man of any learning or vnderstanding thus in print and open view of the whole Realme to rage revell rush on with lying craking and facing when he speaketh not one true word for first Sir flincher is this the point heere or any where proposed by me whether Christs sufferings were only bodily did I promise or produce any Fathers to that end is it not the death of the soule and the paines of the damned which I impugned in Christs sufferings haue I not most truely performed which I euer professed that the whole Church of Christ for so many hundred yeeres neuer thought neuer heard of the death of Christs soule in the worke of our redemption but rested their faith on the death of Christs body as a most sufficient price both for the soules and bodies of the faithfull What cunning then is this first to shift your hands of that you can no way prooue though you still doe and must professe it and then to clamour at me for drawing the Fathers cleane from their intent and meaning is this the way to credit your new Creed by such deuices and stratagemes to intertaine the people of God least they should see how farre you be slid from the ancient primatiue Church of Christ take a while but the thought of a sober man and this pangue will soone be ouerpast Did you not vndertake to prooue the death of Christs soule by Scriptures which indeed I first and most required and haue you so donne looke backe to your miserable mistakings and palpable peruertings of the words of the holy Ghost and tell vs what one syllable you haue brought sounding that way are your secrets such that they be no where reuealed in the word of God must all faith come from thence and is your faith exempted that it shall haue no foundation there are men and Angels accursed that preach any other Gospell then was deliuered and written by Christs Apostles and shall you be excused for deuising a new kind of redemption by the death of Christs soule no where witnessed in the Scriptures you see how easie it were to be eloquent against you in a iust and true cause but words must not winne the field What I impugned my sermons will shew what I haue prooued I will not proclaime If I haue failed in that I endeuoured the labour is mine the liberty is the Readers to iudge Let the indifferent read it they shall find somewhat to direct them let the contentious skanne it they shall see somewhat to harle their hast and perhaps to restraine their stifnesse What euer it be I leaue it to others since the discourser hasteth towards an end and so doe I. s Defenc. pag. 146. li. 2 This is the profit that comes by ordinarie flaunting with Fathers which many do frequent in these dayes Thinke they if the Scriptures alone suffice not for things in religion that the Fathers will suffice or if the Scriptures may be wrested by subtle heads that yet the Fathers can not Is it not enough for your selfe to be a despiser of all antiquitie and sobrietie but you must insult at them that beare more regard to either than you do If to flaunt with Fathers be so great a fault which yet respecteth their iudgements that haue beene liked and allowed from age to age in the Church of Christ what is it to fliske with pride and follie grounded on nothing but on selfe-loue and singularitie It were to be wished that euen some of the best writers of our age as they thinke themselues had had more respect to the auncient Fathers then they shew we should haue wanted a number of nouelties in the Church of God which now wee are troubled withall as well in Doctrine as in discipline This course of concurring with the lights of Gods Church before our time in matters of faith though you mislike other manner of men then you are or euer will be haue allowed and followed as u August contra Iâ—…num li. 1. Augustine x Theodor. diol 2. 3. Theodorete y Leo epist. 97. 〈◊〉 Leonem Leo z Cassi. de incarnat Domini li. 7 ca. 5. Cassianus a Gelas. de duabus in Christo natâ—…ris Gelasius b Vigilius li. 5. cap. 6. Vigilius and the two c Hispalensi concilium 2. ca. 13. councels of Hispalis and others not doubting the sufficiencie of the Scriptures but shewing the correspondencie of beleeuing and interpreting the Scriptures in all ages to haue bene the same which they imbraced and vrged And in all euennesse of reason were it better to feede the people with our priuate conceits pretended out of Scripture or to let such as be of iudgement vnderstand that we frame no faith but such as in the best times hath bene collected and receiued from the grounds of holy Scripture by the wisest and greatest men in the Church of God your only example turning and winding the words of the holy Ghost to your owne conceits will shew how needfull it is not to permit euery prater to raigne ouer the Scriptures with figures and phrases at his pleasure and thence to fetch what faith he list If you so much reuerence the Scriptures as you report which were to be wished you would why deuise you doctrine not expressed in the Scriptures Why teach you that touching mans redemption which is no where written in the word of God Indeed the Scriptures are plaine in this point of all others what death Christ died for vs if you did not peruert them against the histories of the Euangelists and testimonies of the Apostles Omit the description of his death so farely witnessed by the foure Euangelists what exacter words can we haue then the Apostles that Christ d Coloss. 1. pacisied things in earth and things in heauen by the bloud of his crosse and reconciled vs which were strangers and enemies in the bodie of his flesh through death Beleeue what you reade and what you reade not in the word of God beleeue not and this matter is ended but by Synecdoches without cause you put to the Scriptures not what you read in them but what you like best and by Metaphores and Metonimies you will take bodie for substance and flesh for soule And so where the Apostle auoucheth that we were reconciled to God through death in the bodie of Christs flesh you tell vs we could not be redeemed without the death of Christs soule and the essence of the paines of the damned suffered by suddaine touches from the immediate hand of God after an extraordinarie manner If you teach no doctrine but deliuered in the Scriptures aband on these deuices not expressed in the Scriptures If you content your selfe with the all sufficient word of God in matters of faith you must relinquish the death of Christs soule and paines of the damned as no part of our redemption since there is no such thing contained in the word of God To me and
punishment and payment and vengeance for sinne such as the godly doe in no wise suffer Christ onely hauing wholy suffered that for vs all Therefore indeede his sufferings proceded from Gods proper wrath and were the true effects of Gods meere Iustice bent to take recompence on him for our offences Thou hast in these words Christian Reader the bulwarke of this mans cause concluding that Christ suffered the MEERE IVSTICE PROPER VVRATH and very CVRSE of God for sinne The frame of his reason if I vnderstand it as who vnderstandeth his mysteries but himselfe is this All paine in man is from God either as correction of sinne or as punishment for sinne In Christ there was no ‖ cause and so no neede of ‖ correction his sufferings therefore were the punishments of sinne They were punishments for sinne Ergo they were the true punishment proper payment wages and vengeance of sinne which proceeded from Gods proper wrath and were the true effects of Gods mâ—…ere iustice bent to take recompence on him for our offences His termes of TRVE PROPER and MEERE ioyned to the PVNISHMENT VVRATH and IVSTICE of God are not warranted by any Scripture much lesse referred to the sufferings of Christ nor so much as prooued by any testimony defined with any certaintie directed by any part or expounded by any meanes but onely proiected as Ridles and laberinthes to weary the wise to angle the simple and to refuge himselfe when he shall be pressed with the falsitie and impietie of his assertions Least therefore we wrangle about words in vaine which is his desire and deuise that he may seeme to say somewhat and carry the Reader into a forest of strange and vnknowen phrases where he shall hardly discerne what either side saith I thâ—…nke it needefull first to declare what the Scriptures meane by the wages of sinne and wrath of God and so to trie in what sense and with what truth his termes may be added to them and applyed to the sufferings of Christ. The wages of sinne is death saith S. Paul God himselfe foretold Adam it should be so Whensoeuer thou catest of the forbidden tree thou shalt die the death Then how many kinds of death are by God threatned and inflicted on sinners so many parts must the wages of sinne containe Now those are three the death of the Soule in this life which I call spirituall the death of the body leauing this life which I call corporall and the death of both in the next world which I call eternall For as man had two parts by which he did liue Soule and body and two places wherein he might liue if he obeyed God earth for a time and heauen for euer so disobedience depriued either part of man in either place of the life which he should haue enioyed and subiected him to the feares griefes and paines of death both here and in hell for euer The life of the body is the vnion of the Soule with the body the effects whereof are sense and motion to discerne obtaine and performe that which is needfull or healthfull for the body And as the presence of the Soule bringeth life to the body so the departing of the Soule taketh life from the body and leaueth it dead that is voide of all action motion and sense as to euery mans eyes is apparent in dead bodies The Soule therefore in the Scriptures is vsually taken for the life of the body which proceedeth from the Soule and is maintained by the Soule And these phrases to seeke a mans Soule tolay downe his owne Soule or to giue it for another to powre out his Soule vnto death with such like doe properly expresse the death of the body quickned by the Soule because men loose or leaue this life when they loose or leaue their Soules And where God threatned death to Adam euen the very same day in which he should transgresse we must not thinke that God either delayed the punishment longer or extended it farder then his words at first imported When therefore the very same day that they sinned God said to the woman increasing I will increase thy sorrow and to the man In sorrow shalt thou eate all the daies of thy life we must acknowledge that from that time forward death began to take hold and worke on both their bodies though not by present separation of the Soule from the body for Adam liued after that 930. yeeres yet by mortalitie mutabilitie miserie and namely by sorrow and paine as the instruments and agents of death Worldly sorrow causeth death as Paul witnesseth and a broken hart saith Salomon drieth the bones yea sorrow hath slaine maxy And were it not so written yet experience and nature teacheth vs that griefe of mind and paine of body where they continue or increase consume the flesh and hasten death so that when God the same day that they sinned subiected them to sorrow and paine which before they felt not He made way for death that it might continually worke in them and â—…ken them till they returned to dust The tiâ—…e of this life saith Austâ—…n is nothing elsâ—… but a race to death and truely after a mâ—…n begiâ—…th to be in this bâ—…dy he is in death The life of the soule is not her vnderstanding and will which she can neuer lose no not in hell but onely the trueth and graâ—…e of God by whose spirit she receiueth the light of faith to direct her and the strength of loue to stirre and iâ—…cite her in tâ—…is life to beholde desire and embrace the holinesse and goodnesse of Gods blessed will and promise for her euerlasting happinesse which with patience and comfort of the Holy ghost she expecteth till Gods appointed time do come The lacke or losse of this inward sense and motion of Gods spirit which only can quicken the soule is the death of the soule depriued of her life which is God and left to herselfe in blindnesse and hardnesse of heart and giuen ouer vnto a reprobaâ—…e minde and vile affections to worke wickednesse euen with greedinesse till contempt of Gods will and desperation of his mercy doe fearefully end her miserable time in this life and violently draw her from hence to see and suffer the terrible iudgements of God prouided for sinne in another world Life euerlasting is the perfect and perpetuall vision and fruition of Gods glorious presence in the heauens where vnspeakable light and honour ioy and bliâ—…e shall compasse and replenish bodie and soule in the fellowship of Christ and his elect angels for euer The exclusion and reiection of the wicked from this heauenly fâ—…licity together with the shame and confusion of sinne wounding and stinging the conscience without ease or rest and the dreadfull horror of hell the place of darknesse and diuels hauing in it continuall flames of intolerable and vnquenchable fire eternallie tormenting the soules and bodies of the damned the Scriptures call the sâ—…cond death
speechlesse we die that are of the earth but he which came from heauen breathed out his soule with a loud voice We must say it was a shew of his diuine power to lay downe his soule when he would and to take it againe Yea the Centurio hearing him say to hiâ—… Father Into thine hands I commend my spirit statim sponte spiritum dimisisse and straightway of his own accord to send forth his spirit mooued with the GREATNES of this WOONDER said Truly this was the Sonne of God Chrysostome vpon these words of Matthew Iesus crying with a loud voice gaue vp the ghost sayth Idcirco magna voce clamauit vt ostendat haec sua potestate fieri Therefore Christ cried with a loud voice that he might shew this to be done by his owne power Marke sayth Pilate maruâ—…lled if he were alreadie dead And the Centurion also THERâ—…FORE CHIEFLY beleeued because he saw Christ die of his owne accord and power Victor of Antioch vpon the like words of Marke sayth By so doing the Lord Iesus doth plainly declare that he had his whole life and death in his owne free power Wherefore Marke writeth that Pilate not without admiration asked if Christ were yet dead addidit item ea potissimum de causa Centurionem credidisse he added likewise that the Centurion chiefly for that reason beleeued because he saw Christ giue vp the ghost with a loud crie and signification of great power Leo noting that Christ died not for lacke of helpe but of determinatâ—… purpose sayth Quae illic vitae intercessio sentienda est vbi anima potestate est emissa potestate reuocata What intreatie for life shall we thinke there was where the soule was both sent out with power and recalled with power Fulgentius Cum ergo homo Christus tantam accepâ—…rit potestatem vt cum vellet animam poneret cum vellet denuò resumeret quantam potuit habere Christi diuinitas potestatem Ideo autem ille homo potestatem animae habuit quia cum diuina potestas in vnitatem personae suscepit Where then the man Christ receiued so much power that he might lay downe his soule when he would and take it againe when he would how great power might the Godhead of Christ haue and therefore the manhood of Christ had power to lay downe his soule because the diuine power admitted him into the vinitie of person Sedulius Animam protinus suam sancto de corpore volens ipse deposâ—…it Christ himselfe forthwith vpon his prayer willingly layd off his sacred soule from his bodie Nonnius in his Paraphrase vpon S. Iohns Gospell expresseth the saying of Christ None taketh my soule from me in these words No birth-law taketh my soule from me no incroching time that tameth all things nor Necessitie which is vnchangeable counsell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but ruler of my selfe I of mine owne accord yeeld vp my willing soule Beda vpon that place of Matthew And Iesus crying with a loud voice sent out or gaue vp his spirit writeth thus Quod autem dicit emisit spiritum ostendit diuinae potestatis esse emittere spiritum vt ipse quoque dixerat nemo potest tollere animam in that the Euangelist saith Christ sent out his soule or spirit he sheweth it is a point of Diuine power to send out the soule as Christ himselfe sayd None can take my soule from me Nullus enim habet potestatem emittendi spiritum nisi qui animarum conditor est For none hath power to send out the soule but he that is Creator of soules Which Bede buildeth vpon the words of S. Matthew who saith that Christ crying with a loud voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dismissed or sent his soule from him Theophylact Iesus crieth with a loud voice that we should know it was true which he sayd I haue power to lay downe my soule for not constrained but of his own accord he dismissed his soule And the Centurion seeing that he breathed out his soule so like a Commander of death WONDERED and confessed him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he died not like other men but as the Master of death Lyra vpon these words of Matthew Iesus againe crying with a loude voice sent forth his soule Whereby it appeareth that voice was not naturall but MIRACVLOVS because a man afflicted with great and long torment and through such affliction neere to death could not so cry by any strength of nature The latter writers concurre with the older in this obseruation Erasmus in his Paraphrase vpon Saint Luke Iesus when with a mighty cry he had said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit breathed out his soule to make it manifest to all that he did not faint as others doe the strengh of the body by little and little decaying but straightway vpon a strong cry and words distinctly pronounced laid downe his life as of his owne accord And the Centurion who stood ouerright as a Minister and witnesse of his death and had seene many dye with punishment when he saw Iesus besides the manner of other men after a strong cry presently to breath out his soule said truely this man was the Sonne of God Musculus That Christ sent foorth hiâ—… soule with aloude voice is a proofe of greater power then may be found in a man dying Whereby he shewed that he layed of his soule of his owne accord answerable to that I haue power to lay downe my soule and to take it againe To which end Iohn saith that bowing his head he gaue vp the Ghost Others first dye and then their heads fall but he first layeth downe his head and then of his owne accord deliuereth his soule vp to his Father Gualter But let vs see the manner of Christs death who as Iohn writeth with bowing downe his head yelded his Spirit Luke saith he cryed with a loude voice Father into thy hands I commend my Spirite Concurrunt hâ—…c non obscura Diuinitatis argumenta Here find we manifest arguments of his Diuinitie which the Centurion and others obserued as some of the Euangelists witnesse First this cry and distinct pronouncing of his last words sheweth a power and vertue MORE THEN HVMANE For we know that men dying so faint that the most of them cannot speake be it neuer so softly Againe he dyeth when he will himselfe yea and layeth of his soule with authoritie to shew himselfe Lord of life and death which is an euident proofe of his Diuine power It is profitable for vs diligently to marke the Diuine power of Christ which shewed it selfe so plainly in his death Marlorat vpon the words of Mathew and Iesus crying againe with a loud voyce sent foorth his spirit saith Declarat hic Christus maiestatem suam Christ declareth here his Maiestie that he layeth downe his soule not when men constraine him but when he himselfe will
ambiguous and quarrellous The whole propitiatorie sacrifice are words as doubtfull as the other for since Christ was the Priest who by his eternall spirit offered himselfe vnspotted to God and gaue himselfe for vs to be an offering and sacrifice of a sweet smel vnto God his innocence and obedience chiefly rested in his soule thence sanctified his bodie which suffered death for the ransome of our sinnes Though then all things in Christ were holie and acceptable vnto God and so sacrifices most meritorious yet nothing did fully satisfie the iustice of God for sinne nor make a perfect reconciliation for vs with God but his obedience vnto death For that which must satisfie for sinne must be death other ransome for sinne God neither in his wisdome and counsell would nor in his trueth and iustice could accept after his will once determined and declared It was the first wages appointed and denounced by God to sinne In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death or certainly thou shalt die the doubling of the word noting the inflexibilitâ—…e of Gods counsell and iustice The Apostle witnesseth the same when he sayth The wages of sinne is death Then as sinne was irreuocabâ—…e rewarded with death so must it necessarily be redeemed by death Which rule stood so sure that when the Sonne of God would giue himselfe for vs to redeeme vs he could not do it by reason of Gods immutable counsell and decree but by death Wherefore the Apostle calleth him the Mediator of the New testament through death for the redemption of transgressions And where a testament is there MVST BE sayth he the death of the testator He contenteth not himselfe to say there was but there must be the death of the testator before we could be redeemed A necessitie not simplie binding Gods power but plainly declaring his counsell to be fixed and his will reuealed Since then Christ was to taste death for all men that through death he might destroy him which had power of death euen the diuell and deliuer vs who were reconciled to God by the death of his sonne the point which indeed wee both must stand on is what death Christ suffered to redeeme vs from sinne and to reconcile vs vnto God whether it were the death of the damned which is the second death or the death of the soule or as I auouch the death of the bodie only Other parts of Christes person and beames of his vertues and kinds of his sufferings are not to this quâ—…stion â—…arther than they commended and presented to God Christes death which must ransome our sinnes but the scope to which all the rest was referred and the â—…lose which consummated all the rest was death and therefore no sufferings of Christ were parts of the propitiatorie sacrifice which ransomed sinne but such as ended in death or tended to that sorrowfull shamefull and painfull death of Christ which by order of Gods iustice was appointed to satisfie for sinne The fulnesse of which satisfaction consisted in death and therefore the death and bloud of Christ though they were not the whole sacrifice yet were they the full and perfect ransome and price for sinne because without them the rest could not preuaile and to them all the rest was directed If then you will deale plainly as you pretend or not forget your duetie to God and his trueth you must leaue cauilling with the words of the Holy Ghost and go soberly to consider not whether any other sufferings but whether any other death of Christes be mentioned in the Scriptures to ransome our sinnes besides the death of his bodie If you finde any other there professe â—…t in Gods name if you finde none but only that described or mentioned in the Scriptures leaue snarling at the depth and bredth of those words which the Spirit of God hath authorized and learne rather to vnderstand them truely than vainly to oppose against them In sense and substance there is no difference betwixt these words the death bloud and crosse of Christ the crosse noting the tree whereon Christ died a reprochfull and cruell death for vs and his bloud expressing the maner of his death by sundrie sorts of shedding the same as by whipping piercing his head with thornes boaring his hands and feet to fasten him to the crosse and hanging him thereon three houres by the sorenesse of his wounds till his soule departed from his bodie To make these iarre one with the other which the holy Ghost had knit together is the signe of a busie but not of godly wit and howsoeuer you and your adherents can flourish with figures of Grammar you were best take heede that you turne not your eares from the trueth of God The bodily death which Christ died to ransome our sinnes the holy Ghost doth note sometimes by his Flesh sometimes by his Body sometimes by his Blood and sometimes by his Crosse and these either ioyned or seuered and sometimes also by his soule or life laide downe or powred out vnto death for vs. We finde them ioyned when Paul saith It pleased God by Christ to reconcile all things to himselfe and to pacifie by the BLOOD of his Crosse through him both things in earth and things in heauen And you which in times past were strangers and enemies hath he now reconciled in the BODY OF HIS FLESH through death Seuered are they when Peter saith You were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as a Lambe vndefiled Who by his owne blood saith the Apostle entered in once into the holyplace and obtained eternall Redemption And so when Iohn saith The blood of Iesus Christ clenseth vs from all sinne As likewife Paul We haue Redemption through his blood euen the Remission of sinnes Of his body himselfe saith This is my body which is giuen for you and my flesh will I giue for the life of the world so are we sanctified by the offering of the body of Iesus Christ once Likewise of his soule by which the Scripture meaneth his life for that life wholy dependeth vpon the presence of the soule in the body My Father loueth me sayth Christ because I lay downe my soule or life The sonne of man came to giue his soule or life as a ransome for many And Esay foreshewed that Christ should diuide the spoyle of or with the mightie Because he powred out his soule vnto death which seuereth the soule from the body and so made it an offering for sinne by laying it downe of himselfe that death might seaze on his body This then being the maine foundation of the Gospel which the Apostle receiued that Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures the Question still standeth as I first set it What death Christ died for our sinnes by the witnesse of holy Scriptures and not what sufferings went before or what other things ioyned with his death which is
