body CHAP. VII Of the crucifying death and burial of the Lord JESUS CHRIST with the diquisition of all particulars incident thereunto THe death of Christ prefigured both in that of Abel and of Abels lamb The definition of a Sacrifice how abused by Bellarmine and on what design The Sacrifices of the Law how accounted expiatory Several resemblances between the Sacrifices of Christ and the legal sacrifices A parallel beawixt Christ and Isaac and betwixt Christ and the Brazen Serpent Calvins interpretation and the practise of the Papists much alike unsound How Christ is said to be made a curse The cruel intention of the Iews to prolong Christs miseries under the false disguise of pity Several sorts of Dereliction and in what sort our Saviour Christ complained that he was forsaken Whether Christ spake those words in his own Person or in the person of his members the Schoolmen in this point very sound and solid Why vinegar was given to Christ at the time of his passion The meaning of those words Consummatum est That the death of Christ is rather to be counted voluntary then either violent or natural and upon what reasons The death of Christ upon the Cross a full Propitiation for the sins of man both in the judgement of Scriptures and the Antient Fathers That Christ suffered not the death of the soul as impiously is affirmed by some The Eucharist ordained for a Sacrifice by our Lord and Saviour The Sacrifice or Oblation of Bread and Wine used antiently by that very name in the Church of Christ why called Commemorative and why an Eucharistical sacrifice and why the Sacrament of the Altar The Sacrifice asserted by the Antient Writers corrupted by the Church of Rome and piously restored by the Church of England St. Cyprian wrested by the Papists to defend their Mass. A parallel between the Peace-offerings and the blessed Eucharist The renting of the Vail at our Saviours passion what it might portend The Earthquake and Eclipse then happening testified out of Heathen writers The reconciliation of St. Mark and St. Iohn about the time and hour of our Saviours suffering Various opinions in that point and which most improbable Vniversality of redemption defended by the Church of England Both Sacraments how said to issue from our Saviours side The breaking of our Saviours body in the holy Eucharist how it agreeth with the not breaking of his bones The true and proper meaning of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Certain considerations on our Saviours buriall and of the weekly fasting dayes thereupon occasioned That Iudas hanged himself made good from the antient Fathers against the new devise of Daniel Heinsius The fearfull and calamitous ends of Pontius Pilate Annas Cajaphas and the whole nation of the Iews CHAP. VIII Of the locall descent of Christ into hell Hades and inferi what they signifie in the best Greek and Latine authors and in the text of holy Scripture an examination and confutation of the contrary opinions CHrists descent into hell the first degree of his Exaltation and so esteemed by many of the antient Fathers The drift and project of this Chapter Severall Etymologies of the Greek word HADES The Greek word HADES used most commonly by the old Greek writers to signifie hell the place of torments sometimes to signifie Pluto the King of hell the word so used also by the sacred Penmen of the new Testament The faultinesse of our last translators in rendring the Greek HADES by the English grave 1 Cor. 15.55 c. contrary to the exposition of the best interpreters By HADES in the Ecclesiasticall notion of it is meant only hell in the opinion of all Greek writers of the elder and middle times The Latine word inferi whence derived and what it signifyeth Inferi generally used by the Antient writers for the place of torments not for the receptacles or repositories of the righteous souls The Greek word Hades generally rendered in the new Testament by the Latine inferi The meaning of these words viz. He descended into hell Grammatically gathered from the Premises Arguments for the locall descent of Christ into hell from St. Pauls words Rom. 10.6 7. and Ephes. 4.8 9 c. with the explication of both places The leading of captivity captive Ephes. 4. and the spoiling of principalities and powers Col. 2.15 used by the antients as arguments for Christs descent into hell the like proved by St Peters argument Act. 2.27 c. the pains of death mentioned vers 2.24 in the latter editions of that book the very same with the pains of hell in some antient copies The Locall descent of Christ into hell proved by the constant and successive testimonies of the old Greek Fathers and by the general current of the Latine writers together with the reasons which induced him to it Considerations on this point viz. whether Christ by his descent into hell delivered thence the souls of such holy men as either dyed under or before the Law Bullengers moderation in it CHAP. IX The Doctrine of the Church of England touching Christs descent into Hell asserted from all contrary opinions which are here examined and disproved THe Doctrine of the Church of England touching the local descent of Christ into Hell delivered in the book of Articles in the book of Homilies and Catechismes publickly allowed The errour of Mr. Rogers in that point charged upon the Church The Doctrine of a locall descent defended by the most eminent writers in the Protestant Churches and of some of the Reformed also The first objection against the locall descent viz. that there was no such clause in the old Creed or Symbol of the Church of Rome The second objection that our Saviour went on the day of his passion with the Theef to Paradise The third objection that Christ at the instant of his death commended his soul into the hands of God the Father The pertinency and profitablenesse of the locall descent declared and stated and freed from all the Cavils which are made against it The false construction of this Article by our Masters in the Church of Rome Brentius and Calvin falsly charged by Bellarmine The Article of Christs descent by whom first made the same with his burial the inconvenience of that sense and the absurdities of Beza in indevoring to make it good The new devise which makes the descent into hell to be nothing else but a continuance for three days in the state of death proposed and answered A Theologicall Dictionary necessary for young Divines The Author and progresse of the new opinion touching the suffering of hell paines in our Saviours soul. A particular of the torments in hell that is to say remorse of conscience 2. rejection from the favour of God 3. despaire of Gods mercy 4. the fiery flames there being That none of all these could finde place in our Saviours soul. The blasphemy of some who teach that Christ descended into hell to suffer there the torments of
ones have bâ—en pleased to do it Witness that famous challenge made by Bishop Iewel by which the several points in issue between the Church of England and the Church of Rome were generally referred to the decision of the Antient Fathers with great both honour and success Witness these words of Peter Martyr a man of great imployment in the REFORMATION of the Church and sent for hither by Archbishop Cranmer to mote it here In judging things obscure saith he the Spirit there are two ways or means for our direction whereof the one is inward which is the Spirit the other outward or external the Word of God to which saith he Si Patrum etiam autoritas accesserit valebit plurimum If the authority of the Fathers do come in for seconds it will exceedingly avail And unto this agrees Chemnitius also though of a different judgement from him in some points of doctrine who having told us of the Fathers that we may best learn from their own words and sayings what we may warrantably conceive of their authority gives in the close thereof this note and a sound one 't is Nullum dogma in Ecclesia novum cum tota antiquitate pugnans recipiendum that is to say that new opinion which seems new and is repugnant to the general cuâ—rent of Antiquity is to be entertained in the Church of God What is decreed herein by the Church of England assembled representatively in her Convocations what by the King and three Estates convened in Parliament we shall see anon In the mean time take here the judgment of the Antients in this very case 'T is true indeed the Fathers many times and in sundry places humbly and piously have confessed the eminency of Canonical Scriptures above all the writings of men whatsoever they be for which consent St. Augustine contr Faust. Manic l. 11. c. 5. de Baptismat contr Donatist l. 1. c. 3. Epist. 