eo usque in Adam censetur donec in Christo recenseatur tamdiu immunda quamdiù recenseatur Peccatrix a. quia immunda recipiens ignominiam suam ex carnis societate And this which he here calls a reproach he otherwhere calls an imperfection or a shame saying by Sathan man at first was circumvented and therefore given up unto Death and from thence all the kind was from his seed infected he made a traduction of his sentence or damnation to wit unto death which was his condemnation and therefore speaking of the woman he says the sentence remaining upon her in this life it is necessary that the guilt also should remain which words are rough and hard to be understood because after Baptism the guilt does not remain but by the following words we may guess that he means that women still are that which Eve was even snares to men gates for the Devil to enter and that they as Eve did dare and can prevail with men when the Devil by any other means cannot I know nothing else that he says of this Article save only that according to the constant sence of antiquity he affirms that the natural faculties of the Soul were not impaired Omnia naturalia animae ut substantiva ejus ipsi inesse cum ipsâ procedere atque proficere And again Hominis anima velut surculus quidam ex Matrice Adam in propaginem deducta genitalibus foeminae foveis commendata cum omni sua paratura pullulabiâ— tam in intellectu quam in sensu The soul like a sprig from Adam derived into his off-spring and put into the bed of its production shall with all its appendages spring or increase both in sence and understanding And that there is liberty of choice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which supposes liberty he proved against Marcion and Hermogenes as himself affirms in the 21 Chap. of the same Book S. Cyprian proving the effect of Baptism upon all and consequently the usefulness to Infants argues thus If pardon of sins is given to the greatest sinners and them that before sinned much against God and afterwards believed and none is forbidden to come to baptism and grace how much more must not an infant be forbidden qui recens natus nihil peccavit nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus contagium mortis antiquae primâ nativitate contraxit qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso facilius accedit quod illi remittuntur non propria sed aliena peccata Who being new born hath not sinned at all but only being born carnally of Adam he hath in his first birth contracted the contagion of the old death which comes to the remission of sin the more easily because not his own sins but the sins of another are forgiven him In which it is plainly affirmed that the Infant is innocent that he hath not sinned himself that there is in him no sin inherent that Adam's sin therefore only is imputed that all the effect of it upon him is the contagion of death that is mortality and its affections and according as the sins are so is the remission they are the infants improperly and metonymically therefore so is the remission But Arnobius speaks yet more plainly Omne peccatum corde concipitur â—re consummatur Hic autem qui nascitur sententiam Adae habet Peccatum verò suum non habet He that is born of Adam hath the sentence of Adam upon him but not the sin that is he hath no sin inherent but the punishment inflicted by occasion of it The author of the short commentaries upon the Epistles of St. Paul attributed to S. Ambrose speaks so much that some have used the authority of this writer to prove that there is no Original sin as Sixtus Senensis relates His words are these Mors autem dissolutio corporis est cum anima à corpore separatur est alia mors que secunda dicitur in gehenna quam non peccato Adae patimur sed ejus occasione propriâ—â— peccatis acquiritur Death is the dissolution of the Body when the Soul is separated from it There is also another death in Hell which is called the second death which we suffer not from Adam's sin but by occasion of it it is acquired by our own sins These words need no explication for when he had in the precedent words affirmed that we all sinned in the Mass of Adam this following discourse states the Question right and declares that though Adam's sin be imputed to us to certain purposes yet no man can be damned to the second Death for it it is a testimony so plain for the main part of my affirmation in this Article that as there is not any thing against it within the first 400 years so he could not be accounted a Catholick author if the contrary had been the sence or the prevailing Opinion of the Church 22. To these I shall add the clearest testimonies of S. Chrysostome It seems to have in it no small Question that it is said that by the disobedience of one many become sinners For sinning and being made mortal it is not unlikely that they which spring from him should be so too But that another should be made a sinner by his disobedience what agreement or consequent I beseech you can it have what therefore doth this word Sinner in this place signifie It seems to me to signifie the same that lyable to punishment guilty of Death does signifie because Adam dying all are made mortal by him And again Thou sayest what shall I do by him that is by Adam I perish No not for him For hast thou remained without sin For though thou hast not committed the same sin yet another thou hast And in the 29 Homily upon the same Epistle he argues thus What therefore tell me are all dead in Adam by the death of sin How then was Noah a just man in his generation How was Abraham and Job If this be to be understood of the body the sentence will be certain but if it be understood of justice and sin it will not But to sum up all he answers the great Argument used by S. Austin to prove infants to be in a state of damnation and sin properly because the Church baptizes them and Baptism is for the remission of sins Thou seest how many benefits there are of Baptism But many think that the grace of baptism consists only in the remission of sins But we have reckoned 〈◊〉 honours of baptism For this cause we baptize infants although they are not polluted with sin to wit that to them may be added sanctity justice adoption inheritance and the fraternity of Christ Divers other things might be transcribed to the same purposes out of S. Chrysostome but these are abundantly sufficient to prove that I have said nothing new in this Article Theodoret does very often consent with S.
witness 2. I consider that necessity may excuse a personal delinquency but I never heard that necessity did build a Church Indeed no man is forced for his own particular to commit a sin for if it be absolutely a case of necessity the action ceaseth to be a sin but indeed if God means to build a Church in any place he will do it by means proportionable to that end that is by putting them into a possibility of doing and acquiring those things which himself hath required of necessity to the constitution of a Church * So that supposing that ordination by a Bishop is necessary for the vocation of Priests and Deacons as I have proved it is and therefore for the founding or perpetuating of a Church either God hath given to all Churches opportunity and possibility of such Ordinations and then necessity of the contrary is but pretence and mockery or if he hath not given such possibility then there is no Church there to be either built or continued but the Candlestick is presently removed There are divers stories in Ruffinus to this purpose When Aedesius and Frumenâ—ius were surprized by the Barbarous Indians they preached Christianity and baptized many but themselves being but Lay-men could make no Ordinations and so not fix a Church What then was to be done in the case Frumentius Alexandriam pergit rem omnem ut gesta est narrat Episcopo ac monet ut provideat virum aliquem dignum quem congregatis jam plurimis Christianis in Barbarico solo Episcopum mittat Frumentius comes to Alexandria to get a Bishop Athanasius being then Patriarch ordained Frumentius their Bishop Et tradito ei Sacerdotio redire eum cum Domini Gratiâ unde venerat jubet ex quo saith Ruffinus in Indiae partibus populi Christianorum Ecclesiae factae sunt Sacerdotium coepit The same happened in the case of the Iberians converted by a Captive woman Posteà verò quà m Ecclesia magnificè constructa est populi fidem Dei majore ardore sâ—â—â—ebant captivae monitis ad Imperatorem Constantinum totius Gentis legatio mittitur Res gesta exponitur Sacerdotes mittere oratur qui coeptum erga se Dei munus implerent The work of Christianity could not be compleated nor a Church founded without the Ministery of Bishops * Thus the case is evident that the want of a Bishop will not excuse us from our endeavours of acquiring one and where God means to found a Church there he will supply them with those means and Ministeries which himself hath made of ordinary and absolute necessity And therefore if it happens that those Bishops which are of ordinary Ministration amongst us prove heretical still Gods Church is Catholick and though with trouble yet Orthodox Bishops may be acquir'd For just so it happened when Mauvia Queen of the Saracens was so earnest to have Moses the Hermite made the Bishop of her Nation and offered peace to the Catholicks upon that condition Lucius an Arian troubled the affair by his interposing and offering to ordain Moses The Hermite discovered his vileness Et ita majore dedecore deformatus compulsus est acquiescere Moses refus'd to be ordain'd by him that was an Arian So did the reform'd Churches refuse ordinations by the Bishops of the Roman Communion But what then might they have done Even the same that Moses did in that necessity Compulsus est ab Episcopis quos in exilium truserat Lucius sacerdotium sumere Those good people might have had order from the Bishops of England or the Lutheran Churches if at least they thought our Churches Catholick and Christian. If an ordinary necessity will not excuse this will not an extraordinary calling justifie it Yea most certainly could we but see an ordinary proof for an extraordinary calling viz. an evident prophesie demonstration of Miracles certainty of reason clarity of sence or any thing that might make faith of an extraordinary mission But shall we then condemn those few of the Reformed Churches whose ordinations always have been without Bishops No indeed That must not be They stand or fall to their own Master And though I cannot justifie their ordinations yet what degree their necessity is of what their desire of Episcopal ordinations may do for their personal excuse and how far a good life and a Catholick belief may lead a man in the way to Heaven although the forms of external communion be not observed I cannot determine * For ought I know their condition is the same with that of the Church of Pergamus I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Sathans seat is and thou heldest fast my faith and hast not denied my Name Nihilominus habeo adversus te pauca Some few things I have against thee and yet of them the want of Canonical ordinations is a defect which I trust themselves desire to be remedied but if it cannot be done their sin indeed is the less but their misery the Greater * I am sure I have said sooth but whether or no it will be thought so I cannot tell and yet why it may not I cannot guess unless they only be impeccable which I suppose will not so easily be thought of them who themselves think that all the Church possibly may fail But this I would not have declared so freely had not the necessity of our own Churches required it and that the first pretence of the legality and validity of their ordinations been buoyed up to the height of an absolute necessity for else why shall it be called Tyranny in us to call on them to conform to us and to the practice of the Catholick Church and yet in them be called a good and a holy zeal to exact our conformity to them But I hope it will so happen to us that it will be verified here what was once said of the Catholicks under the fury of Justina Sed tantafuit perseverantia fidelium populorum ut animas prius amittere quà m Episcopum mallent If it were put to our choice rather to dye to wit the death of Martyrs not rebels than lose the sacred order and offices of Episcopacy without which no Priest no ordination no consecration of the Sacrament no absolution no rite or Sacrament legitimately can be performed in order to eternity The summe is this If the Canons and Sanctions Apostolical if the decrees of eight famous Councils in Christendom of Ancyra of Antioch of Sardis of Alexandria two of Constantinople the Arausican Council and that of Hispalis if the constant successive Acts of the famous Martyr-Bishops of Rome making ordinations if the testimony of the whole Pontifical book if the dogmatical resolution of so many Fathers S. Denis S. Cornelius S. Athanasius S. Hierom S. Chrysostom S. Epiphanius S. Austin and divers others all appropriating ordinations to the Bishops hand if the constant voice of Christendom declaring ordinations made by Presbyters to be null and void in
sufficient in this excuse For if eating Christ by faith be a thing of all times then it is also of the future and no difference of time is so apt to express an Eternal truth as is the future which is alwayes in flux and potential signification But the secret of the thing was this the Arguments against the sacramental sence of these words drawn from the following verses between this and the 51. verse could not so well be answered and therefore Bellarmine found out the trick of confessing all till you come thither as appears in his Answer to the ninth Argument that of some Catholicks However as to the Article I am to say these things 1. That very many of the most learned Romanists affirm that in this Chapter Christ does not speak of sacramental or oral manducation or of the Sacrament at all Johannes de Ragusio Biel Cusanus Ruard Tapper Cajetan Hessels Jansenius Waldensis Armachanus save only that Bellarmine going to excuse it sayes in effect that they did not do it very honestly for he affirms that they did it that they might confute the Hussites and the Lutherans about the Communion under both kinds and if it be so and not be so as it may serve a turn It is so for Transubstantiation and it is not so for the half Communion we have but little reason to rely upon their judgment or candor in any exposition of Scripture But it is no new thing for some sort of men to do so The Heretick Severus in Anastasius Sinaita maintained it lawful and even necessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to occasions and emergent heresies to alter and change the Doctrines of Christ and the Cardinal of Cusa affirmed it lawful diversly to expound the Scriptures according to the times So that we know what precedents and authorities they can urge for so doing and I doubt not but it is practised too often since it was offered to be justified by Dureus against Whitaker 2. These great Clerks had reason to expound it not to be meant of sacramental manducation to avoid the unanswerable Argument against their half Communion for so Christ said Vnless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you It is therefore as necessary to drink the Chalice as to eat the Bread and we perish if we omit either And their new whimsie of Concomitancy will not serve the turn because there it is sanguis effusus that is sacramentally powred forth blood that is powred forth not that is in the body 2. If it were in the body yet a man by no concomitancy can be said to drink what he only eats 3. If in the Sacramental body Christ gave the blood by concomitancy then he gave the blood twice which to what purpose it might be done is not yet revealed 4. If the blood be by concomitancy in the body then so is the body with the blood and then it will be sufficient to drink the Chalice without the Host as to eat the Host without the Chalice and then we must drink his Flesh as well as eat his Blood which if we could suppose to be possible yet the precept of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood were not observed by drinking that which is to be eaten and eating that which is to be drunk But certainly they are fine Propositions which cannot be true unless we can eat our drink and drink our meat unless bread be wine and wine be bread or to speak in their stile unless the body be the blood and the blood the body that is unless each of the two Symboles be the other as much as it self as much that which it is not as that which it is And this thing their own Pope Innocentius the third and from him Vasquez noted and Salmeron who affirmed that Christ commanded the manner as well as the thing and that without eating and drinking the precept of Christ is not obeyed 3. But whatever can come of this yet upon the account of these words so expounded by some of the Fathers concerning oral manducation and potation they believed themselves bound by the same necessity to give the Eucharist to Infants as to give them Baptism and did for above seven Ages together practise it And let these men that will have these words spoken of the Eucharist answer the Argument Bellarmine is troubled with it and instead of answering increases the difficulty and concludes firmly against himself saying If the words be understood of eating Christ's body spiritually or by faith it will be more impossible to Infants for it is easier to give them intinctum panem bread dipt in the Chalice than to make them believe To this I reply that therefore it is spoken to Infants in neither sence neither is any law at all given to them and no laws can be understood as obligatory to them in that capacity But then although I have answered the Argument because I believe it not to be meant in the Sacramental sence to any nor in the Spiritual sence to them yet Bellarmine hath not answered the pressure that lies upon his cause For since it is certain and he confesses it that it is easier that is it is possible to give Infants the Sacrament it follows that if here the Sacrament be meant Infants are obliged that is the Church is obliged to minister it as well as Baptism there being in vertue of these words the same necessity and in the nature of the thing the same possibility of their receiving it But then on the other side no inconvenience can press our interpretation of spiritual eating Christ by faith because it being naturally impossible that Infants should believe they cannot be concerned in an impossible Commandment So that we can answer Saint Austin's and Innocentius his Arguments for communicating of Infants but they cannot 4. If these words be understood of Sacramental manducation then no man can be saved but he that receives the holy Sacrament For unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ye have no life in you if it be answered that the holy Sacrament must be eaten in act or in desire I reply that is not true because if a Catechumen desires Baptism only in the Article of his death it is sufficient to salvation and they dare not deny it 2. Fools young persons they that are surprised with sudden death cannot be thought to perish for want of the actual susception or desire 3. There is nothing in the words that can warrant or excuse the actual omission of the Sacrament and it is a strange deception that these men suffer by misunderstanding this distinction of receiving the Sacrament either in act or desire For they are not opposite but subordinate members differ only as act and disposition and this disposition is not at all required but as it
the Whale might have been said to have eaten Jonas when she swallowed him without manducation or breaking him and yet no man does speak so but in the description of that accident reckon the Whale to be fasting for all that morsel Invasúsque cibus jejunâ vixit in alvo said Alcimus Avitus Jejuni plenÃque tamen vate intemerato said Sidonius Apollinaris vivente jejunus cibo so Paulinus the fish was full and fasting that is she swallowed Jonas but eat nothing As a man does not eat Bullets or Quicksilver against the Iliacal passion but swallows them and we do not eat our pills The Greek Physicians therefore call a Pill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing to be swallowed and that this is distinct from eating Aristotle tells us speaking of the Elephant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he eats the earth but swallows the stones And Hesychius determined this thing Non comedet ex eo quisquam i. e. non dividetur quia dentium est dividere partiri cibos cum aliter mandi non possint To chew is but a circumstance of nourishment but the essence of manducation But Bellarmine adds that if you will not allow him to say so then he grants it in plain terms that Christ's body is chewed is attrite or broken with the teeth and that not tropically but properly which is the crass Doctrine which Christ reproved in the men of Capernaum To lessen and sweeten this expression he tells us it is indeed broken but how under the species of bread and invisibly well so it is though we see it not and it matters not under what if it be broken and we bound to believe it then we cannot avoid the being that which they so detested devourers of Mans flesh See Theophylact in number 15. of this section 6. Concerning the bread or the meat indeed of which Christ speaks he also affirms that whosoever eats it hath life abiding in him But this is not true of the Sacrament for the wicked eating it receive to themselves damnation It cannot therefore be understood of oral manducation but of spiritual and of eating Christ by faith that is receiving him by an instrument or action Evangelical For receiving Christ by faith includes any way of communicating with his body By baptism by holy desires by obedience by love by worthy receiving of the Holy Sacrament and it signifies no otherwise but as if Christ had said To all that believe in me and obey I will become the Author of life and salvation Now because this is not done by all that receive the Sacrament not by unworthy Communicants who yet eat the Symbols according to us and eat Christ's body according to their Doctrine it is unanswerably certain that Christ here spake of Spiritual manducation not of Sacramental Bellarmine he that answers all things whether he can or no sayes that words of this nature are conditional meaning that he who eats Christ's flesh worthily shall live for ever and therefore this effects nothing upon vicious persons yet it may be meant of the Sacrament because without his proper condition it is not prevalent I reply that it is true it is not it cannot and that this condition is spiritual manducation but then without this condition the man doth not eat Christs flesh that which himself calls the true bread for he that eats this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath life in him that is he is united to me he is in the state of grace at present For it ought to be observed that although promises de futuro possibili are to be understood with a condition appendant yet Propositions affirmative at present are declarations of a thing in being and suppose it actually existent and the different parts of this observation are observable in the several parts of the 54. verse He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life that 's an affirmation of a thing in being and therefore implies no other condition but the connexion of the predicate with the subject He that eats hath life But it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I will raise him up at the last day that 's de futuro possibili and therefore implies a condition besides the affirmation of the Antecedent viz. si permanserit if he remain in this condition and does not unravel his first interest and forfeit his life And so the Argument remains unharm'd and is no other than what I learned from Saint Austin Hujus rei Sacramentum c. de mensâ Dominica sumitur quibusdam ad vitam quibusdam ad exitium Res verò ipsa cujus Sacramentum est omni homini ad vitam nulli ad exitium quicunque ejus particeps fuerit And it is remarkable that the context and design of this place takes off this evasion from the Adversary For here Christ opposes this eating of his flesh to the Israelites eating of Manna and prefers it infinitely because they who did eat Manna might die viz. spiritually and eternally but they that eat his flesh shall never die meaning they shall not die eternally and therefore this eating cannot be a thing which can possibly be done unworthily For if Manna as it was Sacramental had been eaten worthily they had not died who eat it and what priviledge then is in this above Manna save only that the eating of this supposes the man to do it worthily and to be a worthy person which the other did not Upon which consideration Cajetan sayes that this eating is not common to worthily and unworthily and that it is not spoken of eating the Sacrament but of eating and drinking that is communicating with the death of Jesus The Argument therefore lies thus There is something which Christ hath promis'd us which whosoever receives he receives life and not death but this is not the Sacrament for of them that communicate some receive to life and some to death saith S. Austin and a greater than S. Austin S. Paul and yet this which is life to all that receive it is Christ's flesh said Christ himself therefore Christ's flesh here spoken of is not Sacramental 7. To warrant the Spiritual sence of these words against the Natural it were easie to bring down a traditive interpretation of them by the Fathers at least a great consent Tertullian hath these words Etsi carnem ait nihil prodesse Materiâ dicti dirigendus est sensus Nam quia durum intolerabilem existimaverunt sermonem ejus quasi verè carnem suam illis edendum determinâsset ut in spiritu disponeret statum salutis praemisit Spiritus est qui vivificat atque ita subjunxit Caro nihil prodest ad vivificandum scil Because they thought his saying hard and intolerable as if he had determined his flesh to be eaten by them that he might dispose the state of salvation in the spirit he premis'd It is the spirit that giveth life and then subjoyns The flesh profiteth nothing