owne words and hereafter by your leaue tell you it is a plaine lye and a meere shift if you father your termes of Christs meere blood and single bodie vpon me as any part of the Question which I mooued or Doctrine which I defend Wherefore I pray thee Christian Reader once more to take notice that I be not driuen in euery page to proue one and the same thing against the Discoursers vnsauery childish and Idle phrases with which he would faine elude the Scriptures and delude the world Your confession both of my Sermons and conclusion Sir Descourser is this Sundry times you teach that Christ did suffer peculiarly and seuerally some proper punishments in his soule besides his bodily sufferings yea that this was a part of his crosse and the effect of Gods wrath on his soule as well as the suffering in his body Against my words so often witnessed in my writings and so openly confessed by your selfe you take vpon you by some secret reuelation belike to know my meaning that no more but the shedding of Christs blood MEERELY is the full satisfaction of all our sinnes which MEERE BLOOD of Christ the Scriptures meane not nor onely his body SINGLY and SIMPLY considered The MEERE blood and SINGLE and SIMPLE body of Christ with such like couerts of your cause are termes fit for such a teacher as you are to which if you could once conuert the Question we must haue as many Lexicons to bring vs out of these Laberinthes as there be leaues in your booke Keepe them therefore as whelps of your owne litture the faith of Christ and the word of God hath stood without them these sixteene hundered yeeres What I meane by the body and blood of Christ giuen and shed for our Redemption and the remission of our sinne I haue meetly well expressed I must not in euery section fall to fresh repetitions When I speake as the Scripture speaketh I meane as the Scripture meaneth They know not your new termes of the MEERE blood nor of the single and simple body of Christ but by his blood and death they meane that manner of shedding his blood and that kind and course of death suffered in the body of his flesh which the Gospell describeth no way excluding from Christ when he presented himselfe before God to vndertake mans cause the due consideration of mans infirmitie and iniquitie abounding or of Gods iustice therewith displeased nor his humble and voluntary submission to the mightie hand and righteous will of his heauenly Father to excuse vs from the heauie iudgement that otherwise did hang ouer our heads So much as the Scriptures mention in declaring the manner of his death and bloodshedding so much they containe in the name of his Crosse blood and death For as the description which the holy Ghost maketh is in no point idle so the comprehension of all vnder one word excludeth nothing formerly described This I take to be a sound and sure way to expound the Scriptures by their owne direction and intention For since the manner and order of Christs death was so carefully regestred by the spirite of God that we should not be ignorant of it whensoeuer the Scriptures speake of Christs Crosse blood and death they referre vs to all that which either by the Prophets was foretold or in the Gospell is expressed touching the order and manner of his death And so Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures as Paul addeth Then to take any thing from it which is mentioned in the Scriptures or to adde any thing to it which is not there expresly recorded is to depart from the word of trueth and to dishonor and deface the death and bloud of Christ with our inuentions This being my meaning euen from the beginning as my words declare I moued these two generall questions The first Whether in the crosse and death of Christ described in the Scriptures the death of the soule or the death of the damned were by any good warrant of the sayd Scriptures comprised Secondly Whether the crosse and death of Christ as the Scriptures describe them be not the full and perfect price of our redemption from sinne and reconciliation to God by the testimonie of the same Scriptures without the death of the soule or paines of the damned The Discourser finding himselfe inclosed with these questions speaketh directlie to neither and prooueth nothing in either but declining the enuie of these speeches the death of the soule and the paines of the damned which indeed are the points misliked and reiected he changeth the first question into the generall termes of suffering Gods wrath and the soules proper suffering which may import manie things besides those two and in the second he euery where beareth the Reader in hand that by the death and bloud of Christ I meane the MEERE bodily sufferings of Christ without anie sense or sorrow of the soule in her spirituall powers And lest the Scripture should stand in his way he casteth them all behinde him that any way witnesse the force and merit of Christes death and bloudshedding as figuratiue speeches because they name not the MEERE bloud of Christ nor only his body SINGLY considered But Sir all this while you forget that you haue proued nothing but onely supposed and auouched what pleased you and that in matters of faith you may not adde to the word of God without manifest apostasie The things questioned by me were the death of the soule and the verie paines of the damned as appeareth euidently by my words when I first mooued the question Of these you say nothing all this while which yet you must soundly fully proue before you may adde them to the words of the Holy ghost testifying the power vertue of Christes bloud and death Therefore howsoeuer you seeme to shift off the Scriptures as figuratiue speeches with your MEERE and SINGLE termes they will sticke faster by you than so For as there can be no doubt of my meaning comprising all in the death and bloud of Christ which the Scriptures report of the order and maner of his sufferings when he yeelded himselfe to die for the sinnes of the world according to the counsell of his Fathers wil so you may not presume any thing to be conteined in the death or crosse of Christ as requisite for our redemption which is not cleerely witnessed by the Scriptures Proue therefore by the Scriptures that Christ died the death of the soule or the death of the damned which are the true paines of hell and then adde it to the crosse of Christ when you will Till so you do the Scriptures which I haue produced stand in their full strength against you For as they bind all Christian men stedfastly to beleeue that which is written touching their redemption by the death and bloud of Christ so do they straitly prohibit all and euery be they men or Angels to adde any other
agonie With this childish Art you haue almost waded by them not denying as indeede you cannot that they were then before Christs eyes when he feared and sorrowed in the Garden but that either they were no new things to him or else parts of his righteousnesse and holinesse Both which Answeres are very idle For your hell paines if that were part of his Passion were no more newes to his foresight then the rest and all Christs sufferings euen of your hell paines if that conceite had any truth in it were parts of his obedience and patience as well as his suffering of feare and sorrow or of bodily death Wherefore these be but straines and starts to make your Reader beleeue you haue somewhat to say when indeed your oppositions are so sleight that they bewray how gladly you would and how hardly you can distresse any of these causes which I said might concurre in Christs Agonie They all were weightie and godly respects impressing no small degrees of feare sorrow care and zeale on the Soule of Christ and directly pertinent to the worke of our redemption now in hand And where you shift them of as parts of Christs habituall holinesse alwaies resting in him know you good Sir that I speake not in this case of the permanent gifts of grace alwaies inherent in Christs Soule but of the painfull impressions which those respects did therefore now presently and sensiblie make on the Soule of Christ more then at other times because they came now to execution which before were but in cogitation by religious and humble praier he was now to settle the whole course force effects of his sufferings c Defenc. pag. 105. li. 10. Call you this greater perfection in him than in other men to pray expressely against the knowne will of his Father yea against his owne That Christ praied against the knowen will of his Father is an irreligious and dangerous dreame of yours This Toy you trump in euery where as if it were some choise Answere and yet this emptie reason maketh as much against you as against me if there were any waight in it For if Christ did suffer the paines of the damned according to your deuice was it not his Fathers knowen will he should so doe yea and his owne also How then doe the paines of hell excuse him from praying against his Fathers knowen will he was so amazed therewith you will say that he knew not what he did Christ must then be wholy depriued of all vnderstanding if he neither remembred his Fathers will nor his owne nor our saluation for whose sake he was content to suffer And how then came he so suddainly in the very next syllable to remember himselfe and his Fathers will He was now freed you will say from that astonishment How fell he then thrice into it he had so many touches of hell paines which must needs confound all the powers and parts of his body Then all the time of his apprehension examination condemnation and crucifixion he felt no such thing since the Gospels beare witnesse that he wisely religiously constantly carefully and euery way admirably behaued himselfe in eche word and deede after to the instant of his death and remembred all things that were written of him Is not here a fine mockerie which is the fortresse of all your hidden mysteries that to prooue your hell paines you must bring Christ into three such fits and pangs of confusion and obliuion that he knew not what he said or did presently with the speaking of YET to restore him againe to his perfect sense and memorie and so to free him from all your new deuised Passions besides your selues no writer old nor new did euer find in Christs prayer that he knew not what he said and the condition added before his prayer d Luke 22. Father if thou wilt take away this Cup from me and the submission following with the same breath yet not my will but thine be done doe plainely prooue that Christ had exact remembrance and regard of his fathers will besides that the Apostle affirmeth of this prayer that Christ e Heb. 5. was heard in that he feared So that if this be all the Scripture you can produce for your hell paines I protest before God and his whole Church I will sooner beleeue that you were out of your wits in writing this then that Christ was forgetfull in praying that which he spake in the Garden f Defenc. pag. 105. li. 10. Againe could this thing in any reason be such an horrible griefe vnto him to haue his flesh lie dead for a day and a few howers would the thought of this make him sweat bloud for griefe and to neede an Angell from heauen to comfort him and to pray three times vehemently this cup might passe from him verily it is vnreasonable to thinkeso Who hath bewitched you thus openly and vsually to fasten on vntrueths I alleaged six causes that might 〈◊〉 in Christes agonie you haue piked out of my wordes foure more then euer I ment to be reasons of his bloudie sweate and are nine of these now puft away with a breath and nothing left by your swelling and insulting eloquence but the deadnesse of Christs body whiles the soule wanted this it is for a man to trust to his tongue when his teeth be gone and to bleate when he cannot bite If the cause were not Gods it might be thought a pastime thus to faine and face but in so serious questions to vse such idle and false imputations and friuolous refutations is a griefe to any good mans eares and a corrosiue to his conscience Of Christes agony and the causes that might occasion his feare his sorow and his zeale in the garden I haue said so much that I am wearie with repeating though you be neuer weary with resuming the selfe same childish and erroneous mistaking The reason of my speach is plaine and euident howsoeuer you take the course rather to misreport it then refute it For if the soules of Gods saincts doe by nature vnwillingly leaue their bodies to which they are vnited though by them they are often molested and burdened otherwise death were no punishment of sinne but a signe of Gods far our which is nothing so how farre iuster cause then was there Christ should naturally dislike death not only because it was a subuersion of nature created quickned by God and an effect of Gods displeasure against sinne imposed on all men but also for that it should during the time depriue him of life sense and action with great slaunder and infamie and cheefely should exclude for a season his bodie from that blessed communion and fruition of his diuine grace and glorie which formerly it felt though the personall vnion should not be disâ—…olued now the more Christ liked and loued that adherence to God which he liuing enioied the more grieuous was the want thereof which death tooke from him for
be principles of the Christian faith and that in so euident and pertinent manner that I know not how to lighten or strengthen their wordes Thou hearest them with one voice affirme that Christ died not A DOVBLE but A SINGLE death for vs which they likewise aâ—…ch was the death of HIS BODY ONLY AND NOT OF HIS SOVLâ—… and THâ—… DEATH OF THE SOVLE HE DIED NOT. The death of the soule they truely deriue from the Scriptures to be either sinne or damnation sinne by which men are depriued of all grace and so of the life of God and damnation which is a perpetuall reiection from all blisse addicting the wicked to eternall and intollerable miserie in the torments of hell fire Which of these things will this dreamer denie will he say that Christ died moe deaths then ONE and as well the death of the soule as of the bodie So he must say if he will vphold his new redemption by the death of Christs soule and so he doth say but whether there in he crosse not the full consent of Christs whole Church I leaue it to thy censure Will he shift as hee hath hitherto done with the name of flesh that it compriseth as well the soule as the bodie and therefore by the death of Christs flesh onely the Fathers doe not exclude the death of Christs soule but the death of his Godhead they prooue indeed against the Arians that the Sonne of God could not die in his Diuine nature but onely in his humane flesh And this as we now see is one of their maine reasons The soule of Christ died not nor coulde die much lesse then his Godhead And therefore the most of them do expresse that argument vtterly denying that Christes soule died any kinde of death but onely his flesh Besides a number of them not onely expresâ—…e by circumstances and consequents of burying and rising againe what the rest meane by the flesh but they vse the word 〈◊〉 which can not be taken for the soule and with like zeale and truth auouch that Christ died in his body onely So that these three stand for cleere and sounde conclusions with all these Fathers First that Christ died BVT ONE KIND of death Secondly that HE DIED ONELY IN HIS FLESH OR BODY and thirdly that THE DEATH OF THE SOVLE HE NEITHER DID NOR COVLD DIE. Will hee shuâ—…e with the name of death and say they ment not his kind of death that will nothing relieue him For first if Christ died but one kinde of death and of his bodily death no Christian may so much as doubt then by maine consequent out of their wordes Christ died no death of the soule let him take it how and which way he will Againe if Christ DIED ONELY IN BODY as they likewise witnesse then apparantly he died not any death of the soule neither in your sense Sir Defenser nor in theirs Lastly what death of the soule can you shew mentioned in the Scriptures without the compasse of their diuision that is which is not sinne or damnation Of sinne the Apostles wordes are plaine p Rom. 7. Sinne seduced me and slew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I died as likewise that q â—…hes 2. q Coloss. 2. we were dead in our sinnes This death men liâ—…ing may die as the Apostle saith of wanton widowes r â—… Tim. 5. lyuing she is dead and of all the Gentils s â—…phes 4. walking in the vanitie of their minde they are strangers from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardnesse of their heart who being past feeling haue giuen themselues to worke all vncleanesse euen with greedinesse Where the hardnesse of mans heart voide of all feeling or 〈◊〉 of God and so running on in all wickednesse is by the Apostle defined to be the death of the soule which is a depriuing or â—…anging from the life of God The second death as I before haue shewed is the laâ—…e burning with fire and brimstone into which the diuell and all the wicked shall be cast Shew now a third death of the soule not in your extraordinarie fansie and folly but in the word of God to which these Fathers proportion their speeches If there be no such thing there then directly earnestly and truely do these Fathers auouch that Christ dâ—…ed no death of the soule Of Fathers it may be your Mastership maketh small account and will not sticke in the high perswasion of your great and deepe learning to reiect them all as ignorant of the principles of their faith and so fitter to be taught then to teach but that proud peeuishnesse to giue it no worse words I leaue to the sober to censure for an vpshot the Reader shall haue a cleere conclusion out of the sacred Scriptures that the soule of Christ neuer was nor could be dead and consequently that these learned and ancient Fathers deliuered sound and true doctrine touching the soule of Christ and The soule of Christ liuing by graâ—…e could no way be dead fully build their asâ—…ertions on the maine foundations of the Diuine Scriptures It is euident by nature sense and trueth that priuatiues can not concurre at one and the same time in one and the same subiect For the one expelleth the other and so can not be found both together Yea since the one of them cleerely remooueth the other they can no more stand together then may contradiction For that which liueth is not dead and that which is dead liueth not I meane alwaies the same time and the same part But the soule of Christ by the manifest and manifold testimonies of holie Scripture did alwaies liue in the fulnesse of faith of hope of loue of grace of trueth of spirit It is euident therefore that the soule of Christ neuer died nor could die Which of these assertions will you encounter that Christes soule may be aliue and dead both at one time You would seeme the leafe before to shunne the shame of t Defenc. pag. 140. li. 25. this absurditie that Christes soule died and died not will you now come plainely and grossely to it by auouching that Christes soule was at one and the same time LIVING AND NOT LIVING DEAD AND NOT DEAD that is both ALIVE AND DEAD If you doe there is no man in England that hath either eies or eares to see or heare but he will reprooue you for a manifest beliar of his sense as well as of Christs soule Will you smoothly set yourselfe to one side and say that Christs soule was not aliue so many parts of life as I haue named in the soule of Christ so many pregnant proofes are there in holy Scripture that Christes soule was not onely liuing but as full of life as of grace during the whole time of his passion Neither is there any one of those things named by mee concerning the life of Christes soule which you can take from Christ without apparent blasphemie For if
