin to death and a sin that is not to death a sin which is not unto death for the remission of the which a man is bound to pray in behalf of his Brother a sin to death concerning which it seems unlawful for one man to pray for another And yet it doth but seem so neither For the Apostles words I do not say he shall pray for it amount not to a Negative that he shall not pray for it as the fautors of the contrary opinion would full gladly have it 〈◊〉 â—ather to a toleration that they might pray if they would the business being of 〈◊〉 a nature that the Apostle had no minde to encourage them in it because he could not promise them the success desired but leaving every man to himself to pray or not to pray as his affections to the party or Christian pity of the case might induce him to That by peccatum ad mortem somewhat more is meant than ordinary mortal sins is a thing past question but what it is is not so easie to discover St. Augustine will have the sin which is here called a sin unto death to be that sin wherein a mam continueth until his death without repentance but addes withal That in as much as the name of the sin is not expressed many and different things may be thought to be it Pacianus an old Catholick writer interprets it of peccata manentia Such sins as men continue in till the hour of death St. Ierom reckoneth such men to commit this sin Qui in sceliribus permanent who abide in their wickedness and express no sense nor sorrow of their lost estate The Protestant writers do expound it generally of the sin against the Holy Ghost For which say they no man ought to pray because our Saviour hath testified it to be irremissible And to this end they do allege a place from Ierom affirming Stultum esse pro eo orare qui peccaverit ad mortem That it is a foolish thing to pray for him which sins unto death because the man that is marked out to some visible ruine nullis precibus erui potest cannot possibly be reprieved by prayer But herein Ierom is not consonant to himself elswhere for in another place he telleth us with more probability that nothing else is here meant but that a prayer for such a sin whatsoever it be is very difficulty heard And this I take to be the truer or at least the more probable meaning of the Apostle who saith immediately before This is the confidence which we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us 1 Iohn 5.14 And therefore lest we should conceive that this holds true in all Petitions whatsoever which we make for others he addes That if it be a great sin such as is not ordinarily forgiven but punished with death I dare not say that you can either pray with confidence or that I can give you any great hopes of prevailing in it According as God said to the Prophet Ieremy Pray not for this people for I will not hear thee And though St. Augustine sometimes thought this sin to be final impenitency or a continuance in sin till death without repentance yet in his Book of Retractations he resolves the contrary affirming That
of great goodness saith the Prophet David O Hierusalem Heirusalem saith the son of David how often would I have gathered thee together as a Hen doth her Chickens but ye would not But is the patience of a Father so implanted in him that it can never be worn out and converted to anger Not so we know it is a proverb that patientia laesa fit furor the greatest patience if abused may possibly be turned to the greatest fury or anger at the least in the highest degree How angry was old Iacob with his two sons the Brethren in evil when he desired his soul might not come into their secret and prayed to God to scatter them in Jacob and divide them in Israel And cannot God be angry think we with his stubborn and rebellious children when they do wilfully transgress his holy laws and with an high hand violate all his sacred precepts Why then doth he so often punish those that do amiss for Ira Dei non est aliud quam voluntas puniendi as St. Augustine hath it the anger of God is only his just will to chastise the sinner Why then did he repent of his making man or rain down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah as it is said he did Why then do we beseech him with such shame and sorrow to correct us in his judgement and not in his fury that we may not be consumed and brought to nothing He that bids us be angrie and sin not intended not the extirpation but the moderation of anger And thereupon Lactantius very well inferreth Qui ergo irasâ—i nos jubet ipse utique irascitur he that bids us be angry so we do not sin can without doubt be angrie too when he seeth occasion The like may be affirmed also of those other affections which are in Parents towards those whom they have begotten Remove the imperfections from them and the affections of themselves after separation may without any danger and as some Schoolmen think without any Metaphor be ascribed to GOD. Now out of those affections which before we specified ariseth the chief care of our natural parents which is to see us trained up in some lawful trades or in the knowledge of good letters that being put into a course of good education we may subsist with credit and escape those miseries which poverty and necessity may else bring upon us And out of that authority which they have by nature to dispose of us as they see most sutable unto our deserts ariseth the chief power of our natural parents either to make us heirs of their goods and fortunes or to leave us out First for the care of education it seemed so necessary to the Grecians in the former times that one of their Wisemen did use to say Praestat non nasci that it was better not to be born then not well instructed And by the laws of Rome which they had from Greece when as the father now grown old and out of work did sue his son for Alimonie as we use to call it it was a good plea in the son against his Father that he had never taken care of his education or trained him in the knowledge of any Art either ingenuous or mechanick Filius arte carens Patris incuria eidem necessaria vitae subsidia ne praestato was one of the laws of the twelve Tables How much more necessary must we think that part of our education which the wise Grecian never knew nor ever was prescribed by the laws of Rome that part I mean by which young children are instructed in the fear of GOD and taught betimes to run the pathes of the Lords commandements But if the Father do his office if that no care be wanting on his part to instruct his children if he admonish and advice them when they do amiss and they continue still to afflict his heart either by neglecting that imployment in which he hath placed them or wasting his estate in riotous and licentious courses is the poor Father left without further remedy then what may be had upon complaint from the Civil Magistrate No by no means The Father at the first by the law of Nations had potestatem vitae necis the power of life and death over all their children But after the receiving of the Christian faith the law was altered in that case by the following Emperours And now as the Civilians tell us Parentibus solummodo relinquitur honesta emendatio maximis ex causis exhaeredatio i. e. The fathers power consisteth most especially in these points to punish and chastise them for their smaller faults and disinherit them in time if they prove incorrigible Which power as it was used by Iacob on his eldest son Reuben because he had defiled his old fathers bed so hath it since been ordinary in the practise of all times and ages though perhaps more to be commended where it may not then where it may possibly be spared Such also is the care and consequently such the power of our Heavenly Father For who but he taught Abel how to order Sheep and Cain to till the ground or to be an husbandman Iubal to play on instruments and Tubal-cain to work in iron who but he called forth Ioshua to fight his battels and Aaron and his sons to serve at the holy Altar And for the bringing of them up in the fear of GOD he hath revealed himself so far to the Turks and Pagans and in the former times to the antient Gentiles which are his children only by the right of Creation that by the things which he hath made they may perceive both his eternal power and Godhead Though he permitted them for a while to walk in their own ways and so fulfil their several lusts yet left he not himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or without a witness in that he shewed his works unto them and filled their hearts with food and gladness Nay that which may be known of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul calleth it is manifest in them for the invisible things of God saith the same Apostle from the creation of the world are clearly seen that is as Augustine doth expound it per visibilia Creaturae pervenisse eos ad intelligent am invisiblis Creatoris by studying on the Book of Nature they came to understand the nature of GOD. For further proof whereof if more proof be necessary we need but have recourse to the former Chapter where we did prove this point that there was a God and that he is eternal and incomprehensible of infinite both power and wisdome Nor did GOD leave them so in this general knowledge but he revealed so much of his will unto them as is included or expressed in the law of Nature The Gentiles saith St. Paul which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law which
