content the Reader nor conclude the gaine-sayer I must haue leaue in larger maner as occasion serueth both to repell the Defenders bold presumptions and to confirme those things which I take to be safer Resolutions in Christian Religion The principall things which you would haue noted Sir Discourser are either defectiue in their diuisions or coincident in their partes or repugnant to your purpose All suffering of paines in man you say is from God either properly from his Iustice or from his holy loue either from himselfe alone or also from his instruments and inferiour meanes and that for sinne either inherent or imputed either as Correction or as punishment either immediatly or mediatly as anon we shall further see Not one of these foure partitions which you make the fortresse of your cause is sound and sufficient and the fift is the selfe-same with the second it onely varieth in words In these two diuisions all suffering of paines in man is from Gods Iustice or from his holy loue either as correction or as punishment you roue obscurely but absurdly at the ground the measure the purpose of all paines and punishments as they come from God on all men be they wicked or godly Christ himselfe not excepted either in this world or the next For the GROVND of them you say they proceed from Gods iustice properly or from his holy loue The MEASVRE and PVRPOSE of them you confound in saying either as correction or as punishment which you should distinguish From Gods iustice properly on men infected with sinne commeth nothing but punishment that is their due which the iust Iudge awardeth them From Gods loue of it selfe commeth nothing but grace and blisse for which cause he is the fountaine of Grace and father of Mercy to such as he loueth In the reprobate God hateth their sinnes and so their persons being the committers or inheriters of sinne still abiding In the elect Gods holinesse disliketh their sinnes as much as the others but their persons he loueth and fauoureth for Christ his sonne in whom they are chosen And though the full and due punishment of their sinne which is spirituall and eternall death be translated from them and abolished in Christ yet when men redeemed and freed from the heauie burden of their sinnes doe not earnestly repent them or eftsoones frequent them God for the conseruation of his holinesle and demonstration of his righteous iudgement to all the world doth sooner and sharper visit and punish with the corporall and temporall scourges of this life his owne children neglecting or resuming their sinnes than his enemies whom with longer patience he suffereth to heape vp wrath against the day of wrath A iudgement mercilesse therfore as S. Iames calleth it is and shall be to the wicked whereas in the godly mercy reioyceth against iudgement but not without iustice For iudgement which in God can neuer be without iustice since he is the righteous Iudge of the world must begin at the house of God and when we are iudged we are chastened with a mercifull iudgement that we should not be condemned with the world And though in the afflictions of the godly there be many things added of fauour as the measure which is tolerable not ouerwhelming their patience the purpose which is holy to recall them from the delight and custome of sinne and to perfit the graces of God in them the comfort which is great that God loueth their persons when he pursueth their sinnes the promise which is sure that if they suffer with Christ they shall reigne with Christ and such like yet the smart of Gods rod and sharpnesse of his whip wherewith he awaketh the negligent and tameth the vnruly proceed from his iust iudgement and commend his holinesse which hateth all sinne in whomsoeuer and declare his iustice to the whole world that he wincketh not either at the waiwardnesse or at the carelesnesse of his owne children The places in Scripture witnessing thus much are infinite and easie for euery childe to obserue and therefore one shall suffice for all To his Church God sayth by the mouth of Ieremie Though I vtterly destroy all the Nations where I haue scattred thee yet will I not vtterly destroy thee but I will correct thee by iudgement and not vtterly cut thee off I haue stricken thee with the wound of an enemie and with a cruell chastisement for the multitude of thine iniquities thy sinnes were increased Thy sorrow is incurable for the number of thine offences ‖ because ‖ thy sinnes were increased I haue done these things vnto thee ‖ But ‖ I will restore health to thee and heale thee of thy wounds The godly in this world doe suffer paines for their sinnes but these whatsoeuer they be yea though death it selfe are improperly called punishments they are chasticements of sinne This new Grammer doth best become your newe doctrine All paines for sinnes whatsoeuer suffered by any of the elect in this life are chasticements but in no wise you may indure to haue them called punishments except very improperly What is a chasticement properly but a punishment moderated with loue and mercy And since you be so precise that no paine suffered by any of Gods children may properly be called a punishment whence I pray you is the word punishment deriued not from the Latine word punire to punish and punio from Poena which our English tongue resembling the Latine calleth paine so that paine and punishment are wordes of one deriuation and so properly of one signification and by force of the wordes properly all paine for sinne is punishment for sinne And therefore in all mens iudgements sauing yours chasticement is a punishment tempered with fauor and not a paine excluding all punishment as you make it in your dissolute diuision Read either the text or notes of the Geneuian Translation of the Bible which you would seeme so much to follow or whose translation you will and see whether they doe not contradict your childish conceite that the Chasticement of Gods children is no punishment Moses was punished for their sakes and againe God doth not punish with the hart the Wiseman speaking vnto God with how great circumspection saith he wilt thou punish thine owne children And vpon those words of Ieremie O Lord correct me but with iudgement not in thine anger they of Geneua note He onely prayeth that God would PVNISH THEM with mercie which Esay calleth in measure ca. 27. for here by iudgement is ment not onely the PVNISHMENT but also the MERCIFVLL MODERATION of the same So that Chastisement noteth the measure of the punishment which God fauourably inflicteth on his children not according to their sinnes nor exceding their strength He hath not dealt with us saith Dauid after our sinnes nor rewarded vs according to our iniquities There hath no tentation taken you saith Paul but such as belongeth to men and God is faithfull
of this iudgment Christ before expressed when he said and I if I were exalted to the Crosse will draw all men vnto me And after when rising from his feruent praier he said z Marke 14. Behold the sonne of man is deliuered into the hands of sinners As also to the Iewes that came to apprehend him a Luke 22. This is your verie hower and the power of darkenes as likewise to Peter when he b Iohn 18. drew his sword and smote the high Priests seruant and cutt of his right eare put vp thy sword into thy sneath b Iohn 18. shall I not drinke of the cup saith Christ which the Father hath giuen me The fruit of this Iudgment is euerie where specified in the Scriptures c 1. Pet. 2. Christ bare our sinnes in his bodie on the Tree by whose stripes ye were healed that being deliuered from sinne wee should liue to righteousnes What need you then so curiously question Against whom or in what cause sate God in iudgment now when Christ was thus astonished and agonized God sate in iudgment to receaue satisfaction for the sinnes of his elect at the hands of his owne Sonne by his humilitie and obedience vnto death d Defenc. pag. 93. li. 3. Of necessitte it must be one of these three wayes First Gods maiestie and great iustice now at this time might sit in iudgment against vs and so consequently yea chiefly against Christ himselfe as our Ransomepaier Suertie in our steed e li. 16. Secondly God might be considered now as iudging Satan the Prince of this world f Pa. 94. li. 40. Thirdly Gods matestie iustice may be considered sitting in iudgment meerely against sinfullmen You be copious where you neede not and carelesse where most cause is you should be circumspect to make an idle shew of small skill you bring here a TRIPLE iudgment of God First against vs and Christ our suertie Secondly against Satan Thirdly against sinnefull men which were either elect or reprobate as though one and the same iudgment of God for mans Redemption did not concerne all three to witt Christ as the Redeemer Gods iudgement for our redemption concerneth Christ men and Satan Satan as the accuser the Elect as the ransomed leauing the reprobate in their sinnes through their vnbeliefe vnto the dreadfull day of vengeance In that the Redeemer was by this iudgment receaued and allowed to make satisfaction for the sinnes of his elect Satan was excluded from all place and power to accuse them for sinne or to raigne ouer them by sinne and the purgation of their sinnes which should beleeue in Christ being made by the Person of the Sauiour they were reconciled to God by the death of Christ and discharged from the wrath to come the anger of god remaining on such as by faith obeied not the sonne of God Saue therfore your fruitlesse paines in the rest and shew why the beholding of Gods power and iustice now sitting in iudgment to redeeme the world and to receaue recompence from the person of Christ for the sinnes of men might not breed a religious feare and trembling in the humane nature of Christ. g Defenc. pag. 93. li. If you meane that thus Christ with submission beholding his Father in iudgement at this time was cast into this agonie it is the verie trewth and the same which we maintaine You take this for a shew to build your fansies on but as your maner is you abuse trewthes to serue your turnes Let it stand for good that Christ now beheld his Father Christ might beholde the power of his Fathers wrath against sinne and yet not feare the vengeance due to the wicked sitting in iudgment to require recompence for the sinnes of the faithfull what followeth that God awarded the selfe same vengeance against the person of Christ that we had deserued and should haue suffered if we had not beene redeemed This is a false hereticall and blasphemous conclusion no way coherent to the premisses and no way consonant to the Scriptures For then finall destruction desperation confusion and euerlasting damnation of soule and bodie to hell fire which without question were the wages of our sinnes as we may see by their example that are not clensed from sinne by the bloud of Christ must without reseruation or remedie haue lighted on the person of Christ. If that vengeance of sinne which was due to vs could by no iustice be inflicted on the person of the sonne of God no not if he had borne the sinnes of the whole world how then could the doubt or feare of his punishment on himselfe cast him into this agony you will release him of the circumstance but tie him to the substance of the selfe same pains which the damned endure When you sitt in iudgement on Christ shew your wicked and witles conceits as much as you list but the father to whom of right it appertained sitting in iudgment to receaue 〈◊〉 from the person of his sonne who was most willing thereto ne did ne could by iustice determine any thing against his owne sonne that should either derogate from the person of Christ or abrogate the loue which God professed and pronounced so often from heauen towards him God might haue condemned vs that most iustly deserued it but to adiudge the same condemnation to his owne Sonne was simply impossible to the Iustice holines trueth and loue of God For so the vnion of Christes person must either be dissolued which god hath faithfully sworne and mightily wrought or els the second person in Trinitie must haue tasted of the same vengeance with the damned and with the Diuells which is a blasphemie that the Diuell neuer drempt nor durst to broche h Defenc pag. 93. li. 8. This 〈◊〉 not but that Christ had recall paines inflicted from the Father as from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against vs in him who were thus acquited by him Not denying is a slender proofe of that which you should with most infallible certaintie conclude 〈◊〉 you did a 〈◊〉 If Christes manhood might and did righteously and iustly seare and tremble at the glorie power and maiestie of God sitting now in iudgement to proportion the price that should be payed for mans ransome how doth that 〈◊〉 the reall paines of the damned were inflicted on the soule of Christ at that instant except in madde mens conceits which respect more their pangs than their proofs and preferre their willes before the wisdome of Gods spirit or witnesse of mans reason All iudgement against sinne you will say tendeth vnto condemnation No iudgement against the Sonne of God could proceed vnto damnation for what or whose sinnes soeuer And therefore to me and to all that obserue the words of the Holy Ghost it is a cleerer case than the Sunne-shining at noone day that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne and healed by his stripes who bare our sinnes in
I trust you dare not endure Perhaps your meere priuations shall be euerlastingly punished in hell the danger is not great for them since nothing can be no where nor feele no paine and so not in hell But after many deuices and aduices you say the power and dominion of death shall be cast into hell That shall vtterly cease at the resurrection when all soules are ioyned to their bodies againe How then shall that which wholy and finally ceaseth be cast into hell You meane it shall bee eternally abolished This is an erection of a new hell and no part of the old Happy were the damned both men and spirits if they might be cast into this new hell of yours that is vtterly and eternally be abolished But these be mockeries in themselues and falsities against the Christian faith That which is cast into the lake of fire shall there euerlastingly burne and not consume but dure in perpetuall torment Shall your dominion of bodily death euerlastingly burne in hell And shall it also feele the force of that fire You must then make Hades a person for besides persons nothing shal be cast into hell fire And if it be a person it must be a diuell or a man except you will find out a place for it amongst your sheepe and cattell that you sent aliue to Hell But such childish and peeuish deuices are not worth the refuting The Reader may see what it is for men to forsake the learned and sound expositions and assertions of auncient Fathers and betake themselues to their fresh and new fansies of which thy cannot tell what to make nor how to speake Though you meane the containing to be put for the contained hell for the diuels of hell as one Andreas and Bede likewise vnderstand it yet neither you nor they it seemeth doe consider that this place assigneth them to hell at the last day who yet then are not in hell But the Diuels are in hell alreadie Therefore the diuels cannot be vnderstood heere by Hades Can a man be so sottish vnlesse hee were besides himselfe as not to find that all this while he refuteth his owne falsifications of Saint Iohns wordes and not any position of mine nor of these two learned writers whom he disdaineth as not considering where the diuels are before the day of iudgement They doe not say the diuels shall then be cast into hell this is your coltish conceit from which you will not depart but into the lake of fire prepared as our Sauiour pronounceth for the diuell and his Angels And how come you now in your heate so hastily to determine where hell is which not long since you called rashnesse in me you told vs ere while The Apostle mentioneth the aire on high as being the place of Diuels Put to this that which heere you say the Diuels are in hell alreadie you meane the place of hell or else you say nothing against Andreas and Bede whom you would confute as not considering where the Diuels are Doe not you then determine that hell is in the aire on high and so not onely condemne your selfe of rashnesse by your owne verdict but gainesay the Scriptures who testifie that the diuels desired Christ not to commaund them into the deepe Yea by this resolution of yours the face of the earth where wee liue is hell since the diuels are heere also and compasse the earth and walke therein So that if we let you alone in steed of one hell you will make vs three the aire the earth the deepe since in all these three it cannot bee denied but the Diuels are And yet for all your tripping so light on the toe the diuels may and shal be at the last day cast into hell that is affixed to the place and torments there from which they shall not stirre as now they doe whiles the iustice of God doth suffer them to vphold and encrease their kingdome here on earth And where you vouch of your hades that it shall at the last day of iudgement be throwen into hell that is eternally be abolished as you conceaue and deriue your Hades that day shall enlarge it more then euer before and so continue it so reuer For all visible creatures in heauen and earth saue men shall after that day haue no more any being at all yea the first heauen and the first earth shall passe away and there shall be no more any sea which will greatly enrich your generall Hades that containeth the destruction of vnreasonable things and the perishing of visible creatures from hence as the proper Etymologie thereof admitteth Nay if the very naturall Etymologie of the word according to Grammar doe properly signifie NOT SEENE ANY MORE IN THIS WORLD as you affirme it doth then all both good and bad be they in heauen or hell shall after the day of iudgement be properly and euerlastingly in Hades For they shall neuer be seene any more in this world whose figure passeth away without returning and giueth place for euer to the world to come And this your Hades which you would cast into hell there to bee for euer abolished shall by the naturall Etymologie and proper signification thereof confessed and vrged by your selfe not only continue in hell and in heauen but comprise them both seeing the Citizens of either shall not be seene any more in this world Lastly heere is shewed the most generall and vniuersall rendring vp of all the dead whatsoeuer to iudgement But hell plainly hath not all the dead Therefore death and Hades doe not heere properly signifie the diuell and Hell When you say heere is shewed the vniuersall rendring vp of all the dead whatsoeuer to iudgement If you meane this of death hades that they rendred vp all the dead that came to iudgement you vouch a manifest vntrueth repugnant to the very wordes of Saint Iohn going next before for thus his wordes stand And the sea gaue vp her dead which were in her and death and Hades deliuered vp the dead which were in them So that all the dead were not rendred to iudgement by death and Hades the Sea had part by Saint Iohns owne speech and therefore death and Hades heere doe not signifie the Dominion of death which reacheth to the sea aswell as to the earth Againe Saint Iohn in the twelfth verse saw the dead both great and small stand before God And in the thirteenth he addeth the Sea also gaue vp her dead and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which were in them Hee saw then some dead stand before God which neither the Sea nor hades deliuered And since Paul telleth vs that the dead in Christ shall rise first and God will bring them which sleepe in Iesus with him to iudgement what hindreth but the dead in the twelfth of Saint Iohn may be the elect and the rest be deliuered vp from the deepe of the Sea and of
because it is neuer inflicted but after the first death and likewise wrath to come for that the state of this present life is not capable of thâ—…se extreame torments which are reserued for another world And least I should seeme to make degrees and parts of eternall death out of mine owne head let vs briefly view whether the word of God do not witnesse the same There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth sayth Christ when you shall see Abraham Isaac and Iacob and aâ—… the Prophets in the kingdome of God and your selues thrust out at doores Many of those that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall awake sayth Daniel to perpetuall shame and reproch Their worme shall neuer die sayth Esay The Lord that willed his good and faithfull seruants to enter into their masters ioy when he came to the slouthfull and vnprofitable seruant commanded to be taken from him euen that he had and to cast him into vtter darkenesse The Iudge himselfe forwarneth he will giue this sentence on the wicked in the last day Depart from â—…e ye cursed into euerlasting â—…ire prepared for the diuell and his angels They shall be tormented in fire and brimstone sayth Iohn and the smoke of their torments shall ascâ—…nd euermore and they shall haue no rest night nor day This is that euerlasting perdition and vengeance of eternall fire which the wicked shall suffer in hell and this is the full and complete punishment and wages of sinne repaying the reprobate according to their deserts when their sinnes come once to that ripenesse and fulnesse that they may no longer be endured by Gods iustice the two former kinds of deaths in this world being such as are either despised or desired by the wicked For nothing is more acceptable to them than without all feare or care of God to follow their willes and pursue their lusts which iâ—… the death of the soule and the death of the bodie which they can not decline they labour to neglect and though they murmuâ—… at God for it as if man had beene framed at first mortall yet finde they no great hurt in it because they know not the sequel of it and perceiue it to be common to good and badde and to leaue no sense of paine behinde it And indeed the outward punishments of this life are by Gods bountie and patience so tempered not only with comfort to the godly but with moderation to the wicked that they warne all men to feare and flie the wrath to come and giue time and place for amendment The old inhabitants of the holy land thou Lord diddest hâ—…te sayth the Wiseman for they committed abominable works as sorceries and wicked sacrifices neuerthelesse thou sparedst them also as men and didst send the forerunners of thine host euen hornets to root them out not that thou couldest not destroy them with one rough word but in punishing them by little and little thou gauest them space to repent The Apostle sayth the same Despisest thou the riches of Gods bountie and patience and long suffering not knowing that the bountie of God leadeth thee to repentance but thou after thine hardnesse and heart that can not repent heapest vnto thy selfe wrath against the day of wrath and of the declaration of the iust iudgement of God who will reward euery man according to his works The wrath of God is also diuersly taken in the Scriptures sometimes for the inward dislike and hatred that God in his holinesse hath of all iniquitie sometimes for his iudgements threatned or executed against sinne whether they be tempered with loue or patience to worke or expect repentance as in his owne and in this life or proportioned to the deserts of wicked and impenitent sinners for substraction of grace as to the reprobate in this world or infliction of vengeance as to the danmed in hell Such is the holinesse of God that he can loue no wickednesse but by nature and of necessity doth and must hate all vnrighteousnesse in whomsoeuer Thou art not a God that loueth wickednesse sayth Dauid neither shall euill dwell with thee What fellowship hath righteousnesse with vnrighteousnesse or what communion hath light and darknesse What fauour then and allowance should iniquitie finde with God that is the very fountaine and flaming fire of all holinesse To declare Gods perfect hatred against all sinne as well of the faithfull as faithlesse the Scripture witnesseth not only that his soule abhorreth the outrages of the wicked which are an abomination vnto him but also that he is displeased and grieued with the sinnes euen of his elect These things the Lord hateth sayth Salomon yea his soule abhorreth them All these are the things that I hate saith the Lord by the Prophet Zacharie The foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all them that worke iâ—…iquitie sayth Dauid to God The Lord will abhorre the cruell and deceitfull man Yea God is displeased and grieued with his owne when they sinne against him The Lord saw it sayth Moses and was stirred to anger with the prouocation of his sonnes and his daughters When Dauid had slaine Vriah and taken home his wife the thing displeased the eies of the Lord sayth the Scripture Likewise when he numbred the people God was displeased with that deed Esay remembring the mercies of the Lord towards the house of Israel sayth hee was their Sauiour in all their troubles he was troubled and the angell of his presence saned them but they rebelled and grieued the spirit of his holinesse The Apostle confirmeth the same Grieue not the Holy spirit by whom ye are sealed vnto the day of Redemption Then as the loue of all righteousnesse is a naturall and necessarie consequent to Gods holinesse so the dislike and hatred of all sinne is rightly and properly appertinent to his diuine puritie neither must the godly take it for an improper kinde of speech but fully beleeue and plainely confesse that God is truely and greatly displeased with their sinnes lest in their hearts they bring him within compasse of liking or allowing their vncleannesse and when they repent they must not onely tremble at the prouoking of so righteous and fearefull a Iudge but chiefly sorrow for the displeasing and offending the holinesse of so gratious and louing a father This dislike and detestation of disobedience euen in his owne children which God of his holinesse hath the Scripture often expresseth by the name of Anger though no punishment follow The Lord was very angrie with Moses sayth the Scripture when he so long refused to goe at Gods appointment to deliuer the children of Israel out of Aegypt God was likewise verie angrie with Aaron and Miriam his sister for speaking against Moses though Aaron was not punished for it and Miriam quickely healed of her leprosie So God himselfe professed to Eliphaz the Temanite saying My wrath is