blessed Saviour Do this in memorial of me and this doing ye shew forth the Lords death till he come saith S. Paul 3. Secondly the second credibility that our blessed Saviours words are to be understood figuratively is because it is a Sacrament For mysterious and tropical expressions are very frequently almost regularly and universally used in Scripture in Sacraments and sacramentals And therefore it is but a vain discourse of Bellarmine to contend that this must be a proper speaking because it is a Sacrament For that were all one as to say he speaks mystically therefore he speaks properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Greek for a Sacrament and all the Greek that is for it in the New Testament and when S. Paul tells of a man praying in the spirit but so as not to be understood he expresses it by speaking mysteries The mysterious and sacramental speaking is secret and dark But so it is in the sacrament or covenant of circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my Covenant and yet it was but the seal of the Covenant if you believe S. Paul it was a Sacrament and a consignation of it but it is spoken of it affirmatively and the same words are used there as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both places 4. And upon this account two other usual objections pretending that this being a Covenant and a Testament it ought to be expressed without a figure are dissolved For here is a Covenant and a Testament and a Sacrament all in one and yet the expression of them is figurative and the being a Testament is so far from supposing all expression in it to be proper and free from figure that it self the very word Testament in the institution of the holy Sacrament is tropical or figurative est Testamentum that is est signum Testamenti it is that is it signifies And why they should say that a Testament must have in it all plain words and no figures or hard sayings that contend that both the Testaments New and Old are very full of hard sayings and upon that account forbid the people to read them I confess I cannot understand Besides this though it be fit in temporal Testaments all should be plain yet we see all are not plain and from thence come so many suits of Law yet there is not the same reason in spiritual or divine and in humane Testaments for in humane there is nothing but legacies and express commands both which it is necessary that we understand plainly but in divine Testaments there are mysteries to exercise our industry and our faith our patience and inquiry some things for us to hope some things for us to admire some things to pry into some things to act some things for the present some things for the future some things pertaining to this life some things pertaining to the life to come some things we are to see in a glass darkly some things reserved till the vision of Gods face And after all this in humane Testaments men ought to speak plainly because they can speak no more when they are dead But Christ can for he being dead yet speaketh and he can by his Spirit make the Church understand as much as he please and he will as much as is necessary and it might be remembred that in Scripture there is extant a record of Jacobs Testament and of Moses which we may observe to be an allegory all the way I have heard also of an Athenian that had two sons and being asked on his deathbed to which of his two sons he would give his goods to Leon or Pantaleon which were the names of his two sons he only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether he meant to give all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Leon or to Pantaleon is not yet known And in the Civil Law it is noted that Testaments have figurative expressions very often and therefore decreed Non n. in causâ Testamentorum ad definitionem strictam sive propriam verborum significationem saith the Gloss utique descendendum est cum plerumque abusivè loquantur nec propriis vocabulis ac nominibus semper utantur Testatores l. non aliter Sect. Titius F. de legat fidei com And there are in Law certain measures for presumption of the Testators meaning These therefore are trifling arrests even a commandment may be given with a figurative expression and yet be plain enough such was that of Jesus Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest that he would send Labourers into his Harvest and that Jesus commanded his Disciples to prepare the Passeover and some others so Rent your hearts and not your garments c. And an article of faith may be expressed figuratively so is that of Christs sitting at the right hand of his Father And therefore much more may there be figurative expressions in the institution of a mysterie and yet be plain enough Tropica loquutio cum fit ubi fieri solet sine labore sequitur intellectus said S. Austin l. 3. de Doct. Christ. c. 37. Certain it is the Church understood this well enough for a Thousand years together and yet admitted of figures in the institution and since these new men had the handling of it and excluded the figurative sence they have made it so hard that themselves cannot understand it nor tell one anothers meaning But it suffices as to this particular that in Scripture doctrines and promises and precepts and prophecies and histories are expressed sometimes figuratively Dabo tibi claves and Semen mulieris conteret caput serpentis and The dragon drew the third part of the Stars with his tail and Fight the good fight of faith Put on the armour of righteousness and very many more 5. Thirdly And indeed there is no possibility of distinguishing sacramental propositions from common and dogmatical or from a commandment but that these are affirmative of a nature those of a mystery these speak properly they are figurative such as this Vnless a man be born of water and the Spirit be cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven The proposition is sacramental mystical and figurative Go and baptize that 's a precept therefore the rather is it literal and proper So it is in the blessed Sacrament the institution is in Jesus took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave to his disciples saying Take eat In these also there is a precept and in the last words Hoc facite this do in remembrance of me But the Sacramental proposition or the mystical which explicates the Sacrament is Hoc est corpus meum and either this is or there is no sacramental proposition in this whole affair to explicate the mysterie or the being a sacrament But this is very usual in sacramental propositions For so baptism is called regeneration and it is called a burial by S. Paul for we are buried with him in baptism then baptism
his natural body then it was naturally broken and his bloud was actually poured forth before the passion for he gave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his body was delivered broken his bloud was shed Now those words were spoken either properly and naturally and then they were not true because his body was yet whole his bloud still in the proper channels or else it was spoken in a figurative and sacramental sence and so it was true as were all the words which our blessed Saviour spake for that which he then ministred was the Sacrament of his Passion 3. Secondly If Christ gave his body in the natural sence at the last Supper then it was either a sacrifice propitiatory or it was not If it was not then it is not now and then their dream of the Mass is vanished if it was propitiatory at the last Supper then God was reconciled to all the world and mankind was redeemed before the Passion of our blessed Saviour which therefore would have been needless and ineffective so fearful are the consequents of this strange doctrine 4. Thirdly If Christ gave his body properly in the last Supper and not only figuratively and in sacrament then it could not be a representment or sacrament of his Passion but a real exhibition of it but that it was a Sacrament only appears by considering that it was then alive that the Passion was future that the thing was really to be performed upon the Cross that then he was to be delivered for the life of the world In the last Supper all this was in type and sacrament because it was before and the substance was to follow after 5. Fourthly If the natural body of Christ was in the last Supper under the accidents of bread then his body at the same time was visible and invisible in the whole substance visible in his person invisible under the accidents of bread and then it would be inquired what it was which the Apostles received what benefits they could have by receiving the body naturally or whether it be imaginable that the Apostles understoood it in the literal sence when they saw his body stand by unbroken alive integral hypostatical 6. Fifthly If Christs body were naturally in the Sacrament I demand whether it be as it was in the last Supper or as upon the Cross or as it is now in Heaven Not as in the last Supper for then it was frangible but not broken but typically by design in figure and in Sacrament as it is evident in matter of fact 2. Not as on the Cross for there the body was frangible and broken too and the blood spilled and if it were so now in the Sacrament besides that it were to make Christs glorified body passible and to crucifie the Lord of life again it also were not the same body which Christ hath now for his Body that he hath now is spiritual and incorruptible and cannot be otherwise much less can it be so and not so at the same time properly and yet be the same body 3. Not as in Heaven where it is neither corruptible nor broken for then in the Sacrament there were given to us Christs glorified body and then neither were the Sacrament a remembrance of Christs death neither were the words of Institution verified This is my body which is broken besides in this we have Bellarmines confession Neque enim ore corporali sumi potest corpus Christi ut est in coelo But then if it be remembred that Christ hath no other body but that which is in Heaven and that can never be otherwise than it is and so it cannot be received otherwise properly it unanswerably follows that if it be received in any other manner as it must if it be at all it must be received not naturally or corporally but spiritually and indeed By a figure or a sacramental spiritual sence all these difficulties are easily assoiled but by the natural never 7. Sixthly At the last Supper they eat the blessed Eucharist but it was not in remembrance of Christs death for it was future then and therefore not then capable of being remembred any more than a man can be said to remember what will be done to morrow it follows from hence that then Christ only instituted a Sacrament or figurative mysterious representment of a thing that in the whole use of it was variable by heri and cras and therefore never to be naturally verified but on the Cross by a proper and natural presence because then it was so and never else at that time it was future and now it is past and in both it is relative to his death therefore it could not be a real exhibition of his body in a natural sence for that as it could not be remembred then so neither broken now that is nothing of it is natural but it is wholly ritual mysterious and sacramental For that this was the sacrament of his death appears in the words of Institution and by the preceptive words Do this in remembrance of me And in the reason subjoyned by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For so often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Therefore when Christ said This is my body given or broken on my part taken eaten on yours it can be nothing else but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sacramental image of his death to effect which purpose it could not be necessary or useful to bring his natural body that so the substance should become his own shadow the natural presence be his own Sacrament or rather the image and representment of what he once suffered His body given in the Sacrament is the application and memory of his death and no more that as Christ in Heaven represents his death in the way of intercession so do we by our ministery but as in Heaven it is wholly a representing of his body crucified a rememoration of his crucifixion of his death passion by which he reconciled God and man so it is in the Sacrament after our manner This is my body given for you that is This is the Sacrament of my death in which my body was given for you For as Aquinas said in all sciences words signifie things but it is proper to Theology that things themselves signified or expressed by voices should also signifie something beyond it This is my body are the sacramental words or those words by which the mystery or the thing is sacramental it must therefore signifie something beyond these words and so they do for they signifie the death which Christ suffered in that body It is but an imperfect conception of the mystery to say it is the Sacrament of Christs body only or his blood but it is ex parte rei a Sacrament of the death of his body and to us a participation or an exhibition of it as it became beneficial to us that
expounding the Sacrament Nothing needs to be plainer By the way let me observe this that the words cited by Tertullian out of Jeremy are expounded and recited too but by allusion For there are no such words in the Hebrew Text which is thus to be rendred Corrumpanus veneno cibum ejus and so cannot be referred to the Sacrament unless you will suppose that he fore-signified the poysoning the Emperour by a consecrated wafer But as to the figure this is often said by him for in the first book against Marcion he hath these words again nec reprobavit panem quo ipsum corpus suum repraesentat etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris He refused not bread by which he represents his own body wanting or using in the Sacraments the meanest things of the Creator For it is not to be imagined that Tertullian should attempt to perswade Marcion that the bread was really and properly Christs body but that he really delivered his body on the Cross that both in the old Testament and here himself gave a figure of it in bread and wine for that was it which the Marcionites denied saying on the cross no real humanity did suffer and he confutes them by saying these are figures and therefore denote a truth 8. However these men are resolved that this new answer shall please them and serve their turn yet some of their fellows great Clerks as themselves did shrink under the pressure of it as not being able to be pleased with so laboured and improbable an answer For Harding against Juel hath these words speaking of this place which interpretation is not according to the true sence of Christs words although his meaning swerve not from the truth And B. Rhenanus the author of the admonition to the Reader De quibusdam Tertulliani dogmat◠seems to confess this to be Tertullians error Error putantium corpus Christi in Eucharistiâ tantùm esse sub figurâ jam olim condemnatus The error of them that think the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only in a figure is now long since condemned But Garetius Bellarmine Justinian Coton Fevardentius Valentia and Vasquez in the recitation of this passage of Tertullian very fairly leave out the words that pinch them and which clears the article and bring the former words for themselves without the interpretation of id est figura corporis mei I may therefore without scruple reckon Tertullian on our side against whose plain words no real exception can lye himself expounding his own meaning in the pursuance of the figurative sence of this mystery 20. Concerning Origen I have already given an account in the ninth Paragraph and other places casually and made it appear that he is a direct opposite to the doctrine of Transubstantiation And the same also of Justin Martyr Paragraph the fifth number 9. Where also I have enumerated divers others who speak upon parts of this question on which the whole depends whither I refer the Reader Only concerning Justin Martyr I shall recite these words of his against Tryphon Figura fuit panis Eucharistiae quem in recordationem passionis facere praecepit The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion 21. Clemens Alexandrinus saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The blood of Christ is twofold the one is carnal by which we are redeemed from death the other spiritual viz. by which we are anointed And this is to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakers of the incorruption of our Lord. But the power of the word is the Spirit as blood is of the flesh Therefore in a moderated proposition and convenience wine is mingled with water as the Spirit with a man And he receives in the Feast viz. Eucharistical tempered wine unto faith But the Spirit leadeth to incorruption but the mixture of both viz. of drink and the word is called the Eucharist which is praised and is a good gift or grace of which they who are partakers by faith are sanctified in body and soul. Here plainly he calls that which is in the Eucharist Spiritual blood and without repeating the whole discourse is easie and clear And that you may be certain of S. Clement his meaning he disputes in the same chapter against the Encratites who thought it not lawful to drink wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For be ye sure he also did drink wine for he also was a man and he blessed wine when he said Take drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my blood the blood of the vine for that word that was shed for many for the remission of sins it signifies allegorically a holy stream of gladness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the thing which had been blessed was wine he shewed again saying to his disciples I will not drink of the fruit of this vine till I drink it new with you in my fathers kingdom Now S. Clement proving by Christs sumption of the Eucharist that he did drink wine must mean the Sacramental Symbol to be truly wine and Christs blood allegorically that holy stream of gladness or else he had not concluded by that argument against the Encratites Upon which account these words are much to be valued because by our doctrine in this article he only could confute the Encratites as by the same doctrine explicated as we explicate it Tertullian confuted the Marcionites and Theodoret and Gelasius confuted the Nestorians and Eutychians if the doctrine of Transubstantiation had been true these four heresies had by them as to their particular arguments relating to this matter been unconfuted 22. S. Cyprian in his Tractate de unctione which Canisius Harding Bellarmine and Lindan cite hath these words Dedit itaque Dominus noster c. Therefore our Lord in his table in which he did partake his last banquet with his disciples with his own hands gave bread and wine but on the cross he gave to the souldiers his body to be wounded that in the Apostles the sincere truth and the true sincerity being more secretly imprinted he might expound to the Gentiles how wine and bread should be his flesh and blood and by what reasons causes might agree with effects and diverse names and kinds viz. bread and wine might be reduced to one essence and the signifying and the signified might be reckoned by the same words and in his third Epistle he hath these words Vinum quo Christi sanguis ostenditur wine by which Christs blood is showen or declared Here I might cry out as Bellarmine upon a much slighter ground Quid clariùs dici potuit But I forbear being content to enjoy the real benefits of these words without a triumph But I will use it thus far that it shall outweigh the words cited out of the tract de coenâ Domini by Bellarmine by the Rhemists by the Roman Catechism by Perron
after absolution they never impos'd or oblig'd to punishment unless it were to sick persons of whose recovery they despaired not of them indeed in case they had not finished their Canonical punishments they expected they should perform what was injoyn'd them formerly But because all sin is a blot to a mans soul and a foul stain to his reputation we demand In what does this stain consist in the guilt or in the punishment If it be said that it consists in the punishment then what does the guilt signifie when the removing of it does neither remove the stain nor the punishment which both remain and abide together But if the stain and the guilt be all one or alwayes together then when the guilt is taken away there can no stain remain and if so what need is there any more of Purgatory For since this is pretended to be necessary only lest any stain'd or unclean thing should enter into Heaven if the guilt and the pain be removed what uncleanness can there be left behind Indeed Simon Magus as Epiphanius reports Haeres 20. did teach That after the death of the body there remain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a purgation of souls But whether the Church of Rome will own him for an Authentick Doctor themselves can best tell 3. It relies upon this also That God requires of us a full exchange of penances and satisfactions which must regularly be paid here or hereafter even by them who are pardon'd here which if it were true we were all undone 4. That the death of Christ his Merits and Satisfaction do not procure for us a full remission before we dye nor as it may happen of a long time after All which being Propositions new and uncertain invented by the School Divines and brought ex post facto to dress this Opinion and make it to seem reasonable and being the products of ignorance concerning remission of sins by Grace of the righteousness of Faith and the infinite value of Christ's Death must needs lay a great prejudice of novelty upon the Doctrine it self which but by these cannot be supported But to put it past suspicion and conjectures Roffensis and Polydor Virgil affirm That who so searcheth the Writings of the Greek Fathers shall find that none or very rarely any one of them ever makes mention of Purgatory and that the Latine Fathers did not all believe it but by degrees came to entertain opinions of it But for the Catholick Church it was but lately known to her But before we say any more in this Question we are to premonish That there are two great causes of their mistaken pretensions in this Article from Antiquity The first is That the Ancient Churches in their Offices and the Fathers in their Writings did teach and practise respectively prayer for the dead Now because the Church of Rome does so too and more than so relates her prayers to the Doctrine of Purgatory and for the souls there detaind her Doctors vainly suppose that when ever the Holy Fathers speak of prayer for the dead that they conclude for Purgatory which vain conjecture is as false as it is unreasonable For it is true the Fathers did pray for the dead but how That God would shew them mercy and hasten the Resurrection and give a blessed Sentence in the great day But then it is also to be remembred that they made prayers and offered for those who by the confession of all sides never were in Purgatory even for the Patriarchs and Prophets for the Apostles and Evangelists for Martyrs and Confessors and especially for the blessed Virgin Mary So we find it in Epiphanius Saint Cyril and in the Canon of the Greeks and so it is acknowledged by their own Durandus and in their Mass-book anciently they prayed for the soul of Saint Leo Of which because by their latter Doctrines they grew asham'd they have chang'd the prayer for him into a prayer to God by the intercession of Saint Leo in behalf of themselves so by their new doctrine making him an Intercessor for us who by their old Doctrine was suppos'd to need our prayers to intercede for him of which Pope Innocent being askâ—d a reason makes a most pitiful excuse Upon what accounts the Fathers did pray for the Saints departed and indeed generally for all it is not now seasonable to discourse but to say this only that such general prayers for the dead as those above reckon'd the Church of England never did condemn by any express Article but left it in the middle and by her practice declares her faith of the Resurrection of the dead and her interest in the communion of Saints and that the Saints departed are a portion of the Catholick Church parts and members of the Body of Christ but expresly condemns the Doctrine of Purgatory and consequently all prayers for the dead relating to it And how vainly the Church of Rome from prayer for the dead infers the belief of Purgatory every man may satisfie himself by seeing the Writings of the Fathers where they cannot meet with one Collect or Clause for praying for the delivery of souls out of that imaginary place Which thing is so certain that in the very Roman Offices we mean the Vigils said for the dead which are Psalms and Lessons taken from the Scripture speaking of the miseries of this World Repentance and Reconciliation with God the bliss after this life of them that die in Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead and in the Anthems Versicles and Responses there are Prayers made recommending to God the Soul of the newly defunct praying he may be freed from Hell and eternal death that in the day of Judgment he be not judged and condemned according to his sins but that he may appear among the Elect in the glory of the Resurrection but not one word of Purgatory or its pains The other cause of their mistake is That the Fathers often speak of a fire of Purgation after this life but such a one that is not to be kindled until the day of Judgment and it is such a fire that destroyes the Doctrine of the intermedial Purgatory We suppose that Origen was the first that spoke plainly of it and so Saint Ambrose follows him in the Opinion for it was no more so does Saint Basil Saint Hilary Saint Hierom and Lactantius as their words plainly prove as they are cited by Sixtus Senensis affirming that all men Christ only excepted shall be burned with the fire of the worlds conflagration at the day of Judgment even the Blessed Virgin her self is to pass through this fire There was also another Doctrine very generally receiv'd by the Fathers which greatly destroyes the Roman Purgatory Sixtus Senensis sayes and he sayes very true that Justin Martyr Tertullian Victorinus Martyr Prudentius Saint Chrysostom Arethas Euthimius and Saint Bernard did all affirm that before the day of Judgment the souls of men are
