Viceroyes put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians THe title of King designed to Christ long before his birth given to him by the Souldiers and confirmed by Pilate The generall opinion of the Iews and of the Apostles and Disciples for a temporal Kingdome to be set up by their Messiah the like amongst the Gentiles also Christ called the head of the Church and upon what reasons The actuall possession of the Kingdome not conferred on Christ till his resurrection Severall texts of Scripture explained and applyed for the proof thereof Christ by his regall power defends his Church against all her enemies and what those enemies are against which he chiefly doth defend it Of the Legislative power of Christ of obedience to his lawes and the rewards and punishments appendent on them No Viceroy necessary on the earth to supply Christs absence The Monarchy of the Pope ill grounded under that pretence The many Viceroyes thrust upon the Church by the Presbyterians with the great prerogatives given unto them Bishops the Vicars of Christ in spirituall matters and Kings in the externall regiment of the holy Church That Kings are Deputies unto Christ not only unto God the Father proved both by Scriptures and by Fathers The Crosse why placed upon the top of the regall Crown How and in what respects Christs Kingdome is said to have an end Charity for what reasons greater then faith and hope The proper meaning of those words viz. Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father disputed canvassed and determined CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to judgement both of quick and dead the souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgement and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action THe severall degrees of CHRISTS exaltation A day of judgement granted by the sober Gentiles Considerations to induce a natural man to that perswasion and to inforce a Christian to it That Christ should execute his judgement kept as a mysterie from the Gentiles Reasons for which the act of judging both the quick and the dead should be conferred by God on his Son CHRIST IESVS That the souls of righteous men attain not to the highest degree of happinesse till the day of judgement proved by authority of Scriptures by the Greek Fathers and the Latine by Calvin and some leading men of the reformation The alteration of this Doctrine in the Church of Rome and the reason of it The torments of the wicked aggravated in the day of judgement The terrors of that day described with the manner of it The errour of Lactantius in the last particular How CHRIST is said to be ignorant of the time and hour of the day of judgement The grosse absurdity of Estius in his solution of the doubt and his aime therein The audaciousnesse of some late adventurers in pointing out the year and day of the finall judgement The valley of Iehosophat designed to the place of the generall judgement The Easterne part of heaven most honoured with our Saviours presence The use of praying towards the East of how great antiquity That by the signe of the Son of man Mat. 24.30 we are to understand the signe of the crosse proved by the Western Fathers and the Southerne Churches The sounding of the trumpet in the day of judgement whether Literally or Metaphorically to be understood The severall offices of the Angels in the day of judgement The Saints how said to judge the world The Method used by Christ in the act of judging The consideration of that day of what use and efficacy in the wayes of life LIBER III. CHAP. I. Touching the holy Ghost his divine nature power and office The controversie of his Procession laid down historically Of receiving the holy Ghost and of the severall Ministrations in the Church appointed by him SEverall significations of these words the holy Ghost in the new Testament The meaning of the Article according to the Doctrine of the Church of England The derivation of the name and the meaning of it in Greek Latine and English The generall extent of the word Spirit more appositely fitted to the holy Ghost The divinity of the holy Ghost clearly asserted from the constant current of the book of God The grosse absurdity of Harding in making the divinity of the holy Ghost to depend meerly upon tradition and humane authority The many differences among the writers of all ages and between St. Augustine with himself touching the sin or blasphemy against the holy Ghost The stating of the controversie by the learned Knight Sir R. F. That the differences between the Greek and Latine Churches concerning the procession of the holy Ghost are rather verball then material and so affirmed to be by most moderate men amongst the Papists The judgement of antiquity in the present controversie The clause a Filioque first added to the antient Creeds by some Spanish Prelates and after countenanced and confirby the Popes of Rome The great uncharitablenesse of the Romanists against the Grecians for not admitting of that clause The graces of the holy Ghost distributed into Gratis data and Gratum facientia with the use of either Why Simon Magus did assert the title of the great power of God Sanctification