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
and reverent deportment of themselves in the act thereof St. Hierom who gives us a very good description of these Arreptitious or Extatical spirits affirming of them Nec tacere nec loqui in sua potestate habent that they could neither hold their peace nor speak when they would themselves but as they were compelled by the evil spirit hath given a different character of the holy Prophets Of whom he saith Intelligit quod videt nec ut amens loquitur he understands the Vision which he doth behold and speaks not like a madman one besides himself nor like the raving women of the sect of Montanus And in another place Non loquitur in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut Montanus c. sed quod prophetat liber est Visionis intelligentis universa quae loquitur The Prophet of the Lord saith he speaketh not in a trance or besides himself as Montanus Prisca Maximilla spread abroad their dotages but that which he foretelleth is surnamed a Vision the Vision of the Prophet Nahum ch 1. because he understands what he doth deliver The like difference Epiphanius makes betwixt the Prophets of the Lord and those of Montanus against whom he purposely disputeth Haeres 48. And long before them it was said by Lactantius truly of the Prophets of God whom the Gentiles had been pleased to accuse of madness and called them Furiosi as they did their own that the accomplishment of their predictions their consonancy or unanimous consent in the things foretold and the coherency of their words and sentences did very sufficiently free them from that imputation Impleta in plerisque quotidie illorum vaticinia videmus in unam sententiam congruens divinam docet non fuisse furiosos Quis enim mentis emotae non modo futura praecinere sed etiam cohaerentia loqui possit as he most excellently answereth so foul a calumny So then the Prophets of the Lord having a true intention to foretel what should come to pass and being able not to make a good construction of what they spake but also to give assurance to the people in the name of God that every thing should come to pass which they had foretold were nothing like the Heathen Soothsayers who used to speak they knew not what in their Divinations And yet it will not follow upon this distinction that they did explicitely and distinctly comprehend the fulness of those holy mysteries which the holy Ghost was pleased to make known and fore-signifie by them the knowledge of which mysteries as St. Paul hath told us was not made known in other Ages to the sons of men as in his time it was revealed to the holy Apostles and Prophets by the self same Spirit Which being so and that the knowledge of CHRIST IESVS and him crucified was not communicated to the Iews which lived under the Law or the Patriarchs which did live before it in so distinct and clear a manner as it hath been since I dare not confidently say that any explicite faith in the death of CHRIST was required at their hands as necessary to their justification or that they actually did believe more in it then Gods general promise concerning the redemption and salvation of the world by the womans seed with some restrictions of that seed to the stock of Abraham and the house of David which had not been delivered in the first assurance Certain I am that of all the Clowd of witnesses mentioned by St. Paul amongst all those examples of faith and piety which he hath laid before us in the 11. to the Hebrews there is no mention made at all of faith in Christ nor any word so much as by intimation that Noah Abraham Moses or the rest there spoken of did look upon him as an object of their faith at all The total and adaequate object of their faith for ought I can finde was only God the Maker of Heaven and Earth on whose veracity and fidelity in making good his general and particular promise they did so rely as not to bring the same under any dispute For what faith else doth any Text of Scripture give to Abel or Enoch then that they did believe that there was a God and that he was a rewarder of all those that seek him What Faith else was it that saved Noah in the midst of the waters but that he did believe what God said unto him touching his intention of bringing a floud of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh and thereupon did build thn Ark as the Lord commanded Or what else was the faith of Isaac when he blessed Iacob and Esau or of Iacob when he blessed the sons of Ioseph or of Ioseph when he gave commandement as concerning his bones Heb. 11.21 22 23. but a reliance on the promise which God made to Abraham of giving to him and his seed the whole land of Canaan But because Abraham is proposed in the holy Scripture as the great example of the righteousness which comes by faith or of justification by faith call it which you will we will consider all those Texts which do look this way to see what was the object of that faith of Abraham to which the Scriptures do ascribe his justification Now the first act of Abrahams faith which stands commended to us in the Book of God is the belief he gave to the promise of God to bless him and make him a great Nation and his obedience thereupon unto Gods command in leaving his own Countrey and his Fathers house and go unto the land which the Lord should shew him Which promise being afterwards confirmed by God and believed by Abraham it is thus testified of him in the book of Genesis that he believed in the Lord and he that is to say the Lord counted it unto him for righteousness Here then we have the Iustification of our Father Abraham ascribed unto his Faith in the Lord IEHOVAH to faith in God as the proper and full object of it as the word is varyed by St. Paul Rom. 4.3 Thus also when the promise was made of the birth of Isaac without considering of the deadness of Sarahs womb or the estate of his own body then as good as dead he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but faithfully believed that God was able to perform what he pleased to promise And this saith the Apostle was imputed to him for righteousness Of which of these two acts of faith the Apostle speaketh in the third of the Galatians where Abrahams faith is imputed to him also for righteousness it is hard to say but sure it is that there is no other faith there mentioned but his Faith in God For it is said Even as Abraham believed God c. And last of all as to the imputation of his faith for righteousness when God commanded him to offer up Isaac his onely begotten Sonne even him of whom it had been