of their Goods Ridiculous What then Saint Austin himself tells us by so much as they lov'd their goods more or less by so much sooner or later they shall be sav'd And what he said of this kind of sin viz. too much worldliness with the same Reason he might suppose of others this he thought possible but of this he was not sure and therefore it was not then an Article of Faith and though now the Church of Rome hath made it so yet it appears that it was not so from the beginning but is part of their new fashion'd faith And E. W. striving so impossibly and so weakly to avoid the pressure of this Argument should do well to consider whether he have not more strained his Conscience than the words of Saint Austin But this matter must not pass thus Saint Austin repeats this whole passage verbatim in his Answer to the 8. Quest. of Dulcitius Quest. 1. and still answers in this and other appendant Questions of the same nature viz. Whether Prayers for the dead be available c. Quest. 2. And whether upon the instant of Christ's appearing he will pass to judgment Quest 3. In these things which we have describ'd our and the infirmity of others may be so exercis'd and instructed nevertheless that they pass not for Canonical Authority And in the Answer to the first Question he speaks in the style of a doubtful person Whether men suffer such things in this life only or also such certain judgments follow even after this life this Understanding of this sentence is not as I suppose abhorrent from truth The same words he also repeats in his Book de fide operibus Chap. 16. There is yet another place of S. Austin in which it is plain he still is a doubting person in the Question of Purgatory His sence is this After the death of the body until the resurrection if in the interval the spirits of the dead are said to suffer that kind of fire which they feel not who had not such manners and loves in their life-time that their wood hay and stubble ought to be consum'd but others feel who brought such buildings along with them whether there only or whether here and there or whether therefore here that it might not be there that they feel a fire of a transitory tribulation burning their secular buildings though escaping from damnation I reprove it not for peradventure it is true So Saint Austin's peradventure yea is alwayes peradventure nay and will the Bigots of the Roman Church be content with such a confession of faith as this of Saint Austin in the present Article I believe not But now after all this I will not deny but Saint Austin was much inclin'd to believe Purgatory fire and therefore I shall not trouble my self to answer the citations to that purpose which Bellarmine and from him these Transcribers bring out of this Father though most of them are drawn out of Apocryphal spurious and suspected pieces as his Homilies de S. S. c. yet that which I urge is this that Saint Austin did not esteem this to be a Doctrine of the Church no Article of Faith but a disputable Opinion and yet though he did incline to the wrong part of the Opinion yet it is very certain that he sometimes speaks expresly against this Doctrine and other times speaks things absolutely inconsistent with the Opinion of Purgatory which is more than an Argument of his confessed doubting for it is a declaration that he understood nothing certain in this affair but that the contrary to his Opinion was the more probable And this appears in these few following words Saint Austin hath these words Some suffer temporary punishments in this life only others after death others both now and then Bellarmine and from him Diaphanta urges this as a great proof of Saint Austin's Doctrine But he destroyes it in the words immediately following and makes it useless to the hypothesis of the Roman Church This shall be before they suffer the last and severest judgment meaning as Saint Austin frequently does such sayings of the General conflagration at the end of the world But whether he does so or no yet he adds But all of them come not into the everlasting punishments which after the Judgment shall be to them who after death suffer the temporary By which Doctrine of Saint Austin viz. that those who are in his Purgatory shall many of them be damn'd and the temporary punishments after death do but usher in the Eternal after judgment he destroyes the salt of the Roman fire who imagines that all that go to Purgatory shall be sav'd Therefore this testimony of Saint Austin as it is nothing for the avail of the Roman Purgatory so by the appendage it is much against it which Coquaeus Torrensis and especially Cardinal Perron observing have most violently corrupted these words by falsely translating them So Perron Tous ceux qui souffrent des peines temporelles apres lâ— mort ne viennent pas aux peines Eternelles qui auront tien apres le judgement which reddition is expresly against the sence of Saint Austin's words 2. But another hypothesis there is in Saint Austin to which without dubitation he does peremptorily adhere which I before intimated viz. that although he admit of Purgatory pains after this life yet none but such as shall be at the day of Judgment Whoever therefore desires to avoid the eternal pains let him be not only baptiz'd but also justified in Christ and truly pass from the Devil unto Christ. But let him not think that there shall be any Purgatory pains but before that last and dreadful Judgment meaning not only that there shall be none to cleanse them after the day of Judgment but that then at the approach of that day the General fire shall try and purge And so himself declares his own sence All they that have not Christ in the foundation are argued or reproved when in the day of Judgment but they that have Christ in the foundation are chang'd that is purg'd who build upon this foundation wood hay stubble So that in the day of Judgment the trial and escape shall be for then shall the trial and the condemnation be But yet more clear are his words in other places So at the setting of the Sun that is at the end viz. of the world the day of judgment is signified by that fire dividing the carnal which are to be sav'd by fire and those who are to be damned in the fire nothing is plainer than that Saint Austin understood that those who are to be sav'd so as by fire are to be sav'd by passing through the fire at the day of judgment that was his Opinion of Purgatory And again out of these things which are spoken it seems more evidently to appear that there shall be certain purgatory pains of some persons in that judgment For what thing else
Denis means that death is the end of all the agonies of this life A goodly note and never revealed till then and now as if this were a good argument to encourage men to contend bravely and not to fear death because when they are once dead they shall no more be troubled with the troubles of this life indeed you may go to worse and death may let you into a state of being as bad as hell and of greater torments than all the pains of this world put together amount to But to let alone such ridiculous subterfuges see the words of S. Dionys They that live a holy life looking to the true promises of God as if they were to behold the truth it self in that resurrection which is according to it with firm and true hope and in a Divine joy come to the sleep of death as to an end of all holy contentions now certainly if the doctrine of Purgatory were true and that they who had contended here and for all their troubles in this world were yet in a tolerable condition should be told that now they shall go to worse he that should tell them so would be but one of Jobs comforters No the servant of God coming to the end of his own troubles viz. by death is filled with holy gladness and with much rejoycing ascends to the way of Divine regeneration viz. to immortality which word can hardly mean that they shall be tormented a great while in hell fire The words of Justin Martyr or whoever is the Author of those Questions and Answers imputed to him affirms that presently after the departure of the soul from the body a distinction is made between the just and the unjust for they are brought by Angels to places worthy of them the souls of the just to Paradise where they have the conversation and sight of Angels and Archangels but the souls of the unrighteous to the places in Hades the invisible region or Hell Against these words because they pinch severely E. W. thinks himself bound to say something and therefore 1. whereas Justin Martyr says after our departure presently there is a separation made he answers that Justin Matyr means here to speak of the two final states after the day of judgment for so it seems he understands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or presently after death to mean the day of judgment of the time of which neither men nor Angels know any thing And whereas Justin Martyr says that presently the souls of the righteous go to Paradise E. W. answers 2. That Justin does not say that all just souls are carried presently into Heaven no Justin says into Paradise true but let it be remembred that it is so a part of Heaven as limbus infantum is by themselves call'd a part of hell that is a place of bliss the region of the blessed But 3. Justin says that presently there is a separation made but he says not that the souls of the righteous are carried to Paradise That 's the next answer which the very words of Justin do contradict There is presently a separation made of the just and unjust for they are by the Angels carried to the places they have deserved This is the separation which is made one is carried to Paradise the other to a place in hell But these being such pitiful offers at answering the Gentleman tries another way and says 4. That this affirmative of Justin contradicts another saying of Justin which I cited out of Sixtus Senensis that Justin Martyr and many other of the Fathers affirm'd that the souls of men are kept in secret receptacles reserved unto the sentence of the great day and that before then no man receives according to his works done in this life To this I answer that one opinion does not contradict another for though the Fathers believ'd that they who die in the Lord rest from their labours and are in blessed places and have antepasts of joy and comforts yet in those places they are reserv'd unto the judgment of the great day The intermedial joy or sorrow respectively of the just and unjust does but antedate the final sentence and as the comforts of Gods spirit in this life are indeed graces of God and rewards of Piety as the torments of an evil conscience are the wages of impiety yet as these do not hinder but that the great reward is given at dooms-day and not before so neither do the joys which the righteous have in the interval They can both consist together and are generally affirm'd by very many of the Greek and Latin Fathers And methinks this Gentleman might have learn'd from Sixtus Senensis how to have reconcil'd these two opinions for he quotes him saying there is a double beatitude the one imperfect of soul only the other consummate and perfect of soul and body The first the Fathers call'd by several names of Sinus Abrahae Atrium Dei sub Altare c. The other perfect joy the glory of the resurrection c. But it matters not what is said or how it be contradicted so it seem but to serve a present turn But at last if nothing of this will do these words are not the words of Justin for he is not the Author of the Questions and Answers ad orthodoxos To which I answer it matters not whether they be Justins or no But they are put together in the collection of his works and they are generally called his and cited under his name and made use of by Bellarmine when he supposes them to be to his purpose However the Author is Ancient and Orthodox and so esteem'd in the Church and in this particular speaks according to the doctrine of the more Ancient Doctors well but how is this against Purgatory says E. W. for they may be in secret receptacles after they have been in Purgatory To this I answer that he dares not teach that for doctrine in the Church of Rome who believes that the souls deliver'd out of Purgatory go immediately to the heaven of the Blessed and therefore if his book had been worth the perusing by the Censors of books he might have been questioned and followed Mr. Whites fortune And he adds it might be afterwards according to Origens opinion that is Purgatory might be after the day of judgment for so Origen held that all the fires are Purgatory and the Devils themselves should be sav'd Thus this poor Gentleman thinking it necessary to answer one argument against Purgatory brought in the Dissuasive cares not to answer by a condemned heresie rather than reason shall be taught by any son of the Church of England But however the very words of the Fathers cross his slippery answers so that they thrust him into a corner for in these receptacles the godly have joy and they enter into them as soon as they die and abide there till the day of judgment S. Ambrose is so full pertinent and material to
the Question in hand and so destructive of the Roman hypothesis that nothing can be said against it His words are these therefore in all regards death is good because it divides those that were always fighting that they may not impugn each other and because it is a certain port to them who being toss'd in the sea of this world require the station of faithful rest and because it makes not our state worse but such as it finds every one such it reserves him to the future judgment and nourishes him with rest and withdraws him from the envy of present things and composes him with the expectation of future things E. W. thinking himself bound to say something to these words answers It is an excellent saying for worse he is not but infinitely better that quit of the occasions of living here is ascertain'd of future bliss hereafter which is the whole drift of the Saint in that Chapter Read it and say afterwards if I say not true It is well put off But there are very many that read him who never will or can examine what S. Ambrose says and withal such he hopes to escape But as to the thing That death gives a man advantage and by its own fault no disadvantage is indeed not only the whole drift of that Chapter but of that whole book But not for that reason only is a man the better for death but because it makes him not worse in order to Eternity nay it does not alter him at all as to that for as death finds him so shall the judgment find him and therefore not purified by Purgatory for such he is reserved and not only thus but it cherishes him with rest which would be very ill done if death carried him to Purgatory Now all these last words and many others E. W. is pleas'd to take no notice of as not being for his purpose But he that pleases to see more may read the 12. and 18. Chapters of the same Treatise S. Gregorie's saying that after this life there is no purgation can no way be put off by any pretences For he means it of the time after death before the day of judgment which is directly oppos'd to the doctrine of the Church of Rome and unless you will suppose that S. Gregory believ'd two Purgatories it is certain he did not believe the Roman for he taught that the purgation which he calls Baptism by fire and the saving yet as by fire was to be perform'd at the day of judgment and the curiosity of that trial is the fierceness of that fire as Nicetas expounds S. Gregories words in his oration in sancta lumina So that S. Gregory affirming that this world is the place of purgation and that after this world there is no purgation could not have spoken any thing more direct against the Roman Purgatory S. Hilary and S. Macarius speak of two states after death and no more True says E. W. but they are the two final states That is true too in some sence for it is either of eternal good or evil but to one of these states they are consigned and determined at the time of their death at which time every one is sent either to the bosom of Abraham or to a place of pain where they are reserved to the sentence of the great day S. Hilary's words are these There is no stay or delaying For the day of judgment is either an eternal retribution of beatitude or of pain But the time of our death hath every one in his laws whiles either Abraham viz. the bosome of Abraham or pain reserves every one unto the Judgment These words need no Commentary He that can reconcile these to the Roman Purgatory will be a most mighty man in controversie And so also are the words of S. Macarius when they go out of the body the quires of Angels receive their souls and carry them to their proper place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a pure world and so lead them to the Lord. Such words as these are often repeated by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Ancient Church I summ them up with the saying of S. Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It is not death that happens to the righteous but a translation For they are translated out of this world into everlasting rest And as a man would go out of prison so do the Saints go out of this troublesome life unto those good things which are prepared for them Now let these and all the precedent words be confronted against the sad complaints made for the souls in Purgatory by Joh. Gerson in his querela defunctorum and Sr. Tho. More in his supplication of souls and it will be found that the doctrine of the Fathers differs from the doctrine of the Church of Rome as much as heaven and hell rest and labor horrid torments and great joy I conclude this matter of quotations by the saying of Pope Leo which one of my adversaries could not find because the Princes was mistaken It is the 91. Epistle so known and so us'd by the Roman writers in the Qu. of Confession that if he be a man of learning it cannot be suppos'd but he knew where to find them The words are these But if any of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being intercepted by any obstacle falls from the benefit of the present Indulgences and before he comes to the constituted remedies shall end his temporal life by humane condition or frailty that which abiding in the body he hath not received being out of the flesh he cannot Now against these words of S. Leo set the present doctrine of the Church of Rome that what is not finished of penances here a man may pay in Purgatory and let the world judge whether S. Leo was in this point a Roman Catholick Indeed S. Leo forgot to make use of the late distinction of sins venial and mortal of the punishment of mortal sins remaining after the fault is taken away but I hope the Roman Doctors will excuse the Saint because the distinction is but new and modern But this testimony of S. Gregory must not go for a single Testimony That which abiding in the body could not be receiv'd out of the body cannot that is when the soul is gone out of the body as death finds them so shall the day of judgment find them And this was the sence of the whole Church for after death there is no change of state before the General Trial no passing from pain to rest in the state of separation and therefore either there are no Purgatory pains or if there be there is no â—ase of them before the day of judgment and the Prayers and Masses of the Church cannot give remedy to one poor soul and this must of necessity be confessed by the Roman Doctors or else they must shew that ever any one Catholick Father did teach that after death
in the Court of Conscience So Pacianus Haec est novi Testamenti tota conclusio despectus in multis Spiritus sanctus haec nobis capitalis periculi conditione legavit Reliqua peccata meliorum operum compensatione curantur Haec verò tria crimina ut basilisci alicujus afflatus ut veneni calix ut lethalis arundo meâ—uenda sunt non enim vitiare animam sed intercipere noverunt Some sins do pollute and some do kill the soul that is are very near approaches to death next to the unpardonable state and they are to be repented of just as habits are even by a long and a laborious repentance and by the piety and holiness of our whole ensuing life De peccato remisso noli esse securus said the son of Sirach Be not secure though your sin be pardoned when therefore you are working out and suing your pardon be not too confident 53. XI Those acts of sin which can once be done and no more as Parricide and such which destroy the subject or person against whom the sin is committed are to be cured by Prayer and Sorrow and entercourses with God immediately the effect of which because it can never be told and because the mischief can never be rescinded so much as by fiction of Law nor any supply be made to the injur'd person the guilty man must never think himself safe but in the daily and nightly actions of a holy Repentance 54. XII He that will repent well and truly of his single actual sins must be infinitely careful that he do not sin after his Repentance and think he may venture upon another single sin supposing that an act of contrition will take it off and so interchange his days by sin and sorrow doing to morrow what he was ashamed of yesterday For he that sins upon the confidence of Repentance does not repent at all because he repents that he may sin and these single acts so periodically returning do unite and become a habit He that resolves against a sin and yet falls when he is tempted is under the power of sin in some proportion and his estate is very suspicious though he always resolved against that sin which he always commits It is upon no other account that a single sin does not destroy a man but because it self is speedily destroyed if therefore it goes on upon its own strength and returns in its proper period it is not destroyed but lives and indangers the man 55. XIII Be careful that you do not commit a single act of sin toward the latter end of your life for it being uncertain what degrees of anger God will put on and in what periods of time he will return to mercy the nearer to our death such sins interâ—â—ne the more degrees of danger they have For although the former discourse is agreeable to the analogy of the Gospel and the Oeconomy of the Divine Mercy yet there are sad words spoken against every single sin Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offends in one instance he shall be guilty of all saith S. James plainly affirming that the admitting one sin much more the abiding in any one sin destroys all our present possession of Gods favour Concerning which although it may seem strange that one prevarication in one instance should make an universal guilt yet it will be certain and intelligible if we consider that it relates not to the formality but to the event of things He that commits an act of Murther is not therefore an Adulterer but yet for being a Murtherer he shall die He is as if he were guilty of all that is his innocence in the other shall not procure him impunity in this One crime is inconsistent with Gods love and favour 56. But there is something more in it than this For every one that breaks a Commandment let the instance be what it will is a transgressor of the same bond by which he was bound to all Non quòd omnia legis praecepta violârit sed quòd legis Authoreâ—â— contempserit eóque praemio meritò careat quod legis cultoribus propositum est saith Venerable Bede He did not violate all the Commandments but he offended him who is the giver of all the Commandments It is like letting one Bead fall from a Rosary or Corone of Bugles This or that or a third makes no difference the string iâ— as much broken if he lets one to slide as if he dropp'd twenty It was not an ill conceit of Meâ—edemus the Eretrian that there was but one vertue which had divers names Aristo Chius express'd the same conceit with a little difference affirming all vertues to be the same in reality and nature but to have a certain diversification or rational difference by relation to their objects As if one should call the sight when it looks upon a Crow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if upon a Swan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so is vertue When it moderates the affections it is Temperance when it balances contracts it is Justice when it considers what is and what is not to be done it is Prudence That which they call Vertue if we call it the grace of God or Obedience it is very true which they say For the same spirit the same grace of obedience is Chastity or Temperance or Justice according as is the subject matter The love of God if it be in us is productive of all worthiness and this is it which S. John said This is love that we keep his Commandments The love of God constraineth us It worketh all the works of God in us It is the fulfilling of the Commandments For this is a Catholicon an Universal Grace Charity gives being to all vertues it is the life and spirit of all holy actions Abstinence from feasts and inordination mingled with Charity is Temperance And Justice is Charity and Chastity is Charity and Humility is still but an instance of Charity This is that Transcendent that gives life and vertue to Alms to Preaching to Faith to Miracles it does all obedience to God all good offices to our Neighbours which in effect is nothing but the sentence of Menedemus and Aristo that there is an Universal Vertue that is there is one soul and essence of all vertue They call it Vertue S. Paul calls it Charity and this is that one thing which is necessary that one thing which every man that sins does violate He that is guilty of all is but guilty of that one and therefore he that is guilty of that one of the breach of Charity is guilty of all And upon this account it is that no one sin can stand with the state of grace because he that sins in once instance sins against all goodness not against all instances of duty but against that which is the life of all against Charity and Obedience A Prayer to be said in the days of Repentance for the commission of any great Crime O
foregoing cases CAN the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye learn to do good that are accustomed to do evil This is thy lot the portion of thy measures from me saith the Lord because thou hast forgotten me Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains lest while you look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness What wilt thou say when he shall punish shall not sorrow take thee as a woman in travel And if thou say in thine heart Wherefore came these things upon me for the goodness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made bare I have seen thine adulteries and thy neighings the lewdness of thy whoredoms and thine abominations Wo unto thee wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be saith the Lord God Thus saith the Lord unto this people Thus have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord doth not accept them he will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins Then saith the Lord Pray not for this people for their good When they fast I will not hear their cry and when they offer an oblation I will not accept them but I will consume them by the sword and by famine and by the pestilence Therefore thus saith the Lord if thou return then will I bring thee again and thou shalt stand before me and if thou take forth the precious from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible Learn before thou speak and use Physick or ever thou be sick Before judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt find mercy Humble thy self before thou be sick and in the time of sins shew repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy vows in due time and defer not until death to be justified I made hast and prolonged not the time to keep thy Commandments Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place Trust not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord. For if you throughly amend your ways and your doings if you throughly execute judgment If ye oppress not the stranger and the widow then shall ye dwell in the land Thus saith the Lord God I will give you the land and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh That they may walk in my statutes and keep mine ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God But as for them whose heart walketh after their detestable things and their abominations I will recompence their way upon their own heads saith the Lord God They have seduced my people saying Peace and there was no peace and one built up a wall and others dawb'd it with untemper'd morter Will ye pollute me among my people for handfulls of barley and pieces of bread to slay the souls that should not die and to save the souls alive that should not live by your lying unto my people that hear your lies Therefore I will judge you ô house of Israel every one according to your ways saith the Lord God repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die ô house of Israel For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turn your selves and live ye Ye shall remember your ways and all your doings wherein ye have been defil'd and ye shall loath your selves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed Wo unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope Wo unto them that justifie the wicked for a reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes cease to do evil Learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widow Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wooll If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the fruit of the land But if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it She hath wearied her self with lies therefore have I caused my fury to light upon her Sow to your selves in righteousness and reap in mercy break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon you Turn thou unto thy God keep mercy and judgment and wait on thy God continually O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help Return to the Lord thy God for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity Take with you words and turn to the Lord say unto him Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously so will we render the calves of our lips For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy I will heal their backsliding I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity whose name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the Spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones For I will not contend for ever neither will I be always wroth for the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made For the iniquity of his
