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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43554	Theologia veterum, or, The summe of Christian theologie, positive, polemical, and philological, contained in the Apostles creed, or reducible to it according to the tendries of the antients both Greeks and Latines : in three books / by Peter Heylyn.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1654 (1654)	Wing H1738; ESTC R2191	813,321	541

also of the creation and fall of man OF the name and nature of the Angels Why the creatioon of the Angels not expressed in Scripture Probable conjectures that the Angels were created before the beginning of the world and those conjectures backed by authority of the Antients both Greeks and Latines The several orders and degrees of the holy Angels The Angels ministring to Almighty God not only in inflicting punishments upon the wicked but in protection of the godly Many things said in Scripture to be done by God which were effected by the Ministry of the blessed Angels That every one of Gods people and they alone hath his Angel-guardian proved not only by the authority of the Antients but by the testimony of the Scripture Of the Daemons of the antient Gentiles That the worshipping of Angels mentioned in Coloss. 2. did arise from thence Angel worship not alone forbidden by Scriptures and Fathers but by the very Angels themselves The evil Angels first created in a state of integrity Of their confederacy and fall That the sin of ambition was the cause of the fall proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers and by several reasons Several differences between the sin and fall of man and the sin and fall of the evil Angels The reason why CHRIST took not on himself the Angelical nature The Devils diligence and design in seducing mankinde The Devil why and how called the Tempter Of the Mali Genii Of the Gentiles and that the Daemonium Socratis so often mentioned by the Antients was not of that nature Several Artifices of the Daemons in gaining Divine honours to themselves The Devil not without much difficulty dispossessed of the Soveraignty he had gotten in the souls of men The goodly structure of mans body and some contemplations thence arising That the soul of man is not ex traduce proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Image of God imprinted on mankinde in what it doth consist especially and of the several degrees and perfections of it The voluntary fall of man and how it came to be imputed to his whole posterity the remedy of God provided to restore lost man The fall of Adam not decreed and in what sense permitted by Almighty God CHAP. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law of Moses Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the salvation of the Gentiles and the justifying power of Faith THe general project of this Chapter No faith in Christ required of Adam till his fall nor after that explicitely affirmed of our Father Abraham The error and mistake of Eve touching the Messias Whether the Prophets fully understood their own predictions touching Christ to come In what Gods Prophets differed from the Heathen Soothsayers The Heathen Soothsayers why called extatici and arreptitii and furiosi No explicite faith in Christ required of the Patriarchs before the law nor of the people of the Iews who lived under the Law What faith it was which was imputed for righteousness to our Father Abraham The Sacrifices of the Iews not counted expiatory in reference unto Christ to come but by the Ordinance and Institution of Almighty God Why CHRIST is said in Scripture to be the end of the Law Or the advantages which the Iews had above other Nations The Gentiles not left destitute of means and helps to bring them to the knowledge and Worship of God No point of Reverence performed by Gods people antiently in the act of Worship which was not practised by the Gentiles The Sacrifices of the Gentiles what they aimed at chiefly before perverted by the Devil The Sacrificing of men and women among the Gentiles by whom first introduced and upon what grounds The eminence of some Gentiles in all moral vertues The union of mans soul with Almighty God proposed as the chiefend of li●e by the old Philosophers The salvation of the nobler souls amongst the Gentiles defended by some late Divines denyed by St. Augustine formerly and upon what grounds the grounds on which he built examined The vertues of the Gentiles not to be counted sins or vices for any circumstantial imperfections which are noted in them The special help wherewith God might supply amongst the Gentiles the want of Scripture The charitable opinion of Franciscus Iunius touching the Infants of the Gentiles The case of the Gentiles altered since our Saviours passion and so St. Peter Act. 2. and the 17. Article of the Church of England to be understood What it is that makes Faith instrumental unto Iustification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the act of faith imputed to a man for righteousness proved by the testimony of the Scriptures and the Antient Writers The Homilies of the Church explicated and applyed to the present point LIBER II. CHAP. I. Nothing revealed to the Gentiles touching Christ to come The Name of JESUS what it signifies and of bowing at it Of the name CHRIST and the Offices therein included The name of Christians how given unto his Disciples SAlvation of the world by Christ kept as a Mysterie from the Gentiles generally before the Preaching of the Gospel The Sib●lline Oracles what they say of Christ not to be counted pie fraudes and with what care preserved from the common view The tearm or ●●tion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the WORD frequently found in Plato and his followers The summe of our belief touching Christ our Saviour The name of IESVS whence derived and what it signifieth A parallel between IESVS the Son of God and Ioshua or Iesus the son of Nun. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Salvator by the Writers in the Christian Church till the alteration made by Beza and of the full meaning of those words The dignity of the name of Iesus That bowing at the Name of IESVS was antiently used in the Church of Christ and from the first beginning of the Reformation in the Church of England The name CHRIST whence derived and what it signifieth and of the several Offices it relates unto That the name of Christian was not given unto the followers of Christs Doctrine without some solemnities Chrestos and Chrectiani mistakingly used for Christus and Christiani by some Heathen Writers CHAP. II. That JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God Why called his only or his only begotten Son Proofs for the Godhead of our Saviour Of the title of LORD THe name of the Son or Sons of God ascribed in several respects to men and Angels and also to the Saints departed given in a more peculiar manner to Kings and Prophets then unto any other of the sons of men in all of these respects communicable unto CHRIST our Saviour but after a more excellent manner then to all the rest CHRIST not the Son of God only but his only Son properly to be called the natural and begotten Son of Almighty God in reference to his birth