vs. In this sense all that the Scripture intendeth by wrath in God is most proper and naturall to God namely his holinesse abhorring sinne his iustice proportioning punishment to it and his power performing whatsoeuer his will and councell decreeth for the repressing or reuenging of sinne For which respect Zanchius a very moderate and considerate writer of our time and one whom amongst others the Discourser iudgeth no way inferior to the best of the Auncients setteth downe this for one of his Resolutions which he calleth a Thesis Ira eo sensu quo scripturae dant illam deo veré proprié ei attribuitur Anger in that sense in which the Scriptures giue it to God is truely and properly ascribed vnto him And his resolutions ensuing vpon the former are not onely that God is angry he meaneth truely and properly as his first Thesis affirmeth with all sinners as well elect as reprobate but that maior grauior est ira dei aduersus homines etiam electos propter peccata quam existimari possit ab ipsis hominibus The anger of God against his elect for sinne is greater and greeuouser then they can conceiue A second signification of proper may be that this wrath which the Scriptures attribute to God is proper to him and common to no creature els Men and deuils haue wrath but that is tumultuous or vitious and hath no communion with Gods wrath which is righteous and holy The Saints and Angels in heauen no doubt detest all iniquitie but they are no fit discerners esteemers nor rewarders of sinne The secrets of the heart they know not whose vncleannesse is open onely to the eies of God The waight of sinne they cannot truely balance he onely that is offended and cannot be deceiued rightly knoweth how farre euery sinne should displease and what euery sinne deserueth As they cannot fully ponder offences no more can they iustly proportion punishment to the demerits of euery sinner and least of all ordaine and arme meanes temporally to afflict or eternally to reuenge the bodies and soules of transgressors he onely that is all-wise all-holy all-iust and allmightie can throughly discerne perfectly dislike euenly reward and powerfully represse sinne by repentance or vengeance as seemeth best to him and therefote he onely is the righteous Iudge of the world and capable of that wrath which is proper to God A third meaning of Gods proper wrath may be this that as euery thing most rightly deserueth his name when it hath in 〈◊〉 permixtion of the contrary to alter his nature so Gods proper wrath may be that which is wholy and onely wrath without any temper of mercie or loue to diminish the heate and hight of wrath That is most properly light that hath no darkenesse trueth that hath no falshood good that hath no euill in it And since Gods iustice against the wicked admitteth neither loue to their persons nor mercie to their miseries that is also Gods proper wrath which is fully and wholy wrath without any fauour or pitie towards them that are the vessels of wrath appointed to destruction Of their damnation S. Iohn writeth The smoke of their torment shall ascend for euer and they shal haue no rest day nor night Wherby it is euident their iudgement shall be mercilesse their worme neuer dying and the fire neuer quenching And how can it be otherwise since they are both haters and hated of God Iacob haue I loued saith God and Esau haue I hated Thou hatest saith Dauid to God all those that worke wickednesse Yea the wrath of God saith Paul is reuealed from heauen against all vngodlinesse and vnrighteousnesse of men For as they regarded not to know God so God deliuered them vp into a reprobate minde to doe vnseemely things Neither is there any greater wrath in this life then for men to be left to the lustes of their owne hearts that they may be full of all vnrighteousnesse wickednesse maliciousnesse haters of God inuenters of euill voyde of all loue fidelitie and mercie and here receiue in themselues a meete reward of their errour to prepare them for eternall vengeance with diuels in the world to come This wrath of God against the wicked hath in it neither loue nor mercie but is wholy wrath proportioned to their desires which are sinnefull and their deserts which are hatefull before God and so they feele the iust and full recompence of their affected ignorance and wilfull disobedience Of this wrath the elect doe not taste they are freed from it in Christ their Redeemer and Sauiour by whose spirit their mindes are lightned and renued and their hearts perswaded to the obedience of faith and by whose death they are wholy deliuered from the wrath to come Of the two former they often taste specially when they neglect continuall and serious repentance to which free remission of sinnes is offered in the blood of Christ Iesus or when through the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit they are caried backe to the desires of their former corruption In which cases the Lord with sundry and sore afflictions letteth them sharpely feele what it is to prouoke the holinesse or abuse the goodnesse of so gracious a Father and neuer leaueth scourging them till they see and acknowledge their vnrulinesse and lament and leaue their vncleannesse taking hope and hold through faith of his mercies promised them in Christ Iesus If it can not be truely sayd of the elect that in this third sense which you vrge they taste of Gods proper wrath because of the loue which God beareth and sheweth them in Christ his sonne how much lesse may it be auouched of Christ himselfe that he suffered all Gods proper wrath on whom nothing was layed for our sinnes but with so great loue fauour and honour considering the cause which he vndertooke that God in each and all Christs sufferings declared him to be the best pleasing sacrifice and most sufficient recompense for sinne that heauen could yeeld or God would haue For whether wee looke to the choise of the person to the measure of his chastisement or to the reward of his labour wee shall see the exceeding and admirable loue and fauour of God towards him albeit the iustice of God kindled against our sinnes did not quit him from all paine yea that very chastisement by which he yeelded and learned obedience did not onely witnesse but also increase Gods loue towards him And where you Sir Discourser cast your eyes onely vpon Gods seuere and implacable iustice against sinne when you speake of Christes sufferings to serue your owne turne and to tole in hell-paines with some pretence of piety all the godly may perceiue and must confesse that God in satisfaction for sinne had greater regard of his holinesse despised by mans disobedience and of his glorie defaced by Satans triumph for our fall than of the rigor of his iustice prouoked by contempt of his commandement For
the wicked shall presently beholde and see themselues reiected thence they shall inwardly grieue with vnspeakable sorrow and outwardly mourne with gnashing their teeth for very anguish of heart as perceiuing themselues excluded from that inestimable blisse for euer This collection our Sauiour confirmeth in expresse words There shal be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham Isaac and Iacob and all the Prophets in the kingdome of God and your selues thrust out at doores Yea where there are two sorts of paines in hell Losse of heauen and sense of euill the learned and ancient Fathers haue professed the former to be a greater and grieuouser paine than the latter There are some saith Chrysostome of an absurd iudgement who only desire to escape hell contra ego multo durius esse tormentum quoddam assero quà m gehenna est hoc est non assecutum esse tantam gloriam illinc elapsum esse But I on the contrarie aâ—…firme there is a farre worse torment than hell it selfe is to wit the losse of so great glory and the falling there-from Neither doe I thinke that we ought so much to grieue at the euils in hell as at the losse whereby we fall from heauen qui nimirum est cruciatus omnium durissimus which doubtlesse is the bitterest anguish of all the rest S. Austen in like sort To perish from the kingdome of God to be banished from the citie of God to want so plentifull abundance of the sweetnesse of God as he hath layd vp in store for those that feare him tam grandis est pâ—…a vt ei nulla possint tormenta quae nouimus comparari is so grieuous a punishment or paine that no torments which we know may be compared vnto it NAZIANZENE Those that rise to iudgement this amongst other or rather ABOVE other punishments shall torment them that they are reiected of God And Basil. The estranging and reiecting from God is an euill more intolerable than all that is feared or expected in hell If the griefe shall be so great to be excluded from the kindome of God and the same be comprised in the sentence of the Iudge where he saith Depart from me ye cursed then is there no doubt but it is an essentiall part of the paines of hell since it is not only generall and perpetuall to all the damned but a necessarie precedent to the rest of their torments which can neither take full hold of them nor afllict them in the highest degree till they be wholly depriued of all consolation and expectation of any fauour from God and vtterly confounded with the griefe and shame of that reâ—…ection which they shall suffer at the hands of Christ before men and Angels Malediction the second part of the Iudiciall sentence against the wicked noteth as well the cause of their condemnation to be sinne for which onely both men and Angels are accursed as the sequels of sinne in the condemned whom this curse excludeth from all sense and hope of Gods blessings eternall and temporall for euer and wrappeth in the fearefull remembring and feeling the number and horrour of their offences that before flattered delighted and encouraged themselues in their wickednesse For where shame sorrow and feâ—…re are by Gods wisedome and trueth appointed as waiting mates on sinne and offered to the consciences of all men to stay them from sinne or leade them to repentance when they haue sinned if they doe not harden their hearts the wicked to take their full foorth in their vncleannesse cast these behind them and not onely conceale and excuse their sinnes but quench all reuerence and remembrance of God least any thing should hold or hinder them from their pleasures And therefore the Iustice of God arising to take finall vengeance of their rebellion against him causeth extreame and inward shame remorse and feare which they so much shunned when they might haue repented and desisted from their euill wayes most dreadfully to inuade them and as mightie streames to ouerwhelme them till they sinke to the bottome of all confusion compunction and desperation Which is a most iust reward of their dalliance with God and yet a most painefull torment to the damned who in their life time wilfully renounced God to enioy their delights but there and for euer after shall without remedie or mercie behold the lothsomenesse of their sinnes and grieue at the follie and furie of their disobedience God punishing the soule of euery such transgressour with the remembrance and remorse of his madnesse with the euidence and conscience of his vncleannesse and with the sight and assurance of his perpetuall wretchednesse Quae pâ—…na grauior quà m interioris vulnus conscientiae What paine more grieuous sayth Ambrose then the wound of the conscience within Amongst all the afflictions of mans soule there is none greater saith Austen then the conscience of sinne Howe thinkest thou saith Chrysostome shall our consciences be bitten and is not this worse then any torment what soeuer The most grieuous torment of all saith Basil shall be that reproch and eternall shame Omni tormento atrociùs desperatio condemnatos affliget Worse then all other torments shall desperation afflict the condemned Giue them griefe of heart euen thy curse vpon them saith Ieremie to God No doubt then the sting of conscience and shame of sinne which so extreamely shall grieue the heart is a part of that eternall curse which shall light on the wicked and so painefull and grieuous shall it bee vnto them that they shall curse the day of their birth time of their life and all the workes of their hands that occasioned or leasured them to come within the compasse of this fearefull and euerlasting curse Torments and sorrowes shall take holde on them in the day of iudgement or of death and they shall be pained as a woman in labour with child By which it appeareth saith Ierome they are tormented with their owne conscience Tunc ipsa conscientia proprijs stimulis agitatur atque compungitur Then the very conscience of the wicked is pricked and pierced with her owne goades and stinges Magna paena est impiorum conscientia The conscience of the wicked is a great paine or punishment vnto them You did well vtterly to exempt the Sauiour of the world from both these I meane from reiection and malediction you must otherwise haue depriued him of all grace and glorie and plunged him into the shame of sinne and remorse of conscience neither of which without open impietie can be ascribed to the soule of Christ and yet both these are essentiall paincs to the damned and not circumstances as you pretend of time and place How painefull they are I leaue the Reader to consider by that which is already said essentiall they cannot chuse but be to damnation and hell not onely because they are comprised in the sentence of the Iudge which
pleasure so it shal be of her paine You affirme not only my meaning but my reason to be this that God temporally and eternally punisheth the soule ONLY by the bodie I vtterly denie that I haue any such reason words or sense but that you purposely haue inserted the word ONLY of your owne to make my reason seeme false and foolish which otherwise is sound and sure You mistooke you will say my meaning you did it not of malice Your mistakings Sir Discourser are indeed very grosse as shall well appeare when we come to your fairest forts but in this by your leaue you could not mistake me except you were bereaued of your wits and senses I not onely prouided that my words should import no such thing as you dreame of but to cleere all cauils when I had made some proofe out of Cyprian Ierom and Tertullian for the second proposition of my reason I moued the question my selfe and answered it with as plaine and precise a deniall as I could deuise to vtter These are my words Do I then denie that the soule hath any sufferings in this life the next which come not by the body BY NO MEANES For though those conioyned sufferings be most answerable to sinnes committed yet the soule hath some proper punishments in this life as sorrow and feare when the bodie hath no hurt from which Christ was not free as appeareth by his agonie and so in the next the soules of the wicked haue griefe and remorse besides the paine of fire These punishments in this world and the next the soule suffereth not by her body nor from her body how then should I meane that God temporally and eternally punisheth the soule ONLY by the bodie or that ALL the soules paine for sinne is from the bodie as you make me to speake both without and against mine owne words Whether this dealing sauour of vnshamefastnesse or no iudge thou Christian Reader as thou seest cause The maner of the Discoursers carriage in the entring and ending of his answer I might not omit Now to his matter The midst of his answer is a medley meet for a man of his learning and iudgement the summe of it is this All my proofs out of the Fathers runne to prooue corporall and materiall fire except the Scriptures by me alleaged which vtterly prooue nothing at all For his part he seeth no reason to beleeue that now there is corporall fire in hell which is only our question or els nothing whatsoeuer shal be heereafter when the bodies shal be tormented with their soules Lastly Austen here doth not proue there shal be such sire after the resurrection be only sheweth the maner how it may be so heereafter if God will Now if the power of God only be all our reason we may as well proue the skie is fallen All the rest of the Fathers say nothing further nor indeed so farre as Austen Whether ten ancient writers all Christian and Catholike fathers relying themselues on the manifest words of holy Scripture and ioyning in one confession of the trueth be not more to be trusted and better beleeued than H. I. of Paules Chaine let the poorest prentise in London iudge As for the Scriptures if you Sir Deuiser and such other busie heads may allegorize them when they contradict your humors from Genesis to the Apocalypsis they shall vtterly proue nothing at all against you for what is there in them which you may not peruert with your fansies and figures if nothing shall be plaine and proper that any way seemeth vnsauourie to your reason The Fathers haue for that which they affirme the exact and euident words of holy Scripture and not so few as Twenty Places of the New Testament witnessing without any parables or allegories fire to be threatened and performed to the wicked in the world to come Whereupon with one consent they haue all resolued and professed it as a setled ground of Christian religion that hell fire to which Christ shall adiudge the wicked at the last day shal be a true externall and sensible fire I meane seene and felt of all the reprobate in their soules and bodies To this our new Patriarck of Pater-noster Rew answereth Austen doth not proue there shal be such a fire he only sheweth the maner how it may be so heereafter if God will Now if Gods power onely be all our reason we may prooue aswell the skie is fallen Gentle Sir if so many vouchers from Christes owne mouth and from his Apostles following their masters steps be no proofe with you nor sufficient witnesse of Gods will you haue some aduantage against S. Austen and all the rest of the Fathers for presuming vpon Gods power without the knowledge of his will but if those proofs be more then pregnant then looke to your allegories lest they prooue you to be a proud presumer against the Scriptures and an arrogant despiser of the Fathers where they accord with the word and will of God It is not enough for you Sir Deuiser to rowze your selfe and say YOV SEE NO REASON you must take the paines to yeeld good reason why you depart from the literall and proper signification of the words vttered by the sonne of God And since you can pretend none but want of power in God to performe the words which he hath spoken in their proper sense all the godly will see great reason to refuse your fansies and figures as idle shifts to decline the cleerenesse of the sacred Scriptures The Scriptures you say shew no more any corporall or materiall or true fire to be now in hell than a corporall worme materiall brimstone much wood and true chaines which I called a sleeuelesse obiection but neither I nor Austen whom I cite against it doth any where answere it Of the worme mentioned in Christes words their worme neuer dieth I shewed you S. Austens iudgement which might content a farre greater Clerke than you Neither is he alone in that opinion Gregorie Nyssene sayth I heare the Scripture affirme that the damned shal be punished with a fire darknesse and worme quae omnia compositorum ac materialium corporum poenae cruciatúsque sunt all which are the punishments and torments of materiall and compounded bodies Basil deliuering what terrours shall be presented to the eyes of the damned in the day of iudgement amongst other things nameth a darkish fire that hath lost his brightnesse but kept his burning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a venimous kinde of worme feeding on flesh and raising intolerable torments with his biting Iosephus a Iew liuing in the Apostles times and no stranger to the Christian faith in his oration to the Greeks which Damascene doth mention and Zonaras doth cite speaking of the finall iudgement of God to be executed by the person of the Messias sayth There remaineth for the louers of wickednesse an vnquenchable and neuer ending fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a