place of torment after this life and not one common place for all in paine and rest with nothing but a ditch betwixt them So likewise Christ promised the gates of hades should not preuaile against his Church where if you defend that the godly shall not haue their soules separated from their bodies by death and yet hell may preuaile against their soules you maintaine two as manifest lies as a man may vtter Spite of your hart therefore Hades must signifie hell in the 16. of Saint Matthewes Gospell and so it doth in all other places of the new Testament though the circumstances of ech place be not so pregnant as these are And though in the old Testament Zuinglius Mollerus obserue The gates of Sheol and Hades with the Septuagint may signifie the danger of death approching when it is referred to the godly yet Hades in the new Testament neuer signifieth the death of the body but it is a thing distinguished from it and consequent to it as Saint Iohn in plaine words doth witnesse his name that sate on the pale horse was Death and Hades followed after him or close to him The worthie Master Bucer noteth well saying Diues non simpliciter scribitur esse in hade sed in gehenna quia in torment is flammis The rich is not said to be simply in hades but also in hell because he is said to be in fierie torments Master Bucere I honor for his learning and Religion yet not so that all his words are Gospell or that I receaue him afore or against all the Fathers And by his leaue in this place his wordes are out of square He saith The Rich man is not simply written to be in Hades but if mine eyes were matches when I read Saint Lukes Gospell last it cannot be more simply written then it is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in Hades lifting vp his eyes Now what place Hades is the Euangelist expresseth when he saith being in torments Had Hades beene vsed alone without explication men might and would haue questioned this as they doe other places where Hades is vsed alone But Luke noting afterward what manner of place Hades is euen a place of Torment he prooueth exactly that Hades alone without any addition ioyned to it is vsed for hell in the new Testament Will you conclude from this as you doe about Abyssus In the Reuelation and in Luke Abyssus is vsed to signifie Hell Therefore it signifieth Hell in the Romanes or therefore euery where properly it signifieth Hell If Abyslus be the bottomelesse pit properly and hell be so called both in the Gospell and in the Reuelation and no reason can be giuen why either the graue or the Sea should properly be called bottomelesse then since figures are not to be brought into the Scriptures but vpon necessitie you must shew vs more necessitie then hitherto you haue done why hell may not be vnderstood in that place or else we must cleaue to the naturall sense of the word and leaue your figures till you can better fasten them That Abyssus may metaphorically be applied to other things I neuer denied but in Saint Pauls words to the Romans you must shew vs a pit that properly is bottomlesse and opposite to heauen and to which Christ descended before you can exclude hell as not ment by the Apostle in that place But of this I haue spoken before whither I referre you for fuller answere death sometimes is the 2 death ergo it is so Acts 2. 24. The sorrowes of the first death end with this life and in the graue there is neither sorrow nor sense But the sorrowes of that death which Peter ment were loosed at Christs rising to life Those were therefore the sorrowes of another death which must be the second death which were loosed and scattered with Christs resurrection Againe the text hath there a double reading death or hades Then that death must be vnderstood which is in hades and not the sorrowes and paines which are in this life since hades by your owne confession is a state opposite to the world Thirdly the loosing of the sorrows of that death which Peter there intended prooueth Christ to be Lord of all But a simple rising vnto life againe prooueth no such thing That therefore was neither pertinent nor sufficient for Peters purpose Next let vs consider and thou Capernaum which art lift vp to heauen shalt be brought downe to hades to destruction I say hades heere is not hell but the destruction of Capernaum the city Christ threatneth the city it selfe with destruction and razing out from the face of the earth which he meaneth by hades The inhabitants the wicked people thereof he threatneth with damnation in hell A graue and wise construction Christ threatneth the stones and timber of the city with hades for not hearing his word and regarding his miracles In the 20 verse of this very chapter where it is said Christ began to vpbraid the cities whereof Capernaum was one because they repented not of whom spake Christ of the men or of the wals of those cities it may be you will find out repentance for stones but our Sauiour nameth the place for the persons which is as vsuall in the Scriptures as any thing may be Ierusalem Ierusalem which killest the Prophets and stonest those that be sent vnto thee Christ speaketh not there of the housen but of the Inhabitants So doth he heere for neither were the stones of this city capable of repentance nor exalted vp to heauen nor intelligent of Christs words or works nor punishable at the day of iudgement all which things Christ heere ascribeth to Capernaum Then if the stones of Capernaum were not exalted to heauen they were not threatned by Christ to be depressed downe to hades And so hades heere was not threatned to the place but to the persons Now the persons by your owne confession and by the righteous iudgement of Christ were threatned with damnation in hell Hades then in these words of Christ doth exactly signifie hell and implieth as much as followeth in the next verse It shal be easier for the land of Sodom in the day of iudgement then for thee Which is likewise spoken to the city though ment of the vnbeleeuers there Now if we make the former words interrogatiue as some Greek copies haue them and the Latin translator putteth them And thou Capernaum wilt thou be exalted to heauen You must giue will to stones as well as sense before these wordes can agree to the city it selfe The Gospell of Saint Matthew translated into the Hebrew tongue long before Saint Ieroms time if it were not written in Hebrew by the Euangelist himselfe as Ierom thinketh thus expresseth the words of our Sauiour And thou Capernaum wilt thou be exalted to heauen adh Gehinnom têredi thou shalt descend to Gehenna And if that which you haue said all this while haue
former feare and freed from suffering hell paines wherein there is no comfort he prayed more earnestly or ardently and his sweate was in colour and consistence like drops or strings of blood trickling downe to the ground So that feruencie in prayer is set downe next before that sweate in the Gospell as a precedent or cause thereof Howbeit I onely barre the boldnesse of this deuiser who presumeth what pleaseth him of Christs bloodie sweate in the garden because the Scriptures doe not exactly mention the cause and thinke it no reason to let him build on a blinde coniecture a false conceit of his owne without any warrant of holy Scripture But I am repugnant to my selfe and some where I hold that Christ suffered no more but meere bodily paines that is in his soule from and by his bodie Neuerthelesse contrâ—…riwise I seeme somewhere to yeelde wholely so much as you affirme I leaue that grace to you Sir Discourser to roule to and fro and when you haue â—…aid a thing after a sense and in a sort then in another kind to vnsay it againe and laying the whole foundation of your cause vpon Christes suffering the wrath of God neither to bring any proofes or to shew any parts thereof by the word of God but to play with the termes of very proper and meere and to call that the opening of the whole question Indeed I euery where defend that Christ suffered no death expressed or mentioned in the Scriptures saue onely the death of the bodie from other passions or sufferings of the soule as feare sorrow shame and such like I doe not exempt the soule of Christ when he sustered for our sinnes though I leaue no place in him for the feare of damnation sting of conscience despaire or doubt of Gods fauour and such other shipwrackes of all faith hope patience and pietie The Crosse death and blood of Christ when I name I vse those words as the Scripture doth to declare the whole maner and order of his passion from the garden to the graue as it is described in the Euangelists not excluding either the feare or agonie which befell him before he was apprehended but comprising within his death his obedience and patience in all those asâ—…ictions which he suffered till he died And this is no wauering in mee to retaine the words of the holy Ghost in their right sense and vse but it is rather a childish dalliance in you Sir Discourser to suppose that the death of Christ doth import no more but the very act of giuing vp the ghost or els if I by that worde designe the rest of Christs sufferings endured at the time of his death by the witnesse of holy Scripture you will also hemme in your hell paines within the list of the same wordes though the Euangelists name or note no such thing in all the historie of Christs passâ—…on So likewise in speaking of Gods wrath against the wicked I wrap in no Ridles nor enuiron the Reader with a windlace of words but plainely and fairely distinguish it either by the naturall vertues and properties that are in God misâ—…iking and repreâ—…sing sinne or by the effects and punishments proceeding from God to reuenge the works and reward the workers of iniquitie In the wicked Gods holinesse hateth the euill deede and the doer that is both the sinne and the sinner and by his iustice without all loue or fauour towardes them awardeth a punishment against them according to their deserts which the power of God doth execute on them not respecting their strength but rather inabling them to continue in perpetuall torments of bodie and soule in hell fire for euer Gods purpose being onely to reuenge sinne in them and to destroy them for their sinnes which is most holy and righteous in him though it be neuer so grieuous and intollerable to them Gods iust and full iudgement against sinne where and when it pleaseth him to inflict it is the depriuing bodie and soule of all outward and inward peace and grace in this life for the time and the reiecting of both from all blisâ—…e and rest in the world to come for euer which is the losâ—…e of God and of all his blessings prouided in this life and the next for his elect These causes and parts Gods anger hath against the wicked for their sinnes and to euery of these the Scripture beareth witnesse In Christ Gods holinesse infinitely imbraced the humilitie obedience and charitie of his Sonne offering himselfe to be the ransommer of man and perfectly loued the integritie innocencie and puritie of his manhood created called and anointed of God to this intent and end that his death and bloodshedding should be the redemption of the world though God vtterly hated the sinnes of men which his sonne then assumed into the bodie of his flesh to beare the burden of them when wee could not Wherefore Gods iustice finding the loue of the Father towards his Sonne farre to exceede the hatred of the Creator against the vncleannesse of his sinfull but sedused creature did relent from the rigour of that iudgement which was prouided for sinne in Angels and with a fatherly regard and respect to the meanest part of the peâ—…son of his sonne decreed a punishment for our sinnes in the manhood of Christ which was a corporall death accompanied with the sharpest paines that Christ might endure with obedience and pacience whose voluntarie submission and sacrifice for sinne the iustice of God did accept as a most sufficient price and payment for all our sinnes which in themselues deserued euerlasting destruction of bodie and soule in hell fire with deuils This correction though very sharpe yet not ouerpressing the patience of Christs manhood Gods iustice would not release to his owne Sonne least he should seeme to make light account of our sinne if it were remitted onely for prayer and intreatie and without iust cause so terribly to punish the sinnes of the reprobate with all kinds of death I meane corporall spirituall and eternall And greater or other death then the death of the bodie God by no iustice could impose on the person of his Sonne since Christ could not be subiected to sinne which he must cleanse and abolish in vs much lesse be reiected from euerlasting â—…lisse and ioy to which hee must bring vs least of all linked and chained with deuils in perpetuall flames of hell fire for so much as hee was the true and onely Sonne of God for whose sake we all were adopted and made heires of eternall saluation And for this cause the power of God which is otherwise most dreadfull to men and Angels and so was then to the manhood of Christ restrained it selfe and tempered the smart of Christes paines to the stâ—…ength of Christes humane nature not meaning to ouerwhelme his patience but to trie his obedience to the vttermost In all which sufâ—…erings Gods counsell and purpose was most fauourable and honourable euen to the manhood
people You be come now from a sinne-offering to a part of a sinne offering and that you proue because the Scape-goat was CONSECRATED and OFFERED to make reconciliation by him All these words are your owne adding to the text and if you keepe that course you may proue what you list if not by the Scriptures at least by your commentaries vpon the Scriptures The words of Moses in that verse which you quote are those And the goat on which the lot fell to be the Scape goaâ—… shal be brought aliue before the Lord LECAPPER to pray ouer him oâ—… to carie away sinne by him and to send him for the Scape-goat into the desert You aske whose translation this is Theâ—…s that had better skill in the Hebrue tongue than you or I. The ancient translation of the Latine Church hath vt fundaâ—… preces super â—…um to make prayers ouer him which Isychius Nicolaus de Lyra and Arias Montanus â—…o follow Pagninâ—… sayth ad emundandum per illum to clense or cary away sinne by him which Vatablus in his notes varieth by adrogandum to pray ouer him That the Scape-goat was consecrated or offered there are no such wordes in Moses text except you meane that the bringing of the goat before God was the offering of it and the praying ouer it was the consecrating of it but these be sillie coniectures to proue the consecration and oblation of a Sacrifice The Scape-goat therefore was not the halfe sinne-offering of the people as you pretend it was a sensible figure of the acceptance of the former Sacrifice whose bloud was carried within the vaile and made a full propitiation for all their sinnes as much as those Sacrifices could effect And in token thereof the Priest was willed before their faces by imposing his hands and confessing their iniquities to let them see that the Lord remoued all their sinnes out of his sight as that goat was caried away from the sight of men into the wildernesse So that the Scape-goat was nothing giuen to God for sinne as you would haue it but shewed rather a reiection and detestation of sinne by his departure into the desert and was no sanctified and accepted sacrifice for sinne as the other was whoâ—…e bloud did make the purgation of their sinnes and reconcile them to God by his figuring and their beleeuing in the true and eternall sacrifice for sinne Was not the Scape-goat then a figure of Christ as well as the slaine goat Though certaine Fathers doe sometimes resemble the Scape-goat to the wicked and reprobate which is not so wide a wandering from the trueth as your wresting it to signifie the sufferings of Christes soule yet neither did I nor doe I gainsay but the Scape-goat might in some sort be a figure of Christ notwithstanding all things in it can not be proportioned to Christ for so no figure can match him yet that doth not proue it to be sacrifice for sinne much lesse to foreshew the sufferings of Christes soule There were many figures of Christ yea of Christes death as the Brasen Serpent the Rocke in the desert Sampson Ionas and many such which were no sacirfices and so might the Scape-goat prefigure either the cause or shame of his death or both as the slaine goat did the maner and power of his death and yet be no sinne-offering Iustine Martyr sayth The two goats designed the two commings of Christ the first when the Elders of the people and Priests laying their hands on him and putting him to death SENT HIM AVVAY AS THE SCAPEGOAT The second when they shall acknowledge him whom they dishonoured to be the sacrifice for all repentant sinners Teâ—…ullian is of the same minde One of the goats arayed in redde scarlet aecurfed and spet on beaten and punched by the people was cast out of the city into a place of perdition thus marked with manifest signes of the Lords passion The other offered for sinne and giuen for food to the Priests of the Temple secundae repraesentationis argumenta sign bat sealed the effects of his second appearing Theodoret referreth the two goats to the two natures of Christ the â—…laine goat to represent the passible nature of his flesh the Scape-goat to shew the impassible nature of his Diuinitie Isychius doth the like Caluine a man of sharpe iudgement and in some sense a mainteiner of the sufferings of Christes soule yet doth not applie the Scape-goat as you doe but either to witnesse the resurrection of Christ as the slaine goat did dcclare his death or to shew that Christ was a man deuoted to beare the shame and punishment of sinne for others There is heere set downe sayth he a doubble way of cleansing sinne For of the two goats one was offered for a sacrifice after the maner of the Law the other was sent forth aliue to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a thing deuoted to destruction for others or an of-scouring of the people The truth of either of these figures was exhibited in Christ because he was the lambe of God whose slaying abolished the sinnes of the world and that he might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one deuoted or appointed to beare the plague for others all beautie was quenched in him and he reiected of men There may be brought a more curious speculation that the sending away of the Scape-goat was a figure of Christes resurrection but I embrace that which is more simple and certaine that the goat sent away aliue and free was VICE PIACVLI as a thing deuoted to beare the brunt for others that by his departure and leading away the people might be assured their sinnes did vanish and were caried farre out of sight So that though the Priest brought one goat aliue for a reconciliation yet God was not pacified without bloud quia vis expiationis a sacrificio alterius Hirci pendebat because the force of cleansing sinne depended on the sacrifice of the other slaine goat Thus haue we manie significations of the Scape-goat referred euen to Christ by old and new writers and euen by some whom you would seeme most to follow and yet none of them applieth it to the sufferings of Christes soule So that your assertion in that behalfe is but your meere imagination farther from the words of Moses than their coniectures which you count widest off But you will proue it by maine might that shall remoue mountaines before it It must needs be then that the Scape-goate signified Christ yea doubtlesse Christ man For the godhead could be no sinne-offering neither did it make reconciliation for sinne neither did the Deitie beare our sinnes vpon him properly all which the Scape-goate did If it were Christ man it could not be his body for his body was slaine bloudily the Scape-goate was not slaine It must then be of necessitie I thinke the humane MORTALL Soule which the Scape-goate signified I know not
whether you make the Soule of Christ mortall as your words here stand because he suffered the death of the soule as you imagine or whether this were the scape of your Printer but by such demonstrations as these are supported with figures and fansies of your owne making you may prooue what you will That the Brasen Serpent was a figure of Christs death Christ himselfe witnesseth Whence you may inferre after your manner that Christ had no true flesh nor felt death For the Brasen Serpent had neither flesh to feele nor life to loose So the Lord expresseth that Ionas was a figure of his lying in the graue and yet was Ionas aliue in the Whales belly May it therefore be concluded that Christ was neuer dead nor buried because Ionas indeede was neither Figures haue a resemblance to some things in Christ not to all as the brasen Serpent to his fastning on the Crosse and sauing all that beheld him in faith Ionas to the time that he lay in his graue and to the impossibilitie conceaued of his resurrection So the Scape-goate notwithstanding your must needs be and could not be mighâ—… signifie the impassible godhead of Christ as Theodoret and Isychius affirme since power to take away sin and to cleanse it without any suffering for it is proper to God It might likewise resemble the detestation and hatred the Iewes had of Christ when they cryed away with him away with him if the vsage of the people towards the Scape-goate were such as Tertullian describeth which was to spit at him punch him and curse him as he was caried out of the Citie And where he went away aliue for all their spites and wrongs that might declare either his resurrection into life eternall which they could not touch or else the disposition of his life here not left in the peoples hands but reserued to his owne power till he did willingly offer it as a sacrifice vnto God Ambrose saith of him Quasi arbiter exuendi suscipiendique corporis emisit spiritum non amisit As hauing power in himselfe to lay aside and to take againe his body he sent foorth his soule he lost it not And likewise Eusebius When no man had power ouer Christs soule he himselfe of his owne accord laid it downe for man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So loosed from all force and resting free him selfe of him selfe made the departure from his body This the Scape-goate I say might figure as some ancient Fathers auouch your reasons to the contrary are but rushes vnfit to conclude such a cause considering that no figure agreeth in all things with the truth for then it should be no figure but the truth and you collect some small disagreements betweene the figure and the truth Againe as you suppose for some petite difference the Scape-goat could not figure the deity nor body of Christ so I vpon stronger grounds collect it could not signifie the proper sufferings of Christs soule if your word were of any waight your selfe auouch that which I entend Those bâ—…asts sacrifices say you could not prefigure the immortall and reasonable soule of Christ. If that be true which is your owne auerment how could the Scape-goat which I troe was a beast as you say a sacrifice figure the sufferings of Christs soule which were inward and invisible as was his soule Can you so closely conuey contradictions as in your treatise to tell vs the sacrifices of beasts could not prefigure the immortall soule of Christ and in your defence to assure vs it must be ofnecessitie that the Scape-goat signified the humane soule of Christ Besides if the Scape-goat signified Christs soule sent away from his body for the other goat was first slain it must of force import Christs death for without death his soule was not separated from his body And so by your vrging that it could not signifie Christs death you plainly confirme it did signifie Christes death Thirdly the place whither the Scape-goat was sent was the Wildernes and a land vnhabitabie Now the soule of Christ seuered from his body went to heauen as you hold or to Paradise Is heauen or Paradise with you become a wildernes a land not inhabited Fourthly the Scape-goat after he was sent away did beare vpon him all the sinnes of the people Dare you say that Christs soule departed from his body did beare or suffer the punishment of the peoples sinnes Your meaning is but to shew what you thinke to be indeed most probable and likely knowing that yet some such matter as you ayme at they doe signifie without Question After it must be of necessitie come you now with probabilitie and is your doubtles so soone turned into likelihood The Reader is well holpen vp to rest on your word and to beleeue SOME SVCH MATTER AS YOV AYME AT But backe to the matter indeed and then your Reader shall finde euen by your owne confession besides my proofes that you do but ayme at these things vpon the bare surmise of your own braine and that you can shew no sacrifices of the Iewes which did figure the proper sufferings of Christs foule much lesse the death of his soule which is the matter that we differ about howsoeuer you would now loose your necke out of the coller We reade of other sacrifices consisting of sacrifices of sundry and diuers sorts The bloody sacrifice had conioyned together with it the vnbloody sacrifice of the meate offering and an other of the drinke offering Which may very likely represent vnto vs the sundry and diuers kinds of Christs meritorious sufferings in his life time and at his death You coniecture still so farre from truth that few men will regard your coniecturall likelihoods Why Salt Flower Oyle and Wine were added to the carnall sacrifices of the Iewes much may be ghessed litle can be prooued They might well serue to make the sacrifice the sweeter and the fuller and so resemble the fragrancie and sufficiencie of Christs death but what reason you haue to make Christes life to be thought his death and his merits all one with his sufferings and things without sense or life to figure the sufferings of his soule and you know not what besides I doe not see but onely that your will is your best weapon when you be put to the push of any proofe Yea in the same side where you reiect the iudgement of Cyrill Ambrose and Bede as wide coniectures and palpable mistakings you come in with your foolish supposals and offer them to all the godly as matters of good moment onely because you fansie them But mocke not your Reader with may and must as you thinke your thoughts must be wiser and neerer the truth before a meane man will regard them Who but I you say would defend these palpable mistakings of the auncients and not see the expresse text against them Nay who but you would so peremptorily