said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called Abraham was ready to obey him upon this belief that God was able to raise him again from death to life and that Gods Word concerning him would not fall to ground What saith St. Iames to this great trial of the Patriarchs faith Abraham saith he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness In all those Texts where the Apostles speak of his Iustification or where the principal acts of his Faith are recited severally there is no intimation of his Faith in Christ nothing that seems to look that way more then that Gods first promise which was made in general to the Womans seed may seem to be restrained unto his particularly Whether these several imputations of the faith of Abraham do necessarily infer such an access of Iustification as is defended and maintained in the Schools of Rome I will not meddle for the present But in my minde Origen never spake more pertinently then where he gives this resolution of that doubt though not then proposed Quum multae fides Abrahae praecesserint in hoc nunc universa fides ejus collecta esse videtur ita in justitiam ei reputatur Whereas saith he many faiths of Abraham that is to say may acts of Abrahams faith had gone before now all his faith was recollected and summed up together and so accounted unto him for righteousness And if no other faith but a faith in God without any explicite relation to the death of CHRIST concurred unto the justification of the faithful Abraham the like may be concluded of the house of Israel that they were only bound to believe in God the Father Almighty till by Christs coming in the flesh and suffering death upon the Cross for the sins of man all that concerns his death and passions with all the other specialties in the present Creed made up together with our faith in God the Father the full and entire object of a Christian faith For this is life eternal saith our Lord and Saviour to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Not God alone but God and Iesus Christ together are since the Preaching of the Gospel made the object of faith So that it is not now sufficient to believe in God unless we also do believe in the Son of God whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins as St. Paul hath told us But here perhaps it will be said that though we do not read expressely in the holy Scriptures that the Patriarchs before Moses and the Fathers afterwards did believe in Christ yet that the same may be inferred by good and undeniable consequence out of the frequent Sacrifices before the Law and the Mosaical offerings which continued after it all which together with the rest of the Levitical Ordinances were but shadows of the things to come the body being only CHRIST That God instructed our first father Adam in the duty of Sacrifice I shall easily grant there being such early mention of them in the Book of God in the several and respective offerings of Cain and Abel And I shall grant as easily that GOD proposed some other end of them in that institution then to receive them as a Quit-rent from the hands of men in testimony that they held their estates from him as the Supreme Land-lord though by Rupertus this be made the chief end thereof Dignum sane est ut donis suis honoretur ipse qui dedit as that Author hath it which possibly may hold well enough in those kinde of Sacrifices which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gratulatory Eucharistical that is the Sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving for those signal benefits which GOD had graciously vouchsafed to bestow upon them But then there was another sort which they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expiatory or propitiatory ordained by God himself as the Types and figures of that one only real and propitiatory sacrifice which was to be performed in the death of CHRIST who through the eternal Spirit was to offer up himself once without spot to God for the redemption of the world yet were they not bare Types and figures and had no efficacy in themselves as to the taking away of the filth of sin for the Apostle doth acknowledge that the bloud of Buls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean did sanctifie as to the purifying of the flesh Heb. 9.13 but that such efficacy as they had was not natural to them but either in reference to the Sacrifice to be made of CHRIST or else extrinsecal and affixed by the divine Ordinance and institution of Almighty God And that they might be so in this last respect there want not very pregnant reasons in the Word of God For whereas God considered as the Supreme Law-giver had imposed a commandement on man under pain of death although it stood not with his wisdome to reverse the Law which with such infinite wisdome had been first ordained yet it seemed very sutable to his grace and goodness to commute the punishment and satisfie himself with the death of Beasts offered in sacrifice unto him by that sinful Creature Which kinde of Commutations are not rare in Scripture It pleased God to impose a command on Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac for a burnt offering to him upon one of the mountains and after to dispense with so great a rigour and in the stead of Isaac to send a Ram It pleased God to challenge to himself the first born of every creature both of man and beast but so that he was pleased in the way of exchange in stead of the first born of the sons of men to take a Lamb a pair of Turtle Doves or two young Pigeons Now that these commutations were allowed of also in the case of punishment is evident by many Texts of holy Writ And this not only in sins of ignorance the Expiation of the which is mentioned Levit. 5.17 18. but in those which were committed knowingly and with an high hand of presumptuous wickedness Lying and swearing falsely deceiving our neighbour and taking away his goods by violence are sins of high and dangerous nature against both Tables and therefore in themselves deserved no less punishment then eternal damnation yet was God pleased to accept of the bloud of Rams in commutation or exchange for the soul of man If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord and lye unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep or in fellowship or in a thing taken away by violence or hath deceived his neighbour or hath found that which was lost and lyeth concerning it and sweareth falsely in all these he doth sin and that greatly too there 's no question of it And yet of these it is
the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world
Deus in secula brnedictus as St. Paul calleth him in the 9. Chap. to the Romans vers 5. Deus in carne manifestatus God manifested in the flesh in the first to Timothy St. Iohn speakes home unto the point and doth more puzzle the Socinian and Arian hereticks then all the book of God besides In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God In the beginning when was that When God created first the heaven and the earth when the earth was without forme and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep then the word was that is to say it had a perfect actuall being when all things else did but begin to be and having then an actual and a proper being it could not at that time nor at any time since begin to be but was and is and so continueth without ending In the beginning was the word what word that word by which the worlds were made as St. Paul hath it by whom all things were made saith St. Iohn and without which nothing was made saith the same Evangelist The word which after was made flesh and did dwel amongst us and by the brightnesse of his glory did declare himself to be the only begotten Son of the Father Ioh. 1. The expresse image of his person Heb. 1.3 the image of the invisible God Col. 1.15 That word in the beginning was and was God the word the Son of God not by communication of grace but nature therefore the natural Son of God but so the Son of God his begotten Son as to be very God for the word was God The Word was God saith the Apostle not only by a participation of power or communiâ—ation of a more abundant measure of his graces in which respects some of the Sons of Men are called Gods in Scripture Ego dixi Dii estis saith the royal Psalmist but properly and truly God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very true God and the Son of God We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true And we are in him that is true even in his son Jesus Christ who is the true God and the life eternal saith the same Apostle Here have we CHRIST the Son of God and CHRIST the true God both in one and what need further evidence in a point so clear Such further Topicks as are used for the proof hereof from the names given him in the Scripture the attributes and mighty workes ascribed unto him and the company of such texts in the book of God as being spoken of the Father in the old Testament are applyed in the new unto the Son I purposely forbear at present and shall content my self with such ample testimonies which CHRIST himself hath