only is your question or nothing Many shifts you haue sent vs in your late defence which sauour neither of learning nor religion but a slenderer then this you haue sent vs none For first this is not the chiefe doubt whether there be now in hell any true fire or no which you say is your ONLY QVESTION or nothing but what is the substance of damnation due to sinne and what vengeance for sinne all the wicked must suffer in hell not for a time but for euer and we should haue suffered had we not been redeemed this is the right maine point in question For this is the full waight and burden of our sinnes which you say must be laid vpon Christ before we could be freed from it and this is the proper payment and wages of sinne which we should haue payed had we not beene ransommed by the death of Christ and therefore by your owne conclusions Christ must and did pay the same which else we should haue payed That which the damned doe presently suffer in hell is not the full burden nor iust vages of their sinnes else the terror of Iudgement as well as the taking of their bodies were wholy superfluous if the true payment and full vengeance of their sinnes were executed on them before Iudgement But the reprobat as well men as Angels are Reserued vnder darknes vnto the iudgement of the great day and Vnto DAMNATION which sleepeth not though it be not already to the full performed on either Againe a great number of the wicked shall neuer trie the torments of the soule seuered from the body because the day of Christ shall find them liuing as the Apostle testifieth and not part their soules from their bodies but cast both ioyntly into hell fire so that the vengeance of sinne before Iudgement which you would so faine fasten on and make YOVR ONLY QVESTION commeth too short of all your owne conclusions and is excluded by the expresse words of your limitations in your late defence For you subiect Christ to all Gods proper wrath and vengeance so farre as was due generally for all mankinde to suffer But the fire of hell before Iudgement except it be the selfe same that also remaineth after iudgement belongeth not by Gods iustice to all men in generall by reason manie shall not suffer it but after iudgement It is euident therefore that the fire of hell before iudgement is not your maine question because it neither is the full wages nor vengeance of sinne nor generally due to all mankinde but the right and true question is touching hell fire after iudgement wherein body and soule shall burne feeling the torment and violence of euerlasting fire according to the measure of ech mans sinnes Howbeit if we marke well the words of holy Scripture this which you would so gladly make your question is no question at all For by the sentence of the Iudge it manifestly appeareth that there is but one aud the same fire prouided for all the damned both men and diuels and that fire not onely is euerlasting without end or change but prepared and made ready before the day of iudgement as the words of our Sauiour doe plainly import who will say to all the wicked without exception Depart from me ye cursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into that euerlasting fire which is alreadie prepared for the diuell and his angels The article so often repeated suffereth the fire whereinto the wicked shall be cast to be none other fire but the selfe-same that is euerlasting and prepared for the diuels The Participle of the Preterperfect tence argueth the time when that fire was prepared for the diuell and his angels to be perfectly past before iudgement Of the first there can be no question Idem quippe ignis crit supplicio scilicet hominum attributus Daemonum dicente Christo Discedite à me maledicti in ignem aeternum qui paratus est Diabolo Angelis eius Vnus quippe ignis vtrisque erit sicut veritas dixit The same fire sayth Austen shall serue for the punishing of men and Diuels Christ saying Depart from me ye cursed into the fire euerlasting which is prepared for the Diuell and his Angels One fire shal be to both as the trueth hath spoken The second that hell fire is prepared before the day of iudgement and abideth euerlasting from the time of the preparation without any new creating or altering at the day of iudgement is as euident by the sacred Scriptures Esay who liued and prophesied more than eight hundred yeeres before our Sauiour reuealed this doctrine sayth of it as we heard before Tophet is prepared of old or long since the burning thereofis as the fire of much wood the breath of the Lord like a riuer of brimstone doth kindle it Our Lord and Master almost one thousand six hundred yeeres since made the soule of the rich man in the sixteenth of Luke to say of hell fire I am tormented in this flame And S. Iude proposing the destruction of Sodome and Gomorrhe sayth They are set foorth for an example 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by suffering the punishment of euerlasting fire Where we see the fire which God rained from heauen on Sodome and Gomorrhe is called euerlasting and the inhabitants of those cities are affirmed by the Apostle euen then when he wrate to suffer euerlasting sire for an example of the iust iudgement of God It is therefore one and the same fire of hell that punisheth the wicked before and after iudgement which was prepared long since as Esay sayth and is euerlasting that is not ending or changing into another fire but increasing and kindling with greater fiercenesse at the day of iudgement that all the wicked both men and angels may receiue a damnation answerable to their deserts which in part they now feele but then expect a sharper and sorer torment than yet is executed on them which is the terrour of iudgement and fulnesse of damnation reserued for them Then notwithstanding your sleights and shifts Sir Discourser that Christ suffered the substance and essence of hell paines and that happily there shall be corporall fire after Iudgement yet now there is no true fire in hell we find it resolued by the Scriptures and auouched by all the ancient Fathers and the best learned Diuines of our time that the fire of hell so much threatned in the Scriptures to the reprobate is a true substantiall and externall fire and the same that was prepared for the deuils euen from their fall and doth and shal dure as well before as after Iudgement for euer into which the soules are and at the generall resurrection the bodies of all the wicked shall be cast there to burne with vnspeakeable and vnceaseable torments And though I thinke it not fit for any man to take vpon him to deliuer the quality or force of that fire further then the Scriptures
knew him to be the same man that before was lame from his mothers wombe they were amazed and sore astonished at it Ieremie lamenting the miserie of the Iewes sayth I am sore vexed for the hurt of the daughter of my people I am heauie and astonishment hath taken me Euen as the Apostle also witnesseth of himselfe I speake the trueth in Christ and lie not I haue great heauinesse and continuall sorow in mine heart for my brethren that are my kinsmen according to the flesh If visions and Angels from God if the works and iudgements of God executed on others haue driuen the best men to frights and agonies what maruell then if the humane nature of Christ presenting himselfe in the garden vnto the Maiestie of his Father to be the Ransommer of mankinde and with his owne smart to satisfie the iustice of God for the sinne of the world and no way ignorant how weighty that burden and how mighty the hand of God was to whose will he must and did wholly submit himselfe what maruell I say if the weaknesse of our flesh in Christ beganne to be afrayed and astonished at the iudiciall presence and power of God at the perill of man if he were deserted and price to be payd for him before he could be redeemed not that damnation or destruction were prepared or purposed for him that should saue vs but for that the hand of God was infinitely able without hell and the paines thereof to presse and ouerpresse the manhood of Christ by whatsoeuer meanes he would This you will say is the paines of hell and the very same yea all that which the damned do suffer In deed Sir Discourser doth your skill serue you to make a religious submission to the Maiesty of God and an holy confession of his most mighty power euen with feare and trembling to be all that the damned now suffer or the selfe same paine which is sharpest in hell Doe not the godly at all times when they enter into the iust consideration of themselues presently see their owne infirmity and indignitie and thereby fall with feare and trembling to confesse all sanctitie glorie might and maiesty to be Gods and themselues to be not only earth and ashes but euen sinfull and hatefull vnto God if he be not gracious and mercifull vnto them And will you call these faithfull meditations of Gods children giuing vnto God his due the paines of hell and state of the damned because the sense of their weaknesse and vnwoorthinesse breedeth in them feare and trembling Then make heauen as touching the essence thereof all one with hell and saluation in substance to be the same that damnation is because the best learned Fathers confesse that the Angels in heauen doe and shall tremble at the voice and iudgements of God Adâ—…uius vocem Archangeli Angeli tremunt At whose voice the Angels and Archangels doe tremble sayth Hilarie speaking of the Godhead in Christ. Which words Leo the Great doth allow and alleage in his Epistle to Leo the Emperour and they grew to be of that credit that the effect of them was inserted in the Church seruice by Gelasius as Alcuinus doth witnesse Maiestatem tuam tremunt potestates The powers of heauen do tremble at thy Maiesty Christ comming from the heauens to iudgement euery creature shall tremble saith Basil the Angels themselues shall not be without feare for they also shall be present though they shall giue no account to God At that day sayth Chrysostome all things shall be full of astonishment horror and feare A great feare shall then possesse euen the Angels and not the Angels only but the Archangels and Thrones and powers of heauen because their fellow seruants must vndergoe iudgement for their liues led in this world Will you hence conclude that the Angels and Archangels are or shal be then in the paines of hell because they do and shall tremble at the sound of Gods voice and sight of Gods wrath to be executed on the world No more may you inferre that Christ did or should suffer the paines of hell and of the damned for that his manhood began to feare and tremble either at the maiestie of God sitting in iudgement or at the power of his iustice able to punish by what meanes and in what measure pleased him or at the weight of our sinnes for which he did vndertake or at the sharpnesse of vengeance layd vp in store aswell for the Iewes as all other vnbeleeuers that should neglect the saluation then to be purchased by his death and passion since the person of Christ being God and man was farre more assured and secured from hell and damnation than either the Saints or Angels of God are or can be At least then you thinke Christ feared and felt the wrath of God due to our sinnes though outwardly executed on his bodie From Christes Agonie which might haue diuers causes and whereof the true cause is not reuealed vnto vs by the Scriptures as I haue alwayes sayd so I now repeat it againe you can conclude nothing for your paines of hell to be suffered in the soule of Christ through the immediate hand of God They are your blind and bold deuises I must not say lewd and wicked because you are so tender you may not be touched to bring the true paines of hell yea the sharpest and extreamest of them into this life and to make the substance of hell nothing but a certaine paine inflicted onely on the soule by the immediate hand of God which you thinke Christ suffered in the garden where you say he felt as extreame sharpnes of paine as may by any possibilitie be endured yea though in hell it selfe and yet this incomprehensible vnspeakeable infinite and intolerable fierie wrath and paines of hell did neither part his soule from his mortall body nor so much as breake his patience So terrible you make the torments of hell in words and so easie in deeds that the wicked here suffer and endure them without ending their liues breaking their sleepes or refusing their foode But the true paines of hell are of an other manner of force thâ—…n you dreame of They leaue no place for meate nor sleepe the body must be immortall and not able to die that shall endure them they passe all patience of mâ—…n and Angels So that howsoeuer you aggrauate your fansie with fierie words you eleuate in truth the dreadfull iudgements of God against sin when you make the shaâ—…pest and extreamest of them to be tolerated of our Sauiour in this life with patience and siâ—…ence as appeared in his sufferings and the reprobate in the midst of your hell paines to liue eate and sleepe which in the trâ—…e paines of hell were not possible Austen saith rightly So is the soule conioyned with this body that to thâ—… paines which are exceeding great it yeeldeth and departeth because the very frame of the
members and vitall parts is so weake that they are not able to sustaine the force which bringeth great or most sharpe paine Which Chrysostome also confiâ—…meth Name fiâ—…e if thou wilt the sword or wilde beasts and if any thing be more grieuous than these yet are these scant a shadow to the torments of hell And these when they grow vehement are easiest and soonest dispatch men the body not sufficing to suffer a sharpe paine any long while Your hell paines then are not very sharpe which the wicked may suffer so many yeres in this life and not forsake either food or sleepe Yet Christ did feele you say Gods very wrath and proper vengeance for sinne and that only you know though you câ—…n not expresse the maner or measure of his feeling it And it was discerned and conceiâ—…ed by Christ to be such and so did wound the soule properly yea chiefly though it were outwardly executed on his bodic The wrath and vengeance of God due to sinne and generally to all mankinde for sinne is spirituall corporall and eternall death with all the seeds and fruits of death that is the losse of all earthly and heauenly blessings in this life and the next and the depth of perpetuall miâ—…ery in body and soule here and in hell This is the true wages and full payment of sinne and though God of his bountie and patience do often remit to the wicked in this life a great part of this 〈◊〉 in things tempo all yet when he inflicteth on them the miseries and calaâ—…ities of this life he giueth them their due And as for spirituall and eternall death now and hereafter it is so proper and certaine to the reprobate that not one of them shall eâ—…cape eâ—…ther Spirituall death is blindnesse and hardnesse of heart working all vncleâ—…nnesse euen with greedinesse which sheweth men to be strangers from the life of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as past all sense and feeling of God Eternall death the Scripture calleth WRATH TO COME because no man suffereth the full force and waâ—…ght thereof in this life but as it is the second death so it followeth in men after the first death which â—…euereth the soule from the bodâ—…e Yee vipers broâ—…d sayd Iohn Baptist to the Pharises and Sadduâ—…s who hath taught you thus to flâ—…e from the wrath to come Iesus sayth Paul deliuereth vs from the wrath to come In this life the wicked may haue a fearefull expectation but no present execution of this iudgement there is a day of â—…rath euen the reuelation of the â—…st iudgement of God when euery man shall be rewarded according to his works and a violent fire shall dâ—…uoure the aduersaries This wrath by the Scriptures is reserued for the vessels of wrath for euer and shall be executed on them with indignation furie and fire not onely because the wrath of God against the wicked burneth lâ—…ke fire but for that it shall be powred on them with flaming and euerlasting fire The effects whereof are reiection malediction confusion desperation and such lâ—…ke which neuer accompanie saluation To say that Christ suffered this kinde of wrath which is the true and proper wages of sinne is horrible and hellish blasphemie which I hope no Christian man will aduenture From the spirituall death of the soule which is the wrath of God reuealed from heauen against all vngodlinesse and vnrighteousnesse of men and bringeth with it the losse of all grace and goodnesse in this life and consequently leaueth the pollution and dominion of sinne in the soule of man our Lord and master must be as free as from damnation the one being alwayes a necessary consequent to the other Displeasure and wrath against Christes person God neuer had nor could haue any Christ being his owne and only sonne and so deerely beloued that for his sake Gods most iust and most heauie wrath against the sinnes of all his elect did calme and asswage for Gods inward loue doth not admit contrarieties or changes as mans doth all Gods counsels wayes and wo kes being absolutely perfect and constant chiefly towards his owne sonne whom he naturally infinitly and euerlastingly loueth in the same degree that he doth himselfe and therefore no more possible there should be in god any displeasure or dislike conceiued of his sonne for bearing the sinnes of the world or for what cause soeuer than of himselfe And since the humane nature of Christ was by Gods owne wisdome will and worke ioyned into the vnitie of the person of his sonne and made one and the same Christ with his Godhead no cause nor course whatsoeuer could alter or diminish the exceeding loue and fauour of God towards the very manhood of Christ but as God did inseparably knit it to the person of his sonne so did he make it fully partaker of that infinite loue wherewith he embraced his sonne To confirme this to all the world God did often from heauen pronounce with his owne voice This is my beloued sonne in whom I am well pleased as he forespake by his Prophet Beholde mâ—…e elect in whom my soule delighteth This vnspeakable loue of God towards the person of his Sonne now being God and man is the chiefe ground of our election and redemption For wee were adopted through Iesus Christ and made accepted in his beloued by whom wee haue redemption through his blood euen the forgiuenesse of sinnes according to the riches of his grace So that we were neither elected nor redeemed but by the infinite loue of God towards his sonne for whose â—…ake we were adopted to be the sonnes of God and to whose loue the fierce wrath of God prouoked by our sinnes did yeeld and giue place neither may he beare the name of a Christian man that otherwise teacheth or beleeueth of our election and redemption Now iudge thou Christian Reader whether it were wrath or loue in God towards his sonne that pardoned all our sinnes for his â—…ake and accepted the voluntarie sacrifice of his bodie and blood for the redemption of the world through whoâ—…e death we are reconciled to God and cleansed by his blood from all our sinnes Then as in God there neither was nor could be any displeasure against the person of his Sonne nor against any part thereof for what cause soeuer nor any chaunge or decrease of the loue which God with his own mouth professed from heauen towards Christ incarnate so could not Christ without plaine infidelitie conceaue or beleeue that God was inwardly displeased or angrie with â—…im no not when he presented him â—…elfe to God his Father vnder the burden of all our â—…innes knowing that neither sin from which he was â—…ee being the innocent and â—…mmaculate â—…amb of God noâ—… Gods most holy dislike or iust pursuite of sinne could diminish Gods fatherly affection and most constant loue to him For though he were not ignorant that God in his holinesse did hate
gloriae ducunt à me vero procul sit caeterarum rerum iactantia Licet in vna Christi cruce morte admodum gloriars They sayth Paul count circumcision a glorie farre be it from me to boast in other things It is lawfull for me thorowly to reioyce only in the crosse and dâ—…ath of Christ Iesus Some will aske How or why doest thou reioyce in the Lords crosse For that he was crucified for my sake which aâ—… no bodie and loued me so deerely that he offered himselfe to death for me Oecumenius What is this reioycing in Christs crosse which Paul speaketh of That for vs who were vnworthy Christ would be crucified for that is the cause we haue to glorie Haymo vpon the same place in the person of Paul sayth I will not reioyce in the riches and dignities of this world but in the crosse of Christ that is I will reioyce in his passion which was celebrated on the crosse whence is my redemption and saluation Moe I might easily bring but these for antiquitie may suffice The grauest and exactest of the new writers agree with the Fathers Bullinger Whereas Paul might haue vsed a simple kinde of affirmation ONLY THE DEATH OF CHRIST is sufficient for me to saluation he chose rather to expresse it by the way of detestation and to say Farre be it from me to reioyce but in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ. Where againe the second time by the crosse he meaneth the death sacrifice and expiation of the Lord Christ and the whole worke of our redemption Gualter in his 59. homilie vpon that Epistle sayth Now Paul opposeth himselfe to those false teachers declaring how he himselfe is affected and vpon that occasion repeateth the Summe of his doctrine touching the redemption and saluation of mankind in these words Be it farre from me to reioyce but in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ. He might haue sayd simply I reioyce only in Christ crucified in whose crosse I know there is reposed for me life and saluation But he vseth such a kind of speech as teacheth vs their insolencie was an abominable and capitall offence Caluin a man for his great paines in the Church of God worthy of great praise where he steppeth not too much aside from the ancient Fathers expounding these words of Paul sayth To reioyce in Christs crosse is as much as in Christ crucified but that it expresseth more for it signifieth that death of Christs which was full of reproch and shame and was accursed of God That death then which men abhorre and whereof they are ashamed in that death Paul sayth he reioyceth because he hath perfect blessednesse therein Piscator in his Scholies vpon Pauls Epistle to the Galathians noting what crosse of Christ it was for which the false teachers would not suffer persecution sayth Ob crucem Christs id est ob doctrinam Euangelij de salute part a per solam Christi crucem they would not suffer persecution for the crosse of Christ that is for the doctrine of the Gospell teaching saluation to be purchased by the crosse of Christ only There is not a new writer of any iudgement or diligence which ioyneth not with these and howsoeuer some of them withall auouch that Paul meant to shew by this opposing himselfe to these false teachers that hee shunned not persecution for the crosse of Christ as they did but reioyced in the doctrine of the crosse by which the elect are saued what affliction soeuer befell him therefore yet they deriue that part of Pauls meaning not from the confused signification of Christs crosse as you doe but either from the EFFICACIE thereof by which Paul was crucified to the world and the world to him in neglecting the flattery and enduring the fury of such as opposed themselues against Christ or from the CONFORMITIE to it that as he desired to reigne so he was willing to suffer with Christ and therefore reioyced as well in the fellowship as in the force and effects of Christes sufferings on the crosse or lastly from the CONTRARIETIE to the false teachers that though they adulterated the true doctrine of Christes crosse because they would decline persecution it was Paulâ—… ioy to teach sincerely the power of Christ crucified whosoeuer pursued him for so doing This sinceritie and duetie of the Apostle I am farre from denying but the crosse of Christ I constantly referre to the doctrine of mans redemption and saluation by the crosse of Christ that is by his personall sufferings on the crosse as all those old and new writers do and not to the troubles and afflictions of the godly to which if this Discourser dare ascribe the meane or merit of mans redemption or saluation he falleth from puritie to poperie and from the Christian faith to open heresie Thou seest then gentle Reader how sure ground and iust reason I had to propose that sense of my text which I did as also how vntruely vnwisely and headily this fellow ranne first to the challenging of my text and still vpholdeth his humour with his priuate dreame of Christs crosse conteining ioyntly together all the afflictions of Christ and his members from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof and maketh the false teachers as fearing persecution for the commending of his conceit to ioyne circumcision to the doctrine of the Gospell and so by altering and interlacing Pauls words after his owne fansie hee hath hatched at last an exposition without head or heele which no man vnderstandeth besides himselfe and the Diuines of all ages both new and olde do contradict But I committed another great ouersight in handling my text which was to take occasion from the text to speake of any thing for you count them the faithfullest and wisest handlers of Scripture which conclude euen from their text firmly and first of all what soeuer they afterwards teach thereupon Indeed I thinke your maner be to conclude all that you afterward say euen from your text without the helpe of any other places of Scripture You be so fast in your conceits and so loose in your conclusions that you can inferre any thing of euery thing Euery word you speake you tie to your text as firmly as flax to fire but if you would take the paines once to proue that you say and not only to say that which you should prooue you would finde great difference betwixt the firmnesse of a fansie in which you be so resolute and of an argument which for ought I yet see in your writings you scant make not vnderstand And where you quarrell with such handling of texts as is vsuall in these dayes but no good nor commendable vse your reading must be greater and iudgement better before you take vpon you to controle the Preachers of England for mishandling their texts Many hundreds there are of whom you may learne both how to diuide and how to pursue your theme your skill is not such