19. in Proem lib. de Trinitate desiring liberty of dissent from one another when they saw occasion and binding no man to adhere unto their opinions further then they agreed with the Word of God delivered by the holy Prophets and Apostles which have been since the world began De quorum Scriptis quod omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est and of whose writings to make question whether or not they were free from error were a great impiety And this is that whereof St. Hierome speaks in an Epistle to Pope Damasus Ut mihi Epistolis tuis sive tacendarum sive dicendarum Hypostase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n detur autoritas that he might be left to his own liberty either in using or refusiug the word Hypostasis But then it is as true withall that Vincentius give it for a rule Multorum magnorum consentientes sibi sententias Magistorum sequendas esse that the antient consent of godly Fathers is with great care both to be searched into and followed in the Rule of Faith And 't is as true that having moved this question in another place that if the Canon of the Scripture be so full and perfect and so abundantly sufficient in it self for all things Quid opus est ut ei Ecclesiasticae intelligentiae jungatur autoritas what need there is that the authority of Ecclesiastical interpretations should be joyned with it returns this answer in effect Lest every man should wrest the Scriptures to his own private fancy and rather draw some things from thence to maintain his errours then for the advancement of the truth Of the same resolution and opinion was St. Augustine also who though he were exceeding careful upon all occasions to yeild the Scriptures all due reverence yet he was willing therewithall to allow that honour which was meet both to the writings of the Fathers which lived before him and to the Canons and Decrees of preceding Councels and to submit himself unto their Authorities For speaking of General Councels he subjoyns this note Quorum est in Ecclesia saluberrima autoritas that their authority in the Church was of excellent use And in another place alleadging the testimonies of Irenaeus Cyprian Hilarie Ambrose and some other Fathers he concludeth thus Hoc probavimus autoritate Catholicorum sanctorum c. This we have proved by the authority of Catholick and godly men to the end that your weak and silly novelties might be overwhelmed with their only authority with which your contumacie is to be repressed He speaks this unto Iulian a Pelagian Heretick And with these testimonies and authorities of such holy men thou must either by Gods mercy be healed i. e. recovered from his errour or else accuse the famous and right holy Doctors of the Catholick Church against which miserable madness I must so reply that their faith may be defended against thee even as the Gospel it self is defended against the wicked and professed enemies of Christ. More of this kinde might be produced from the Antient Writers But what need more be said in so clear a point especially to us that have the honour to be called the children of the Church of England who by a a Canon of the year 1572 doth binde all men in holy Orders not to preach any thing in their Congregations to be believed and holden of the people of God but what is conâ—onant to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments Quodque ex illa ipsa doctrina Catholici Patres Veteres Episcopi collegerint and had been thence concluded or collected take which word you will by the Catholick Fathers and antient Bishops of the Church The like authority and respect is given to the first four General Councels by the unanimous vote and suffrage of the Prince and three Estates convened in Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory wherein it was ordained or declared rather amongst other things that nothing should be deemed or adjudged Heresie in the Kingdome of England but what had been adjudged so formerly in any of the said four General Councels or any other General Councel determining the same according to the Word of God c. Where we may see that the Estates in Parliament did ascribe so much to the authority of those four Councels and the judgement of the Fathers which were there assembled as not to question any thing which they had determined concerning heresie or to examine whether it agreed with Gods Word or not but left the people of this Kingdom totally to repose themselves upon their authority and to take that for heresie without more ado which they judged to be so And so I close this point with those words of Saravia a learned man and one that stood up stoutly in this Churches cause against the innovating humors which was then predominant though not so high as in these times of Anarchie Qui omnem Patribus adimit autoritatem nullam relinquit sibi that is to say He who depriveth the Fathers of their due authority will
in the Ordination of Paul and Barnabas and other Presbyters of the Church in the best and Apostolical times so gave it a fair hint to the times succeeding to institute four solemn times of publick fasting which they called jejunia quatuor temporum we the Ember-weeks to be the set and solemn times of giving Orders in the Church and calling men unto the Ministry of the same to the end that all the people might by prayer and fasting apply themselves unto the Lord humbly beseeching him to direct the Fathers of the Church to make choyce of fit and able labourers to attend his harvest as also to enable those who are called unto it and give them gifts and graces fitting for so great a business Which antient institution of the Church of God as it is prudently retained in this Church of England according to the 32 Canon of the year 1603. in which all Ordinations of Presbyters and Deacons are restrained to those four set times so were it to be wished that the same authority would establish publick meetings and set forms of Prayer to be observed at those times that so with one consent of heart both Priests and people might commend that religious work to the care and blessings of the Lord according as it was directed in the Common-Prayer Book intended for the use of the Church of Scotland There was another reason which induced our Saviour to make choyce of this time for his fast which was the better to draw on the Tempter to begin his assault but this will better fall within the compass of the third general point to be considered in this story that is to say the main act of it or the temptation it self In the mean time we may consider what might be the reason why he fasted forty days and forty nights neither more nor less In which it is first to be observed that it is not only said that he fasted forty days and no more then so but forty days and forty nights Which caution was observed by St. Matthew for this reason chiefly left else it might be thought by some carnal Gospellers that he fasted only after the manner of the Iews whose use it was to eat a sparing meal at night having religiously fasted all the day before Si ergo diceretur quod Christus jejunaret quadraginta diebus without making mention of the nights intelligeretur quod per noctes comedebat sicut Judaeis solitum erat as Tostatus notes upon the Text which also is observed by Maldonat Iansenius and some other of the Romish Writers and then there had been little in it of a miracle either to work upon the Iews or confound the Devil As well then forty nights as forty days to avoid that cavil And there was very good reason too why he should fast just forty days and forty nights neither more nor less Had he fasted fewer days then forty he had fallen short of the examples which both Moses and Elias left behinde them on the like occasions on like occasion I confess but on less by far both which were by the Lord enabled to so long a fast that by the miracle thereof they might confirm unto the Iews the truth of their doctrine For seeing that they fasted longer then the strength of nature could endure it must needs be that they were both assisted by the God of nature whose service and employment they were called unto And though perhaps a longer and more wonderful fasting might have been expected from our Saviour considering both who he was and of how much a better and more glorious Ministery he was to be employed by the Lord his God yet he resolved not to exceed the former number nor to make use of that assistance which he might easily have had of those blessed Angels who as St. Mark saith ministred unto him And this he did upon two reasons First to demonstrate to the world Evangelium non dissentire a lege Prophetis as St. Austin hath it what an excellent harmonie there was between the Law and the Prophets whereof Moses and Elias were of most eminent consideration and that his own most glorious and holy Gospel of which he was to be the Preacher and secondly lest peradventure by a longer and more unusual kinde of fast then any of the former ages had given witness to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we read in Chrysostom the truth of his humanity his taking of our flesh upon him might be called in question Of any mystery which should be in the number of forty more then in another I am not Pythagorean enough to conceive a thought no not so much as in my dreams as never having been affected with that kinde of Theologie or the like curious and impertinent nothings Nor am I apt to think as many of the Papists do that men are bound