in anima cruciatus damnati perditi hominis pertulerit and felt most sensibly in his soul those miserable torments of a man utterly forlorne and damned to the pit of hell that being thus forsaken and estranged from the sight of God he was so cast down as in the anguish of his spirit to cry out afflictively My God my God why hast thou forsaken me as finding in himself omnia irati punientis Dei signa all the sure tokens of an angrie and avenging God finally that the fear and sorrow which did overwhelme him in the Garden his fervent prayer his Agonie and bloudy sweat were nothing but the signes and evidences of those horrid and unspeakable torments those diros horribiles cruciatus as he cals them there which he then suffered in his soul. And what could all this be but the pains of hell This he resolves to be the meaning of the Article condemning all exceptions which are or may be made against it either as frivolous and ridiculous Sect. 10. or to proceed ex malitia magis quam imscitia rather from malice then from ignorance and all that hath been said unto the contrary to be nothing but meer slander and calumniations and being most extremely pleased to see how those who did oppose him knew not where to fasten but were compelled to flie from one thing to another This is the summe of his dispute the substance of that dangerous innovation in the Christian faith which was by him first published for a truth undoubted and after taken up upon his Authority without further questioning or debate Which as it generally prevailed in most places else so did it no where finde more fast friends and followers then in this unhappy Church of England where it became in fine to be accounted the sole Orthodox Doctrine vented in Pulpits and in Catechisms that the death of Christ upon the Cross and his bloud shed for the remission of our sins were the least cause and means of our Redemption but that he did and ought to suffer the death of the sâ—ul and those very pains which the damned souls in hell do suffer before we could be ransomed from the wrath of God and that this was that descent into hell which in our Creed we are taught to believe A doctrine so directly contrary unto that of the Church of England delivered in her Articles and Books of Homilies solemnly authorized and ratified as before was said that Dr. Bilson the Reverend and learned Bishop of Winton then being thought himself obliged as well to undeceive the people as to assert the antient doctrine of the Church And to that end delivered in a Sermon at St. Pauls Cross London what he conceived to be the tenet of the Scriptures in this particular according to the Exposition of the holy Fathers Which as it first occasioned some unsavory Pamphlets and afterwards some set discourses to be writ against him so it necessitated him in his own defence to set out that laborious work entituled The survey of Christs sufferings for mans Redemption and of his descent to Hades or Hell for our deliverance I must confess my self indebted for the most part of those helps which I have had in the true stating both of this and the former Article Thus having shewn who was the Author what the progress of this so much applauded Exposition of Christs descent into hell we next proceed to the examining and confutation of the same And first the Reader may take notice that all the out-works to this Citadel esteemed so invincible and inexpugnable have by us been taken in already in the two former chapters where we have proved that neither the extreme fear or sorrow which did seize upon him in the Garden of Gethsemane nor any of his fervent prayers either there or on the Cross it self no nor the Agony it self nor the bloudy sweat were any signs or arguments of those hellish pains which they have fancied to themselves in our Saviours soul. And we have also proved in the last chapter of all not only that our Saviour did not die the death of the soul as these men blasphemously pretend but that the work of our Redemption was compleated fully by that bodily and bloudy sacrifice which he made of himself upon the Cross. So that there now remains no more but to prove this point which is indeed the main of all namely that Christ neither did nor ought to suffer the pains belonging to the damned or endured so much as for a moment the torments of hell And for the proof of this it is fit we know both what those pains and torments are which the damned do suffer and of what nature are those fires which the Scriptures declare to be in hell what punishments belong to the soul alone and what unto the soul and body being joyned together And first of all the torments which the damned suffer in their souls only though infinite and unexpressible in themselves may be reduced to these three heads 1 remorse of conscience 2 a sense of their rejection from the favour of God and 3 a despair of ever being eased of that consuming misery which is fallen upon them Remorse of conscience that 's the first and one of the most heavy torments suffered by those wretched souls who in their life time wholly renounced the Lord their God to enjoy their pleasures by which they are kept in a continual remembrance of that madness and folly wherewith they rebelled against the Lord and of the contumacy wherewithall they refused his mercies God punishing