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
shall neuer inferre by phrases of your owne making which only serue to hide your owne meaning that Christ suffered the paines of hell As for Gods wrath against sinne it hath many degrees and parts by the verdict of holy Scripture though you will not heare thereof For as Gods blessings benefits when he first made man were of his heauenly goodnes richly prouided for man and plentifully powred on the body and soule of man as well for the leading of this life in plenty safety and delight as for the surer attaining of euerlasting ioy and blisse in an other place so when man by sinne fell from God by iustice God depriued him and his of all those earthly and bodily fauours and comforts no lesse then of the spirituall and inward gifts and graces of the mind by that meanes making way to his euerlasting and dreadfull Iudgements against sinne Now if these externall things bestowed on man in his first creation were iustly called and must be confessed in their kind to be the blessings and fauours of God afforded to all mankind when he made man and the whole world for his vse then out of question the taking them away from man and subiecting him by iustice to the contrary for sinne committed may as truly be named and must be beleeued to be the signes and effects of Gods displeasure against sinne which the Scripture nameth wrath And so God calleth either of them when he promiseth the one to the obseruers of his Law and threatneth the other to the breakers thereof who vseth not to promise or threaten words but deeds Neither hath it any reason because the reiecting of man from the greater and higher blessings of inward grace and eternall blisse was farre the sorer and sharper punishment of mans sinne that therefore the withdrawing of these should be no degree nor effect of Gods wrath against sinne no more then the losse of a legge or an arme should be counted no mayme because a man hath an head and an hart which are more principall parts of his body Wherefore though in comparison they may be iustly diminished and abased farre beneath the worthinesse of the rest of Gods blessings which are reserued for his Children in an other life yet can they not be denyed to be Gods blessings euen in this life and if to giue them to man when he was first made were the fauour and bountie of God towards man which no Christian may deny to take them from man for sinne must truely argue Gods displeasure against sinne not in improper speech as you gloze but in a lesse degree then those which bring with them perpetuall subuersion of Body and Soule And when the Scriptures meane to expresse the spirituall and eternall wrath of God they doe it not by proprietie of words as you pretend but by different circumstances either of the TIME after this life when no wrath is executed but that which is euerlasting as Christ deliuereth vs from the wrath to come and thou heapest vp wrath against the day of wrath which is the day of iudgement or of the PERSONS who are wicked and the vessels of wrath prepared to destruction and for whom is reserued the mist of darknesse for euer as for such things commeth the wrath of God on the Children of vnbeliefe or of the CONTINVANCE which neuer ceaseth as the wrath of God abideth on him that beleeueth not or of the HIGTH thereof when it is full as the wrath of God is come vpon them to the vttermost or of the CONTRARY when it is eternall life as God hath not appointed vs vnto wrath but to obtaine Saluation by Iesus Christ or of the CONSEQVENTS which are suddaine destruction and such like as kisse the Sonne least he be angry and ye perish in the way when his wrath shall suddenly burne blessed are they that trust in him By these and such like particulars we may perceiue when the Scriptures speake of the one wrath and when of the other but otherwise the wordes are common to both as also the cause which is sinne O Lord saith Moses why doth thy wrath waxe hote against thy people turne from thy fierce wrath and desist from this euill towards thy People And againe I fell downe saith he fortie daies and fortie nights before the Lord because of all your sinnes which yee had sinned doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord and prouoking him For I was afraid of the wrath and indignation wherewith the Lord was kindled against you to destroy you and the Lord heard me at that time also Exceeding many are the places which teach vs that our iniquities auert the outward blessing of this life and that our sinnes hinder good things from vs Though God after that comfort his people when their warrefare is accomplished and they haue receaued sufficient Correction at the hands of God for all their sinnes Surely these warnings of the holy Ghost are not empty words or improper speeches but effectuall and faithfull instructions for the Church of God to learne them that God doth visite their sinnes when they forget to repent and obey though he spare them in comparison of that wrath which is effunded on the wicked And therefore the name of wrath is rightly and truely applyed in the Scriptures euen to those afflictions wherewith God scourgeth his owne Children for their negligence and impenitence though God haue an other and greater which is eternall wrath laid vp in store for the Reprobate who die without Repentance and Remission of their sinnes Howsoeuer the strife for words standeth wherein I confesse I may not be brought to disalow the tongue and pen of the holy Ghost it is most certaine that the Gospel reporteth of Christs sufferings nothing but what was common to him with his members euen in this life where he suffered The Apostles plainely prooue as much to wit that we haue fellowship and communion with Christs afflictions and are conformed to his death Now there is no communion but where the same things are common to both though the degrees may differ And you your selfe when it maketh for you can vrge that the Apostle speaking of Christs sufferings saith He was tempted in all things like to vs yet without sinne So that in my iudgement it is a most cleere case as well by the witnesse of Scripture as by your owne confession that all Christes sufferings were LIKE yea the SAME that ours are as being common to both and consequently if you any way vnderstand what belongeth to trueth or reason the sufferings of the godly must either bee wrath as well as Christes or if their bee not his were not since they were the same And so the godly must either in all their afflictions small and great suffer as Christ did the proper wrath of God and true paines of hell which you make equiualent or if the godly doe not so
any certaine measure of Christes paines felt in his bodie or soule by which his soule might easily be afflicted as farre as his humane strength could stretch but the matching and euening of it with hell fire I take to be a presumptuous and irreligious deuice of this Dreamer for the reasons which I haue formerly shewed to wit that hell paines are not executed in this life where Christ suffered nor sufferable to the bodie which is mortall nor tolerable to the strength of men or angels Now though the gifts and graces of Gods Spirit in the soule of Christ exceeded the measure of angels as well for himselfe who is Lord and Iudge ouer all as for vs that receiue of his fulnesse yet in his crucifying the Scriptures note his infirmitie not his infinitie and auouch him by the suffering of death to be inferiour to the angels and not in strength of flesh to be superiour vnto them who are not able to endure hell paines with patience as we finde by triall in diuels Wherefore assure thy selfe Christian Reader they are more than follies which this man fableth of Christes paines equall and euen to hell fire it selfe and such is his constancie in his new Diuinitie that sometimes Christ suffered the verie paines of hell themselues and the same which the damned doe sometimes Christes paine was equall to it and as hot as hell fire and so not the verie same that the damned do suffer who feele indeed the true force of hell fire though not in that heat and heigth which they shall feele it at and after the day of iudgement It is most necessarie and most comfortable to be vnderstood of all men how the Lord assigned to his Sonne in the worke of redemption two persons as it were or countenances or conditions His owne naturally which God euer deerely loued and our countenance or person or condition which the Lord truely accursed and punished His owne Nature felt the sorrow and paine of the curse and hatred but the hatred and curse was bent against the load of our sinne wherein he stood foorth as guiltie before God and appeared as it were clothed therewith The taking of our Nature person and cause by the Sonne of God for our saluation is a key of Christian pietie that most concerneth and most profiteth vs if it be rightly vnderstood But as Waspes out of sweete flowres gather sharpe and hote liquors so out of the wholsome mysteries of true religion you labour to encrease the tartnesse of your vnholsome humour The eternall and true Sonne of God by the determinate counsell of his Father tooke our humane nature that is both the bodie and soule of man into one and the same person with his diuine glorie that by the sanctitie power and dignitie of the one the basenesse and weakenesse of the other might with more certaintie securitie and facilitie performe the worke of our redemption For by the neere and inseparable knitting of those two natures together not onely the person was able by his owne power to destroy sinne death and Satan and of his owne right to giue the spirit of trueth and grace and euerlasting righteousnesse and happinesse to all that beleeue in him but his birth life and death that is his humilitie obedience and patience were of infinite price and value with God by reason the same person that so humbled himselfe to obey the will and suffer the hand of his Father was also God though he could not suffer in his diuine but onely in his humane nature And to assure vs of his mercies towards vs by making vs partakers of his graces and merits with him he tooke all his elect into one and the same bodie with him ioyning himselfe vnto them by the power of his spirit as the head to the members that from him they might draw the strength hope and ioy of eternall life and all his meritorious passions and victorious actions be fully theirs as performed in their names and to their vses by him that for their sakes became their like and their leader I meane their head and their Sauiour And because sinne was the thing which seuered vs from Gods holinesse and prouoked his iustice against vs subiecting vs to death and damnation Christ therefore tooke vpon him the recompence of his Fathers holines by his obedience the preseruance of his Fathers iustice by his patience admitting into his humane soule and bodie not the infection or pollution of our sinne much lesse the confusion or destruction due to vs for sinne since he could neither be defiled with our sinne nor damned for our sinne but the purgation and satisfaction of our sinnes To which end by his obedience he abolished our disobedience that as by one mans disobedience which was Adam many were made sinners so by the obedience of one which is Christ manie should be made righteous and through death suffered in the bodie of his flesh for the redemption of our transgressions he reconciled vs to God and set at peace by the blood of his Crosse things in earth and things in heauen bearing our finnes in his bodie on the tree that we might be healed by his stripes We then were in our selues defiled hated accursed reiected and condemned for sinne yet Christ our Redeemer and Sauiour tooke vs into himselfe and our cause vpon himselfe not to partake with vs in our spirituall filthinesse and eternall wretchednesse but to clense vs from the one and to free vs from the other So that we did neither defile nor endanger him But his blood washed vs from all our sinnes and by his death he destroyed him that had power ouer death euen the deuill You speake then not onely without booke but without trueth when you say that Christ was euer deerely loued of God for his owne condition yet in or for our condition he was truely accursed and hated You might with as much faith and religion haue said That Christ by or with our condition was truely polluted with sinne and truely reiected confounded and damned for sinne For so were we and if his taking our cause vpon him doe truely and necessarily subiect him to our deserts and dangers then can none of these things be auoided which you so much abhorre as blasphemies All those things were due to vs in the highest degree euen when Christ tooke vs and our cause vnto him and were not released vnto vs but in Christ and for Christ and consequently if your two countenances and conditions in Christ be such as you make you may aswell affirme the last as the first that is as well pollution of sinne and damnation for sinne as malediction and hatred for sinne But who is so foolish amongst men as to thinke or call him a Theefe and a Felon that vpon repentance of the partie and recompense for the fact intreateth and obteineth pardon for one that was a Theefe and a Felon or so childish to say that
soule that without it the soule doth not sinne If by naturall dreames you would prooue the perpetuall operation of the soule euen when the bodie is at rest for celestiall dreames come not often and but to few remember first that all ages and persons do not dreame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It hath hapned to some sayth Aristotle that they neâ—…er dreampt in all their life Plinie and Plutarch confirme the same To some sayth he dreames happen when they grow in yeeres who before that time neuer dreamed Next in those that vse it straight vpon meat whiles sleepe is sound they dreame not but vpon distribution and reuocation of the naturall heat vp to the head Thirdly in dreames except they be from God it is certaine that mens imaginations which haue corporall spirits and seats worke as well as their minde and so the operation of the soule in sleepe is no way continuall nor excludeth the bodie though the outward and common sense be bound and oppressed with sleepe And euen the first ordaining of sleepe for man by God proueth that in meditation contemplation the spirits of the braine which are aeriall yet corporall are vsed by the soule in this life For with inward and earnest intension of the minde and vnderstanding those spirits waxe hoat and drie and therefore of necessitie must be cooled and tempered with sleepe otherwise if men lacke sleepe long frensie disturbeth both reason and remembrance By the maner of curing Lethargies Apoplexies Epilepsies Frensies and such like Galen resolutely concludeth that the discourse of reason and remembrance of sensitiue imaginations haue their seat in the bodie of the braine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the first instrument of the soule to all sensible and voluntarie operations is the spirit that is in the hollownesse or celles of the braine Damascene being a Diuine sayth as much The power of imagination receiuing the resemâ—…ances of naturall things from the sense deliuereth the same to the cogitation and consultation of the minde for they both are one which taking them and iudging of them sendeth them to the memorie The instrument of the cogitatiue and consultiue part of the soule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the middle celle of the braine and the animall spirit that is there and the instrument of the part mâ—…moratiue is the hinder celle of the braine and the animall spirit that is in it Where the instrument is taken for the seat in which the soule worketh and obiect from whence the soule receiueth the representations of things on which she worketh If the soules operations hang so necessâ—…rily on the bodie the doubt is how she may be separated from the bodie The power by which the soule discerneth and iudgeth of things offered by sense or by reuelation is internall and essentiall so that when she is seuered she is fully possessed of that facultie as part of her nature The meanes by which she commeth to the knowledge of externall and particular things in this life are naturally her senses and spirits by which she worketh in the body supernaturally the power of God which now and hereafter lightneth the eyes of the soule and not onely continueth her knowledge here obtained but increaseth the same and representeth to the mind and conscience all things good or bad here obscured neglected or forgotten The separation of the soule from the bodie and her knowledge after this life depend not vpon her naturall power and strength but vpon the worde and hand of God who can diuide the spirit from the soule euen in this life and either take or giue both sense and reason from her or to her as pleaseth him From Nabuchodonoser God tooke all cogitation and operation of humane reason and sense hee doth the same to others when it liketh him Paul liuing was rapt into the third heauen whether in the bodie or out of the bodie he could not tell but either way was easie to God as also Iohn when he was in the bodie was willed to ascend vp to heauen and was there in his spirit his bodie not dying in the meane space whiles his spirit was absent To children that vtterly know nothing in this life God will giue exact and perfect knowledge of their States by reuealing vnto them either his mercies or their miseries In vs all God will lighten the secrets of darkenesse and as he is trueth so suffer no trueth to lie hid in his presence We shall not onely remember all the workes of our hands and counsels of our hearts which now we haue forgotten but we shall see each others deedes and thoughts which is no way possible for our naturall abilitie so farre as shall be needefull for the declaration of his iust iudgement For nothing is secret that shall not be open neither is there any thing hid that shall not be knowen and come to light Therefore neuer doubt whether the soule hauing left her naturall and corporall meanes of knowledge shall sleepe till the day of resurrection shee shall haue an other manner of knowledge then here shee had either to her euerlasting comfort or confusion She shall then perceiue and discerne the things which eye neuer sawe nor eare euer heard nor euer ascended into the heart of man here on earth Howbeit neither the separation nor intellection of the soule pertaine directly to this question I speake not of cogitations nor of operations of the soule except they be sinnefull and those cease after this life though the knowledge of the soule remaine and in this life when sense discretion or memorie doe wholy faile vnlesâ—…e it be by our owne fault as in gluttonie drunkennesse immoderate passions of loue or anger and such like there also the committing of actuall sinne faileth Further you commit two grieuous faults 1 Tertullian the principle ground which you haue for your opinion here is wonderfully ill vsed 2 you are strangely contrarie to your selfe in your verie winding vp of the matter It seemeth that Tertullian cited before the reason of the Heretikes holding that the soules slepâ—…â—…ill the day of iudgement and receaued no reward at all in the meane time for want of the societie of their flesh but Tertullian answereth and renounceth all the same And so those were the Heretikes words against Tertullian which you alleage out of him in steede of Catholikes It is no fault in you to reade so loosely and erre so grossely that you see neither Tertullians intent methode nor proofes but wilfully taking the words that are his owne anâ—… common to him with the rest of the ancient and Catholike Fathers as if they were the wordes of Heretikes to blurre him and the rest with the spot of heresie when they speake a trueth receiued and beleeued in the Church of Christ. It seemeth you say Tertullian cited the reasons of the Heretikes houlding the soule slept till the last iudgement It is past