by any Precept of our Saviour or of his Apostles to observe the like fast of forty days which we call commonly by the name of Lent Iejunium-Quadragesimale in the Latine Writers or that his glorious and divine example was purposely proposed unto us for our imitation as some others think The silence of the Evangelical Scriptures which say nothing in it and the unability of our weak nature to imitate an action of so vast a difficulty are arguments sufficient to perswade the contrary such as have finally prevailed on Iansenius and other modest Romanists to wave the plea of imitation and to ascribe the keeping of the Lent fast to such other reasons as shall be presently produced in maintenance of that antient and religious observance And on the other side I will not advocate for Calvin as I see some do who being at enmity with all the antient rites and Ordinances of the Church of Christ doth not alone affirm that the keeping of it in imitation of our Saviour is mera stultitia in plain tearms a flat piece of foolerie but tels us also of the Fathers who observed this fast that they did ludere ineptiis ut simiae play like old Apes with their own Anticks chargeth them with I know not what ridiculous zeal or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he cals it and finally affirms the whole fast so kept to be impium detestabile Christi ludibrium a detestable and ungodly mockage of our Saviour Christ whether with less charity or wisdome I can hardly say For that I may crave leave to digress a little most sure it is that the Lent fast according as it was observed in the Primitive times was not alone of special use to the advancement of true godliness and increase of piety but also of such reverend Antiquity that it hath very good right and title to be reckoned amongst the Apostolical Traditions which have been recommended to the Church of God The Canons attributed to the Apostles which if not theirs as many learned men do conceive they are are questionless of very venerable Antiquity do
oblationem Deo facere et in omnibus gratos inveniri fabricatori Deo c. It becometh us saith he to make oblations unto God and to be thankefull in all things to our heavenly maker offering to him the first fruits of his own creatures with a right belief and faith without hypocrisie in hope assured and fervencie of brotherly affection which pure oblation the Church alone doth offer to the maker of all things out of his own creatures with praise and thanks-giving And last of all it is called the Sacrament sometimes the Sacrament of the Lords Supper sometimes the Sacrament of the Altar by reaso that the bread and wine thus dedicated to the service of Almighty God and righly consecrated by his Ministers are made unto the faithful receiver the very body and bloud of Christ our Saviour and do exhibit to us all the benefits of his death and passion Of which it is thus said by the old Father Irenaeus that the bread made of the fruits of the earth and sanctifyed according to Christs ordinance jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistia ex duabus rebus constans terrena Coelesti c. is now no longer common bread but the blessed Eucharist consisting of two parts the one earthly and the other heavenly that is to say the outward elemental signe and the inward and spiritual grace In which respect it was affirmed of this bread by Cyprian if at the least the work be his which is somewhat doubted non effigie sed natura mutatum that though it kept the same shape which it had before yet was the nature of it changed not that it ceased to be what before it was as the Patrons of the Romish Masse do pervert his meaning but by being what before it was not just as an iron made red hot retaineth the proportion and dimensions which before it had and is still iron as at the first though somewhat of the nature of fire which is to warme and burn be now added to it And this was antiently the doctrine of the Church of Christ touching the sacrifice of the Lords supper or the blessed Eucharist before that monstrous Paradox of Transubstantiation was hammered in the brains of capricious Schoolmen or any such thing as a Propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead affabulated to the same by the Popes of Rome Now such a sacrifice as this with all the several kinds and adjuncts of it we finde asserted and maintained by the Church of England though it condemn the sacrifices of the Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt as dangerous deceits and blasphemous fables and censureth Transubstantiation as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture destructive of the true nature of a Sacrament and to have given occasion to much superstition For if a true and proper sacrifice be defined to be the offering of a creature to Almighty God to be consecrated by a lawfull Minister to be spent and consumed to his service as Bellarmine and the most learned men of both sides do affirme it is then is the offering of the bread and wine in the Church of England a true proper sacrifice for it is usually provided by the Church-wardens at the charge of the people and being by them presented in the name of the people and placed on the Altar or holy table before the Lord is now no longer theirs but his and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine and being consecrated by the Priest is consumed and eaten by such as come prepared to partake thereof The whole prayer used at the consecration doth it not plainly manifest that it is commemorative and celebrated in memorial of that full perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world which our Saviour made upon the Crosse for our Redemption And when the Priest or Minister doth call upon us in the Exhortation above all things to give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father the Son and the holy Ghost for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ and that we do accordingly entirely desire his fatherly goodness mercifully to accept that our sacrifice of praise and thanks-giving and therewith offer and present unto him our selves souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and lively sacrifice unto him do we not thereby signifie as plainly as may be that it is an Eucharistical and spiritual sacrifice Finally that it is a Sacrament I think none denies and that thereby we are partakers of the body and bloud of CHRIST I think all will grant the people giving thanks to Almighty God for that he hath vouchsafed to feed them with the spiritual food of the most precious body and bloud of his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and calling upon him to grant that by the merits and death of his Son Christ Jesus and through faith in his bloud both they and all his whole Church may obtain remission of their sins and all other benefits of his passion Nor doth the Church of England differ from the Antients as concerning the change made in the bread and wine on the consecration which being blessed and received according to Christs holy institution become the very body and bloud of Christ by that name are delivered with the usual prayer into the hands of the people and are verily and indeed saith the publick authorized Catechisme taken and received of the faithfull in the Lords Supper The bread and wine though still the same in substance which before they were are changed in nature being made what before they were not according to the uncorrupted doctrine of the purest times and the opinion of the soundest and most learned Protestants I add no more but that if question should be asked with which of all the legal sacrifices this of the Church of Christ doth hold best proportion I answer that it it best agreeth with those Eucharisticall sacrifices of the Law which were called peace-offerings made unto God upon their reconciliation and atonement with him In which as the creature offered a sacrifice to the Lord their God might be indifferently either male or female to shew that both sexes might participate of it so being offered to the Lord the one part of it did belong to the Priest towards his maintenance and support as the skin the belly the right shoulder and the brest c. the rest was eaten in the way of a solemn feast by those who brought it for an offering before the Lord. And in the feast as Mollerus very probably conjectureth the man that brought this offering did use to take a cup of wine and give thanks over it to the Lord for all his benefits which was the Calix salutis whereof the Psalmist speaketh saying I will take the