the souls of such wicked men with the evidence and conscience of their own uncleanness and with the sight and most infallible assurance of their now everlasting wretchedness Whether or not this be the Worm our Saviour speaks of and of which he telleth us in his Gospel that it never dyeth we shall speak more at large hereafter In the mean time observe we what the Fathers say touching this particular Quae poena gravior quam interioris vulnus conscientiae what pain more grievous saith St. Ambrose then the wounds of a convicted conscience Magna poena impiorum est conscientia the conscience of the wicked saith St. Augustine is one of their greatest pains or punishments And more then so amongst all the afflictions of mans soul saith he there is none greater then the conscience of sin How thinkest thou saith St. Chrysostom shall our conscience be bitten alluding to the Worm spoken of before and is not this worse then any torment whatsoever With whom agreeth Eusebius also in his Apologie for Origen published under the name of Pamphilus saying tunc ipsa conscientia propriis stimulis agitatur that then the conscience of a wicked man shall be pricked and pierced with the stings of their own proper sins The second torment which the damned suffer in the soul alone is the sense of their rejection from the
dogmata many strange Doctrines broached by Luther and held forth by Calvin To which when Dr. Crackanthorp was commanded to make an Answer he thought it neither safe nor seasonable to deny the charge or plead not guilty to the bill and therefore though he called his book Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae yet he chose rather to defend those Dogmata which had been charged upon this Church in the Bishops Pamphlet then to assert this Church to her genuine Doctrines They that went otherwise to work were like to speed no better in it or otherwise requited for their honest zeal then to be presently exposed to the publick envie and made the common subject of reproach and danger So that I must needs look upon it as a bold attempt though a most necessary piece of service as the times then were in B. Montague of Norwich in his answer to the Popish Gagger and the two Appellants to lay the saddle on the right horse as the saying is I mean to sever or discriminate the opinions of particular men from the received and authorized Doctrines of the Church of England to leave the one to be maintained by their private fautors and only to defend and maintain the other And certainly had he not been a man of a mighty spirit and one that easily could contemne the cries and clamors which were raised against him for so doing he could not but have sunk remedilesly under the burden of disgrace and the feares of ruin which that performance drew upon him To such an absolute authority were the names and writings of some men advanced by their diligent followers that not to yeeld obedience to their Ipse dixits was a crime unpardonable It is true King Iames observed the inconvenience and prescribed a remedy sending instructions to the Universities bearing date Ian. 18. Ann. 1616. which was eight years or thereabout before the coming out of the Bishops Gag wherein it was directed amongst other things that young students in Divinity should be excited to study such books as were most agreable in doctrine and discipline too the Church of England and to bestow their time in the Fathers and Councels Schoolmen Histories and Controversies and not to insist to long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators making them the grounds of their study And I conceive that from that time forwards the names and reputations of some leading men of the forain Churches which till then carryed all before them did begin to lessen Divines growing every day more willing to free themselves from that servitude and Vassalage to which the authority of those names had inslaved their judgements But so that no man had the courage to make such a general assault against the late received opinions as the Bishop did though many when the ice was broken followed gladly after him About those times it was that I began my studies in Divinity and thought no course so proper and expedient for me as the way commended by King Iames and opened at the charges of B. Montague though not then a Bishop For though I had a good respect both to the memory of Luther and the name of Calvin as those whose writings had awakened all these parts of Europe out of the ignorance and superstition under which they suffered yet I alwayes took them to be men Men as obnoxious unto error as subject unto humane frailty and as indulgent too to their own opinions as any others whatsoever The little knowledge I had gained in the course of Stories had preacquainted me with the fiery spirit of the one and the busie humour of the other thought thereupon unfit by Archbishop Cranmer and others the chief agents in the reformation of this Church to be employed as instruments in that weighty businesse Nor was I ignorant how much they differed from us in their Doctrinals and formes of Government And I was apt enough to thinke that they were no fit guides to direct my judgement in order to the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church of England to the establishing whereof they were