himselfe you make him say the soule is sufficient by it selfe to do the lesse for it is able of it selfe only to thinke to will to desire to dispose Where the word solummodo ONLY which is added to the Verbes following you cut from them with a point and ioyne it to the Pronoune precedent saying it is able of it selfe only meaning without the body thereby to exclude the bodie from all communion and impression of the thoughts which Tertullian before did impart to the bodie And thus by wresting Tertullians words you make him câ—…ntrarie to himselfe because he should not seeme contrarie to you which is the couâ—…se of your vnlearned skill vsed euery where by you when any thing standeth in your way Otherwise Tertullians words are plaine enough after his maner and no way repugnant to that which went before but haue in them rather an exposition what seruice and subâ—…ction the bodie yeeldeth to the soule in sinne without which the soule can accomplish no sinne For though desire cogitation and will are in the soulâ—… as her owne and come from the soule to begin euery sinne yet she can perfâ—… no sinne without her bodie Likewiâ—… your colâ—…ection out of Tertullian that the soule now without the flesh receiuâ—…th iâ—…gement for such actions as of it selfe it was sufficient to doe hath neither any trueth in it nor concordance with your authors sense or words for Tertullian confidently pronounceth that the iudgement of God must be beleeued to be FVLL FINALI and PERPETVALL none of which agree to the iudgement that you pretend for the actions of the soule alone without the bodie It is NOT FVLL because the one halfe of man is absent it is NOT FINALL because an other iudgement and sentence shall follow after it is NOT PERPETVALL because it dureth but till the resurrection when both soule and bodie shall be cast into euerlasting fire it is NOT GENERALL because such of the wicked as liue when Christ shall come to iudge the quicke and dead shall not haue their soules punished apart from their bodies This doctrine therefore is verie false that sinnes mâ—…erely spirituall as you terme them namely Heresies Turcisme and Atheisme shall not be punished in or after the last iudgement when the bodie shall be reunited to the Soule because their punishment the soule alone must suffer since she alone committed them as you say without any consent or communion of her bodie Neither doth Tertullian call this punishment of the soule without the bodie simplie or absolutely IVDGEMENT but the TASTE or SHEVV of iudgement Hilarie saith rightly of it The day of iudgement is the repaying of eternall ioy or paine The time of death in the meane space hath euery one tied to his state dum ad iudicium vnumquemque aut Abraham reseruat aut poena Whiles either Paradise or punishment keepeth euery man for iudgement So Tertullian Cur non putes animam puniri foueri in inferis sub expectatione vtriusque iudicij in quadam vsurpatione candida eius Why shouldest thou not thinke the Soule to be comforted and punished below in the earth vnder the expectation of either iudgement of eternall happinesse or cursednesse in a kind of vsurping and foreshewing thereof That Tertullian here calleth degustans iudicium a foretasting of iudgement but no full finall perpetuall or generall sentence which are the properties of Gods iust iudgement against all sinnes of thoughts words or deeds Tertullian confesseth that the Soule doth not diuide all her works with the ministerie of the flesh and that the Diuine censure doth pursue the onely thoughts and bare Wills of men And therefore he saith Sensus delictorum etiam sine affectibus imputari solent anime The very purposes or desires of sinne without their effects are imputed vnto the Soule When Tertullian speaketh of sinne committed by the Soule alone without the Body or the helpe thereof he meaneth without any EXTERNALL PART of the Bodie concurring thereto as in outward facts when hands or feete or other members of the Body are imployed to bring the sinne to a sensible act and effect Take his owne example in both these places Qui viderit ad concupiscendum iam adulterauit in corde He that seeth a woman to desire her hath committed adulterie in his hart Is any man so childish as to thinke the Soule can see or desire a woman without corporall sense or concupiscence There is then in that case plainly the concurrence of the eyes and affections which are bodily but yet because the Act is not accomplished the sinne remayneth in the hart alone and proceedeth not vnto the DEEDE And so diuiding sinnes into thoughts words and deeds as Saint Austen and other Diuines doe when words and deeds are forborne they often say that men sinne in thoughts alone but this doth not exclude the inward coniunction and communion of the Soule with the Body in sinne which is denied to be corporall because it is not open to the sense Notwithstanding the powers of the Soule vsed therein are permixed with the spirits of the Body which are corporall in comparison of the Soule though spirituall in respect of the grossenes of the flesh in that they are aeriall and approch the nature and purenes of ayre to which the word spirit is vsually applyed So that the diuerse taking of the Body sometimes for the outward masse of flesh subiected to sense sometimes for the inward powers of life and sense tempered with the body causeth this difference of speech in Tertullian and the rest of the fathers who all concurre in this that except the body haue life and sense the Soule can commit no actuall sinne For we must not onely be liuing but awaked and aduised before wee can voluntarily runne into sinne Of sleepe which bereaueth vs of sense I haue spoken before of death which taketh life from vs it is also certaine that thereby sinne ceaseth in vs. He that is dead is freed from sinne saith the Apostle that is sinneth no more so Chrysostome expoundeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is dead is deliuered from sinning any more And Ierom. Mortuus omnino non peccat The dead doth by no meanes sinne Ambrose Impius si moriatur peccare desinit The wicked when he dieth ceaseth to sinne Epiphanius In the next world after a man is dead there is no righteousnesse nor repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor any workes of sinne For as Hilarie obserueth Decedentes de vita simul de iure decedimus voluntatis When we depart this life we are withall cut off from all libertie of Will Theophylact. The Apostle speaketh thus of euery man For he that is departed from this life is iustified from sinne to wit he is loosed and deliuered from it Our new writers affirme no lesse Bullinger This is a generall Rule the dead doth not sinne at all yea he
can not sinne Peter Martyr vpon the same place The dead cease from their euill actions in which before they liued Caluine The Apostle reasoneth from the proprietie of death which abolisheth all the actions of this life Beza The Apostle speaketh of the effect of death which maketh vs when we are dead necessarily to cease from the actions of this life and consequently from sinne So that leroms conclusion is very true The dead are able to adde nothing to that which they brought with them out of this life For neither can they doe well nor sinne neither encrease vertues nor vices If then the Soule can not sinne except the body haue life and sense for neither in death nor sleepe men doe sinne without question the body must concurre to the committing of all sinne and the action is common to both And if not onely life and sense be required in the body but intelligence and remembrance to discerne good from euill must remaine vnperished before the Soule can sinne for otherwise Insants mad men and others stroken with Lethargies Epilepsies and Apoplexies should doe nothing but sinne by continuall omitting of good if not committing of euill and these naturall infirmities or violent distempers of the braines come from the body and ouerwhelme the actions of reason and memorie how can the body bee excluded from the communion of all sinne whose parts and spirits if they bee inflamed or obstructed doe excuse men from sinne by hindering the iudgement of good and euill And where no sinne is committed but that which is either embraced with loue and delight or else inforced with feare and dislike and all these haue their sensible impressions and motions in the heart how should the body bee free from any sinne which hath his manifest delectation and contentation in euery sinne bee it neuer so inward and spirituall Howsoeuer then your vnlearned and vnbridled humour pronounce this Doctrine to bee exceeding vntrue and hurtfull and more then strange and euen hereticall it is a faire plaine and Christian trueth that all sinne in man is common to body and Soule and that as both parts do ioyne in the committing of each sinne so shall both bee coupled in the punishment of each sinne though the Soule as shee first beginneth and most affecteth sinne whether by her sense or vnderstanding so shall shee first taste and most feele the iust iudgement of God against sinne Lastly you contradict your selfe For you graunt that the Soule hath some sufferings in this life and the next which come not by the body I graunt it indeede and therefore your impudencie is the more who by adding onely to my former words would make mee say the contrarie I suppose you denied before the Soules punishment without the body Where and what are my words that make the deniall You and your friends haue skanned them often and neere enough shew them or else your supposing will prooue by your leaue but a shamelesse inforcing The strongest words that I haue sounding that way are these The iustice of God both temporally and eternally punisheth the Soule by the body Which words are apparently sound and true and therefore you could not falsifie them but by putting onely of your owne vnto them which was no part of my speech nor intent Seeing now you graunt it therefore it followeth by your owne words that the wicked sinned meerely in and by their Soules It is a world to heare a man conclude so much and conceiue so little For first though the Soule bee punished without the body yet is that not the full punishment of sinne which is and must bee eternall for want of the body and therefore this reason is rightly returned on your owne head For if the body as you say doe not sinne at all then should the Soule euerlastingly bee punished without the body But that is expresse heresie gainesaying the resurrection and condemnation of the body to euerlasting fire Since then the punishment of the Soule is not full without the body it is a necessarie point of Christian truth that the body did sinne as well as the Soule otherwise it should vniustly be punished together with the Soule Againe what if the body before Iudgement bee not punished in the same place nor with the same paine that the Soule is is that a consequent the body is free from all punishment of sinne As though priuation of life corruption to dust subiection to the curse and obligation to eternall fire were no punishments which are allotted to the body for the time till the day of generall resurrection and iudgement Wherefore this reason also recuyleth vpon you For if the bodies of the wicked when they bee seuered from their Soules are not exempted from some punishment of sinne that rather inferreth the body was partner with the Soule in sinne then vtterly innocent as you would haue it How sound this is I wot not where you yeelde none other reall and positiue punishment now to the Damned but remorse and remembrance of sinne onely as it seemeth What talke you of soundnesse till you shew your selfe to haue more sense in matters of Religion To repeate all the paines which the damned doe suffer would trouble your wits and if I could doe it to what purpose were it I said the Soule seuered from her Body was punished in hell with the remembrance of sinne gnawing the conscience losse of Gods fauour afflicting the mind besides the paine of fire which torment is vnspeakable Your eyes did not serue you to see those words besides the paine of fire You vouch I yeeld no punishment to the damned now but remorse and remembrance of sinne ONLY Let your discrete Readeriudge what dealing this is and how well you deserue to be beleeued vpon your word The fire of hell you will say is no reall nor positiue punishment The triall of that will cost you deere you were best forbeare your dreames till you bring your proofes You would haue if I ghesse right at your meaning immediate paine from the hand of God tormenting Soules in hell but when you prooue that God is not able as well with meanes to punish the Soules of the wicked as without meanes and that the fire of hell so often threatned in the Scriptures is but a figure of speech to make vs afraid we wil harken after your new reall and positiue punishments which you so highly esteem because they are deuised by your selfe In saying that Christ was not free from some proper punishments to his Soule as sorow and feare in his Agonie If you meane as you speake then it followeth euidently from your owne words that Christ suffered proper punishment in his Soule from the very wrath of God which in a word is the granting of our whole Question He that will follow you in your fansies and follies shall haue some what to doe That sorrow and feare for what causes
the English Translation to be openly reade in the Church confirmeth not the Marginall appositions which may not be read in the Church though they may be receiued so farre as they haue manifest coherence with the Text or consequence from the Text in respect rather of their veritie then Authoritie For these notes at first were not affixed and in sundry editions they haue been altered increased as the Corrector liked euen this note which you alleage somewhat differeth from the Geneuian notes whence this and the most of the rest were taken The words of the Geneuian edition vpon this place are these The word Agonie signifieth that horror that Christ had conceaued not onely for feare of death but of his Fathers Iudgement and wrath against sinne The Printer of the great English Bible or his Corrector ouer against those words of the Text he was in an Agonie setteth this obseruation in the Margine He felt the horror of Gods wrath and iudgement against sinne I refuse not those words as if they gainsaid the Doctrine which I defend but I see no farder ground in them then ghesse when they ayme at the cause of Christs Agonie which the Scripture suppresseth Howbeit let the words stand in their full strength though by no meanes I acknowledge either Authentike or publike Authoritie in them they rather euert then support your opinion The vttermost here ascribed to Christ is HORROR that is a shaking or trembling feare of Gods Iudgement and wrath against sinne which all the godly finde in them selues when they enter into the serious cogitation of Gods holinesse displeased and his Iustice prouoked with their sinnes but this is farre from the death or paines of the damned except you make the vengeance of the Reprobate all one with the repentance of the faithfull This therefore is like the rest of your proofes no way tending to your purpose The feare of Gods wrath against sinne which is common to all the godly in this life though not at all times hath no fellowship with the feare of the Reprobate much lesse with the torments of the damned The one is a religious and godly sorrow for sinne which worketh saluation and yet agniseth with feare and trembling the iustnesse and greatnesse of Gods wrath against sinne the other is the beholding of the terrible and eternall destruction of Body and Soule prepared for them without all hope of ease or end In Christ there might be a double cause of this horror conceaued or felt by him as affections are felt in the Nature of Man the one touching vs the other touching himselfe Christ might tremble and shake at the terror of Gods Iudgement prouided for vs which was euerlasting damnation of Body and Soule in hell fire and the more tenderly he loued vs the greater was his horror to see this hang ouer our heads euen as we naturally tremble to see the desperate daungers of our dearest friends present before our eyes And if Paul said truely of him selfe we knowing the terror of the Lord meaning the terror of the Lords Iudgement against sinne how much more then did the Sauiour of the world know the same the cleare beholding of which might iustly worke in him a manifest horror to teach vs to take heede of that terrible Iudgement at the sight whereof for our sakes he did tremble in the daies of his flesh An other cause of that horror might concerne himselfe For since the wrath and Iudgement of God against our sinne was so terrible to behold that Christ in his humane nature trembled at it how could it but raise an horror in him to know that he must presently receiue in his owne Body the burthen thereof and make satisfaction therefore with his owne smart which how farre it would pearce his patience the weakenes of our flesh in him might well feare and tremble though his spirit were neuer so resolute and ready to endure the most that mans nature in this life could sustaine with obedience and confidence So that either the sight of Gods wrath against sinne due to vs or the satisfaction of the same which Christ was to make might vrge his humane nature to that feare and trembling for the time which these notes obserue and yet neither of these come neere the feare of the wicked or paines of the damned Besides that religious horror and feare is nothing lesse then the paines of hell inflicted on the Soule by the immediate hand of God which is the deuice that you seeke to establish Thus my Text of Scripture is also iustified that Christ gaue himselfe the price of Redemption for vs WHICH ELS VVE SHOVLD HAVE PAYD If wresting adding and altering may be called iustifying then is your sense of that text iustified indeed otherwise there is nothing yet alleadged that any way approueth that meaning of the text which you would inforce The price of our redemption Christ payd not the same which els we should haue payd had we not beene redeemed for so Christ must haue suffered euerlasting damnation of bodie and soule which was the payment exacted of vs but he payd a PRICE for vs that more contented his displeased Father than our euerlasting destruction could haue done You dallie therefore with the doubtfulnesse of the word PAYD which sometimes signifieth the enduring of punishment sometimes the yeelding of recompence The Price of our sinnes which we should haue payd that is the punishment of our sinnes which we should haue susteined was eternall destruction of bodie and soule in hell fire and other payment we could make none This payment due to vs or punishment which we should haue payd the person of Christ could not suffer it is most horrible blasphemy so to speake or thinke but he payd a price for vs that is a SATISFACTION and AMENDS for our sinnes which by no meanes we were able to pay And so much the word ANTILYTRON noteth euen a Price Recompence or Ransome in exchange of the punishment or imprisonment which the captiue should suffer This Price you will say was himselfe I make no doubt that Christ gaue himselfe to die but NOT TO BE DAMNED for our sinnes as we should haue beene Neither can the common custome of redeeming captiues inferre any more than the giuing of a price for the Prisoner And therefore I did iustly aske Who told you that the Scripture here speaketh after the common vse of redeeming Captiues taken in warre And where you answere the nature of the word ANTILYTRON importeth so much which is properly vsed in such cases you vndestand neither the nature of the word neither the maner of our redemption rightly For first the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence Antilytron commeth properly signifieth a mutuall redemption of ech other as Aristotle obserueth and so we should redeeme Christ as he redeemed vs. Wherefore the word is heere improperly taken and signifieth no more than LYTRON without composition Againe the common vse of
once by sinne we were plunged into the depth of all miserie as a punishment for sinne then the grace of Christ by the death of his body brake off the chaines of internall and eternall death knit to the former by Gods iustice and made the naturall death of our bodies which without Christ was onely a punishment and the entrance to all other mischiefes of sinne afteâ—… this life to become now an aduantage to the soule which is presently freed from the labours of this life and inuested and secured with euerlasting blisse But the body is not yet quited from the burden and corruption laid on it by Gods iustice for the punishment of Adams sinne and the soule in the midst of her comforts not onely feeleth the want but sheweth her desire to receaue her bodie as appeareth by the praâ—…er of the soules vnder the Altar who desire not now in heauen reuenge of their persecutors whom they pardoned and praied for on earth but woondering at Gods patience that is daily prouoked and abused they desire the day of iudgement though thâ—…t bring with it the destruction of the wicked because they shall then receaue their bodiâ—…s and with them the fulnesse of Gods promises That place of the Catechisme doth â—… notably contradict you who call death to the Gâ—…dly the gate of hell a strange and most vntrue translation The Catechisme speaketh of the soules of the godly who without Christ were assured by death to enter the bottomlesâ—… pit of hell and now by Christ doe safely passe from death to heauen but what is this to their bodies whereof I speake doe the bodies of the Saints passe straight vpon death to heauen as their soules doe I trust your Catechisme saith not so and therefore no way contradicteth me But I translate it so when I call death the gate of hell which is sâ—…range and vntrue No good Sir when I translated the text because the word Sheol was doubtfull and imported all the power and strength oâ—… hell against bodie and soule in this world and in the next I retained the verie worde Sheol as may be seene in the page of my Sermons which you cite pag. 150. li. 32. yet what was ment by â—…heol in that place when I came to examine I did incline rather to the word hell then to the word Graue since we had in English no more words to expresse the power or danger of Satans kingdome on earth For neither the griefe which Ezechias conceaued nor the phrase which he vsed might be rightly referred to the graue It was not the graue that Ezechiah did so much feare and so much decline it was the doubt of Gods displeasure that vpon deliuerance of him and his citie from the hands of Senacherib presently strooke the king with sicknesse and denounced death vnto him as vnworthie to enioy that protection which God had shewed from heauen in defence of his people against their enimies and therefore in the bitternesse of his soule which he confessed did oppresâ—…e him he said he should goe to the gates of Sheol that is to a dangerous conflict with death betweene hope and feare of Gods fauour or anger Neither doth Sheol there import onely the graue for at first Ezechiah resolued he should die and so goe farder then the gates or entrance of the graue Neither doth that phrase in other places of Scripture expresse barely the buriall of the bodâ—…e The gates of hell sayth our Sâ—…uiour shall not preuaile against my Church by which he meaueth nothing lesse then the graue Are the gates of death knowen to thee saith God to Iob who could not be ignorant what the sides and bottome of a graue were Thou liftest me saith Dauid from the gates of death when yet he was sure to come to his graue And had Ezechiah from the griefe of his hart vnder which he chattered like a Swallow and mourned as a Doue pronounced death to be the Gate or first inuasion that hell or Satan made one mans Body for sinne what had you to say against it By the enuie of the Diuell saith the wise man Death entred into the world The Apostle saith as much By sinne Death eâ—…red into the world not as a blessing of God but on all men to Condemnation From this Condemnation the Soule by Christ is presently released the Body is also promised but yet not cleered from that Condemnation to Death which sinne brought with it And since the Apostle calleth it an Enemie to Christ and Austen doubteth not to name it a corporall Curse why should I not number it rather amongst the gates or powers of hell then of heauen since the diuell was the Author and Christ will be the destroyer thereof It offendeth you that I say if we will reason what death is in it selfe we must resolue it to be a part of Gods curse which you say is no answere For who euer denied it to be in it selfe a part of Gods curse for sinne but your expresse words are death is to the godly no curse properly Doe you now find the foile how foolishly you haue all this while supported an errour that yoâ—… now come with properly to proppe it vp least it fall on your head You can now with shame enough confesse WE KNOVV AL SHAME AND AFFLICTION TO ALL MEN IS A KIND OF CVRSE Then death a man would thinke may rightly be called a kind of corporall curse since that is the sharpest and forest of all outward asfâ—…ictions A kind of curse who euer denied that say you Euen your wisedome hath all this while denied it In your Treatise you bleated forth this resolution Therefore Christes dying simply as the godly die MAY IN NO SORT HERE BE CALLED A CVRSE or accursed You iterate the verie same in your defence Yea it is the maine ground of your second speciall reason Christ you say was made a curse sor vs or accursed in his death But to die simply as the godly doe may in no sort be called a curse or accursed Christ therefore endured the curse and wrath of God truely Your expresse wordes you say are Death to the godly is no curse properly but a vantage Are not the other your expresse wordes also that the death of the godly MAY IN NO SORT BE called a curse or accursed and doth not the force of your reason wholy depend vpon these later wordes For had you confessed that death shame and paine were to the godly corporall curses how then conclude you that Christ was properly accursed Because the Apostle saith He was made a curse Doeth the Apostle say he was made a curse properly It would empt and waste all the wit in your head from the one to conclude the other Against your precâ—…e Negatiue that death in the godly might in no sort be called a curse I opposed the contrarie that the death of the bodie was a curse for sinne laide on