trample vpon the credits of such men with a proud presumption of the text before you did better examine it Is it so repugnant to the Scriptures as you pretend to say the wicked are a Redemption or propitiation for the godly which in Moses the Scape-goate is said to be for the people Salomon saith COPHER LAZADDIC RASHAA a Redemption for the iust shall the wicked be and the transgressour for the righteous Where not onely the same sense but the same word is found which Moses vseth when he saith the Scape-goate shall be presented aliue before the Lord LECAPPEâ—… AALAV to make Redemption or reconciliation by him So God by Esay said I gaue Egypt CAPHRECA to be thy Redemption that is to be plagued for thee that thou mightest scape And so God often layeth the burden on the wicked that should fall on the righteous and excuseth the one by the punishment of the other as he did typically on the Scape-goate truely on Christ for all the sinnes of the people Wherefore it was no such ouersight in Cyrill Ambroses and Bâ—…de to resemble the Scape-goate to the wicked when they are punished to spaâ—… the godly as you would make it their coniectures are farre more considerate then yours the Sauiour of the world was counted among the wicked and vsed in shew as the wicked are when he bare our sinnes in his body and tooke our burden on him That which Mâ—…nster reporteth out of all the Rabines and especially out of Rabi Salom Kimchi and Aben Ezra that the Scape-goate was sent to a strong hill in the desert and there torne in peeces before he could touch the middle of the hill I leaue to each mans liking because the Scripture noteth no such thing Howbeit Tertullian saith extra ciuitatem abijciebatur in perditionem the Scape-goate was cast out of the Citie into perdition And Iustine Martyr in his Dialogue with Triphon the Iew saith the Priests and Elders sent Christ away as the Scape-goate laying their hands on him and doing him to death The very like are your three reasons brought to shew that the Holocaust can not signifie the sufferings of whole Christ and therefore not of his soule any way Whether the Holocaust were a figure of Christes sacrifice or did represent the ioynt sufferings of the whole manhood of Christ neither of these is in question betwixt vs. You tooke vpon you to shew that the Iewes by their sacrifices were directed to beleeue the suffering of that which you call hell paines in the soule of Christ when he offered himselfe for our sinnes That was the point which I denied The shedding of Christes bloud vnto death the Apostle in the ninth and tenth Chapters to the Hebrewes doeth plainely deduce from those bloudie sacrifices of the Iewes other sufferings of Christ from their sacrifices he doth not deriue The Holocaust you replied was euery whit chopt in peeces and altogether put into the fire and burnt I answered this was done after the death of the sacrifice whose dead body was wholly consumed to ashes with one and the selfe same sire and therefore this could not be referred to the proper sufferings of Christs soule which could not suffer any thing after the death of the body much lesse be wholly consumed with any sufferings common to the body since the body of Christ it selfe neither was nor could be consumed with any corruption or affliction Besides that you your self in the leafe before made a plaine resolution that those Sacrifices of beasts could not prefigure the immortall and reasonable soule of Christ. How then could the dead bodies of those beasts cut in peeces and quite consumed with fire represent the inward and proper sufferings of the soule Is there any Similitude concurring in all points and circumstances with the thing signified If it did it were the trueth it selfe and not a figure thereof And therefore all your illations that the Scape-goate which in some things disagreed from the Deitie and body of Christ could signifie neither were vaine and idle It sufficeth in figures warranted by the word of God that one principall action or circumstance bee common to both in how many things so euer they bee otherwise different But where is your warrant in the Scriptures that the burning of sacrifices when they were dead signified the sufferings of Christes soule Shew that and then wee will soone dispence with the rest of your rules and my reasons also Figures expressed in the word of God had no doubt their similitude to the trueth though we perhaps see it not and if any one point of resemblance be ratified by Gods authoritie that may and must content vs. But will you of your owne head make figures to fit your fansies and then claime the same prerogatiue which God himselfe hath What if many figures in the Law had as great disparagement as you call it To the things signified as the burning of the Holocaust to the sufferings of Christes soule Is that a president for you to deuise and establish what figures please you and thence to raise platformes for strange and newe doctrine The bodies of beastes first slâ—…ine were after caried out of the host Now these signified Christs going out of Ierusalem to be slaine but being yet aliue The burning of the beasts after they were dead was a sacrifice of a sweete sauour vnto God which in trueth is Christs very death and nothing done by him afterward whereby Gods anger is fully pacified toward vs. In figuratiue and bloudie sacrifices could you distinguish the suffering which was proper to the liuing creature that was offered from the offering which was peculiar to the Priest and from the accepting which belonged onely vnto God you would not thus iumble them together both in the figures signifying and in the thing signified That the bloud of the carnall sacrifices slaine vnder the Lawe did foreshew the bloudshedding and death of Christ Iesus for the sinnes of the world the Apostle to the Hebrewes is very plaine not onely calling him amongst other things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The shadow of good things to come and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a similitude for the time present but also making diuers comparisons betwixt them and the bloud of Christ and proouing by the first testament that the second must be ratified with bloud and death By which as by figures were sufficiently testified the ioynt sufferings of the whole manhood of Christ euen vnto death For the powers of â—…ife and sense in those creatures that had their bloud shed vntodeath naturally feeling and shewing in their kinde the paines and terrour of death were fiâ—…test to witnesse to all the beholders that the violent and bloudie death of the Messias which hee would vndertake for the ransome of their sinnes should bee grieuous and painefull euen to his soule And that being made so manifest to all mens eyes by the death
deuice to the doctrine of our saluation than what is euidently reuealed and directly witnessed in the Scriptures Whether it be of Christ sayth Austen or of any other thing what soeuer touching the faith I say not if we who are no way comparable to him that so spake but that which followeth if an Angell from heauen teach you BESIDES that which you haue receiued in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospell holde him accursed It is a manifest fall from the faith sayth Basil either to abrogate any thing that is written or to bring in any thing that is not written For when once we beleeue the Gospel sayth Tertullian this we first beleeue that there is nothing besides which we ought to beleeue So that the meere bloud and single bodie of Christ are but sleights of yours with vnknowen phrases to draw your Reader from asking or eying your proofes for the death of Christes soule and the paines of the damned to be suffered by him before wee could be redeemed The Scriptures are maine and manifest for that which I beleeue and teach and which the whole Church of Christ before mee taught and beleeued these fifteene hundred yeeres afore your conceit of hell paines in the soule of Christ was either hatcht or heard of The sufferings of the soule and the wrath of God which things you now catch holde on to make some introduction to your secret and priuate fansies are too generall to inferre either the death of the soule or the paines of the damned except to the rest of your absurdities you will adde these that the soule neuer suffereth but it dieth the death of spirits and that Gods anger in this life hath none other effects but damnation Here you vrge a reason against vs if then our soules be not redeemed by the blood of Christ our bodies haue no benefite of Redemption from death You hunt so headily after aduantages of words by some ambiguitie in them that you neither remember what the Scriptures teach nor what your selfe defend nor when I vse a word in the same sense that the Apostle doth It is not my deuise but the Apostles doing to take REDEMPTION of the body for the incorruption of the same We sigh in our selues saith Paul wayting for the Redemption of our body And againe you are sealed by the holy spirit of God vnto the day of Redemption When that day shall be our Sauiour telleth vs in these words When the powers of heauen shall be shaken and you see the sonne of man come in a cloud with power and great glory then lift vp your heads for your Redemption draweth neere In all which places Redemption is taken for none of those mercies or graces which are bestowed on Gods children in this life but for that glorie and immortalitie which shall be reueiled on them when Christ shall come to iudge the world and namely the Redemption of the body for that incorruption wherewith our vile bodies shall bee changed and made like to his glorious body Take then the Redemption of the body for the incorruption of the same as the Apostle plainely doth and I did and see what absurditie or obscuritie there is in my reason which you so much wrangle with and wonder at as though it passed all vnderstanding The Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must needes bee either of body or of soule we haue no more parts to be redeemed by Christ. But the Redemption of our bodies we haue not in this world we must waite for it till this corruptible put on incorruption The Redemption therefore which we haue in this life or shal haue before the last day is the Redemption of our soules And so the words of Peter You were Redeemed with the precious bloud of Christ and of the Saints in heauen saying to the Lambe Thou hast redeemed vs to God by thy bloud pertaine expresly to the Redemption of their soules because their bodies then did and yet do lie in corruption What so strange monsters or marueiles doeth your Logicall head finde in this reason that you should make such wonderizations at it and protestations against it Is it not open and easie to all that be meanely witted or soberly minded But you haue three things to note in my words which you alleage 1. The Proposition is vaine and Illogicall hauing no consequence in it at all It is a speciall point of Art memoratiue in you to note three things and vtterly to forget two of them For in this whole Section you doe not so much as mention any second or third thing to bee noted in those words which you cite The first and al which you note is that my proposition is vaine Illogicall and vncoherent Your idle and vntheologicall head hath ouer busied it selfe with many mad multiplications and what ifs vpon this proposition and yet you come nothing neere the sense or coherence of it The Proposition hath two parts whereof the second is either an illation out of the Apostles words vpon the first being a supposition of yours if we limit it to the time of this life or if wee speake without restraint of time as you doe it is a necessarie consequent to the former being the condition and cause of the latter That our soules are not redeemed by the bloud of Christ but by his soule is a resolution of yours wherewith you giue a fresh on-set in the next Section as the Reader shall there perceiue though here in shew you somwhat relent after your inconstant maner That being a position of yours I added by the Apostles warrant that our bodies haue not their Redemption in this life but must stay for it till the day of Redemption or generall resurrection And so the reason standeth If our soules be not here redeemed by the bloud of Christ which is your Assertion our bodies by the Apostles doctrine haue no Redemption in this life But this That wee should presently haue no Redemption in body or soule by the bloud of Christ is quite m contrarie to the words of Peter who sayth Yee are redeemed by the bloud of Christ not yee shall be and of the soules in heauen that say to Christ thou hast redeemed vs by thy bloud when their bodies were rotten in the earth Since therefore either body or soule must haue Redemption in this life and the body as Paul assureth vs hath not Redemption in this life Ergo the Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must bee referred to our soules and our bodies must expect the generall day of Redemption in the end of the world before they shall haue it If the sober and wise Reader vnderstand not this reason or can dislike the sequence of it I am content he shall condemne it as darke and obscure but if it be open to all mens eyes saue yours then is your
you had Fathers to witnesse your fansies of Christes suffering the death of the soule and paines of hell you would soone recken them and more regard them than now you doe when they directly gainsay your late deuice of a new kinde of redemption which the Scriptures neuer specifie These Fathers I brought not against you as you imagine not perceiuing what maketh with you nor what against you In shew these places seemed to make against me and to disclaime that assertion which I concluded out of the Scriptures that the bloud of Christ redeemed and sanctified both our bodies and soules Lest therefore the simple should stumble at any such sayings of the Fathers not knowing their meanings I brought them to expound them and to let the Reader see that indeed I dissented not from them but confessed as they intended that in Christes suffering for sinne the whole man that is bodie and soule must be ioyned together And if any part of Christs humane nature were wholy freed and exempted from suffering that part in vs was not fully ransomed By which they neuer ment that Christs soule must haue seuerall sufferings for our soules and his body likewise for our bodies but as Adam sinned in both ioyntly so the punishment of sinne which Christ vndertooke for vs must be felt ioyntly in both and if either part in Christes sufferings were vntouched some part in vs was vnrestored This to be the true meaning of those Fathers and all that their words must inferre if they will speake trueth and agree with themselues as no doubt they doe your selfe is a witnesse sufficient against your selfe In defence of your doctrine you say It is most false that we precisely say that Christs body satisfied for our bodies and his soule for our soules yea ech of them in a seuerall and distinct kinde of satisfying which thing we neuer meant but acknowledge the sufferings of the whole man Christ do satisfie for vs wholly without any such precise partition What you dare not affirme because it is false and repugnant to the Scriptures I hope you will not impose on the Fathers so long as their words conclude no such thing They say precisely Christ gaue his flesh to be a redemption for our flesh and his soule likewise to be a redemption for our soules Whereby they meane no distinct sufferings of Christes soule for our soule nor of his bodie for our bodies but a ioynt suffering of both for both which you call the sufferings of the whole man Christ for vs wholly So farre we agree you acknowledging mine exposition of the Fathers to be such as you doe not nor dare not impugne for otherwise you must make them contradict both the Scriptures and themselues which they neuer ment if they should say that our soules are not clensed redeemed and sanctified by the bloud of Christ What now inferre you farder out of their wordes Marke well how these Fathers do not say that Christ gaue his life for a ransome only as you would construe it but euen his verie soule for our soules You are a worthie Clerke if you vnderstand not that nothing but the very soule of man is the life of his bodie and therefore Christ in giuing his life for vs must needs giue his verie soule for vs. The one of them doth not exclude the other as you vainly collect but implieth the other as by the vsuall speeches of the Scriptures and generall consent of all Interpreters olde and new may soone appeare They are dead sayth the Angell to Ioseph that sought the childes soule meaning Herod that went about to destroy Christ in his cradle Be not pensiue for your soule sayth our Sauiour what ye shall eat or what ye shall drinke Is not your soule of more value then meate Meate and drinke maintaine life and so continue the soule in the body otherwise they are no way needfull for the soule He that loseth his soule for my sake saith Christ shall saue it How can a man lose his soule for Christ but by laying downe his life for Christ There shall be no losse of any mans soule among you but of the ship said Paul to them that sayled with him which was performed in that they came all safe to land So of Epaphroditus Paul saith for the worke of Christ he was neere vnto death not regarding his Soule Nothing is more often in the Scriptures then for life to vse the name of Soule which is the cause of life and by the soule to expresse life which is a necessary consequent of the Soule remaining in the body as death is of the Soule departing from the body This kind of speech so familiar with the Hebrewes and so frequent in the olde and new Testament our Sauiour keepeth when he speaketh of his owne death The good sheepeheard saith Christ layeth downe his soule for his sheepe I am the good sheepeheard and lay downe my soule for the sheepe Therefore the Father loueth me because I lay downe my Soule to take it againe No man taketh it from me but I lay it downe of my selfe As also when he said the Sonne of man came to serue and to giue his soule for the ransom of many he intended no more then when he said I lay downe my soule for ‖ the ‖ sheepe which must needs be for the ransome of the sheepe So the Prophet foretold that Christ should power out his soule vnto death and make it an offering for sinne which loue of God we know by this saith Iohn that he layed downe his soule for vs. If auncient Fathers and learned expositors may be heard concurring with the Scriptures and obseruing this in the Scriptures we want neither old nor new all confessing it to be a case most cleere that by dying for vs Christ laid downe his Soule and gaue it for vs. Christ bowing his head saith Athanasius and yeelding vp the spirite which was within his body that is his soule declared whereof he spake this I lay downe my soule for my sheepe Austen the Soule is put for the life as where it is said he that hateth not his soule can not be my Disciple And likewise is not the soule more worth then meate that is this life for which meate is needfull And so that which Christ saith he will lay downe his soule for his sheepe by which he meaneth his life when he pronounceth that he will die for vs Ambrose Christ tooke vpon him the person of a sheepeheard and said a good sheepeheard layeth downe his soule for his sheepe Ideóque pro rationali grege seipsum passioni corporis non negauit and therefore for his reasonable flocke he yeelded himselfe to the passion or death of his body Cyrill When Christ might haue declined the rage of the Iewes and the gibbet of the crosse he so loued his that he refused not to die for the