held unusefull and who both by their practises and positions had declared themselves to be friends to neither Yet give me leave to say withall that I was never master of so little manners as to speak reproachfully of either or to detract from those just honours which they had acquired though it hath pleased the namelesse Author of the reply to my Lord of Canterburies Book against Fisher the Iesuit to tax me for giving unto Calvin in a book licenced by authority the opprobrious name of schismaticall Heretick Had he told either the parties name by whom it was licenced or named the Book it self in which those ill words escaped me I must have been necessitated to disprove or confesse the action But being as it is a bare denyall is enough for a groundlesse slander And so I leave my namelesse Author a Scot as I have been informed with these words of Cicero Quid minus est non dico Oratoris sed hominis quam id objicere Adversario quod si ille verbo negabit longius progredi non possis Pardon me Reader I beseech thee for laying my naked soul before thee for taking this present opportunity to acquit my self from those imputations which the uncharitablenesse of some men had aspersed me with I have long suffered under the reproaches of the publick Pamphleters not only charged with Popery and Heterodoxies in the point of faith but also as thou seest with incivilities in point of manners and I was much disquieted and perplexed in minde till I had given the world in thee a verball satisfaction at the least to these verball Calumnies How far I am really free from these criminations I hope this following work will shew thee So will the Sermons on the Tears preached in a time when the inclinations unto Popery were thought but falsely thought to be most predominant both in Court and Clergy if ever I shall be perswaded to present them to the open view In the mean time take here such testimonies both of my Orthodoxie and Candour as this work affords thee In which I have willingly pretermitted no just occasion of vindicating the Antient and Apostolical Religion established and maintained in the Church of England against Opponents of all sorts without respect to private persons or particular Churches And as old Pacian used to say Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen so I desire it may be also said of me that Christian is my name and Catholick my surname A Catholick in that sense I am and shall desire by Gods grace to be alwayes such a true English Catholick And English Catholick I am sure is as good in Grammar and far more proper in the right meaning of the word then that of Roman Catholick is or can be possibly in any of the Popish party And as an English Catholick I have kept my selfe unto the Doctrines Rites and formes of Government established in the Church of
daughter of a Levite whose name was Isachar This I am sure may be affirmed in defence of the story that the Iews were not then so punctual in keeping themselves unto their Tribes as they had been formerly that even the High Priesthood it self had been bought and sold to persons both unworthy and uncapable of so high an honour that we finde IESVS to have preached in the Temple often and to have done in it other Ministerial Offices which questionless the Priests and Pharisees would never have suffered had he not had some calling to it which might authorize him And if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sacerdotes in the Text of Suidas we may have leave to understand some inferiour Ministers and not the very Priests themselves as possibly enough we may the story may then stand secure above all exceptions Next let us look amongst the Gentiles and they will tell us that Augustus the Roman Emperour in whose time the Lord CHRIST was born consulting with the Oracle of Apollo touching his successor received this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In English thus An Hebrew childe whom the blest Gods adore Commands me leave these shrines and back to Hel So that of Oracles I can no more In silence leave our Altars and farewell Which answer being so returned Augustus built an Altar in the Roman Capitol with this Inscription ARA PRIMOGENITI DEI i.e. the Altar of the first begotten of God The general ceasing of Oracles much about this time gives some strength to this And so doth that which we finde mentioned in Eusebius touching the falling of the Idols of Egypt upon our Saviours first coming into that countrey St. Ambrose in his Commentary on the 119. Psalm doth affirm as much Nor is it yet determined to the contrary by our greatest Criticks but that the Prophet Esaiah may allude to this where bringing in the burden of Egypts he saith Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift clowd and shall come into Egypt and the Idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence But whether the Prophet do allude unto this or not we have no reason to misdoubt of the truth of the story and the acknowledgement which the false Gods of the Gentiles made to the Divinity of the true In and about these times lived the Poet Virgil one of whose Eclogues being a meer extract of some fragments of the Sibylline Oracles hath many passages which cannot properly be applyed to any but our Saviour Christ though by him wrested to the honour of