the peculiar work of the holy Ghost and where most descernible Christ the chief Pastor of the Church discharged not the Prophetical office untill he had received the unction of the holy Spirit The Ministration of holy things conferred by Christ on his Apostles actuated and inlarged by the holy Ghost The feast of Pentecost an holy Anniversary in the Church and of what antiquity The name and function of a Bishop in St. Pauls distribution of Ecclesiasticall offices included under that of Pastor None to officiate in the Church but those that have both mission and commission too The meaning and effect of those solemne words viz. receive the holy Ghost used in Ordination The use thereof asserted against factious Novelty The holy Ghost the primary Author of the whole Canon of the Scripture The Canon of the Evangelical and Prophetical writings closed and concluded by St. Iohn The dignity and sufficiency of the written word asserted both against some Prelates in the Church of Rome and our great Innovators in the Church of England CHAP. II. Of the name and definition of the Church Of the title of Catholick The Church in what respects called holy Touching the head and members of it The government thereof Aristocraticall THe name Church no where to be found in the old Testament The derivation of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what it signifyeth in old Authors The Christian Church called not improperly by the name of a Congregation The officiation of that word in our old Translators and the unsound construction of it by the Church of Rome Whence the word CHVRCH in English hath its derivation The word promiscuously used in the elder times
the Text as I think we need not yet might it give the Church a justifiable ground of commanding such a duty to all Christian people To the end that by those outward ceremonies and gestures their inward humility Christian resolution and due acknowledgement that the Lord IESVS CHRIST the true and eternal Son of God is the only Saviour of the world in whom alone all the graces mercies and promises of God to mankinde for this life and the life to come are fully and wholly comprehended Which is the end proposed and published by the Church of England as appears plainly by the 18. Canon An. 1603. As IESVS is the name of our Lord and Saviour his personal and proper name by which he was distinguished from the rest of his Fathers kindred â—o CHRIST is added thereunto both in the holy Scriptures and the present Creed to denote his offices Christus non proprium nomen est sed nuncupatiâ— potestatis regni CHRIST saith Lactantius is no proper name but a name of power and principality It signifieth properly an anointed and is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to anoint and was used by the old Grecians for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a word of the same signification but more common use And so the word is used by Homer the Prince of the Greek Poets saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. they washed and then anointed themselves with oyl The Hebrew word Messiah corresponds to this as appears evidently by that passage in St. Iohns Gospel where Andrew telleth his brother Simon this most joyful news viz. We have found the Messias which being interpreted is the CHRIST And ' â—is no wonder if Andrew ran with so much joy to acquaint his brother with the news for by the name of the Messiah the Iews had long expected the performance of the promise which God made to David that of the fruit of his body there should one sit upon his Throne for evermore But the word CHRIST implyes more yet then a name of Soveraignty For though Kings antiently were anointed as is plain by examples of the Saul 1 Sam. 10.1 2 Sam. 2.4 yet not only they The High Priest also was anointed For it is said of Moses that he powred the anointing oyl upon Aarons head and anointed him to sanctifie him And so the Prophet seems to be in the Book of Kings where Elijah is commanded to anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat to be the Prophet in his room Vngebantur Reges Sacerdotes Prophetae saith a learned Writer and each of these respectively in their several places might be called Christus Domini the Lords anointed or the Lords Christ but our Redeemer after a more peculiar manner was Christus Dominus the Lord Christ or the Lord anointed And certainly there was good reason why the Name of CHRIST should be applyed to him in another manner then it had been to any in the times before he being the one and only Person in whom the Offices of King Priest and Prophet had ever met before that time Although those Offices had formerly met double in the self same person Mâ—lchisedech a King and Priest Samuel a Prophet and a Priest David a Prophet and a King Yet never did all three concur but in him alone and so no perfect CHRIST but he A Priest he was after the order of Melchisedech Psal. 110. vers 4. A Prophet to be heard when Moses should hold his peace Deut. 18.18 A King to be raised out of Davids seed who should reign and prosper and execute judgement and justice in the earth Ier. 23 5. By his Priesthood to purge expiate and save us from