religious Prince aswell to examine the Scriptures with all diligence as to shew the confession and resolution of Christs Church long before our times that all the world may see I maintaine none other grounds of Faith nor sense of Scripture than haue beene anciently constantly and continually professed and beleeued in the Church of Christ for these fifteene hundred yeeres till this our present Age and the same allowed and ratified by the publike lawes of this Realme which your Maiestie in your most Princely wisdome and courage professe to vpholde and continue God for his holy Names sake blesse your most sacred Maiestie and prosper all your vertuous and Christian cares that as in learning and wisdome in clemencie and pietie he hath made you the Mirrour of this Age so in peace and prosperitie in concord and vnitie in all happinesse and felicitie he may exalt you aboue all your neighbour Princes and hauing vnited the two Realmes of England and Scotland in one subiection vnder your Princely right and regiment he will knit the hearts and hands of both to honour and serue you loue and obey you and your royall issue after you to the worlds end Your Maiesties most humble subiect and seruant THO. WINTON THE CHIEFE RESOLVTIONS OF THIS Suruey THe cleerenes and fulnes of the Scriptures in the worke of our Redemption is exactly to be reuerenced so as no man ought to teach or beleeue any thing touching our redemption by Christ which is not expresly witnessed in the sacred Scriptures much lesse may we distrust the manifest words of the holy Ghost to be impertinent or vnsufficient in declaring the true price and meane of our redemption The maine ground of the Gospell which the Apostles preached the faithfull receiued wherein they continued and whereby they were saued was this That Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures and was buried and rose the third day according to the Scriptures Since then we are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne we must acknowledge none other death of Christ then that which he suffered in the bodie of his flesh after which he was buried and from which he rose the third day which death the Scriptures most apparently describe to be the death of Christs bodie If we were redeemed by the bloud of Christ and God proposed him to be a Reconciliation through faith in his bloud which was shed for the remission of sinnes we may not presume to appoint a new price of our redemption or new meane of our reconciliation since by the bloud of his crosse Christ hath pacified both the things in earth and things in heauen and the bloud of Iesus Christ cleanseth vs from all sinne The Scriptures doe no where teach nor mention the death of Christs Joule or the death of the damned which is the second death to be needfull for our redemption We must not therefore intrude our selues into Gods seat to ordâ—…ne a new course for mans redemption If the Spirit doe quicken and the iust liue by faith and he that abideth in loue abideth in God who is life it was vtterlie impossible but the soule of Christ in that abundance of Spirit euidence of Faith assurance of Hope and perfection of Loue which he alwayes retained should alwayes liue to God Life and death being opposed as priuatiues and so not to be found in one and the same subiect at one and the same time the soule of Christ alwayes liuing could neuer be dead Neither could a dead soule be pleasing to God who is whole life and therefore hateth death as contrarie to his nature when yet he was alwayes well pleased with Christ. Where some imagine extreame paine in Christs soule may be called the death of his soule that position is repugnant to the Scriptures for the greater the paine which the soule feeleth and endureth with innocencie confidence obedience and patience such as were all Christes sufferings the more the soule liueth and cleaueth to God for whose glorie it suffereth so much smart as appeareth in Martyrs whose soules do most liue in their greatest torments The late deuice of hell-paines in Christes passion is not only false but also superfluous for the true paines of hell neither are nor can be suffered in this life where by Gods ordinance extreame paine driueth the soule from the bodie much lesse can man or Angell endure them with obedience and patience as Christ did all his paines And what need was there of hell-paines in the crosse of Christ since God can by euery meanes or without meanes raise more paines in bodie or soule than any creature can endure Christs soule could not be strooken with any horrour of Gods displeasure against him since in his greatest anguish he professed God to be his God and his Father and by prayer preuailed for his persecutors as appeared after by their conuersion and gaue eternall life to the soule of the Thiefe hanging by him and beleeuing on him Now to giue life is more than to haue life and restore others to fauour he can not that himselfe is in displeasure Hell-fire which the damned and diuels do and shall suffer is a true and eternall fire prepared by the mightie hand of God to punish aswell spirits as bodies and this errour That the fire of hell was only an internall or spirituall fire in the soules and consciences of men was long since condemned in Origen by the Church of Christ. Reiection therefore desperation confusion horrour of damnation externall and eternall fire which are the torments of the damned and true paines of hell can not without blasphemie be ascribed to Christ. Christ therefore suffered neither the death of the soule nor the paines nor horrors os the damned or of hell Euery sinne is common to the whole man who is defiled euen with thoughts that be euill not only because the bodie is the Seat wherein and the instrument whereby the soule worketh but also for that the first infection of sinne commeth to the soule by the bodie and the first information and prouocation to sinne riseth from the senses and affections which are mooued with corporall spirits and all the parts and powers of the bodie attend the will with most readie subiection to haue each sinne which the soule conceiueth impressed on them and executed by them And therefore the suffering for sinne in the person of the Mediatour must be common both to bodie and soule in such sort that as in transgressing our soules are the principall Agents so in the suffering for sinne his soule was the principall Patient Christ would vse no power to assuage the force and violence of his paines though he wanted none as appeareth by his ouerthrowing them with a word that came to apprehend him but submitted himselfe to his Fathers will with greater obedience and patience than any man liuing could We may therefore safely beleeue That the iustice of God condemning sinne in Christes flesh proportioned the paines of his bodie in
in saying the Angels shall cast the badde into a furnace of fire where indeed by your deuice the furnace of fire shal be cast into the badde the next in that he sayth the Angels shall cast them into the fire which hath no trueth in it if the soules of the wicked inwardly suffer from the immediate hand of God alone as you teach For how do the Angels cast the wicked into the fire when the immediate hand of God inflicteth that which you call hell fire on the soule without any instruments or inferiour meanes These mockeries you must make of the Scriptures before they will serue your new conceit that hell fire is an allegorie and importeth nothing but a paine raised within the soule by the immediate hand of God alone which what agreement it hath with the doctrine and descriptions of the Holy ghost I leaue the Christian Reader to consider Fiftly the word Gehenna which Christ authorized in the new testament to signifie hell hath no iust representation of hell if there be no substantiall and externall fire in hel For where anciently the children of Iudah built the place of Topheth in the valley of the sonne of Hinnom to burne their sonnes daughters in the fire vnto Molech which valley the eighteenth of Iosue placeth neere to Iebusi that was afterward Ierusalem and calleth Gehinnom and the chiefe councel of Ierusalem whiles their power lasted vsed to punish certaine offences with fire in the same valley lying neere to their citie Our Lord and Master either taking the word that was vsuall among the people in his time to import hell and establishing it with his authoritie or resembling hell to the place of tormenting burning malefactors with fire so wel knowen to the Iewes nameth it Gihanna in Syriack which the Hebrues call Gehinnam the Euangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Gehenna In this application of the word that the one might fitly resemble the other three things were chiefly respected as Peter Martyr rightly obserueth vpon the second chapter of the second booke of Kings First that being a valley to wit a lowe bottome it resembled hell which is beleeued to be beneath the earth Secondly for the fire wherewith the wicked are tormented in hell euen as the children were in that valley burnt with fire Lastly the place was vncleane and detestable whither all vile and lothsome things were cast out of the citie of Ierusalem euen as defiled and wicked soules are cast out of the kingdome of heauen into hell And howsoeuer you may quarrell with the first and last respects because you thinke them not Canonicall though I finde them grounded on the Scriptures if that were to this present purpose the second is without contradiction the maine reason why our Sauiour tooke the word Gehenna to represent hell and is expressed by himselfe when so often in the Gospell he addeth fire to the word Gehenna and expoundeth the one by the other that is Gehenna by vnquenchable fire Whosoeuer shall say foole to his brother shal be worthy of the Gehenne of fire that is of the vale of fire or of hell And againe It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye than hauing two eyes to be cast into the Gehenne of fire which is the vale or lake of fire and hell fire In the Gospel written by S. Marke Christ ioyneth the one as an explication to the other It is better to goe halting into life than hauing two feet to be cast into GEHENNA into the fire that neuer shal be quenched So that the resemblance of true fire in either place painfull to the sufferer and dreadfull to the beholder was the chiefe respect why our Sauiour allowed GEHENNA in the new Testament to signifie hell and consequently doth assure vs there is true fire in hell For if hell haue no fi e in it besides an inward and inherent paine of bodie or soule as we see in all violent and burning diseases Christ might more fitly haue resembled hell to any sharpe and sore sicknesâ—…e than to an externall and sensible fire which can haue no reference to hell if the torments there be only spirituall and internall These reasons lead me to râ—…solue and beleeue that the fire of hell so much threatned to â—…he wicked in the Scriptures and inflicted on the damned shall be a true visible and externall fire wherein lest thou shouldest thinke Christian Reader I rest too much on mine owne opinion as this Dâ—…scourser doth in all things on his I am content to let thee see that the Ancient and Catholike Fathers of Christes Church haue constantly professed as much before me and condemned the Discoursers conceit as an open errour repugnant to the Scriptures and hurtfull to the Christian faith I haue alreadie produced the testimonies of so many Fathers in the conclusion of my Sermons touching this point the writers being of the greatest learning and account in the Church of Christ as may satisfie the â—…ober and stumble the froward theiâ—… iudgement concurring with the manifest words of holy Scripture yet because this Discouâ—…ser lightly regardeth their concents vainely shifteth off their proofes let vs heare and examine his answere to their assertions The Fathers by me cited were Austen Ambrose Chrysostome Eusebius Tertullian Lactâ—…ntius Cyprian Minutius Pacianus and Gregorie besides the wordes of Sibylla which many of those Fatheâ—…s accept and alleage as proceeding from God to witnesse the trueth and terrour of his generall iudgement to all the world and agreeing with the tenour of holy Scripture His answere beginneth and endeth in this wise You set your sâ—…lfe to prooue that in hell there is materiall fire But it seemeth you are now almost afraid so to call it yet you call it true fire which also wee vtterly denie All your proofes such as they arâ—… runne to prooue corporall and materiall fire yet eternall except your Scriptures which vtterly prooue nothing at all And me thinkes you should not care for corporâ—…ll fire now in hell seeing you seeme to beleeue no torments for damned soules saue on ly at the resurrâ—…ction For thus you reason as the bodie hath beene the instrument of the soules pleasure in sinne so it shall be of her paine But all prouocations and pleasures of sinne the soule taketh from her bodie all actes of sinne she committeth by her bodie Therefore the iustice of God both temporally and eternally punisheth the soule ONELY by the bodie Or therefore all the soules paine for sinne both temporally and eternally is by the body This is your owne reason which being true why should you care for corporall fire in hell before the last iudgemâ—…nt You begin and end with two notorious vntrueths and falsifications of my words that at least you may make others beleeue there is some likelihood in yours when I dare not stand by mine but am either afraid of them or conclude directly
to trouble the people with that Question and therefore I rested on a knowne and confessed principle of Christian truth and faith that we inherite pollution and death from Adams flesh without resoluing whence the Soule commeth which I did refraine before the multitude to speake of And since by the Scriptures the first Adam was a figure of the second the flesh of Christ giuen for vs must be as able to clense and quicken vs as Adams flesh was to defile and kill vs. To this reason you here pike many quarrels but in the end you slide it of as else where answered Your first quarrell is that I force what I promised to forbeare euen the difficultie whence the Soule of man is deriued As though the grounds of our Faith might be doubted because that Question in former times was vndecided That we deriue flesh from Adam and haue men for the Fathers of our bodies did neuer man yet that was in his right wits call in Question were he Christian or Heretick Iewe Turke or Pagan That likewise wee deriue with our flesh pollution and death from Adam the faith of Christ rightly grounded on the Scriptures doth not suffer vs to stagger at though whence our Soules are giuen vs some haue stood perplexed You thinke it much I should deliuer the one which is the pollution of our flesh professing not to determine the other and make it in me a kind of inconstancie to vrge the propagation of the flesh with her sequels of which no Christian may doubt because I thought it not fit to trouble the people with the deriuation of the Soule But so hath the Church of Christ alwaies done it hath cleerely confessed the deriuation of sinne and death from Adam and made it necessarie for all Christian men so to beleeue though some would not hastily or could not easily resolue the doubt whence the Soule commeth If our Soules arise in Generation from Adam as well as our flesh how can your reason be good by any possibilitie The conceit that our Soules are ingendred together with the seede of our bodies is so grosse and pestilent an error and so repugnant to all authoritie Humane and Diuine and so dissident from dayly experience that I had no cause to make that a Question in Religion or therein to refraine the audience of the people Ex nullo homine generantur Animae Soules are not generated from any man saith Ambrose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The principall facultie of the soule sayth Clemens Alexandrinus by which we haue discourse of reason is not engendered by proiection of seed Anima vtique nunquam ab homine gignentium originibus prebetur The soule neuer commeth from man in the generation of men sayth Hilarie Ierom vpon those words of Salomon the spirit of man after death returneth to God that gaue it writeth thus Ex quo satis ridendi sunt qui putant animas cum corporibus seri non à Deo sed à corporum parentibus generari Whereby they are worthy to be thorowly derided which thinke soules to be sowen together with bodies and not to be from God but to be generated by the parents of our bodies For since the flesh returneth to the earth and the spirit to God that gaue it IT IS MANIFEST that God is the Father of our soules and not Man And when Ruffinus professed he could not tell how the soule came to be ioyned with the body whether by propagation from Man or infusion from God Ierom replieth If the soule come by propagation then the soules of men which we grant are eternall and the bruit beasts which die with the bodie haue one condition And doest thou maruell that the Christian brethren are scandalized at thee when thou swearest thou knowest not that which the Churches of Christ confesse they know Theodoret in many places giueth the like testimonie The Church beleeuing the diuine Scriptures sayth the soule was and is created as well as the bodie not hauing any cause of her creation from naturall seed but from the Creatours will after the bodie once perfectly made The most diuine Moses writeth that Adams bodie was first made and afterward his soule inspired into him Againe in his lawes the same Prophet plainly teacheth vs that the bodie is first made and then the soule created and infused And blessed Iob spake thus to God Diddest thou not powre me forth like milke and thicken me like curds of cheese thou diddest clothe me with skinne and flesh and compact me with bones and sinewes And when by this Iob had shewed the frame of his bodie to be first made he addeth a thankesgiuing for his soule saying Life and mercie thou laydst with me and thy watchfulnesse preserued my spirit This confession touching the soule and bodie of man the Church hath learned from the diuine Scriptures The same reasons and resolutions he repeateth elsewhere in his fift sermon touching the nature of man Leo the great The Catholike faith doth constantly and truely preach that the soules of men were not before they were inspired into their bodies nec ab also incorporentur nisi ab opifice Deo neither are put into the bodie by any other workeman than God And Austen himselfe who to decline that difficultie how the soule commeth to be infected with originall sinne was the first that made this doubt whether the soule were created and infused or els deriued from the soule though not by the seed of the parents refuseth Tertullians opinion That the soule riseth from the seed of the bodie as peruerse and strange to the Church of Christ They sayth he which affirme soules to be drawen from the parents if they follow Tertullians opinion tooke them to be in some sort bodies corpulentis seminibus exoriri and to rise from the seed of the bodie quo quid peruersius dici potest than the which what can be sayd more peruerse Now in Austens rehearsall of heresies Tertullians assertion That the soule was a kind of bodie is excused as no heresie but his conceit That the state of the soule is propagated by traduction of seed is expresly put amongst his errours From these auncient Fathers swarue not the best of our new writers Bullinger All those other opinions haue beene refuted with sound reasons by the writers Ecclesiasticall and that receiued and auouched for the truest which teacheth the soule to be created of nothing and to be infunded into the bodie from God when the childe hath his perfect shape in his mothers womb And that we are not at this day otherwise created of God than by infunding the soule into the bodie first fashioned Iob is a most plentifull witnesse where he saith Thine hands o God haue made me and fashioned me wholly Didst thou not stroke me like milke and curd me like cheese with skinne and flesh thou coueredst me with bones and sinewes thou
day shall award heauen and hell with the warrant of this speech I was hungrie and yee gaue me meate I thirsted and yee gaue me drinke I was a stranger and ye lodged me I was naked and yee clothed me I was sicke yee visited me I was in prison and yee came vnto me and so foorth where in one Chapter Christ calleth his members by the name of himselfe 27. times All which are most false of Christs person for he then raigned in glory at the right hand of his Father endured none of those miseries but yet they are most true in his members whom he calleth by the name of himselfe because he loued them as himselfe more then himselfe since for their sakes he humbled and emptied himselfe And this reason of his words himselfe will giue before men and Angels â—… In as much as you did it vnto one of the least of my brethren you did it vnto mee The same is verie vsuall in the Scriptures Hee that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me He that receaueth you receaueth mee They haue not reiected thee said God to Samuel they haue reiected mee He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eie Where a most louing acceptation is shewed of the sufferings and seruices of men for Christes sake but no proper attributton verified of Christ. This Damascene expresseth by making two kinds of appropriation vnto Christ in the Scriptures one naturall and substantiall the other personall and habituall Naturall as when the Lord in Nature and trueth being made a man had experience of things incident to our Nature Personall and habituall as when one putteth on the person of another for pittie or loue and vseth speech in his name and for him NOTHING APPERTAINING TO the speaker HIMSELFE According to which Christ appropriated the curse and dereliction due to vs not himselfe being made those things but assuming our person and reckoning himselfe with vs. For neither as God nor as man was he euer forsaken of his Father neither was he made sinne nor a curse Assuming therefore our person and reckoning himselfe with vs as the head for the members he spake these things For weâ—… were guiltie of sinne and malediction as incredulous and disobedient and for that cause were forsaken Which are Cyprians plaine words also Quòd pro eis voluisti intelligi qui deseri à Deo propter peccata meruerant Thy complaint of forsaking thou wouldst haue vnderstood as spoken for them who had deserued to be forsaken of God in regard of their sinnes Then by Cyprians iudgement Christ spake those wordes neither for himselfe nor of himselfe but for those and of those that deserued to be forsaken of God whom he calleth by the name of himselfe as he doth oftentimes elsewhere in the Scriptures because they were members of his bodie and as deare to him as himselfe If this be all that Cyprians words imply how come you to make that false and prophane collection out of Cyprian that Christ suffered such a forsaking of God touching sense of paine and want of present seeling of comfort in his paines AS THE DAMNED DOE You would faine set your infernall imaginations to sale vnder the names of some of the auncient Fathers to inure your Reader with the name of the DAMNED lest he should detest your irreligious presumption if you should proferre these pedegrees in your owne name But a man may know the fowle by the feather and your deuices shew themselues by the verie vtterance of them For expressing two points in Christes sufferings the one is sensiblie absurd the other apparantly false and wicked The paine of Christes soule you euery where defend was inflicted by the immediate hand of God and was the selfe same which the damned doe suffer Then how could this be called a forsaking in Christ when it was rather a plaine persuing of him by Gods owne hand Doth a man depart from an other when he persueth him or forsake him whom he followeth with the stroke of his hand If therefore Christes suffering in soule came from the immediate hand of God as you dreame Christ should haue said my God my God why persuest thou me or why doth thine hand oppresse me and not why doest thou forsake me and leaue me in the hands of mine enemies without any shew that thou regardest or respectest me The second point is farre woorse For if Christ had no more comfort in his paine theâ—… the damned haue then Christ for the time of his suffering had neither faith hope grace nor loue of God nor any fauour with God nor â—…xpectation that hee himselfe should be saued much lesse that he should saue others from all which the damned are cleane cut off Indeed this was the conceit that the diuel by the mouths of the wicked did vrge against Christ to vpbraid him with his case as desperate and to persue him as forsaken of God and therefore this resolution that Christ was thus indeed forsaken or felt no more present comfort then the damned doe is plainly the diuels Diuinitie and maketh as flat a contradiction to all the Scriptures as any the damned themselues could deuise For Dauid ledde by the spirit of God sayth exactly of Christes sufferings in the person of Christ I set the Lord alwaies before me he is at my right hand that I shall noâ—… slide Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue reioiceth my flesh also doth rest in hope And the Apostle saith that Iesus for the ioy that was set before him endured the crosse and despised the shame And he that against these expresse Scriptures auoucheth that Christ had no more feeling of any comfort in his paines then the damned haue in theirs I see no cause why the whole Church of Christ should not hold him madde or woorse But you meane no present comfort As if faith hope and grace the assured fauour and promise of God yea personall coniunction with God and his owne certaine knowledge that he should rise againe the third day Lord of the quicke and dead and Sauiour of the whole world did not yeeld him present comfort in the middest of his greatest paine insomuch that the Apostle saith Christ endured the crosse hee meaneth with patience and desâ—…ised the shame thereof So great was the ioy proposed and comfort conceaued euen in the sharpest of his sufferings By present comfort you meane present deliuerance Meane what you will your meaning is lewd and wicked to broche the doctrine of diuels vnder parables and paraphrases of abused wordes and slâ—…e comparisons with the damned For if Christ hâ—…d hope then had he comfort because hope confoundeth not If he had no hope then did he despaire and so must you admit in Christ either consolation which you denâ—…e or desperation for the time which must be ioyned with infidelitie fâ—…r that he could not want hope but by lacke of faith