matters as mans redemption and saluation after so sleight a manner besides a vaine ostentation of your contentious and curious humour I leaue it to the Readers censure Now to the returne of your termes According to the most vsuall and common sense of Gods wrath so in my whole Treatise I take it for Gods perfect holinesse iustice and power properly executing vengeance and punishment whether little or great due to them on whom sinne lieth Take from you your termes no where found in the Scriptures but inuented and authorized onely by your selfe and you can not steppe one foote further in this question You haue named I know not how often Gods PROPER VVRATH in the premises though you neuer tooke the care nor paines to describe or define it Now you come to the most vsuall common sense of Gods wrath which you say is Gods PROPER wrath Except that old starting hole of yours which here you call the proper executing of punishment and there is nothing more repugnant to your owne assertion then your owne description For all the afflictions of this life whatsoeuer they be come from Gods perfect holinesse iustice and power and are due to the children of Adam for sinne abiding or dwelling in them though God of his secret counsell may haue other purposes in sifting his Saints for their good and his glorie Your sense of Gods wrath you say is most vsuall but you shew not where nor with whom If you meane with your selues I can easily yeeld that if you meane in the Scriptures I greatly doubt whether the wrath of God in the Scriptures doe more vsually signifie his euerlasting iudgements against sinne after this life or his temporall plagues vpon sinners in this life Howbeit it is not greatly materiall which is most vsuall since either is vsuall in the word of God You quote but foure places for that purpose in your Margin and misse two of them For in the 2. Cor. 3. vers 17. and 9. I finde not the name of Gods wrath at all expressed in either of them But I so vse the phrase as signifying any punishment of sinne whatsoeuer The Scriptures so vse it before me and you can giue no reason why I should not so vse it after them It is altogether an improper speech you say So say you but the Scriptures say not so They make degrees and differences betwixt the wrath of God in this world and in the next and his displeasure against the sinnes of his own and his enemies but they take not wrath for fauour as you doe though Gods wrath against the wickednesse of his children be neuer executed without fauor to their persons which in the faithlesse is farre otherwise It is true all troubles paines and griefs in their first ordinance were the effects of Gods proper wrath but in their state and condition now they are not namely as the godly doe suffer them You are full of shifts but they are so slender that they doe but shame you After much wrangling you grant it to be true that all troubles paines and griefs in their first ordinance were the effects of Gods wrath you say of Gods PROPER VVRATH Which last I thinke to be vntrue though the former be verie true If by their first ordinance you meane the iudgement of God pronounced against Adam and all his ofspring for sinne and the punishment irreuocably inflicted on mankinde therefore it is in effect the same which I auouched against you and so true that you your selfe dare not contradict it For if you should you should openly gainsay the Scriptures which witnesse that man was created in all integritie of nature felicitie of state and perpetuitie of life and that by sinne this impuritie miserie and mortalitie which now we all feele entred into the world as the wages of Adams sinne and namely that paine sorrow and death were imposed on Adam and so on all his by Gods owne mouth as effects or degrees of his most iust displeasure against the sinne of our first parents If you start from this with any shift of words you start from a maine principle of the Christian faith but I suppose that you confesle it by this that you say they were effects of Gods wrath in their first ordinance that is when they were first inflicted on Adam and all his posteritie But NOVV you say they are NOT so specially to the godlie Since what time began your Now or when was their state or condition changed These things were generally and irreuocablely inflicted on all men as the punishment of sinne in the first man when as yet they were signes and tastes of Gods wrath not in words but in deeds notwithstanding we were then and long before euen before the foundation of the world elected and adopted in Christ Iesu to be heires of eternall saluation Wherefore God euen at the first when by your confession they were the effects of his wrath layd them on all euen on his owne children whom he meant euerlastingly to saue and so doth continue them to this day as monuments of his iust displeasure against sinne euen in his owne seruants and saints Yea before God would inflict them he made open promise of the womans seed that it should bruize the serpents head and then to teach his owne and not onlie the wicked for whom he reserued euerlasting destruction what it was by sinne to prouoke him he loaded the life of all the godlie with sorow paine and death to make them for euer by that grieuous but righteous punishment of sinne in themselues the more mindfull how offensiue sinne was vnto God and the more warie how to giue eare to the Serpent against the voice of God And therefore at the verie first inflicting of them if wee cast our eyes either on our owne deserts or on the lot of the wicked we shall find the wonderfull fauor of God not onlie in opening his purpose vnto vs for our euerlasting saluation in Christ but euen in so tempering the smart of his rod that by the punishment we did feele in our selues the weight of sinne in some sort yet by his mercie we should be strengthened eased and comforted vnder that burden in this life and after be receiued into euerlasting blisse Notwithstanding when we compare this mortall miserable condition here with our creation and with the abundance of Gods blessings richly powred on vs when he first made vs we should beholde what sinne had depriued vs of and subiected vs vnto though it did not exclude vs from Christ who loued vs so dearely that he would and did giue himselfe for vs rather than we should euerlastingly perish So that the sorow paine and death which the godly feele were euen at the first layd on them by the same mixture of Gods iustice and mercie with which they now continue neither did Christ die for vs presently to free vs from that sentence of
bodilie death which God had irreuocably pronounced and executed on Adam and his ofspring by returning him and them to the earth for manie thousand yeeres before Christ came but rather in that to partake with vs that he might saue vs from the rest which in all the wicked did accompany this death and in the end to raise vs againe to a better life lest we should faint vnder the hand of God who fastneth vs to the afflictions of this life by the example and fellowship of Christs sufferings For if we suffer with him we shall raigne with him and we must first die in Adam before we can be quickned againe in Christ. They are now profitable for vs you will say and so rather helpe vs than hurt vs in this corruption of sinne with which we are compassed I doubt not thereof and so were they from the first instant that they were imposed on Adam but how came this corruption of our nature if not as a punishment of sinne in Adam and consequently the remedies thereof do also witnesse Gods displeasure against sinne though they be farre more holesome for vs than to rot in the sores of our inward corruption Can any man doubt but God was and is able to cleere vs though neuer so corrupt from the infection and dominion of sinne by the working of his Spirit more mightilie and casilie than by troubles and griefs if it had so seemed good to his wisdome and iustice And had he determined to shew vs onlie loue without all regard to his iustice how readie was it for him in Christ to haue released as well all corporall and temporall affliction to his elect as he did spirituall and eternall But he resolued otherwise in his most wise counsell for the conseruation of his iustice and so now healeth our corruption with the salue of affliction to let vs haue continually presented before our eyes and impressed in our bodies what our sinne at first did and still doth deserue though he neuer withdrew his mercie from vs which in the end shall most abundantly recompense all Wherefore it is no reason that because troubles are profitable or necessarie for our corrupt state therefore they are not effects of Gods displeasure against sinne yea rather because God could haue otherwise cured sinne in vs and would not but by perpetuall affliction it is an argument that God so hated sinne in our first parents that he would haue the verie remembring curing thereof to be alwayes in this life painfull and grieuous to our outward man though he would also comfort vs in Christ whiles heere we liue and heereafter crowne vs with glorie for Christes sake Neither is this a question of words whether they be proper or improper in the Scriptures but a point of doctrine necessarie to be receiued of all men that the corruption and dissolution of our nature and life in this world doth manifest the exceeding hatred that naturallie God hath of sinne who rewarded it in all mankinde so seuerely that he spared neither the bodies soules states nor liues of his elect from sensible signes of his detesting sinne in them though for his sonnes sake in whom they were beloued and adopted he would by his wonderfull power rather further than indanger their saluation euen by those maladies and corrosiues of sinne This sheweth the greatnesse of Gods power and goodnesse of his mercie towards vs but this altereth not the iudgement which God pronounced and punishment which he inflicted on Adam and all his ofspring for sinne The corruption and infection of sinne which naturally and continually dwelleth in all the godly called by Diuines concupiscence is it no punishment of sinne because the guilt thereof is remitted in Baptisme and now it is left in vs to humble vs and awake vs to call for grace and to resist sinne that striuing with it we see not only the danger of sinne assaulting vs but the Spirit of God assisting vs and bountie of God rewarding vs The actuall sinnes of the faithfull shall we thinke them no sinnes but fauors from God because by them God worketh repentance submission conuersion yea faith zeale ioy and thanksgiuing in his elect God worketh sayth Austen all things for the good of those that loue him and so farre forth vtterly all things that if any of them stray and for sake the right way euen that God turneth to their good because they returne more humble and better taught The like I say of death and other miseries of mans life pronounced first by Gods mouth and still inflicted by Gods hand They are as they were degrees or effects of Gods anger against sinne in Adam pursuing him and all his posteritie for the confirmation of his iustice though by Gods mercie towards his they now serue as they did euen at the first in Gods children to represse sinne to worke repentance to raise confidence in God and contempt of all earthly things and to exercise the graces of Gods Spirit giuen them as patience obedience and such like and to giue them assurance of a better life The Church of Christ euer was and is of the same minde with me that the death of the bodie with her seeds and fruits in this life first entred and still remaineth as a PVNISHMENT of sin Men shunned saith Austen the death of the flesh rather than the death of the spirit that is the punishment rather than the cause of the punishment We came vnto death by sinne Christ by righteousnesse ideo cum sit mors nostra poena peccati mors illius facta est hostia pro peccato and therefore where our death is the punishment of sinne his death was the sacrifice for sinne Theodoret speaking of the separation of bodie and soule wherby that which is mort all sustaineth death the soule remaining free from death as being immortall asketh his aduersarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doest thou not thinke death to be a punishment Who answering The Diuine Scripture teacheth so much Theodoret inferreth Is death then the punishment of sinners The other yeelding that this is granted of all men Theodoret concludeth Why then since both the soule and bodie sinned doth the bodie alone sustaine the punishment of death Fulgentius Nisi praecessisset in peccato mors animae nunquam corporis mors in supplicio sequeretur Except the death of the soule had gone before by sinne the death of the bodie had neuer followed after as a punishment And therefore of our flesh he sayth Nascitur cum poena mortis pollutione peccati It is borne with the punishment of death and pollution of sinne And of yoong children By what iustice is an infant subiected to the wages of sinne if there be no vncleannesse of sinne in him or how do we see him strooken with death if he felt not the sting thereof which is sinne Maxentius in the confession of his faith We beleeue sayth he that not only the death of
the bodie which is the punishment of sinne but also the sting of death which is sinne entred into the world because we consent not to these men who say the contrarie but to the Apostle who testifieth that sinne and death went ouer all men Prosper The punishment of sinne which Adam the root of mankinde receiued by Gods sentence saying Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt returne and transmitted to his posteritie as to his branches the Apostle sayth entred into the world by one mans sinne and so ranged ouer all men Beda The death as well of vs men as of Christ is called sinne because it is the effect and punishment of that sinne which Adam committed The second councell of Arrange about 450 yeres after Christ confesseth no lesse If any man affirme that only the death of the bodie which is the punishment of sinne and not sinne also which is the death of the soule passed by one man to all mankinde he ascribeth iniustice to God and contradicteth the Apostle who sayth By one man sinne entred into the world and by sinne death passed ouer all men Our later writers though they fully defend that God doth not punish his either to destruction as he doth the wicked nor for satisfaction of sinne as he did his owne Sonne for the sinnes of all his Saints and to comfort the afflicted they set before them the presence of Gods power assisting them in their miseries or deliuering them from their troubles the purpose of God respecting wholy their good and the promise of God exceedingly recompencing their patience yet when they come to the causes prouoking God to this seueritie they acknowledge that to be sinne and teach euery man to descend into himselfe and to giue God the glorie in that his righteous iudgement beginneth at his owne house Of the euils which we suffer in this life there be many and sundry causes saith Bullinger but sinne it selfe is counted to be the generall cause For by disobedience sinne entred into the world and by sinne death diseases and all the mischiefes in the world The persecutions and cruell tortures inflicted on the Church of God or on particular Martyrs as they were offered them for the confession and testimony of the faith and truth of the Gospell so for the most part they had for their causes the offences and sinnes of the godly which the iustice of God did visite in his seruants though for the good and welfare of his Saints The people of Israell sinned against the Lord in the desert vnder the Iudges and Kings very often and very enormously and were grieuously punished by the Lord but againe they were speedily deliuered as often as they acknowledged their sinnes and turned vnto the Lord. If therefore any man suffer any euill for sinne committed let him acknowledge the iust iudgement of God vpon himselfe and humble himselfe vnder the mightie hand of God confessing it vnto God and asking pardon with lowly praier let him patiently beare that which he hath so well deserued to suffer It is certaine saith Zanchius that all the punishments and miseries which we feele in this world are from sin and inflicted for sinne In which place he resolueth by a plaine thesis that death is the punishment of sinne and so are all those things which are the fruits of death as well in Soule as in body and in our externall state It is an argument saith Gualther of a mind skant religious wholy to despise death quam per peccatum ingressam peccati poenam esse omnes Scripturae testantur which all the Scriptures witnesse came in by sinne and is the punishment of sinne In the Philosophers commendations of the death of the bodie there are some things saith Peter Martyr not agreeable to the Christian faith and to the sacred Scriptures For we say that death must not be accounted any good but an euill thing Quandoquidem Deus illam vti poenam inflixit nostro generi For so much as God inflicted it as a punishment on mankind And so else where Omnes pij statuunt in morte â—…rae diuinae sensum esse ideoque sua natura dolorem horrorem incutit All the godly resolue that in death there is a sense of Gods wrath and therefore of his owne nature it impresseth a griefe and terror And if there be any to whom it is contenting and acceptable to die they haue that from some other fountaine and not from the nature of death There might be assigned saith Musculus many kinds of the wrath of God but for this present we content our selues with a triple diuision thereof whereby we diuide it into generall temporall and eternall The generall wrath of God is that wherewith the whole posteritie of Adam is enwrapped for originall sinne Hence come all the miseries of mankind which equally follow the condition of men and cleaue as well to our minds as to our flesh The temporall wrath of God is that Qua peccat is non impiorum modò sed piorum irascitur ac paenas de illis sumit in hac vita whereby God is angry with the sinnes not of the wicked onely but of the godly also and taketh punishment of them in this life Whether I speake or thinke otherwise then these new and old Diuines haue spoken and taught let the Reader iudge But mine owne Authors in the very places which I alleadge doe say that the nature of death is changed and that God is angry with his elect as a Father with his beloued children to chasten and amend them Peter Martyr saith indeede the nature of death is chaunged by Gods goodnes making that profitable to vs which of it selfe is very harmefull but with what condition doth he say it is changed Puta si quis obediente animo eam sube at néque poenam illam reijciat quam diuina iustitia nos omnes voluerit exoluere If a man submit himselfe vnto it with an obedient hart and reiect not that punishment which the iustice of God would haue vs all to suffer And so it was chaunged euen when it was inflicted on the elect in Adams loynes For Christ was first promised to be the bruizer of the Serpents head Now if death afterward tooke full and euerlasting hold on Christs members then the serpent preuailed against Christ and his chosen and not Christ against the Serpent Wherefore God so moderated his sentence that he adiudged Christes members in Adam no farder then to the earth whence Christ should raise them and vtterly abolish from them all the Serpents poyson that is sinne death and corruption but this prooueth not death to be good in Gods Children or to be no punishment of sinne in them because God conuerteth it to their aduantage in the ende no more then their sinnes are good because God turneth them also to the benefite of his elect For as you heard before Saint Austen
or amended then was he not punished for correction On the other side much lesse did God purpose to destroy Christs person being his owne and onely Sonne as he doth the wicked whose bodies and soules he will destroy in hell and consequently Christ was not punished to destruction That is proper to the reprobate whose persons God hateth and leaueth in their sinnes that they may prouoke his iust wrath to their vtter destruction Then was Christ neither punished as the godly are for amendment nor as the wicked are for vengeance and so your partition is false and defectiue and all your collections grounded thereon are like the foundation that is voide of all strength and trueth What then was Gods purpose in punishing Christ for our sinnes euen that which you alwayes passe by with deafe and dull eares though it be often repeated and vrged vnto you because you will not be turned from the trade of your hellish paines Why God would not haue man redeemed but by the death and passion that I call the punishment of Christ Iesus the Scriptures yeeld many causes though of Gods will no cause may be required some respecting God himselfe some concerning Christ and some regarding vs. Touching God the crosse of Christ doth commend his wisdome shew his power manifest his loue content his holines preserue his iustice Christ crucisied as Paul sayth is the power of God and the wisdome of God to them that are saued howsoeuer the crosse of Christ seeme foolishnesse and weakenesse to them that perish Then to controle the carnall wisdome of the world and to confound the pride and strength of Satan and his members God would vse the basenesse and feeblenesse of the Crosse in sauing his elect Also to witnesse his loue towards vs he decreed the same So God loued the world that he gaue his onely begotten Sonne to be an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling sauour vnto God With which Sacrifice the holinesse of God resteth so well pleased that he accepteth vs as holy and sanctified by the oblation of the bodie of Iesus Christ once made The vpholding of Gods Iustice by the death of Christ is often specified in the Scriptures By a man came death and by a man the resurrection from the dead Him that knew no sinne God made sinne for vs to wit a sacrifice for sinne that wee should be made the righteousnesse of God in him Therefore it was expedient that one man should die for the people and that the whole Nation perished not He was wounded for our transgressions and by his stripes are wee healed The Lord layed vpon him the iniquitie of vs all And where a Testament is there must be the death of the Testator for a Testament is confirmed when men are dead So that by the Scriptures themselues God decreed the Crosse of Christ in mans redemption to reueale his wisdome power and loue to the world and wholly to satisfie his holinesse and iustice which were thorowly displeased and prouoked with mans disobedience but as thorowly recompensed and appeased by the submission and obedience of Christ. As for Christ himselfe it is euident by the Scriptures that his enduring the crosse declared his obedience patience humilitie charitie perfection and power in more effectuall maner than without it he could haue done For therein he emptied and humbled himselfe and became obedient vnto death euen to the death of the crosse When hee was reuiled he reuiled not againe when he suffered he threatned not He was oppressed and afflicted yet did he not open his mouth For so he loued vs that he gaue himselfe for vs and greater loue than this hath no man to bestow his life for his friends But God setteth out his loue towards vs that whiles we were yet sinners Christ died for vs. Once then he suffered the iust for the vniust that he might bring vs to God and being consummate through affliction was made the Prince of our Saluation For in that he suffered and was tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted and became a mercifull and faithfull high Priest to make reconciliation for the sinnes of the people And therefore he died and rose againe that he might be Lord of the dead and the liuing and through death destroy him that had power of death euen the diuell On our behalfe it was not needlesse that Christ should die the death of the crosse For besides that we are bought with a price lest we should be our owne euen with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lambe vnspotted and vndefiled and reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne which couenant is irreuocable being sealed with his bloud by his crosse Christ left vs an example how we should follow his steps and be partakers of his sufferings that when his glorie shall appeare we may be glad and reioyce For it is a true saying if we be dead with him we shall liue with him if we suffer with him we shall raigne with him We are buried then by Baptisme into his death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorie of his Father so we should also walke in newnesse of life knowing this that our olde man is crucified with him that the bodie of sinne might be destroyed that hencefoorth we should not serue sinne He died for all that they which liue should not hencefoorth liue vnto themselues but to him which died for them and rose againe Infinite are the places of Scripture witnessing the causes effects and fruits of Christs death on the Crosse all which this Dreamer must denie or delude before he can defend that Gods purpose in Christes sufferings was only to punish our sinne lying on him For if Gods purposes in appointing Christes Crosse were so acceptable to the Father so honourable to the Sonne and so profitable for man as the Scriptures mention with what face can it be said that God punished his Sonne only for vengeance or that whatsoeuer Christ suffered all his life long specially at his death was verie wrath and vengeance from God properly taken Christ suffered the same things here on earth which the godly likewise do in this life as appeareth by the history of his death and passion and other paines or deaths in Christ the Scriptures doe not specifie Gods counsell in decreeing the Crosse of Christ for mans redemption considering the true desert of our sinne and terrible vengeance prouided for others was varie fauourable and fatherly not ouerpressing the patience of Christes humane nature nor wearying his obedience and had in it farre more gracious and glorious intents and euents than our afflictions can or ought any way to match or approch If then Gods fauour to his elect make their sufferings in this life no wrath nor vengeance nor so much as punishments why should