our sins for which he was to be the Propitiation By his Prophetical Office to illuminate and save us from the by-pathes of errour and to guide our feet in the way of peace By his Kingdom or his Regal power to prescribe us laws protect us from our enemies and make us at the last partakers of his heavenly Kingdome Ieremies King Davids Priest Moses Prophet but in each and all respects the CHRIST Not that he was anointed with material oyl as were the Kings and Priests in the Old Testament but with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows Psal. 45.7 but with the Spirit of the Lord wherewith he was anointed to preach good tidings to the meek Esai 61.1 which he applyed unto himself Luk. 4.18.21 anointed with the holy Ghost and with power as St. Peter telleth us Act. 10.38 Anointed then he was to those several Offices and in that the CHRIST But how he doth perform these Offices and at what times he was inaugurated to the same shall be declared in the course of the following Articles which relate to him save that we shall refer the Execution of the Prophetical function to the Article of the holy Ghost by the effusion of whose gifts on the Pastors and Ministers of the holy Church it is most powerfully discharged The Name of CHRIST as it is commonly added unto that of IESVS to denote his Offices so in a sort it is communicated unto those whom he hath chosen to himselfe for a royal Priesthood a chosen generation a peculiar people and for that reason honoured with the name of Christians And the Disciples were called Christians first at Antioch saith the book of the Acts. Called Christians what by chance I believe not that The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the Original hath more in it then so We have the same word in the second of St. Matthews Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the Wise men that came from the East to worship CHRIST and there we render it that they were warned by God warned by him in a dream not to goe to Herod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then in this place of the Acts must have some reference to God and seems to intimate at least if not fully evidence that they took not this name upon themselves but by Gods direction The Iews had formerly called them Nazarites as the Mahometans do still in the way of reproach And though the Disciples were neither ashamed nor afraid of any ignominy which was put upon them for the sake of their Lord and Master yet they conceived it far more honorable to him into whose heavenly house and family they were adopted to own themselves by that name which might most entitle them to all those priviledges which did acrew uuto them in the right of Adoption A caution to which God more specially might encline their hearts that his dear CHRIST might look upon them as his own to whom he gave the unction or anointing of the holy Spirit The anointing which ye have received of him saith the beloved Disciple abideth in you and ye need not that any men teach you That God had a directing hand in it the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth perswade me which intimates at
themselves an hodie aeternitatis something which may be called this day before all eternity Which exposition of the words as it is very justly disliked by Calvin so is he very unjustly quarrelled for by some latter writers who look no further on the words then the words of David and not upon the application which St. Paul makes of them Clearly St. Paul who spake by the same Spirit that David did and therefore could not erre in expounding the words of David intends them neither to CHRISTS natural birth as the son of the blessed Virgin Mary nor his eternall generation as the Son of God but to his birth day or begetting to the Crown of the heavenly Canaan the day of their advancement to the regal throne being esteemed as their birth day by most Kings and Princes For who so ignorant in the affaires of the world so little conversant in the monuments of former times as not to know that it is usuall in most States and Kingdomes not only to celebrate with great feasts and triumphs the naturall birth-day of their Kings which they call Diem natalem imperatoris but the inauguration day the day wherein he was exalted to the Crown imperial which they call Diem natalem imperii Certain I am that the day whereon Augustus did assume the imperial power was solemnized in Rome every tenth year with a great deal of joy and that Caligula did decree that the day whereon he began his Empire Dies quo cepisset imperium as my Authour hath it should be called Palilia and celebrated as that was by the antient Romans in memory that their City was on that day founded And thus it hath continued in most States of Christendome but most unprosperously of late as if it were an Omen of the present troubles laid aside in ours And this interpretation of the Psalmists words receiveth good countenance from another place of the same Apostle in which those words of David are again recited The place is this Christ saith he glorifyed not himself to be made high Priest but he that said unto him thou art my Son to day have I begotten thee as he saith also