Marcellus the Nephew and designed Heir of Augustus Caesar. For example these Iam redit Virgo redeunt Saturnia regna Iam nova progenes Coelo demittitur alto Chara Deunt soboles magnum Iovis incrementum Which may be Englished in these words Now shines the Virgin now the times of peace Return again and from the Heaven on high Comes down a sacred and new Progenie The issue of the Gods Ioves blest increase More testimonies of this nature might be added here but these shall serve at this time for a tast of the rest And so we end with that of the Centurion of Pilates guard who noting all that hapned in our Saviours passion could not but make acknowledgement of so great a Prophet saying Surely this was the Son of God And this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as could possibly be delivered in so few words Which being so it is the more to be admired that such as take unto themselves the name of Christians should think and speak less honorably of their Lord and Saviour then the Iews Gentiles and the Devils themselves yet such vile miscreants have there been in the former ages and I doubt are still And of those Ebion was the first who savouring strongly of the Iew had made up such a mixture of Religion as might please their palates and taught no otherwise of CHRIST then that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ordinary natural man begotten in the common course of generation Eusebius so informs us of him St. Hierome addes that for the suppression of this heresie St. Iohn at the request of some Asian Bishops wrote his holy Gospel of purpose to assert the Divinity of CHRIST ut divinam ejus nativitatem ediceret are St. Hieromes words of which but little had been said by the other Evangelists After him there arose up Artemon or Artemas in the days of the Emperour Heliogabalus who held the same opinion concerning CHRIST as the Ebionites did affirming him to be no other then a meer natural man saving that he was born of the Virgin Mary after a more peculiar manner then the rest of mankinde and was to be preferred before all the Prophets And against him there was a Book written as Eusebius telleth us though the name of the Author came not to his hands But that which is a matter of most admiration is that Paulus Samosatenus a Christian Bishop a Bishop of one of the four Patriarchal Sees even of the City of Antioch should not only set on foot again this condemned Heresie but have the impudence to affirm that it had been the antient and approved Doctrine of the Church of Christ No wonder if the Prelates of the Church did best in themselves when such a foul contagion was got in amongst them and therefore they assembled in the City of Antioch that by the authority of their presence and the sincerity of their doctrine so dangerous a Monster might be quelled in the face of his people This was about the time of the Emperour Aurelianus Nor had there been a more celebrious Councel in the Church of Christ from that of the Apostles mentioned in the 15. of the Acts unto that of Nice The issue and success whereof was so blessed by God that from those times until these last and worst ages of the Church wherein Socinus Osterodius and their followers have again revived it this wretched heresie was scarce heard of but in antient Histories And on the other side some of the antient Writers and the later Schoolmen the better to beat down the dotages of such frantick Hereticks as had impugned the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour have so intangled the simplicity of the Christian faith within the Labyrinth of curious and intricate speculations that it became at last a matter of great wit and judgement to know what was to be believed in the things of Christ. And of this nature I conceive are those inexplicable and perplexed discourses about the consubstantiality and coequality of the Persons which how it can consist with the School-distinction that the Father doth all things authoritative and the Son all things sub-authoritative it is hard to say that the Son is coeternal with the Father as in the Creed of Atâ—anasius and yet Principium a principio in the Schoolmens language that there should be two
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
and then subjoyns Glorifie God therefore in your body And doth not the same Father infer from thence the Deitie or Godhead of the Holy Ghost Ne quisquam Spiritum Sanctum negaret Deum continuo sequutus ait Glorificate portate Deum in corpore vestro Lest any man saith he should possibly deny the Holy Ghost to be God he addes immediately Glorifie and bear God in your bodies To seek for Testimonies from more of the Fathers to confirm this point were to run into an endless Ocean of Allegations there being few who lived after the rising of the Arian and Macedonian Heresies who have not written whole Tracts in defence hereof and none at all who give not very pregnant evidence to the cause in hand But where the Scripture is so clear what need they come in And so exceeding clear is Scripture as is shewn already that I marvel with what confidence it could be said by Doctor Harding in his Reply to Bishop Iewel That though the Doctrine of the Church of England were true and Catholick in this point yet we had neither express Scripture for it nor any of the