man of any learning or vnderstanding thus in print and open view of the whole Realme to rage revell rush on with lying craking and facing when he speaketh not one true word for first Sir flincher is this the point heere or any where proposed by me whether Christs sufferings were only bodily did I promise or produce any Fathers to that end is it not the death of the soule and the paines of the damned which I impugned in Christs sufferings haue I not most truely performed which I euer professed that the whole Church of Christ for so many hundred yeeres neuer thought neuer heard of the death of Christs soule in the worke of our redemption but rested their faith on the death of Christs body as a most sufficient price both for the soules and bodies of the faithfull What cunning then is this first to shift your hands of that you can no way prooue though you still doe and must professe it and then to clamour at me for drawing the Fathers cleane from their intent and meaning is this the way to credit your new Creed by such deuices and stratagemes to intertaine the people of God least they should see how farre you be slid from the ancient primatiue Church of Christ take a while but the thought of a sober man and this pangue will soone be ouerpast Did you not vndertake to prooue the death of Christs soule by Scriptures which indeed I first and most required and haue you so donne looke backe to your miserable mistakings and palpable peruertings of the words of the holy Ghost and tell vs what one syllable you haue brought sounding that way are your secrets such that they be no where reuealed in the word of God must all faith come from thence and is your faith exempted that it shall haue no foundation there are men and Angels accursed that preach any other Gospell then was deliuered and written by Christs Apostles and shall you be excused for deuising a new kind of redemption by the death of Christs soule no where witnessed in the Scriptures you see how easie it were to be eloquent against you in a iust and true cause but words must not winne the field What I impugned my sermons will shew what I haue prooued I will not proclaime If I haue failed in that I endeuoured the labour is mine the liberty is the Readers to iudge Let the indifferent read it they shall find somewhat to direct them let the contentious skanne it they shall see somewhat to harle their hast and perhaps to restraine their stifnesse What euer it be I leaue it to others since the discourser hasteth towards an end and so doe I. s Defenc. pag. 146. li. 2 This is the profit that comes by ordinarie flaunting with Fathers which many do frequent in these dayes Thinke they if the Scriptures alone suffice not for things in religion that the Fathers will suffice or if the Scriptures may be wrested by subtle heads that yet the Fathers can not Is it not enough for your selfe to be a despiser of all antiquitie and sobrietie but you must insult at them that beare more regard to either than you do If to flaunt with Fathers be so great a fault which yet respecteth their iudgements that haue beene liked and allowed from age to age in the Church of Christ what is it to fliske with pride and follie grounded on nothing but on selfe-loue and singularitie It were to be wished that euen some of the best writers of our age as they thinke themselues had had more respect to the auncient Fathers then they shew we should haue wanted a number of nouelties in the Church of God which now wee are troubled withall as well in Doctrine as in discipline This course of concurring with the lights of Gods Church before our time in matters of faith though you mislike other manner of men then you are or euer will be haue allowed and followed as u August contra Iâ—…num li. 1. Augustine x Theodor. diol 2. 3. Theodorete y Leo epist. 97. 〈◊〉 Leonem Leo z Cassi. de incarnat Domini li. 7 ca. 5. Cassianus a Gelas. de duabus in Christo natâ—…ris Gelasius b Vigilius li. 5. cap. 6. Vigilius and the two c Hispalensi concilium 2. ca. 13. councels of Hispalis and others not doubting the sufficiencie of the Scriptures but shewing the correspondencie of beleeuing and interpreting the Scriptures in all ages to haue bene the same which they imbraced and vrged And in all euennesse of reason were it better to feede the people with our priuate conceits pretended out of Scripture or to let such as be of iudgement vnderstand that we frame no faith but such as in the best times hath bene collected and receiued from the grounds of holy Scripture by the wisest and greatest men in the Church of God your only example turning and winding the words of the holy Ghost to your owne conceits will shew how needfull it is not to permit euery prater to raigne ouer the Scriptures with figures and phrases at his pleasure and thence to fetch what faith he list If you so much reuerence the Scriptures as you report which were to be wished you would why deuise you doctrine not expressed in the Scriptures Why teach you that touching mans redemption which is no where written in the word of God Indeed the Scriptures are plaine in this point of all others what death Christ died for vs if you did not peruert them against the histories of the Euangelists and testimonies of the Apostles Omit the description of his death so farely witnessed by the foure Euangelists what exacter words can we haue then the Apostles that Christ d Coloss. 1. pacisied things in earth and things in heauen by the bloud of his crosse and reconciled vs which were strangers and enemies in the bodie of his flesh through death Beleeue what you reade and what you reade not in the word of God beleeue not and this matter is ended but by Synecdoches without cause you put to the Scriptures not what you read in them but what you like best and by Metaphores and Metonimies you will take bodie for substance and flesh for soule And so where the Apostle auoucheth that we were reconciled to God through death in the bodie of Christs flesh you tell vs we could not be redeemed without the death of Christs soule and the essence of the paines of the damned suffered by suddaine touches from the immediate hand of God after an extraordinarie manner If you teach no doctrine but deliuered in the Scriptures aband on these deuices not expressed in the Scriptures If you content your selfe with the all sufficient word of God in matters of faith you must relinquish the death of Christs soule and paines of the damned as no part of our redemption since there is no such thing contained in the word of God To me and
no doubt can be made saue of Austen onely because he sometimes repeateth the Creede without that clause which yet he confesseth to be a maine point of the Christian faith That in all places they did varie from this forme though you pretend the names of Ignatius Irenaeus Iustine Tertullian Origen c. yet they prooue no such thing These Fathers do often as learned discoursers enlarge the parts of the Creed somtimes as short comprisers of it they contract the summe thereof into fewer wordes but yet the most and most famous churches had from the beginning a briefe collection of the Christian faith deliuered to the simple people to be learned and said by heart before they could be baptized Of this doe many learned and auncient Fathers beare witnesse Duodecim Apostolorum Symbolo sides sancta concepta est In the Creed of the twelue Apostles saith Ambrose is the holy faith conceaued or comprised So Leo Catholici Symbolibreuis perfecta confessio dâ—…odecim Apostolorum totidem est signata sententijs The short and perfect confession of the Catholike Creed is sealâ—…d vp with twelue sentences of the twelue Apostles So Ierom. In the Creed of our faith and hope which being deliuered from the Apostles is not written in paper and â—…ke but in the tables of mens hearts after the confession of the Trinitie and vnitie of the Church all the mysteries of Christian Religion are closed vp with the resurrection of the â—…lesh Isidore saith the Apostles readie to depart one from another Normam prius sibi futurae praedicationis in commune constituunt appoint first in common a summe of that they would preach least sâ—…uered in diâ—…ers places they â—…ould propose any diuers or dissonant thing to those whom they brought to the â—…ith of Christ. Rabanus Maâ—…rus de Institutione clericorum li. 2. ca. 56. hath the very same wordes Neither could Tertullian whose name you vse haue truely said r Regâ—… fidei vn a omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis there is but one rule of faith and only that immooueable and vnchangeable vnlesse there had beene some forme of faith receaued in the Church which no man might alter or change For how could he saie there is but ONE RVLE if euery Church had a seuerall rule Or how was it immooueable or irreformable if there were no certaine wordes or parts but euerie man might alter at his will Tertullian therefore doth not repeat the words of the Creed which he varieth in euerie place where he citeth it but he pointeth to the chiefe parts thereof no where keeping the same words but in substance the same matter Against Praxeas the heretike he saith Hanc regulam ab initio Euangelij decurrisse This rule of faith hath had continuance from the beginning of the Gospell Against heretikes in generall he saith Haec regula à Christo probabitur instituta This rule shall be prooued to haue beeâ—…e appointed by Christ. And yet in these two places he keepeth not the same wordes but the same heades and as it were the same principles of faith As likewise both these differ in wordes from that rule which he cited before being omnino vna euerie where one and by no meanes alterable Irenaeus saith The Church throughout the whole world euen to the endes of the earth receaâ—…ed from the Apostles and their Disciples that faith which be beleâ—…eth in one God the Father almightie maker of heauen earth c and in Iesus Christ the Sonne of God incarnate for our saluation and in the holie spirit which preached by the Prophets the dispensation and comming of God and the birth of Christ our Lord by the Virgine his pâ—…ssion resurrection and ascension with his flesh into heauen and his comming from heauen in the glory of his Father to recapitulate all to raise vp all flesh and to giue iust iudgement in all Thâ—… faith the Church dispâ—…rsed through the world hauing receaued faithfully keepeth and constantly teacheth and deliuereth these things as it were with one mouth For though there be different languages in the worlde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet the summe aud effect of the tradition or faith deliuered is one and the same Neither doe the Churches in Germany otherwise beleeue or otherwise teach nor those in Spaine nor those in Fraunce nor those in the East nor those in Egypt nor those in Africke nor those in the middest of the world So that all the churches in the world had one and the same tradition and rule of faith and though the wordes in some places did differ yet in sense they agreed and the chiefer the churches were the more was their care to preserue this Creed not written as Ierom and others confesse but deliuered and receaued by hart euen from the Apostles and their Disciples And since the Church of Rome then one of the most famous Churches in the world kept this Creede comprised in twelue sentences according to the number of the twelue Apostles as Leo testifieth not long after Ruâ—…ines time and Ambrose said the same in effect euen in Ruâ—…ines time and other Churches likewise both East and West had retained the same from their first foundation as Irenaeus witnesseth It can not be but the Creede which we haue at this day was the verie same which the primitiue churches had and kept and these auncient Fathers that alleage the authoritie thereof bring not euerie where the exact wordes but the chiefe parts and grounds thereof as appeareth by Tertullian who saith The Rule or Creed is one and vnchangeable notwithstanding he bringeth three seueral variations therof in wordes For the clause of Christs descent to hell I haue said before it was retained in many places though it wanted in the church of Rome and some other churches of the East and no doubt the Church of Rome and the rest conceaued no lesâ—…e by Christes resurrection from the dead but that he rose conquerer of death and hell as the prophet foretold he should in saying O death I will be thy death ô hell I will bee thy destruction as Christ professed he did when he said I haue the keies of death and hell and as the great and generall Councels of Ephesus Chalcedon and Constantinople did expound that Article of the Creed Christ rose the third day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hauing â—…irst spoiled hell And vpon this resolution of these generall Councels and not as you dreame vpon the opinion of Limbus preuailing the Churches that wanted that Article which others had receaued it into their Creed as contained there before in force and effect but now they concurred in one consent of faith and wordes which before they did not Our third reason is if there be no certaine benefit to the godly by Christs going to hell then doubtlesse he went not thither But there is no certaine benefit to the godly by Christs going to hell Therefore
nothing is superfluously repeated so nothing is obscurely couered in it And though this Article He descended to hell wanted for a time in some Churches euen as some part of Scripture did yet was it retained by all Christian Writers as a ground of true religion from the Apostles time and professed in some Churches very anciently in their Creed and at last generally receiued in all places All the Fathers of Christes Church with one consent teach this as a point of the Christian faith That Christ after death descended to hell insomuch that Austen resolutely sayth Who but an Infidell will denie that Christ was in hell Where Abrahams bosome was neither was nor is agreed amongst the learned only Austen rightly inferreth out of Christes words That being a place of comfort and farre off aboue Hades where the rich man was tormented with a great Gulfe setled betwixt those two places it could be no part nor member of hell The rest which are very many appeare by the seuerall Titles ouer ech Page or by the Table prouided to finde the same with more facilitie THE SVRVEY OF CHRISTES SVFFERINGS FOR MANS REDEMPTION IT may seeme somewhat strange to thee Christian Reader as it doth likewise to me that one and the selfe same cause being twice now debated and discussed in writing on either side we should at the last be farther from agreeing on the true state of the controuersie than we were at the first entring into the matter If the fault be either in the doubtfulnesse of my words proposing it or in the diuersnesse of my mind defending it I refuse no reproch of follie and inconstancie but if I keeping close to the points which I first propounded and calling vpon the aduerse part with as great vehemencie and importunitie as I could to goe directly to the issue and no way to digresse from the things in question the Impugner trusting more to the couert of his words than to the soundnesse of his proofs will of purpose shunne the marke prefixed and roue at pleasure with doubtfull and deceitfull termes to hide the nakednesse of his side and to make the Reader beleeue he hath matter of moment when indeed he doth not so much as vnderstand himselfe or take any knowledge of the chiefest things which I obiect or alledge then is he woorthie to beare the blame who best deserueth it and thou Christian Reader mayest soone perceiue and assoone pronounce both for thine owne ease and for an end to be had in this strife for to thee the Confuter referreth himselfe and so doe I whether of vs flieth the touchstone of trueth and faileth in the due proofe of his doctrine as neere as God shall giue thee wisdome to discerne light from darknesse and grace to preferre trueth before falshood In the Preface of my Sermons published I much misliked and openly charged the ouer hastie Discourser that called himselfe H. I. for cleane changing the state of the first Question and to the maine diuision of his Treatise where he sayth The whole controuersie hath in it two points the first That Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God c I replied in my conclusion It was too much boldnesse to outface the world in print that this was the position which I impugned There were too many witnesses there for me to denie or for him to belie the Question he knew it well enough but he could not tell how to proue that which I then reproued and therefore he shranke from it and dallied with generall and doubtfull termes And lest either the patient Reader or strict Examiner should be forced farre to seeke for the chiefe points by me denied or affirmed in those Sermons I purposely and plainly numbred and deliuered them in such sort as none could mistake them but he that would wilfully ouerleape them My words thou wilt pardon me to repeat good Christian Reader that thereby thou mayest see whether I alter or new frame my first questions and resolutions as this Prater pretendeth by his euery where complaining of my manifolde ambiguities fallacies and contrâ—…rieties or he rather dissembleth the weaknesse and couereth the badnesse of his cause vnder certeine perplexed and confused phrases as anon thou shalt heare more at large These are my words in the foresayd Preface I laboured in these my Sermons to prooue these foure points First That it was no where recorded in holy Scriptures nor iustly to be concluded by the Scriptures that Christ suffered the true paines of Hell Secondly That as the Scriptures describe to vs the paines of the Damned and of hell there are manie terrors and torments which without euident impietie can not be ascribed to the Sonne of God Thirdly That the death and bloud of Christ Iesus were euidently frequently constantly set downe in the writings of the Apostles as the sufficient price of our Redemption and true meane of our Reconciliation to God and the verie same proposed in the figures resembled in the sacrifices of the Law and sealed with the Sacraments of the New testament as the verie ground-worke of our saluation by Christ and so haue beene receiued and beleeued in the Church of God foureteene hundred yeeres before any man euer made mention of hell-paines to be suffered in the soule of Christ. Lastly where the Scriptures are plaine and pregnant That Christ died for our sinnes and by his death destroyed him that had power of death euen the diuell and reconciled vs when we were strangers and enemies in the body of his flesh through death besides That the Holie ghost in these places by expresse words nameth the bodily death of Christ as the meane of our Redemption Reconciliation to God no considerate Diuine might affirme or imagine Christ suffered the death of the soule for somuch as the death of the soule must exclude Christ from the grace spirit and life of God and leaue in him neither faith hope nor loue sanctitie nor innocencie which God forbid any Christian man should so much as dreame And if any man to mainteine his deuice would inuent a new hell and another death of the soule then either Scriptures or Fathers euer heard or spake of they should keepe their inuentions to themselues it sufficed me to beleeue what I read and consequently not to beleeue what I did not reade in the Word of God which is and ought to be the foundation of our faith Whether there be any darkenesse or doubling in my speech I leaue it to thy censure good Christian Reader I affirme touching our redemption and reconciliation to God what the Scriptures affirme and as neere as I could in the selfe-same words I denied the late additions of some men in matters of so great weight which the Scriptures by their perpetuall silence denie and by their open and euident consequents disprooue and impugne If any man thinke my Sermons in these points lesse euident or pertinent to the purpose than my Preface let him looke