to attone the difference The generall resolution is for this is neither time nor place to discusse it fully that the whole day amongst the Iews from sun to sun which the Astronomers call the artificial day was commonly divided into four quaternions of houres of which the first three had the name of the third houre the second three of the sixt hour the third three of the ninth hour and the last three of the evening or sun set Then that the sixt hour beginning where the third did end the same thing may be said to be done in the end of the third houre which was done in the beginning of the sixt inchoative in the sixt hour but completive in the third And so our Saviour may be said to be crucifyed in the third hour as St. Marke relateth that is to say in the end of the third houre complete and about the sixt hour as St. Iohn delivereth it that is to say about the sixt hour coming on Others conceive that Marke relates unto the time when Pilate did passe sentence on him and deliver him over to be crucifyed which was in the third hour of the day and that Iohn speaks as to the execution of the sentence which was done in the sixt And if this could agree with the other cicumstances it were undoubtedly the best and of most probability especially considering what good ground it hath from Ignatius who lived in the times of the Apostles By whom the whole story of the Passion is thus distributed In the third hour Christ was condemned by Pontius Pilate crucifyed in the sixt died in the ninâ—h and was buried before sunset And unto either of these two I should sooner yeild then hearken to the new devise of Daniel Heinsius who will have the third hour mentioned in St. Marks Gospell to be the third hour of our Saviours crucifying with which the circumstances of the text can no way agree and yet far sooner unto him then to an eminent Divine of great place and name affirming openly in a Sermon before the King on the credit of some old Greek copies that the text in Iohn had been corrupted Lesse difficulty far there is about the place of the Passion in which all Euangelists do agree in meaning though they use divers words St. Matthew Marke and Iohn do call it Golgatha according to the Hebrew name but St. Luke cals it Calvarie 23.33 according to that Hebrew name translated and made intelligible to the ears of the Romans In every one it signifieth the place of a skul and is so translated in our Bibles Matth. 27.33 Mark 15.22 Ioh 19.17 A name bestowed upon it as the Fathers say in regard that Adam was there buryed and his skul found there by the people many Ages after And though I dare not swear this for a Canonical truth yet certainly it hath as good grounds to stand upon as an old Tradition can confer For sure I am that such a Tradition there was in the time of Origen one of the most antient Christian writers whose works are extant Venit ad me talis traditio quod corpus Adae primi hominis sepultum est ibi ubi crucifixus est Christus There is a Tradition saith he that the body of the first man Adam was there buried where Christ was crucified Tertullian doth affirm the same amongst his verses So doth St. Basil also on Levit. 5. Epiphanius contra haereses n. 46. Chrysostom in his 84. Homilie on Iohn St. Augustine in the 71. Sermon inscribed de Tempore St. Ambrose Epistola 3. lib. 5. Hierom on Matth. 27. Theophylact in his Comments on the four Evangelists Nor do they only thus unanimously report the said Tradition but they give their reason for it too viz. that because all men dyed in Adam so by Christ all might be also made alive that so where sin took its beginning it should finde destruction and finally that ut super Adae tumulum sanguis Christi stillaret which was Hieroms conceit that so the bloud of Christ might fall upon Adams tomb And I remember I have seen a picture in an old peece of hanging in the stals at Westminster for we have our Testes fenestras too especially in such a case as this as well as Campian in a greater in which we finde the souldier piercing Christs side with his lance water and bloud issuing from the side â—o pierced and Adam starting out of his grave with a cup in his hand to receive the bloud Which fancy as it was conform to the old Tradition so did it hand somely express a good peece of Divinity the meaning of it being this that as Adam being the root of all mankinde had forfeited for himself and his posterity all those most excellent endowments of grace and nature which God had given him at the first so now he did lay hold upon Salvation for himself and his that all who were and were to be descended of him should have their part in the redemption of the World by the bloud of Christ. And this I call a piece of good Divinity howsoever expressed by reason that the universality of Redemption by our Saviours death was not alone the Doctrine of the Primitive times but is the genuine and confirmed doctrine of this Church of England which teacheth us to pray unto God the Son as the Redeemer of the world and every one of us to believe in the same God the Son who hath redeemed me and all mankinde and finally to pray to God to have mercy upon all men even upon all Iews Turks Infidels and Hereticks that they may all be saved amongst the remnant of true Israelites and be made one fold under the same one Shepheard IESVS CHRIST our Lord. No truth more rightly stated more piously applyed nor more fully explicated It is now time we lay our Saviour in his Grave being the last degree of his humiliation taking along with us such preparatives as lead unto the same in the holy Gospel in which the first passage which we meet with is how some devout people repaired to Pilate and begged the body of their Lord that they might entomb it others in reference to the great festival ensuing had desired of him that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away to the end that their bodies might not remain upon the Cross on the Sabbath-day Which suit being granted and that the souldiers coming to Christ found him dead already they omitted the breaking of his legs for so had God disposed who before had signified that a bone of him should not be broken but yet to make sure work it seemed good to one of them to pierce his side with a spear and forthwith saith the Text came out bloud and water Ioh. 19.34 On this St. Augustine makes this gloss that by the bloud and water issuing from the side of CHRIST we are to understand the two
of sin as a general circumstance which may accompany any sin And many of those who have renounced the Faith of Christ under persecution or called his divinity in question did afterwards recant their Errors and became good Christians Final Apostasie indeed and a malicious resisting of the known Truth till the very last are most grievous sins and shall no question be rewarded with eternal punishment as every other sin shall be which is not expiated with Repentance but can with no more right or reason be called the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost than unrepented Murder unrepented Adultery unrepented Heresie or any other of that nature Therefore to set this business right it is judiciously observed by my Learned Friend Sir R. F. in his Tractate Of the Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost First That this sin so much disputed and debated in neither of the three Evangelists which record this passage is called The sin against the Holy Ghost but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Secondly That blaspheming according to the true Etymon of the Word is a blasting of the fame of another man a malicious detracting from him or speaking against him as both St. Matthew and St. Luke do expound the word Matth. 12.32 and Luke 12.10 Thirdly That these words were spoken by our Saviour Christ against the Scribes and Pharisees who traduced his Miracles affirming That that wondrous work of casting out Devils which he had wrought by the power of the Spirit of God as he himself affirmeth Matth. 12.28 was done by the power and help of Beelzebub the Prince of Devils Vers. 24. And Fourthly That the Scribes and Pharisees being the eye-witnesses of such miracles as might make them know that Christ was a Teacher come from God did notwithstanding lay that reproach upon them to the end That the people being beaten off from giving credit to his miracles should give no faith unto his Doctrine Upon which grounds he builds this definition of it viz. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was an evil-speaking or slandering of the miracles of our Saviour Christ by those who though they were convinced by the miracles to believe that such works could not be done but by the power of God did yet maliciously say That they were wrought by the power of the Devil And hereupon he doth infer these two following Corollaries First That we have no safe rule to conclude that any but the Scribes and Pharisees and their confederates committed in those times this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost so condemned by Christ And Secondly That it is a matter of probability that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not a sin committable by any Christian who lived not in the time of our Lord and Saviour And to say truth If such a sin were practicable by us Christians since it must needs be a very great marvel if not somewhat more that the Apostles who were very precise and punctual in dehorting from all manner of sin should never in any of their Epistles take notice of this or give us any Caveat to beware thereof and in particular that St. Paul making a specification of the fruits of the Spirit and such a general muster of the works of the flesh as are repugnant thereunto should not so much as give a glance which doth look this way To countenance the opinion of this Learned Gentleman I shall adde here the judgement of two learned Iesuites Maldonates first Who makes this sin to be the sin of the Scribes and Pharisees who seeing our Saviour cast out Devils Manifesta Spiritus Sancti opera daemoni tribuebant ascribed the visible works of the Holy Ghost to the power of the Devil Of Estius next who distinguishing betwixt the sin against the Holy Ghost and the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost referreth to the first all sins of determined malice to the second onely such malicious and slanderous reproaches against the mighty works of God Quale erat illud Scribarum divina miracula malitiosè calumniantium As was that of the Scribes maliciously slandering our Saviours miracles And if it be a sin or blasphemy call it which you will not acted but by them and on that occasion it is not practicable now But leaving this to the determination of the Church of England lawfully and Canonically represented in an holy Synod to which that Learned Gentleman doth submit his judgement proceed we on in our discourse of the Holy Ghost concerning whose Divinity or Godhead there is not so much difference in the Christian World as in the manner of his Procession or Emission And here indeed the World hath been long divided the Greek Church keeping themselves to express words of Scripture making him to proceed from the Father onely the Latines on the Authority of some later Councils and Logical inferences from the Scripture making him to proceed both from Father and the Son And though these last may seem to have the worst end of the Cause in as much as Logical inferences to men of ordinary capacities are not so evident as plain Text of Scripture yet do they Anathematize and curse the other as most desperate Hereticks if not Apostates from the Faith Nor will they admit of any medium towards reconcilement although the controversie by moderate and sober men is brought to a very narrow issue and seemeth to consist rather in their Forms of Speech than any material Terms of Difference For Damascen the great Schoolman of the Eastern Church though he deny that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Son yet he granteth him to be Spiritum filii per filium to proceed from the Father by the Son and to be the Spirit of the Son And Bessarion and Gennadius two of the Grecian Divines who appeared in the name of that Church in the Council of Florence and were like to understand the meaning of Damascen better than any of the Latines affirmed as Bellarmine tells us of them That he denied not the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as to the truth of his proceeding Sed existimasse tutius dici per filium quam ex filio quoad modum loquendi but thought onely that it was the safer expression to say That he proceeded by the Son than from the Son And Clictoveus in his Comment on that Book of Damascen l. 1. c. 12. is of opinion That the difference between the East and Western-Churches as to this particular is In voce potius modo explicandi quam in ipsa re More in the terms and manner of expression than the thing it self The Master of the Sentences doth affirm as much saying That the Greeks do differ from the Latines Verbo non sensu not in the meaning of the Point but the forms of Speech And more than so The Greeks saith he confess the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of the Son with the Apostle Gal. 4. And the Spirit of Truth with the Evangelist Joh.
they were moved by the Holy Ghost It is not subject to the humor of a private spirit but to be weighed and pondered by that publick Spirit which God hath given unto his Church which he hath promised to conduct in the ways of truth and to be with her always to the end of the world Not that we do exclude any private man from handling of the holy Scripture if he come sanctified and prepared for so great a work if he be lawfully ordained or called unto it and use such helps as are expedient and necessary to inform his judgment nor that we give the Church such a supream power as to change the sense and meaning of the holy Scriptures according as her self may vary from one opinion to another in the course of times This is indeed the monstrous Paradox of Cusanus who telleth us That the Scripture is fitted to the time and variously to be understood so that at one time it is expounded according to the present fancy of the Church and when that fancy is changed that then the sense of Scripture may be also changed and that when the Church doth change her judgment God doth change his also And this I call a monstrous Paradox as indeed it is in that it doth not onely assubject the truth of Scripture but even the God of truth himself to the Churches pleasure How much more piously hath the Church of England determined in it who though it do assert its own power in Expounding Scripture yet doth it with this wise and Religious Caution That the Church may not so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Within which bounds if she contain herself and restrain her power no doubt but she may use it to the honor of God the setling of a Publick Peace in all matters controverted and the content and satisfaction of all sober Christians The last part of the Churches power consists in the decreeing of Rites and Ceremonies for the more orderly officiating of Gods Publick service and the procuring of a greater measure of reverence to his holy Sacraments Of this she hath declared more fully in another place First In relation to it self to the Churches power viz. Every particular or National Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by mans authority so that all things be done to edifying Next in relation to the people and their conformity That whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and approved by common authority ought to be openly reproved that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church and woundeth the Consciences of the weaker Brethren Which Propositions are so evidently and demonstratively true according to the constant practise of approved Antiquity that he must wilfully oppose the whole Catholick Church and all the famous National Churches in the Primitive times who doth not chearfully and readily assent unto them For who can shew me any Council in the former Ages wherein some Orders were not made for regulating both the Priest and People in the worship of God wherein the Church did not require obedience to her Constitutions and on defect thereof proceeded not to some publick censure of the party He must be utterly ignorant of all Antiquity and the affairs of holy Church that makes doubt of this Nay of so high esteem were the Churches Ordinances in matters of exterior order in the service of God that they were deemed as binding as the word it self And so St. Augustine hath resolved it Iâ— iis rebus de quibus nihil statuit Scriptura mos populi Dei instituta majorum pro lege Dei tenenda sunt as he in his Epistle to Casulanus The customs of the Church and the institutes of our fore-fathers in things of which the Scriptures have determined nothing are to be reckoned and esteemed of as the Word of God Our Saviour by his own observing of the feast of Dedication being of Ecclesiastical institution and no more than so shewed plainly what esteem he had of the Churches Ordinances and how they were to be esteemed of by the sons of men And when St. Paul left this rule behinde him That all things be done decently and in order think we he did not give the Church authority to proceed accordingly and out of this one general Canon to make many particulars Certain I am that Calvin hath resolved it so and he no extraordinary friend to the Churches power Non potest haberi quod Paulus hic exigit nisi additis constitutionibus tanquam vinculis quibusdam ordo ipse decorum servetur That which St. Paul requires saith he is not to be done without prescribing Rules and Canons by which as by some certain Bonds both order and decorum may be kept together Paraeus yet more plainly and unto the purpose Facit Ecclesiae potestatem de ordine decoro Ecclesiastico liberè disponendi leges ferendi By this saith he doth the Apostle give authority to the Church of Corinth and in that to other Churches also of making Laws for the establishing of decency and order in the Church of Christ. And Musculus though he follow the citing of this Text by Eckius in justification of those unwarrantable Rites and Ceremonies Quibus Religionis nostrae puritas polluta esset with which the purity of Religion had been so defiled yet he allows it as a rule for the Church to go by Vt quae lâ—gitimè necessario gerenda sunt in Ecclesia That all those things which lawfully and necessarily may be done in the Church should be performed with decency and convenient order So that we see the Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies in things that appertain to order decency and uniformity in Gods publick service and which is more a power of making Laws and Canons to inforce conformity to the same and that too which is most of all in the opinion of those men which were no great admirers of the Churches customs and looked not so much on the Primitive as the present times Nor is this onely the opinion of particular men but the declared judgment of the eldest Churches of the Reformation The Augustane Confession published in the name of all the Protestants and onely countenanced and allowed of by Imperial Edict not onely doth ordain those antient usages to be still retained in their Churches which conduce to decency and order in the service of God and may be kept in force without manifest sin But it resolves Peccare eos qui eum scandalo illos violant c. That they are guilty of sin who infringe the same and thereby rashly violate the peace of the Church And amongst those