submission and Sacrifice as a sufficient recompence and Satisfaction for the sinnes of the world Againe he certainly knew that Gods displeasure against our sin in loue would not in Iustice could not extend to the dissolution râ—…iection or dâ—…struction of his Person but that God would temper the punishment of our sinnes in his Body where he bare them that neither his obedience nor patience should be wearâ—…ed or ouerwhelmed And to that ende the Scripture plainly testifieth that Iesus i Iohn 13. knew the Father had giuen all things into his hands and so whatsoeuer Christ suffered was a triall of his obedience to which he most willingly submitted himselfe that neither the burden of our sinnâ—…s might seeme a sport to him nor his case common to him with the desperate and damned persons Christ then neither did nor could apprehend or discerne any wrath of God kindled against his person as the reprobate feare and the damned find neither any purpose in God to punish sinne farther than by the death of his bodie to purge it and abolish it nor the measure of paine determined to be sharper then his humane patience could without repining or refusing endure Wherefore though I willingly grant as much paine in Christes sufferings as his patience could sustaine without declining or disobeying yet see I no point wherein the sufferings of Christ either apprehended or inflicted did concord with the paines of the damned As for the terrour of Gods anger against sinne which wrought in Christ submission not confusion and sorow for sinne conceiued for that God was thereby iustly displeased these and all such religious FEARES sorowes tremblings I easily yeeld to the soule of Christ which were sacrifices in Gods sight of inestimable price and very painfull though very faithfull submissions and passions of the inward man The farther proofe of these I referre to the place where I shall speake of Christes agonie and in the meane time assure the Châ—…istian Reader that neither this Praâ—…er nor all his compartners shall euer be able by the sacred Scriptures to make any proofe of any farther or other sufferings then I haue specified Whether the paines of bodie or soule in Christ were greater or sharper I take it to be a needlâ—…sse and fruitlesse question The paines of Christes body were proportioned The paines aâ—… well of Christes sâ—…ule as of his bodie were equall to the strength of Chrâ—…stes patience to the strength of his patience and so were his feares and sorowes and in either the soule was the part that felt the smart and discerned the cause And if we balance these things by the consequents of nature since the paines from the body doe in this life by their vehemency separate soule and body farre sooner and oftner then sorowes and feares of minde except in present and ouerwhelming euils which coole quench and ouerthrow the spirits with more speed though with lesse paines then the sharpnesse of Christes bodily paines hauing no release nor ease but perfect sense and continuance did pinch as neere not as the paines of the damned but as the passions or affections of Christes soule hauing fath and hope to support them and comfort and ioy proposed to mitigate them And euen in the damned both men and diuâ—…ls whence you would seeme to fetch your president for Christes sufferings whether thinke you are the sharper the paines which they now feele before the day of iudgement or the violence of fire which shall then exceed all the paines they now suffer For both the diuels and the damned haue as much griefe of reiection confusion and desperation and as mighty terrors and inward torments of minde as they are capable of and yet neither of them haue their sharpest punishments Of the diuels the Scriptures say k Iude epist. vers 6. They are reserued in euerlasting chaines vnder darkenesse vnto the iudgement of the great day And the spirits themselues could say to Christ l Maâ—…th 8. Art thou come to torment vs before the time Of the wicked Peter sayth m 2. Pet 2. God knoweth how to reserue the vnâ—…ust vnto the day of iudgement to be punished And n Rom. 2. thou sayth Paul to euery one of them according to thine hardnesse and impenitent heart heapest vp wrath to thy selfe against the day of wrath and reuelation of the iust iudgement of God By which it is plaine that the terrors and torments of minde presently felt by the deuill and the damned are farre lesse then the vengeance of externall and eternall fire reserued and then augmented on all the reprobate both men and angels o Defenc. pag. â—…0 li. 4. The greatest paines are no more sinne then the least Therefore by your owne graunt Christ might and did feele and endure the grâ—…atest sorrowes of the minde and soule as well as the lâ—…sser in the bodie Paines if they be onely paines and nothing els are not sinne and therefore the suffering of hell fire is no sinne but the terriblest punishment of sinne that men or angels shall feele yet terrours and torments of minde are increased by doubt feare or despaire of Gods goodnesse towards vs which are sinnes in this life where grace and mercie are proposed and could not be in Christ without intolerable infidelitie after so plaine and plentifull assurances of Gods loue and fauour towards him Take therefore from Christ all doubt and distrust of Gods anger and displeasure towards his person and then it is euident that neither his apprehension of Gods wrath was the same that the damned and desperate feele noâ—… any way so sharpe as if Christ had conceiued God to be displeased with him or purposed to destroy him as the wicked are perswaded of Gods indignation against themselues Christes sufferings then were wrath to the sense and feeling of mans nature but his Christs Faith did not faile in the sharpest of his paineâ—… faith in the sharpest of his paines beheld the setled and assured loue of God towards his person and he not only called God his Father in all his afflictions but out of his owne power he gaue the thiefe that confessed him on the crosse the inheritance of Gods kingdome that present day together with himselfe So that he was more then perswaded or resolued of Gods fauour and faithfulnesse who tooke vpon him in the midst of his sufferings to giue the kingdome of heauen to such as acknowledged and beleeued in him though the chastisement of our sinnes in his body and soule were by Gods iustice and his owne consent very sharpe and bitter vnto him that his loue to vs and obedience to his Father might appeare the more fully not in peace ease and dalliance but in sorrow paine and grieuance by which ardent and constant loue is tried as golde in the fire Whereby it appeareth that all your talke of Gods wrath against Christ equall with the damned or reprobate hath no trueth nor sense in it but is a meere and
you must bring stronger stuffe then such wordes as besides their diuers significations haue manie figuratiue translations and applications which will not serue you to conclude any thing for your hell paines suffered in this life These are the mightie proofes that were vnanswered which indeed I neglected as prouing nothing and so would yet haue donne had not you so mouthly called for an answeare as if the things had beene verie materiall which in truth are weake and faint u Defenc. pag. 119. li. 31. The confession and behauior of the reprobate do sundry times in this life testifie so much What is their confession in things which they know not euen as much as your assertion That they are somtimes inwardly and fearefully either tormented by satan or by their owne consciences I easily admit but what is the feare of hell either in the elect or in the reprobate to the true paines thereof which the wicked after this life shall feele that they feele an horror confounding them I neuer denied as also the godly may feele a terror pursuing them but if you determine this to be all the torment the wicked shal find in hell you were best take heed of deluding Gods iudgments against sinne and playing with fiery words in steed of euerlasting fire It is another manner of torment that there abideth the damned then this guilt of conscience remorse of sinne and a fearefull expectation of iudgement and fire in which the wicked sometimes lead their liues with horror and confusion and yet it is open blasphemy to ascribe any of these horrors or feares of the reprobate vnto Christ since they vtterly quench all persuasion of Gods fauour loue and patience towards them which if we affirme of him we wrap him within their reprobation x Defenc pag. 119. li. 32. The Diuels are many times out of the locall hell as when they are in this world But Diuels are neuer released of hell sorrowes Therefore the true sorrowes of hell are euen in this world and then possibly may be inflicted on wicked men as they are on Diuels which are sometimes out of the locall hell We speake of men here liuing on earth and you runne to Diuels ranging in the aire or compassing the earth for proofe of your hell-paines Which is as much as if you did plainely confesse you can find no Scripture to prooue that mortall men in this life may endure the torments of hell For the example of Diuels inferreth no more the paines of hell to be suffered of men in this life then the presence of elect Angels here on earth doth prooue that men in this life may enioy the perfection of Gods heauenly ioies and glory since the angels of God whithersoeuer they goe or wheresoeuer they are cannot be depriued or diminished of that inward power and light blessednesse and glory in which they are confirmed for euer With Angels elect or reprobate men after this life shall haue a resemblance and conuenience the faithfull saith Christ shall be a Matth. 22. as the Angels of God in heauen and the cursed are cast b Matth. 25. into euerlasting fire prepared for the diuell and his angels But in this life except we will waxe mad we must make no equiualence betwixt their estates and ours So that from the diuels condition to mans in this life there is no consequent more then the imitation and communion of his wickednesse in the reprobate whose children they are because they fulfill his desires and an expectation and feare of his punishment Otherwise as the earth is neither heauen nor hell no more is mans life on earth matchable with the ioyes of the good or paines of the bad Angels which haue the place of their abode determined and assigned them in heauen or in hell saue when they are sent or loosed by God to attend the execution of his will And yet if the place of hell had no greater nor other paines then the diuels alwayes carrie with them and in them why should they so much feare to be a Luc. 8. v. 31. sent into the deepe or b Iudae epla v. 6. be reserued vnto the iugdement of the great day and c Peter 2. ca. 2. kept vnto damnation feare they without cause or are they kept and reserued to no more nor worse paines then already they feele That is no reseruation where there is nothing but a continuation of the very same that was besore It is certaine therefore howsoeuer you presume the contrarie that the place of hell hath greater paines euen for the diuels then they feele any heere on earth or before the last day and howsoeuer their inward confusion and desperation doe horribly persue them in all places since their fall yet a more fearefull torment abideth them in hell and especially when the last iudgement commeth which is the set time that shall torment them by addicting and fastning them to eternall and intolerable fire Yet the sorrowes of hell are in the world By such logicke you may prooue the paines of hell to be in heauen and the ioyes of heauen to be in hell and so make a full confusion of all things which well becommeth your newe found faith For the Scriptures beare witnesse that Satan not only c Luc. 10. fell from heauen but made his d Reuel 12. battell or rebellion in heauen and after his fall e Iob 1. stoode among the children of God and euen with f 1. King 22. the host of heauen g Reuel 12. There was a battaile in heauen saith Iohn Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels But they preuailed not neither was their place found any more in heauen And the great Dragon called the diuell was cast into the earth Therefore reioyce ye heauens and ye that dwell in them Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for the diuell is come downe vnto you with great wrath knowing that his time is short h 1. King 22. I saw the Lord sit on his throne saith Michaiah the Prophet and all the host of heauen stoode about him on his right hand and on his left hand Then there came foorth a lying spirit and stoode before the Lord of whom the booke of Iob testifieth that i Iob 1. v. 6. when the children of God came and stoode before the Lord Satan came also among them Certaine it is that Satan and his angels sinned euen in heauen and were cast out of heauen after their defection from God carrying alwayes with them and within them the losse of their originall brightnesse and the chaines of inward and fearefull darknesse whereby they find themselues reiected from Gods sauour despoyled of their former light and glory and reserued for the iudgement of the great day at which they tremble as well as at the place of their perpetuall imprisonment where their torments are and shal be increased though
after openly proclaime That Dauid was not ascended into heauen If it be so firme a promise as you pretend then Dauid as well as the rest must locally accompanie Christ whithersoeuer he went and consequently ascend to heauen with him which Peter vtterly denieth And all the Fathers of Christs church had little vnderstanding of Christs words when they generally denied that the soules of the Saints are yet in the same place of glory where Christ is If you beleeâ—…e not my report of them peruse their owne words following Irenaeus It is manifest that the soules of Christs Disciples shall goe to an inuisible place appointed them of God and there shall remaine vntill the resurrection and after receauing their bodies and rising perfectly that is corporally as Christ did rise shall so come to the sight or vision of God Iustine the martyr The soules of the righteous are caried to Paradise where they inioy the company and sight of Angels and Archangels and the vision of Christ our Sauiour and are kept in places fitte for them till the day of resurrection and recompensation Tertullian It is apparent to any wise man that there is a place determined which is Abrahams bosome for the receauing of the soules of his sonnes That region I meane Abrahams bosome though not heauenly sublimiorem tamen inferis yet higher then the places below shall giue comfort to the soules of the righteous vntill the end of things with the fulnesse of reward bring the resurrection of all men Heauen is open to no man so long as the earth remaineth together with the passing away of the world shall the kingdom of heauen be opened Origen The Saints departing hence do not presently obtaine the full rewards of their labours but they expect vs though staying though slacking For they haue not perfect ioy so long as they grieue at our errors and lament our sins For these saith Paul haue not yet receaued the promise God prouiding for vs a better thing that they without vs should not be perfect Hilarie The day of iudgement is the repay of euerlasting happinesse or punishment But the time of death till then hath euery one vnder his lawes whiles either Abraham or torment reserue ech man vnto iudgement Ambrose Till the fulnesse of time come the soules departed expect their due reward for some paine for some glory is prouided Chrysostom Though the soule were a thousand times immortall as she is those admirable good things she shall not enioy without her flesh If the body rise not againe the soule remaineth vncrowned and without that heauenly blisse Augustine After this short life thou shalt not as yet be where the Saints shal be to whom it shal be said Come ye blessed of my Father receaue the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world thâ—… shalt not as yet be there who knoweth it not but thou maiest be there where the poore Lazar was seene afarre of by the proud rich man In that rest shalt thou securely expect the day of iudgement when thou shalt receaue thy body and be changed to be equall to an Angel Theodoret The Saints haue not yet receaued their crownes For the God of all expecteth the conflicts of others that the race being ended he may together pronounce all that overcame to be conquerers and so reward them Oecumenius All the fore said Saints haue not yet receaued the good things promised to the iust God prouiding better for vs. Least they should haue more then we in that they were crowned before vs he hath therefore appointed one certaine time that we should be crowned with them Andreas Caesariensis It is the iudgement of many godly fathers that euery good man after this life hath a place â—…itte for him by which he may coniecture the glory prepared for him Theophylact. The Saints as yet haue attained nothing of the heauenly promises God hath appointed one time to crowne all Bernard you perceaue there are three states of the soule the first in this corruptible body the second without the body the third in perfect blessednesse The first in the Tabernacles the second in the Courts the third in the house of God Into that most happy house of God the soules of the Saints shall not enter without vs nor without their bodies Neither doe I find any Scriptures that allow the Saints deceased the same place of glory where Christ now is at the right hand of God in the highest heauens till the last day come What Abrahams bosome is whither Lazarus soule was caried by the Angels or where it is I dare not define Only the Scripture faith it was a place of comfort after death and vpvvards farre of from Hell a great gulfe being set betweene that and hell Of Paradise where Christ promised the penitent Thiefe should be with him the very day that he died I read what Paul writeth how he was taken vp into the third heauen and into Paradise Whence we may rightly collect that Paradise is in the third heauen Now what number of heauens the Scripture deliuereth is not so certaine as some men suppose We find the whole region of the aire to be called Heauen as where Christ nameth the byrds of heauen and the clouds of heauen Againe that place of the firmament where the Sunne the Moone and the starres are is called heauen Let there be lights said God in the firmament of heauen to separate the day from the night And I will multiply thy seed as the starres of heauen The third heauen if I be not deceaued the Scripture maketh to be the originall and proper habitation of Angels where they were first placed and whence they fell that are now called Diuels The Angels which kept not their originall saith Iude but left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THEIR PROPER HABITATION hath Godreserued in euer lasting chaines vnder darkenesse vnto the iudgement of the great day In this celestiall Paradise which at first was the proper mansion of Angels as the Scripture obserueth there was not only place for sinne and danger of falling as we find by experience of the reprobate angels but after this was left an higher degree of perfection and a greater increase of glory as we perceaue in the elect Angels who were confirmed in goodnesse and aduanced to the presence of Gods throne there to behold the face of God in the proper place of his sanctity and maiesty Of this third heauen the booke of Iob saith God found no stedfastnesse in his Saints yea the heauens are not cleane in his sight since there he found sinne in those transgressing Angels which left their proper habitation and pressed with pride and disobedience to the throne of God This fault and fall the Prophet resembleth when he saith How art thou fallen from heauen ô Lucifer Thou saidst in thine heart I will
ascend aboue the higth of the clouds and I wil be like the most high * The last or highest heauen the Scripture nameth the Seat throne or habitation of God which is not only holy as whereinto no vncleane thing shall enter but is aboue all other heauens and often called the heauen of heauens In this is the presence of Gods throne that is a perpetuall and plaine reuelation of his diuine glory and maiesty which the elect Angels alwaies behold And heere is not only the fulnesse of ioy as in the presence of God but the stability security and satiety of euerlasting life and blisse to men and Angels without any defect doubt or danger of failing or decreasing In this they want nothing and besides this they desire nothing since in him who is all in all they find all things worthy loue delight and ioy Looke downe from heauen saith Esay to God and behold from the dwelling place of thine holinesse and glory And Ieremie The Lord shall crie from aboue and giue out his voice from his holy habitation Behold the heauens and the heauens of heauens containe thee not saith Salomon Praise the Lord from the heauens saith the Psalmist praise him in the highest Praise him all his Angels praise him all his armies Praise him heauens of heauens To this place when Christ ascended with his body the Apostle saith of him that he was made higher then the heauens and ascended aboue all the heauens and sitteth â—…t the right hand of maiesty in the high places Now two we call both not all but of three we first vse this word â—…ll And the Greeke tongue hath a speciall number for two which is the duall the plurall is applied to moe Besides Moses saith in the beginning before the light or firmament were created God made eth hashamaiâ—…m the heauens and the earth where by the name of heauen the best interpreters vnderstand the place appointed for the habitation of Angels and the reuelation of Gods glory Now the word hashamaiâ—…m in Hebrew being not the singular number must haue diuers maâ—…s in it as well as the aire and 〈◊〉 haue diuers regions and sphaeres to make the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agree to either of them So that when Christ is said to haue ascended aâ—… the heauens nature reason and Grammar besides Scripture seeme to teach vs that he ascended aboue that part of the third heauen where the Apostle noteth Paradise to be And consequently if the soules of the righteous deceased be in Paradise they are not as yet in the highest heauens where Christ sitteth in the glory of God his Father in whose house are many mansions and whether they shal be admitted at the last day when Christ shall come againe to take them vnto himselfe and to haue them for euer with him in the possession and communion of his kingdome and glory that they may be like the Angels To this difference of place and glorie before and after the day of iudgement the Scriptures incline as well as the Fathers if I mistake them not which I referre to the iudgement of the wise and learned S. Iohn saw the soules of the Martyrs Vnder the altar where they were willed to rest vntill the number of their fellow seruants were fulfilled But when crownes of glorie are giuen them as in the last day they shall stand in the presence of the throne of God and before the Lambe and he that sitteth on the throne will dwell among them Henceforth saith Paul is laied vp for me the crowne of righteousnesse which the Lord the iust iudge shall giue me at that day and not to me only but vnto all that loue his appearing Blessed be God saith Peter who hath be gotten vs again vnto â—… liuely hope to an inheritance immortall vndâ—…filed which fadeth not away reserued in heauen for you which is prepared to be shewed in the last time Now are we the Sonnes of God saith Iohn but yet it doth not appeere what we shall be we know that when he shall appecre we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is that is aswell the glorie of his Godhead as of his manhood Then as Paul saith to all the faithfull Your life is hidde with Christ in God When Christ which is our life shall appeare then shall ye also appeare with him in glory And he shal say Come ye blessed of my Father receaue the kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world and not retaine the kingdome already possessed by you It were easie out of new writers to shew the same Master Calâ—…m shall suâ—…ce for al who vseth not ouersoone to concurie with the fathers when they diuert from the Scriptures The soules of the saints after death are in peace saith he because they are escaped from the power of the enemy But when heauenly Ierusalem shal be aduanced to her glory and the true Salomon Christ the king of peace shall sitte aloft in his iudgement seat then shall the true Israelites raigne with their KING This they may easily perceiue by the Scriptures whosoeuer haue learned to giue eare to God and heare his voice This also haue they deliuered to vs by hand who haue sparingly and reuerently handled the mysteries of God For Tertullian saith why should we not admit Abrahams bosome to be called a temporall receptacle of the soules of the faithfull And Chrysostom Vnderstand what and how great a thing it is for Abraham to sitte and for the Apostle Paul to expect vntill he be perfected that then they may receaue their reward For vntill we come the Father hath foretold theÌ„ he wil not giue them their reward Art thou grieued because thou shalt not yet receaue it what should Aâ—… doe who ouercame so long since and yet sitteth without his crowne what Noe and the rest of those times for behold they expected thee and expect others after thee They preuented vs in their conflicts but they shall not preuent vs in their crownes because there is onetime appointed to crowne all together Augustine in many places describeth secret receptacles in which the soules of the godly are kept vntill they receaue their crowne and glory Bernard in two homilies made at the feast of all Saints where he handleth this question of purpose teacheth that the soules of the Saints departed from their bodies do stand as yet in the outward courts of the Lord being admitted to rest but not to glory Into that most blessed â—…ouse saith he they shall not enter neither without vs nor without their bodies Those that place soules in some part of heauen so they giue them not the glory of the resurrection to be shewed on them at the time of the resurrection and not before they differ nothing from the former opinion And in his institutions Since the Scripture euery where biddeth vs depend