Prophets not as wanting soueraigntie and sufficiencie in himselfe aboue all Prophets but leading them that knew him not to consider better of those Scriptures which they knew It is as true of Pauls writings as of the rest of the Apostles and Prophets which S. Augustine affirmeth De quorum scriptis quòd omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est Of whose writings to doubt whether they be free from all error is plaine wickednesse Neuerthelesse I well perceiue that all this great shew of cleauing to the Fathers iudgements is but coloured in you For in other points againe we see when they speake not to yoúr liking the case is altered I see in this booke where you forsake the ancient and learned Fathers that is as you speake in my case you conâ—…mne despise them The more vniust then and iniurious was your slander that I went about by the vse of one word which olde and new Diuines vsed in like sort before me to make the Fathers of equall authoritie with the Scriptures since now you can both obserue and obiect that euen in this booke which you impugne I say and do the contrarie And though I be farre from repenting or misliking any thing that I sayd touching the prerogatiue of the sacred Scriptures and their irrefragable authoritie against all the words and wits of men yet can I not chuse but note your negligence that marke neither what nor of whom I speake Had I brought Fathers in matters of faith against or without the Scriptures you had some colour to choake me with mine owne words but taking care as I did that in cases of faith the Scriptures should be plaine and perspicuous for my purpose before I cited them and the testimonies of the Fathers euident and concurrent with the Scriptures how doe I crosse any of those places which you quote out of my writings touching the authoritie and sufficiencie of the Scriptures in points of faith or what agreement hath your dissenting from the Scriptures and Fathers in the chiefest keyes of Christian religion with my leauing them in some expositions and positions not pertinent to the faith nor generally receiued of them all It is vanitie enough to dreame of contradictions where none are and as great infirmitie not to see that which lieth before your eyes but to pronounce that you know how wauering and slipperie I am for the most part therein when you neither consider nor conceiue what I say that is more than childish temeritie As I sayd so I say againe In Gods causes Gods booke must teach vs what to beleeue and what to professe and therefore what I reade in the word of God that I beleeue what I reade not that I doe not beleeue Yea I adde thereto S. Basils conclusion If all that is not of faith be sinne as the Apostle sayth and faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God all that is without the Scripture inspired from God as not being of faith is sinne This confession I constantly holde and as in the first booke which you quote I directly and expresly defend that no point of faith should be beleeued without Scripture so in my Sermons I no where varie from it how slipperie soeuer your tongue be to tell a tale in stead of a trueth I doe reiect Austens opinion in three speciall points and diuers Fathers in two other cases and some of those things I affirme against all the Fathers and almost against all the Church and yet I bitterly reproue you for vsing the like libertie Doe I any where reiect S. Augustine or all the Fathers in any point of doctrine necessarie to our saluation as you do in the chiefest grounds of our redemption And when I let the Reader vnderstand that the reasons which some Fathers bring to fortifie their priuate opinions are not sufficient for to force consent to be giuen vnto them doe I call them fond absurd without reason or likelihood and paradoxes in nature as you do These two things I iustly reproue in you which I my selfe doe not fall into for all your fitning In the maine principles of Christian religion and our redemption you make the best learned Fathers ignorant of their Creed and Catechisme and when their expositions of the Scripture crosse your imaginations you Reuell against their Iudgements as void of sense and reason This doâ—… I not In the rule of faith I renounce not their maine consent nor vndoubted maximes least I conclude them or my selfe to erre in faith In other questions of lesâ—…e importance wherein they differ sometimes from ech other sometimes euen from themselues I let the Reader see their reasons and leaue him free to follow what he liketh or to suspend his iudgement if he find cause therefore This libertie I neuer take from you nor mislike it in you but when you pronounce all to be absurd fond and foolish that yeeld not to your fansie wherein you doe not onely proudly aduance your owne dreames as necessary Doctrines but reprochfully preiudice the freedome of others This difference is not my deuise the auncient consent of Godly Fathers saith Vincentius is with great care to be searched and followed of vs not in all the questions of the Diuine Law but onely or chiefly in the Rule of Faith Whether therefore the bodies of such as arose and came out of their graues after Christs resurrection returned againe to corruption or still kept the honor of immortalitie which was bestowed on them as also when Christ said to the theefe on the Crosse this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise whether Christ ment the presence of his humane soule or of his Diuine glory should be that day in Paradise and so whether the soules of the faithfull dâ—…parting this life goe straight to heauen or stay in a place appointed them of God till the day of iudgement and likewise whether Abrahams bosome were a receptacle for soules within the earth and neere to hell or far aboue the earth and lastly whether the loosing of Adam from hell by Christs descent thither which the whole Church almost seemed to hold by tradition freed onely the person of Adam from the place of hell or both him and his posteritie from all feare and danger of hell These be things that may be liked disliked or suspended without any manifest breach of faith and wherein Saint Austen probablely disputeth but determineth nothing for certaintie to be beleeued alwaies tempering his words in these cases with Ego quidem non video explicent qui possunt nondum intelligo nulla causa occurrit nondum muâ—… I see not how let them declare it that can as yet I vnderstand it not I conceaue presently no cause as yet I find it not cleere If I then laboured with respectiue words and other places of the same Fathers to shew wherein they doubted or dissented who but a light head and slipper tongue would call this
the bodie which is the punishment of sinne but also the sting of death which is sinne entred into the world because we consent not to these men who say the contrarie but to the Apostle who testifieth that sinne and death went ouer all men Prosper The punishment of sinne which Adam the root of mankinde receiued by Gods sentence saying Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt returne and transmitted to his posteritie as to his branches the Apostle sayth entred into the world by one mans sinne and so ranged ouer all men Beda The death as well of vs men as of Christ is called sinne because it is the effect and punishment of that sinne which Adam committed The second councell of Arrange about 450 yeres after Christ confesseth no lesse If any man affirme that only the death of the bodie which is the punishment of sinne and not sinne also which is the death of the soule passed by one man to all mankinde he ascribeth iniustice to God and contradicteth the Apostle who sayth By one man sinne entred into the world and by sinne death passed ouer all men Our later writers though they fully defend that God doth not punish his either to destruction as he doth the wicked nor for satisfaction of sinne as he did his owne Sonne for the sinnes of all his Saints and to comfort the afflicted they set before them the presence of Gods power assisting them in their miseries or deliuering them from their troubles the purpose of God respecting wholy their good and the promise of God exceedingly recompencing their patience yet when they come to the causes prouoking God to this seueritie they acknowledge that to be sinne and teach euery man to descend into himselfe and to giue God the glorie in that his righteous iudgement beginneth at his owne house Of the euils which we suffer in this life there be many and sundry causes saith Bullinger but sinne it selfe is counted to be the generall cause For by disobedience sinne entred into the world and by sinne death diseases and all the mischiefes in the world The persecutions and cruell tortures inflicted on the Church of God or on particular Martyrs as they were offered them for the confession and testimony of the faith and truth of the Gospell so for the most part they had for their causes the offences and sinnes of the godly which the iustice of God did visite in his seruants though for the good and welfare of his Saints The people of Israell sinned against the Lord in the desert vnder the Iudges and Kings very often and very enormously and were grieuously punished by the Lord but againe they were speedily deliuered as often as they acknowledged their sinnes and turned vnto the Lord. If therefore any man suffer any euill for sinne committed let him acknowledge the iust iudgement of God vpon himselfe and humble himselfe vnder the mightie hand of God confessing it vnto God and asking pardon with lowly praier let him patiently beare that which he hath so well deserued to suffer It is certaine saith Zanchius that all the punishments and miseries which we feele in this world are from sin and inflicted for sinne In which place he resolueth by a plaine thesis that death is the punishment of sinne and so are all those things which are the fruits of death as well in Soule as in body and in our externall state It is an argument saith Gualther of a mind skant religious wholy to despise death quam per peccatum ingressam peccati poenam esse omnes Scripturae testantur which all the Scriptures witnesse came in by sinne and is the punishment of sinne In the Philosophers commendations of the death of the bodie there are some things saith Peter Martyr not agreeable to the Christian faith and to the sacred Scriptures For we say that death must not be accounted any good but an euill thing Quandoquidem Deus illam vti poenam inflixit nostro generi For so much as God inflicted it as a punishment on mankind And so else where Omnes pij statuunt in morte â—…rae diuinae sensum esse ideoque sua natura dolorem horrorem incutit All the godly resolue that in death there is a sense of Gods wrath and therefore of his owne nature it impresseth a griefe and terror And if there be any to whom it is contenting and acceptable to die they haue that from some other fountaine and not from the nature of death There might be assigned saith Musculus many kinds of the wrath of God but for this present we content our selues with a triple diuision thereof whereby we diuide it into generall temporall and eternall The generall wrath of God is that wherewith the whole posteritie of Adam is enwrapped for originall sinne Hence come all the miseries of mankind which equally follow the condition of men and cleaue as well to our minds as to our flesh The temporall wrath of God is that Qua peccat is non impiorum modò sed piorum irascitur ac paenas de illis sumit in hac vita whereby God is angry with the sinnes not of the wicked onely but of the godly also and taketh punishment of them in this life Whether I speake or thinke otherwise then these new and old Diuines haue spoken and taught let the Reader iudge But mine owne Authors in the very places which I alleadge doe say that the nature of death is changed and that God is angry with his elect as a Father with his beloued children to chasten and amend them Peter Martyr saith indeede the nature of death is chaunged by Gods goodnes making that profitable to vs which of it selfe is very harmefull but with what condition doth he say it is changed Puta si quis obediente animo eam sube at néque poenam illam reijciat quam diuina iustitia nos omnes voluerit exoluere If a man submit himselfe vnto it with an obedient hart and reiect not that punishment which the iustice of God would haue vs all to suffer And so it was chaunged euen when it was inflicted on the elect in Adams loynes For Christ was first promised to be the bruizer of the Serpents head Now if death afterward tooke full and euerlasting hold on Christs members then the serpent preuailed against Christ and his chosen and not Christ against the Serpent Wherefore God so moderated his sentence that he adiudged Christes members in Adam no farder then to the earth whence Christ should raise them and vtterly abolish from them all the Serpents poyson that is sinne death and corruption but this prooueth not death to be good in Gods Children or to be no punishment of sinne in them because God conuerteth it to their aduantage in the ende no more then their sinnes are good because God turneth them also to the benefite of his elect For as you heard before Saint Austen
We inherite pollution by Adams flesh before our Soules come to our bodies and that sufficeth for my reason though the pollution which we inherite be deriued as well from the Soules as from the Bodies of our Parents because their bodies when they begat vs were ioyned with their Soules whose naturall and animall faculties were still in them wholy corrupted and their sinnes communicated vnto their bodies though their spirits were renued and sanctified The very Seed of which we were begotten and conceaued was an vncleane thing as Iob calleth it when he saith Who can make a cleane thing of an vncleane and corruptible that is full of Corruption as Peter nameth it when he saith borne againe not of corruptible Seed of which we were borne by our Parents The corruption of sinne then is first deriued by our Bodies though our Soules be likewise wrapped in the same pollution and condemnation that our bodies are and sinne still abideth and rebelleth in our flesh so long as we liue though our Soules be washed and clensed from sinne And therefore the Apostle calleth our flesh the flesh of sinne in the similitude of which Christ was sent and confessed that in his flesh dwelt no good thing assuring vs that though Christ be in vs the body is dead because of sinne when the Spirit is life or liueth because of righteousnesse Neither is this newes to Zanchius whom you cite in your Treatise as if he fauoured your error Quod attinet ad contagium illud certe citra controuersiam in corpore primum inest deinde per corpus in animam deriuatur Iob docet aperte cap. 14. Quis potest facere mundum de immundo conceptum semine Quid autem proprie de immundo concipitur semine Caro. As for the contagion of originall sinne that is surely without Question first in the body and after by the body is deriued into the Soule Iob teacheth vs plainly in his fourteenth Chapter Who can make one cleane conceaued of vncleane Seede Now what is properly conceaued of vncleane Seede Flesh. If any man list to read more I remit him to that place of Zanchius least I should be ouerlong or else to Peter Martyr where he largely treateth thereof against Pigghius The common receaued Opinion is saith he that the Soule draweth originall sinne by her coniunction with the body which is infected and vitiated from our Parents Wherefore if any aske what is the seate or subiect thereof as they vse to speake We answere that originall sinne hath place in the flesh as in the roote and beginning thereof afterward from that fountaine it occupieth the Soule and so is extended through the whole man Idcirco semen est instrumentum quo hoc peccatum ex parentibus traducitur in filios Therefore the Seede of man is the instrument whereby this sinne is traduced from the Parents to the children And least he should seeme to rest himselfe on the receaued opinion onely not long after he addeth Now reasons are to be brought which may firmely and soundly prooue that originall sinne is propagated in men by Seede and generation And that we will therefore shew out of the Scriptures because many reclaime and thinke this whole matter to be a fiction With one breath you ouerthrow your selfe For you say we haue pollution before the soule commeth whence soeuer it commeth Yea whence soeuer What if the soule doe come in and by generation you see how you crosse your selfe To that peruerse and false supposition of yours that the soule of man commeth in and by generation which now you cleaue so fast vnto for an aduantage I neuer gaue any allowance or forbearance Looke to my words as narrowly as you can I say the minor proposition of my reason is cleere without intermedling with the question whence not when the soule commeth I there resolue that the soule is the life of the bodie not of seede nor of blood as you grossely would wrest my speech and therfore before life come the soule which bringeth life commeth not to the bodie Then if pollution cleaue to the flesh before life come as Ambrose teacheth and consequently before the soule come which commeth not before the bodie is made as I auouch whence soeuer it commeth it is euident that Adams flesh defileth and so condemneth vs before the soule come You in the abundance of your wit take whence soeuer to be as much as when soeuer and so by your misconceiuing you would fasten a contradiction to my words But coaxe not your selfe with such contrarieties grounded vpon your owne most ignorant mistaking I made no question of the time when but of the roote whence the soule commeth I learned by Leo that the Catholike faith did truely and constantly teach that the soules of men were not before they were inspired into their bodies and consequently the bodie must first be framed before the soule can be inspired And the contrarie conceite which you now take holde on is a manifest repugnancie to the Church and faith of Christ. I saw that inconuenience which you see not when you pronounce sinne is not in our flesh without a soule that is neither before nor after the soule For if the soule of man arise in and BY GENERATION and that can be no man which neuer had mans bodie what kind of creatures I pray you call you those abortions and scapes that passe from their mothers when they are yet but seede or blood before the body be framed Soules they haue in and by generation as you now suppose bodies they haue none that be humane Men therefore they be not for want of bodies other kinds they are not seeing they haue soules what name then will you giue to these vnfashioned births hauing reasonable and immortall spirits as you imagine or what place will you assigne them after this life We all must appeare before the Tribunall of Christ euery one to receiue things done in or by his bodie They haue nothing to receiue for any thing done in or by their bodies which they neuer had neither can they expect the resurrection of the bodie which pertaineth not to them It is sowen saith the Apostle a naturall body it is raised a spirituall bodie These haue no naturall bodies of men and so shall neuer rise with spirituall and glorified bodies yea they haue no part in Christs resurrection which was corporall since they do not communicate with him in their bodies which may be conformed to his glorious bodie You must then deuise some new name and some new place for those new creatures of yours which hauing no bodies of men can not by the Scriptures looke either for the resurrection or for the saluation promised to men You doe not auouch it you will say you did but obiect it Your most euident truth as you call it that sinne cannot be found being in any thing where a reasonable soule is wanting
a true and corporall punishment appointed by God for sinne though mans error inflict it on innocents or true repentance abolish the rest that would follow after this life if God were not reconciled vnto vs. In the wicked then which persist in their mischieuous purposes without repentance your reason taketh place that hanging to them is a part of that true and terrible curse the whole whereof shall be executed on them for their sinnes but in repentants it is starke false and in Christ of whom this question riseth it is irreligious and impious to say that he suffered the whole curse of the Law prouided for sinne or the death of the soule and of the damned which is properly due to sinners Now vnderstand Chrysostome thus as we before haue distinguished the punishment of Christ and of the damned and then we differ not Suppose Chrysostome to teach falsly and talke absurdly as you doe and then you may soone bring him to weare your badge but leaue him at libertie to tell his owne tale and hee is farre enough from your follies He sayth they were dâ—…erse curses in Christ and in the damned to signifie diuerse manners of one and the same curse in Nature He speaketh not of the damned at all he speaketh of the whole people of the Iewes which were vnder the curse of the Law for sinne till they were thence deliuered by Christ which the damned neuer were nor shall be His words are The people were in danger of another curse which saith Cursed is euery one which abideth not in the things written in the booke of the Law For not one of them had obserued the whole Law Christ then since he was not subiect to the curse of transgression admitted this curse to hang on the Crosse in steede of that to loose the people from their curse Chrysostome truely learnedly and consonantly to the rest of the ancient Fathers distinguisheth two kindes of EVILS or CVRSES incident to men which are sinne and the punishment of sinne The one is an vniust action pleasing man but displeasing God the other is a iust passion pleasing God but displeasing man Mala dicuntur Delicta Supplicia The OFFENCE and the REVENGE are both called â—…uils sayth Tertullian Duo sunt genera malorum peccatum poena peccati there are two sorts of Euils sayth Austen Sinne and the punishment of sinne For by Gods prouidence ruling all things as man doth the euill which he will so he suffereth the Euill which he will not Then sinne is not onely euill before it be punished but a greater euill then the punishment is since it is an euill in his owne nature repugnant to the righteousnesse of God Now as God is all good and therefore all blessed so sinne forsaking God falleth from goodnesse and so from blessednesse and is consequently more accursed with God then punishment is and ought so to be with men if they be rightly aduised as being the cause and continuance of their punishment For accursed signifieth as well detested and depriued of blessednesse as subiected to miserie or deuoted to destruction So that sinne in it selfe is a curse with God that is hated and detested of God and depriuing man of all communion and participation with the fountaine of blessednesse though no punishment did follow Yet because men would with neglect and despâ—…ght of God abide and reioyce in their wickednesse if sense of grieâ—…e and paine did not force them to feele theiâ—… wretchednesse therefore the wisedome and iustice of God pursueth such as dwell and delight in their sinnes with sharpe and bitteâ—… plagues that locâ—…ing on their miserie they may timely repent or eternally lament their obstinacie To these two kinds of curses Chrysostomes wordes and proofes doe leade The whole people were not damned as you deuoutly dâ—…eame but they had sinned and so were subiected to the danger of Gods displeasure foâ—… sinne and of his indignation against sinne From this Christ was free for he did not sinne 〈◊〉 was guile found in his mâ—…uth as Chrysostom concludeth out of the Scriptures Since then Christ was not subiect to the curse of Transgression he admitted â—…other Curse euâ—…n the punishment of sinne which is a curse also for sinne though of an other Nature then the committing of sinne by one to dissolue the otheâ—… that is by his owne paine to abolish the guilt of our sinne Chrysostomes woâ—…ds are as plâ—…ne as his proofes The curse of transgressing was another curse and not the 〈◊〉 which Christ suffered Yea Christ might not be subiected to that curse to which the people were for transgressing the law but changed that for another and so loosâ—…d their curse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another and not the same be as forciâ—…le woâ—…ds to shew different natures and persons as any the Greeke tongue hath and your shift of diâ—…erse degrees in the same nature is a childish toy since much and little like and vnlike sâ—…ew diuers degrees or measures in one nature but another and not the same thing directly noteth the substance or nature to be diuers Austen on whom you triumph is stretched beyond his meaning he deaâ—…eth against a Mainichâ—…e who denied that Christ had true human flesh Now he proueth that Christ truely died because the Apostle saith he was made a curse for vs in that he hanged on a Tree I haue cause to content my selfe that so leaâ—…ned and religious a Father as Saint Augustine was so highly reuerenced in the Church of God did more then twelue hundred yeers since in his conflicts with Hereticks refute the greatest part of your positions as repugnant to the faith of Christ and the soundnesse of the Sacred Scriptures And I thinke few men so foolish as in the grounds of our Redemption and saluation by Christ to reiect the Doctrine which he taught as false and receaue your scambling conceits as true And in my Iudgement you were best to take heed least if the resolutions which Saint Austen and other Catholike Fathers made against Heretickes disprooue your new found faith you be taken tardy with bringing Baggage into the Church of Christ long since condemned and banished from the Creede of all Christians What Saint Austen proueth you are no fit reporter except you did read more attentiuely and iudge more sincerely For did you euer peruse the words wrong course in so wise a Father if he meant purposely to prooue against the Manichees that Christ truely died for vs and not in shew onely as they supposed to ouerskip all the Testimonies and circumstances of Christs true death recorded in the Scriptures as his giuing vp the Ghost Pilates examining and the Centurions confessing the truth thereof as also the Souldiers perceiuing him alreadie dead and so not breaking his lâ—…gges but pearcing his side with a speare and the* gazing and watching of his â—…nemies and of the whole multitude ouer him