given to his own Divinity For though it be an unusual thing to admit a mans own testimony in his own cause according unto that of our Lord and Saviour If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true that is to say it would not passe for currant or be taken for truth yet when a man lyeth under any accusation he may then speak what he can in defence of himself and his testimony be allowed of towards his acquitment or justification And therefore Christ our Saviour being challenged by the Pharisees who were apt to cavil at his sayings for speaking in his own behalfe returned this answer Though I bear record of my self yet my record is true Upon this ground then we proceed and though it be the last in order of our Saviours life yet we will first alleage that passage which happened in the high Priests hall on the day of his passion The high Priest finding no sufficient testimony for his condemnation resolved to put him to the oath of ex officio and therefore did adjure him by the living God to tell them whether he were the Christ the Son of God to which our Saviour answered saying Thou hast said Which though it be equivalent to an affirmation yet to make sure work of it and put it out of doubt St. Marke hath given his answer in these positive termes Iesus said I am In which it is to be observed that when the high Priests put our Saviour to this dangerous question he spake not of the Son of God in that vulgar sense in which the just and righteous persons were called his sons but of the Son of God in the natural sense in which he could not verifie himself for the Son of God without including necessarily that he was also God As in the 5. Chap. of St. Iohn where our Saviour having said My Father worketh hitherto and I also work the incensed Iews intended him some present mischief not only because he had broken the Sabbath but had said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God And this appears yet further by the following words where it is said that the high Priest rent his clothes saying he hath spoken blasphemy and thereupon pronounced him to be guilty of death which vote they after prosecuted before Pontius Pilate affirming that he ought to die by the Law of Moses because he had made himself the Son of God Assuredly their meaning was that he had made himself the true and natural Son of God and not the Son of God by especial grace for otherwise they had not voted him to be guilty of death Nor had the high Priest rent his clothes if he had only taken upon himself the name of CHRIST or of the Messiah because that could not come within the compasse of Blasphemy For they knew well that the Messiah or the Christ was to come in the forme of man though with more outward pomp and glory as they supposed then our Saviour did and therefore though they might have condemned him of folly in that being a man of no reputation he had taken on himself the name of CHRIST they had no reason in the world to accuse him of Blaspheming the name of God Now that the Messiah was to come in the form of man being he was to come of the womans seed was a thing so perfectly resolved on that Eve immediately on the promise made that her seed should bruise the Serpents head supposed that Cain her first born was to be the man and therefore said upon his birth I have gotten a man or rather the man from the Lord Possedi virum ipsum Jehovah I have gotten a man even the Lord Jehovah as Fagius the learned Hebrician upon severall revises readeth it The like conceit possessed the Parents of Noah as many good Authours do conceive upon which ground they said when they gave him that name this same that is this son of ours shall comfort us concerning our work Nor had the very Iewes of our Saviours time sent to enquire of Iohn the Baptist
it were together to behold the combate And then what marvail can it be saith our learned Prelate if the glory of Gods judgement and the power of his wrath the number of our sins and neglect of our own state the sharp and eager malice of Satan whom he had to do with made Christ with all possible fear of the great might and Majesty of the Judge all passionate sorrow for the crimes and contempts of the Prisoners all earnest and zealous intention of prayer against the impugner and impediment of mans deliverance to agonize himself into a bloudy sweat But if this sweat of our Redeemer proceeded not from natural causes but was rather supernatural and miraculous as Hilarie Rupertus Beda and others do conceive it was neither the fear of Hell pains nor the sense of sorrow could be the cause thereof as some think it was for being supernatural and miraculous it could not have a natural and proper cause Rather it might be wrought by Gods mighty power as a preparative to that Priesthood which he was to execute and to that all-sufficient Sacrifice which he was to make For in the oblations of the law which prefigured the death of Christ it was ordained that not only the sacrifice was to be slain by the shedding of bloud but that the person of the Priest was sanctified as well as the sinner presented by the Priest to God with earnest and humble prayer to make atonement for the trespass And since the Truth must have some resemblance with the Figure CHRIST in the Garden might perform some points required to the Priesthood as the sanctifying of himself with his own bloud and the presenting of himself to be the redemption and remission of our sins with instant and intensive prayer for the Transgressors Either of these may be admitted as agreeable to the rules of piety though for my part I incline rather to the former as having such a firm foundation in the Text it self Thus have we taken a full view of those templations and afflictions which our Saviour suffered in his soul without any participation which the body had in them under Pontius Pilate In which though there were nothing like to the pains of Hell which shall be specified hereafter in a place more proper yet there was in him such an accumulation of fears and sorrows and disconsolations as might entitle him most properly to be Vir dolorum a man compounded as it were of nothing but griefs and sorrows Next let us take a brief survey of those afflictions which he indured in his body and suffered nor in soul at all but by the means and apprehension of the outward senses as it participates with the body in all weal and woe And first no sooner had he ended his devotions and gathered together his Disciples but behold a great multitude armâ—d with swords and staves came to apprehend him and carry him before the high Priests and Elders amongst whom he was sure to find no mercy and but little justice Iudas Iscariot one of the twelve had sold his Master to them for a piece of money a most contemptible piece of money too no more then thirty pieces of silver which in our money reckoning each 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or piece of silver at 2 s. 6 d comes but to 3 l. 15 s. And though they had obtained their purpose at so cheap a rate yet they resolved that now they had him in their hands nothing should save him but a miracle To this end they suborned false witnesses to come in against him and if he did but offer to defend himself and refell their calumnies they have their servants in a readiness to smite him on the face and deride him saying Answerest thou the high Priest so Whether he speak or hold his peace it comes all to one his silence being counted a contempt and his speech a scandall If he passe only for a man how durst he say that he was able to destroy the Temple and in three days to build it again If he declare himself for the Son of God he is presently condemned of Blasphemie and contrary to the Laws both of God and man which would have no man punished more then once for the same offence he is first made a scorn and laughing stock to the standers by and after hurryed to the Iudge to receive his sentence No sooner had the Priests and Elders who had bargained for him pronounced him to be guilty of death but presently they cause him to be blind-folded that he might not see the insolencies which they meant to practise next with a joynt consent they spit on his most sacred face and buffet him and smite him with the palmes of their hands and then say to him in derision that if he were the Christ of God he should prophecie unto them who is was that