conceale it and onely skirre at it here and there in SOME KIND OF SENSE Otherwise you offer nothing as yet to the Reader but the proper sufferings of the soule which I trust are not alwaies priuation of grace and exclusion from blisse For so the faithfull should neuer haue any proper sufferings of the Soule or else vtterly loose both the spirit and fauour of God which they neuer doe The other Authoritie which I cite In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death is not so sound you thinke For am I sure that death here is but the bodyly death onely and no more I no where say that death threatned in these words was onely the death of the body it is one of your rash and rude illations it is none of my assertions I knew that God gaue this Commandement and threatned this punishment as well to Adams posteritie as to his person Otherwise had this prohibition beene made to Adam alone neither could the woman haue beene within the compasse of it who was not then created when this precept was inioyned neither could Adams of-spring haue tasted of death as well as Adam if this penaltie had stretched no farder then to Adams person But he being the roote and stocke of all mankind as he receaued blessings by his creation which should be common to all that descended of him so by his transgression he lost them as well from his Issue as from himselfe and subiected them to the same death and condemnation that he did him selfe when he rebelled against God his Creator Death we see executed on all the children of Adam and therefore we may not doubt but death was threatned to them all before it was inflicted on them Howbeit the commination in this place is like to Gods thâ—…eats in all other places against the transgâ—…ssours of his Law It denounceth what shall â—…e due vnto all but it bindeth not God that he shall not haue power to release or mitigate what and to whom pleaseth him In death then here threatned I containe all kinds of death corporall spirituall and eternall either as expressed in the generall name of death which is common to them all or as consequent ech to other and coherent if by Gods goodnes and mercies in Christ Iesus they be not seuered Saint Austen learnedly and truely teacheth the same When it is asked what death God threatned to the first men if they transgressed the Commandement giuen them whether the death of the body or of the soule or of the whole man or that which is called the second death we must answere ALI When therefore God said to the first man what day soeuer yee eate thereof yee shall die the death that threatning contained what soeuer death there is euen vnto the last which is called the second death and after which there is none other If any man stand more strictly on the time and kinde of death when and which Adam should die by this Commination Saint Austen hath an other answere In that which was said yee shall die the death because it was not said deaths if we vnderstand that onely death whereby the soule is forsaken of her life which to her is God for she was not forsaken that she might forsake but she did first forsake that she might after be forsaken though I say we vnderstand that God denounceth this death when he said what day yee eate thereof yee shall die the death as if God had said what day yee forsake me by disobedience I will forsake you by iustice Surely in that death were the rest denounced which without Question were to follow For euen in that a disobedient motion rose in the flesh of the Soule disobeying for which they couered their priuie parts one death was perceaued wherein God forsooke the Soule And when the Soule forsooke the body now corrupted with time and wasted with age an other death was found by experience which God mentioned to Man when punishing sinne he said earth thou art and to earth shalt thou returne that by these two deaths that first death of the whole man might be accomplished which the second death at last doth follow except man be deliuered by the grace of God By Saint Austens iudgement concording with the Scriptures God threatned all kinds of death to the transgressor the death of the Soule the same houre to take place that he disobeyed the rest to follow in their order as next the death of the body and at last eternall death of body and soule if the grace of God by Iesus Christ did not release and free man from it That the death of the Soule tooke present hold vpon the disobeyers the Scripture giueth testimony sufficient when it noteth their shame feare and flight of Gods presence who before sinne was their delight ioy and blisse The death of the body was a long time differred in Adam euen nine hundred and thirtie yeeres before it did separate his Soule from his Body but it began presently to worke and shew his force in either of their bodies The sentence of mortalitie God called Death saith Theodoret. For after Gods sentence Adam euerie day expected or feared Death Beda saith the like That which God said In what day soeuer thou shalt eate thereof thou shalt die the Death was as if he had said Morti deputatus eris thou shalt be deputed or adiudged to death not that he should that very day die but be mortall Chrysostom imbraceth the same opinion In what dâ—…y soeuer yee shall eate of the tree yee shall die the Death But Adam liued still how then died he By the sentence of God and the nature of the thing it selfe For he that maketh him selfe subiect to punishment is vnder punâ—…shment sinonre tamen sententia If not by deede and execution yet by guiltinesse and sentence pronounced So that if we will rightly conceiue Gods commination to Adam we must so take the words of God as threatning Adam and his posteritie with all kinds of death to which they all should bee subiect as guiltie thereof and deseruing the same though hee would keepe to himselfe the dispencing and moderating thereof not binding himselâ—…e thereby but the offenders as euery supreame Iudge doth on earth after sentence giuen and before execution finished Else if wee â—…e God who is trueth it selfe to the rigour and tenor of those words without reseruing power to him to dispose of Adam and Adams of-spring at his pleasure and in the words Thou shalt die the death comprise the execution of all sorts of death which can not be reuoked then we conclude Adam and all his issue without remedie or mercie vnder all sorts of death that is vnder spirituall corporall and eternal death which is not onely an vtter ouerthrow to all Christian â—…eligion promising saluation in Iesus Christ but a mecre madnesse against all mankind deuoting them without exception or mitigation to eternall
vpon all but against Idolaters blasphemers disobeyers of Parents Murderers Adulterers and such like to whom there were no Sacrifices prescribed but death awarded These two deaths then a Naturall by the hand of God on all men and a violent by the hands of the Magistrate on some certaine offenders haue difference enough a man would thinke so that when the one is proposed for you to runne to the other is a manifest faile in your answere and a flat confession that you can not prooue Christ was iustly hanged by the sentence of the Law And yet you mistake your selfe euen in that to which you flie for helpe For Christ was not subiect by Nature but onely by will to the death of the Body because he was cleere from actuall and originall sinne by which death first entred into the world and inuaded all men Now in the violent death which Christ receaued from publike Authoritie by the sentence of Pilate the Iudge perceaued aâ—…d not once nor twice pronounced him faultles and when he could not otherwise appease the rage of the People but by condemnâ—…ng Christ to death Pilate tooke Water and washed his hands before the Multitude saying I am innocent of the bloud of this Iust Man looke you to it With what face then can you being a Christian auouch that Christ was iustly hanged by the sentence of the Law when God so prouided that he which gaue the sentence should often and earnestly witnesse the Contrarie What say you then to Christes death did he die iustly if he died by the rule of Gods iustice then he died iustly I say the longer you reason the farder you straie from the Question and yet conclude nothing God hath a double rule of his punishing Iustice the one râ—…aled by which we must be gouerned the other reserued to himselfe which we must reuerence because it cannot be but iust in him though it be hid from vs. The sentence of the Law is the reuealed will of Gods reuenging Iustice by that I vtterly denie that Christ any way deserued to be hanged And thus much Saint Peter affirmeth when he saith Christ suffered the iust for the vniust that he might present vs to God If Christ by Gods reuealed will suffered iustly then Christ himselfe must be vniust But if he were iust euen when and as he suffered then were his sufferings vndeserued euen by the sentence of the Law which is the will of God prescribed vs that we must follow Otherwise who can suffer as Martyrs or innocents if we speake of Gods secret Iustice since he hath cause enough to deliuer all men for their due deserts to death when pleaseth him though he be graciously content that his seruants shall die most innocently in respect of his will reuealed that is not for any offence which their persuers can iustly chalenge and most gloriously when they giue testimonie to his trueth with their bloud who yet in his sight may not nor can not iustifie themselues This therefore is another leape of yours to start from the sentence of the Law to the secrets of Gods counsell and most vntruely and iniuriously to pronounce men that are sinners before God to be innocents in their deaths and Christ that was truely innocent before God and man to be iustly hanged by the sentence of the Law As you misse the Rule so doe you the Iustice of Gods will and that which you would make to be the curtaine of your cause I take to be the very puddle of your error For where you would insinuate that either Christ was iustly put to death or els God did vniustly deliuer him to death your ignorant abusing or aduised inuerting the name of Gods Iustice breadeth in you this sensible ouersight The Scriptures most truely confesse that God is iust in all his waies not in punishing onely mens offences but in giuing grace forgiuing sinne promising and performing life eternall and generally whatsoeuer he doth in him is iust and holie There is as great iustice that God should doe with his owne what he will as that he should repay men their deserts For if we ascribe no iustice to God but in rewarding our works then was he vniust in creating vs of nothing when we could deserue nothing then is he vniust in sauing vs when he condemneth others since we deserued no better then others Accursed be that mouth and minde which calleth or counteth the fauour and loue of God wherewith he embraceth his the grace and mercie which he affoordeth his the glorie and blisse which he will giue to his to be vniust Yet were none of these things deserued by vs though he be most iust in giuing what and where pleaseth him It is a righteous thing saith Paul to recompence rest to you which are troubled and yet no way deserued If we confesse our sinnes he is faithfull and iust sayth Iohn to forgine vs our sinnes We need not woonder at this how God is iust in punishing sinne and also iust in forgiuing sinne he vseth his right in the one as master of his owne and repaieth men their deserts in the other which is their due Since all the waâ—…es of â—…he Lord saith Austen are mercie and trueth neither can his grace be vnâ—… nor his Iustice be cruell Can we then finde how God is iust in giuing vs good things which we neuer meâ—…d and doe we stagger how he might be iust in deliuering Christ to corporall and externall paines and death which he neuer deserued It is no wrong you say for the Lâ—…w to lay the penaltie on the suertie Much lesse was it vniust with God to receauâ—… recompense for our sinnes at the hands of his owne Sonne who was willing and able to make it when we were not But he must be guiltie of our sinnes before he could be iustly punisâ—…d for our sinnes Who tolde you so Your similitude of a Suretie bound to see the debt discharged Keepe your bonds to hang abont your heeles A man may discharge anothers debts and beare anothers burden as well willingly and freely as vrged and arrested by the law What iustice hath mans law to accept the suretie for the debtour but the will of the offerer How much more then was it a righteous thing with God to accept a satisfaction for our sinnes at the hands of his owne Sonne not because he was thereto bound or any way guiltie with vs but only because he was able and willing to beare our burden when we were weake and rebate the rigour of Gods vengeance by the innocencie and dignitie of his person which was farre aboue our power For if amongst â—…en it be an honorable iustice for the stronger to helpe the weaker and the richer to relieue the poorer and the lesse we be bound as to our Enemies the more willing the more righteous who that hath but one spaâ—… of Christian sense will doubt whether it were most iust with God to
will and Counsell b Amos 3. Is there any euill in the Citie and the Lord hath not done it saith Amos. Where he doth not ascribe all euill of punishment to the immediate hand of God but to the Soueraigne Iudgement and power of God appointing and ordering what shall be done c Esa. 45. I am the Lord there is none other making Peace and creating euill In both God had and hath his Instruments though in both his will and power did and doth preuaile When Dauid had sinned by killing Vriah and taking his wife God thus threatned him by Nathan the prophet d 2. Sam. 12. I will raise vp euill against thee out of thine owne bouse and will take thymiues before thine cies and giue them to thy neighbour and he shall lie with thy wiues in the sight of this Sunne For thou didst it secretly but I will doe this thing before all Israell and the Sunne Shall we attribute Absolons vnnaturall rebellion against his father and his most shameles incest to Gods immediate hand and so make God the onely author of so horrible sinne which is the heigth of all wickednesse Or did God by his iust iudgement giue libertie to Satan to lead Absolon that ambitious murderer of his eldest brother by the wicked counsell of Achitophell to this impudent villanie So when Iob sayth The Lord hath giuen and the Lord hath taken it did he meane that God tooke it with his immediate hand or that God by his righteous iudgement did enlarge the diuell and those wicked robbers to make triall of him by the losse of his goods and children e Iob. 2. Stretch out thine hand and touch his bones and his flesh said Satan to God when he desired leaue to strike Iobs body Whereupon Saint Austen sayth f August ad Simplicianum li. 2. Epist. 1. Manum Domini appellabat permissam à Domino manum suam id est ipsam potestatem quam volebat accipere The hand of the Lord Satan calleth his owne hand permitted by God that is the power and leaue which he would receaue God himselfe thus speaketh of the Assyrians that oppressed his people g Esa. 10. O Ashur the rod of my wrath the staffe in their hands is mine indignation God then vseth the wicked both men and Angels to execute his iudgements and exercise his seruants though they haue no such knowledge or purpose and their rage and deeds he calleth his anger and acts because he giueth them power and leaue without which they could not stirre to hurt any of his creatures much lesse any of his seruants Which Christ signified to Pilate when he said h Iohn 19. Thou couldest haue no power at all against me except it were giuen thee from aboue i Defenc. pag. 82. li. 7. The Prophet sayth the Lord delighted to bruize him and afflicted him or slew him In points of faith vndoubted men may dally with diuersitie of significations and doe no hurt but if you will erect new religions and then iustifie your inuentions with What the Prophets fore tol â—…e of Christs sufferings that the 〈◊〉 firme was verified new translations to your liking you bring vs now not the word of God but the humour of your owne head If I may be allowed the like libertie I can soone coole the fire of your words by the same rules that you kindle them For the words may signifie The Lord would humble him and made him expectant or patient The proper significations of the words you will say must be preferred But none of them can be verified of Christs sufferings at the least if we beleeue your Lexicon For dacha with you is to bruise or beate to powder and châ—…l properly noteth the labour of Women in child-birth as chalah doth to be painefully sicke which things agree not properly to the Passion of Christ. Since then we must be forced to the consequent or adherent significations of the words mine haue as good right to be receaued as yours How beit to direct the Reader the safest way in this case Neither you nor I must intrude our deuices vpon the words of God but what the Euangelists describe in Christs sufferings that without Question the Prophets foresaw and foretold in their Predictions The words then of the Prophets must not inferre any new fansies of yours nowhere confirmed in the Euangelists but what the Gospell witnesseth Christ did suffer that Esay foresaid Christ should susfer The immediate hand of God tormenting the Soule of his Sonne is no where testified in the Gospell It was therefore no where foreshewed in the Prophets But the true accustomed translation may stand for good the Lord would bruise him or humble him and made him weake And where you catch hold of the word khaphets as if it were Gods owne action because he tooke pleasure and delight therein besides that the word signifieth to be willing and content as well as to desire and delight that part of your exposition refuteth the rest For God taketh no pleasure in punishing as the Prophet confesseth of him k Lament 3. vers 33. He doth not punish with the hart and as hee witnesseth of him selfe i Azech 1â—… vers 32. I take no pleasure in the death of him that dieth Where you must either translate the wordes that God tooke pleasure to humble and weaken his Sonne to trie his obedience and patience or else that for our sakes rather then we should perish God was content or would bruize him with stripes and wounds due to vs and made him taste of our Infirmities yet neither way conuinceth that God did this with his owne hand For m Psal. 116. The death of his Saints is pretious which is as much as pleasant in his sight and then most pretious when with Faith and Patience they despise for Gods cause all that their pursuers can doe vnto them n Defenc. pa. 82. li. 8. The Apostles doe acknowledge that both the counsell and hand of God was in Christs punishment The place which you bring Acts 4. verse 28 doth cleerely confute your erroneous conceit and answer all that hitherto you haue cited to the contrarie o Acts. 4. Against thine holy Sonne Iesus both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel gathered themselues together to doc what soeuer thy hand and counsell had determined before to be done Let the simplest that is heere iudge whether the Apostles in this their praier acknowledge any thing done to Christ in his sufferings by Gods owne hand without all meanes as you imagine or whether they doe not expressely auouch that both rulers and people of Iewes and Gentils were Gods meanes to doe that which his hand and counsell had before determined to be done So that Christ was not left to the will and power of his enemies to doc with him what they would but to doe that vnto him which Gods wisdome determined and hand
your vntuned and hie strained cratchets That Christ must and did breake the knot betwixt death and hell which otherwise were fast clasped together and by receauing the one in his owne person did free all his members from the other is no question neither with me nor I thinke with any Christian man The iust vengeance deserued and prepared for sinne which was temporall and eternall death the Redeemer must throughly know least he should ransome vs he could not tell from what Wherefore not your new found hell but the wages of our sinne which was eternall death vsually called hell in the Scriptures might not be hidde from the eâ—…es of Christ but euen the iust and full reward of our iniquities was to be presented to the sight and spirit of the Redeemer that in the presence of God he might behold the waight of our sinne the greatnesse and iustnesse of Gods anger against it and accordingly conceaue how deare the price and how sharpe the paine must be that should quitte vs from this debt and yet how pretious his person and infinite his obedience was that by one death should excuse vs from the other Whether these things were reuealed and shewed to Christ by sight as the terrors and torments of hell might be or by vision or in spirit I dare not pronounce I meddle not so farre with Gods secrets God hath waies enough to propose the Iudgemets of the next world to men here liuing when and how pleaseth him but of none of these might Christ be ignorant least we make him a Sauiour at peraduentures as not knowing all things that directly belonged to his office and sacrifice and to the causes effects of our Redemption That therfore Christ must haue a perfect knowledge and liuely sight and view of all these things pertaining to the waight and burden of mans deliuerance chiefly now when he appeared in Gods iudgement where nothing is couered to performe the fame I may safely grant but that he felt or suffered eternall death or the paines of the damned or the full wages of our sinnes this you shall neuer prooue how much soeuer you presume with licentious but irreligious words to couer it and conuey it into the Creed of Christians k Defenc. pag. 103. li. 29. He did not contemplate and looke on them a farre of nor had to do with one more then the other but by suffering one he felt both and by enduring one he endured both Your speaches are false absurd and impious howsoeuer you will qualifie them when you come to the point with the substances but not with the circumstances of eternall death and damnation First shew that the Scripture teacheth any such thing of Christ The Defender forgeth apace new parts of the Christian faith as that he suffered the second death or the paines of the damned Next that your deuice of this new second death which dureth but for a moment and proceedeth from Gods owne hand agreeth with the word of God And Thirdly that God did thus torment the soule of his sonne with his immediate hand either in the garden or on the crosse All these things are your owne dreames plainly plastered to the Christian faith with figures and phrases of your owne coining and yet you thinke you haue wrong if you be not suffered to change the whole Creede and outface the Scriptures with your idle fansies That Christ should and did suffer a bodily death on the crosse the Prophets did forshew the Euangelists doe witnesse and the Apostles doe confirme That he died the second death in the garden before the first or that this death came to him by fitts and dured but the turning of an hand and was inflicted on his soule by Gods immediate hand as the other death was on his body by the Iewes what Prophet what Euangelist what Apostle did euer teach or write And how hang your owne words with your owne conceits by suffering the one Christ felt both you say and by enduring the one he endured both Then in the Garden when as yet he suffered not the death of the body he felt not your second death and Gods immediate hand did cease if by the one which the Iewes inflicted he endured both If you fly to Christes fearing and apprehending the second death by the first then are you farre from his suffering and enduring it and this apprehension which was not erroneous in Christ as it is in you might offer him a feare of Gods power which is more infinite then the manhoode of Christ could comprehend and so might be terrible to him as it is to all the godly when they finde or feele Gods anger against sinne but it could breed no perswasion or distrust that God would destroy him for our sinnes since he perfectly knew God would saue vs by his sufferings l Defenc. pag. 104. li. Also you forget my argument that Christ alwayes charged his Disciples not to take their bodily death heauily for righteousnesse sake ergo he himselfe would neuer be so dismáyed with the feare of it As I did not professe in my conclusion to refute all your follies which were both trifling and tedious so if I had purposed any such thing I should haue skipped this as an argument rather of your ignorance and vanitie than of any force or veritie For first where did I defend in my Sermons that Christes bodilie death was the cause of this agonie recken my sixe causes on your fingers ends if your memorie be so fickle that refuting them you can not tell what they are and see whether Christes bodily death be any of them or no if it be none how doth this argument conclude any thing against me who shew so many things which might concurre in Christes feare besides his bodily death Wherefore your conclusion if it were good is no way preiudiciall to me nor beneficiall to your hell paines For though Christ feared somewhat els there is a large leape betweene somewhat els and the death of the damned But what was it that Christ willed his Disciples to feare Christ teacheth all his to feare Gods power as himselfe did in the garden Gods purpose meaning to condemne Christians to hell or his power that was able to destroy soule and bodie in hell Did Christ teach in these words a desperation of Gods fauour or submission vnder the mighty hand of God and a religious feare not to displease him To feare religiously not distrustfully Gods power since they were persuaded of Gods goodnesse whom Christ calleth his friends and so not to prouoke him considering the mightinesse of his arme is the summe of Christes doctrine in that place as God himselfe by the Prophet Esay taught all the faithfull saying m Esa. 8. Sanctifie the Lord of hosts and let him be your fearâ—… and let him be your dread A deepe impression of this feare commended to all the Elect whiles heere they liue Christ himselfe might haue and shew in the