and there is none begotten who hath not committed sin He says their meaning cannot extend to Christ for he was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 born to sin but he is natura ad peccandum natus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by nature born to sin who by the choice of his own will is author to himself to do what he list whether it be good or evil The following words are eaten out by time but upon this ground whatever he said of Infants must needs have been to better purposes than is usually spoken of in this Article 2. Heirs of wrath signifies persons liable to punishment heirs of death It is an usual expression among the Hebrews So sons of death in the holy Scriptures are those that deserve death or are condemned to die Thus Judas Iscariot is called The son of perdition and so is that saying of David to Nathan The man that hath done this shall surely die In the Hebrew it is He is the son of death And so were those Ephesians children or sons of wrath before their conversion that is they had deserv'd death 3. By nature is here most likely to be meant that which Galen calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an acquisite nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 customs and evil habits And so Suidas expounds the word in this very place not only upon the account of Grammar and the use of the word in the best Authors but also upon an excellent reason His words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Apostle says we were by nature children of wrath he means not that which is the usual signification of nature for then it were not their fault but the fault of him that made them such but it means an abiding and vile habit a wicked and a lasting custom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle Custom is like Nature For often and always are not far asunder Nature is always Custom is almost always To the same sence are those words of Porphyry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ancients who lived likest to God and were by nature the best living the best life were a golden generation 4. By nature means not by birth and natural extraction or any original derivation from Adam in this place for of this these Ephesians were no more guilty than every one else and no more before their conversion than after but by nature signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Greek Scholiast renders it really beyond opinion plenè omnino intirely or wholly so the Syriack and so S. Hierome affirms that the Ancients did expound it and it is agreeable to the usage of the same phrase Gal. 4.8 Ye did service to them which by nature are no Gods that is which really are none And as these Ephesians were before their conversion so were the Israelites in the days of their rebellion a wicked stubborn people insomuch that they are by the Prophet called children of transgression a seed of falsehood But these and the like places have no force at all but what they borrow from the ignorance of that sence and acceptation of the word in those languages which ought to be the measure of them 51. But it is hard upon such mean accounts to reckon all children to be born enemies of God that is bastards and not sons heirs of Hell and damnation full of sin and vile corruption when the holy Scriptures propound children as imitable for their pretty innocence and sweetness and declare them rather heirs of Heaven than Hell In malice be children and unless we become like to children we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and their Angels behold the face of their Father which is in Heaven Heaven is theirs God is their Father Angels are appropriated to them they are free from malice and imitable by men These are better words than are usually given them and signifie that they are beloved of God not hated design'd for Heaven and born to it though brought thither by Christ and by the Spirit of Christ not born for Hell that was prepared for the Devil and his Angels not for innocent babes This does not call them naturally wicked but rather naturally innocent and is a better account than is commonly given them by imputation of Adams sin 52. But not concerning children but of himself S. Paul complains that his nature and his principles of action and choice are corrupted There is a law in my members bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and many other words to the same purpose all which indeed have been strangely mistaken to very ill purposes so that the whole Chapter so as is commonly expounded is nothing but a temptation to evil life and a patron of impiety Concerning which I have in the next Chapter given account and freed it from the common abuse But if this were to be understood in the sence which I there reprove yet it is to be observed in order to the present Question that S. Paul does not say This law in our members comes by nature or is derived from Adam A man may bring a law upon himself by vicious custom and that may be as prevalent as Nature and more because more men have by Philosophy and illuminated Reason cured the disposition of their nature than have cured their vicious habits * Add to this that S. Paul puts this uneasiness and this carnal law in his members wholly upon the account of being under the law and of his not being under Christ not upon the account of Adams prevarication as is plain in the analogy of the whole Chapter 53. As easie also it is to understand these words of S. Paul without prejudice to this Question The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither indeed can he know them meaning as is supposed that there is in our natures an ignorance and averseness from spiritual things that is a contrariety to God But it is observable that the word which the Apostle uses is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not properly rendred Natural but Animal and it certainly means a man that is guided only by natural Reason without the revelations of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Suidas An animal man that is a Philosopher or a rational man such as were the Greek and Roman Philosophers upon the stock and account of the learning of all their Schools could never discern the excellencies of the Gospel mysteries as of God incarnate Christ dying Resurrection of the body and the like For this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Animal and another word used often by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Carnal are opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritual and are states of evil or of imperfection in which while a man remains he cannot do the work of God For animality which is a relying upon natural principles without revelation is a state privatively oppos'd to the
to the purities and perfections of God in respect of which as he says of us men in our imperfect state so he says also of the Angels or the holy Ones of God and of the Heaven it self that it is also unclean and impure for the cause and verification of which we must look out something besides Original sin * Add to this that vice is pregnant and teeming and brings forth new instances numerous as the spawn of fishes such as are inadvertency carelesness tediousness of spirit and these also are causes of very much evil SECT V. Of liberty of Election remaining after Adams fall UPON this account besides that the causes of an universal impiety are apparent without any need of laying Adam in blame for all our follies and miseries or rather without charging them upon God who so order'd all things as we see and feel the universal wickedness of man is no argument to prove our will servile and the powers of election to be quite lost in us excepting only that we can chuse evil For admitting this proposition that there can be no liberty where there is no variety yet that all men chuse sin is not any testimony that there is no variety in our choice If there were but one sin in the world and all men did chuse that it were a shrewd suspicion that they were naturally determin'd or strongly precipitated But every man does not chuse the same sin nor for the same cause neither does he chuse it always but frequently declines it hates it and repents of it many men even among the Heathens did so So that the objection hinders not but that choice and election still remains to a man and that he is not naturally sinful as he is naturally heavy or upright apt to laugh or weep For these he is always and unavoidable 72. And indeed the contrary doctrine is a destruction of all laws it takes away reward and punishment and we have nothing whereby we can serve God And precepts of holiness might as well be preached to a Wolf as to a Man if man were naturally and inevitably wicked Improbitas nullo flectitur obsequio There would be no use of reason or of discourse no deliberation or counsel and it were impossible for the wit of man to make sence of thousands of places of Scripture which speak to us as if we could hear and obey or could refuse Why are promises made and threatnings recorded Why are Gods judgments registred to what purpose is our reason above and our affections below if they were not to minister to and attend upon the will But upon this account it is so far from being true that man after his fall did forfeit his natural power of election that it seems rather to be encreased For as a mans knowledge grows so his will becomes better attended and ministred unto But after his fall his knowledge was more than before he knew what nakedness was and had experience of the difference of things he perceiv'd the evil and mischief of disobedience and the Divine anger he knew fear and flight new apprehensions and the trouble of a guilty conscience by all which and many other things he grew better able and instructed with arguments to obey God and to refuse sin for the time to come And it is every mans case a repenting man is wiser and hath oftentimes more perfect hatred of sin than the innocent and is made more wary by his fall But of this thing God himself is witness Ecce homo tanquam singularis ex se ipso habet scire bonum malum So the Chaldee Paraphrase reads Gen. 3.22 Our Bibles read thus And the Lord God said Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil Now as a consequent of this knowledge God was pleased by ejecting him out of Paradise to prevent his eating of the Tree of Life Ne fortè mittat manúm suam in arborem vitae Meaning that now he was grown wise and apt to provide himself and use all such remedies as were before him He knew more after his fall than before therefore ignorance was not the punishment of that sin and he that knows more is better enabled to choose and lest he should choose that which might prevent the sentence of death put upon him God cast him from thence where the remedy did grow Upon the authority of this place Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon hath these words Potestas libera unicuique data est Si vult inclinare se ad bonum esse jusâ—us penes ipsum est Sin vult se ad malum inclinare esse impius hoc ipsum penes est Hoc illud est quod in lege scribitur Ecce homo tanquam singularis ex seipso habet scire bonum malum To every man is given a power that he may choose and be inclined to good if he please or else if he please to do evil For this is written in the Law Behold the man is as a single one of himself now he knows good and evil as if he had said Behold mankind is in the world without its like and can of his own counsel and thought know good and evil in either of these doing what himself shall choose Si lapsus es poteris surgere In utramvis partem habes liberum arbitrium saith S. Chrysostome If thou hast fallen thou mayest rise again That which thou art commanded to do thou hast power to do Thou mayest choose either 73. I might be infinite in this but I shall only add this one thing That to deny to the will of man powers of choice and election or the use of it in the actions of our life destroys the immortality of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Hierocles Humane Nature is in danger to be lost if it diverts to that which is against Nature For if it be immortal it can never die in its noblest faculty But if the will be destroyed that is disabled from choosing which is all the work the will hath to do then it is dead For to live and to be able to operate in Philosophy is all one If the will therefore cannot operate how is it immortal And we may as well suppose an understanding that can never understand and passions that can never desire or refuse and a memory that can never remember as a will that cannot choose Indeed all the faculties of the soul that operate by way of nature can be hindred in individuals but in the whole species never But the will is not impedible it cannot be restrained at all if there be any acts of life and when all the other faculties are weakest the will is strongest and does not at all depend upon the body Indeed it often follows the inclination and affections of the body but it can choose against them and it can work without them And indeed since sin is the action of a free faculty it can no more
of Original sin as it is commonly explicated at this day For all that this Author for it was indeed some later Catholick Author but not Justin did know of Original sin was that which he relates in the answer to the 102 Question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We also are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ by baptism putting off Adam by whom we being made sinners did die and putting on Christ by whom being Justified we are risen from the dead In whom saith the Apostle we were circumcised with the circumcision which is made without hands while you have put off your body That is Adam's sin made us to become sinners that is was imputed to us so that in him we die but by Christ being justified we are made alive that is in him we are admitted to another life a life after our resurrection and this is by baptism for there we die to Adam and live to Christ we are initiated in a new birth to a new and more perfect state of things But all this leaves Infants in a state of so much innocence that they are not formally guilty of a sin but imperfect and insufficient to righteousness and every one hath his liberty left him to do as he please so far is affirmed by the author of these answers But the sentence of Justin Martyr in this article may best be conjectured by his discourse at large undertaking to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A freedom of Election to fly evil things and to choose that which is good set down in his second apology for the Christians Theophilus Antiochenus affirms that which destroys the new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about Adam's perfection and rare knowledge in the state of innocence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adam in that age was yet as an infant and therefore did not understand that secret viz. that the fruit which he eat had in it nothing but knowledge and a little after reckoning the evil consequents of Adam's sin he names these onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grief sorrow and death at last 20. Clemens of Alexandria having affirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that by nature we are born apt to vertue not that we have vertue from our birth but that we are apt to require it from thence takes opportunity to discuss this question whether Adam was formed perfect or imperfect If imperfect how comes it to pass that the 〈◊〉 of God especially Man should be imperfect If perfect how came he to break the commandments He answers that Adam was not made perfect in his constitution but prepared indeed for vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For God would have us by our selves that is by our own choice to be 〈◊〉 For it is the nature of the Soul to be driven and stirred up by it self Many more things to the same purpose he affirms in perfect contradiction to them who believe Adam's sin so to have debauched our faculties that we have lost all our powers of election our powers of election grow stronger not weaker according as our knowledge increases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which was in Adam meaning his free-will that was it which grew with the increase of a man Therefore it was not lost by Adam But more pertinent to the present Questions are these words An innocent Martyr suffers like an infant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infant neither committed actual sin or sin in himself neither hath he sinned before-hand that is properly in Adam to whose sin he gave no consent for else there can be no antithesis or opposition in the parts of his distinction â—â— sinned not actually in himself being one member the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sinning before being opposed to actual sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in himself must mean Original and in another And this he also expresly affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Tatianus and the Encratites did design to prove marriage to be unlawful because it produced nothing but sinners and to that purpose urged those words of Job There is no man free from pollution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though his life be but of one day For so antiquity did generally quote the 25 of Job 4. following the Lxx which interpretâ— the place there being neither the same words nor the like sence in the Hebrew But that very Quotation had no small influence into the forward perswasions of the article concerning Original sin as is visible to them that have read the writings of the Ancient D. D. But to the things here objected Clemens replied Let them tell us theâ— how an infant newly born hath fornicated or polluted himself or how he is fallen under the curse of Adam he who hath done nothing He had no other way to extricate himself For if marriage produces none but sinners persons hated by God formally guilty of sin then as the Fruit is such is the Tree He answers True if it were so but marriage produces infants that are innocent and having done nothing evil yet they never deserved to fall under Adam's curse The effect of which is this that to them sickness and death is a misery but not formally a punishment because they are innocent and formally are no sinners Some to elude this testimony would make these words to be the words of the Encratites or Julius Cassianus but then they are no sence but a direct objection to themselves But the case is clear to them that read and understand and therefore the Learned and Good man Johannes Gerardus Vâ—ssius confesses down-right Clementem Alexandrinum non satis intellexisse peccatum Originale That he did not understand the doctrine of Original sin This only I add that he takes from the Objector that place of David In sin hath my mother conceived 〈◊〉 affirming that by my mother he means Eve and that she peccatrix concepit sed non peccatorem she was in sin when she conceived him but he was not in sin when he was conceived But the meaning of Clemens Alex. is easily to be understood to be consonant to truth and the usual doctrine of the first ages which makes Adam's sin to be ours by imputation but that no sin upon that title is inherent in us and Clemens Alex. understood the Question very well though not to the purposes of our new Opinions 21. Tertullian speaks of the sin of Adam several times but affirms not that we have any formal proper and inherent sin But that the soul of man is a sinner because it is unclean just as it was amongst the rites of Moses Law where legal impurity was called sin and that we derive from Adam a shame rather than a sin an ignominy or reproach like that of being born of dishonourable Parents or rather from the society of the flesh as he expresses it and that this dishonour lasts upon us till we enter upon a new relation in Christ. Ita omnis anima
this state which he describes is the state of a carnal man under the corruption of his nature upon whom the law had done some change but had not cured him 3. That from this state of evil we are redeemed by the Spirit of Christ by the Grace of the Gospel and now a Child of God cannot complain this complaint 25. I. That he puts on the person of another by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or translation as was usual with S. Paul in very many places of his Epistles is evident by his affirming that of the man whom he here describes which of himself were not true I was alive without the law once Of S. Paul's own person this was not true for he was bred and born under the law circumcised the eighth day an Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law a Pharisee he never was alive without the law But the Israelites were whom he therefore represents indefinitely under a single person the whole Nation before and under the law I was alive once without the law but when the Commandment came that is when the law was given sin revived and I died that is by occasion of the law sin grew stronger and prevailed 2. But concerning the Christian and his present condition he expresly makes it separate from that of being under the law and consequently under sin But now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter We are delivered It is plain that some sort of men are freed from that sad condition of things of which he there complains and if any be it must be the regenerate And so it is For the scope of the Apostle in this Chapter is to represent and prove that salvation is not to be had by the law but by Jesus Christ and that by that discipline men cannot be contain'd in their duty and therefore that it was necessary to forsake the law and to come to Christ. To this purpose he brings in a person complaining that under the discipline of the law he was still under the power of sin Now if this had been also true of a regenerate person of a Christian renewed by the Spirit of grace then it had been no advantage to have gone from the Law to Christ as to this argument for still the Christian would be under the same slavery which to be the condition of one under the law S. Paul was to urge as an argument to call them from Moses to Christ. 26. II. That this state which he now describes is the state of a carnal man under the corruption of his nature appears by his saying that sin had wrought in him all manner of concupiscence that sin revived and he died that the motions of sin which were by the law did work in the members to bring forth fruit unto death and that this was when we were in the flesh that he is carnal sold under sin that he is carried into captivity to the law of sin that sin dwells in him and is like another person doing or constraining him to do things against his mind that it is a State and a Government a Law and a Tyranny For that which I do I allow not plainly saying that this doing what we would not that is doing against our conscience upon the strength of passion and in obedience to the law of sin was the state of them who indeed were under the law but the effect of carnality and the viciousness of their natural and ungracious condition Here then is the description of a natural and carnal man He sins frequently he sins against his conscience he is carnal and sold under sin sin dwells in him and gives him laws he is a slave to sin and led into captivity Now if this could be the complaint of a regenerate man from what did Christ come to redeem us how did he take away our sins did he only take off the punishment and still leave us to wallow in the impurities and baser pleasures perpetually to rail upon our sins and yet perpetually to do them How did he come to bless us in turning every one of us from our iniquity How and in what sence could it be true which the Apostle affirms He did bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness But this proposition I suppose my self to have sufficiently proved in the reproof of the first exposition of these words in question only I shall in present add the concurrent testimony of some Doctors of the Primitive Church Tertullian hath these words Nam etsi habitare bonum in carne suâ negavit sed secundum legem literae in quâ fuit secundum autem legem Spiritus cui nos annectit liberat ab infirmitate carnis Lex enim inquit Spiritus vitae manumisit te à lege delinquentiae mortis Licet enim ex parte ex Judaismo disputare videatur sed in nos dirigit integritatem plenitudinem disciplinarum propter quos laborantes in lege per carnem miserit Deus filium suum in similitudinem carnis delinquentiae propter delinquentiam damnaverit delinquentiam in carne Plainly he expounds this Chapter to be meant of a man under the law according to the law of the letter under which himself had been he denied any good to dwell in his flesh but according to the law of the Spirit under which we are plac'd he frees us from the infirmity of the flesh for he saith the law of the Spirit of life hath freed us from the law of sin and death Origen affirms that when S. Paul says I am carnal sold under sin Tanquam Doctor Ecclesiae personam in semetipsum suscipit infirmorum he takes upon him the person of the infirm that is of the carnal and says those words which themselves by way of excuse or apology use to speak But yet says he this person which S. Paul puts on although Christ does not dwell in him neither is his body the Temple of the holy Ghost yet he is not wholly a stranger from good but by his will and by his purpose he begins to look after good things But he cannot yet obtain to do them For there is such an infirmity in those who begin to be converted that is whose mind is convinc'd but their affections are not master'd that when they would presently do all good yet an effect did not follow their desires S. Chrysostom hath a large Commentary upon this Chapter and his sence is perfectly the same Propterea subnexuit dicens Ego verò carnalis sum hominem describens sub lege ante legem degentem S. Paul describes not himself but a man living under and before the law and of such a one he says but I am carnal Who please to see more