flagitiorum maculas morte voluntaria suo innocente sanguine luisse atque eluisse It is euident that Christ admitted receaued and suffered of his owne good will the paines due to mans wickednesse but not due to him and with a voluntarie death and his owne innocent bloud did wash and clense the spots of our filthinesse And againe It is euident the Iewes had not in their power these things or times sed sua ipsum voluntate nulla vâ—… coactum harc mortem pro nostra salute oppetijsse but of his owne accord without anie câ—…action Christ died this death for our saluation Where also this is set downe as a true position that eligendae mortis optio penes ipsum fiâ—…t the election and direction of his death was left to his owne power and choise which the whole Church of Christ hath hitherto ascribed to the power and will loue and mercie of the Sonne of God reiecting your bands and obligations lately deuised to barre the freedome and abridge the power of the Sauiour of the worlde because you would tie him to the paines of hell You see not you will say how these Fathers make against you None otherwise but that they directly denie that which you affirme Christ you say though of good will he was at first content so to doe yet after became bound to the Law to pay our debts Now he that is bound must needs obey and so you lay on Christ not onely a necessity but also a dutie These Fathers with one consent disclaime al necessitie in the death of Christ and consequently they confesâ—…e he was free from all bands and debts but in loue and mercie as a free Redeemer he would giue himselfe for vs which was a farre greater price then we were woorth or could owe. And these multitudes of men as you call them though they be not of equall strength with the word of God which is the touchstone of all trueth yet doe they plainely prooue that you innouate the faith of Christes Church which in their seuerall ages they all beleeued and professed and for their faith they haue the manifest wordes of our Sauiour that none tooke his soule from him but he laid it downe of himselfe and the witnesse of the Apostle that Christ for loue gaue himselfe for vs which argueth that he was vrged thereto with no violence necessitie nor dutie much lesse was thereto bound and you for your deuice haue the curiositie of creditours the discredite of debtours of whom men require Suerties with bands because they trust not their words and promises much lesle their willes and dispositions But this iealousie in the Sonne of God is hainous blasphemie therfore there could be no cause to bind him as there could be no distrust of him since our miserie and his mercie were motiues enough to incline and continue his loue though we leaue him at his full libertie without all seruitude or necessirie Gods decree and his owne good will was that he should satisfie and pay none otherwise for vs then so as he did There can be no question but in creating condemning and redeeming man the Father the Sonne and the holie Ghost had one and the same will and decree yet except with the Arian heretickes you make an inequallitie of the persons in the most blessed Trinitie you can impose no seruice nor suffering on the Sonne of God by any decree but what must come from his owne good pleasure offer and perfourmance And that the Scriptures euerie where imply when they say Christ loued vs and gaue himselfe for vs that is he FIRST of loue towards vs OFFERED to serue and suffer in our places and AFTER of the same loue submitted himselfe to performe his purpose and promise of our saluation So that Gods decree was no iniunction nor ordinance that his Sonne should doe it but an ACCEPTATION of his Sonnes loue and mercie towards vs and an APPROEATION that it was a most sufficient recompence for all the transgressions of men And the Father is said to giue his Sonne for vs not that he loued vs better then he did his Sonne whom he infinitely loueth as himselfe and for whose sake onely he accepteth vs not that he vsed any authoritie or power ouer his Sonne to appoint him to this seruice but that knowing the strength and sufficiencie of his Sonne to be as his owne and seeing his loue and mercie towards vs which was common to him with the rest of the persons in that most glorious Trinitie the Father out of the same loue towards vs thought it fitter to accept the offer of his Sonne then that we should perish And therefore though the Father loued his Sonne as himselfe yet he was content his Sonne should beare our burden which we could not without euerlasting destruction and his Sonne could with exceeding honour and admiration of his mercie humilitie obedience and patience If you slide from the Godhead of Christ to his manhood to binde that because it was a Creature and not the Creator by diuiding the person of Christ you runne into the heresie of Nestorius condemned in the generall Counsell of â—…phesus and yet releiue not your selfe For the person and not this or that part of his nature must be the Redeemer since neither man could saue vs vnlesse he were also God nor God could die for vs vnlesse he were also man and so did sufâ—…er death in his humane nature So that the Suertie as you call him that vndertooke our saluation not onely from the beginning but before the world was precisely the person of the Sonne of God and not the humane nature of Christ and therefore you must either binde the Godhead of Christ as our Suertie or free his manhood from all bands Neither could any of Christs sufferings be of infinite price and merite for vs except we asâ—…ibe them to the voluntarie obedience of the person since the death of a iust man could not be the redemption of the worlde but the death of that person which was more woorth then all the world If then Christs sufferings take their force and value from the person they must likewise haue their freedome and election from the person Those sentences of your Authors Gregorie Austen and Ambrose if they be spoken simply seeme very harsh where they say that Christ could haue saued vs otherwaies then by suffering and dying for vs. For herein they oppose Gods absolute omnipotencie against his expresse and reuealed will which how it may be liked in Diuinitie I know not Yours is more harsh that reprooue them before you vnderstand them and chalenge that as false which is most apparantly true by the maine grounds of Christian Religion For if you auouch Gods power to extend no farder then his works as if God could doe no more then he hath done or will doe is a manifest denying of Gods omnipotencie which is larger then either his will or his
since Gods promises and his owne knowledge did assure him that hee was ordained and annointed of God to be the Sauiour of the world I omit that dereâ—…iction is one of the properties of the damned of which before you said there couâ—…d vâ—…terly be none of these in Christ. Now belike vpon some new inspiration from the father of lies you haue found that Christ suffered such a forsoking of God as the damned doâ—… With such mysteries of impietie and contrarietie you daâ—… be vp your new redemption by the paâ—…nes of hell and of the damned But the Apostle teacheth vs that as the sufferings of Christ abound in his members so their consolation aboâ—…ndeth through Christ. And if wee reioice in trouble knowing that suffering with him we shall raigne with him how could patience that breedeth hope in vs and maketh vs perfect exclude him from all comfort whom God did consumâ—…ate with affliction and made the Author of eternall salâ—…ation to all that obey him I adde vnto all this last of all your owne grant where you fully yeeld that Christ was our Suertie to the Law and that he did suffer iustly or in Gods iustice The vengeance of the Law say you once executed in our Suertie can no more in Gods iustice be exacted on vâ—… The name of a Suertie is not it that I mislike but your concluding from the similitude thereof that Christ was bound to suffer hell paines in our steed and was defilâ—…d and hatefull to God by our sinnes So much resemblance Christ had with a Suertie as suffering in our steedes and for our sakes to cleere and acquit vs by his sufferings but that he was thereto bound or therewith defiled these were the two points that I misliked to be drawne from the similitude of a Suertie and heerein I said the Scriptures rather make him a Mediatour and Redeemer them a Suertie I say the same still but that you doe not or will not perceaue it least you should want somewhat to quarrell with But I ouerthrow mine owne chiefe exception which I make that Christ was not our Suertie to the Law to pay our debts When I say Christ died for vs NOT AS A SVERTIE BOVND TO THE LAVV you put BOVND in your pocket to serue you an other banket against you be disposed where if you did loue trueth as well as you doe talke you would farely report though you did not fully vnderstand my words I said it was not written in the Scriptures that Christ was a Suertie to the Law to pay our debts If you haue found where it is so written shew the place and take the prize you will prooue it out of my words you say at least if you could and yet betweene my wordes and the Scriptures when you liste you can put difference enough But let vs see how you deduce it out of my words that Christ was bound to the Law to pay our debts for vs. That he did submit himselfe to the curse of the Law to discharge vs from all our debts to the Law I neuer denied the Apostle saith Christ redeemed vs from the curse of the Law being made a curse for vs that is in our steeds or to our vse The Question is whether he did this willingly freely and of his owne accord as I with the whole Church of Christ affirme he did or whether he were bound to the Law so to do which is your new found faith to defile Christ with our sinnes and to hang him iustly by the sentence of the Law You haue laboured a long while in vaine saying much and proouing nothing what now conclude you out of my words The vengeance of the Law was executed on him as our Suertie The vengeance of the Law due to vs was executed on him that of his owne fice-will put himselfe in our places by his suffering who was an innocent and the Sonne of God to ouerthrow the curse of the Law which we could neuer haue done but rather by our punishment haue confirmed it How prooue you now that he was bound thus to doe or that the Law did allow vs Suerties You haue my words make your best of them He was our Suertie May not a man as well freely when hee seeth his time discharge an others debts as if he were bound must euerie man that will shew mercy be thereto tied with bands was not the loue which the Sonne of God bare vnto vs as good an assurance as all the bands you haue brought in to make him a seruant vnder the Law that was Lord ouer the Law Those are not properly Suerties Amongst Banckrowts and Vsurers they are not but honest and able men do most desire such How much lesse then ought we to binde the Sonne of God as if his credite were crazed or haue him in suspition except he will enter an obligation to redeeme vs The debt can not now by Gods iustice be exacted on vs. And why because God in his mercie towards vs liked rather to accept the obedience of his Sonne for vs then to execute his vengeance on vs. Which since he did no way owe for himselfe being not onely a most innocent man but the most excellent Lord of heauen and earth his sufferings were in vaine if they preuailed not for vs. For vs then they were iust Farre woorse were well deserued by vs and reserued for vs if the Lord of glorie had not interposed himselfe but his willing admitting the punishment due to vs in his owne bodie did not make him guiltie of our sinnes nor woorthie of our punishment If Christes sufferings were iust in him how was he an innocent Because God is as well righteous in his fauour as in his anger and no lesse iust in sauing his elect then in condemning his enemies Wherefore Christes sufferings were not due to him by Gods reuenging iustice but in his righteous mercie towards vs he laid our burden on him who was well able to beare it and of his owne good will desired it And this suffering as an innocent with his vndeserued death to releeue others was more righteous and glorious in the sight of God by infinite degrees then if he had patiently suffered and deserued it It was therefore exceeding mercy in the Sonne to offer it and maruellous clemencie in the Father to accept it and in both most admirable loue to performe it which is neuer vniust with God And this though you for a shift call Law the Scriptures call grace by faith in Christ which is not of the Law nor by the Law that increaseth sinne and causeth anger For the Law was giuen by Moses but grace and trueth by Iesus Christ. But heereof I haue spoken enough before I may not repeat it for your pleasure Your Similitude of a Kings Sonne intreating for his Fathers Rebels is very weake and ouerthroweth if it were good a confessed point of Christs Redemption
power that in all as well sufferings as doings he might be obedient and yet righteous And had they heard such a ghest as you are tell them a tale of Gods t Defenc. pag. 106. li. 38. diuine power wringing out of Christes body a bloudy sweat they would haue rung you another manner of Peale For what is wringing but violent forcing and what is violence but inuoluntary constraint which is any thing rather then obedience and so where the Apostle professeth of Christ that he was obedient euen vnto death you haue spied out that Christes bloudy sweat was WRVNG from him and so no part of his willing and free submission and obedience vnto God u Defenc. pag. 107. li. 12. Where they say Nec infirmitas quod potestas gessit that prooueth the cleane contrarie for ideo infirmitas quia potestas gessit For the working of his power in him argueth the suffering of his infirmity The power of God is perfited in infirmity If you would ascribe neither Religion nor learning to two such Pillars of Christes Church as Hilarie and Austen were you should at least leaue them common in sight and vnderstanding of their owne wordes It is enough for a man of your sise to lacke learning trueth and sense They were very learned and wise or els the whole Church that hath hitherto esteemed and receaued them for such was much deceaued But you that haue found a new faith in the Scriptures no maruaile if you catch the fathers with contrarieties which others neuer drempt of The ground of their wordes is the cleare rule of reason nature and trueth confirmed in heauen earth and hell that contraries in one and the same subiect time and respect doe exclude one another As if any thing be cold it is not hoate if it be drie it is not moist if it be straight it is not crooked and so if it be weake it is not strong Hence they conclude if there could be in Christ no compulsion to feare and sorow then was there election if no necessity then liberty and consequently if no preualence of corruption against his fullnesse of trueth and grace then it was not infirmity that subiected him to these violent and painfull affections but it was his will and power that raised and restrained them in him selfe Against this what saith our master of new maximes nay it was therefore infirmitie because power did it This indeed crosteth their sayings but withall it crosseth all trueth if you take their wordes as they spake them But you meane as your marginer noteth therefore there was infirmity because x Defenc pag. 107. ad marginem li. 3. there was power He can neuer shoot amisse that neuer offreth to any marke Where was there infirmity where was there power in the person of Christ belike Hilary and Austen did not know that Christ was God and man and had in his person both the infinite power of God and the voluntarie weaknesse of man that being compared with his Godhead might well be called infirmity as the Apostle saiâ—…th Christ was crucisied concerning his infirmity that is in the weaknesse of his flesh but yet that voluntary weaknesse of God or in God the sonne was stronger then all the power of men or of Diuels whom his manhood spoiled and caried captiues with an open triumphe This is not their meaning to say that Christ had no infirme part in his person compared with his diuine power that is no manhood but only his Godhead and therefore your reply to that purpose is as senselesse as it is needlesse Where Christes diuine power did punish there his humane infirmity did suffer This is your wresting of their wordes against their meaning to bring them to your compasse but this is no part of their speech That weaknesse is patient where power is agent this may be but what is that to their words which are very true without your punishing power Hilarie sayth y Hilar. de Trinitate li. 10. To sweat bloud is against nature and so not a weaknesse in nature Since then it was aboue nature to sweat bloud he ascribeth it to Christes will and power performing that in his bodie which nature could not do z Ibidem Quis rogo furor est repudiata doctrinae Apostolicae fide mutare sensum religionis totum hoc ad imbecillitatem contumeliam rapere naturae quod volunt as est sacramentum quod potest as est siducia triumphus What madnesse is this here you Sir Defender how he requiteth you for peruerting the trueth of his words by refusing the faith of the Apostles doctrine to change the sense of religion and to impute all that to the imbccillitie and contumelie of Christes nature which was his will and a mysterie yea power considence and victory And againe lest you should thinke he wanted reason for his speech a Ibidem Quarogo side naturaliter infirmus fuisse defenditur cui naturale fuit omnem human arum infirmitatum inhibere naturam Forte stulta atque impia peruersitate hinc infirmae in â—…o naturae presumitur assertio quia trist is sit anima eius vsque ad mortem With what faith I aske is Christ assirmed to be naturally weake to whom it was naturall to heale all mans infirmities Happely by a foolish and wicked peeuishnesse he is therefore presumed to be of a weake nature because his soule was sorrowfull vnto death This ground of his speech is short but sure except you will deride Christ and say b Luke 4. Physician heale thy selfe or blaspheme him with the Pharises and say as they sayd c Matth. 27. He saued others he can not saue himselfe It was then in Christ not want of power to represse these passions or repell these infirmities that subiected himselfe vnto them it was his owne willing obedience that would taste them and power that did guide them lest they should breake into the distemper and excesse of our corrupt nature The power of God you say is perfected in infirmitie Those words I trust were not spoken of Christ and howsoeuer in some sort they may be verified of Christ yet is there no comparison betwixt our naturall infirmitie and his fulnesse of trueth and grace d Esa. 11. The spirit of counsell and trueth rested on him e Iohn 3. without measure wee wholly want it till Gods power in some degree confirme our infirmitie Againe infirmitie in these words doth signifie outward afflictions and miseries for so the Apostle there expoundeth it f 2. Cotin 12. vers 10. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproches in necessities in persecutions for when I am outwardly weake then I am inwardly strong So that those words can not rightly be referred to inward infirmitie and might they yet Christes gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost were not only farre aboue Pauls but in the greatest degree that any creature might haue them and
dereliction beseemeth the time place person and cause of Christ our ransome payer and purchaser of saluation with the price of his owne most direfull paines not any other farre fet or hardly applied and strangely deuised by the braines of men As iâ—… trueth all those other senses hereof are which you rather embrace Somewhat it was you mustered foure places of Scripture so wisely chosen and well becomming your cause before you would offer to determine the matter and now puft vp with pure pride and prickt on with singular disdaine you censure the whole Church of Christ and the chiefe lights and leaders thereof I still except the Apostles as peruerters of the Scriptures traducing their expositions as farre fet hardly applied and strangely deuised by the braines of men But if you so much despise their learning religion and iudgements who were Gods blessed instruments to maintaine his trueth against all heresies and his Church against all Schismaticks and thinke your braines to be more than the braines of a man take heed lest your Reader begin to suspect you haue the braines of some other kinde If Athanasius Hilarie Chrysostome Basil Cyrill Epiphanius Ierome Ambrose Augustine Origen Tertullian and Leo may not be thought in the verdict of any wise or sober man as likely to vnderstand the sense of Christes words on the crosse as your humorous and presumptuous shall I say braine which you so much abase in others or head without braine then I must confesse my fault who loue not to leane to mine owne wit in cases of faith but rather preferre the religious and laborious inquiries of others chiefly of learned and ancient Fathers where it concerneth matters of saluation and the grounds of Christian religion which they carefully receiued and faithfully deliuered to Gods people so many hundred yeeres before we were borne And what maâ—…uell you be so bolde with the braines of men as you terme it when you take vpon you to ouerrule the words of the Holy Ghost For where in the sacred Scriptures the bloud of Christ shed for vs is recorded to be the true price of our redemption you controlling as well the Apostles as the Fathers tell vs here that Christ o Pa. 108. li. 23. purchased our saluation with the price of his most direfull paines where by direfull paines you meane hell paines that your speech in this case may be as new as your faith Belike then in your conceit Peter Paul and Iohn though Christes Apostles were neuer well Catechised nor instructed in their faith since they affirme p 1. Pet. 1. we were redeemed by the precious bloud of Christ and q Ephes. 1. we haue redemption in Christ through his bloud and Christ r Reuel 5. by his bloud redeemed vs vnto God which lesson you like not and therefore you say our saluation was purchased with the price of Christes direfull paines that is of hell paines suffered in the soule of Christ which hath no bloud vnlesse you can as easily deuise new bloud for Christes soule as you haue done a new hell for Christs sufferings Till you so do giue me and other Christians leaue to thinke that the second death which you dreame of did neither beseeme the time place person nor cause of Christ our Redeemer and therefore his words on the crosse could haue no such reference as you haue riddled in this place s Defenc. pag. 108. li. 27. Your expositions are sixe in number the first is that when Christ on the crosse cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me by this word ME he should meane his Church for which you haue no reason in the world but the bare names of Austen Leo Athanasius The moe the senses may be of these words and euery of them agreeing with Christian pietie as I professed of them the lesse soundnesse is in your conclusion that would inferre vpon a strange and needlesse sense of these words your paines of the damned to be then suffered in the soule of Christ. And in denying your direfull exposition of Christes words I haue all the Fathers of Christes Church for 1400 yeeres of the same opinion with me And if your chiefe and capitall proofes were such newes to them what thinke you was the rest of your new faith They are sixe in number you say and they all can not stand together You are nimble in trifles and in substance no bodie Nor I nor any man liuing may take vpon vs to determine which shall be the meaning of Christes words when the words themselues admit and allow manie senses In this very case the persons and the parts forsaken the graces and degrees wherein and how farre that dereliction might extend receiue diuers opinions and though they be different they are not repugnant the one to the other And yet it is no newes in many places of holy Scripture by reason of the different or repugnant significations of the words circumstances of the sentence and degrees of extension and intension in many things to finde contrarie iudgements of men euen of the same words and things in holy writ Neither doe diuers expositions disgrace the word of God so long as they containe nothing repugnant to the text it selfe in that or any other place but shew rather the depth of Gods wisedome which incloseth many things in few words and often passeth the reach and search of mans wit But you that carpe at euery thing besides your owne conceits would faine make your Reader beleeue that siue fingers and one hand ten toes and two feet can not stand together For the matter it selfe as dereliction is confessed on all sides because it is mentioned in the words of Christ so it may be questioned of what persons to what part and in what things Christ conceined and intended that for saking of which he spake For as God is sayd in the Scriptures to be present with vs diuers wayes and to diuers effects namely when he lightneth strengtheneth and inwardly guideth vs with the grace of his spirit or outwardly blesseth our wayes and heareth and helpeth vs in time of trouble so when he withdraweth or with holdeth any of these things from vs whether it be his helpe his blessing or his grace he is sayd to depart and to forsake vs. Now if we take forsaking in Christes words for the losing or lacking of Gods What forsaking could not be found in Christ. fauour grace or spirit it was not possible that any such forsaking should at any time be found in Christ our head though the members of Christ do all well deserue to be depriued of all these things and were depriued of them till by Christ they were restored Since then this kinde of forsaking could neuer be verified of Christes person but only of his members and he suffered for vs t Ephes. 2. 16. to reconcile vs to God by his Crosse these words of Christ on the Crosse some learned Fathers haue expounded to