stroke him Having thus pleased themselves with their own wickedness they blinde him like a common Malefactor and lead him away bound unto Pontius Pilate to have him formally condemned and executed The land of Iewry at that time was a province of the Roman Empire and none had power of life and death but the Roman Presidents or such to whom they delegated part of their authority for the ease of the subject This made them say it was not lawfull for them to put any man to death as indeed it was not not that they did forbear it or do it in regard of the Passeover or that it was unlawfull only in respect of the time Assuredly that bloudy people who made no scruple of transgressing the whole morall law in such an execrable murther would very easily have dispensed with the ceremonial had that stood only in the way to their main designe But there was in it a divine providence which had so disposed it to make him every way conform to those antient types which were given of him by the Lord in the Law and Prophets Had they proceeded with him by their own old Laws as questionâ—esse they would have done had it been in their power they must have stoned him to death that being the punishment ordained for blasphemers by the Law of Moses But he had signified before what kind of death he should die in the alluding of himself to the brazen Serpent which was not in the power of any to inflict upon him but those who did proceed upon him according the Laws of the Roman Empire Well then to Pilate he is carryed and that too early in the morning by the break of day So swift their feet were to shed innocent bloud that the Governour must be wakened before his hour to hearken to their clamorous accusations and more then so he must be won with fair words if not bought with money to come forth unto them for fear good souls lest if they came themselves into the judgment-hall they should be defiled and consequently debarred for that
that is bitten when he looketh upon it he shall live What use makes CHRIST the Lord of this As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Never was type more perfect and exact then that Man by his sins committed against God the Lord had provoked his anger and the Lord gave him over to the hands of the old Serpent the Devil who pierced them with his fiery darts consumed them with the heats of lust and drew them into everlasting danger both of soul and body No way to cure them of those wounds which the sting of sin and Satan had occasioned in them no way to quench those flames of natural concupiscence which were kindled in them and setting them at liberty from the powers of hell but by fastning Christ upon the Cross as was the Brazen Serpent on the top of the pole that whosoever looked on him with the eyes of faith might have the world crucified unto them and they themselves unto the world The Antients generally did thus interpret and apply our Redeemers words as being most agreeable to the scope of the place and to another of his Prophecies concerning himself saying that he should be delivered unto the Gentiles to be mocked scourged and crucified and thereby signifying what death he should die Ioh. 18.32 Calvin indeed of late days will not have it so affirming that this application of our Saviours words nec textui quadrat nec instituto is neither agreeable to the Text nor our Saviours purpose and that the plain and genuine meaning of the words is no more then this Quod Evangelii promulgatione erigendus sit Christus that the name of Christ should be advanced by the preaching or promulgating of the Gospel But whether this agree with our Saviours purpose in making a comparison of himself or rather of his lifting up as Moses lifted up the Brazen Serpent any which hath eyes to see and is not wilfully blinde with prejudice or prepossession may discern most easily Compare the fift and sixt verses of the 21. of Numbers with the 14. and 15. of the third of Iohn and tell me any man that hath not absolutely captivated his own judgement to another mans sense if ever Type and Antitype did agree more punctually The parallel goes further yet but beyond this purpose For as the Brazen Serpent of a remedy did become a disease and was made an Idol of an Hieroglyphick the Children of Israel in the times succeeding burning incense to it So was it also with the Cross or Crucifix in these later ages For who knoweth not how impiously it hath been abused to Idolatry in the Church of Rome how grossely it hath been adored by all sorts of people and with what impudence the greatest and most learned men have bestirred themselves in defence of that most palpable and gross Idolatry Bellarmine sparing not to say though he hope to save himself by a strange distinction of his own that the same honour which is due to Christ crucified is to be also given to the Cross or Crucifix But this is only by the way if it be not out of it I return again These passages premised we now proceed unto the story of our Saviours passion We left him last in Pilates Hall The Priests and people of the Iews cryed out to have him crucified according to the Roman fashion No death but that which was accounted the most shameful and most ignominious of all manner of deaths and was pronounced to be accursed He is accursed of God that hangeth on the tree by the Law of Moses would content their malice And Pilate gave sentence saith the Text that it should be as they required and delivered him to them to be crucified CHRIST had not else redeemed us from the curse of the Law for cursed is he that abideth not in all the words of this law to do them Deut. 27.26 had he not been made a curse for us that is to say had he not willingly submitted to that death of the Cross of which the Lord thus said by the mouth of Moses Cursed is every one that is hanged on a tree Deut. 21.23 the curse and rigour of the law being laid upon him Christ was no otherwise made a curse then so by enduring this most shameful death of the Cross this mortem autem Crucis for the sins of man God saith St. Ambrose made Christ a curse after the same manner as a sacrifice for sin in the law is called sin Bropterea pro maledictis oblatus factus est Maledictum and therefore being a Sacrifice for those who were accursed he became a curse CHRIST saith St. Chrysostom was not made subject to the curse of transgression which is the greatest curse a man can fall into and that which makes him most detested and hated of God but admitted in himself another curse that is the punishment of sin or the curse for sin and this saith he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another curse but not the same CHRIST then was made a curse for us not that he was detested of God or deprived of blessedness which was the curse denounced by Moses against those who kept not the words of the law to do them but that he was adjudged to this shameful and inglorious death which God and man did hold accursed abolishing one curse and undergoing another Et vincens maledictum de maledicto as St. Augustine hath it But to go on our Saviour being condemned to this cursed death a death which none but Theeves and Murderers and false Bond-men were condemned by the laws of Rome they hale him to the same with as cursed a violence sparing no cruelty or disgrace as they led him to it which a barbarous people could inflict or an innocent suffer They made him carry that Cross at first on his own shoulders which after was to carry his whole body And when they eased him of that burden and laid it upon Simon the Cyrenians back it was not out of pity but upon design that coming more fresh and lively to the place of suffering he might the longer be a dying and they the longer glut their eyes with that pleasing spectacle It was the custom of the Iews as of other people to give wine to those who were condemned and led to their execution to comfort and revive their spirits the better to enable them for the stroke of death Even this humanity shall be corrupted to increase his miseries and adde unto the scorne which which were put upon him In stead of wine some of them gave him vinegar mixed with Gall to drink and thereby literally fulfilled in him that which was metaphorically said of himself by David in some time of his troubles when he was fed with the bread of sorrow and the waters of
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.