four first General Councils and thereon tacitely inferreth That the Deity of the Holy Ghost depended for the proof thereof not on holy Scripture but on the Tradition of the Church and the Authority of some subsequent Councils of the Popes confirming To which that learned Prelate wittily replieth That if God cannot be God unless he be allowed of by the Pope and Church of Râ—me then we are come again to that which Tertullian wrote merrily of the Heathens saying Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit i.e. Unless God humor man he shall not be God Some further Arguments may be used to confirm this Truth and they no less concludent than those before As namely from the Form of Baptism ordained by Christ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost From the Form of Benediction used by St. Paul The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost From the Doxologie or Form of giving glory used in the Church and used as St. Basil confidently averreth from the first beginning Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost And finally from the place it holds in the present Creed composed by the joynt concurrence of the Blessed Apostles But that which I shall specially insist upon is that passage in three of the Evangelists touching the sinâ—t â—t blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God which is there said to be of that heinous nature that it shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.32 That is to say It shall never have forgiveness as S. Mark expounds it Mark 3.29 St. Ambrose gathereth from this Text a concluding Argument against the Macedonian and Eunomian Hereticks who held the Holy Ghost to be onely a created power Quomodo inter Creaturas aâ—det quisquam Spiritum Sanctum computare c. How dareth any man saith he compute the Holy Ghost amongst the rest of the Creatures considering that it is affirmed by the Lord himself That whosoever speaketh against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him And to this inference of his we may well subscribe though the sin or blasphemy spoken of by our Lord and Saviour was not against the Person of the Holy Ghost but against his Power For that no sin or heresie against his person was so irremissible as to exclude the offending party from all hope of pardon is evident by the constant practise of the Primitive Church which as St. Chrysostom observeth used daily to receive again to the Word and Sacraments the Eunomian Hereticks on the recanting of their Error That therefore being not the siâ— which is here intended it would be worth the while and very pertinent to our present business to enquire into it though as St. Augustine notes right well In omnibus Scripturis sanctis nulla major quaestio nulla difficilior That there is not a greater nor more difficult question in all the Scripture And well might he say so of all men who in delivering his own judgement upon the point doth so much vary from himself that it is impossible to finde what he doth resolve on For sometimes he makes it to be final impenitency as Lib. de fide ad Pet. c. 3. Sometimes to be despair of Gods mercy as in his Comment on the Romans Sometimes to be a denying of the Churches power to forgive sins as in his Eucheirid c. 83. Sometimes to be sins of malice as De Ser. Domini in monte l. 1. And sometimes neerer to the truth to be an ascribing of the works of the Holy Ghost to the power of the Devil as in his Tract De Quâ—st ex utroque Testam quaest 102. Nor do the Writers of the former or later times agree better in this point with one another than that Learned Father with himself Some holding it to be a renouncing of the Faith of Christ as the Novatians others the denying of the Divinity of Christ as Hilary Philastrius extending it unto every Heresie and Origen whom some of the Novatians also followed to every sin committed after Baptism For later Writers the Schoolmen generally make it to be sins of malice affirming sins of infirmity to be committed against the Father whose proper attribute is Power and sins of ignorance against the Son whose proper attribute is Wisdom and therefore sins against the Holy Ghost must be sins of malice because his attribute is Love And on the other side the Protestants as generally do make it to be final Apostasie or a wilful and malicious resisting of the Truth to the very last And so it is defined by Calvin who makes them to be guilty of this sin against the Holy Ghost Qui divinae veritati cujus fulgore sic per stringuntur ut ignorantiam causari nequeant tamen destinata malicia resistâ—nt in hoc tantum ut resistant that is to say Who out of determined malice resist the known Truth of God with the Beams whereof they are so dazled that they cannot pretend ignorance to the end onely to resist But God forbid that most if at all any of the sins before enumerated should come within the compass of that grievous sentence which is denounced against blaspheming of the Holy Ghost For if either every sin committed after Baptism or every sin of malice or despair of mercy or falling into heresie especially in that large sense as Philastrius takes it should be uncapable of pardon it were almost impossible for any man to be sayed And for the rest final Impenitency is not so properly a particular and distinct species