in Scripture for this point yet our question is fully proued and confirmed by those other sufficient and pregnant proofs alleaged and iustified before Your palpable and pregnant follies are sufficiently seene before your proofs were none but bald and false presumptions conceiued by your selfe though otherwise voide of all reason and authoritie with such props you haue hitherto supported your Defence and now you be come to the maine issue whether the Scriptures or Fathers doe teach that Christ for our redemption died the death of the soule or the death of the damned which is the second death you would passe it ouer as a matter of no moment and here tell vs if you had no such proofe as indeed you haue none yet you haue played your part before which was to set a good face on an euill cause and to proue iust nothing d Defenc. pag 136. li. 13. For it is to be noted that no man setteth the question in these tearmes that Christ died in his soule neither doe we at all vse them very much in speaking of this matter The Scriptures themselues set that for the question First of all I e 1. Cor. 15. deliuered vnto you sayeth Paul that which I receiued how that Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures Since then f Rom. 5. we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne and Christ is the g Hebr 9. Mediatour of the New Testament through death for the redemption of the transgressions in the former Testament and where a Testament is there must be the death of him that made the Testament The question riseth of it selfe what death the Sonne of God died for our sinnes by the witnesse of holy Scripture And hitherto for these fifteene hundred yeeres and vpward the Christian world both of learned and vnlearned hath beleeued that the Sonne of God by the death of his bodie on the tree ransomed our sinnes reconciled vs to God and vtterly destroyed the kingdome of Satan and that he neither did nor could suffer any other kinde of death as the death of the soule or the So that the reference of the Apostles words standeth thus he offered vp praiers and supplications with strong cries and teares to him that was able to saue him from all touch of death and was heard in that he prayed for and though he were the sonne and god was able to keepe him vntouched of death that is to make him the Sauiour of the world without tasting any kind of death yet such was Gods counsell and his owne liking that he learned or perfourmed the obedience of a sonne by the things which he suffered Whereby the Apostle teacheth vs it was neither want of power in God that Christ died for God was able to haue saued the world by him without his death neither was it lacke of fauour towards his sonne for God HEARD him in that he asked but to manifest in his person the perfect submission of a sonne to his father God would haue him obedient to death euen vnto the death of the crosse and so make him the author of eternall saluation to all that obey him As he obeied God his Father Those words then Christ offered praiers to him that was able to keep him from death prooue not death to be the cause of Christs feare nor the scaping therefrom to be the scope of Christes strong cries and teares but the Apostle thereby noteth that Christ neither doubted of his Fathers power nor loue when he praied so earnestly vnto him but was assured of both and enioyed both in such sort as might best stand with the honor and wisedome of God the father and of Christ his sonne And therefore all your collections and illations built on that false ground doâ—… fall of themselues as hauing nothing to support them but your idle and vaine supposals a Defenc. pag. 137. li. 6. Your owne selfe doe fully grant and affirme it with me yea you affirme farder then we doe or then the trueth is or possibly can be you say Christ heâ—…re thus feared eternall death and euerlasting damnation I must take no â—…corne to haue you wrest and wring my words to a contrary sense when you offer that course to the Apostles words The place which you quote for proofe of my meaning will conuince you to be a malitious falsifier My words a man would thinke are plaine enough and my exposition of that speach vsed by some men is such that no man of any intelligence or conscience would so grosly peruert it Thus I say pag 23. b Serm. pag. 23. li. 4. Distrust of his owne saluation or doubt of Gods displeasure against himselfe we cannot so much as imagine in Christ without euident want of grace and losse of faith which we may not attribute to Christs person no not for an instant And againe c Ibid. li. 17. I refraine to speake what wrong it is to put either doubtfulnâ—…sse or forgetfulnesse of these things in part of Christs humane nature And to the question thereon demanded d li. 20. Why then did he pray that the cup might passe from him I answere he had no need to pray for himselfe but only for vs who then suffered with him and in him What learning I cannot say but what lewdnesse is this to father that on me which I fully forsake and still to presse me with that which I so often preuent and repell I did not intend in my Sermons to note any by name nor sharply to censure their sayings but repeating as much as I saw I gaue the best construction or mittigation to their words that any trueth would endure Where then some men whom by your importunity you haue vrged me to name as the Catechisme of master Nowel which you would seeme so much to reuerence in plaine words auoucheth that Christ was e Pag. 280. 〈◊〉 mortis horrore perfusus perfused or plunged with the horror of etâ—…rnall death And master Caluin saith f Institutione li. 2. ca. 16. sect 10. Oportuit 〈◊〉 cum inferorum copijs 〈◊〉 mortis horrore quasi consertis manibus luctari Christ was to wrâ—…si â—…ith the powers of hell and with the horror of eternall death as it were hand to hand Their words suppressing their names I there taught might be tolerated if we tooke horror for a religious feare only trembling at the terror of hell and praying against it or did attribute that trembling and feare of eternall death to Christ in respect and compassion of vs that were his members and whom he ioined and reckened in his sufferings for vs as one person or body with him Which moderation of mine you euery where conceale and make your Reader beleeue that I fully grant and affirme that which I expressely denie And not content therewith you enterlace my words with your lewd additions as if I said Christ thus feared eternall death You meane with strong cries and teares and
est mortuum anima illa non est mortua The word died not the soule of Christ died not And therefore the death of Christ which the Scriptures euery where note was the breathing of his soule out of his body not the separating of his soule from God as you would haue it Austins purpose in that place you little conceiue if you make him haue but one purpose As occasion serued he taught many things pertinent incident to his text which was large euen from the 10. verse vnto the 20. of that f Iohn 10. Chapter And these words I lay downe my soule for my sheepe being part of his text he had iust occasion to treate what death Christ died for his sheepe which was neither the death of his diety nor the death of his soule but only the separating of his soule from his bodie if this make not against you you haue good lucke that nothing will reach you his words refute the foolish error which you would establish that by the Scriptures Christ may be said to haue died the death of the soule as well as the death of the bodie which Austen expressely contradicteth auouching the one and denying the other in as plaine speach as any wise man can require g Defenc. pag. 143. li. 34. All your other discourse heere against me is almost nothing but reuilings and reproches and bitter skoffes Yet you say you haue not learned nor vsed to giue reuiling speaches Haue you not learned it is it then naturall vnto you Nâ—…y you meane these are fatherly warnings and admonitions If your fatherly admonitions are such what are your Lordly rebukes If these be your bishoply blessings what are your cursings What my discourse is against Hâ—… your defendour 〈◊〉 som what pleasurable you muâ—…t bee left neither to your censure nor mine but to the Readers If I called your conclusions bold and foolish shewing neither learning nor wit but sauouring onely of the vanitie of your owne conceits the trueth forced me so to doe which I might not betray When you reiected the iudgements and expositions of the fathers one after an other as k Trea. pa. 69. li. 67. 68. fond and absurd void of sense reason and likelihood yea most absurd and too fond to be spoken and trampled on their names credits as you would on nutshels affirming i Ibid. pa. 95. 96. It is onely the Fathers abusiue speaking and altering the vsuall and ancient sense of words that bred this error their vnapt and perillous translating that confirmed the same and that is a thing too rife with the Fathers yea with some of the auncient est of them to alter and change the Authentike vse of wordes whereby it is easie for errors and grosse mistakings to creepe in is or ought any good man to be so patient or rather negligent as to heare a parrat thus prate against the whole Church of Christ in her best times next after the Apostles and not onely to spare his folly but to reuerence his pride For my part I must confesse I tooke my selfe bound in duety to yeeld him no more regard then he deserued that thus sought to blaze his errors with contempt of all men saue of himselfe If therefore your absurd positions and proofes S. Treatiser did not iustly prouoke these replies which I made in the opinion of any wise and Christian Reader I crie your mercie but if you thinke me to blame for not taking you to be some Patriarke of Vtopia because you can scoffe and mocke as well at Bishops as at fathers Salomon aduiseth me to answere some men according to their merits k Prou. 26. least they seeme wise in their owne eyes Your Mockes I remit to your selfe I am as readie to bearâ—… them for the trueth as you to giue them Howbeit you wanted colours in your coate when you made such pastime with the blessing of Bishops and pepper in your porrage when I taking learned for skilfull which is not strange to any saue to you whose skill is void of all good learning you would needs make your selfe such mirth that railing must be naturall to me because I was not learned or expert therein I wish these were the worst of your toyes and then my sufferance should quiet the whole l Defenc. pag. 144. li. 8. Finally that is not true where you say the flesh doth often signifie the soule in vs. Is it ignorance or malice which driueth you to this waywardnesse to auouch you know not or care not what so you seeme to crosse that I say better learned then you or I obserued that before me which you affirme to be false Austen saith m August dâ—… 〈◊〉 Symbolo â—…a 10. Anima cum carnalia bona adhuc appetit caro nominatur The soule so long as it affecteth fleshly things is called flesh And Ambrose n Ambros. in 6. câ—… 〈◊〉 ad Romanos Caro aliquando corpus intelligitur velipsa anima sequens corporea vitia The flesh is sometimes vnderstoode to be the bodie of mâ—… or the soule it selfe addicted to corporall vices And Ierom. o Hâ—… in 5. ca. â—…pist ad Galat. Anima inter carnem spiritumque consistens quando se tradiderit carni caro dicitur The soule consisting betweene the flesâ—… and the spirit when it yeeldeth it selfe to the flesh is called flesh And least you clamour against these Fathers as your Treatise doth that they change the authentike vse of words heare what Zanchius a man of good iudgement though a late writer saith thereof p Zanchij tractat Theologicâ—… de peccato originali Thes. 6. Flesh and bloud reuealed not this vnto thee saith Christ to Peter The mind of man he calleth flesh and bloud why so because it is wholy corrupted by the flesh so that it sauoureth nothing but flesh How thinke you Sir is it true or false which I sayd that the soule is often called flesh because of her corruption as well as the bodie q Defenc. pag. 144. li. 12. Heere I desire the Reader to change a worde or two in my former Treatise for alwaies to set vsually and for a Man to set Christ. Because since I finde that flesh and spirit together applied to men doe once 2. Corinth 7. vers 1. signifie meerely the body and soule Which then I thought euery where did signifie in vs our corrupt and regenerate man Which ouersight the Bishop spieth not but in this place confirmeth The Bishop that professed hee found fewe true sentences in your Treatise had neither will nor leasure to traduce them all but obseruing your errors in doctrine remitted this and many other ouersights as not preiudicing the maine point in question As for his confirming it that is one of your vsuall verities who by the defending of falshood haue gotten you such an habite that you can scant see or speake a trueth when it toucheth but the skirts of your cause
others that beleeue the words of Paul are sufficient declaring this to be the very ground of the Gospell which hee receiued and deliuered that Christ e 1. Cor. 15. died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that hee arose the third day according to the Scriptures Whence by a full and faire coherence I collect that whatsoeuer died in Christ according to the Scriptures that was buried and raised the third day according to the Scriptures But it is more then manifest by the Scriptures that the soule of Christ was neither buried nor raised from death the third day but onely his bodie It is therefore as plaine to me by the all sufficient word of God that the soule of Christ died not for our sinnes according to the Scripture Your f Defenc. pag. 146. li 23. section touching materiall fire in hell I haue sifted at large before I shall not neede to say any more of it Your hemming in all the world on your side g Defenc pag. 147. li. 25. not some nor the most or best but euen all and euery one both Churches and writers in the world who are Protestants leauing none to vphold the doctrine which I deliuer but Papists Iesuites and Friars is as I told you before and must tell you againe an egregious lie so loud and leud that all the belles in London if they should iarre together could not yeeld a more offensiue sound That euery new writer speaketh of some feares sorrowes temptations or painefull sufferings in the soule of Christ neuer was nor is by me denied neither doe I in my Sermons take vpon me to determine what feares temptations paines and sorrowes Christ might and did suffer in his soule onely I added that we must beware we diminish not his faith hope loue confidence obedience patience and other gifts and graces of the spirit of God in the soule of Christ which the Scripture cleerely maketh to be without want defect or measure in him Shunning those sands I left euery man to his libertie to speake or write of Christes feares and sorrowes as farre as any circumstance of holy Scripture did duely enforce but the death of the soule the paines of hell and of the damned and the second death if any sought to fasten on the soule of Christ whosoeuer they were they did it by their owne surmises they had no warrant for any of those in the word of God except they tooke the paines of hell figuratiuely for great and intolerable such as sometimes the Godly in their humane weakenesse thinke and complaine they feele or feare though they come nothing neere the true paines of hell which cannot be endured in this mortall life and flesh by the euidence of nature and Scripture This being my constant course as my Sermons printed doe apparently witnesse what folly what madnesse is this so egerly and often to chalenge me for contradicting the whole world when it is but your immoderate greedinesse or giddinesse to thinke that everie man who writeth any thing of the feares or sufferings of Christs soule doth presently teach as you doe the death of Christs soule and the substance of the most vehement paines of the damned yea the second death to be a necessary part of our redemtion which Christ must suffer before he could ransome vs To censure mens priuate opinions I take no pleasure some men otherwise very learned and laborious haue dipped too deepe in that die as your selfe proue and pronounce by reiecting and reselling the horror of eâ—… nâ—… death in the soule of Christ though Master Caluin say Christ CONFLICTED therewith and the Catechisme auouch Christ was therewithall Pâ—…VSED If you may thus renounce and refute the first deuise and spredders as you thinke them of your proper and spirituall temptations and torments in the soule of Christ giue others leaue to receaue them no farder then they concurre with the Scriptures and with the primatiue church of God I find diuers men speake diuersly but very few and these late that light on the death of Christs soule and suddaine touches of the essentiall paines of the damned from the immediate hand of God which is your fresh and new deuice yea many that are caried away with the generall termes of Gods wrath and horror of his dreadfull iudgements against sin no way like the death of Christs soule and by speciall words debarre all mention of the second death in the sufferings of Christ and those as well English as others How false and soolish your vaunt is of all and euerie church and writer in the world that are Protestants to be of your minde will soone appeare to any that will reade and waigh the workes and wordes of Zuinglius Musculus Martyr Bullinger Aretius 〈◊〉 new 〈◊〉 teach the sufferings of Christs soule without the paines of hell Zanchius and of sundry others as sound in faith as ripe in iudgement as diligent in reading and sufficient in all kinde of learning as the best you can name either broching or bowing towards your late conceits who though they teach that Christ suffered in soule and body as I doe yet they assigne farre other sufferings in the soule of Christ then your essentiall paines of the damned I may not stand to make new discourses touching new writers a place or two shall serue for all and so an end of this matter Bullinger vpon those words of Esay Christ layd downe or made his soule a sacrifice sor sinne saith h 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…3 To make his soule a sacrifice for sinne is to offer himselfe to be a sacrifice to Purge sinnes And he saith Christs soule and not his flesh not that the flesh of Christ was not offered for vs but that whole Christ body and soule offered himselfe to God and that willingly from his heart and of his owne accord and whole Christ was the expiation of our sinnes licet interim neque diuinit as sit passa neque anima mortua sed caro de quare beati Patres Vigilius Fulgentius contra Haereticos religiose disputarunt Though during that time neither his diuinty suffered NOR HIS SOVLE DIED but his flesh whereof the blessed fathers Vigilius and Fulgentius haue religiously discoursed against Heretickes Zanchius whose learned workes are to me in steed of many writers that are caried with faction and affection to vphold whatsoeuer some other men say though he could not for his often and great labours get time to finish his purposed treatise of mans redemption in that exact manner that he hath donne the rest yet commenting on S. Paules Epistles as occasion was offered he fully deliuereth the matter and manner of our redemption to be the only sacrifice of Christs body and bloud other propitiatory sacrifice for sinne then that he acknowledgeth none though he ascribe to the soule as well her sufferings as her sacrifice i Zanchius in ca. 2. epist. ad Philip. v. 8. All things