not that his soule should be subiect to any infernall power but that subduing the gates of hell he might deliuer our souls from that tyrannie Of the article of Christs descent to hel I am not ignorant how diuersly learned men doe thinke It is somewhat obscure indeed and subiect to many disputations but yet no godly man vpon that occasion will resist or offer force to the Apostles words thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell but will desire of God the vnderstanding therof and in the meane time with a single faith cleaue to the word of trueth although he can not cleerely perceaue the maner how that was performed Of this Article see Austâ—…n Epistle 99. Vrbanus Regius The Church deliuereth vs out of the Scriptures that Christ after he was dead on the crosse descended also to hell to suppresse Satan and hell to the which we were condemned by the iust iudgement of God and to spoile and destroy the kingdome of death Zacharias Scilterus The descent of Christ to hell whereof mention is made in the Apostles Creede after the death and buriall of Christ is to be vnderstood simply according to the letter and without allegorie of the ostension and declaration of Christes victorie no lesse glorious then terrible as Luther writeth to Philip Melancthon indeed made to the diuels in hell or in the place of the damned and of Christes expugning disarming spoyling and captiuating the power of Satan and of his destroying hell and euerting the whole kingdome of Satan and of his deliuering vs from the power of death and eternall damnation and out of the iawes of hell Dauid Chytreus The Article of the Creede let vs retaine simply as the words sound and let vs resolue that the Sonne of God truely descended to hell to deliuer vs from hell to which we were condemned for sinne in Adam and from the power and tyrannie of the diuell by which we were held captiue Of which effect and fruit of Christs descent the Fathers speake as Ierom Christ descended to hell that we might ascend to heauen And Fulgentius The man which God assumed descended thither whither man separated from God by defert of sinne fell that is to hell where the soule of a sinner vsed to be tormented And Augustine Dying for thee I descended to hell to bring thee to Paradise Tartara adij vt tu in caelo regnares I went to the place of the damned that thou mightest raigne in heauen Georgius Mylius in his explication of the Augustane confession The true and proper sense of this Article is that no metaphoricall but a reall descent of Christ to hell must be vnderstood whereby he descended to the lower parts of the earth Eph. 4. vers 9. Et ipsas Damnatorum sedes adijt and went to the very place of the damned The second point is that this Article is no part of his passion and humiliation but of his victorie and triumph I omit infinite others not onely priuate writers but Vniuersities Cities and Countries that haue publikely approoued the same doctrine admitting and allowing the Augustane confession exhibited by the States of Germanie to Charles the Emperour which thus they declare in their booke of Concord With one consent we aduise this matter not to be disputed but this Article of Christs descent to hell to be most simply beleeued and taught It ought to suffice vs if we know that Christ descended into hell destroied hell to all beleeuers and by him or his descent thither we were taken out of the power of death and Satan from euerlasting damnation and euen out of the iawes of hell The maner how this was done let vs not curiously search but referre the exact knowledge heereof to an other worlde where not onely this mysterie but many others simply beleeued of vs in this life shall be reuealed which passe the reach of our blinde reason And where some would so moderate this Article as if it ment no more but that the force and effect of Christes death was manifested as well to the damned to exclude them from all hope as to the faithfull to encrease their comfort Luther sharpely but truely thus refuteth that fansie Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell The sense heereof is most plaine so plentifully and diligently deliuered by the Apostles But euen here haue men presuming all things of their wittes begun to dispute whether Christ were in hell as touching his soule and the substance thereof and what this meaneth that he was in hell And a great number haue dared to contradict the spirit of God that Christs soule was not in hell but by effect being for sooth handsome glozers of the word of God Thou wilt not leaue my soule that is the effect of my soule in hell Christ descended to hell that is he effected somewhat in hell but despising these friuolous and impious trifles let vs simply vnderstand the wordes of the Prophet as they are simply spoken and if we can not vnderstand them let vs faithfully beleeue them Greater is the authoritie of this Scripture then the capacitie of all mens wittes as Augustine saith For the soule of Christ according to her substance truely descended to hell To like purpose might exceeding many new writers be brought all confessing the descent of Christes soule to the very place of the damned and of the diuels that the trueth force and glory of his humane soule might appeere as well to the reprobate angels and spirits vnder earth as to the elect aboue the earth God making the humane nature of his Sonne this recompence that as he was despised and reproched by Satan in his instruments so he should be adored and feared euen of all the powers of darckenesse and wholy despose of them and their kingdome but these may suffice the sober Reader to let him see that I deliuer none other sense of that Article then hath beene formerly receaued in the church of Christ with full consent and to this day is continued in the same by many great and graue Diuines whose iudgements I need not be ashamed to follow though I confesse I depend not on their wordes farder then they conforme their writings to the word of God which in this case I take to be plaine enough howsoeuer some quarrell be made to the diuers significations of Sheol and Hades which is as easily done in other Articles of the Creed as in this if it were the part of a Christian to wrangle with euerie worde that hath sundry senses or vses in the holy Scriptures To my purpose other Scriptures doe make very much as where Christ saith Father into thine hands I commend my soule and to the thiefe that hung by him This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise You bring Scriptures rather for shew then substance since they inferre no such thing as you would enforce on them The soules of the Saints liuing and dead are in the hands of
Patriarkes and Prophets partakers of him selfe habes regionem inferûm subterrane am credere thou must beleeue the place or region of inferi to be vnder the earth If you draw these words to your world of the dead then are the soules of the iust neither in heauen nor in Paradise but vnder the earth euen in the heart or midst thereof and there shall remaine vntill the resurrection for so Tertullian resolueth of his inferi Which yet is farder most cleerely to be seene Lazarus apud inferos in sinu Abrahae refrigerium consecutus Lazarus in the world of the dead enioieth comfort in Abrahams bosome contrariewise the rich man is in the torments of fire both of them there receauing their diuers rewards How cleere is this that he maketh hades and inferos euen in Luke also to be nothing but the common state and world of the dead It is farre cleerer that you neuer read Tertullian with indifferent care to trie the trueth of his meaning and words but only to abuse the Reader with a seelie shew not of his writings but of your wrestings For there can be no directer speach to prooue that inferi are neither heauen nor Paradise but places vnder the earth and in the midst thereof where bad and good excepting onely Martyrs are kept in rest or paine till the generall day of iudgement then is found in these bookes of Tertullian from which you would gather your world of the dead For euen in the fiue and fiftie Chapter of his booke De Anima whence you first beganne to weaue your world of the dead he positiuely auoucheth Nulli patet caelum terra adhuc salua ne dixerim clausa Heauen is opened to no man so long as the earth is continued that I say not closed ouer them Together with the end of the world shall the kingdome of heauen be opened And touching Paradise he admitteth no soules to be there but onely Martyrs And therefore to this obiection But thou wilt say the dead are in Paradise whether the Patriarkes and Prophets that rose with our Lord passed euen then ab Inferis from the places below he answereth How then was the region of Paradise which is vnder the Altar reuealed to Iohn in the spirit to haue none other soules in it besides Martyrs how did Perpetua the most valiant Martyr the day before her suffering when Paradise was reuealed to her see there onely her fellow martyrs but because the glittering sâ—…ord that keepeth the gate of Paradise yeeldeth to none saue to such as die in Christ that is as Martyrs for Christ Tota Paradisi clauis tuus sanguis est The only key to open Paradise is thine owne bloud shed in Martyrdome So that in as plaine words as Tertullian vseth any Inferi are neither heauen nor Paradise but Regio subterranea a place or Region vnder earth and in the heart of the earth where some soules are in rest as he thinketh and some in torments which if you can turne to your generall and priuatiue Hades you shall worke wonders That other position of his constituimus omnem animam apud Inferos sequestrari in diem Domini we resolue that euery soule is kept in Inferi till the day of the Lord or of iudgement as it is priuate to himselfe and sauoring of Montanisme so it is different from the rest of the Fathers who confesse not onely Martyrs as he doth but all good Christians after this life to bee receiued into Paradise This error if you be disposed you may mainetaine with Tertullian but you shall neuer thence establish your world of soules which you seeke for Whereupon the learned Iunius noteth thus Inferos Latini Patres vt Graeci Haden pro omni loco aut statu mortuorum dixerunt promiscué The Latine Fathers vse Inferi as the Greeke doe Hades for euery place and state of the dead indifferently That Iunius was very learned I doe not denie but that learned men may be partiall and many times addicted to their priuate collections and opihions I would God we had not so much experience as wee haue If Iunius meane that Hades or Inferi were taken for euery place and state of the dead vnder the earth before Christes comming Iunius wordes are very true that many of the Fathers tooke Hades Inferi for the place of al the dead which they thought to be vnder the earth before Christs comming but that they called heauen or Paradise which are places for the Saints deceased in Christ by the name of Inferi or that they tooke Inferi for the state of the blessed soules since Christes resurrection this I say neither Iunius was nor any man liuing is able to prooue And for Tertullians meaning his wordes are so plaine that neither Iunius nor whosoeuer might or may ouerrule them I repeated them before the effect is this Inferi saith he are beleeued of vs to be a vastitie in the depth of the earth and an hidde profunditie in the bowels thereof for we reade that Christ was the three dayes of his death in the heart of the earth that is in the inward and middlemost receit thereof couered in the earth and hollowed or compassed on euery side with the earth and seated vpon the lower gulfes If these words be not plaine enough he addeth Habes Regionem Inferûm subterraneam credere thou must beleeue the Region of Inferi to be vnder the earth I shall not need many wordes to shew that Iunius obseruation out of Tertullian is not true except you adde euery place and state of the dead vnder the earth thereby to exclude the place and state of the blessed in heauen and in Paradise I leaue it to the Iudgement of any man that hath learning or vnderstanding whether these words of Tertullian do not define and describe a certaine place vnder the earth and within the earth in which he thought the soules of all men Patriarkes and Prophets not exempted were before Christes comming and should bee till the resurrection saue such as rose with Christ or suffered Martyrdome for Christ for that is his exception afterward as I haue shewed the good in rest the badde in punishment To that end he saith Omnes ergo animae penes inferos inquis Velis ac nolis supplicia iam ILLIC REFRIGERIA habes pauperem diuitem Cur enim non putes animam puniri foueri in Inferis interim sub expectatione vtriusque iudicij All soules then you suppose are in Inferi Will you â—…ill you you haue THERE alreadie both punishment and comfort the poore man and the rich For why should you not thinke the soule to bee punished and cherished in Inferis in the places below meane while vnder an expectation of either iudgement These wordes you can alleage and neglecting how plainly Tertullian hath taught besore that Inferi are places in the heart of the earth and a region vnder the earth you wilfully change condition
is thrâ—…wen downe to Hades For he that minded neuer any high or heauenly thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was woorthy of the lowest place In saying then he was buried the Lord secretly signifieth that his soule had the place that was lowest and darke And though hee there shew the opinion of some that thought hades to be rather the condition of the soule after death then a place yet he himselfe resolueth the coÌ„trary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is hades Some say it is a place of darkenesse vnder the earth others say Hades is the change of the soule from sensible to obscure and vnseene And though the wordes of our Sauiour determine that doubt who maketh the rich man call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this place of torment yet Theophylact himselfe reasoning there against Origen out of Abrahams wordes saith As it is then vnpossible for any of the iust to passe to the place of sinners so Abraham teacheth vs it is impossible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to passe from the place of punishment to the place of the righteous And since their names doe not appeare that were of this opinion and being latter in age deserue not the same credite for their iudgements that the auncient and learned Fathers doe I omit these petite masters whom no man knoweth as fansing somewhat if they could prooue it and will goe forward with the maine consent as of all Greeke diuines that are extant so of the best and eldest commentators and expounders of Greeke words to shew that Hades is a place of darkenesse vnder earth for soules where now none but wicked are contained and there punished Eustathius Archbishop of Thessalonica a man of no meane skill in the Greeke tongue as appeareth by his commenting vpon Homere saith Haïdes which is Hades is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a darke place vnder earth vnseene and appointed for soules Phauorinus Bishop of Nuceria in his commentaries of the Greeke tongue saith likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades is a place vnder the earth secret and hidde which hee also calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a place without light and filled with eternall darkenesse The great Etymologist of the Greeke tongue concurreth with them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades is a place void of light and full of euerlasting darkenesse and mists I shall not neede with many wordes to vrge the properties and conditions of the place which these Greeke Fathers call Hades It is apparent to any who will pâ—…ruse them that they auouch it to be a place of darkenesse opposed to heauen and Paradise and vnder the earth where Diuels are keepers and tormentors of soules and where the wicked after this life are kept prisoners and suffer punishments according to their deserts which Christ destroyed and spoiled by his descent thither deliuering thence that is from the feare power and danger thereof all such as before or after did or should beleeue in him And though some of these writers did happily thinke the soules of the godly deceased before Christes death were kept in a part thereof in hope of their deliuerance thence yet with one consent they witnesse it to be nothing lesse then heauen or Paradise or the state of the dead common to good and bad after Christs resurrection as likewise they teach that Christ deliuered thence not onely such of his elect as were dead before that time but all the faithfull aswell then liuing as yet vnborne And therefore a deliuerance thence doth not exactly conclude a locall detention and inclusion there but a quiting and disloluing of all the right interest and challenge that hell or Satan had for sinne vnto the seruants and members of Christ whensoeuer they liued or died Onely Tertullian is opposite to them all who dreampt that the soules of all the faithfull saue Martyrs were kept in places vnder the earth which he calleth inferi till the generall resurrection wherein as in many other points deliuered in his booke de Anima he goeth a priuate way by himselfe without and against the maine resolution of the rest of the Fathers He doth not montanize in this as you obiect but consenteth with Irenaeus before and with others after him as shall appeare who were no Montanists Your mistaking Irenaeus here as you did before little helpeth your market and others when you bring them shall haue an answere fitting them In the meane while where you be so zealous to saue Tertullian from Montanisme he must haue a better proctor then you are to vphold his cause or els it will soone fall to the ground That none but Martyrs are in Paradise and all other the faithfull departing this life are in prisons and places vnder the earth till the day of iudgement this is not onely repugnant to the Scriptures and the rest of the Fathers but a plaine branch of Montanus heresie which Tertullian deriueth from no grounds of holy Scripture whence all trueth must be fet but from certaine Reuelations Prophesies different from the Scriptures which Montanus and others published as made by the holy Ghost after the writing of the Scriptures and which Tertullian in his writings coloureth with the name and pretence of the Paraâ—…te calling the true Christians that refused his new found doctrine Psychicos naturall men and not ledde by the latter direction of the spirit as Montanus and others were whom in exacting chastitie abstinence and Martyrdome more strictly then the Church of Christ did he followed And therefore not onely his doctrine in this place allowing Paradise to none besides martyrs but his alleaging Montanus verie words and pretending the Paraclete for his conceit no where written in the Scriptures declare him expresly in this to be a Montanist For plainer proofe whereof first Tertullian speaking of himselfe when he forsooke the rest of the Christians to cleaue to the reuelations of Montanus and his adherents saith Et nos quidem postea agnitio Paracleti atque defensio disiunxit a Psychicis The agnising of the Paraclet in the prophesies of Montanus and defending thereof did afterward disioine vs from the carnall men So he termed the Church of Christ for refusing the new prophesies of Montanus as appeareth euidently by his booke De ieiunio aduersus psycâ—…cos of fasting against the carâ—…all men which Saint Ierom saith was written specialiter aduersum ecclesiam particularly against the Church Where he likewise taxeth the Christians for resisting the Paraclet or new prophesies of Montanus couering them vnder the name of the Paraclet and interpreting the one by the other Hiparaeleto controuer siam faciunt propter hoc nouae prophetiae recusantur non quod alium Deum praedicent Montanus Priscilla Maximilla sed quod plane doceant saepius ieiunare quaÌ„ nubere These â—…arnall men quarrell with the Paraclet and therefore are the new prophesies refused not that Montanus Priscilla Maximilla preach another God but that they plainly teach oftner