containe the reconciliation of man to God who for sin had before forsaken vs and was now pacified by Christes bloud and an entrance giuen vs to the Father by vertue of Christes oblation and petition for vs. Wherefore in their iudgements as Christ then suffered for vs so he prayed in these words for vs and the neere coniunction of Christ with vs as the head with his members made him couer vs and present vs to God vnder his owne name who was then and there no Redeemer of himselfe but of vs. Examples of this speech they haue many and good as where Christ sayd to Paul u Acts 9. Saul Saul why persecutest thou me that is my members And againe I am Iesus whom thou persecutest that is whose members thou pursuest And in one x Matth. 25. Chapter where Christ foresheweth the separation that he will make betweene the sheepe and the goats he calleth his brethren and seruants by the name of himselfe no lesse than two and thirtie times saying y Ibid. vers 35. I was hungrie and ye gaue ME meat I thirsted and ye gaue ME drinke I was a stranger and ye lodged ME z vers 36. I was naked and ye clothed ME I was sicke and ye visited ME and so forth to the number that I named And when the good maruelled how euer they affourded any of these things to him he answereth them a vers 40. Verily I say vnto you in as much as ye did it vnto one of the least of my brethren ye did it vnto me So that this exposition of Christes speech concerneth directly the worke that Christ had then in hand for vs and wanteth not Christes warrant for the vse of his owne words and this sense of that his prayer presenting and commending vs to God that were forsaken of God was of no lesse waight for vs than the rest of his sufferings b Defenc. pag. 108. li. â—…0 Shew me their reasons presse not their authorities So sayth he that hath neither reason nor authoritie and yet presseth his fansie vpon the whole Church against all reason and authoritie Their reasons I haue shewed to stand on a better foundation than your direfull and infernall paines or your astonished confusion and destitution of all inward and outward ioy and comfort And could you with halfe that soundnesse make good your hellish exposition you should not shew so great pride as you now doe For I vtterly denie that your exposition hath any ground in the word of God but resteth onely on your single and sillie surmises in fauour of your owne fansies And since you demand of all the Fathers a reason of all their expositions how come you against all reason and trueth to conclude the paines of the damned to be suffered in Christes soule by pretence of this dereliction when as the word thorowout Dereliction in the Scriptures neuer implieth the paines of the damned the Scriptures neuer implieth the present state or paines of the damned What defence can you haue for your desperate aduenture to plunge Christes soule into the second death which the Scripture calleth the Lake burning with fire and brimstone since you want all as well diuine as humane reason and authoritie c Defenc. pag. 1. 8. li. 31. Your selfe reiect them when you list though when you list againe they must be your best yea your only reason A lie is a good shift with you or els you would often lie in the mire I do no where refuse the faith professed and preached in the primitiue Church of Christ by the learned and ancient Pastours and Guiders thereof I openly confesse Wherein wee should follow the Fathers to God and this Realme I should neuer sleepe quietly if I saw my selfe to be of another faith than they were In other things not pertinent to our saluation and redemption where they themselues tooke libertie either to dissent ech from other in some questions or sometimes vpon better aduice to correct or moderate their former opinions I thinke my selfe not burdened in conscience if I with modestie make choise what I like best Neither doe I account it any disgrace to make their faith deduced and confirmed by the word of God my best or only reason since all hereticks haue subuerted themselues and their followers whiles they would shew their inuentions and with plausible reasons fasten their fansies on the sacred Scriptures not contenting themselues with those sober and sound interpretations of hard places which the Church of Christ with long experience and great diligence had examined and tried And howsoeuer for want of knowledge in the Hebrew tongue they might sometimes come short yet this was their generall care in all their expositions and applications neuer to swarue from the Canons of the Christian faith I speake of those whom the Church accepted and allowed for truely Catholike Yet to their interpretations I binde no mans conscience farther than euident trueth shall appeare to be in them onely I wish others and euen you Sir Inuentour not ouerhastily to despise their iudgements which the Church of God hath so many hundred yeeres reuerenced and followed Howbeit this is a bar sufficient to your bold deuices that where you would deriue your hell paines from Christes complaint on the Crosse I bring you fiue or six expositions of those wordes out of the auntient and catholike fathers whereof you shall neuer be able to refute one which no way touch your hellish torments and thereby teach you if you be capable either of verity or sobriety that your conclusion more then halteth in the highest mysteries of christian Religion d Def. pag. 108 li. 33. li. 38. If these Fathers be vnderstood as before I haue shewed Cyprians meaning to be then they agree iust with our minde herein for then doubtlesse it was for the infinite paines which now he felt in our stead that he so cried out My God my God why hast thou for sakenmee After you haue plaied your part with reuelling at their expositions will you now flatter them afresh ioyne hands with them so they will be of your minde In vaine do you striue to bring them to that which they neuer intended but euer detested What kinde of dereliction Cyprian confesseth to haue beene in Christ is euident by his words e Cyprianus de passione Christi Quod pro eis voluisti intelligi qui deseri à Dea propter peccata meruerant quorum reconciliationis causam agebas in qua alle gator subtilis pro seruis seruilem non dedignaris accipere personam ET IN TANTVM infirmis compatcris vt nec crucifigi nec mori nec crubescas nec forâ—…ides altitudinem tuam derelinquens ad tempus gloriae tuae maiestâ—…tem euacuans vt redeant dispersi respirent derelicti The words of thy complaint on the Crosse sayth Cyprian to Christ thou wouldest haue to be vnderstood for 〈◊〉 who had deserued by their sinnes to be
for the manhood of Christ to say my God my God why hast thou so long forsaken me without any publike signe or shew that thou louest and fauourest me whom this nation had so much wronged and blasphemed or is it of late become so shamefull a thing with you that Christ should complaine he was forsaken and left in the hands of his persuers without help or ease both old and new writers euen of the best learned that haue been in Christs Church haue thought it no shame for Christ in that very respect so to speake o Hieronym in Matth ca. 27. Maruaile not saith Ierom at Christes complaint of being forsaken when thou seest the scandall of his crosse p 〈◊〉 de fide li. 2. ca. 3. He speaketh as a man saith Ambrose which was no shame for him to doe because being in danger we thinke our selues forsaken of God The same wordes q 〈◊〉 in Mar. ca. 14. Bede r 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 ca. 27. Rabanus and r 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 ca. 27. Aquinas repeat and follow Theodoret saith Christ s 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 21. calleth that a dereliction which was a permission of the diuinity that the humanity should suffer Christe would endure saieth Austen this vnto death in the sight of his enemies that they might take him as one forsaken Lyra. u 〈◊〉 Mat. ca 27. Dixit 〈◊〉 derclictum a deo 〈◊〉 quia dimittebat cum in manibus occidentium Christ saith he was forsaken of God his father because he was left in the hands of those that slew him And so our new writers August epist. 120 x 〈◊〉 in Mat. ca. 27. Hic questus est se in manibus impiorum adomnem ipsorvm libidinem a patre derelictum Christ heere complained saith Bucer that he was forsaken of his father or left in the 〈◊〉 of the wicked to endure all their rage Bullinger y Bullingerus in Matth. ca. 27. Derelinquere siue deserere in 〈◊〉 est permittere To forsake or leaue in Christes wordes on the Crosse is to permit So that this was Christs meaning why doest thou suffer me to be thus afflicted why doest thou permit these things to mine enemies when wilt thou deliuer me Munster z Munsterus in Psalm 21. haec Christi verbanon impatientiam aliquam aut diffiden̄tiam prae se ferunt c these words of Christ My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee shew no impatience or diffidence but declare that he was a true man and that he had truely suffered And what if as some learned Fathers conceaue Christ did not grieuously complaine in those wordes that he was forsaken but thereby led his enemies to looke and search in the Psalmes Prophets for the cause why the messias should be so forsaken deliuered into the hands of sinners as they saw he was a August epist. 120. Christ doth not say saith Austen my God my God why hast thou forsaken me sed causum commonuit requirendam cum addidit vt quid dereliquisti me id est propter quid quam ob causam but he admonished the cause to be searched when he added why hast thou forsaken me that is to what end and for what cause for truely there was a cause and that no small cause why God would not deliuer Christ from the handes of the Iewes but leaue him in the power of his persecutors till he died Leo likewise b Leo de Passione 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 17. Therefore Christ cried with a loud voice why hast thou forsaken me that he might make it knowen to all for what cause he ought not to be deliuered nor defended sed saeuientium manibus derelinqui but to be left in the hands of his pursuers which was to be made the Sauiour of the world and the Redeemer of all men non per miseriam sed per misericordiam non amissione auxilij sed definitione moriendi not by any miserable necessitie but of mercie not for lacke of helpe but of purpose to die for vs Whether then Christs meaning in those wordes if we apply them to his owne person were to hasten the time of his death which he knew was at hand and should bring him case of his excessiue How many meanings 〈◊〉 words on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haue paines or to mooue his father to demonstrate by those signes which followed what fauour and affection he bare to the person of his sonne though for our sakes he suffered him thus to be vsed or to teach his persecutors that there was a cause which they knew not why himselfe being their messias should die this death on the crosse or last whether his manhood conformed it selfe to the desires and grones of his church and members whom the Prophets teach in this wise to pray when they were oppressed with any great calamity or misery none of these waies I say are the wordes of Christ on the crosse chalengeable but they stand well with the piety patience confidence and expectance that were in Christ and haue better foundation in the sacred Scriptures then your paines of the damned or your second death to be then and there suffered in the soule of Christ. c Defenc. pag. 110. li. 7. The bare names againe of Austen Ambrose Ierom doe here likewise no good this is but a weake kind of reasoning for so learned a Diuine as you are I like better this kind of weakenesse in matters of faith to haue the consent of the learned and auncient fathers for that I teach then your kind of strength which is to be so stiffe in your priuate conceits that you will delude the Scriptures with your figures and deride the fathers as seely fooles not vnderstanding the first principles of Religion rather then you will forgoe the least of your fansies If you light on any Reader of the same mind let him know that the choice wil be hard for him to make whether all the fathers in Christes Church did erre in the chiefe grounds of their faith or he himselfe be out of the trueth If Christian Religion were not since Christes time before our age this is a greater forsaking of Christ then any was on the Crosse. For then hath God forgotten all his purposes and promises so often mentioned in the Prophets and confirmed to Christ if there were neuer Church of Christ since the Apostles death till our dayes And he that is of that humour it skilleth not greatly of what side he be for certainly he can be no member of Christs Church that reiecteth all persons places and ages before his birth as none of Christs I wish no wise nor sober Reader so farre to venture his soule If then to the Primatiue Church of Christ next after the Apostles we yeeld but ordinary knowledge of the Christian faith we may not take from so many learned fathers and Pastours as God hath for so many hundred yeares adorned his Church withall the common vnderstanding of their Catechisme and
the death of the soule and so neglecting what you should prooue you vainly push against that which I doe not vphold And yet if we admit these cries and teares to be powred forth not for himselfe but for vs then might he most wofully bewaile our deserued destruction which was no lesse then euerlasting damnation of body and soule if he did not ransome and release vs from it To his fathers will Christ submitted himselfe in the garden but what he disliked in that cup which he named and how much thereof he tasted is knowen neither to you nor to me nor to any man liuing That it was very sharp we may iustly collect by his naturall dislike thereof but what degrees or sorts of paines were adherent to his passion is not for you or me to determine What he might suffer with piety patience and obedience to his father is aboue mans reach to define but the second death or the death of the soule if we follow the leading of the Scriptures and not fall to deuising a new hell and a new death of the soule to support our fansies are things that by no colour of Scripture can be confirmed howsoeuer you straine and stretch the word of God to find them there e Defenc. pag. 137. li. 28. And yet it was I grant the death of the soule or the second death that is simply the 〈◊〉 thereof Gods withdrawing himselfe from him in the paines and torments thereof Your grant is the ground of your doctrine besides that which you haue nothing els to beare the burden of your deuices But what a iest is this when you should iustly prooue and fully conclude your assertions to fall to granting of them whereas your graunt with me and with any man that is wise is not worth a grey goose quill Howbeit these are the best buttresses of your cause euen your owne violent conceits that force the Scriptures to your liking But Sir remember you are neither Prophet nor Apostle and so your granting of these nouelties may shew your owne gyddinesse it cannot preiudice the true and vndoubted rules of the Christian faith Hence it followeth inâ—…incibly that Christ indeed suffered sith thus he feared more then the meere bodily death euen the death of the soule For he could not I say thus feare but he must needes know that it was to come or might come vnto him If he but knew that it might come vnto him then it certainly did come vnto him at one time or another in his passion before he left the world Here is the prime and pride of your obseruations out of this place of the Apostle to the Hebrewes and except a man were out of his witts he would not reuell in this sort with such waterish and witlesse resumptions Palpable vntrueths you call inuincible certainties and trifles wherewith children will not be deceiued you obtrude to the whole Church of Christ as fortresses of their faith Christ feared ergo he suffered more then a bodily death ergo the death of the soule What he knew might come that certainly did come These be such bables that boyes in the street will deride them and yet you conceaue and propose them as Sapientiall and soueraigne collections But he that wilfully wandreth thinketh no way straighter then that he traceth and dreamers are often delighted with empty shadowes now if we take your owne translation the Apostle telleth vs that Christ was heard in that he feared ergo he did not suffer it and though it might come yet because he was freed from it certainly it came not and many things might come more then the death of the body and yet not the death of the soule If then you haue no stronger meanes to conclude the death of Christs soule then these the simplest Reader will soone perceiue that your reasons be as frigent as your humours be feruent and though there be fire in your mind yet there is water in your mouth for you truly conceaue or iustly conclude nothing f Defenc. pag. 138. li. 3. Sec. to the Hebrewes Christ abolished through death him that had the power of death that is the Diuell and so deliuered all them which for feare of death were all their life time subiect to bondage Heere I see no reason in the world but that the Apostle by the often repeating of death and by the naturall referring of it in one place as it were to the other doth vnderstand and signifie one and the same death altogether But it is the death of the soule which the Diuell hath power and execution of also the death of the soule sinnefull men were held in feare of all their life long It followeth then I suppose that euen through the death of the soule Christ abolished the Diuell and deliuered his children I know not whether your eies be open or your braines sound that you see nothing but what pleaseth your selfe And what if they be either so dimme or so dull that you see not the truth is that a reason that your ignorance or wilfulnesse must be the loadstone of our creed with such peeuish and priuate presumption would you preuaile against Scriptures Fathers and the whole church of Christ that what you doe not or will not see we must relinquish as false and erroneous to let you see if you be not blinded with preferring your fansies before the trueth of Christ that this is a lazie loose and lewd argument which heere you make take your owne maior or first proposition that Christ suffered the selfe same death which he abolished whereof the Diuell had power and execution and whereof we were in feare being not redeemed all our life long and set this for the second proposition or assumption but it is most euident that the Diuell had power and execution of eternall death and to the feare of euerlasting Destruction were we subiect all the time of our life before we were deliuered by Christ ergo Christ suffered eternall death and damnation in hell For he abolished that from the faithfull and thereof the Diuell had power and execution as also we were in feare and danger of that without the Redeemer What say you to this conclusion grounded on your owne collection and proposition see you the falsenesse and wickednesse thereof and yet if your assertion be true that Christ must redeeme vs with the same kind of death whereof we were in feare and bondage without him and abolish the Diuell with that verie death whereof he had power and execution the one is as strong as the other But who besides you would warble thus in so waighty matters True it is that the name of death compriseth all the kinds of death I meane of bodie of soule of both for euer and this chaine of death is inseparable and ineuitable where Christ doth not breake it By the malice of the diuell perswading sinne which is the losse of grace and death of the soule in this life came into the
day If you could take any hold I doubt not the sharpenesse of your teeth but your foolish conceits are caried like clouds in the aire they rest not before they vanish r Defenc pag. 139. li. 5. Then Luke where both spirit and flesh are not intended of Christ as our obseruation requireth but only the flesh Your obseruation is made to fitte S. Peters words to your fansie For there are not many places in Scripture where spirit and flesh are expressed and intended of the two natures of Christ though in other places some words adioyned doe prooue him to be God as well as man In that of S. Luke Christ doth not denie himselfe to be a diuine spirit for then he were no God since God is a s Iohn 4. spirit nor to haue an humane spirit for then he were no man but that which they saw with their eies he affirmed was flesh and bloud and not any apparition in the shape of a man And the words following t Luke 24. as ye see me to haue containe and note the other part of his humane nature which was his soule and spirit and consequently inferre that he was a man and had an humane spirit though compassed with flesh and bones as we haue u Defenc. pag. 139. li. 7. Then the Romans where I affirme that flesh signifieth the whole manhood of Christ according to the which he came from Dauid euen as well as Salomon or Nathan did who were Dauids sonnes in their intire and perfect nature Whether Christs body without a soule which was but a Carcasse be alwaies in the Scriptures intended by the name of Christs flesh this is not the question there is but one place in the new Testament where Christs flesh importeth his dead body as when Peter saith Christes x Acts 2. flesh saw no corruption but whether whatsoeuer is attributed to Christs flesh with comparison or mention of his diuine nature doe properly agree as well to his soule as to his body this is the thing in question betwixt you and me That the man Christ was borne of the Virgin and died on the Crosse there is no doubt but that his soule was made of the seed of Dauid and circumcised crucified as well as his body this is your error and for this you haue no shew in the word of God and therefore you seeke by rules of your owne making to draw it in by the heeles when you cannot by the head It is but a shift to saue your selfe when you tell your Reader that Christs whole manhood came from Dauid as well as Salomon or Nathan did The point is whether Christes soule were made of the seed of Dauid as well as his body was That I denie and haue the Apostle for my warrant that men are only the y Heb. 12. Fathers of our bodies and God is the immediate Father of our spirits Which if it be true in all men then Salomon and Nathan were the sonnes of Dauid not because their soules were made of the seed of Dauid but only their bodies and yet since they drew as much from their father as children by Gods ordinance do or may do therefore were they the sonnes of Dauid In Christ it is most sure which the Apostle saith that according to the flâ—…sh he was made of the seed of Dauid This by no meanes can be verified of his soule howsoeuer you would slubber it vp by calling his whole manhood the sonne of Dauid which I doe not denie Not that his soule was made of the seed of Dauid as was his body that is an open and an odious error but that his flesh made of the seed of Dauid which was the Virgins body was also quickened with a soule from God in due time that came not out of Dauids loines Euen so the whole man in Christ died on the Crosse not that his soule was depriued of life or left dead as was his body but that the coniunction of soule and body which maketh the whole man was dissolued by death his flesh lying in the graue without corruption and his soule remaining in the hands of God to which it was commended z Defenc. pag. 139. So likewise Christ was kinne to the lewes according to his whole humanity as well as Paul was When you can shew kindred in spirits as well as in flesh that is deriued from parents then say that Paul and Christ were kin to the Iewes according to their whole humanity till you proue that howsoeuer vse of speach may be endured which must be interpreted according to the truth you can neuer conclude there is consanguinity betweene soules as there is betweene bodies And spight of your heart if you will not maintaine vntrueths to vphold your credit as your maner is the Apostle teacheth you how to vnderstand those words that as we haue fathers of our bodies from whom our spirits come not but immediatly from God so kindred and consanguinity which commeth by the parents goeth by flesh and bloud receiued from them and not by soules infused from God S. Iohn leadeth you to the same rule that men are borne of bloud and of the will of the flesh and so by flesh and bloud commeth kindred God giuing soules to quicken their bodies Wherefore the Scriptures when they expresse kindred they note it by flesh and bone As when Laban said to Iacob Thou art my a Gene. 29. bone and my flesh So Iudah of Ioseph b Gene. 37. he is our brother and our flesh So Abimelech to his mothers brethren c Iudic. 9. I am your bone and your flesh And vsualy where kindred is claimed or yeelded the Scriptures expresse it by d 2. Sam. 5. 19 flesh and bones as Adam said to Eue e Gen. 2. This now is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh So that howsoeuer you dreame or talke of the consanguinity of soules it is like the rest of your nouelties which haue no handfast but in your head and the exception taken by me will stand good doe you and your adherents what you can that in these attributes to the manhood of Christ you shall neuer prooue they properly pertaine to both parts but to the whole conioyned or to one part seuerally respected f Defenc. pag. 139. li. 21. Further that which you bring out of the Corinthians compared with this in Peter doth most cleerely open and confirme the same He was crucified touching his infirmitie but liueth by the power of God His soule had infirmities of suffering in it aswell as his bodie therefore his soule also is vnderstood here that it was crucified and died that is according to the condition thereof You proue not what you promise but pronounce what you please which if any man will suffer you to doe we shall soone haue a new Church a new Faith and all things new Afore you pretended rules at least though void of reason and trueth now you