the proper wrath of God 19 What proper applied to wrath signifieth 18 The Scriptures often intermingle proper speeches with figuratiue 19 Proper opposed to Metaphoricall 123 A part may Properly denominate the whole 124 The ioynt sufferings of soule and body most proper to man 167 The whole suffering of Christ was not Gods proper action 303 What the Prophets foretold of Christes sufferings that the Euangelists confirme was verified 299 In punishing his elect God tempereth both loue and â—…ustice 147 Corporall death in all men is the punishment of sinne 149. 150. 151 God is most iust in punishing his Saints 262 The Defenders partition of punishment applied to Christ is insufficient and impious 153 All punishment is not for correction or vengeance properly so called 154 The godly iustly punished for their offences 256 Q QVaestion The first quaestion wholy peruerted 3 The chiefe points coincident to the first Question 9 Whether there be true fire in hell before the iudgement is not the Question 54 When and how farre Christ was forsaken are the things Questioned 414 R RAnsome To whom our ransome was paid 228 To saue from death is to raise from death 50 Whence their soules come that are raised to 〈◊〉 â—…25 Redemption by Christs blood most sufficienâ—… 67 The Scriptures teach no redemption buâ—…â—…y the blood and death of Christ. 127 Both body and Soule are redeemed by 〈◊〉 blood of Christ. 128. 129 The body hath not his redemption 〈◊〉 â—…fore the last day 129. 130 Christ vndertooke to be our â—…demer 4000. yeers before he was made man 280 The willing offer of the Sâ—…e to be our redeemer did induce the 〈◊〉 the whole Trinitie 281 The redeemer might pay as well for the prisoners as for him selfe 377 Christs sufferings 〈◊〉 way like the sufferings of the reprobate 331. 332 Christs feare 〈◊〉 sorrow not like the reprobates 448. 449 What is 〈◊〉 by sitting at Gods right hand 651 The claue of Christs descent to Hades was in the Creeâ—…e before Ruffinus time 655 What Ruffinus meaneth by Christes descent to hell 655 S SAcrifice Three properties of the true Sacrifice for sinne 99. 100 The bloody Sacrifices represented no death but onely bodily 105 No Sacrifices of the Iewes figured the death of Châ—…ists Soule 106 What Salt flower oile and wine added to the Iewes sacrifices might signifie 109. 110 What fire did signifie in sacrifices 112. 113 What is consequent to the true sacrifice for sinne 272 Why the people laid their hands on the head of their sacrifices 277 Feare and sorrowe necessary in the sacrifice for sinne 379 More then affliction requisite to Christs sacrifice 437 A deâ—…d Soule is no sacrifice for sinne 527 Whâ—…t the Sacraments of the new Testament import 117 Sacraments doe constantly and continually signifie and represent the same 117 The Spirit oâ—… sanctification is the holy Ghost 511 My exception to the Defenders instance of the Scape-goate 106 What was figured by the scape-goate 107 108 The scape-goate might in some sort be a signe of Christ. 108 How the Scripture limiteth Christs death 5. 180 What the Scriptures meane by the wages of sinne 12 What they meane by the wrath of God 15 Phrases of Gods wrath against the wicked in Scripture are improper 15. 16 Scriptures neuer mention that Châ—…ist suffered Gods wrath 21. nor the death of the Soule 493. 49. 515 nor the paines of hell 399 â—…ow the Scriptures speake of Christs Passion 22 Scriptures often intermin le proper speeches 〈◊〉 figuratiue 48 The â—…riptures sometimes put a condition all to thin most certaine 473 True 〈◊〉 how to expound the Scriptures 435 Many pla s of Scriptures haue diuerse expositions 4â—… which may be tolerated though they cannoâ—…â—…e reconciled 435 The Scriptures 〈◊〉 the words but not the errors of the heat en 612 Some Scriptures vnc 〈◊〉 â—…ine for a time 664 Satan was conquered fast by iustice then by power 229 Satans kingdome subiected to Christs mâ—…nhood 230 Satan assaulted Christ on the â—…rosse but by externail meanes 296. 297 Satan might doe nothing against â—…hrist but what Christ would 315 Satan worketh not but where he is 306 Christ ordered his conquest most to 〈◊〉 shame 669 What was impugned in the Sermons 2 The text of my Sermons was not mistaken 72 But rightly and orderly pursued 78 Our naturall knowledge commeth by Sense 196 Prouocations and pleasures come by the senses 200. 201 The soule for want of her senses sometimes ceaseth to sinne 206 Christs senses might not be ouerwhelmed as martyrs are 396 In what sense Ezekiah vseth the gates of Sheol 247 The lower Sheol signifieth hell and not the graue 557. 558 Sheol for hell Esay 14. 559. 560 The soules of the Saints are not in Sheol 571 Sheol is no meere priuation of this life 572 Sheol is properly a place vnder earth for the dead 573 The soules in Gods hands are not in Sheol 574 The Sheol of soules is more then a meere priuation 575 What Sheol is to the wicked and what to the godly 575 To what Sheol Iacob would descend mourning 576 Sheol no place for iust mans soules 577 There is neither knowledg nor praise of God in Sheol 578 Sheol is no destruction to the godly 575 What is meâ—…nt by meâ—…nt neere to Sheol or 〈◊〉 most dwelling there 500 The Defender abuseth Plato and Plato to haue a Sheol for all things 630 Prooueth Moses and Dauid to haue a Sheol for all thin s. 631 To what Sheol Corah and his company descended 631 The Desendours absurd proofes for the Sheol of all thin s. 632 The Similitude of an earthly suerty not fit for Christ though the name may well be vsed 282 283 No humane similitude can throughly fit Christes sufferings for vs. 293 Similitudes are not alwaies of things lawfull 293 Similitude is no equalitie 328 How we are freed from Sinne by Christ. 152. 153 We inherit sinne and death from our parents flesh 171 How sinne is communicated from the soule to the body 188. 189 All acts of sinne by the body 202 Bodie and soule that were ioyned in sinne shal be ioyned in paine 209 How sinne maketh men vncleane 265 How sinne was condemned in Christs flesh 268 How Christ was made sinne 269. 270 Our sinnes were imputed to Christ that is he was punished for them 272. 277 Inward and infinite Sorrow for sinne must bee found in Christs sacrifice for sinnes 372 Christ must as well sorrow as suffer for sinne 373 Inward and voluntary sorrow of the soule is a sacrifice to God 438 Sorrow differeth from paine 444 What sorrow is 444 We may both sorrow and reioice at one time 489 What meanes of suffering the Soule hath 24 The passibilitie of the Soule is but one facultie of the soule 25 The soules suffering by the body is the proper suffering of the soule 26 The meanes by which the soule suffereth paines 30 The soules suffering from and with the bodie not common with beasts 31 The substance of the
God Esay saith p Esa. 53. v. 4. We did iudge him as plagued and smitten of God but he was wounded for our transgressions And S. Marke when the Iewes had crucified Christ amidst two theeues saith q Mark 15. vers 28. Thus the Scripture was fulsilled which saith he was counted among the wicked Thereby noting their errour not Christs desert Besides it is somewhat saucily said that Christ was accounted wicked in the righteous iudgement of God not by the malitious error of the Iewes Such pleasure you take against both Scriptures and Fathers to auouch what you list yea though it draw with it an iniurious slander to the sonne of God The words of the Prophet he t vers 9. made his graue with the wicked compared with those that solow though he did no wickednesse clearely conuince that Christ was an innocent though he were counted and vsed with malefactours and that the Prophet neuer ment to correct Gods iudgement as corrupt but to shew the wisedome and goodnesse of God deliuering his Sonne to be esteemed and vsed as wicked by the wicked and not by himselfe Howbeit there is no necessity to referre these words to the person of God the Father but they more fittely expresse the humility of Christ himselfe who made his graue that is was content to die in the midst of two Theeues and to be buried as they were considering the coherence with the words precedent which out of all question must be vnderstood of Christ himselfe For thus they stand s vers 8. He was cut out of the land of the liuing he was plagued for the transgression of my people t vers 9. He made his graue with the wicked Where no reason forceth any change of persons and so the same person of Christ who was cut from the land of the liuing made his graue with the wicked u Defenc. pag. 143. li. 11. But chiefly considering withall that also before he made his soule a sinne offering Therefore you must needs graunt that Gods word maketh Christs soule to be sacrificed for our sinne And we desire no other death of the soule It is maruaile you doe not out of this place inferre that Christs soule was made sinne for the words are when he shall make his soule sinne But an offering for sinne is the vsuall signification of that word in the Scriptures and therefore you did well in confessing so much to saue me that labour Christ then made his soule an offering for sinne what deduce you out of those words we desire no other death of the soule In faith you be a sillie sacrificer that know not a dead soule A dead soule is no sacrifice for sinne to be no sacrifice for sinne A dead soule is void of all things which should please God and so can be no sacrifice accepted for sinne x Psal. 51. A troubled spirit sorrowing for sinne is a sacrifice to God saith Dauid But doth repentance kill or quicken the soule God y Acts 11. giueth repentance vnto life that is he raiseth the soule first dead in sinne by repentance vnto life z 2. Cor 7. Worldly sorrow causeth death but Godly sorrow causeth repentance vnto saluation Now saluation is not the death but life of the soule a Hebr. 11. Without faith it is impossible to please God And the sacrifice that shall abolish sinne must needs please God It must then not want faith by which the righteous liue Wherefore by your leaue I make the cleane contrarie conclusion out of those wordes The soule of Christ was a sacrifice for sinne but a dead soule is no sacrfice for sinne the soule of Christ therefore was not dead Without death you will say there is no redemption for sinne Without bloud which noteth the death of the bodie there is no redemption for sinne but the soule I trust hath no bloud to be shed And so much the bodies of beasts offered did prefigure I meane the death of the bodie but not of the soule Willing obedience constant patience and assured confidence in the soule of Christ submitting it selfe to the counsell and will of his Father was the spirituall and inward sacrifice which Christ ioyned with the externall and bloudie sacrifice of his bodie For hauing two parts as all men haâ—…e a soule and a bodie neither part might be withdrawen from this sacrifice but his bodie must be yeelded vnto death and his soule must yeeld her selfe pure vndefiled and void of all spot yet feeling and enduring withall meekenesse and humblenesse of heart the paine of death separating her from her bodie And graunt the soule were heere taken for life what so great improper or vnused speach is that since the soule is truely and properly the life of the body b Defenc. pag. 143. li. 16. We denie not but this phrase Animam ponere is to lay downe the life and in diuers placâ—…s signifieth no more then simply to die both concerning Christ and other men yet this is no necessarie reason that heere in I say the soule should be taken figuratiuely for the life onely the rather seeing heere the text precisely setteth downe the great worke of our redemption and to take it as we doe literally impugneth no ground at all of faith or charitie The words to lay downe or power forth the soule import as you confesse not the death of the soule but the death of the bodie And since in the words of Esai Christ powred forth his soule vnto death there can by no learning bee more concluded out of that place but that Christ willingly layd downe his soule to depart from that bodie which is no way the death of the soule as you fansie but a plaine description of the death of Christs body And where for your pleasure you will take it litterally that is no proofe for the death of Christs soule because the word soule may bee properly taken when it is powred forth of the bodie by death but it noteth a willing submission to death where otherwise our soules are taken from vs or we loose them whether we will or no when we are left or put to death against our wils c Defenc. pag. 143. li. 27. Austen hath not a word against vs in that great place which you cite his whole argument being to an other purpose Austins wordes in that place be pregnant against you for all your dissembling d August in Iohannem tractat 47. Quid fecit passio quid fecit mors nisi corpus ab anima separauit What did Christs passion what did death but separate his bodie from his soule If the death and passion of Christ did nothing but separate Christs soule from his body then neither Christs death nor passion preuailed to the death of his soule And if his soule were not touched by death then was it neuer dead and so much Saint Austen witnesseth in the very same tractate e Ibidem Verbum non
recenseri insernum siue gehennam mortem peccatum legem In the meane while thou must see our enemies heere numbred in order hell or gehenna death sinne and the law Christ hath gotten the victory ouer all these and the fruit of that victory redoundeth to vs. Bullinger The Apostle declareth that the victory ouer sinne death and hell is gotten by the might and merits not of the saints but of Christ to whom the saints must yeeld all glory praise and thanks And this explanation hath very excellent degrees First â—… hell to wit the excrlasting punishment whereby the dead are condemned to the second death the second is sinne which is the force of death and hell For by sinne came death The third is the law the strength of sinne The law being then taken away the force of sinne decaieth sinne being abolished the power of death ceaseth death being disarmed hell is ouerthrowen Hyperius If death shall then haue no more rule it followeth that neither hell shall preuaile against the godly For this must be vnderstood of them since the wicked shall not be deliuered from the power of hell In these words ô death where is thy sting ô hell where is thy victory either God as conquerer or the saints as giuing the praise of the conquest to God in a sort reproch death and hell with the losse of their power and strength And very aptly is death put first and then hell For men die before they be cast into hell in which the wicked tast the second or eternall death Moe might be brought but with wise men there can be no question that the Saints at the last day being then fully freed from all their enemies may giue thanks to God for the victory purchased by Christ against them all hell and Satan not excepted Also we are to note that the Apostle heere plainely alludeth to that of Hoseah O Sheol o kingdome of death I wil be thy destruction not ô hell The Prophet speaketh this to comfort Israel in their captiuity against their continuall destruction and raizings out of this world You will soone brest other men that will beard the Apostle in this matter so boldly as you doe Indeed you and some others thinke it a glory to take part with the Iewes contradicting all that the Euangelists Apostles alleage out of the law and the Prophets touching Christ and his kingdome and you vouchsafe to yeeld to the holy Ghost speaking in them no more skill or vnderstanding of the old Testament but to allude to it and as it were to play with it when the true literall sense of most places as you thinke is farre from that which they intend But this Iudaizing whiles you would seeme more then others to smatch of a little Hebrew I for my part detest and professe to the world I take that euery where to be the true and direct meaning of Moses and the Prophets which Christ and his Apostles collect from their words And therefore Ierom saith of this very place as I say of all others That which the Apostle referreth to the resurrection of the Lord nos aliter interpretari nec possumui nec audemus we neither can nor dare interprete otherwise Yea so well learned you are in the circumstances of the Prophets speach that you pronounce The Prophet speaketh this to comfort Israel in their captiuity shewing that now the Lord would stay his iudgment that way and death should now destroy them no more Whereas Israel was then in no captiuity as appeareth by the 16 verse of the same chapter Samaria shal be desolute And God had no meaning to tell the people he would now stay his hand and they should be destroied no more because in the two next verses he threatneth They should be spoiled dried and desolate they should fall by the sword their infants should be dashed in pieces and their women with child should be ripâ—… Wherefore except you will haue the holy Ghost to speake contradictions as your manner is you must acknowledge that amidst the fearefull troubles destructions and desolations then and afore denounced by the Prophet against the whole kingdome of Israel God doth comfort his elect amongst them that whatsoeuer became of their bodies in this affliction approching he had his time when he would vtterly destroy the power of all their enemies not onely freeing them by death from tyrants and persecutors but sauing them from death and hell by his annointed Messias who should be a death to death and a destruction to hell And as this was the greatest comfort and onely hope that Gods children in their miseries could expect or desire so the Apostle keepeth right the Prophets meaning and sheweth the time when all this shal be performed that is when all teares shal be wiped from the eies of Gods elect and all their enemies sinne death and hell troden vnder their feete In this comfort and promise as hell was the chiefest enemy so of all others that must be conteined within the limits of Gods assurance and their deliuerance In vaine are all other promises of grace whiles that enemy standeth vnuanquished And therefore as we most needed so God most promised and Christ most performed the destruction of hell aboue and afore the death of the body which you so much talke of and from which you giue to the reprobate a resurrection as well as to the godly which is but a cold comfort to him that duely considereth it Next we come to the Reuelation First I haue the keyes of Hades that is of destruction or of the kingdome of death and of death Or we may take them as two words for oâ—… and the same thing That is both of them for death What shew of reason haue you to bring in here Christs power ouer the damned soules in hell because there is mention else where of the key of hell therefore the key of Hades here is the same What colour of reason is there in this Euen so much as you can not resist For if it be certaine which the Scripture confirmeth that Christ hath the keyes of both that is as well of hell as of death and gate them both by submitting himselfe to death And Hades in the new Testament is taken for hell as hitherto we haue seene and euen with Saint Iohn the writer of this Reuelation it is a different thing from death what can Hades be here but hell That Christ by his obedience vnto death had all power in heauen and earth and hell giuen him the Apostle is very plaine Christ became obedient to the death euen the death of the Crosse. Wherefore or for which cause God highly exalted him and gaue him a Name aboue euery name that at the name of Iesus euery knee of those in heauen on earth and vnder the earth should bow and euery tongue confesse that Iesus is the Lord. As he himselfe also witnessed when he said
after his resurrection all power in heauen and earth that is in all places and ouer all things created is giuen vnto me Since then without question Christ had the keyes as well of death and hell as of heauen and so that sense of his words is most true let vs see which of our expositions hath best reason When Iohn for feare fell as dead at Christs feete would Christ to comfort Iohn in that plight say no more but that he himselfe was once dead and now aliue and had power to die no more as you expound Christs words how could this strengthen or restore Iohn that was euen dead for feare or did Christ rather encourage Iohn not to feare without cause seeing he himselfe not onely was risen from the dead but had all power ouer death and hell that is the keyes of both to dispose of ech mans life and Soule at his pleasure when therefore Christ that had all power of life and death Saluation and damnation laid his right hand on Iohn to protect him and bad him not feare but write the things which he saw had not Iohn iust cause to cast away all feare and cheerefully to obey the voice of him that was so able and ready to rescue him from all feare and danger whatsoeuer Christs power ouer death you will say was enough to preserue Iohns life and therefore mention of the key of hell was superfluous Iohn was to see and write the things that were and after should be in heauen earth and hell as is euident in his Reuelations yea the opening and shutting of the bottomelesse pit the chaining of Satan there the comming of the Locusts and the beast from thence and the lake of fire and brimstone euerlastingly burning there and who should be throwen into it were to be reuealed vnto him Lest therefore the sight of these things should amaze Iohn or the reporting of them should want credit with vs Christ did professe which is most true that he had the keyes that is all power euen ouer these secret and fearefull places so that Iohn should neither shrinke at the vision nor we distrust the Relation of them And though my reason of mentioning here the keyes of hell be such as you shall neuer counteruaile yet doe I not runne proudly and peremptorily as you doe in mine owne conceits I haue the iudgement of the best Interpreters old and new that haue intermedled with the opening of these reuelations Andreas Arch Bishop of the same Caesaria that Saint Basil was and within 600. yeeres after Christ though you skornfully reiect him as you doe that venerable writer Bede expounding these words of Christ I haue the keyes of death and of Hades saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of the death of the Body and of the Soule Primasius expoundeth them thus I haue the keyes of death and hell idest Diaboli totius corporis eius that is ouer the diuell and all his body or societie The exposition of the Apocalyps extant in Saint Austens works thus I haue the keyes of death and Hell because he that beleeueth and is baptised is deliuered from death and from hell Haymo thus By the name of the keyes is shewed Christs eternall power by death the diuell is vnderstood by whose enuy death came into the world And by hell his members that shall come to the torments of hell Lyra. I haue the keyes of death and of hell that is power to deliuer thence the iust which Christ did in his Resurrection and to inclose there the wicked which he shall chiefly doe in the last iudgement Of our new writers Bullingere Christ then hath the keyes of death and hell because whom he will he deliuereth from the perpetuall damnation of death and whom he will he suffereth iustly to remaine in that perill of damnation Christ hath the supreme gouernment of the house or kingdome of God to quicken whom he will and to draw them from hell and damnation and whom he will damne with his iust iudgement to destroy For he hath most full power ouer death and hell He conquered and disabled both as it is Osee. 13. and 1. Corinth 15. Aretius He that resembled the Sonne of Man in the Apocalyps said I haue the keyes of hell and death hoc est in damnatos damnandos damnatorum loca that is ouer those that are damned or shall be damned and ouer the places of the damned Chytreus Christ deliuereth his Church from the captiuitie of death and hell casteth the wicked into the Dungeon of hell and of eternall death For he hath the keyes that is most full power ouer death and hell Sebastian Meyer whom Marlorate followeth I haue the keyes of death and hell that is power to pardon sinnes which being abolished both death and hell are depriued of their strength Osiander I haue the keyes of death and hell that is it is in my hand to kill and quicken to damne and sauc These men had both learning and reason to say as they did neither will any pick them ouer the pearch as you doe Andreas Caesariensis and Bede but he that hath neither Againe one sitteth on a pale horse whose name was death and Hades destruction the world of the dead or the kingdome of death followed after him This in no wise can be hell because the Text addeth power was giuen them to slay with the sword and with famine and with death and with wild beasts Hell slayeth none in that sort these are not the weapons of hell You lacke three Gennets to set your three poppets on horsebacke If by these three destruction the world of the dead the kingdome of death you meane in effect nothing but death as you vse to expound your selfe that is expressed before and Saint Iohn saith Hades followed after him Doth any thing follow after it selfe Againe will you bring your world of the dead that is all the Soules in heauen and hell to ride on horse-backe and that in the shew and shape of one person you would make good dumb shewes you haue such pretie fansies to make death goe first alone and his kingdome to come after him But though you play with Saint Iohns visions you haue no warrant to mistake Saint Iohns words and to muster your owne errors vnder his colours Saint Iohn doth not say that power was giuen to death and Hades to kill with the sword with famine and with death as you dreame but Saint Iohn hauing represented the sword or warre by the red horse verse 4. and famine by the blacke horse verse 5. and all sorts of diseases and pestilences by the pale horse verse 8. he saith power was giuen to them that is to the riders on these three horses to kill the fourth of the earth with warre hunger and sicknesse And because these three come not one after another but when God is greatly prouoked with