to fast then to marrie Now for these very points that none are in Paradise but only martvrs and that the soules euen of the Patriarks and Prophets and all other godlie Christians are apud inferos in places vnder the earth and so shal be till the fulnesse of the resurrection Tertullian vrgeth in his booke De anima and in this chapter the authority of his paraclet which was the founder of Montanus new prophesies Agnosce differentiam Ethnici fidelis in morte si pro Deo occumbas vt pâ—…racletus moâ—…et non in mollibus febribus in lectulis sed in an Acknowledge the difference of an Ethnicke and a beleeuer euen in their deaths if thou die for Gods cause as the Paraclet warneth not in casie agues and soft beddes but in Martyrdomes And that these were the very words of Montanus new prophesie may easily be perceaued by Tertullian himselfe who writing against all flight in persecution which booke was specially written against the Church by Ieroms owne confession citeth them as the words of the spirit to witte in the new prophesies of Montanus Spiritum si consulas c omnes pene ad martyriuns exhortatur non ad fugam vt illius commemâ—…ur publicaris inquit â—…onum libi est Qui enim non publicatur in hominibus publicatur in Domino Sic aâ—…bi Nolite in lectulis febribus mâ—…llibus optare exire sed in Martyrijs If thou take counsell of the spirit he exhorteth all very neere to Martyrdome not to flight as to remember you of that speach Art thou made a publike example saith he it is good for thee He that is not made a publike â—…xample amgoÌ„st men shal be made one with God And so in another place desire not to depart this life in beds easie agues but in Martyrdomes These words Tertullian alleageth as euidently written by the spirit which since they be no where found in any part of the new or old Testament disagree both in words matter from the stile truth of the sacred Scriptures they sauour of another spirit must of force be referred to the prophesies of Montanus who in this very point was condemned by the church of Christ against which as Ierom auoucheth Tertuilian wrote this book in fauor of Montanus heresie And so much also that learned obseruer Rhenanus affirmeth vpon this place Verba sunt Prophetiae Paracleti Montanici These are the words of the prophesie of Montanus spirit Your friends therefore who lent you their paines were not well aduised in excusing Tertullian in this matter from Montanisme since not onely the error of Montanus is heere defended but the verie words of his new reuelation are heere alleadged Also in that obiection of certaine Heretickes whom he confuteth not the true Christians as you misconceaue They argued thus as you doe In hoc Christus inferos adijt ne nos adiremus Christ therefore went to hell to the end we should neuer come there He answereth them that it is false that Christ went to inferos in that sense that is to hell For then what difference is there between the wicked heathen and the godly Christians if one and the same prison after death were for them both taking it for a thing generally graunted in the Church that it were a WICKED AND HERETICALL THING to thinke he went where the damned were that is into hell Ignorance maketh you not onely blind and bold but presumptuous and sawcie to acquite from heresie and condemne for heresie whom pleaseth you And therefore I must not thinke it strange to be chalenged by you for a wicked and hereticall opinion since you grosly belie the whole Church of Christ and dippe them in the same vate of wicked and heretical things with me You wilfully wrest and misconstrue Tertullians words smoothing him in a manifest error against the whole Church of Christ and roling them vp with wicked heresie that were the greatest lights of Christian religion next after the Apostles Tertullians resolutions in this very Chapter are plaine enough to him that is not more then blind Habes de Paradiso anobie libellum quo constituimus omnem animam apud inferos sequestrari in diem Domini Thou hast a book of ours written touching Paradise wherein we determine all soules to be kept sequestred apud inferos in infernall places till the day of the Lord. And in the sentence next before that which you cite he sayth with like confidence Habes regionem inferûm subterraneam credere illos cubito pellere qui satis superbè non putent animas fideliuÌ„ inferis dignas serui super DominuÌ„ Discipuli super MagistruÌ„ aspernati si forte in Abrahae sinu expectandae resurrectionis solatium carpere Thou hast to beleeue that the region of inferi is vnder the earth and to push them from their opinions who proudly enough will not thinke the soules of the faithfull to be fitte for infernall or Iower places seruants aboue their Lord and Scholers aboue their Masters in that they skorne perhaps to haue the comfort of expecting the resurrection in Abrahams bosome Heere Tertullian positiuely declareth that he taketh inferi for a place or Region vnder the earth and that such as thought not the soules of the faithfull fitte for that place till the resurrection did proudly presume to be aboue their Lord and Master and skorne Abrahams bosome where the rest of the Patriarks Prophets are kept as he dreameth and so shal be till the day of iudgement Now whose opinion I pray you was this that the soules of the faithfull after Christs resurrection went to Paradise and not to places vnder the earth was it not the maine confession of Christs Church Tertullian then purposely refuting that opinion what els doth he but traduce the generall persuasion of the faithfull in fauour of his new prophesie which reserued Paradise onely for Martyrs and in that respect abandoned all the soules of the godly dying in their beds to places vnder the earth there to be kept till Christes comming But examine the words which he reiecteth and see if they sauour of heresie or Christianity For thereby we shall best iudge whether they were Hereticks or Christians whom he there impugned His words are Sed in hoc inquiunt Christus inseros 〈◊〉 ne nos adiremus But to this â—…rd say they Christ went to inferi the places bâ—…low that we should not come thither If these wordes imply heresie then was Saint Austen a manifest hereticke for he affirmed as much in effect as this commeth vnto Ideo Christus peruenit vsâ—… ad infernum ne nos maneremus in inferno Therefore Christ came euen vnto hell that we should not remaine in hell Men that come thither abide there If therefore Christ freed vs by his descent thither from remaining there he freed vs from comming thither And Ambrose was likewise an
place of torment after this life and not one common place for all in paine and rest with nothing but a ditch betwixt them So likewise Christ promised the gates of hades should not preuaile against his Church where if you defend that the godly shall not haue their soules separated from their bodies by death and yet hell may preuaile against their soules you maintaine two as manifest lies as a man may vtter Spite of your hart therefore Hades must signifie hell in the 16. of Saint Matthewes Gospell and so it doth in all other places of the new Testament though the circumstances of ech place be not so pregnant as these are And though in the old Testament Zuinglius Mollerus obserue The gates of Sheol and Hades with the Septuagint may signifie the danger of death approching when it is referred to the godly yet Hades in the new Testament neuer signifieth the death of the body but it is a thing distinguished from it and consequent to it as Saint Iohn in plaine words doth witnesse his name that sate on the pale horse was Death and Hades followed after him or close to him The worthie Master Bucer noteth well saying Diues non simpliciter scribitur esse in hade sed in gehenna quia in torment is flammis The rich is not said to be simply in hades but also in hell because he is said to be in fierie torments Master Bucere I honor for his learning and Religion yet not so that all his words are Gospell or that I receaue him afore or against all the Fathers And by his leaue in this place his wordes are out of square He saith The Rich man is not simply written to be in Hades but if mine eyes were matches when I read Saint Lukes Gospell last it cannot be more simply written then it is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in Hades lifting vp his eyes Now what place Hades is the Euangelist expresseth when he saith being in torments Had Hades beene vsed alone without explication men might and would haue questioned this as they doe other places where Hades is vsed alone But Luke noting afterward what manner of place Hades is euen a place of Torment he prooueth exactly that Hades alone without any addition ioyned to it is vsed for hell in the new Testament Will you conclude from this as you doe about Abyssus In the Reuelation and in Luke Abyssus is vsed to signifie Hell Therefore it signifieth Hell in the Romanes or therefore euery where properly it signifieth Hell If Abyslus be the bottomelesse pit properly and hell be so called both in the Gospell and in the Reuelation and no reason can be giuen why either the graue or the Sea should properly be called bottomelesse then since figures are not to be brought into the Scriptures but vpon necessitie you must shew vs more necessitie then hitherto you haue done why hell may not be vnderstood in that place or else we must cleaue to the naturall sense of the word and leaue your figures till you can better fasten them That Abyssus may metaphorically be applied to other things I neuer denied but in Saint Pauls words to the Romans you must shew vs a pit that properly is bottomlesse and opposite to heauen and to which Christ descended before you can exclude hell as not ment by the Apostle in that place But of this I haue spoken before whither I referre you for fuller answere death sometimes is the 2 death ergo it is so Acts 2. 24. The sorrowes of the first death end with this life and in the graue there is neither sorrow nor sense But the sorrowes of that death which Peter ment were loosed at Christs rising to life Those were therefore the sorrowes of another death which must be the second death which were loosed and scattered with Christs resurrection Againe the text hath there a double reading death or hades Then that death must be vnderstood which is in hades and not the sorrowes and paines which are in this life since hades by your owne confession is a state opposite to the world Thirdly the loosing of the sorrows of that death which Peter there intended prooueth Christ to be Lord of all But a simple rising vnto life againe prooueth no such thing That therefore was neither pertinent nor sufficient for Peters purpose Next let vs consider and thou Capernaum which art lift vp to heauen shalt be brought downe to hades to destruction I say hades heere is not hell but the destruction of Capernaum the city Christ threatneth the city it selfe with destruction and razing out from the face of the earth which he meaneth by hades The inhabitants the wicked people thereof he threatneth with damnation in hell A graue and wise construction Christ threatneth the stones and timber of the city with hades for not hearing his word and regarding his miracles In the 20 verse of this very chapter where it is said Christ began to vpbraid the cities whereof Capernaum was one because they repented not of whom spake Christ of the men or of the wals of those cities it may be you will find out repentance for stones but our Sauiour nameth the place for the persons which is as vsuall in the Scriptures as any thing may be Ierusalem Ierusalem which killest the Prophets and stonest those that be sent vnto thee Christ speaketh not there of the housen but of the Inhabitants So doth he heere for neither were the stones of this city capable of repentance nor exalted vp to heauen nor intelligent of Christs words or works nor punishable at the day of iudgement all which things Christ heere ascribeth to Capernaum Then if the stones of Capernaum were not exalted to heauen they were not threatned by Christ to be depressed downe to hades And so hades heere was not threatned to the place but to the persons Now the persons by your owne confession and by the righteous iudgement of Christ were threatned with damnation in hell Hades then in these words of Christ doth exactly signifie hell and implieth as much as followeth in the next verse It shal be easier for the land of Sodom in the day of iudgement then for thee Which is likewise spoken to the city though ment of the vnbeleeuers there Now if we make the former words interrogatiue as some Greek copies haue them and the Latin translator putteth them And thou Capernaum wilt thou be exalted to heauen You must giue will to stones as well as sense before these wordes can agree to the city it selfe The Gospell of Saint Matthew translated into the Hebrew tongue long before Saint Ieroms time if it were not written in Hebrew by the Euangelist himselfe as Ierom thinketh thus expresseth the words of our Sauiour And thou Capernaum wilt thou be exalted to heauen adh Gehinnom têredi thou shalt descend to Gehenna And if that which you haue said all this while haue
questioned which you say was without any presence of his humane soule and consequently must be referred to his diuine nature I aâ—…irme the contrarie that this exaltation to be Lord ouer heauen earth and hell pertained not to Christes Deitie which neuer wanted that Soueraintie but to his manhood which was obedient vnto death and was therefore aduanced to this hight And since this conquest ouer hell was reall in proofe not verball in claime speciall to Christes person not generall to all his members and performed after Christes death not by Christes diuine but by his humane nature this must needs be referred to Christes soule which might descend to hell and must before it could shew it selfe vanquisher of hell and not to his bodie which lay dead in the graue and could neither ascend nor descend till it was restored to life You make Christ Lord ouer hell because he kept himselfe from thence but so were all the faithfull whose soules were not inclosed in hell whom yet the Scriptures make not Lords ouer death and hell but deliuered from both There must be a conquest peculiar to Christ whereby he did take all power from them and reserued it to himselfe and rose from death as hauing the keyes of both The particular manner whereof in time and other such circumstances though the Scriptures do not expresse yet must not the general be doubted because the Scriptures witnesse that Christs soule was not left nor for saken in hell of Gods diuine power and presence but thence returned as conquerer of all Satans power and Dominion This the Church of Christ hath alwayes professed and this may the godly safely beleâ—…ue notwithstanding M. Broughtonsbedlom proclamation that it is the generall corruption of religion Scripture and all learning Our fourth reason There is altogether as great reason and as vrgent cause that Christ whole man both soule and bodie should be present in hell to free vs thence wholy that is our soules and bodies as there is that his soule must be there present to free thence our soules Heere I wish you would answere my proposition without skoffes and taunts and â—…autie disdaine as your manner is You cannot mocke and that is great pitie When your propositions want not only proofe and trueth but learning and vnderstanding shall I say they be sage wise Christian resolutions your deuices I call dreames your contradictions I call contrarieties your neglect of all Councels and Fathers I call presumption and your shifting and outfacing affirming that which is false and dâ—…nying that which is true I call vnshamefastnesse if not impudencie What other names should I giue them I professe I cannot flatter you in your fansies neither see I any cause why you regarding no man besides your selfe should thinke your selfe fit to be regarded with the disgrace of all auncients and others Where the matter is not meet to be reiected with disdaine I vse it not and where it is why should I not Yet now you would haue a direct and faire answere to your proposition though you little deserue it you shall This which you mention to wit our deliuerance from hell was not the onely cause of Christs descent thither his owne honour and right that suffered shame and wrong at Satans hand on the crosse was the chieâ—…e cause of his descent that after death he might shew himselfe in his manhood the conquerer and destroier of Satans power This you cleane leaue out of your proposition because you would be sure to bring nothing that should be sound and sufficient Againe your proposition as it standeth hath no strength in it besides your owne imagination For hell once subdued and conquered by Christ needeth not the second time to be conquered Since then till the day of iudgement hell hath no more but the soules of the wicked some few excepted who descended aliue to hell what needed more then the soule of Christ to conquer hell Thirdly sâ—…ing the body is cast into hell to increase the paines of the soule the soule being acquited and freed from hell there is no cause the body should goe thither And so in respect aswell of Gods ordinance till the day of doome as of the soules preeminence in and ouer the body the soule of Christ after death might iustly discharge our bodies and soules from all the power and claime that Satan had against vs. Lastly the proportion which Fulgentius Athanasius and others mention as deriued from the Scriptures that as the two parts of man after death were for sinne appointed to two seuerall places his soule to hell and his body to the graue so the Redeemer did â—…etch man backe againe from those two places of condemnation with the presence of his soule subduing hell and of his body resisting corruption this pâ—…oportion I say gâ—…ounded on the Scriptures is more then you can any way confute or open your mouth against with any trueth You aske why this going to hell by our Sauiour was not rather afâ—…er his resurrection when both paâ—…ts were ioined together First because by death which is the separating of the soule from the body Christ was to destroy both death and hell Next he was to rise conquerer of them both and not after his resurrection which was a conquest of both to reconquer them againe This therefore is an vnwise demand and sheweth that you doe not vnderstand what belongeth to Christs death or resurrection who was to rise the full conquerer and Lord of all his enemies in his owne person and not aâ—…ter his resurrection to make a new conquest ouer them And therefore your heaping of seuenteen places of Scripture in the margine of your booke to shew that Christ died and rose againe is to let men see that you haue emptied your note Booke and there find that Christ did rise from the dead To which if you will adde which is the true intent of all those places that Christ was to rise a perfect conquerer of death and hell you shall make so many proofes that Christ conquered both before and with his resurrection and by no meanes after it For his resurrection was manifest proofe that neither his soule was forsaken in hel nor his flesh left to see corruption in the graue and therefore both hell and death were perfectly subdued when he ioined againe his soule to his body and aduanced them both to an immortall and celestiall life Considering then whence the parts of Christs manhood were taken when he rose from the dead to wit his soule from hâ—…ll where it was not forsaken and his body from the graue where it was not corrupted you shall easily see if you doe not wilfully shut your eies that the power and force of Christs resurrection beganne with the subduing of hell by his soule and ouermastering putrifaction by his body Against whose soule and body since neither destruction nor corruption could preuaile it was not possible but he should rise vanquisher and Lord
and toies That I make but one cause to witte Religious feare in the 23 Page of my Sermons looke there who list he shall find you a fabler In the fift cause that might be of Christs agonie which was the deprecation of Gods wrath I yeelded to some mens speeches so farre for quietnes sake that it â—…ight be said Christ feared that is l Serm. pag. 22 li. 2â—… shunned euerlasting death and that the sight of gods wrath l Serm. pag. 21. li. 19. tempered and made ready for the finnes of men which the Scripture calleth a cupp n Pa. 22. li 35. might for a time somewhat astonish the humane nature of Christ yet so that the sight of our sinnes and the wages thereof o Pa. 23. li. 2. impressed nothing that is no feare in the soule of Christ but a religious feare to sorow for the one and pray against the other Here are expresly named religious feare sorow and zealous praier occasioned by the sight of the cuppe of Gods wrath prepared for our sinnes How then doth this exclude the rest of the causes which are there precedent or consequent or how come you to cast away Christes sorow for sinne and praier against the desert of our euill deedes whereof the first rose from the submission that Christ made vnto Gods wrath prouoked and the second from the compassion that Christ had towards men endangered and to leaue but one where I name three Are you so well skilled in the Scriptures that you doe not know a Religious feare of God compriseth the whole seruice of God and therefore might much more containe the holines of Christs affections when he submitted himselfe to the will and hand of God for our sakes What rudenes then or rashnes or both is this when I note diuers partes or effects of one thing or vse diuers words to describe one and the same matter for you to quote out contrarieties by Arithmetick because the wordes be different and neuer to weigh the sense in which they accord So trifle you with the two generall causes as if they could not containe the six speciall that I say might be of Christs agonie when yet those six are but remembrances of some respects that Christ might haue in his feare and sorow and those two comprehend all six as parts or consequents of Christs submission to God and compassion on men Neither doe I pretend or professe that euery of these six was the whole and entire cause of his agony It is your dottage so to dreame and no piece of my mind These six and many moe reasons and occasions Christe might haue at that time to feare and sorow wherin I doe not determine which was the full and true cause of that agonie but how many respects might lead him to feare and sorrow at that present which I doe not conclude as certaine but propose as possible and farre more probable then your reall paines of the damned supposed at that instant actually to torment the soule of Christ. Leaue therefore your one two and six to Tilers to tell their pinnes or Wittalls to number their Geese and shew that either I determine any precise or particuler cause ef Christs agonie thereby to deserue mine owne censure as you doe or that those six which I mention may not be referred to those two generalls which I note that so at least you may make me disagree with my selfe p Defenc pag. 92. li. 32. Last of all this your resolution making Christs piety and pittie to be the onely proper and maine cause of all his wofull passion is vtterly false and vntrew hauing no ground but meere coniectures Your memorie is as brickle as your reason is feeble Those six causes of Christes agonie and not of all his wofull passion as you lightly leape you know not whither I did no otherwise propose then that they q Serm. pag. 17. li. 28. 29. might be euery one of them more likely and more godly then your deuice of hell paines As for the onlie cause of that agonie I medled with no such matter my words are euideâ—…t to the contrarie r Ibid. li. 30. Others at their leasures may thinke on more which I shal be content to hâ—…are but that piety or charity or both must be the Rootes of Christs feare and sorow and not infidelitie and distrust of Gods fauour towards his person or function nor the Reall and inherent sense of Hell paines common to him with the damned as you doe peremptorilie but pestilently dreame in that I said I was resolute and so I yet remaine And you shall sooner proue your selfe to be the man in the Moone then Christes soule to haue beene tormented with any reall paines inflicted on him by the immediate hand of God which position of yours hath impietie for the ground and follie for the proofe howsoeuer you thinck to face it out with your insolent verbositie s Defenc pag. 92. li. 37. Your first cause is submission to the maiestie of God-sitting in iudgment when Christ was thus astonished and agonized therewith I pray thee Christian Reader to remember in all these causes what was my purpose and promise euen now specified not to conclude The first cause concurring to Christs agoniâ—… these as necessarie and entire causes of Christes agonie but to shew them possible and more likely and Godlie then his Pagent of Hell paines inflicted on the soule of Christ. The reason that led me to set downe this as one of the causes that MIGHT BE of Christes agonie for so I alwaies meane though perhaps in course of speach I alwaies adde not so much were the wordes of our Sauiour t Iohn 1â—… Now is the Iudgment of this worlde now shall the Prince of this world be cast out And I if I were lifte vp from the earth will draw all men vnto me This said hee signifiyng what death he should die The iudgment which here our Sauiour noteth was not at that instant when he spake these words but at an houre to come when Satan the Prince of this worlde should be u Iohn 16. iudged that is eiected and cast out from x Reuel 12. accusing the Saints and the x Reuel 12. saluation of God and power of his Christ established in heauen So much the words of Christ imported when he said Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out and not now alreadie is he cast out This Iudgment then was Redemptorie not condemnatoriâ—… wherein the sonne of God in our flesh was admitted to make satisfaction for the sinnes of all that should beleeue in him and to pay the price that should appease the iustice of God prouoked by our misdeeds and so to reconcile vs to the fauour of God by the bloud of his Crosse that there might be no more place for Satan to accuse vs any longer y Reuel 12. night and day before God as otherwise he did The issue