absurde credi videtur c. If saith he it may seem to be believed without absurdity that the Saints of the Old Testament which believed in Christ to come were in places most remote from the torments of the wicked in locis tormentis impiorum remotissimis and yet amongst the Inferi in the lower places until the bloud of Christ ad ea loca descensus and his descent unto those places did deliver them thence then certainly the godly believers now redeemed with the price of that bloud-shed prorsus inferos nesciunt shall never come into that place where those inferi are that is to say within the mansions below to the time that recovering again their bodies they do receive the blessings prepared for them So far and to this purpose he Now by this last passage cited from the works of Augustine it is clear and evident that in those times it was an opinion generally received in the Christian Church and such as might be well believed as himself acknowledgeth without any absurdity that the Patriarchs and others of the Saints of the Old Testament were detained in some lower places amongst the Inferi but without any sense of those infinite torments which were endured by the wicked and that they were detained there till the coming of Christ till he by his descent thither did release them thence Which opinion as he did not very well approve of so in regard it was so generally received he was very tender in confuting it All he thought fit to say was no more then this Illud me nondum invenisse confiteâ—r inferos appellatos ubi justorum animae requiescunt that he had no where found as yet in holy Scripture that the place where the souls of the just did rest was called by the name of Inferi So wary was that Reverend and learned Prelate from pronouncing rashly in a point wherein the general current of the Church â—eemed to be against him and the like wariness I hope I may have leave to observe here also For though this be the reason as before I said which I am to consider as a matter questionable yet I shall consider it as a matter questionable only I shall not dare to say it is false or impious The joynt consent of such and so many of the Antients both Greek and Latine which have been formerly alleadged besides others as considerable but not here alleadged who have in terminis and expresly affirmed the same make me hold off my hand from that presumption The rather in regard it carries no impiety with it nothing derogatory to the Gospel or Kingdome of Christ but rather seemes to adde much lustre to our Saviours Person and much conduceth to the honour of the Faith and Gospel For what can be more honourable to the Person of Christ then that the Patriarchs and other holy men of God who dyed under the Law were kept from being admitted into a participation of the joys of heaven till he by his Divine power took them by the hand conducted them into the blessed gates of Paradise and having overcome the sharpness of death set open the Kingdome of Heaven unto all believers What could adde more unto the dignity and reputation of the Gospel of Christ then that all such as faithfully believe the same and frame themselves to live thereafter should have a greater priviledge then their Father Abraham and all the rest who dyed in the fear of God before the coming of our Saviour and be admitted presently to the joys of Paradise And this is that which is affirmed by St. Hierom and some other Fathers Ante Christum Abraham apud inferos post Christum latro in Paradiso that before CHRIST Abraham and the bosom of Abraham was in the lower regions in some parts of the Inferi but after Christ the penitent theef was admitted presently admitted into Paradise For this saith he is the land of the living in which the good things of the Lord are prepared for meek and holy men to which before the coming of our Lord and Saviour in the flesh neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Iacob nor the Prophets nor other just men could attain With whom accords St. Chrysostom also in his Homilie on the Parable of the rich man and Lazarus Luk. 10. But here perhaps it will be said that being both the Greek Hades and the Latine Inferi have been before declared to be hell and the place of torments how can the Patriarchs and other holy men of God be said to be in or amongst the Inferi and not participate of the torments of that wretched place In answer whereunto it may be replyed that there might be some part or region of the Inferi wherein the greatest or rather the only punishment was poena damni a want of those Celestial comforts which were reserved for them in the land of Paradise which to a soul that longed for the sight of God could be no small infelicity And secondly it may be said that though the Inferi in it self were a place of punishment yet God was able to command the fire that it should not burn them and to the torments of the pit that they should not touch them That God who so preserved the three Hebrew Salamanders in the middle of a fierie furnace that the hairs of their head were not â—indged nor the colour of their coats changed nor so much as the smell of the fire passed upon them and did so shut the mouths of the ravenous Lyons that they could not hurt his servant Daniel though he was cast amongst them into their den is also able to afford his people such a proportion of refreshing as to him seems meet even in the middle of the flames and in the dens of those roaring Lyons who day and night have had an expectation to devoure them Nor is this all that may be said in justification and defence of those antient Writers which have looked this way if one did seriously set about it For possibly they might mean no more by those expressions of bringing back the souls of the just from Hades then that by the descent of Christ into hell all claim and challenge which the Devil could pretend unto them were utterly made void and of none effect and that our Saviour by subduing the whole forces of hell and spoyling the powers and principalities thereof communicated the benefit and effect of so great a triumph aswell to those who went before as to us that come after assuring both that neither hell it self nor the Rulers of it have any interest in either or should be able from thenceforth to disturb their rest But I pronounce not this way neither but shall still look upon it as a matter questionable And so I leave this point with these words of Bullinger a man of eminent note in the Protestant Churches Sinus Abrahae nil aliud est quam portus salutis c. The bosome of Abraham is
alone Who when he findes his heavenly Father troubled with our perversness our high hand of sinning and ready to execute vengeance on us for our great misdeeds doth interpose the merit of his death and passion shews him the print of the Thorns in his sacred head his hands and feet boared through with nayls and his side pierced with the spear At sight whereof Gods heavy anger fals away and his wrath is pacified and he lays by the instruments of his rage and vengeance Tela reponuntur manibus fabricata Cyclopum as the Poet hath it and he resolves to tarry a little longer and expect the amendment of his people An Office from the which our High Priest never can desist whilest there are men upon the world to provoke God to anger and though we dare not say of him as St. Paul did of himself that he dyeth daily yet we may safely say and make it the rejoycing which we have in CHRIST IESVS our Lord that the merit of his death and passion are daily hourly nay continually presented by him to the view and consideration of Almighty God A point of no mean consolation to us whilest we are subject to the sins and lusts which we bear about us in the flesh and cannot otherwise be excused from them but by changing our mortal into immortality And this is that which was prefigured in the Law of Moses by the High Priests entring into the Sanctum Sanctorum which was parted with a vail or traverse Curtain from the rest of the Temple to make atonement with the Lord for the peoples sins The parallel stands thus between them First none might enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum or the holiest of all but the High Priest only Levit. 16.3 So Christ our High Priest and none but he hath entred into the holy places not made with hands to appear in the presence of God for us Heb. 9.24 Secondly as the veil of the Temple was lifted up or drawn aside to make room for the High Priest to enter into it so did the vail of the Temple rent in sunder at the very instant when the soul of our High Priest did depart from his body and enter the Celestial Sanctuary Mattb. 27. Thirdly the High Priest was apparelled in his Priestly vestments Levit. 