in another place Thou art a Priert for ever after the order of Melchisedech The meaning of this passage we have shewn before and is this in brief that Christ being called by God to the two great offices those of the Priesthood and the Kingdome was not exalted unto either though designed to both till God had glorifyed him in the sight of the people by his resurrection And to my seeming Davids words had not St. Paul conducted us to this exposition could have no other meaning then is here made of them For if we marke the composition of the same and the place in which these words are ranked we shall finde that God had first advanced his King and set him on his holy hill of Sion on the royall throne before and but immediately before these words Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But what need one Apostle be called to witnesse in this point when we have all that glorious company the Apostolical College and the rest of their company apply the whole Psalme to the person of Christ of Christ anointed to the Kingdome by the hands of God but not till Herod Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and the people of Israel had conspired against him to do whatsoever the hand and counsell of God had before determined Having thus brought our Saviour to the Regall throne and set him on the right hand of God in the heavenly places let us next look upon him in his forme of Government according to the arts of Empire These by the Stalists are reduced unto two heads the one consisting in protecting and defending the people committed to them which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other in prescribing laws and executing justice on the transgressours which they terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Both these most perfectly discharged by our Prince and Saviour And first the Enemies against which he protects his people are these three the Devil sin and persecution The two first he discomfited in that painfull combat in which he paid the price of our redemption and made his passage open to the new Hierusalem Since that time there is nothing left in Satan but a powerlesse malice and though he roare against the Church he shall never devour it The gates of hell shall not prevail against it said the glorious Conqueror Sin at the same time lost his strength which was the curse of the Law and not his strength only but his Empire too And though he may sojourn for a time in our mortal bodies yet shall he never reigne over us and have us in subjection as before he had unlesse we willingly betray our selves and captivate our souls to those conquered powers which God hath given us grace to master Nor deales otherwise with the Persecutors of his Church and people then he hath done with sin and Satan whom he doth crush at last with a rod of iron and break them into pieces like a potters vessell as David telleth of him in the second Psalme And though sometimes to manifest his own glory in his peoples sufferings and to make tryall of their faith and Christian patience he doth permit their enemies to prevail against them yet was he never wanting in his own due time to make their deliverance more remarkable then all their afflictions Witnesse the persecutions of the primitive times in which the Princes of the earth and the powers of hell banded themselves against the Lord and against his anointed times in the which it were a difficulty to determine whether the gallantry of the Martyrs or the tyranny of the persecutors gave juster cause of admiration to the sad spectators With such a chearfull countenance did they beare their sufferings that they even wearied their tormenters and did not lose their lives but give them With what a noble confidence did they mount the scaffold on which they were to suffer the most cruel death which the wit of man and malice of the Devil could inflict upon them so bravely and without amazement as if they had been mounted rather to behold a triumph then to be brought to execution Never was tragedy of death more bravely acted nor actor honoured with a richer and more glorious crown And for his enemies and theirs the vengeance of the Lord found them out at last and laid them in the dust with disgrace and ignominy For which was there of all the persecutors who made themselves drunk with the bloud of the Saints and Prophets or that have raged against the Church since those furious times to whom he gave not bloud to drinke whom either in their gray haires or in the pride and flourish of all their glories he brought not to the grave with reproach and sorrow or left their dead bodies to be meat to