the children of Infidels are saved partly by vertue of the Covenant and partly by Gods Election By vertue of the Covenant in regard they are descended of such Ancestors as were themselves within the Covenant though it be long since and that there be some interruption in the whole succession Gods mercy reaching as he tels us Exod. 20. unto a thousand generations By Election because God hath not barred himself from a power and right to communicate his Grace to those whose Ancestors were not of the Covenant For if he called those Adulti men of riper years to be partakers of the Covenant who were not within the same before why may he not in like manner if he please elect children also Finally as he doth believe that all who are elected or within the Covenant shall most undoubtedly be saved so he doth charitably conceive that those whom God takes out of this world in the state of infancy servari potius secundum electionem providentiam ipsius paternam quam a regno Coelorum abdicari are rather saved by Gods election and paternal providence then utterly excluded out of the Kingdom of Heaven If the same charity make me hope the like of those famous men among the Gentiles who were not wanting to the grace of God which was given unto them why should I fear worse fortune then was found by Iunius who never yet was censured for ought I have read for that so charitable resolution in the case of Infants no not by those of the Reformed who differ in opinion from him as to that particular And so far I conceive I may go with safety without opposing any text of holy Scripture or any publick tendry of the Church of England 'T is true St. Peter telleth us in the 4. of the Acts that there is no name under Heaven given among men whereby they be saved but that of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST v. 12. But this is spoken with relation to the times of the Gospel when CHRIST had broken down the partition wall and that the Gentiles were admitted to the knowledge of the word of life a general command being laid by CHRIST on his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all Nations After this time the case was altered and the Gentiles altogether left without excuse if they embraced not the ordinary meanes of their salvation which by the universall preaching of Christ crucifyed had been offered to them And so I understand that Article of the Church of England by which all they are to be accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect that he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature Act. 18. For certainly the Article relates not to the times before Christs coming or the condition of the Gentiles in those elder dayes but only to the present condition of the Church of Christ as it now stands and hath stood since his death and passion in opposition both to Iewes and Gentiles unto Turkes and Saracens with reference to the Familists and such modern Sectaries who made the external profession of the faith of Christ but a thing indifferent so they conformed themselves by the light of nature Of which opinion one Galcalus Martius also is affirmed to be by Paulus Iovius in his Elog. doct virorum So that for ought appeares from that place of the Acts and from this Article of the Church we may conceive the charitable hope of the salvation of some of the more noble Gentiles the great example of whose vertues is transmitted to us in Classical and approved Authors But this was only in some extraordinary and especial cases some Casus reservati as the Lawyers call them which God reserved to his own Power and dispensation and not of any ordinary and common right For generally the Heathen people as they knew not God having extinguished that light of nature which was given unto them so having their understanding darkned and that light put out their will forthwith became depraved the affections of their hearts corrupted and their lusts exorbitant And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge so did God give them over to a reprobate minde to do those things which are not convenient dishonouring their owne bodies amongst themselves and being filled with all unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse Nay even their greatest Clerks men of wit and learning professing themselves wise did become fooles in that they sought not after God the true fountain of wisdome and holding the truth which was revealed to them in unrighteousnesse as St. Paul saith of them were thereby made without excuse And as the light of nature was thus generally extinguished amongst the Gentiles so was the light of Prophecie as much neglected amongst the Iewes who though they were Gods chosen and peculiar people had so degenerated from the piety of their Predecessors that there was hardly either faith or charity to be found amongst them Insomuch as all the world was now of the same condition in which it was before the flood Of which God said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth the wickedness of man grown great and all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart continually and only evill Nothing could have prevented a second deluge but Gods gratious promise that there should never more be a flood to destroy the Earth nothing have respited the World from more grievous punishment had not Christ come into the World and by his suffering on the Crosse for the sinne of Man appeased Gods anger for the present and caused his Gospell to be preached unto every nation that so they might escape the wrath of the time to come Nothing required by him for so great a mercy but that we would believe in him that to the faith which every man was bound before to have in God the Father Almighty by whom we were created when we were just nothing there might be added a beliefe in IESVS CHRIST his only Sonne by whom we were redeemed being worse then nothing He knew the frailty of our nature that we were but dust that we were utterly unable to observe the Law which Adam either could not or would not keep in the state of innocency and therefore did not look so far as to the Covenant of works to require them of us but to the Covenant of faith as the easier duty God in the Covenant of works required of every man for his justification an absolute and entire obedience to the Law which he had prescribed and that obedience to the Law had it been performed had justifyed the performance of it in the sight of God But finding man unable to fulfill the Law he made a second Covenant with that sinfull Creature and required nothing of him for his justification but only faith in God and his gracious promises for the redemption of the world

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