16.10 and so our Saviour is described in the Rev. 13.13 Fourthly the High Priest entred into the Sanctuary but once a year which was upon the Feast of the Expiation Exod. 30.10 So did Christ enter once into the holy place which was upon the day of his death and passion whereon he obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.12 And last of all as the High Priest made an offering for the sins of the people though it were only of the bloud of Calves and Goats before he went within the veil Levit. 16.12 15. which bloud he was to sprinkle on the Mercy-seat vers 14 15. and thereby made atonement in the holy place for all the Congregation of Israel vers 17. So before Christ our High Priest entred into the Heaven of glories he made an offering of himself Heb. 9.25 and by his own bloud entred into the holy places vers 12. which bloud of his that is to say the merits of it he sprinkleth on the Mercy-seat of Almighty God and thereby doth avert him from his displeasure and reconcile him daily to poor sinful man Which Parallel thus made we may the better understand St. Pauls drift and meaning in comparing the High Priests together and the excellency of Christs Priesthood above that of Aaron The Priests saith he i. e. those of inferiour order went into the first Tabernacle accomplishing the service of God But into the second went the High Priest alone once every year not without bloud which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people But Christ being made an High Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands neither by the bloud of Goats and Calves but by his one bloud did he enter into the holy place having obtained eternal Redemption for us Not that he should offer himself often as the High Priest entred into the holy place every year with the bloud of others but that being offered once a sacrifice for sin he might for ever sit at the right hand of God chap. 10. ver 12. to appear in the sight of God for us unto our Salvation and to make intercession for us Thus standeth the case with our High Priest in the point of Sacrifice in which as in the other Offices of offering up our prayers to God interceding for us and pouring down his blessings on us he doth perform the Office or Function of an High Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech But there is yet one Argument more that St. Paul brings in proof of Melchisedechs Priesthood which is that he tithed Abraham or took Tithes of him Heb. 7.2 9. And if we prove not this also of our Saviour Christ the parallel betwixt him and Melchisedech will not be complete nor his high Priesthood so asserted as it ought to be But herein the Apostle will not fail us neither affording us two arguments to make good this point the one derived from the eternity of our Saviours Priesthood the other from the Prerogative which Melchisedech had in this particular above Aaron and the sons of Levi. The first stands thus Melchisedech took Tithes of Abraham in his own right as Priest of the most high God whose Priesthood being everlasting in the Person of Christ for he hath an unchangeable Priesthood vers 24. the right of taking Tithes is inherent in him on the meer taking on himself of Melchisedechs function I mean in being made a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech And this is that to which St. Paul alludeth saying Here men that die receive Tithes that is to say Here in the land of Canaan by the Law of Moses the Priests and Levites of our Nation being mortal men and subject to the stroke of death aswell as we do receive tithes of us to shew that we acknowledge them to be our Superiours in their place and Ministery But there he receiveth them of whom it is witnessed that he liveth His meaning is that when Melchisedech received Tithes of Abraham he received them as a Type of our Saviour Christ who now liveth with God and by his Resurrection did make known that he liveth for ever and lived to execute the Office of a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech He then of whom it is witnessed that he liveth receiveth Tithes or hath at least a right and title to receive them in regard of his unchangeable and eternal Priesthood But he receiveth them not in person having transferred all his interests in them and title to them upon the Ministers of his Gospel No otherwise then God conferred the Tithes of the land
of Christs disciples shall goe to an invisible place appointed them by God and there shall remain unto the resurrection and after receiving their bodies and rising perfectly that is corporally as Christ did rise shall so come to the Vision or sight of God Tertullian next It is saith he apparent to any wise man that there is a place determined which is Abrahams bosome for the receiving of the souls of his sons which region I mean Abrahams bosome though it be not heavenly but Tertullian was out in that sublimior tamen inferis yet being higher then the inferi or places below shall give comfort to the souls of the righteous untill the resurrection and the end of all things bring the full reward So Hilarie B. of Poyctiers The day of judgment is the day of everlasting happinesse or punishment till which time death hath every one under his dominion whilest either Abrahams bosome or the house of torments reserveth every man to judgement St. Ambrose to the same effect till the fullnesse of time come the souls expect their due reward for some of which pain for others glory is provided Next him St. Augustine his convert After this short life thou shalt not as yet be where the Saints shall be to whom it shall be said in the day of judgement Come ye blessed of my father c. Thou shalt not be there as yet who knoweth not that but there thou shalt be where poor Lazarus was seen a far off by the proud richman In that rest shalt thou securely expect the day of judgment in which thou shalt receive thy body and be changed and be made equall with the Angels St. Bernard thus you perceive that there be three states of the soul the first in this corruptible body the second without the body the third in perfect blessednesse The first in the Tabernacles the second in the Courts the third in the house of God into which most blessed house of God the souls of the Saints shall not enter without us nor without their own bodies I had not named St. Bernard amongst those Antients but only to the end that it might be seen that this was generally the doctrine of the Western Church as to this particular untill the invocation of the Saints departed became first to be put in practise and afterwards to be defended and imposed as good Catholick Doctrine For they saw well that unlesse it were received for an Orthodox truth that the Saints departed were admitted presently into the beatificall vision of Almighty God and in him see as in a Mirrour what things soever could be done or said on the earth beneath it were in vain to make unto them either prayers or vows not being yet estated in their own full glories and consequently not admitted to the presence of God And on the very same reasons for which the Church of Rome doth admit the Saints to enjoy the blessed vision of Almighty God in the heaven of glories did Calvin labour to decrie the received opinion in that point though by long tract of time engendering prejudice and prepossession in the hearts of men against any contrary position it was become the generall tenet of the Protestant Schools For well he knew that if that doctrine could be rooted out of the minds of men by which the Saints were brought though before their time into an habitation in the highest heavens that of the invocation of the Saints departed which depends upon it must of necessity perish with it But whatsoever moved him to opine so of it for I am confident it was not any love to the antient Fathers certain it is that he hath freely declared his opinion in it in several places of his writings In that entituled Psychopannychia he doth thus expresse it The souls of the Saints after death be in peace saith he because they are escaped from the power of the enemie but shall not raign with Christ their King untill the heavenly Hierusalem shall be advanced to her glory and the true Solomon the King of peace shall sit on high on his tribunal And this he doth not only say and leave the proof thereof to his ipse dixit as if that were enough to carry it over all the world but cites Tertullian Chrysostome Augustine Bernard some of whose words we saw before to confirme the point But seeing that tract of his hath been called in question as if it did incline too much towards the Anabaptists we will next look upon his book of Institutions where we finde him saying That since the Scripture every where biddeth us to depend upon the