the Protestant Doctors Yet true it is for magna veritas praevalebit that some and those of no small name in such Protestant Churches as would be thought a pattern unto all the rest have given too just a ground for so great a scandal And well it were they had observed that Caution in their Publick Writings which Caesar looked for in his Wife and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they had been as free from the suspition of it as the crime it self For howsoever they affirm it not in termes expresse which was the desperate boldness of that Florinus yet they come very near it to a tantamont by way of necessary consequence and deduction which was the Artifice of Bardesanes and Priscillian For if God before all eternity as they plainly say did purpose and decree the fall of our Father Adam Vt sua defectione periret Adam in the words of Calvin there was in Adam a necessity of committing sin because the Lord had so decreed it If without consideration of the sin of man he hath by his determinate sentence ordained so many millions of men to everlasting damnation and that too necessariò inevitabiliter as they please to phrase it he must needs pre-ordain them to sin also there being as themselves confess no way unto the end but by the means And then what can the wicked and impenitent do but ascribe all their sins to God by whose enevitable Will they were lost in Adam by whom they were particularly and personally necessitated unto death and so by consequence to sin For thus Lyconides in Plautus pleaded for himself when he deflowred old Euclios daughter Deus mihi impulsor fuit is me ad illam illexit It was Gods doing none of his that he was so vicious I hope I need not press this further or shew the true or real difference between the laying the burthen of our sins upon Christ our Savior as the Iews theirs upon the Scape-Goat by Gods own appointment and laying the whole blame and guilt of them on our own affections He is but ill trained up in the School of Piety who will not take upon himself the blame of his own transgressions and fly to God onely on the hopes of pardon And yet I shall make bold to add and indeed the rather that they who first did broach this Doctrine of the necessity and decree of Adams fall and consequently making God the prime Author of sin confess they have no warrant for it in the Holy Scripture For whereas some objected upon Gods behalf disertis verbis non extare that the decree of Adams fall had no foundation in the express words of Holy Writ Calvin returns no other Answer than a Quasi vero as if saith he God made and created man the most exact peece of his Heavenly Workmanship without determining of his end Nay himself calls it for a farewel horrible decretum a cruel and horrible Decree as indeed it is A cruel and horrible Decree to pre-ordain so many millions to destruction and consequently unto sin that he might destroy them If then the introduction of the body of sin came by no other means but by man alone and that the charging of it upon Gods Decrees have no foundation in the Scriptures If it run cross unto the constant current of Antiquity and that the like Errâ—neous and Blasphemous Tenets were reckoned of as Heresies by the Antient Fathers If it be founded onely on the ipse dixit or the why nots and Quasi veros of a private man and by him reckoned for an horrible and cruel Decree Nay more if it be contrary to the Word of God and increase of Piety and tend apparently to the dishonor of God and bolstring wicked men in their sinful courses then certainly we may conclude that God could have no hand in this woful Tragedie that man alone is Author of his own calamity and can accuse himself onely and his own affections for giving way to those temptations which brought sin upon him and not upon himself alone but his whole Posterity For if we look into the Scripture we find that sin did not content it self with the person of Adam as if it had been a sufficient victory to have brought him under unless in him his whole Race and Off-spring which were then radically and potentially in the loyns of Adam had been infected also with the same contagion For Adam is not here considered as a private person who was to stand or fall to himself alone without occasioning either good or evill unto any more than in way of imitation of his great Example But as the stock of all mankinde who were to have a share in his weal or woe For being the original and root as before was said of all mankind descended from him whom he did represent at his first Creation he did receive that stock of righteousness which God gave unto him not for himself onely and his own particular benefit had he used it well but as the common Patrimony and Inheritance of himself and his And having so improvidently lost both himself and it by yeelding to the motions of that flesh which he was to govern he lost it not onely for himself when he came under the attainture which the Law brought on him but he did wholly forfeit it for himself and them his Race or Off-spring which were then radically in his Loins being involved with him in the same perdition For as the Scripture saith of Levi that he paid Tithes in Abraham unto Melchisedech because he was in the Loyns of Abraham when Melchisedech met him so may we also say in the present case that all men sinned and lost themselves in our Father Adam because they were all of them in the Loyns of Adam when he lost himself The Scripture saith not onely that sin came to man or fell on him onely as if the power thereof had terminated in that one mans person on whom it first did come or fall but that it came by man as a Pipe or Conduit by which it passed also unto others By one man sin entred into the world saith the Apostle to the Romans By man came death saith the Apostle to the Corinthians that is to say By that one man our Father Adam both sin and death found opportunity to enter on his whole posterity Et per Adamum ex quo omnes mortales originem ducunt dicitur peccatum introiisse as it is in Origen This sin thus miserably derived from our father Adam we call Original sin or the Birth-sin as in the Ninth Article of the Church of England A sin because it is a taint or stain in the soul of man by which we are adjudged impure in the sight of God The Birth-sin or Original sin as being naturally and originally inherent in the very birth and therein different from the sins of our own committing which for distinction sake are
of Nature Speusippus that God was that natural and animal power by which all things are governed Democritus though the first inventor of that absurd opinion that the World was made of several Atoms joyned by chance together yet for the most part he puts Nature in the place of GOD as also did Straton and the Epicureans And Aristotle though inconstant and of many mindes yet other whiles he makes him be that Soul or understanding which presides over the World Heraclides Ponticus will have him also to be a Divine soul or understanding and thereunto inclined Theophrastus Cleanthes Zeno and Chrysippus save that they sometimes call him by the name of Fate Xenophon the Disciple of Socrates was of opinion that the form of the true GOD could not be seen by any man and therefore was not to be sought or inquired into Aristo Chius that he was not to be comprehended both of them guessing at the Majesty of Almighty God by a despair of understanding what indeed he was And Plato finally not only doth affirm of God that he is the Parent of the World the Maker of all Celestial and Terrestrial creatures but by reason of his eminent and incredible power it was a difficult thing to finde what he was and having found it an impossible matter to express it rightly And of all these Minutius noteth that they are Eadem fere quae nostra the same almost with that which was affirmed of GOD in the schools of CHRIST Insomuch saith he that one might very justly think that the modern Christians were Philosophers or that the old Philosophers had indeed been Christians Lactantius also doth affirm that they did vail the same