towards a trueth but this is cleane kam to that you said before Your former speach was these paines doe alwayes accompanie the wicked and now you turne the cake in the pan as if that side were not burnt and tell vs they are alwayes wicked whom those paines doe accompanie ordinarily Forsooth this is not How handsomly the defender shifteth hands that you said before and if you be ashamed of your follie and falsehood I am not against repentance But it were plaine dealing to confesse the fault and not to bring in an ape for an owle and say it is the same Creature And yet forsooth whether this position be true or not is without the compasse of your skill For first what is ordinarie with you once a weeke once a moneth or once in seuen yeeres you haue gotten a word that you may winde at your will and limite as you like best and yet without all proofe you resolue that these paines doe ordinarily accompanie the wicked experience I trust you will take none vpon you for then by your owne rule you must be alwayes wicked to sift other mens souls what paines they feele though they be wicked I win you haue no way but by report or conâ—…ecture which are both vncertaine Warrant in the word you haue none that such paines doe alwayes or ordinarily accompany the wicked the contrarie may rather be thence collected For when the wicked shall say q 1. Thess. 5. Peace and safetie then shall suddaine destruction come vpon them Peace and safetie in the paines of hell I suppose they haue nor cause nor will to say In Peace then safety not in the pains of the damned are many if not most of the wicked till destruction come vpon them which is not alwaies nor ordinary since they can be destroyed but once and vntill that time their ease and abundance make them forget God r Defenc. pag. 141. li. 18. Againe you pretend to haue much against me where I say the feeling of the sorrwes of Gods wrath due to sinne in a broken and contrite heart is indeede the onely true and perfectly accepted sacrifie to God True so I said and againe I say it What see you annsse in it Then vnhappie men are the godlâ—…e say you which are at any time free from the paines of the damned to what purpose is this I speake of Christs sacrifice Thus your triumphs before the victorie come to nothing but blasts of vanitie If I mistooke your meaning you are the more beholding to me the sense which you now expresse is worse then that I charged you with and yet I tooke your words as they lay which because they were namely applied neither to Christ nor to vs by you I pressed you with the lesser absurditie of the twaine Why your words might not be referred to the faithfull I saw no cause Dauid confessing that the s Psal. 51. v. 17. sacrifices of God he meaneth esteemed and required of God are a troubled spirit and a contrite and broken heart causeth the sacrifice of righteousnesse to be accepted I strained your words no farder then Dauids but sayd you miâ—…construed the wordes of the holy Ghost if you tooke a broken and contrite heart repenting his former sinnes for the paines of hell suffered in the soule You now say you ment this of Christ that his broken and contrite heart feeling the most vehement paines of the damned was the onely true and perfectly accepted sacrifice to God and aske me what I see amisse in this I will soone tell you Where I would haue charged you with a single error against the Godly by reason your wordes are indistinct and doubtfull you loade your selfe with a double iniurie against God and his Sonne For first the sacrifice of Christes bodie by which we are sanctified as saith the Apostle is excluded from being a true and perfectly accepted sacrifice if the paines of hell in his soule be onely the true sacrifice Secondly a false sacrifice deuised by your selfe and neuer offered by Christ is obtruded by you vnto God as the onely true sacrifice which he must perfectly accept and so where before you blazed an vntrueth you be now come to bolster it vp with impietie For where no Scripture doth witnesse that Christ suffered any such sorrowes and paines of hell as you surmise you now openly professe that all sorrowes and sacrifices besides this were neither true nor acceptable vnto God and that this your deuice surpasâ—…eth all the merits and obedience of Christ whatsoeuer t Defenc. pag. 141. li. 30. Where Austen seemeth to denie that Christes soule might die he denieth that Christ suffered any paines of damation locally in hell after his death as it seemeth some held about his time whom heere he laboureth to confute If your ignorance were not euery where patent some man perhaps would stumble at your report but you are growen to such a trade of outfacing that almost you can doe nothing else That any such opinion was held in Austens time as you talke of and that he laboured there to confute the same is a maske of your making to hide your owne blemishes Austen refelleth that as a fable in exact words when he saith Quis audeat dicere who dare say so Now if some had so held he must haue said some doe say so but who dare say so is as much as no man dareth say so If no man durst so to say then no man was so wicked or irreligious in Austens time as to dare say that Christs soule died which now is become the greatest pillar of your pater noster As for suffering in hell locally it is a fiction of yours fastened to S. Austen he hath no such words and therefore no such meaning u Defenc. pag 141. li. 37. He had no necessary cause â—…o speake of the second sense thereof how the soule may be sayd to suffer death extraordinarily for sinne imputed onely neither doth he speake against that in Christ. S. Austen a man would thinke had cause to know how we wâ—…re râ—…d by Christ and surely if he were ignorant thereof you would not iudge him worthy to be a Curate in your Conuenticles but shew that he who taught so much and wrote so much as his works declare euer spake word of your new-found redemption by the paines of hell suffered in the soule of Christ or by the second death Against it he often speaketh when he so soundly and sincerely collecteth out of the Scriptures that Christ died for vs the death of the body onely and not the death of the soule And this how could it be a true or tolerable assertion if the Scriptures did auouch or the church in his time had professed the death of Christs soule to be the chiefest part of our redemption for sinne and reconciliation to God Wherefore neuer dreame he had no necessarie cause to speake of your sense if your sense had beene a part
his power to be destroyed and ouerthrowen If you regard the Catechisme so highly as you pretend why slippe you from it in these or other points at your pleasure why obtrude you that to others as authorised which your selfe doe not admit indeed some men haue of late yeeres inclined to vehement and violent temptations offered to the soule of Christ in his sufferings and some to feares and horrors euen of eternall death as master Caluin and the Catechisme which you cite but if you may be suffered to shrincke from them at your liking neuer blame me if I doe not preferre them before all these fathers Howbeit to speake vprightly without wronging them I doe not see that either the Catechisme or master Caluin doe expressely defend the death of Christs soule or the second death but only the feare and horror not of a temporall hell as you haue distilled their infusion but of eternall death which you with might and maine reiect And surely if they did contradict the confession of all these fathers I would adhere to the primatiue church of Christ in matters of faith rather then to the deuices of late writers dissenting from themselues and others But touching the death of Christes soule I see no cause to depart from them since they define no such thing and therefore they aâ—…e idlely alleadged by you euen as the rest are by you proudly neglected And till you leaue this contemning of ancient Fathers and straining of later writers beyond their meaning I for my part thinke you worthie of no charge in the church of Christ neither of that you had wherein you sowed as much cockle as corne nor of that you may haue except you change your mind and learne to teach nothing to the people of God but what is warranted by the word of God c Defenc. pag. 142. li. 36. ` You say I should haue donne well to haue laied downe for a shew which is written in Easy he laied downe his soule vnto death Verily if I had it would haue made some shew I said indeed the Prophet Esay would make a better shew for the death of Christ soule then the Poet Terence whom only you produced for proofe thereof but such was then and still is your presumption that on your bare word you will pronounce what best pleaseth your fansie Howbeit the words of Esay are but a shew for the death of Christes soule since they exactly declare his bodily death to be the redemption of mankind For when the soule in the Hebrew tongue and in the old Testament is said to die either by the soule are ment the vegetatiue and sensitiue powers of the soule whereby the spirit of man is vnited to his body and which are quenched by death or by death is ment the distraction of the soule from the body which violence of death is common as well to the soule thrust from her body as to the body left without a soule That signification of the word soule the Apostle sheweth when he praieth the d 1. Thess. 5. whole spirit and soule and body of the faithfull may be kept blaâ—…lesse vnto the comming of Christ and saith e Hebr. 4. The word of God pearceth to the diuiding a sunder of the soule and the spirit And this sense of the word death the Scriptures expresse when they often mention that the soules of the godly doe or would die When Iosephs brethren would haue slaine him Ruben said vnto them f Genes 37. vers 21. Let vs not strike him in the soule that is let vs not kill him So Balaam seeing the glory of Gods people said g Numb 23. vers 10. Let my soule die the death of the Righteous and mine end be like his that is Let my soule depart in peace as the Righteous doe And least any thinke that Balaam spake he knew not what Sampson willing to end his life with reuenge of the dishonour done to God by the Philistines insulting at his bonds and blindnesse when he pulled the house on his and their heades said h Iudâ—… 16. vers 30. Let my soule die with the Philistines So Elias wearie of his life i 1. Kings 19. vers 4. desired for his soule to die saying Lord take my soule he ment from his body So Moses comparing a rape with murder saith k Deuter. 22. vers 26. This is as if a man should fall vpon his fellow and kill him in the soule And so Ieremie to Ierusalem l Iere 2. v 34. In thy bosome is found the bloud of the soules of the poore innocents Infinite places are there in the Scripture to like effect All which declare that the soule of man feeleth the death of the body by her departing from it and that the Prophet Esay when he said of Christ He m Esa. 53. v. 12 powred forth his soule vnto death Had no meaning but to describe Christs bodily death in which the soule is powred out from the body that is wholy separated from it The very phrase of powring forth the soule which must needes be from the body sheweth that the Prophet directly described the death of Christs body by which the soule is emptied and powred out of the body as out of a vessel replenished with it So that heere you haue as much hold for the death of Christs soule as you had before which is vtterly none n Defenc. pag. 143. li. 1. You earnestly affirme that this word signifieth soule or spirit in a proper sense Also how resolute are you forbidding to diuert from the natiue and proper significations of words but when the letter impugneth the grounds of Christian faith and charity In the Page 167. which you quote I neither spake of this place nor of this word and therefore your considering cappe was not on when you so much mistooke my words I know Nephesh is applied as well to beasts who haue no soules as to bodies once liuing but then dead And therefore of Nephesh I affirmed no such thing of S. Lukes words repeating Dauids and exactly distinguishing the soule from the flesh in Christ I did indeed auouch and still doe that we must not rashly depart from the proper significations of that and other words in the Scripture except the letter breed some inconuenience to faith or good-maners But what is that to this place where though the word Nephesh be granted properly to import the soule yet the rest sheweth it to be referred to the death of the body because the soule is powred forth of the body by the death thereof where before it was conteined and inclosed o Defenc. pag. 143. li. 15. The rather if we note that which followeth he was counted with sinners that is he was punished by God as sinners are punished and not by the Iewes only counted among Theeues You take vpon you to controle both the Prophet and the Euangelist who refer this misiudging of Chriâ—…t to men not to
either the prophesie which sayd Thou wilâ—… not leaue my soâ—…le in hell which lesâ—…â—…y man should dâ—…e otherwise interpret Peter expoundeth in the Acts of the Apostles nor the words of the same Peter where he affirmeth that Christ loosed the sorowes of hell in which it was impossible he should be held Who then but an Infidell will denie that Christ was in hell All that you haue to say against this is that Iewes and Pagans to wit wicked Rabbins enemies to Christ and Poets ignorant of all trueth vsed the words Sheol and Hades otherwise than the whole Church of Christ without exception till our age receiued and beleeued them from S. Peters mouth and S. Lukes pen that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth the foule and hades importeth hell put you from this shiâ—…t and you fall â—…ull within the compasse of S. Austens challenge that is of plaine infidelitie and theâ—…e be simple Sidemen to cleere you from that crime q Now I assume this and by Gods helpe shall make it manifest that there is in all the Scripture no one place whereby it may be prooued by any shew of reason that Christes soule after this life went locally downward from hence or diuersly from the soâ—…les of â—…ll good men deceased Though the opinion you hâ—…e of your â—…lfe be great yet when you come to condemne the whole Church of God â—…s ignorâ—…t of the Christian faith or altering the same you should vse some more modestie than to say they had not one plat â—…all the Scripture nor any shew of reason to beleeue as they did You preâ—…ume much of your Rabbins and Pagans preferring theiâ—… enuioâ—…s and friuolous iâ—…aginations before the iudgement and faith of the whole Châ—…ch of Chrâ—…st yet take good heed lest the better and elder sort euen of your owne Deponents receiue you not and so you test conuicted in the â—…ares of all good mâ—…n to be rather an insolent affecter of nouelties than any regarder of sobrietie or pietie Only there are two or thrâ—… places sonsibly wrested to this pâ—…rpose First that Ephes. 4. where Christ is sayd to hâ—…e come downe into the lowest parts of the earth If that place be wrested from his right sense the Church of Christ from the beginning must be charged with that wresting Ireneuâ—… citeth thoâ—…e very words of the Apostle that Christ descended to the lower parts of the earth and maketh them equiualent with the words of Dauid touching Christ Thâ—… hast deliuered my soule from the nethermost hell saying Hoâ—… Daâ—…id in câ—…m prophetâ—…s dâ—…xit so much Daâ—…id in his prophesiâ—… spake of him Tertullian alleaging the very same wordes of the Apostle concludeth Habes regionem Inferâ—…m subterraneam credere by this thou art to beleeue that the region or place of hell is vnder the earth Cyprian Descendens ad inferos captiuam ab antiquo captiuitatem reduxit Christ descending to hell brought backe the captiuitie that of old was captiuated Arnobius Postea vidit inferos longe factus est non solum à câ—…lis sed ab ipsa Terra in abyssi profunda descendens c after his crosse he visited hell and became farre off not only from heauen but euen from the earth it selfe descending into the depth of the bottomlesse pit Chrysostom Christ descended to the lower parts of the earth after which there are none other And he ascended aboue all higher than which there is nothing Ambrose vpon that place of â—…aul After death Christ descended to hell whence rising the third day he ascended aboue all the heauens afore all men Ierom out of those words of the Apostle Christ descended to the lower parts of the earth first concludeth Infernum sub terra esse nemo iam ambigat Let no man now doubt but hell is vnder the earth And expounding the rest he sayth Qui descendit cum anima in infernum ipse cum anima corpore ascendit in coelum He that descended to hell in soule ascended to heauen with bodie and soule Primasius vpon the same words of Paul maketh the like collection Ergo sub terra est infernus Qui descendit cum anima in infernum ipse cum anima corpore ascendit ad coelos Therefore hell is vnder the earth And he that in soule descended to hell ascended to heauen in soule and bodie Photius To the lower parts of the earth after which place there is no lower he meaneth hell Dorotheus What is He led captiuitie captiue By Adams transgression the enemie made vs all captiues and had vs in subiection Christ then tooke vs againe out of the enemies hand and conquered him that made vs captiuâ—… Erepti sumus igitur ab inferis ob Christi humanitatem We were then taken from hell by Christes humanity Theophylact At quem in locum descendit In infernum c. To what place did Christ descend To hell which he calleth the lowest parts of the carth after the common opinion of men Haymo First Christ descended to the lower parts of the â—…arth into hell and after he ascended to heauen He descended to hell in his soule alone and then he ascended aboue all the heauens in body and soule It must be noted by this that he sayth Christ descended to the lower parts of the earth he sheweth hell to be vnder the earth whence it is called Infernus because it is lower than the earth or vnder the earth Zanchius repeating diuers Expositions of this place addeth in the end The Fathers for the most part are of this opinion that Christ in his soule came to the place of the damned to signifie not in words but with his presence that the iustice of God was satisfied by his death and bloudshed and that Satan had no longer power ouer his Elect whom he held captiue that himselfe was made Lord ouer all and all power ouer heauen and earth giuen him and a Name aboue all Names that in the name of Iesu euery knee of things celestiall terrestriall and infernall should bow neither that he came thither only to signifie this in such sort as is sayd but also that he might câ—…ie all the diuels with him in a triumph as it is Coloss 2. He spoiled powers and principalities and made an open shew of them leading them as captiues in a triumph by the vertue of his crosse by which he had purged sinnes and appeased the iustice of God Could he not haue done this without any such descent of his soule He could but he would be so farre humbled that his soule should descend into that most darke and wretched place though not there to suffer any thing but to beginne thence his triumph ouer the power of the Diuell And this opinion of the Fathers I dare not condemne since it is not repugnant to the sacred Scriptures and hath likely reasons The consent of the Fathers when it is not contrary to