expectation of Christs coming and deferreth the Crown of glory till that time we are to be content with the bounds that God hath appointed us viz. that the souls of the godly having ended their warfare depart unto an happy rest where with a blessed joy they look for the fruition of the promised glory and that so all things shall stand suspended untill Christ appeare The same he also intimateth in another place where he resolveth That not only the Fathers under the Law but even the holy men of God since the death of Christ are but in profectu in progresse as it were to that perfect happinesse which is to be conferred upon them in the day of doom that in the mean time they abide in atriis in the out-courts of Heaven and there expect the consummation of their beatitude And finally none but our Saviour Christ saith he hath entred into the heavenly Sanctuary where to the end of all the world Solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad deum defert he alone represents to God the desires of his people sitting a far off in the outward Courts I know that Bellarmine doth quarrell at these passages of Calvins and I cannot blame him He and the common interesse of the Church of Rome were so ingaged in the defence of the other opinion without which that of the invocation of Saints must needs fall to the ground that it concerned them all to calumniate Calvin as the broacher of new Doctrines in the Church of Christ though in this point they finde him countenanced by most antient writers Neither doth Calvin stand alone in this opinion being seconded though not in so expresse terms as himself delivereth it by Bucer Bullinger Martyr Musculus and some others also And wonder t is not that he was followed by so many but by so few prime men of the reformation to whom his name and authority were exceeding dear And if the case stand so with the Saints above no question but it standeth so too with the souls below For contrariorum par est ratio as the old rule is And to the truth we have not only the testimonie of the holy Scriptures saying expressely that God reserveth the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished 2 Pet. 2. but of so many of the
entituled actual The nature of which Birth-sin or Original sin is by the Church of England in her publick Articles defined to be the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the Of-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and inclined to evill In which description we may find the whole nature of it as first that it is a corruption of our nature and of the nature of every man descended from the Loyns of Adam Secondly That it is a departure from and even a loss or forfieture of that stock of Original Iustice wherewith the Lord enriched our first Father Adam and our selves in him And thirdly That it is an inclination unto evil to the works of wickedness by means whereof as afterwards the Article explains it self the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and both together do incur the indignation of God So that if we speak of Original sin formally it is the privation of those excellent gifts of divine Grace inabling us to know love serve honor and trust in God and to do the things that God delights in which Adam once had but did shortly lose If materially it is that habitual inclination which is found in men most averse from God carrying them to the inordinate love and desire of finite things of the creature more than the Creator which is so properly a sin that it makes guilty of condemnation the person whosoever it be in whom it is found And this habitual inclination to the inordinate love of the creature is named Concupiscence which being two-fold as Alensis notes it out of Hugo that is to say Concupiscentia spiritus a concupiscience of the spirit or superior and concupiscentia carnis a concupiscence of the flesh or inferior faculties the first of these is onely sin but the latter is both sin and punishment For what can be more consonant to the Rules of Iustice than that the Will refusing to be ordered by God and desiring what he would not have it should finde the inferior faculties rebellious against it self and inclinable to desire those things in a violent way which the Will would have to be declined Now that all of us from the womb are tainted with this original corruption and depravation of nature is manifest unto us by the Scriptures and by some Arguments derived from the practise of the Catholick Church countenanced and confirmed by the antient Doctors In Scripture first we find how passionately David makes complaint that he was shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin Where we may note in the Greek and Vulgar Latine it is in sins and wickednesses in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek in peccatis in iniquitatibus as the Latine hath it And that to shew us as Becanus hath right well observed Quod unum illud peccatum quasi fons sit aliorum that this one sin is as it were the Spring and Fountain from whence all others are derived Next St. Paul tels us in plain words that by the offence of one of this one man Adam Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation and Judgement could not come upon all or any were it not in regard of sin Not that all men in whom Original sin is found without the addition of Actual and Personal guiltiness are actually made subject unto condemnation and can expect no mercy at the hands of God but that they are all guilty of it should God deal extreamly and take the forfeiture of the Bond which we all entred into in our Father Adam Thus finde we in the same Apostle that we are by nature the children of wrath polluted and unclean from the very womb our very nature being so inclinable to the works of wickedness that it disposeth us to evil from the first conception and makes us subject to the wrath and displeasure of God Last of all we are told by the same Apostle for we will clog this point with no further evidence That the wages of sin is death that sin entred into the world and death by sin and that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And thereupon we may conclude That wheresoever we behold a spectacle of death there was a receptacle of some sin Now we all know that death doth spare no more the Infant than the Elder man and that sometimes our children are deprived of life assoon almost as they enjoy it sometimes born dead and sometimes dead assoon as born Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit in the Poets language A wages no way due to Infants for their actual sins for actually as yet they have not offended and therefore there must needs be in them some original guilt some Birth-sin as the Article calls it which brings so quick a death upon them And this is further verified from the constant and continual practise of the Church of Christ which hath provided That the Sacrament of Baptism be conferred on Infants before they come unto the use of Speech or Reason yea and at some times and on some occasions as namely in cases of extremity and the danger of death to Christen them assoon as born For by so doing she did charitably and not unwarrantably conceive that they are received into the number of Gods children and in a state of good assurance which could not be so hopefully determined of them should they depart without the same And with this that of Origen doth agree exactly Si nihil esset in parvulis quod ad remissionem deberet indulgentiam pertinere gratia Baptismi superflua videretur Were there not something in an Infant which required forgiveness the Sacrament of Baptism were superfluously administred to him Upon which grounds the Church of England hath maintained the necessity of Baptism against the Sectaries of this age allowing it to be administred in private houses as oft as any danger or necessity doth require it of her A second thing we finde in the Churches practise and in the practise of particular persons of most note and evidence which serves exceeding fitly to confirm this point and that is That neither the Church in general doth celebrate the birth-day of the Saints departed but the day onely of their deaths nor any of the Saints themselves did solemnize the day of their own Nativity with Feasts and Triumphs First for the practise of the Church we may take this general rule once for all Non nativitatem sed mortem sanctorum ecclesia pretiosam judicat beatam That the Church reckoneth not the day of their birth but the death-day if I may so call it of the Saints to be blest and precious According unto that of the Royal Psalmist Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Upon which grounds the word Natalis hath been used in the Martyrologies and other publick