truth under divers notions and that whether they called him Nature Reason Vnderstanding Fatal necessity the Divine Law or in what phrase soever they did use to speak him idem est quod anobis Deus dicitur it was the same with that which we the followers of CHRIST call GOD. His nature being thus declared as far as could be seen by the Eye of Reason proceed we next unto those Epithets or Adjuncts whereby that nature is set forth in the best of their Writers Philolaus a scholar of Pythagoras hath told us of him that he is singularis immobilis sui similis that there is but one God the chief Lord of all and that he is immovable always like himself the Divine Plato that God is good and the Idea of all goodness the Author of whatsoever is good or beautiful and the fountain of truth that he is also living and everlasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have somewhere found him cited Aristotle sometimes also doth come home to this in whom the attributes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immortal and eternal do eft-soones occur By Orpheus it is said that he is invisible that he hath his dwelling in the heavens that he sits there in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Golden Throne and from thence doth dart his thunders upon wicked men Phocylides hath given us as much of him as one verse can hold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is one God saith he most wise most powerful and most happy One of the Sibyls heaps upon him the most glorious attributes of being of great Majesty begotten by none invisible yet beholding all things and Apollo one of the Heathen Gods comes not short of her saying of God that he was begotten of himself and taught of none immoveable and of a name not to be expressed These two last passages we before cited out of Lactantius but then it was to prove that there was a GOD. And to these adde that verse of the same Apollo which is elsewhere cited by Lactantius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which he calleth him the immortal and eternal GOD the unspeakable Father Lay all which hath been said together and we may gather out of all this description of him for to define him rightly is a thing impossible that GOD is an immortal and eternal Spirit existing of himself without any beginning invisible incomprehensible omnipotent without change or passion by whose Almighty power all things were created and by whose divine goodness they are still preserved What more then this is said by the Church of England the purest and most Orthodox of the daughters of Sion which in her book of Articles thus declares her self that is to say There is but one living and true God everlasting without body parts or passions of infinite power wisdom and goodness the Maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible What more hath been delivered by the Antient Fathers who had the light of Scripture to direct them in it then that which hath been said by these learned Gentiles upon no other ground then the light of Reason Which manifestly proveth that both the Beeing and the Nature of God were points so naturally graffed in the souls of men that neither the ignorance of letters nor the pride of wealth nor the continual fruition of sensual pleasures have hitherto been able to efface the Characters and impressions of it as before I said And if a GOD and but one only he must be such as is described or no GOD at all But of the Attributes and Acts of Almighty God we shall speak more at large in the two next chapters In the mean time by this Theologie of the learned and more sober Gentiles we may see sufficiently that many of those who are counted Christians do fall most infinitely short of them in the things of GOD. Of this kinde were the Anthropomorphitae a sort of Hereticks proceeding from one Andaeus by birth a Syrian but living for the most part in Egypt who miserably mistaking many Texts of holy Scripture conceived and taught Deum humana esse forma eundemq corporalia membra habere that God was made of humane shape and had the same members as men have Which though it was so gross a folly as would have been hissed out of all the schools of Philosophie yet found it such a plausible welcome with the Monkes of Egypt that Theophilus the learned Patriarch of Alexandria was in danger to be torn in pieces because he had opposed them in their peevish courses And of this sort also were the Manichees who for fear they should make God the Author of any thing which was not pleasing to them as darkness winter and whatsoever else did seem evil to them would needs obtrude upon the world two contrary principles or two Supreme Powers from one of which all that was good from the other all that was evil or so seemed to them did proceed originally The first Author of this Heresie amongst the Christians was one Manes who lived about the times of Aurelianus Anno 213. by birth a Persian to whom this errour was first propagated out of the Schools of Zoroaster that great Eastern Rabbin who seeing but with half an eye into sacred matter had fancied to
plundered of their books during the Babylonian Captivity and thereby disabled from finding out the true course of the Moon otherwise then by such conjectures as the Eye and their observations did afford them and consequently failing oftentimes in celebrating of the Passeover at the time appointed by the Law ordained that that festival should be kept two whole days together that if they chanced to erre in the one they might hit right in the other And these two dayes they reckoned but for one alone as do the Romans at this time in the observation of the Bissextile or Leap-year as we use to call it who according to the Calculation of Iulius Caesar reckon the two days of the Bissextile but for one alone and so 't is also in the estimate of the Laws of England to this very day Insomuch that February for that year by the decree of the said Iulius Caesar is to have no more then 28 days as in other years because the day added unto that moneth or the dies intercalaris as the learned call it is to be reckoned for the same day with the day before both of them being called the sixt of the Calender of March in which respect the name of Dies Bissextilis was first given unto it And on this ground it was resolved by Celsus that famous Lawyer that if a man was born on the sixt of the Calends of March which is our 24. of February it mattered not whether he were born on the first or second day of the two that year because both days were counted in the Law for one So saith he in like manner did the Iews reckon those two days in which they solemnized the Passeover but for one day only both of them passing in their computation for the fifteenth day of the month in which that feast was to be celebrated by the law of Moses This he confirms not only by the practise of the modern Iews who for the most part hold themselves to this observation fathering it on Ezra the Scribe as ordained by him but also by the testimony of Rabbi Rava one of the most famous Doctors of that Nation for the times he lived in advising them Ne deserant consuetudinem a Patribus observatam not to forsake the old Tradition left them by their Ancestors of keeping the great festivals two whole days together according as Ezra had commanded And this they also did saith he if the Passeover fell upon the Sabbath in which case at the instance and perswasion of Gamaliel a man both learned in the laws and skilful in Astrological supputations they did not only double or re-iterate the feast of the Passeover but that of the weekly Sabbath also Which gave saith he occasion to that phrase of speech used by S. Mark where he cals the first day of the week una Sabbatorum that is to say the first day after both the Sabbaths He addes as in the way of super-aboundance that it was affirmed in the writing of Theophilus Caesariensis a man exceedingly well skilled in the Paschal Cycles that our Redeemer suffered on the eleventh of the Calends of April which is to us the 22. day of March and rose again March 25. being the 8. day of the Calends of April which make up three days and three nights in all but that his words were altered by Beda in his Translation of that piece to make it more conformable to the Tradition of the Church of Rome This is the sum of his discourse with which I must confess my self to be much delighted And were I aswell satisfied in the Allegation of Theophilus Caesariensis and the alteration made by Beda as I am in the residue of the proofs by him produced I might perhaps prefer this way before any other But being this depends on no other grounds then the bare ipse dixit or conjecture of my Author only I know not how to part with the Synecdoche commended to us by St. Augustine Hierome and others of the Antient Fathers and still retained and countenanced by so many men of eminence in all kindes of learning The Reader hath here choyce enough and may use his pleasure As for the difference which seems to be between the Evangelists touching the time of the day