authorities to the same purpose may find them in S. Basil Theodoret S. Cyril Macarius S. Ambrose S. Hierom and Theophylact The words of the Apostle the very purpose and design the whole Oeconomy and Analogy of the sixth seventh and eighth Chapters do so plainly manifest it that the heaping up more testimonies cannot be useful in so clear a case The results are these I. The state of men under the law was but a state of carnality and of nature better instructed and soundly threatned and set forward in some instances by the spirit of fear only but not cured but in many men made much worse accidentally II. That to be pleased in the inner man that is in the Conscience to be convinc'd and to consent to the excellency of vertue and yet by the flesh that is by the passions of the lower man or the members of the body to serve sin is the state of Unregeneration III. To do the evil that I would not and to omit the good that I fain would do when it is in my hand to do what is in my heart to think is the property of a carnal unregenerate man And this is the state of men in nature and was the state of men under the law For to be under the law and not to be led by the Spirit are all one in S. Paul's account For if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the law saith he And therefore to be under the law being a state of not being under the Spirit must be under the government of the flesh that is they were not then sanctified by the Spirit of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ they were not yet redeemed from their vain conversation Not that this was the state of all the sons of Israel of them that liv'd before the law or after but that the law could do no more for them or upon them Gods Spirit did in many of them work his own works but this was by the grace of Jesus Christ who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world this was not by the works of the law but by the same instruments and grace by which Abraham and all they who are his children by promise were justified But this is the consequent of the third proposition which I was to consider 27. III. From this state of evil we are redeemed by Christ and by the Spirit of his grace Wretched man that I am quis liberabit who shall deliver me from the body of this death He answers I thank God through Jesus Christ so S. Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact S. Hierom the Greek Scholiast and the ordinary Greek copies do commonly read the words in which words there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they are thus to be supplied I thank God through Jesus Christ we are delivered or there is a remedy found out for us But Irenaeus Origen S. Ambrose S. Austin and S. Hierom himself at another time and the Vulgar Latin Bibles instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratia Domini Jesu Christi the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That is our remedy he is our deliverer from him comes our redemption For he not only gave us a better law but also the Spirit of grace he hath pardon'd all our old sins and by his Spirit enables us for the future that we may obey him in all sincerity in heartiness of endeavour and real events From hence I draw this argument That state from which we are redeemed by Jesus Christ and freed by the Spirit of his grace is a state of carnality of unregeneration that is of sin and death But by Jesus Christ we are redeemed from that state in which we were in subjection to sin commanded by the law of sin and obeyed it against our reason and against our conscience therefore this state which is indeed the state S. Paul here describes is the state of carnality and unregeneration and therefore not competent to the servants of Christ to the elect people of God to them who are redeemed and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. The parts of this argument are the words of S. Paul and proved in the foregoing periods From hence I shall descend to something that is more immediately practical and cloth'd with circumstances SECT V. How far an Vnregenerate man may go in the ways of Piety and Religion 28. TO this inquiry it is necessary that this be premised That between the regenerate and a wicked person there is a middle state so that it is not presently true that if the man be not wicked he is presently Regenerate Between the two states of so vast a distance it is impossible but there should be many intermedial degrees between the Carnal and Spiritual man there is a Moral man not that this man shall have a different event of things if he does abide there but that he must pass from extreme to extreme by this middle state of participation The first is a slave of sin the second is a servant of righteousness the third is such a one as liveth according to Natural reason so much of it as is left him and is not abused that is lives a probable life but is not renewed by the Spirit of grace one that does something but not all not enough for the obtaining salvation For a man may have gone many steps from his former baseness and degenerous practices and yet not arrive at godliness or the state of pardon like the children of Israel who were not presently in Canaan as soon as they were out of Egypt but abode long in the wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they begin to be instructed that is their state Thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven said our blessed Saviour to a well disposed person but he was not arrived thither he was not a subject of the Kingdom These are such whom our blessed Lord calls The weary and the heavy laden that is such who groan under the heavy pressure of their sins whom therefore he invites to come to him to be eased Such are those whom S. Paul here describes to be under the law convinced of sin pressed vexed troubled with it complaining of it desirous to be eased These the holy Scripture calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained disposed to life eternal but these were not yet the fideles or believers but from that fair disposition became believers upon the preaching of the Apostles 29. In this third state of men I account those that sin and repent and yet repent and sin again for ever troubled when they have sinn'd and yet for ever or most frequently sinning when the temptation does return 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They sin and accuse and hate themselves for sinning Now because these men mean well and fain would be quit of their sin at their own rate and are not scandalous and impious they flatter
is guilty of murder and cannot pretend infirmity for his excuse because in an action of so great consequence and effect it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the foregoing parts of his life whether such an action ought to be done or not or the very horror of the action was enough to arrest his spirit as a great danger or falling into a river will make a drunken man sober and by all the laws of God and Man he was immur'd from the probability of all transports into such violences and the man must needs be a slave of passion who could by it be brought to go so far from reason and to do so great evil * If a man in the careless time of the day when his spirit is loose with a less severe imployment or his heart made more open with an innocent refreshment spies a sudden beauty that unluckily strikes his fancy it is possible that he may be too ready to entertain a wanton thought and to suffer it to stand at the doors of his first consent but if the sin passes no further the man enters not into the regions of death because the Devil entred on a sudden and is as suddenly cast forth But if from the first arrest of concupiscence he pass on to an imperfect consent from an imperfect consent to a perfect and deliberate and from thence to an act and so to a habit he ends in death because long before it is come thus far The salt water is taken in The first concupiscence is but like rain water it discolours the pure springs but makes them not deadly But when in the progression the will mingles with it it is like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or waters of brimstone and the current for ever after is unwholsome and carries you forth into the dead Sea the lake of Sodom which is to suffer the vengeance of Eternal fire But then the matter may be supposed little till the will comes For though a man may be surprised with a wanton eye yet he cannot sight a duel against his knowledge or commit adultery against his will A man cannot against his will contrive the death of a man but he may speak a rash word or be suddenly angry or triflingly peevish and yet all this notwithstanding be a good man still These may be sins of Infirmity because they are imperfect actions in the whole and such in which as the man is for the present surpris'd so they are such against which no watchfulness was a sufficient guard as it ought to have been in any great matter and might have been in sudden murders A wise and a good man may easily be mistaken in a nice question but can never suspect an article of his Creed to be false a good man may have many fears and doubtings in matters of smaller moment but he never doubts of Gods goodness of his truth of his mercy or of any of his communicated perfections he may fall into melancholy and may suffer indefinite fears of he knows not what himself yet he can never explicitely doubt of any thing which God hath clearly revealed and in which he is sufficiently instructed A weak eye may at a distance mistake a man for a tree but he who sailing in a storm takes the Sea for dry land or a mushrome for an oak is stark blind And so is he who can think adultery to be excusable or that Treason can be duty or that by persecuting Gods Prophets he does God good service or that he propagates Religion by making the Ministers of the Altar poor and robbing the Churches A good man so remaining cannot suffer infirmity in the plain and legible lines of duty where he can see and reason and consider I have now told which are sins of infirmity and I have told all their measures For as for those other false opinions by which men flatter themselves into Hell by a pretence of sins of infirmity they are as unreasonable as they are dangerous and they are easily reproved upon the stock of the former truths Therefore 55. VI. Although our mere natural inclination to things forbidden be of it self a natural and unavoidable infirmity and such which cannot be cured by all the precepts and endeavours of perfection yet this very inclination if it be heightned by carelesness or evil customs is not a sin of infirmity Tiberius the Emperor being troubled with a fellow that wittily and boldly pretended himself to be a Prince at last when he could not by questions he discovered him to be a mean person by the rusticity and hardness of his body not by a callousness of his feet or a wart upon a finger but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His whole body was hard and servile and so he was discovered The natural superfluities and excrescencies that inevitably adhere to our natures are not sufficient indications of a servile person or a slave to sin but when our natures are abused by choice and custom when the callousness is spread by evil and hard usages when the arms are brawny by the services of Egypt then it is no longer infirmity but a superinduc'd viciousness and a direct hostility When nature rules grace does not When the flesh is in power the spirit is not Therefore it matters not from what corner the blasting wind does come from whence soever it is it is deadly Most of our sins are from natural inclinations and the negative precepts of God are for the most part restraints upon them Therefore to pretend nature when our selves have spoil'd it is no excuse but that state of evil from whence the Spirit of God is to rescue and redeem us 56. VII Yea but although it be thus in nature yet it is hop'd by too many that it shall be allowed to be infirmity when the violence of our passions or desires overcomes our resolutions Against this I oppose this proposition When violence of desire or passion engages us in a sin whither we see and observe our selves entring that violence or transportation is not our excuse but our disease and that resolution is not accepted for innocence or repentance but the not performing what we did resolve is our sin and the violence of passion was the accursed principle 57. For to resolve is a relative and imperfect duty in order to something else It had not been necessary to resolve if it had not been necessary to do do it and if it be necessary to do it it is not sufficient to resolve it And for the understanding of this the better we must observe that to resolve and to endeavour are several things To resolve is to purpose to do what we may if we will some way or other the thing is in our power either we are able of our selves or we are help'd No man resolves to carry an Elephant or to be as wise as Solomon or to destroy a vast Army with his own hands He may endeavour this for To endeavour sometimes
in our first access to Christ because they for whom Christ and his Martyr S. Stephen prayed were not yet converted and so were to be saved by Baptismal Repentance Then the Power of the Keys is exercised and the gates of the Kingdom are opened then we enter into the Covenant of mercy and pardon and promise faith and perpetual obedience to the laws of Jesus and upon that condition forgiveness is promised and exhibited offer'd and consign'd but never after for it is in Christianity for all great sins as in the Civil Law for theft Qui eâ mente alienum quid contrectavit ut lucrifaceret tametsi mutato consilio id Domino postea reddidit fur est nemo enim tali peccato poenitentiâ suâ nocens esse desinit said Vlpian and Gaius Repentance does not here take off the punishment nor the stain And so it seems to be in Christianity in which every baptized person having stipulated for obedience is upon those terms admitted to pardon and consequently if he fails of his duty he shall fail of the grace 8. But that this objection may proceed no further it is certain that it is an infinite lessening of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ to confine pardon of sins only to the Font. For that even lapsed Christians may be restored by repentance and be pardoned appears in the story of the incestuous Corinthian and the precept of S. Paul to the spiritual man or the Curate of souls If any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted The Christian might fall and the Corinthian did so and the Minister himself he who had the ministery of restitution and reconciliation was also in danger and yet they all might be restored To the same sence is that of S. James Is any man sick among you let him send for the Presbyters of the Church and let them pray over him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although he was a doer of sins they shall be forgiven him For there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin that is not unto death And therefore when S. Austin in his first Book de Sermone Dei had said that there is some sin so great that it cannot be remitted he retracts his words with this clause addendum fuit c. I should have added If in so great perverseness of mind he ends his life For we must not despair of the worst sinner we may not despair of any since we ought to pray for all 9. For it is beyond exception or doubt that it was the great work of the Apostles and of the whole new Testament to engage men in a perpetual repentance For since all men do sin all men must repent or all men must perish And very many periods of Scripture are directed to lapsed Christians baptized persons fallen into grievous crimes calling them to repentance So Simon Peter to Simon Magus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Repent of thy wickedness and to the Corinthian Christians S. Paul urges the purpose of his legation We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God The Spirit of God reprov'd some of the Asian Churches for foul misdemeanours and even some of the Angels the Asian Bishops calling upon them to return to their first love and to repent and to do their first works and to the very Gnosticks and filthiest Hereticks he gave space to repent and threatned extermination to them if they did not do it speedily For 10. Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the admission of us to the Covenant of Faith and Repentance or as Mark the Anchoret call'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the introduction to repentance or that state of life that is full of labour and care and amendment of our faults for that is the best life that any man can live and therefore repentance hath its progress after baptism as it hath its beginning before for first repentance is unto baptism and then baptism unto repentance And if it were otherwise the Church had but ill provided for the state of her sons and daughters by commanding the baptism of Infants For if repentance were not allowed after then their early baptism would take from them all hopes of repentance and destroy the mercies of the Gospel and make it now to all Christendom a law of works in the greater instances because since in our infancy we neither need nor can perform repentance if to them that sin after baptism repentance be denied it is in the whole denied to them for ever to repent But God hath provided better things for us and such which accompany salvation 11. For besides those many things which have been already consider'd our admission to the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a perpetual entertainment of our hopes because then and there is really exhibited to us the body that was broken and the blood that was shed for remission of sins still it is applied and that application could not be necessary to be done anew if there were not new necessities and still we are invited to do actions of repentance to examine our selves and so to eat all which as things are order'd would be infinitely useless to mankind if it did not mean pardon to Christians falling into foul sins even after baptism 12. I shall add no more but the words of S. Paul to the Corinthians Lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many who have sinn'd already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed Here is a fierce accusation of some of them for the foulest and the basest crimes and a reproof of their not repenting and a threatning them with censures Ecclesiastical I suppose this article to be sufficiently concluded from the premises The necessity of which proof they only will best believe who are severely penitent and full of apprehension and fear of the Divine anger because they have highly deserved it However I have serv'd my own needs in it and the need of those whose consciences have been or shall be so timorous as mine hath deserved to be But against the universality of this doctrine there are two grand objections The one is the severer practice and doctrine of the Primitive Church denying repentance to some kind of sinners after baptism The other the usual discourses and opinions concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost Of these I shall give account in the two following Sections SECT III. Of the Difficulty of obtaining Pardon The Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church in this Article 13. NOvatianus and Novatus said that the Church had not power to minister pardon of sins except only in Baptism which proposition when they had well digested and considered they did thus explicate That there are some capital sins crying and clamorous into
does but declare it so it effects it not 71. VIII And after all it is certain that the words of absolution effect no more than they signifie If therefore they do pardon the sin yet they do not naturally change the disposition or the real habit of the sinner And if the words can effect more they may be changed to signifie what they do effect for to signifie is less than to effect Can therefore the Church use this form of absolution I do by the power committed unto me change thy Attrition into Contrition The answer to this is not yet made for their pretence is so new and so wholly unexamined that they have not yet considered any thing of it It will therefore suffice for our institution in this useful material and practical question that no such words were instituted by Christ nor any thing like them no such were used by the Primitive Church no such power pretended And as this new doctrine of the Roman Church contains in it huge estrangements and distances from the spirit of Christianity is another kind of thing than the doctrine and practice of the Apostolical and succeeding ages of the Church did publish or exercise so it is a perfect destruction to the necessity of holy life it is a device only to advance the Priests office and to depress the necessity of holy dispositions it is a trick to make the graces of Gods holy Spirit to be bought and sold and that a man may at a price become holy in an instant just as if a Teacher of Musick should undertake to convey skill to his Scholar and fell the art and transmit it in an hour it is a device to make dispositions by art and in effect requires little or nothing of duty to God so they pay regard to the Priest But I shall need to oppose no more against it but those excellent words and pious meditation of Salvian Non levi agendum est contritione ut debita illa redimantur quibus mors aeterna debetur nec transitoriâ opus est satisfactione pro malis illis propter quae paratus est ignis aeternus It is not a light contrition by which those debts can be redeem'd to which eternal death is due neither can a transitory satisfaction serve for those evils for which God hath prepared the vengeance of eternal fire SECT VI. Of Penances or Satisfactions 72. IN the Primitive Church the word Satisfaction was the whole word for all the parts and exercises of repentance according to those words of Lactantius Poenitentiam proposuit ut si peccata nostra confessi Deo satisfecerimus veniam consequamur He propounded repentance that if we confessing our sins to God make amends or satisfaction we may obtain pardon Where it is evident that Satisfaction does not signifie in the modern sence of the word a full payment to the Divine Justice but by the exercises of repentance a deprecation of our fault and a begging pardon Satisfaction and pardon are not consistent if satisfaction signifie rigorously When the whole debt is paid there is nothing to be forgiven The Bishops and Priests in the Primitive Church would never give pardon till their satisfactions were performed To confess their sins to be sorrowful for them to express their sorrow to punish the guilty person to do actions contrary to their former sins this was their amends or Satisfaction and this ought to be ours So we find the word used in best Classick Authors So Plautus brings in Alcmena angry with Amphitruo Quin ego illum aut deseram Aut satisfaciat mihi atque adjuret insuper Nolle esse dicta quae in me insontem protulit i. e. I will leave him unless he give me satisfaction and swear that he wishes that to be unsaid which he spake against my innocence for that was the form of giving satisfaction to wish it undone or unspoken and to add an oath that they believe the person did not deserve that wrong as we find it in Terence Adelph Ego vestra haec novi nollem factum jusjurandum dabitur esse te indignum injuriâ hâc Concerning which who please to see more testimonies of the true sence and use of the word Satisfactions may please to look upon Lambinus in Plauti Amphitr and Laevinus Torrentius upon Suetonius in Julio Exomologesis or Confession was the word which as I noted formerly was of most frequent use in the Church Si de exomologesi retractas gehennam in corde considera quam tibi exomologesis extinguet He that retracts his sins by confessing and condemning them extinguishes the flames of Hell So Tertullian The same with that of S. Cyprian Deo patri misericordi precibus operibus suis satisfacere possunt They may satisfie God our Father and merciful by prayers and good works that is they may by these deprecate their fault and obtain mercy and pardon for their sins Peccatum suum satisfactione humili simplici confitentes So Cyprian confessing their sins with humble and simple satisfaction plainly intimating that Confession or Exomologesis was the same with that which they called Satisfaction And both of them were nothing but the publick exercise of repentance according to the present usages of their Churches as appears evidently in those words of Gennadius Poenitentiae satisfactionem esse causas peccatorum exscindere nec eorum suggestionibus aditum indulgere To cut off the causes of sins and no more to entertain their whispers and temptations is the satisfaction of repentance and like this is that of Lactantius Potest reduci liberari si eum poeniteat actorum ad meliora conversus satisfaciat Deo The sinner may be brought back and freed if he repents of what is done and satisfies or makes amends to God by being turned to better courses And the whole process of this is well described by Tertullian Exomologesis est quâ delictum Domino nostrum confitemur non quidem ut ignaro sed quatenus satisfactio confessione disponitur confessione poenitentia nascitur penitentiâ Deus mitigatur we must confess our sins to God not as if he did not know them already but because our satisfaction is dispos'd and order'd by confession by confession our repentance hath birth and production and by repentance God is appeased 73. Things being thus we need not immerge our selves in the trifling controversies of our later Schools about the just value of every work and how much every penance weighs and whether God is so satisfied with our penal works that in justice he must take off so much as we put on and is tied also to take our accounts Certain it is if God should weigh our sins with the same value as we weigh our own good works all our actions and sufferings would be found infinitely too light in the balance Therefore it were better that we should do what we can and humbly beg of God to weigh them both with vast allowances of
Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent and if imputed only to such purposes as he here speaks of viz. to temporal death then it is neither a sin properly nor yet imputable to Eternal death so far as is or can be implied by the Apostles words And in this I am not a little confirmed by the discourse of S. Irenaeus to this purpose lib. 3. cap. 35. Propter hoc initio transgressionis Adae c. Therefore in the beginning of Adams transgression as the Scripture tells God did not curse Adam but the Earth in his labours as one of the Ancients saith God removed the curse upon the Earth that it might not abide on man But the condemnation of his sin he received weariness and labour and to eat in the sweat of his brows and to return to dust again and likewise the woman had for her punishment tediousness labours groans sorrows of child-birth and to serve her husband that they might not wholly perish in the curse not yet despise God while they remained without punishment But all the curse run upon the Serpent who seduced them and this our Lord in the Gospel saith to them on his left hand Go ye cursed into everlasting fire which my Father prepared for the Devil and his Angels signifying that not to man in the prime intention was eternal fire prepared but to him who was the seducer but this they also shall justly feel who like them without repentance and departing from them persevere in the works of malice 5. The Apostle says By the disobedience of one many were made sinners By which it appears that we in this have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally and inherently for though efficiently it was his and effectively ours as to certain purposes of imputation yet it could not be a sin to us formally because it was Vnius inobedientia the disobedience of one man therefore in no sence could it be properly ours For then it were not Vnius but inobedientia singulorum the disobedience of all men 6. Whensoever another mans sin is imputed to his relative therefore because it is anothers and imputed it can go no further but to effect certain evils to afflict the relative and to punish the cause not formally to denominate the descendant or relative to be a sinner for it is as much a contradiction to say that I am formally by him a sinner as that I did really do his action Now to impute in Scripture signifies to reckon as if he had done it Not to impute is to treat him so as if he had not done it So far then as the imputation is so far we are reckoned as sinners but Adams sin being by the Apostle signified to be imputed but to the condemnation or sentence to a temporal death so far we are sinners in him that is so as that for his sake death was brought upon us And indeed the word imputare to impute does never signifie more nor always so much Imputare verò frequenter ad significationem exprobrantis accedit sed ciâ—râ— reprehensionem says Laurentius Valla It is like an exprobration but short of a reprooâ— so Quintilian Imputas nobis propitios ventos secundum mare ac civitatis opulenâ—ae liberalitatem Thou dost impute that is upbraid to us our prosperous voyages and a calm Sea and the liberality of a rich City Imputare signifies oftentimes the same that computare to reckon or account Nam haec in quartâ non imputantur say the Lawyers they are not imputed that is they are not computed or reckoned Thus Adams sin is imputed to us that is it is put into our reckoning and when we are sick and die we pay our Symbols the portion of evil that is laid upon us and what Marcus said I may say in this case with a little variety Legata in haereditate sive legatum datum sit haeredi sive percipere sive deducere vel retinere passus est ei imputantur The legacy whether it be given or left to the heir whether he may take it or keep it is still imputed to him that is it is within his reckoning But no reason no Scripture no Religion does inforce and no Divine Attribute does permit that we should say that God did so impute Adams sin to his posterity that he did really esteem them to be guilty of Adams sin equally culpable equally hateful For if in this sence it be true that in him we sinned then we sinned as he did that is with the same malice in the same action and then we are as much guilty as he but if we have sinned less then we did not sin in him for to sin in him could not by him be lessened to us for what we did in him we did by him and therefore as much as he did but if God imputed this sin less to us than to him then this imputation supposes it only to be a collateral and indirect account to such purposes as he pleased of which purposes we judge by the analogy of faith by the words of Scripture by the proportion and notices of the Divine Attributes 7. There is nothing in the design or purpose of the Apostle that can or ought to infer any other thing for his purpose is to signifie that by mans sin death entred into the world which the son of Sirach Ecclus. 25.33 expresses thus A muliere factum est initium peccati inde est quod morimur from the woman is the beginning of sin and from her it is that we all die and again Ecclus. 1.24 By the envy of the Devil death came into the world this evil being Universal Christ came to the world and became our head to other purposes even to redeem us from death which he hath begun and will finish and to become to us our Parent in a new birth the Author of a spiritual life and this benefit is of far more efficacy by Christ than the evil could be by Adam and as by Adam we are made sinners so by Christ we are made righteous not just so but so and more and therefore as our being made sinners signifies that by him we die so being by Christ made righteous must at least signifie that by him we live and this is so evident to them who read S. Pauls words Rom. 5. from verse 12. to verse 19. inclusively that I wonder any man should make a farther question concerning them especially since Erasmus and Grotius who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediate successors hath brought forth have so understood and rendred it But Madam that your Honour may read the words and their sence together and see that without violence they signifie what I have said and no more I have here subjoyned a Paraphrase of them in which if I use any violence I can very easily be reproved
Rom. 5.12 As by one man sin entred into the world and Death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned i. e. As by the disobedience of Adam sin had its beginning and by sin death that is the sentence and preparations the solennities and addresses of death sickness calamity dâ—â—inution of strengths Old age misfortunes and all the affections of Mortality for the destroying of our temporal life and so this mortality and condition or state of death passed actually upon all mankind for Adam being thrown out of Paradise and forced to live with his Children where they had no Trees of Life as he had in Paradise was remanded to his mortal natural state and therefore death passed upon them mortally seized on all for that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams sin passed upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all But yet death descended also upon Adams Posterity for their own sins for since all did sin all should die But some Greek copies leave out the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which indeed seems superfluous and of no signification but then the sence is cleareâ— and the following words are the second part of a similitude As by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies neutrally And the meaning is As Adam died in his own sin So death passed upon all men for their own sin in the sin which they sinned in that sin they died As it did at first to Adam by whom sin first entred and by sin death so death passed upon all men upon whom sin passed that is in the same method they who did sin should die But then he does not seem to say that all did sin for he presently subjoyns that death reigned even upon those who did not sin after the similitude of Adams transgression but this was upon another account as appears in the following words But others expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie masculinely and to relate to Adam viz. that in him we all sinned Now although this is less consonant to the mind of the Apostle and is harsh and improper both in the language and in the sence yet if it were so it could mean but this that the sin of Adam was of Universal obligation and in him we are reckoned as sinners obnoxious to his sentence for by his sin humane Nature was reduced to its own mortality 13. For until the law sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no law And marvel not that Death did presently descend on all mankind even before a Law was given them with an appendant penalty viz. With the express intermination of death For they did do actions unnatural and vile enough but yet these things which afterwards upon the publication of the Law were imputed to them upon their personal account even unto death were not yet so imputed For Nature alone gives Rules but does not directly bind to penalties But death came upon them before the Law for Adams sin for with him God being angry was pleased to curse him also in his Posterity and leave them also in their mere natural condition to which yet they disposed themselves and had deserved but too much by committing evil things to which things although before the law death was not threatned yet for the anger which God had against mankind he left that death which he threatned to Adam expresly by implication to fall upon the Posterity 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression who is the figure of him which was to come And therefore it was that death reigned from Adam to Moses from the first law to the second from the time that a Law was given to one man till the time a Law was given to one Nation and although men had not sinned so grievously as Adam did who had no excuse many helps excellent endowments mighty advantages trifling temptations communication with God himself no disorder in his faculties free will perfect immunity from violence Original righteousness perfect power over his faculties yet those men such as Abel and Seth Noah and Abraham Isaac and Jacob Joseph and Benjamin who sinned less and in the midst of all their disadvantages were left to fall under the same sentence But it is to be observed that these words even over them that had not sinned according to some Interpretations are to be put into a Parenthesis and the following words after the similitude of Adams transgression are an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to be referred to the first words thus Death reigned from Adam to Moses after the similitude of Adams transgression that is as it was at first so it was afterwards death reigned upon men who had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression that is like as it did in the transgression of Adam so it did afterward they in their innocence died as Adam did in his sin and prevarication and this was in the similitude of Adam As they who obtain salvation obtain it in the similitude of Christ or by a conformity to Christ so they 〈◊〉 die do die in the likeness of Adam Christ and Adam being the two representatives of mankind For this besides that it was the present Oeconomy of the Divine Providence and Government it did also like Janus look 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it looked forwards as well as backwards and became a type of Christ or of him that was to come For as from Adam evil did descend upon his natural Children upon the account of Gods entercourse with Adam so did good descend upon the spiritual Children of the second Adam 15. But not as the offence so also is the free gift for if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many This should have been the latter part of a similitude but upon further consideration it is found that as in Adam we die so in Christ we live and much rather and much more therefore I cannot say as by one man vers 12. so by one man vers 15. But much more for not as the offence so also is the free gift for the offence of one did run over unto many and those many even as it were all except Enoch or some very few more of whom mention peradventure is not made are already dead upon that account but when God comes by Jesus Christ to shew mercy to mankind he does it in much more abundance he may be angry to the third and fourth generation in them that hate him but he will shew mercy unto thousands of them that love him to a thousand generations and in ten thousand degrees
so that now although a comparison proportionate was at first intended yet the river here rises far higher than the fountain and now no argument can be drawn from the similitude of Adam and Christ but that as much hurt was done to humane nature by Adams sin so very much more good is done to mankind by the incarnation of the Son of God 16. And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification And the first disparity and excess is in this particular for the judgment was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one man sinning one sin that one sin was imputed but by Christ not only one sin was forgiven freely but many offences were remitted unto justification and secondly a vast disparity there is in this that the descendants from Adam were perfectly like him in nature his own real natural production and they sinned though not so bad yet very much and therefore there was a great parity of reason that the evil which was threatned to Adam and not to his Children should yet for the likeness of nature and of sin descend upon them But in the other part the case is highly differing for Christ being our Patriarch in a supernatural birth we fall infinitely short of him and are not so like him as we were to Adam and yet that we in greater unlikeness should receive a greater favour this was the excess of the comparison and this is the free gift of God 17. For if by one offence so it is in the Kings MS. or if by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. And this is the third degree or measure of excess of efficacy on Christs part over it was on the part of Adam For if the sin of Adam alone could bring death upon the world who by imitation of his transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God though not after the similitude of Adams transgression much more shall we who not only receive the aids of the spirit of grace but receive them also in an abundant measure receive also the effect of all this even to reign in life by one Jesus Christ. 18. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Therefore now to return to the other part of the similitude where I began although I have shown the great excess and abundance of grace by Christ over the evil that did descend by Adam yet the proportion and comparison lies in the main emanation of death from one and life from the other judgment unto condemnation that is the sentence of death came upon all men by the offence of one even so by a like Oeconomy and dispensation God would not be behind in doing an act of Grace as he did before of judgment and as that judgment was to condemnation by the offence of one so the free gift and the grace came upon all to justification of life by the righteousness of one 19. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous The summ of all is this By the disobedience of one man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many were constituted or put into the order of sinners they were made such by Gods appointment that is not that God could be the Author of a sin to any but that he appointed the evil which is the consequent of sin to be upon their heads who descended from the sinner and so it shall be on the other side for by the obedience of one even of Christ many shall be made or constituted righteous But still this must be with a supposition of what was said before that there was a vast difference for we are made much more righteous by Christ than we were sinners by Adam and the life we receive by Christ shall be greater than the death by Adam and the graces we derive from Christ shall be more and mightier than the corruption and declination by Adam but yet as one is the head so is the other one is the beginning of sin and death and the other of life and righteousness It were easie to add many particulars out of S. Paul but I shall chuse only to recite the Aethiopick version of the New Testament translated into Latin by that excellent Linguist and worthy Person Dr. Dudly Loftus The words are these And therefore as by the iniquity of one man sin entred into the world and by THAT SIN death came upon all men therefore because THAT SIN IS IMPUTED TO ALL MEN even those who knew not what that sin was Until the Law came sin remained in the world not known what it was when sin was not reckoned because as yet at that time the Commandment of the Law was not come Nevertheless death did after reign from Adam until Moses as well in those that did sin as in those that did not sin by that sin of Adam because every one was created in the similitude of Adam and because Adam was a type of him that was to come But not according to the quantity of our iniquity was the grace of God to us If for the offence of one man many are dead how much more by the grace of God and by the gift of him who did gratifie us by one man to wit Jesus Christ life hath abounded upon many Neither for the measure of the sin which was of one man was there the like reckoning or account of the grace of God For if the condemnation of sin proceeding from one man caus'd that by that sin all should be punished how much rather shall his grace purifie us from our sins and give to us eternal life If the sin of one made death to reign and by the offence of one man death did rule in us how much more therefore shall the grace of one man Jesus Christ and his gift justifie us and make us to reign in life eternal And as by the offence of one man many are condemned Likewise also by the righteousness of one man shall every son of man be justified and live And as by one man many are made sinners or as the Syriack Version renders it there were many sinners In like manner again many are made righteous * Now this reddition of the Apostles discourse in this Article is a very great light to the Understanding of the words which not the nature of the thing but the popular glosses have made difficult But here it is plain that all the notice of this Article which those Churches derived from these words of Saint Paul was this That the sin of Adam
this may be well suppos'd without inferring their suffering the pains of Hell But this sentence of theirs I admit and explicate with some little difference of expression For so far I admit this pain of loss or rather a deficiency from going to Heaven to be the consequence of Adam's sin that by it we being left in meris Naturalibus could never by these strengths alone have gone to Heaven Now whereas your Lordship in behalf of those whom you suppose may be captious is pleas'd to argue That as loss of sight or eyes infers a state of darkness or blindness so the loss of Heaven infers Hell and if Infants go not to Heaven in that state whither can they go but to Hell and that 's Damnation in the greatest sence I grant it that if in the event of things they do not go to Heaven as things are now ordered it is but too likely that they go to Hell but I add that as all darkness does not infer horror and distraction of mind or fearful apparitions and phantasms so neither does all Hell or states in Hell infer all those torments which the School-men signifie by a poenaseâ—sus for I speak now in pursuance of their way So that there is no necessity of a third place but it concludes only that in the state of separation from Gods presence there is a great variety of degrees and kinds of evil and every one is not the extreme and yet by the way let me observe that Gregory Nazianzen and Nicetas taught that there is a third place for Infants and Heathens and Irenaeus affirm'd that the evils of Hell were not eternal to all but to the Devils only and the greater criminals But neither they nor we nor any man else can tell whether Hell be a place or no. It is a state of evil but whether all the damned be in one or in twenty places we cannot tell But I have no need to make use of any of this For when I affirm that Infants being by Adam reduc'd and left to their mere natural state fall short of Heaven I do not say they cannot go to Heaven at all but they cannot go thither by their natural powers they cannot without a new grace and favour go to Heaven But then it cannot presently be inferred that therefore they go to Hell but this ought to be inferr'd which indeed was the real consequent of it therefore it is necessary that Gods Grace should supply this defect if God intends Heaven to them at all and because Nature cannot God sent a Saviour by whom it was effected But if it be asked what if this grace had not come and that it be said that without Gods grace they must have gone to Hell because without it they could not go to Heaven I answer That we know how it is now that God in his goodness hath made provisions for them but if he had not made such provisions what would have been we know not any more than we know what would have followed if Adam had not sinned where he should have liv'd and how long and in what circumstances the posterity should have been provided for in all their possible contingencies But yet this I know that it follows not that if without this Grace we could not have gone to Heaven that therefore we must have gone to Hell For although the first was ordinarily impossible yet the second was absolutely unjust and against Gods goodness and therefore more impossible But because the first could not be done by nature God was pleased to promise and to give his grace that he might bring us to that state whither he had designâ—d us that is to a supernatural felicity If Adam had not fallen yet Heaven had not been a natural consequent of his obedience but a Gracious it had been a gift still and of Adam though he had persisted in innocence it is true to say That without Gods Grace that is by the mere force of Nature he could never have arriv'd to a Supernatural state that is to the joys of Heaven and yet it does not follow that if he had remain'd in Innocence he must have gone to Hell Just so it is in Infants Hell was not made for man but for Devils and therefore it must be something besides mere Nature that can bear any man thither mere Nature goes neither to Heaven nor Hell So that when I say Infants naturally cannot go to Heaven and that this is a punishment of Adam's sin he being for it punished with a loss of his gracious condition and devolv'd to the state of Nature and we by him left so my meaning is that this Damnation which is of our Nature is but negative that is as a consequent of our Patrialous sin our Nature is left imperfect and deficient in order to a supernatural end which the School-men call a poena damni but improperly they indeed think it may be a real event and final condition of persons as well as things but I affirm it was an evil effect of Adam's sin but in the event of things it became to the persons the way to a new grace and hath no other event as to Heaven and Hell directly and immediately In the same sence and to the same purpose I understand the word Damnation in the Ninth Article But the word Damnation may very well truly and sufficiently signifie all the purposes of the Article if it be taken only for the effect of that sentence which was inflicted upon Adam and descended on his posterity that is for condemnation to Death and the evils of mortality So the word is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 11.29 He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word but that it did particularly signifie temporal death and evils appears by the instances of probation in the next words For for this cause some are weak amongst you some are sick and some are fallen asleep This also in the Article Original Sin deserves damnation that is it justly brought in the angry sentence of God upon Man it brought him to death and deserv'd it it brought it upon us and deserv'd it too I do not say that we by that sin deserv'd that death neither can death be properly a punishment of us till we superadd some evil of our own yet Adam's sin deserv'd it so that it was justly left to fall upon us we as a consequent and punishment of his sin being reduc'd to our natural portion In odiosis quod minimum est sequimur The lesser sence of the word is certainly agreeable to truth and reason and it were good we us'd the word in that sence which may best warrant her doctrine especially for that use of the word having the precedent of Scripture I am confirm'd in this interpretation by the second Section of the Article viz. of the remanency of Concupiscence or Original Sin in the Regenerate All the sinfulness of
or else there may be punishment where there is no guilt or else natural death was not it which God threatned as the punishment of Adam's fact For it is certain that all men die as well after Baptism as before and more after than before That which would be properly the consequent of this Dilemma is this that when God threatned death to Adam saying On the day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt die the death he inflicted and intended to inflict the evils of a troublesome mortal life For Adam did not die that day but Adam began to be miserable that day to live upon hard labour to eat fruits from an accursed field till he should return to the Earth whence he was taken Gen. 3.17 18 19. So that death in the common sence of the word was to be the end of his labour not so much the punishment of the sin For it is probable he should have gone off from the scene of this world to a better though he had not sinn'd but if he had not sinn'd he should not be so afflicted and he should not have died daily till he had died finally that is till he had returned to his dust whence he was taken and whither he would naturally have gone and it is no new thing in Scripture that miseries and infelicities should be called dying or death Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 1.10 4.10 11 12. 11.23 But I only note this as probable as not being willing to admit what the Socinians answer in this argument who affirm that God threatning death to the Sin of Adam meant death eternal which is certainly not true as we learn from the words of the Apostle saying In Adam we all die which is not true of death eternal but it is true of the miseries and calamities of mankind and it is true of temporal death in the sence now explicated and in that which is commonly received But I add also this probleme That which would have been had there been no sin and that which remains when the sin or guiltiness is gone is not properly the punishment of the sin But dissolution of the soul and body should have been if Adam had not sinn'd for the world would have been too little to have entertain'd those myriads of men which must in all reason have been born from that blessing of Increase and multiply which was given at the first Creation and to have confin'd mankind to the pleasures of this world in case he had not fallen would have been a punishment of his innocence but however it might have been though God had not been angry and shall still be even when the sin is taken off The proper consequent of this will be that when the Apostle says Death came in by sin and that Death is the rages of sin he primarily and literally means the solemnities and causes and infelicities and untimeliness of temporal death and not merely the dissolution which is directly no evil but an inlet to a better state But I insist not on this but offer it to the consideration of inquisitive and modest persons And now that I may return thither from whence this objection brought me I consider that if any should urge this argument to me Baptism delivers from Original Sin Baptism does not deliver from Concupiscence therefore Concupiscence is not Original Sin I did not know well what to answer I could possibly say something to satisfie the boys and young men at a publick disputation but not to satisfie my self when I am upon my knees and giving an account to God of all my secret and hearty perswasions But I consider that by Concupiscence must be meant either the first inclinations to their object or the proper acts of Election which are the second acts of Concupiscence If the first inclinations be meant then certainly that cannot be a sin which is natural and which is necessary For I consider that Concupiscence and natural desires are like hunger which while it is natural and necessary is not for the destruction but conservation of man when it goes beyond the limits of nature it is violent and a disease and so is Concupiscence But desires or lustings when they are taken for the natural propensity to their proper object are so far from being a sin that they are the instruments of felicity for this duration and when they grow towards being irregular they may if we please grow instruments of felicity in order to the other duration because they may serve a vertue by being restrained And to desire that to which all men tend naturally is no more a sin than to desire to be happy is a sin desire is no more a sin than joy or sorrow is neither can it be fancied why one passion more than another can be in its whole nature Criminal either all or none are so when any of them grows irregular or inordinate Joy is as bad as Desire and Fear as bad as either But if by Concupiscence we mean the second acts of it that is avoidable consentings and deliberate elections then let it be as much condemned as the Apostle and all the Church after him hath sentenc'd it but then it is not Adam's sin but our own by which we are condemned for it is not his fault that we chuse If we chuse it is our own if we chuse not it is no fault For there is a natural act of the Will as well as of the Understanding and in the choice of the supreme Good and in the first apprehension of its proper object the Will is as natural as any other faculty and the other faculties have degrees of adherence as well as the Will so have the potestative and intellective faculties they are delighted in their best objects But because these only are natural and the will is natural sometimes but not always there it is that a difference can be For I consider if the first Concupiscence be a sin Original Sin for actual it is not and that this is properly personally and inherently our sin by traduction that is if our will be necessitated to sin by Adam's fall as it must needs be if it can sin when it cannot deliberate then there can be no reason told why it is more a sin to will evil than to understand it and how does that which is moral differ from that which is natural for the understanding is first and primely moved by its object and in that motion by nothing else but by God who moves all things and if that which hath nothing else to move it but the object yet is not free it is strange that the will can in any sence be free when it is necessitated by wisdom and by power and by Adam that is from within and from without besides what God and violence do and can do But in this I have not only Scripture and all the reason of the world on my side but the complying sentences of the