hath destroied death and purchased life for vs. And therefore after Chriâ—…s resurrection and ascension to aske who shall ascend to heauen to procure vs life or who shall descend into the deepe to destroy death for vs is to frustrate through infidelity that which Christ hath done for vs. If we confâ—…sse with our mouths and beleeue with our hâ—…arts that God hath raised vp Iesus from the dead to be Lord ouer all that is to giue life and saue from death whom he will we shal be saued this is the Apostles purpose As for merit-mongers of whom you say the Apostle speaketh these words it is an idle and drowsie conceit of yours These words doe no waies fitte presumers on their merits for they thinke they shall ascend to heauen by their workes they aske not who shall ascend and in the bottom of the sea what merits can you deuise or to what creatures there should Pharises seeke how to fulfill the law what bables be these to be wreathed into the Apostles words or who but you would place all the creatures of God either in heauen or in the bottom of the sea If you cannot write as a diuine speake yet as a man of common sense or vnderstanding And all these senses you say the Apostle may insinuate in this word I thinke as soone all as one but that the deepe in one and the same sentence should signifie the graue the bottom of the sea and the whole state of the dead is a flower of your field it groweth in no wise mans garden I may not omit to shew how you deale here againe with the Text. You alleage it â—…e descended into the deepe But he is cunningly added neither are these words meant of him Your eyes be not paires that perceiue not the difference betwixt a quotation and a conclusion gathered out of the Apostles words In the 220 page with which you cauill the letter b pointing to Rom. 10. in the margine is set after he and next before descended to the deepe So that any sober man might soone see I alleaged not this word he as out of the text but inferred it as the true meaning of the Apostle And whether I haue better reason to say these words are meant of Christ as all Interpreters new and olde doe than you haue to say they are meant of a Pharâ—…aicall Merit-monger that seeketh to learne of fishes in the deepe of the sea how to fulfill the Law let the Reader iudge now he hath heard vs both The like praâ—…se you vâ—… againe in the Psalme There is no word to exprâ—…sse beneath which you put into the text of your owne head Were there no word importing so much yet so long as the word added is expresly ratified by many places of Scripture as appeareth Esay 14. vers 9. and Prouerbs 15. vers 24. in plaine words that Sheol is beneath and the addition is in another letter different from the rest before and after your Mastership might haue taken it for an explication inserted and not for any part of the text cited But you neuer suppose that the Printer may sometimes mistake or mis-set my directions and that maketh you so fast to fome at mouth with my falsifying the word of God of purpose and for aduantage where you rather lie of purpose or for aduantage since I doe not offer there to build any thing on that word nor so much as mention it in my collection there which if I would haue done Scriptures enough besides this would warrant my assertion And what if you whet your teeth against the trueth and the word there of it selfe will beare this addition without any corruption is not your time well spent to play the Bedlom in this sort and in the end to betray your owne ignorance and malice The Septuagint translate the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if I descend or go downe to Sheôl whom the Greeke Fathers follow The West Church kept the same word as is euident by all the Latine Fathers The Chaldaie paraphrase sayth Veêmuc lishjol If I depresse or humble my selfe downe to Sheol where the word is mac to be depressed downe or humbled low Ierom sayth If I lie downe in Sheól New Writers well skilled in the Hebrew tongue as Pellican Pomerane and others continue the word of descending and many that change it retaine the same sense as Vatablus Heâ—…raismus prosietiam descendam ad Ima it is an Hebrew phrase importing thus much If I doe descend to the parts beneath Westhmerus expoundeth it Si descendam in infima loca terrae If I descend to the lowest places of the earth Mollerus Si ettam descendam ad Ima If I should descend to the places beneath Dauid Kimchi obserueth that this word is not only to spread but withall it hath in it the force of lematta below beneath Augustâ—…us â—…stinianus translated the Arabick with the word of descending If all these haue falsified the word of God in so translating and expounding this place then haue I mistaken in following their iudgements but that I falsified of purpose or for an aduantage that is the meale of your mouth not vnlike the rest of your griest Howbeit it is eâ—…ident the Hebrew word hath in it as Kimchi noteth the signification of sub infra and in that respect importeth a bed where a man lieth downe in a lower position than he had before For which cause I might lawfully render the word as I did If I lie downe or lodge beneath in sheól Since Sheol by the Scriptures is a place whither a man must descend though indeed to preuent all challenge I was content to expresse the force of the word in another letter Our second and most principall reason is this If there be not one place of Scripture to proue that Christs soule was in hell then you ought to denie that opinion but you haue not indeed any one place that proueth it therefore it ought to be denied You shew your Logâ—… where little need is keepe it if you be wiâ—…e till it may stand you in more steed Euery Child knoweth or at least hath heard that faith must depend on the word of God Wherefore if it be no where written we meane not to beleeue it But if when the words be plaine you will wrest them with figures and phrases to another purpose then giue vs leaue if your proofes be not sound and good to tell you that our faith relieth on the singlenesse and plainnesse of the word of God so receaued and beleeued since Christ had a Church on earth And though you can make shewes with diuers acceptions and figuratiue senses of words yet that is no reason to reuerse the trueth written For giue me the like liberty without regard of faith and trueth and I can shift of any word whatsoeuer in the Scriptures yea the chiefest and mainest grounds of Religion I can elude with different
this as a part of the Creede in his time for that he doth not set it in the right place where it should be but putteth it after the Resurrection Howbeit Erasmus might haue suspected that some other had changed Aquinas order as well as augmented Aquinas worke For it is euident that Aquinas in his summe of Diuinitie acknowledgeth that Article of Christs descent to hell to come from the Apostles and numbereth it in the 4. place before the Resurrection of Christ from the dead And this reason he giueth why it was not mentioned in the Creedes of the Fathers because no heresie was then risen about that point and therefore they still presupposed it as foredetermined in the Apostles Creede And yet there want not Councels and Fathers declaring and confirming this to be a part of the Catholike and Christian faith The Councell of Orleance kept in the 46. yeere of Charles the great in the profession of their faith say thus Descendit ad Inferos he descended to hell to deliuer the Saints which there were held deuictóque mortis Imperio and subduing the kingdome of death rose againe concluding also thus this is the faith of the Catholike Church this confession we keepe and hold The Councell of Foroiulij otherwise called Aquileia in which Citie Ruffinus that expoundeth the Creede was a Presbyter made this exposition of the Creede in the time of Carolus Martellus and Pipine his Sonne Father to Charles the great In Eadem dignatus est mori sepeliri ad Inferos descendere tertia dei resurgere In the same humane nature Christ vouchsafed to die to be buried to descend to hell to rise againe the third day Which they close with this attestation This most sincere puritie of the Catholike faith we will all degrees of the Church distinctly to learne and commit to memorie it a vt ne vnus quidem apex intermittatur vel augeatur so that not one the least point of it be omitted or encreased The 4. Councell of Toledo in the time of Sisenandus King of Spaine about 630. yeeres after Christ made the same profession word for word which the Councell of Orleance did after imitate Christ descended to hell to deliuer the Saints which there were held and subduing the kingdome of death rose againe Venantius Bishop of Poictiers in France that dedicated some of his poems to Gregorie the first commenting on the Apostles Creede distinctly rehearsed the Article descendit ad Infernum he descended to hell among the rest and saith farder of it but descending to hell Christ suffered no iniurie for that he did it in respect of his mercie As if a King should enter a prison not to be there held himselfe but to loose such as were guiltie We can not see but that whensoeuer whosoeuer put it first into this place they signified thereby it seemeth that Christ went to Limbus a place vnder the earth where they imagined the blessed Patriarkes rested When this clause was first inserted into the Creede no man can directly pronounce Some places had it not for a time and some had it aunciently transmitted from the first founders of their Churches which being duely considered by the rest that wanted it and the Article on euery side confessed to be true it was at length generally receaued throughout the Church not as a thing newly deuised by themselues but formerly commended to many Churches euen from their first erection Thaddeus Ignatius and Athanasius haue these very words yet say they not any where that they were in that set forme of the Apostles Creede which we now haue If Thaddeus deliuered it to the Church of Edessa at the first preaching of the faith vnto them and they kept a record thereof in the publike monuments of their Citie to the time of Eusebius why should it not be counted and calle a part of the Apostles Creede that is of the short and plaine forme of the faith deliuered to the people when they first receaued the Gospell of Christ And how should Ignatius Athanasius and all the auncient Fathers both Greeke and Latine throughout the world light on the same words in effect agnise them for a point of Christian faith if sundry Churches had not retained that Article in the Summarie confession of their faith euen from the beginning Ruffine alleageth truely these words descendit ad Inferna but not out of any example of the Apostles Creede yea he expresly denyeth it to be therein any where at that time Cyrill and Chrysostom expound these words as parts of the common Creede receaued in their Churches and called Apostolike because it was descended from the Apostles times Ruffine doth the like for the Church of Aquileia where he was a Presbyter he setteth downe these words as a part of the common Creede which he expoundeth and nameth Apostolike And here for triall of your truth and modestie if you know what those things meane I referre my selfe to the printed Copies of Cyprians and Ieroms works where this exposition is extant whether these words crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato sepultus descendit ad Inferna He was crucified vnder Pontius Pilate and buried he descended to hell be not expresly set downe as a part of the Creede which Ruffine expoundeth and calleth Apostolike The Copies printed at Bafile by Frobenius and at Lyons by Gryphius 1537 at Basile by Heruagius 1540 at Antuerpe by Crinitus and at Paris by Stephan Petit. 1541 seuer these words with an halfe moone from Ruffinus explication as they doe the rest of the Creede Those printed at Rome by Paulus Manutius 1563 at Antuerpe by Stelsius 1561 by Peter Bellerus 1589 and by Iohn de Preux 1593. at Paris by Sebastian Niuellius 1603. distinguish them by greater or different letters from the rest So that your denying them to be part of the Creede which Ruffine bringeth for Apostolike is a manifest mentirie As you peruert Ruffines wordes so you doe his meaning For he doth not say that Christes descent to hell was all one with his buriall but where the Churche of Rome with some others wanted those wordes he descended to hell yet with them the effect thereof was contained in the word buried And no maruaile that the Church of Rome for that he chiefly noteth by the Latin word sepultus extended the word buriall to hell since they did and to this day doe follow the olde Latine translation of the Bible Luke 16. where it is written the rich man was buried in hell It was an easie matter therefore for them by Christs buriall to vnderstand his descent to hell since as they thought they found the word so farre extended in the Scriptures And graunt that Ruffine and others of the auncients as you affirme did thinke it consequent as an effect to Christs buriall that his soule did descend to hell what prooue you by this but against your selfe that such as had not those wordes expressed in
you so highly esteeme is a meere counterfait You say this report of him in Eusebius by some men is counted fabulous Nay who euer since Eusebius I thinke held it for better Were there no more in it but the records of Edessa then remaining and the report of Eusebius translating the same they fairely prooue this clause of Christs descending to Hades to haue beene aunciently and openly receaued and professed in the Primatiue Church Otherwise the religious of those Ages that liued with and after Eusebius if he had vnder this pretence broched any new point of faith as in duety they were bound so no doubt they would haue resisted and refuted it But the whole Church accepting and allowing that Historie hath likewise admitted and approoued this Article of Christs descent to Hades to be a part of the Christian faith and the best learned of those times in their writings acknowledge the same And where you aske Who euer since Eusebius held it for better then a fable it is a signe how little conuersant you are in any mans labours that fit not your licentious humors Your owne Author on which you so much build Ruffinus translated these bookes of Eusebius Ierom commended them and Gelasius an auncient Bishop of Rome with a Councell confirmed them And touching this very Historie Nicephorus largely reporteth it and many of the best Historiographers before our time alleadge it not as fable but for a truth As namely Blondus Decadis 2. li. 5. Nauclerus volumine 2. generat 2. Sabellicus Enneadis 7. li. 1. Volateranus geographiae li. 11. de Sectis Syriae Martinus Polonus in Friderico 1. Platina in Lucio 2. I am not alone then in allowing Eusebius report but you rather are so headstrong and withall so ignorant that you censure all men besides your selfe It is all forged and fowly corrupted for these reasons First this writing saith that Iudas the Apostle was the same who was also called Thomas the Apostle But the Scripture it selfe sheweth that Iudas and Thomas were diuers and seuerall Apostles When you goe about to challenge a record neuer corrupt it for so you challenge your selfe and not that which you would ouerthrow The writing doth not say that those two Apostles were one as you dreame but rather obserueth that with them Thomas had two names Now what inconuenience is in this that one Apostle should haue two names or that they should call Thomas also Iudas Peter had three if not foure names Simon Cephas Peter Bar-Ionas and Iudas the brother of Iames Matthew calleth Lebbeus and Thaddeus Matthew was also called Leui. It was a thing most vsuall with the Iewes to haue two or mo names as appeareth in the genealogie of Christ rehearsed by Matthew and Luke who vse many wordes in that Catalogue no where recorded in other Scriptures And since Thom in Hebrew whence Thomas commeth doth signifie no more but a Twinne which name is common to both the brethren borne at one time it must needs be that Thomas then had an other name to distinguish him froÌ„ his brother This therfore is no iust exception to discredit that auncient Record with a thing most vsuall among the Iewes Againe with the Syriaâ—… not skilfull in the Hebrew tongue how easie a skippe was it in steed of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Iew to conceaue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iehudah which is Iudas he and Iod being letters that are often changed one from another and where the writer would haue said a Ieâ—… which was Thomas â—…nt Thaddeus so to set it downe as if it were Iehuda which was Thomas sent Thaddeus Yea the Syriack words for a Iew and Iudas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 differ but a â—…od 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in auncient writings is soone worne out of sight I omit other diuersitiâ—…s which might easily happen in the Greeke as that Iuâ—…as sent Thaddeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which alâ—… Thomas did one small title added to the Article to make it the â—…uter relatiue or changing their places saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iudas and also Thomas sent Thaddeus There is neither Greeke nor Latin Father in whose Treatises I will not readily find greater stâ—…ps This I may coniecture because Nicephorus writeth that Iudas the brother of Iames came after to the Citie of Edessa the Citie of king Abagaâ—…e which also Bede and Oecumenius doe witnesse and supplying what wanted in Thaddeus ministerie there ended his life and so might be one of those that sent him But you that thinke this so great a matter in the recordes of Edessa what say you to the Syriack translatour of the new Testament who twice calleth this Iudas the Apostle the sonne of Iames where indeed he was the brother of Iames and the Sonne of Alpheus If you will excuse him for that he neuer saw the Epistle of Iude where hee calleth himselfe the brother of Iames how great reason then is it to excuse the men of Edessa that were ignorant of the Hebrew tongue and altogether vnacquainted with the Scriptures at that time when this was written if they put he for Iod which letters are often permuted the one for the other howbeit as I first said I see no ground of any iust challenge in this that the record which is auncient importeth Thomas to be called Iudas in the place where he liued and died farre from Iewrie which was a thing very common among the Iewes in their owne countrie or Thomas to be called a Iew and thereby to distinguish him from others that were not Iewes Secondly we may probably conceiue another error that this Thaddeus one of the 70. seemeâ—…h to be mistaken in the Syrian writing for Thaddeus one of the twelue Apostles This is rather an error in you to thinke that none were called Apostles but the twelue or that Apostle doth not sometimes signifie a Messenger Christ himself is called the Apostle of our profession Paul saith to the Philippians Epaphroditus your Apostle and to the Corinthians he saith of some sent by him with Titus They are the Apostles of the Churches And to the Romanes he saluteth Andronicus and Iunia which are honorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the number of the Apostles He chalengeth others for transforming themselues into the apostles of Christ not that they affirmed theÌ„selues to be of the twelue for Paul himselfe was none of them but they pretended to be sent of Christ when they were not And so Christ meant when he said to the Angel of Ephesus Thou hast examined them which say they are Apostles are not that is which say I sent them when I did not Now the Syriack writer taking knowledge that Thomas was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Apostle one of the twelue and that he sent Thaddeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his
other Looke to the Story of Daniell and see whether he doth not say of him selfe that King Nabnchad-nezzar fell vpon his face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and bowed himselfe to Daniell and willed them to offer Sacrifice and sweete odours vnto him This the King profered by Daniels owne confession and though we doe not doubt but Denâ—…el refused it and otherwise aduised the king yet there is no such thing recorded in the Text. Hence if you will conclude Daniel to be a false Prophet you shall shew your selfe to be a rash false and wicked teacher but if you will excuse him because he was one that feared God and knew his duty though there be no mention made of his deniall what spleene mooueth you to condemne Thaddeus being not him selfe the writer of the Storie and one that was not onely trained vp in Moses Law but a Disciple of Christs and sent by him to preach and which more is endued with the power of the holy Ghost to heale the sicke to plant the Gospell and conuert nations vnto the faith Fourthly I doe not see how it can possibly be true which this Thaddeus saith that Christ ascended vp to his Father with a great multitude seeing the Scripture sheweth how after fortie dayes he ascended in all their sights alone vp to heauen Might Christ doe nothing but he must first acquaint you with it that you take so straight a view who went vp to heauen with him The Apostle noteth that God said of his Sonne when he brought him into the world Let all the Angels of God worship him Can you tell when this was done Christ spoiled powers saith Paul and principalities and made an open shew of them It would trouble you to tell how where and when So Christ ascending on high led captiuitie captiue Who knoweth how farre or how many that he ascended to his Father with a multitude may be referred either to Angels or men If all the Angels adored him when he came into the world what did they when he ascended to heauen Nazianzene saith If Christ ascend to heauen ascend thou with him and ioyne thy selfe to the Angels that accompanie him or receiue him So Cyprian Non indiget vectoribus Angelis sed precedentes subsequentes applaudebant victori Christ ascending needed not Angels to beare him but they going before and following applauded him as a conquerer And Austen Sublatus est Christus in manibus Angâ—…lorum quando assumptus est in caelum non quia si non portarent Angeli ruiturus erat sâ—…d quia obsequebantur Regi Christ was caried vp by the handes of the Angels when he ascended to heauen not that he should haue fallen if he had not beene stayed by Angels but that they might serue their King And touching men why might not Thaddeus speake this of those that were raised out of their graues when Christ rose from the dead since they were partakers of Christs resurrection why should they be reiected from his ascension They rose from the dead not to die againe much lesse to bee left wandring on the earth Ascend before Christ they could not he was in all things as the head to haue the preeminence Then must they ascend with him or after him neither of which is expresly mentioned in the Scriptures It appeareth by Tertullian the Church in his time was opposite to his conceit and made him this answere Our abode after death which there is called sleeping is in Paradise quò iam tunc Patriarchâ—… Prophetae appendices dominicae resurrectionis ab inferis migrauerunt whither the Patriarkes and Prophets that were dependents on the Lords resurrection pâ—…ssed euen then with him FROM THE PLACES BELOW Cyprian saith of Christ spolians Inferos captiuos praemittens ad superos spoiling the places below and sending the captiues before towards heauen Austen saith Reddunt Infernavictorem superna suscipiunt triumphantem Hell restoreth him a conquerer and heauen receiueth him a Triumpher Where then the Apostle saith that Christ triumphed ouer powers and principalities in his owne person and likewise that he ascended on high leading captiuitie captiue which prooueth his ascent to heauen to be the fulnesse and perfection of his triumph since triumphes amongst mortall men are not secret nor solitarie shall we thinke that Christs triumphant ascension to heauen was the close conueying of him alone into heauen neither Angels nor man attending nor magnifying him or rather as Peter saith he went to heaâ—…n hauing Angels powers and mights subiected to him that is all sorts and orders were they neuer so excellent high or mightie seruing submitting confessing and applauding his humane nature as the subduer of all his enemies and Sauiour of all his Elect Where you would faine perswade the world that the Apostles Creed was not in the primitiue Churches which we haue now yea that at â—…irst it had no exact for me at all This is the way to discredite all thinges besides your owne deuices You may say as much against some parts of the Scriptures as you do against some parts of the Creed For the Scriptures themselues were not fully receiued in all places no not in Eusebius time He saith the Epistle of Iames of Iude the second of Peter the second and third of Iohn are contradicted as not written by those Apostles The Epistle to the Hebrewes was for a while contradicted by the Church of Rome not to be Pauls Eusebius report is the truer because the Churches of Syria did not receiue the second Epistle of Peter nor the second and third of Iohn nor the Epistle of Iude nor the Apocalypse as appeareth to this day by the translation of the new Testament into their tongue which wanteth all these bookes as no approoued parts of Scripture The like might be sayd for the Churches of Arabia Will you hence conclude that these parts of Scripture were not Apostolike or that we neede not receaue them now because they were formerly doubted of The Creede we doe not vrge as vndoubtedly written by all the Apostles for then it must needes be Canonicall Scripture but we vrge it as the best and perfectest forme of faith which was deliuered to the Christians at the first planting of the Gospell by the direction and agreement of the Apostles and kept and professed in some of the most famous places which when the Church of Christ had well considered and examined she receiued and preferred before all others Now that this forme of faith which we haue was both in auncient times and diuers places preserued and professed as comming from the first erectors of the Churches you haue seene the testimonies of Cyrill for Ierusalem of Chrysostome for Antioche of Austen for Africa of Ruffine for Aquileia of Venantius for Poyctiers and this very Article he descended to hell is by them witnessed to haue beene then in their Creedes of whom