in which this wondrous work was wrought we will first lay down their several words and then see what is to be said for the reconcilement St. Matthew saith it was in the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week that Mary Magdalen and the other Marie came to see the sepulchre St. Mark that when the Sabbath was past they came very early in the morning the first day of the week at the rising of the Sun St. Luke that having bought their spices on the Eve of the Sabbath they came very early in the morning upon the first day of the week And finally St. Iohn that it was early on the first day of the week when it was yet dark In which we have not only an appearing difference between St. Iohn who telleth us that it was yet dark and those who that say it was in the morning as the Sun was rising but a seeming contradiction also in Matthew who maketh it to be on the end of the Sabbath which was Saturday Eve and yet upon the dawning of the first day of the week which is Sunday morning To reconcile St. Iohn to the other Evangelists St. Ambrose and Eusebius were of opinion that there were two Mary Magdalens of our Saviours acquaintance whereof one came unto the Sepulchre in the night and the other in the morning But then assuredly the Scriptures would have given us some mark of difference as in the case of Simon Peter and Simon the Canaanite Mary the Mother of IESVS and Mary the Mother of Iames and Ioses Iudas who wrote the Epistle extant in his name and Iudas Iscariot who betrayed him Others conceive that St. Markes text hath received some alteration in setting down the time of his Resurrection as before we saw it was supposed in the time of his passion and that in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the Sun-rising it should be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sun not being risen But such corrections as we said in the former case are not only unwarrantable but unsafe And if such Criticizing on the Text of Scripture might be used with safety the alteration were more easie if in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second Aorist St. Mark might be supposed to say in the present tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sun was rising when first his beams began to dispel that darkness which we finde mentioned in St. Iohn But leaving this correction also as matter dangerous the safest and most probable way to atone the difference is that the women did begin to set forwards towards the holy Sepulchre whilest it was yet
entituled actual The nature of which Birth-sin or Original sin is by the Church of England in her publick Articles defined to be the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the Of-spring of Adam whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and inclined to evill In which description we may find the whole nature of it as first that it is a corruption of our nature and of the nature of every man descended from the Loyns of Adam Secondly That it is a departure from and even a loss or forfieture of that stock of Original Iustice wherewith the Lord enriched our first Father Adam and our selves in him And thirdly That it is an inclination unto evil to the works of wickedness by means whereof as afterwards the Article explains it self the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and both together do incur the indignation of God So that if we speak of Original sin formally it is the privation of those excellent gifts of divine Grace inabling us to know love serve honor and trust in God and to do the things that God delights in which Adam once had but did shortly lose If materially it is that habitual inclination which is found in men most averse from God carrying them to the inordinate love and desire of finite things of the creature more than the Creator which is so properly a sin that it makes guilty of condemnation the person whosoever it be in whom it is found And this habitual inclination to the inordinate love of the creature is named Concupiscence which being two-fold as Alensis notes it out of Hugo that is to say Concupiscentia spiritus a concupiscience of the spirit or superior and concupiscentia carnis a concupiscence of the flesh or inferior faculties the first of these is onely sin but the latter is both sin and punishment For what can be more consonant to the Rules of Iustice than that the Will refusing to be ordered by God and desiring what he would not have it should finde the inferior faculties rebellious against it self and inclinable to desire those things in a violent way which the Will would have to be declined Now that all of us from the womb are tainted with this original corruption and depravation of nature is manifest unto us by the Scriptures and by some Arguments derived from the practise of the Catholick Church countenanced and confirmed by the antient Doctors In Scripture first we find how passionately David makes complaint that he was shapen in wickedness and conceived in sin Where we may note in the Greek and Vulgar Latine it is in sins and wickednesses in the plural number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek in peccatis in iniquitatibus as the Latine hath it And that to shew us as Becanus hath right well observed Quod unum illud peccatum quasi fons sit aliorum that this one sin is as it were the Spring and Fountain from whence all others are derived Next St. Paul tels us in plain words that by the offence of one of this one man Adam Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation and Judgement could not come upon all or any were it not in regard of sin Not that all men in whom Original sin is found without the addition of Actual and Personal guiltiness are actually made subject unto condemnation and can expect no mercy at the hands of God but that they are all guilty of it should God deal extreamly and take the forfeiture of the Bond which we all entred into in our Father Adam Thus finde we in the same Apostle that we are by nature the children of wrath polluted and unclean from the very womb our very nature being so inclinable to the works of wickedness that it disposeth us to evil from the first conception and makes us subject to the wrath and displeasure of God Last of all we are told by the same Apostle for we will clog this point with no further evidence That the wages of sin is death that sin entred into the world and death by sin and that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And thereupon we may conclude That wheresoever we behold a spectacle of death there was a receptacle of some sin Now we all know that death doth spare no more the Infant than the Elder man and that sometimes our children are deprived of life assoon almost as they enjoy it sometimes born dead and sometimes dead assoon as born Prima quae vitam dedit hora carpsit in the Poets language A wages no way due to Infants for their actual sins for actually as yet they have not offended and therefore there must needs be in them some original guilt some Birth-sin as the Article calls it which brings so quick a death upon them And this is further verified from the constant and continual practise of the Church of Christ which hath provided That the Sacrament of Baptism be conferred on Infants before they come unto the use of Speech or Reason yea and at some times and on some occasions as namely in cases of extremity and the danger of death to Christen them assoon as born For by so doing she did charitably and not unwarrantably conceive that they are received into the number of Gods children and in a state of good assurance which could not be so hopefully determined of them should they depart without the same And with this that of Origen doth agree exactly Si nihil esset in parvulis quod ad remissionem deberet indulgentiam pertinere gratia Baptismi superflua videretur Were there not something in an Infant which required forgiveness the Sacrament of Baptism were superfluously administred to him Upon which grounds the Church of England hath maintained the necessity of Baptism against the Sectaries of this age allowing it to be administred in private houses as oft as any danger or necessity doth require it of her A second thing we finde in the Churches practise and in the practise of particular persons of most note and evidence which serves exceeding fitly to confirm this point and that is That neither the Church in general doth celebrate the birth-day of the Saints departed but the day onely of their deaths nor any of the Saints themselves did solemnize the day of their own Nativity with Feasts and Triumphs First for the practise of the Church we may take this general rule once for all Non nativitatem sed mortem sanctorum ecclesia pretiosam judicat beatam That the Church reckoneth not the day of their birth but the death-day if I may so call it of the Saints to be blest and precious According unto that of the Royal Psalmist Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Upon which grounds the word Natalis hath been used in the Martyrologies and other publick