and predispositions of the Suscipient If by the external work of the Sacrament alone how does this differ from the opus operatum of the Papists save that it is worse For they say the Sacrament does not produce its effect but in a Suscipient disposed by all requisites and due preparatives of piety Faith and Repentance though in a subject so disposed they say the Sacrament by its own virtue does it but this Opinion says it does it of itself without the help or so much as the coexistence of any condition but the mere reception But if the Sacrament does not doe its work alone but per modum recipientis according to the predispositions of the Suscipient then because Infants can neither hinder it nor doe any thing to farther it it does them no benefit at all And if any man runs for succour to that exploded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Infants have Faith or any other inspired habit of I know not what or how we desire no more advantage in the world then that they are constrained to an answer without Revelation against reason common sense and all the experience in the world The summe of the Argument in short is this though under another representment Either Baptism is a mere Ceremony or it implies a Duty on our part If it be a Ceremony onely how does it sanctifie us or make the comers thereunto perfect If it implies a Duty on our part how then can children receive it who cannot doe duty at all And indeed this way of ministration makes Baptism to be wholly an outward duty a work of the Law a carnal Ordinance it makes us adhere to the letter without regard of the Spirit to be satisfied with shadows to return to bondage to relinquish the mysteriousness the substance and Spirituality of the Gospel Which Argument is of so much the more consideration because under the Spiritual Covenant or the Gospel of Grace if the Mystery goes not before the Symbol which it does when the Symbols are Seals and consignations of the Grace as it is said the Sacraments are yet it always accompanies it but never follows in order of time And this is clear in the perpetual analogie of Holy Scripture For Baptism is never propounded mentioned or enjoyned as a means of remission of sins or of eternal life but something of duty choice and sanctity is joyned with it in order to production of the end so mentioned Know ye not that as many as are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into his death There is the Mystery and the Symbol together and declared to be perpetually united 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All of us who were baptized into one were baptized into the other not onely into the name of Christ but into his death also But the meaning of thi◠as it is explained in the following words of S. Paul makes much for our purpose For to be baptized into his death signifies to be buried with him in Baptism that as Christ rose from the dead we also should walk in newness of life That 's the full mystery of Baptism For being baptized into his death or which is all one in the next words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the likeness of his death cannot goe alone if we be so planted into Christ we shall be partakers of his Resurrection and that is not here instanced in precise reward but in exact duty for all this is nothing but crucifixion of the old man a destroying the body of sin that we no longer serve sin This indeed is truly to be baptized both in the Symbol and the Mystery Whatsoever is less then this is but the Symbol only a mere Ceremony an opus operatum a dead letter an empty shadow an instrument without an agent to manage or force to actuate it Plainer yet Whosoever are baptized into Christ have put on Christ have put on the new man But to put on this new man is to be formed in righteousness and holiness and truth This whole Argument is the very words of S. Paul The Major proposition is dogmatically determined Gal. 3.27 The Minor in Ephes. 4.24 The Conclusion then is obvious that they who are not formed new in righteousness and holiness and truth they who remaining in the present incapacities cannot walk in the newness of life they have not been baptized into Christ and then they have but one member of the distinction used by S. Peter they have that Baptism which is a putting away the filth of the flesh but they have not that Baptism which is the answer of a good conscience towards God which is the only Baptism that saves us And this is the case of children And then the case is thus As Infants by the force of nature cannot put themselves into a supernatural condition and therefore say the Paedo-baptists they need Baptism to put them into it so if they be baptized before the use of Reason before the works of the Spirit before the operations of Grace before they can throw off the works of darkness and live in righteousness and newness of life they are never the nearer From the pains of Hell they shall be saved by the mercies of God and their own innocence though they die in puris naturalibus and Baptism will carry them no further For that Baptism that save us is not the onely washing with water of which onely children are capable but the answer of a good conscience towards God of which they are not capable till the use of Reason till they know to chuse the good and refuse the evil And from thence I consider anew That all vows made by persons under others names stipulations made by Minors are not valid till they by a supervening act after they are of sufficient age do ratifie them Why then may not Infants as well make the vow de novo as de novo ratifie that which was made for them ab antiquo when they come to years of choice If the Infant vow be invalid till the Manly confirmation why were it not as good they staid to make it till that time before which if they do make it it is to no purpose This would be considered 32. And in conclusion Our way is the surer way for not to baptize children till they can give an account of their Faith is the most proportionable to an act of reason and humanity and it can have no danger in it For to say that Infants may be damned for want of Baptism a thing which is not in their power to acquire they being persons not yet capable of a Law is to affirm that of God which we dare not say of any wise and good man Certainly it is much derogatory to God's Justice and a plain defiance to the infinite reputation of his Goodness 33. And therefore who-ever will pertinaciously persist in this opinion of the Paedo-baptists and practise it accordingly they pollute the blood of the everlasting
from Christ it is a receiving Christ which is the duty here enjoyned this is one way of doing it and all the ways that they are capable of And that this precept can be performed this way S. Augustine affirms expresly in his third book de peccatorum meritis remissione In this thing there is nothing hard but the metaphors of eating and drinking Now that this is to be spiritually understood our Blessed Lord himself affirms in answer to the prejudice of the offended Capernaites that it is to be understood of Faith and that Faith is the spiritual manducation is the sense of the ancient Church and therefore in what sense soever any one is obliged to believe in the same sense he is obliged to the duty of spiritual manducation and no otherwise But because Infants cannot be obliged to the act or habit of Faith and yet can receive the Sacrament of Faith they receive Christ as they can and as they can are intitled to life But however by this means the difficulty of the expression is taken off for if by eating and drinking Christ is meant receiving Christ by Faith then this phrase can be no objection but that S. Austin's affirmative may be true and that this commandment is performed by Infants in Baptism which is the Sacrament of Faith To eat and drink does with as great impropriety signifie Faith as Baptism but this is it which I said at first that the metaphoricall expression was no part of the precept but the vehiculum of the Commandment occasioned by the preceding discourse of our Blessed Saviour and nothing is necessary but that Christ should be received by all that would have life eternall of which because Infants are capable and without receiving Christ they by virtue of these words are not capable and but in Baptism they cannot receive Christ it follows that these words are no argument to infer an equal necessity of communicating Infants but they are a good argument to prove a necessity of baptizing them Secondly But farther yet I demand can Infants receive Christ in the Eucharist Can they in that Sacrament eat the flesh of Christ and drink his bloud If they cannot then neither these words nor any other can infer an equal necessity of being communicated for they can infer none at all and whether those other words of Nisi quis renatus fuerit c. do infer a necessity of Baptism will be sufficiently cleared upon their own account But if Infants can receive Christ in the Eucharist to which they can no more dispose themselves by Repentance then they can to Baptism by Faith then it were indeed very well if they were communicated but yet not necessary because if they can receive Christ in the Eucharist they can receive Christ in Baptism and if they can receive him any way this precept is performed by that way and then whether they must also be communicated must be enquired by other arguments for whatsoever is in these words intended is performed by any way of receiving Christ and therefore cannot infer more in all circumstances and to all persons Thirdly Suppose these words were to be expounded of Sacramentall manducation of the flesh of Christ in the Lord's Supper yet it does not follow that Infants are as much bound to receive the Communion as to receive the Baptism It is too crude a fancy to think that all universal Propositions whether affirmative or negative equally expressed do signifie an equal universality It is said in the Law of Moses Whosoever is not circumcised that soul shall be cut off from his people this indeed signifies universally and included Infants binding them to that Sacrament But when it was said Whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether small or great although these words be expressed with as great a latitude as the other yet it is certain it did not include Infants who could not seek the Lord. The same is the case of the two Sacraments the obligation to which we do not understand onely by the preceptive words or form of the commandments but by other appendages and the words of duty that are relative to the suscipients of the several Sacraments and the analogy of the whole Institution Baptism is the Sacrament of beginners the Eucharist of proficients that is the birth this is the nourishment of a Christian. There are many more things of difference to be observ'd But as the Church in several Ages hath practised severally in this Article so in the particular there is no such certainty but that the Church may without sin doe it or not doe it as she sees cause but that there is not the same necessity in both to all persons and that no necessity of communicating Infants can be inferr'd from the parallel words appears in the former answers and therefore I stand to them Ad 9. The summe of the sixth Argument is this The promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all to us and to our children and if the Holy Ghost belong to them then Baptism belongs to them also because Baptism is the means of conveying the Holy Ghost as appears in the words of S. Peter Be baptized and ye shall receive the holy Ghost as also because from this very argument S. Peter resolved to baptize Cornelius and his family because they had received the gift of the Holy Ghost for they that are capable of the same grace are receptive of the same sign Now that Infants also can receive the effects of the Holy Spirit is evident because besides that the promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all to us and our posterity S. Paul affirms that the children of believing parents are holy but all holiness is an emanation from the Holy Spirit of God Ad 19. To the words of S. Peter they answer that the promise does appertain to our children that is to our posterity but not till they are capable they have the same right which we have but enter not into possession of their right till they have the same capacity for by children are not meant Infants but as the children of Israel signifies the descendents onely so it is here And indeed this is true enough but not pertinent enough to answer the intention and efficiency of these words For I do not suppose that the word children means Infants but you and your children must mean all generations of Christendom all the descendents of Christian parents and if they belong to their posterity because they are theirs then the Promises belong to all that are so and then children cannot be excluded But I demand have not the children of believing parents a title to the Promises of the Gospel If they have none then the Kingdom of Heaven belongs not to such and if they die we can doe nothing but despair of their Salvation which is a proposition whose barbarity and unreasonable cruelty confutes itself But if they
and not Man first by Baptism and then by Confirmation first by Water and then by the Spirit The Primitive Church had this Notion so fully amongst them that the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions attributed to S. Clement who was S. Paul's Scholar affirms That a man is made a perfect Christian meaning Ritually and Sacramentally and by all exterior solemnity by the Water of Baptism and Confirmation of the Bishop and from these words of Christ now alledged derives the use and institution of the Rite of Confirmation The same sence of these words is given to us by S. Cyprian who intending to prove the insufficiency of one without the other says Tunc enim plenè Sanctificari esse Dei filii possunt si Sacramento utroque nascantur cùm scriptum sit Nisi quis natus fuerit ex aqua Spiritu non potest intrare in regnum Dei Then they may be fully Sanctified and become the Sons of God if they be born with both the Sacraments or Rites for it is written Vnless a man be born of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God The same also is the Commentary of Eusebius Emissenus and S. Austin tells That although some understand these words only of Baptism and others of the Spirit only viz. in Confirmation yet others and certainly much better understand utrumque Sacramentum both the Mysteries of Confirmation as well as Baptism Amalarius Fortunatus brings this very Text to reprove them that neglect the Episcopal Imposition of Hands Concerning them who by negligence lose the Bishop's presence and receive not the Imposition of his Hands it is to be considered lest in justice they be condemned in which they exercise Justice negligently because they ought to make haste to the Imposition of Hands because Christ said Vnless a man be born again of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And as he said this so also he said Vnless your Righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven To this I foresee two Objections may be made First That Christ did not institute Confirmation in this place because Confirmation being for the gift of the Holy Ghost who was to come upon none of the Apostles till Jesus was glorified these words seem too early for the consigning an Effect that was to be so long after and a Rite that could not be practised till many intermedial events should happen So said the Evangelist The Holy Ghost was come upon none of them because Jesus was not yet glorified intimating that this great Effect was to be in after-time and it is not likely that the Ceremony should be ordained before the Effect it self was ordered and provided for that the Solemnity should be appointed before provisions were made for the Mystery and that the outward which was wholly for the inward should be instituted before the inward and principal had its abode amongst us To this I answer First That it is no unusual thing for Christ gave the Sacrament of his Body before his Body was given the Memorial of his Death was instituted before his Death 2. Confirmation might here as well be instituted as Baptism and by the same reason that the Church from these words concludes the necessity of one she may also infer the designation of the other for the effect of Baptism was at that time no more produced than that of Confirmation Christ had not yet purchased to himself a Church he had not wrought remission of sins to all that believe on him the Death of Christ was not yet passed into which Death the Christian Church was to be Baptized 3. These words are so an institution of Confirmation as the sixth Chapter of S. John is of the blessed Eucharist It was designativa not ordinativa it was in design not in present command here it was preached but not reducible to practice till its proper season 4. It was like the words of Christ to S. Peter When thou art converted confirm thy Brethren Here the command was given but that Confirmation of his Brethren was to be performed in a time relative to a succeeding accident 5. It is certain that long before the event and Grace was given Christ did speak of the Spirit of Confirmation that Spirit which was to descend in Pentecost which all they were to receive who should believe on him which whosoever did receive out of his Belly should flow Rivers of Living Waters as is to be read in that place of S. John now quoted 6. This predesignation of the Holy Spirit of Confirmation was presently followed by some little antepast and donariola or little givings of the Spirit for our Blessed Saviour gave the Holy Ghost three several times First 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscurely and by intimation and secret vertue then when he sent them to heal the sick and anoint them with Oil in the Name of the Lord. Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more expresly and signally after the Resurrection when he took his leave of them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost And this was to give them a power of ministring Remission of sins and therefore related to Baptism and the ministeries of Repentance But Thirdly he gave it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more perfectly and this was the Spirit of Confirmation for he was not at all until now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Text The Holy Ghost was not yet So almost all the Greek Copies Printed and Manuscript and so S. Chrysostom Athanasius Cyril Ammonius in the Catena of the Greeks Leontius Theophylact Euthymius and all the Greek Fathers read it so S. Hierom and S. Austin among the Latines and some Latin Translations read it Our Translations read it The Holy Ghost was not yet given was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them as some few Greek Copies read it but the meaning is alike Confirmation was not yet actual the Holy Spirit viz. of Confirmation was not yet come upon the Church but it follows not but he was long before promised designed and appointed spoken of and declared * The first of these Collations had the Ceremony of Chrism or Anointing joyned with it which the Church in process of time transferred into her use and ministery yet it is the last only that Christ passed into an Ordinance for ever it is this only which is the Sacramental consummation of our Regeneration in Christ for in this the Holy Spirit is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 present by his power but present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen expresses it to dwell with us to converse with us and to abide for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. Paul describes this Spirit of Confirmation the Spirit which he hath poured forth upon us richly or plentifully that is in great measures and to the full consummation of the
because Friendship is that by which the world is most blessed and receives most good it ought to be chosen amongst the worthiest persons that is amongst those that can do greatest benefit to each other and though in equal worthiness I may chuse by my eye or ear that is into the consideration of the essential I may take in also the accidental and extrinsick worthinesses yet I ought to give every one their just value when the internal beauties are equal these shall help to weigh down the scale and I will love a worthy friend that can delight me as well as profit me rather than him who cannot delight me at all and profit me no more but yet I will not weigh the gayest flowers or the wings of Butterflies against Wheat but when I am to chuse Wheat I may take that which looks the brightest I had rather see Thyme and Roses Marjoram and July-flowers that are fair and sweet and medicinal than the prettiest Tulips that are good for nothing And my Sheep and Kine are better servants than Race-horses and Greyhounds And I shall rather furnish my Study with Plutarch and Cicero with Livy and Polybius than with Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa and if I do give an hour to these for divertisement or pleasure yet I will dwell with them that can instruct me and make me wise and eloquent severe and useful to my self and others I end this with the saying of Laelius in Cicero Amicitiaâ—non debet consequi utilitatem sed amicitiam utilitas When I chuse my friend I will not stay till I have received a kindness but I will chuse such an one that can do me many if I need them But I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser and which make me better that is I will when I chuse my friend chuse him that is the bravest the worthiest and the most excellent person and then your first Question is soon answered To love such a person and to contract such friendships is just so authorized by the principles of Christianity as it is warranted to love wisdom and vertue goodness and beneficence and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men 2. The next inquiry is How far it may extend that is by what expressions it may be signified I find that David and Jonathan loved at a strange rate they were both good men though it happened that Jonathan was on the obliging side but here the expressions were Jonathan watched for David's good told him of his danger and helped him to escape took part with David's innocence against his Father's malice and injustice and beyond all this did it to his own prejudice and they two stood like two feet supporting one body though Jonathan knew that David would prove like the foot of a Wrestler and would supplant him not by any unworthy or unfriendly action but it was from God and he gave him his hand to set him upon his own throne We find his parallels in the Gentile stories young Athenodorus having divided the estate with his Brother Xenon divided it again when Xenon had spent his own share and Lucullus would not take the Consulship till his younger brother had first enjoyed it for a year but Pollux divided with Castor his immortality and you know who offer'd himself to death being pledge for his friend and his friend by performing his word rescued him as bravely And when we find in Scripture that for a good man some will even dare to die and that Aquila and Priscilla laid their necks down for S. Paul and the Galatians would have given him their very eyes that is every thing that was most dear to them and some others were near unto death for his sake and that it is a Precept of Christian charity to lay down our lives for our brethren that is those who were combined in a cause of Religion who were united with the same hopes and imparted to each other ready assistances and grew dear by common sufferings we need enquire no further for the expressions of friendships Greater love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends and this we are oblig'd to do in some Cases for all Christians and therefore we may do it for those who are to us in this present and imperfect state of things that which all the good men and women in the world shall be in Heaven that is in the state of perfect friendships This is the biggest but then it includes and can suppose all the rest and if this may be done for all and in some cases must for any one of the multitude we need not scruple whether we may do it for those who are better than a multitude But as for the thing it self it is not easily and lightly to be done and a man must not die for humour nor expend so great a Jewel for a trifle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Philo we will hardly die when it is for nothing when no good no worthy end is served and become a Sacrifice to redeem a foot-boy But we may not give our life to redeem another unless 1. The party for whom we die be a worthy and an useful person better for the publick or better for Religion and more useful to others than my self Thus Ribischius the German died bravely when he became a Sacrifice for his Master Maurice Duke of Saxony Covering his Masters body with his own that he might escape the fury of the Turkish Souldiers Succurram perituro sed ut ipse non peream nisi si futurus ero magni hominis aut magnae rei merces said Seneca I will help a dying person if I can but I will not die my self for him unless by my death I save a brave man or become the price of a great thing that is I will die for a Prince for the Republick or to save an Army as David expos'd himself to combat with the Philistin for the redemption of the host of Israel and in this sence that is true Praestat ut pereat unus quà m Vnitas better that one perish than a multitude 2. A man dies bravely when he gives his temporal life to save the soul of any single person in the Christian world It is a worthy exchange and the glorification of that love by which Christ gave his life for every Soul Thus he that reproves an erring Prince wisely and necessarily he that affirms a fundamental truth or stands up for the glory of the Divine Attributes though he die for it becomes a worthy sacrifice 3. These are duty but it may be Heroick and full of Christian bravery to give my life to rescue a noble and a brave friend though I my self be as worthy a man as he because the preference of him is an act of humility in me and of friendship towards him Humility and Charity making a pious difference where Art and Nature have made all equal Some have fancied other measures of