your skilles to bring Articles of the Creede to be phrases as if the Apostles and their followers which were the first planters of Churches had ment to teach the simple people not principles of faith but certaine Greeke or Hebrew phrases He that will suffer you to turne his faith into a phrase let him take heed that insteed of heauen he light not on hel which is one of your chiefe phrases But you neuer said that Hades signified heauen You may saue this from a lie if you be not he that wrote this part of your booke as by the crossing and changing of your owne assertions it is euident to euery wise man you did not but otherwise if the quoting of other mens authoritie to prooue Hades to be heauen may conuince you to be of that mind with them whom you cite for that purpose you haue most plainely auouched hades to import and containe heauen Whose words are these I pray you in your Treatise This most singular place sheweth that Hades with them is not properly for hell but for the world of the dead and SOMETIMES AS NAMELY HEERE EVEN FOR HEAVEN So in the next page Againe he saith of heauen that it is an vnseene estate EVEN HADES AS IT IS COMMONLY CALLED Wherefore it is plaine by Plato Hades sometime may bee vnderstood for heauen yea and with the Grecians it was a common phrase And Stephan â—…iteth Plutarch concerning the godly departing being in hades that is in heauen he meant I thinke and not in hell Infinite places might be brought to like purpose but these may suffice which whether they you by them auouch hades to be taken for heauen or no I leaue to the iudgement of the Reader as also whether this be not impudent facing and worthy of other wordes at which you take so much offence Yea this very Article Christ dâ—…scended to Hades you expound by pretence of Bullingers wordes he did goe to Abrahams â—…osome that is into heauen That you auouch Philip. 2. for it is more strange where we haue not one word of his locall being in hell And that the Coloss. 2. should prooue it passeth all the rest Where though we graunt you your reading yet the expresse text referreth that triumph to Christes crosse which you openly deny You doe well to make an Apologie for your impudency and facing the next sentence before but if you reclaime those tâ—…ades of yours you renounce the most part of your obiections and probations in this your defence For doe I cite either of these places in the Pages which you quote to prooue Christes descent after death to the place of hell When you in your proud and scorneâ—…ull humour mocked at Christes actuall conquest and tâ—…iumph ouer hell in generall and called it a woorthie priuiledge surely and very honâ—…rable 〈◊〉 to â—…iumph and insult vpon the â—…ice miserable wofull wretches in their preâ—…t vnâ—…eakable damnation adding All the world knoweth it is the most in glorious and vilest debasing to represse this disdainfull and proud conceit of yours I told you The Apostle made it a part of Christes high exaltation that euerie knec as well of things vnder earth as of things in heanen should bow vnto him and did you thinke it a matter to be mocked and derided and of the place to the Colossians I said What lâ—…iteth then since these wordes were not verified on the crosse but they did take place in his resurrection and therein as by the effects it was most euident and apparant to the eies of all men he did spoile powers and Principalities and made a shew of them openly and triumphed ouer them in his owne person When I speake of things euident and apparent to all mens eies I speake not of things done in hell where no man liuing was present but prooued against you as well by your own wordes as by the Apostles that this triumph was not perfourmed and executed on the crosse though there deserued and purchased For you your selfe debase Christs triumph on the crosse with woorse wordes then I doe you say it was a miserable triumph yea a piteous triumph it was indeede where himselfe remained in such woefull torment where appeared no shew of conquest I say not so but that on the crosse Christ humbled himselfe euen vnto death and thereby merited to be exalted aboue all names and sorts of creatures which God after death most gloriously perfourmed vnto him when euerie knee of those in heauen on earth and vnder earth bowed vnto him and confessed him to be their Lord. This was all I said in those places which you traduce and yet if I had said more and applied them to the actuall triumph of Christes soule after death I wanted not better authoritie so to haue done then you haue any for so many cart-loades of concâ—…its as you haue brought vs. But of both these places I haue spoken before what may suâ—…ce and he that will see more thereof may read what Zanchius hath learnedly and soberly written of those places Ephes. 4. vers 9. and Coloss. 2. vers 15. Where he likewise affirmeth Patres serè sic explicant ex nostris non pauci neque vulgares The Fathers for the most part doe so expound it and of our writers not a few nor the meanest That of the Councels how Christ rose againe hauing spoiled hell I easily yeeld seeing that prooueth not his locall being there Then first you yeeld that Hades with all these generall Councels signifieth hell Next you yeeld that hell was spoyled by Christ before he rose for he rose hauing spoyled hell Thirdly you yeeld that this was done by Christes manhood since his Godhead can be said in no wise to rise from the dead and consequently by his soule since he spoiled hell before he rose when yet his bodie was dead in the graue There remaineth no more but this question whether the soule of Christdid this absent from the place or present in the place which was spoiled And since the scriptures auouch that Christs soule was in Hades which was spoiled as these three generall Councels assirme it is without question that Christes soule present in hell spoiled hell before his resurrection and so returned to his bodie which is the very point you all this while denied and with so much lost labour impugned And least this cause should depend on your slipper turnes and returnes we must vnderstand that not only the generall Councell of Ephesus confirmed and allowed these wordes in the Synodall Epistle of Cyrill to Nestorius but the Councell of Chalcedon and the second Councell of Constantinople ratified the same So that what sense Cyrill had in these wordes the same did the Councell of Ephesus follow Cyrill himselfe there sitting and declaring his owne meaning Yea the Treatises of Cyrill expounding these wordes are inserted into the Acts of the Councell of
of the Christian faith would any man in his right wits haue asked as Austen doth Who dare auouch it He discusseth the place of S. Peter and when he commeth to those words Christ was quickened in the spirit or by the spirit he resolueth this cannot be spoken of Christs humane soule because that which was afterwards quickened was first mortified and therefore we could not say that Christs humane spirit or soule was restored to life except we first yeelded that it was before subiected to death Now that Christs soule was euer dead who durst auouch it The reason why Christs soule could neuer die he rendreth thus for that the Scriptures acknowledge no death of the soule in any but sin and damnation to neither of which the soule of Christ could be subiect x August epist. 99. Certè anima Christi nullo mortificata peccato vel damnatione punita est quibus duabus causis mors animae intelligi potest Surely the soule of Christ was neither dead with any sin nor punished with damnation which are the two waies how the death of the soule may be possibly vnderstood This collection of S. Austins out of the Scriptures touching the death of the soule is most sound and cannot be shaken with all your shewes and shifts talke of ordinarie and extraordinarie as long as you will That standing good which yet we see immooueable for all your battery it followeth ineuitably that Christ ne did ne could die the death of the soule ne may any man defend it without apparent falsity and impiety What proofes you haue profered against S. Austins conclusion let the Reader iudge I must confesse my selfe very blind if he see any for I see none and therefore not only S. Austins words but his reasons out of holy Scripture stand firme and hold you fast to the grinding stone being no way as yet counteruailed or controled but with your vaine speaches and most vnlearned euasions y Defenc pag. 142. li. 2. Nay according to Austins owne definition of the soules dying it will easily appeare that Christes soule may be said to haue suffered some kind of death Mors est spiritus deseri a Deo The death of the soule saith he is Gods for saking of it but the Scripture saith God did forsake him for a season yea the Fathers also agree fully therevnto Therefore by Anstins definition largely and rightly taken Christ may be said in some sense to haue died in soule From your shifts you returne againe to your proofes and neither barrell is better herring The maior you thinke is Austins the minor is Christs owne words and what trow you should hinder the cōclusion This reason hath but three of your wonted flowers I must not say faults the maior is larger then Austen euer ment and the minor no way matcheth it except you quite alter the words of Christ and the conclusion commeth nothing neere to your purpose Examine them in order Not euery forsaking of the soule is death for the godly often in the Scriptures complaine as I haue shewed that they are forsaken of God when yet their soules liue but as life is repugnant to death and God is the life of the soule so till God haue vtterly forsaken the soule she is not dead Whiles she retaineth any fellowship of grace with God who is her life she is not dead because she partaketh with life As then death is the vtter priuation of life so God must vtterly forsake the soule before she can be pronounced to be dead and that kind of forsaking is indeed the death of the soule in this life So that your maior if euer you will come neere S. Austins meaning must be the death of the soule is Gods vtter for saking of the same And that thus you must conster S. Austins words appeareth euery where by his z In Psal. 70. in Iohan. tract 47. de verbis Apost Serm. 30. comparison with the death of the bodie which is not dead till the soule be vtterly departed from it For as the body which hath in it any power or presence of the soule is not dead but liuing so the soule that hath any communion with God who is her life can not be truely sayd to be dead but as yet to haue life Were you no Diuine but a plaine Sophister reason teacheth you so to vnderstand S. Austins words for where life and death be priuatiues as well in the soule as in the bodie the one hath no place till the other be vtterly quenched He is not blinde that hath any sight nor deafe that hath any hearing the priuation vtterly excludeth the habite neither is the soule dead that hath any force or effect of life in her and consequently not euerie forsaking but onely an vtter forsaking of God is the death of the soule heere in this life Your minor then should be that Christes Soule was vtterly forsaken of God which are not the words of Christ on the crosse nor any way consonant to them yea the verie entrance to that speech when Christ saide My God my God doth prooue the quite contrarie a Matth. 22. God is not the God of the dead but of the liuiug Then directly by the plaine wordes of Scripture when Christ said My God my God his soule confessing God to be his God was liuing and consequently the wordes following why hast thou forsaken me doe net prooue the death of the soule vnlesse you make the Sonne of God so vnwise as not to vnderstand what he said or so amazed that he marked not his owne speech which with you perchance is no absurditie but with me it is a wicked and vnchristian impietie Christes wordes therefore import that he found a kinde of forsaking but not that his soule was forsaken of the trueth grace or spirit of God these be blasphemies to auouch and no points of pietic nor that he was vtterly or altogither forsaken which onely is the death of the soule And against this wresting of Christes wordes from their right sense how many testimonies of scriptures and Fathers haue I sormerly brought all which you trippe ouer with a light foote and make as though you felt them not You haue beene told b Galat 3. the iust shall liue by saith So that if Christ wanted not faith he could not choose but liue in soule Againe c 1. Iohn 4. God is 〈◊〉 and he that dwelleth in loue dwelieth in God Christ then must either haue life or want loue for the loue of God is the life of the soule Farder the Spirit of God is the d Rom. 8. spirit of life that quickneth the soule yea then 〈◊〉 thereof is life and peace Then must you take from Christ the spirit of God with all the gifts and graces thereof before you can depriue the soule of Christ from life What an hellish heape of blasphemies are here before you can affirm that Christs soule was dead according to the Scriptures
crucifixi corporis iniuria intelligitur Sola in Christo materia carnis mortis fragilitate defuncta spem resurrectionis expectabat The prophesie in the Psalmes auouch the passion of Christ in the flesh only when it saith they pearced my hands and my feet and numbred all my bones Where not the iniurie of his deity but of his body is percâ—…aued in Christ the matter only of his flesh yeelding to the srailty of death expected resurrection Petrus quoque Apostolus Christi supplicium sic praedicat in solo corpore consummatum a Ibidem qui peccata inquit nostra pertulit in corpore suo super lignum Peter also the Apostle preacheth the passion of Christ to haue beene performed ONLY IN HIS BODY when he saith Christ bare our sinnes in his body on the tree And againe b Ibidem Sola caro crucis exitium sensit sola caro lanceam pertulit sola sanguine aqua manauit Ipsa sola mortua ipsa sola in sepulchro posita ipsa sola tertio dic resuscitata Only the flesh of Christ tasted the sharpnesse of the Crosse only the flesh endured the speare only the flesh yeelded forth bloud and water That only died that only lay in the graue that ONLY ROSE AGAINE And assuring themselues this to be the Christian faith confirmed in the old and new testament they say c Ibidem Ecce pronunciata est passio corporis Christi ex lege Prophetis Cuius quidem fidei verit as tam est efficax vt eam nec tyranni sua potuerint crudelitate confundere nec haereticorum subdola circumâ—… to pessumdare nâ—…c hypocritarum diminuere fallax simulatio The passion of the body of Christ is prooued by the law and the Prophets The trueth of which faith is so forcible that neither tyrants with their â—…rucltie could confound it nor Heretickes with their crafty deuices euert it nor Hypocrites with their false dissembling diminish it Theodoret. d Theodoret. Dialogo 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how could the soule of our Sauiour hauing an immortall nature and not touched with the least spot of sinne be possibly taken with the hooke of death Cyril e Cyril de recta fide ad Râ—… li. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we conceaue Christ to be God incarnate and suffering in his owne flesh the death of his flesh alone sufficeth for the redemption of the world Fulgentius f Fulgentius aâ—… I 〈◊〉 li. 3. ca. 7. Quis ignoret Christum nec in diuinitate sed IN SOLO CORPORE MORTVVM sepultum Who can be ignorant that Christ was dead and buried not in his deity but in his body only Cum sola caro moreretur resuscitaretur in Christo filius Dei dicitur mortuus Idem Christus secundum solam carnem mortuus secundum solam animam ad insernum descendit When the flesh onely died and was raised againe in Christ the Sonne of God is said to haue died The same Christ died in his flesh onely and descended into hell in his soule ONELY g Idem ca. 5. Moriente carne non solum Dietas sed nec anima Christi potest ostendi commortua The flesh dying not onely the dietie but the soule of Christ cannot be shewed to haue bene also dead The same Father and fifteene other Bishops of Africa make this confession of their faith h Mors silij Dei quam sola carne suscepit vtramque in nobis mortem animae scilicet carnisque destruxit The death of the Sonne of God which he SVFFERED IN HIS FLESH ALONE destroyed in vs both our deaths to wit the death of soule body This confession Gregory followed when he said i Gregorius in 〈◊〉 li. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solumpro nobis mortem carnis suscepit Christ vndertooke for vs the only death of the flesh And againe comming to vs who were iâ—… the death of spirit and flesh Christ brought his owne death to vs and loosed both our deaths His sâ—…le death 〈◊〉 applied to our double death and dying vanquished our double death Vigius k Secundum proprietatem naturae sola carâ—… mortâ—…m sâ—…t sola caro sepulturae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ergo 〈◊〉 dominum iacuisse in sepulchro sâ—…d in sola carne Dominum d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to the propriety of nature onely the 〈◊〉 of Christ 〈◊〉 death onely the â—…sh was buried Therefore we say the Lord lay in the grâ—…ue but in flesh alone and descended into hell but in SOVIE Aâ—…ONE Bede treadeth iust in their steps l 〈◊〉 in ca. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hoc 〈◊〉 quod mâ—…atur Nam verbum 〈◊〉 non potuit 〈◊〉 anima illa mortua â—…it Caro tantum mortua est resurrexit tertia 〈◊〉 That was raised which died the Godhead could not die his soule was not dead onely his flesh died and râ—…se againe And againe m Idem Homiâ—… 4. in 〈◊〉 Veniens adnos qui in morte carnis spiritus eramus vnam suam id est carnis mortem pertulit duas nostras absoluit simplam suam nostrae duplâ—… coâ—…t dulpam nostram subegit Christ comming to vs that were in death of bodie and spirit suffered onely one death that is the death of the flesh and freed both our deaths â—…ee applied his one death to our double death and vanquished them both Albinus n Quid significat morte morieris duplicem mortem â—…ominis designat animae videlicit corpâ—…s Animae mors est dum proptâ—…r peccatum quodlibâ—…t animam dâ—…t Deus Corporis â—…rs est dum propter necessitatem quamlibet corpus descritur â—…b anima Et hanc duplâ—…m Christus sua 〈◊〉 destruxit Nam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est ad tempus anima vero nunquam qui nunquam peccauit What is ment â—…y this tâ—…ou shalâ—…â—…e the death it noteth a double death in man to wit of soule and body The death of the soule is when for any sinne God forsaketh it the death of the 〈◊〉 is wâ—…en for any necessitie the bodie is depriued of the soule This double death of 〈◊〉 Christ destroyed with his single death for hee died onely in 〈◊〉 for a time but in soule he neuer died who neuer sinned This continued without change to Bernards time who saith of Christ o Ex duaâ—…s 〈◊〉 nostris cum aâ—…ra nobis in cuâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reputaretur susâ—…ns pâ—…am nesâ—…ns culpam dum sponâ—…é TANTVMâ—…N CORPORE MORITVR vitam nobis 〈◊〉 promâ—…ur Of our two deaths where one was the desert of 〈◊〉 the other the dâ—…e of punishment Christs taking our punishment but 〈◊〉 from sinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dieth willingly and ONELY IN 〈◊〉 hee meâ—…h â—…or vs life and 〈◊〉 I haue bene the longer good Reader in alleaging these fathers to assure thee that I deliuer no doctrine touching our redemption but â—…uch as the whole Church of Christ in the best purest times professed to
be principles of the Christian faith and that in so euident and pertinent manner that I know not how to lighten or strengthen their wordes Thou hearest them with one voice affirme that Christ died not A DOVBLE but A SINGLE death for vs which they likewise aâ—…ch was the death of HIS BODY ONLY AND NOT OF HIS SOVLâ—… and THâ—… DEATH OF THE SOVLE HE DIED NOT. The death of the soule they truely deriue from the Scriptures to be either sinne or damnation sinne by which men are depriued of all grace and so of the life of God and damnation which is a perpetuall reiection from all blisse addicting the wicked to eternall and intollerable miserie in the torments of hell fire Which of these things will this dreamer denie will he say that Christ died moe deaths then ONE and as well the death of the soule as of the bodie So he must say if he will vphold his new redemption by the death of Christs soule and so he doth say but whether there in he crosse not the full consent of Christs whole Church I leaue it to thy censure Will he shift as hee hath hitherto done with the name of flesh that it compriseth as well the soule as the bodie and therefore by the death of Christs flesh onely the Fathers doe not exclude the death of Christs soule but the death of his Godhead they prooue indeed against the Arians that the Sonne of God could not die in his Diuine nature but onely in his humane flesh And this as we now see is one of their maine reasons The soule of Christ died not nor coulde die much lesse then his Godhead And therefore the most of them do expresse that argument vtterly denying that Christes soule died any kinde of death but onely his flesh Besides a number of them not onely expresâ—…e by circumstances and consequents of burying and rising againe what the rest meane by the flesh but they vse the word 〈◊〉 which can not be taken for the soule and with like zeale and truth auouch that Christ died in his body onely So that these three stand for cleere and sounde conclusions with all these Fathers First that Christ died BVT ONE KIND of death Secondly that HE DIED ONELY IN HIS FLESH OR BODY and thirdly that THE DEATH OF THE SOVLE HE NEITHER DID NOR COVLD DIE. Will hee shuâ—…e with the name of death and say they ment not his kind of death that will nothing relieue him For first if Christ died but one kinde of death and of his bodily death no Christian may so much as doubt then by maine consequent out of their wordes Christ died no death of the soule let him take it how and which way he will Againe if Christ DIED ONELY IN BODY as they likewise witnesse then apparantly he died not any death of the soule neither in your sense Sir Defenser nor in theirs Lastly what death of the soule can you shew mentioned in the Scriptures without the compasse of their diuision that is which is not sinne or damnation Of sinne the Apostles wordes are plaine p Rom. 7. Sinne seduced me and slew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I died as likewise that q â—…hes 2. q Coloss. 2. we were dead in our sinnes This death men liâ—…ing may die as the Apostle saith of wanton widowes r â—… Tim. 5. lyuing she is dead and of all the Gentils s â—…phes 4. walking in the vanitie of their minde they are strangers from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardnesse of their heart who being past feeling haue giuen themselues to worke all vncleanesse euen with greedinesse Where the hardnesse of mans heart voide of all feeling or 〈◊〉 of God and so running on in all wickednesse is by the Apostle defined to be the death of the soule which is a depriuing or â—…anging from the life of God The second death as I before haue shewed is the laâ—…e burning with fire and brimstone into which the diuell and all the wicked shall be cast Shew now a third death of the soule not in your extraordinarie fansie and folly but in the word of God to which these Fathers proportion their speeches If there be no such thing there then directly earnestly and truely do these Fathers auouch that Christ dâ—…ed no death of the soule Of Fathers it may be your Mastership maketh small account and will not sticke in the high perswasion of your great and deepe learning to reiect them all as ignorant of the principles of their faith and so fitter to be taught then to teach but that proud peeuishnesse to giue it no worse words I leaue to the sober to censure for an vpshot the Reader shall haue a cleere conclusion out of the sacred Scriptures that the soule of Christ neuer was nor could be dead and consequently that these learned and ancient Fathers deliuered sound and true doctrine touching the soule of Christ and The soule of Christ liuing by graâ—…e could no way be dead fully build their asâ—…ertions on the maine foundations of the Diuine Scriptures It is euident by nature sense and trueth that priuatiues can not concurre at one and the same time in one and the same subiect For the one expelleth the other and so can not be found both together Yea since the one of them cleerely remooueth the other they can no more stand together then may contradiction For that which liueth is not dead and that which is dead liueth not I meane alwaies the same time and the same part But the soule of Christ by the manifest and manifold testimonies of holie Scripture did alwaies liue in the fulnesse of faith of hope of loue of grace of trueth of spirit It is euident therefore that the soule of Christ neuer died nor could die Which of these assertions will you encounter that Christes soule may be aliue and dead both at one time You would seeme the leafe before to shunne the shame of t Defenc. pag. 140. li. 25. this absurditie that Christes soule died and died not will you now come plainely and grossely to it by auouching that Christes soule was at one and the same time LIVING AND NOT LIVING DEAD AND NOT DEAD that is both ALIVE AND DEAD If you doe there is no man in England that hath either eies or eares to see or heare but he will reprooue you for a manifest beliar of his sense as well as of Christs soule Will you smoothly set yourselfe to one side and say that Christs soule was not aliue so many parts of life as I haue named in the soule of Christ so many pregnant proofes are there in holy Scripture that Christes soule was not onely liuing but as full of life as of grace during the whole time of his passion Neither is there any one of those things named by mee concerning the life of Christes soule which you can take from Christ without apparent blasphemie For if