2. § 6. It destroys holy life ibid. That one may satisfie for the sins of another is the Roman doctrine 322 c. 2. § 6. That habits of sins are no sins held by them 322 § 6. The Pope is to be obeyed according to the doctrine of the Romanists though he command sin 345. Nectarius abolished the custom of having sins published in the Church 474 488 492. Wherein the pardon of sin doth consist 484 485. Between the least mortal and the greatest venial sin no man can distinguish 610 n. 2. The folly of that assertion We are free to sin but not to good 874. The falseness of that Proposition That natural Corruption in the regenerate still remains and is in them a sin 876. How these words Sin and Sinner are sometimes used in Scripture 712 n. 16.885 898 902. Sins are not equal 611 n. 5. How they are made greater or less ibid. No sin is venial 613 n. 9 10. The smallest sins are destructive of our friendship with God 614 n. 12. The Doctors of the Roman Church do not rightly define venial sins ibid. The smallest is against Charity 618 n. 24. The smallest sin is a turning from God 619 n. 26. The smaller the sin the less excusable if done with observation 619 620 n. 27. Sins differ in degree but not in their essential order to punishment 621 622 n. 33. Among the Ancients the distinction of sins into mortal and venial meant not a distinction of kind but degree 627 625 n. 44. Some sins destroy not holiness 626 n. 45. The distinction of sins into mortal and venial cannot have influence on us to any good purposes 626 n. 46. Whether every single act of sin put the sinner out of God's favour 640 n. 22. Single acts of sin without a habit give a denomination 641 n. 25. Sins are damnable that cannot be habitual 641 n. 24. Single acts of mortal sin displease God and are forbidden but are not a state of death 642 n. 29. What repentance single acts of sin require 646 n. 43. How a single act of sin sometimes is habitual 648 n. 49. The word Sin often in Scripture used for the punishment of sin 711 n. 15. Leaving of sin the best sign of hating it 829. How sin can be consistent with the regenerate state 783. He that leaves a sin out of fear may be accepted 785. The violence of the temptation doth not in the whole excuse sin 793. Of the pardon of sins after Baptism 802. Some sins styled unpardonable but in a limited sense 806 n. 22. 814 n. 57 59. God punishes not one sin with another 859 n. 112. One sin may cause or procure another ibid. Every sin is directly against God's Law and therefore is damnable 617 n. 21. The least sin more evil then the greatest punishment 618 n. 24. He that commands another man to sin is not guilty of that man's sin but of his own command 640 n. 20. What sins are damnable in the single act 640 sect 2. per tot There is no natural necessity of sinning lies upon any man 755 n. 15. The Principles by which sin pollutes the manners of men 727 n. 66. The sinner's unwillingness to sin does not always lessen his sin but aggravate it sometimes 784 n. 36. There is in us no natural necessity of sinning 754 n. 15. The whole nature of mankind in its universal capacity cannot be guilty of sin 765 n. 29. The natural inclination to evil that is in every man is not sin 766 n. 32. What kind of inclination to evil is sin ibid n. 33. How we are sinners in Adam 752 n. 12. Sins of Infirmity Of them Chap. 8. per tot That which some men call a state of infirmity is a state of sin and death 779. Sins Venial No sin is properly venial 613 n. 9 10. Venial sins distinguished into such as are venial by the imperfection of the Agent or the smalness of the matter or venial in the whole kind 620 n. 28. That no sins are venial in their nature or whole kind 620 n. 31. No sins are venial but by Repentance 626 n. 44.622 n. 34. The absurdity of the Roman Doctrines concerning venial sins 624 n. 39. The inconveniences following from the doctrine of venial sins 623 n. 35. The Roman Doctors do not rightly define venial sins 614 n. 12. It is not safe to enquire into the veniality of a sin before we commit it 627 n. 57 53. What sins are venial cannot be known to us 627 n. 47. We should have judged some sins venial if it had not been otherwise revealed in Scripture 627 n. 48. Sins that we account in their nature venial by their multitude become damnable 629 n. 52. The means of expiating venial sins appointed by some Roman Doctors 631 n. 57. Sins are made greater or less by complication 612 n. 6 7. Three degrees of venial sins 628 n. 28. That distinction opposed 620 n. 28 29. sequ The mischief that is consequent to the distinction of sins into Mortal and Venial 610 and 623 n. 36. sequ What Repentance is to expiate venial sins 630 631 632 n. 56 57 58. sequ There is some degree of veniality in every sin till it come to an unpardonable estate 626 n. 44. Venial means either actually pardoned or onely pardonable 626 n. 44. Sins are venial in relation to the state of Grace and Repentance 628 n. 47. Sinner How every sinner is God's enemy 602 n. 11. God is ready to forgive all and the greatest sinners 801 n. 5. How the word Sinner is sometimes used in Scripture 712 n. 16. and 885 898 902. Saint Chrysostome's notion of a Sinner 760 n. 22. Sorrow Concerning it as it is a fruit of Repentance 845 n. 74. Rules concerning sorrow as it is a part of Repentance 859. A Caution to those that minister comfort to such as are afflicted with immoderate sorrow for their sins 852 n. 95. Sorrow for sin is but a sign or instrument of Repentance 853 n. 99. Cautions concerning the measure of this sorrow 860. Penitential sorrow is rather in the understanding then in the affections 823 n. 12. There is no Repentance without sorrow 821 n. 50.828 n. 24. Penitential sorrow is odium rather then dolor 823 n. 12. We must not account of our sorrow in repentance by the measure of sense but Religion 823 n. 15. External expressions of sorrow and the like are not necessary to the integrality of Repentance 824 n. 17. The usefulness of sensual sorrow in Repentance 826 n. 20. Of that device to be sorrowful that they cannot sorrow 827 n. 22. Directions to a Penitent when he finds not his sorrow proportionable to his desires of Repentance 850 n. 88. Penitential sorrow should be rather natural and constant then solemn 851 n. 89. Soul That Proposition Anima est tota in toto tota in qualibet parte corporis in what sense it is true 242 § 11. Silhon thinks a moral demonstration to
is as it was crucified as it was our sacrifice And this is so wholly agreeable to the nature of the thing and the order of the words and the body of the circumstances that it is next to that which is evident in it self and needs no further light but the considering the words and the design of the Institution especially since it is consonant to the style of Scripture in the Sacrament of the Passeover and very many other instances it wholly explicates the nature of the mystery it reconciles our duty with the secret it is free of all inconvenience it prejudices no right nor hinders any real effect it hath or can have and it makes the mystery intelligible and prudent fit to be discoursed of and inserted into the rituals of a wise Religion 8. Seventhly He that receives unworthily receives no benefit to his body or to his soul by the holy Sacrament that is agreed on all sides therefore he that receives benefit to his body receives it by his worthy communicating therefore the benefit reaching to the body by the holy Eucharist comes to it by the soul therefore by the action of the soul not the action of the body therefore by faith not by the mouth whereas on the contrary if Christs body natural were eaten in the Sacrament the benefit would come to the body by his own action and to the soul by the body All that eat are not made Christs body and all that eat not are not disintitled to the resurrection the Spirit does the work without the Sacrament and in the Sacrament when 't is done The flesh profiteth nothing And this argument ought to prevail upon this account Because as is the nutriment so is the manducation If the nourishment be wholly spiritual then so is the eating But by the Roman doctrine the body of Christ does not naturally nourish therefore neither is it eaten naturally but it does nourish spiritually and therefore it is eaten only spiritually And this doctrine is also affirmed by Cajetan though how they will endure it I cannot understand Manducatur verum corpus Christi in Sacramento sed non corporalitèr sed spiritualitèr Spiritualis manducatio quae per animam fit ad Christi carnem in Sacramento existentem pertingit The true body of Christ is eaten in the Sacrament but not corporally but spiritually The spiritual manducation which is made by the soul reaches to the flesh of Christ in the Sacrament which is very good Protestant doctrine And if it be absurd to say Christs body doth nourish corporally why it should not be as absurd to say we eat it corporally is a secret which I have not yet been taught As is our eating so is the nourishing because that is in order to this therefore if you will suppose that natural eating of Christs body does nourish spiritually yet it must also nourish corporally let it do more if it may but it must do so much just as the waters in baptism although the waters are symbolical and instrumental to the purifying of the soul yet because the waters are material and corporeal they cleanse the body first and primarily so it must be in this Sacrament also if Christs body were eaten naturally it must nourish naturally and then pass further but that which is natural is first and then that which is spiritual 9. Eighthly For the likeness to the argument I insert this consideration by the doctrine of the ancient Church wicked men do not eat the body nor drink the blood of Christ. So Origen Si fieri potest ut qui malus adhuc perseveret edat verbum factum carnem cùm sit verbum panis vivus nequaquam scriptum fuisset Quisquis ederit panem hunc vivet in aeternum If it were possible for him that perseveres in wickedness to eat the word made flesh when it is the word and the living bread it had never been written Whosoever shall eat this bread shall live for ever So S. Hilary Panis qui descendit de coelo non nisi ab eo accipitur qui Dominum habet Christi membrum est The bread that came down from Heaven is not taken of any but of him who hath the Lord and is a member of Christ. Lambunt Petram saith S. Cyprian They lick the Rock that is eat not of the food and drink not of the blood that issued from thence when the Rock was smitten They receive corticem sacramenti furfur carnis saith S. Bernard the skin of the Sacrament and the bran of the flesh But Ven. Bede is plain without an allegory Omnis infidelis non vescitur carne Christi An unbelieving man is not fed with the flesh of Christ the reason of which could not be any thing but because Christ is only eaten by faith But I reserved S. Austin for the last So then these are no true receivers of Christs body in that they are none of his true members For to omit all other allegations they cannot be both the members of Christ and the members of an harlot and Christ himself saying He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him sheweth what it is to receive Christ not only sacramentally but truly for this is to dwell in Christ and Christ in him For thus he spoke as if he had said He that dwelleth not in me nor I in him cannot say he eateth my flesh or drinketh my blood In which words if the Roman Doctors will be judged by S. Austin for the sence of the Church in this Question and will allow him in this point to be a good Catholick 1. He dogmatically declares that the wicked man does not eat Christs body truly 2. He does eat it sacramentally 3. That to eat with effect is to eat Christs body truly to which if they please to add this That to eat it spiritually is to eat it with effect it follows by S. Austins doctrine that spiritually is really and that there is no true and real body of Christ eaten in the Sacrament but by the faithful receiver or if you please receive the conclusion in the words of S. Austin Tunc erit unicuique corpus sanguis Christi si quod in sacramento sumitur in ipsâ veritate spiritualiter manducetur spiritualiter bibatur then to each receiver it becomes the body and blood of Christ if that which is taken in the Sacrament be in the very truth it self spiritually eaten and spiritually drunk which words of S. Austin Bellarmine upon another occasion being to answer in stead of answering grants it and tells that this manner of speaking is very usual in S. Austin the truest answer in all his books but whether it be for him or against him he ought to have considered Neither can this be put off with saying that the wicked do not truly eat Christ that is not to any benefit or purpose but that this
rendred In him it is violent and hard a distinct period by it self without dependence or proper purpose against the faith of all copies who do not make this a distinct period and against the usual manner of speaking 2. This phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in 2 Cor. 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not for that we would be unclothed and so it is used in Polybius Suidas and Varinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is eâ conditione for that cause or condition and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad quid ades are the words of the Gospel as Suidas quotes them 3. Although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom or in him yet it is so very seldom or infrequent that it were intolerable to do violence to this place to force it to an unnatural signification 4. If it did always signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in him which it does not yet we might very well follow the same reading we now do and which the Apostles discourse does infer for even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does divers times signifie forasmuch or for that as is to be seen in Rom. 8.3 and Heb. 2.18 But 5. supposing all that can be and that it did signifie in whom yet the sence were fair enough as to the whole article for by him or in him we are made sinners that is brought to an evil state of things usually consequent to sinners we are us'd like sinners by him or in him just as when a sinner is justified he is treated like a righteous person as if he had never sinned though he really did sin oftentimes and this for his sake who is made righteousness to us so in Adam we are made sinners that is treated ill and afflicted though our selves be innocent of that sin which was the occasion of our being us'd so severely for other sins of which we were not innocent But how this came to pass is told in the following words 11. For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that was to come By which discourse it appears that S. Paul does not speak of all minkind as if the evil occasion'd by Adams sin did descend for ever upon that account but it had a limited effect and reach'd only to those who were in the interval between Adam and Moses This death was brought upon them by Adam that is death which was threatned to Adam only went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners but not after the similitude of Adams transgression that is who sinn'd not so capitally as he did For to sin like Adam is used as a Tragical and a high expression So it is in the Prophet They like men have transgressed so we read it but in the Hebrew it is They like Adam have transgressed and yet death pass'd upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam for Abel and Seth and Abraham and all the Patriarchs died Enoch only excepted and therefore it was no wonder that upon the sin of Adam death entred upon the world who generally sinn'd like Adam since it passed on and reigned upon less sinners * It reigned upon them whose sins therefore would not be so imputed as Adams was because there was no law with an express threatning given to them as was to Adam but although it was not wholly imputed upon their own account yet it was imputed upon theirs and Adams For God was so exasperated with Mankind that being angry he would still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners which he only had first threatned to Adam and so Adam brought it upon them They indeed in rigour did themselves deserve it but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam they who sinn'd not so bad and had not been so severely and expresly threatned had not suffer'd so severely * The case is this Jonathan and Michal were Sauls children it came to pass that seven of Sauls issue were to be hanged all equally innocent equally culpable David took the five sons of Michal for she had left him unhandsomly Jonathan was his friend and therefore he spar'd his son Mephibosheth Here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons whether David should take the sons of Michal or of Jonathan but it is likely that as upon the kindness which David had to Jonathan he spar'd his son so upon the just provocation of Michal he made that evil to fall upon them of which they were otherwise capable which it may be they should not have suffered if their Mother had been kind Adam was to God as Michal to David 12. But there was in it a further design for by this dispensation of death Adam was made a figure of Christ So the Apostle expresly affirms who is the figure of him that was to come that as death pass'd upon the posterity of Adam though they sinn'd less than Adam so life should be given to the followers of Christ though they were imperfectly righteous that is not after the similitude of Christs perfection 13. But for the further clearing the Article depending upon the right understanding of these words these two things are observable 1. That the evil of death descending upon Adams posterity for his sake went no further than till Moses For after the giving of Moses's law death passed no further upon the account of Adams transgression but by the sanction of Moses's law where death was anew distinctly and expresly threatned as it was to Adam and so went forward upon a new score but introduc'd first by Adam that is he was the cause at first and till Moses also he was in some sence the author and for ever after the precedent and therefore the Apostle said well In Adam we all die his sin brought in the sentence in him it began and from him it passed upon all the world though by several dispensations 2. In the discourse of the Apostle those that were nam'd were not consider'd simply as born from Adam and therefore it did not come upon the account of Natural or Original corruption but they were consider'd as Sinners just as they who have life by Christ are not consider'd as merely children by title or spiritual birth and adoption but as just and faithful But then this is the proportion and purpose of the Apostle as God gives to these life by Christ which is a greater thing than their imperfect righteousness without Christ could have expected so here also this part of Adams posterity was punish'd with death for their own sin but this death was brought upon them by Adam that is the rather for his provocation of God by his great transgression 14. There is now remaining no difficulty but
in the words of the 19. verse By one mans disobedience many were made sinners Concerning which I need not make use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or many whom sometimes S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all and many that is all from Adam to Moses but they are but many and not all in respect of mankind exactly answering to the All that have life by Christ which are only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those many that believe and are adopted into the Covenant of believers by this indeed it is perceivable that this was not a natural title or derivation of an inherent corruption from Adam for that must have included All absolutely and universally But that which I here dwell and rely upon is this 15. Sin is often in Scripture us'd for the punishment of sin and they that suffer are called sinners though they be innocent So it is in this case By Adams disobedience many were made sinners that is the sin of Adam pass'd upon them and sate upon their heads with evil effect like that of Bathsheba I and my son shall be accounted sinners that is evil will befall us we shall be used like sinners like Traitors and Usurpers So This shall be the sin of Egypt said the Prophet This shall be the punishment so we read it And Cain complaining of the greatness of his punishment said Mine iniquity is greater than I can bear * And to put it past all doubt not only punishment is called sin in Scripture but even he that bears it Him that knew no sin God hath made sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him and the Prophet Isaiah speaking of Christ saith Posuit peccatum animam suam He hath made his soul a sin that is obnoxious to the punishment of sin Thus it is said that Christ shall appear the second time without sin that is without the punishment of sin unto salvation for of sin formally or materially he was at first as innocent as at the second time that is pure in both And if Christ who bare our burthen became sin for us in the midst of his purest innocence that we also are by Adam made sinners that is suffer evil by occasion of his demerit infers not that we have any formal guilt or enmity against God upon that account Facti peccatores in S. Paul by Adam we are made sinners answers both in the story and in the expression to Christus factus peccatum pro nobis Christ was made sin for us that is was expos'd to the evil that is consequent to sin viz. to its punishment 16. For the further explication of which it is observable that the word sinner and sin in Scripture is us'd for any person that hath a fault or a legal impurity a debt a vitiosity defect or imperfection For the Hebrews use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for any obligation which is contracted by the Law without our fault Thus a Nazarite who had touch'd a dead body was tied to offer a sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sin and the reason is added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he had sinn'd concerning the dead body and yet it was nothing but a legal impurity nothing moral And the offering that was made by the leprous or the menstruous or the diseased in profluvio seminis is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an offering for sin and yet it might be innocent all the way 17. Thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said that our blessed Lord who is compared to the High-Priest among the Jews did offer first for his own sins by which word it is certain that no sin properly could be meant for Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knew no sin but it means the state of his infirmity the condition of his mortal body which he took for us and our sins and is a state of misery and of distance from Heaven for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven whither Christ was not to go till by offering himself he had unclothed himself of that imperfect vesture as they that were legally impure might not go to the Temple before their offering and therefore when by death he quit himself of this condition it is said he died unto sin Parallel to this is that of S. Paul in the fifth Chapter to the Hebrews where the state of infirmity is expresly called sin The High-Priest is himself also compassed with infirmity and by reason hereof he ought as for the people so also for himself to offer for sins This is also more expresly by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the likeness of the sin of the flesh and thus Concupiscence or the first motions and inclinations to sin is called sin and said to have the nature of sin that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the likeness it may be the material part of sin or something by which sin is commonly known And thus Origen observes that an oblation was to be offered even for new born children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they were not clean from sin But this being an usual expression among the Hebrews bears its sence upon the palm of the hand and signifies only the legal impurity in which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new born babes and their Mothers were involv'd Even Christ himself who had no Original sin was subject to this purification So we read in S. Luke and when the days of her purification were accomplish'd but in most books and particular in the Kings MS. it is read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the days of their purification But the things of this nature being called offerings for sins and the expression usual among the Jews I doubt not but hath given occasion to the Christian Writers to fancy other things than were intended 18. Having now explicated those words of S. Paul which by being misunderstood have caused strange devices in this Article we may now without prejudice examine what really was the effect of Adams sin and what evil descended upon his posterity 19. Adams sin was punish'd by an expulsion out of Paradise in which was a Tree appointed to be the cure of diseases and a conservatory of life There was no more told as done but this and its proper consequents He came into a land less blessed a land which bore thistles and briars easily and fruits with difficulty so that he was forc'd to sweat hard for his bread and this also I cannot say did descend but must needs be the condition of his children who were left to live so and in the same place just as when young Anthony had seis'd upon Marcus Cicero's land the Son also lost what he never had And thus death came in not by any new sentence or change of nature for man was created mortal and if Adam had not