rule his Church in things which concern salvation by men in sacred Orders is confessed on both sides and that he doth preserve the same in external Order at peace and decency and in the beauty of holiness by the power of Christian Princes is affirmed in Scriptures Why else are Kings entituled the Nursing Fathers and Queens the nursing mothers of the Church of Christ but for the protection which they give their superintendency over it in their several Kingdoms Kings are Christs Vice-roys on the earth in their own Dominions over all persons in all causes aswell Ecclesiastical as Civil the Supreme Governours And so are Bishops in the first sense in their several Dioceses and under them those Presbyters which have cure of souls Which lest we may be thought to say without good authority we call the Popes themselves to witness against those of Rome and to the others will say more in the following Paragraph For Pope Eusebius in his third Epistle decâ—etory which whatsoever credit it be of amongst learned men must be good ad homines saith plainly that our Saviour is the Churches head and that his Vicars are the Bishops to whom the Government and Ministerie of the Church is trusted Caput Ecclesâ—ae Christus est Vicarii autem Christi sacerdotes sunt And Sacerdotes in those times did signifie the Bishops no inferior Order For further proof whereof if more proof be needful consult St. Ambrose on 1 Cor. cap. 11. St. Austin in his questions on the Old and New Testament qu. 127. The Author of the Imperfect work ascribed to St. Chrysostom Hom. 17. the Fathers of the Councel of Compeigne and divers others all of which call the Bishop in most positive tearms Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ. And for the King so said Pope Eleutherius in a letter of his to Lucius a King of Britain no great Prince assuredly but the first Christian Prince that ever was in the world Vicarius Dei vos estis in regno vestro you are Gods Vice-roy or Lieutenant in your own Dominions Which title Edgar as I take it a West-Saxon King did challenge as his own of right in a speech made unto his Clergy in their Convocation or some such like Synodical meeting The like occurs of William the Conquerer who in a Parliament of his is called Vicarius summi Regis as is said by Bishop Iewel in the Defence of the Apology part 5. cap 6. sect 3. And this perhaps the sticklers for Presbyterie will not stick to grant who will allow Kings to be Gods Vice gerents so they be not Christs and if not Christs then not to intermeddle in such things as concern the Church but to betake themselves meerly unto secular matters Beza hath so resolved it against Erastus Our Saviour Christ saith he hath told us that his Kingdome is not of this world adeo ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administrationi nunquam se immiscuerit and therefore would not be a Judge in a Temporal difference and thereupon it is inferred that Secular Princes must not meddle in such things as concern Christs Kingdome But none have spoke more plainly in it then our Scottish Presbyters from Father Henderson down to Cant and Rutherford who build their Presbyterian Platform upon this foundation that Kings receive not their authority from IESVS CHRIST but from God the Father Which being so pernicious a Maxime to the right of Kings and so derogatory to the honour of our Lord and Saviour I shall in brief summe up some passages in holy-Scripture and other good authorities from the antient Fathers as may aboundantly convince them of most gross absurdity in offering such strange fire in the Church of God For first our Saviour who best knew his own Prerogative hath told us that All power is given to him both in Heaven and Earth If all then doubtless that of ordaining Kings which are the greatest powers on earth If all then must it be by him as indeed it is or Solomon mistook the matter By whom Kings reign and Princes decree justice In reference to this power no question but St. Paul calleth him Rex Regum or the King of Kings He is saith the Apostle the only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords By the same title he is called in the Revelation chap. 17. vers 14. And this not only in the way of excellencie because a greater King and a more puissant Lord then any here upon the earth but also in the way of derivation because from him all Kings and Princes whatsoever do derive their power Just so and in the self same sense some of the mighty Monarchs amongst the Gentiles having inferiour Princes under their command and such as do derive all authority from them do call themselves the Kings of Kings Rex Regum Arsaces the old style of the Parthian Emperours This further proved and very significantly inferred from another place of the Revelation where it is said of Christ the Lamb that he hath on his vesture and on his Thigh a name written viz. Kings of Kings and Lord of Lords In which last place there are two things to be observed which concern this point the one that this name of King of Kings and Lord of Lords is fixed and setled in Christs Person as the Son of man the other that all Kings are De femore Christi certainly of his appointment and Ordination as if they were descended from his very loyns Nor want we of the Fathers which affirm the same St. Athanasius paraphrasing on this Text of Scripture And he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever c. saith plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Christ having received the Throne of David hath transferred the same and given it to the holy Kings of Christians And so Liberius one of the Popes of Rome writing unto the Emperour Constantius a Prince extremely wedded indeed to the Arian faction admonisheth him not to fight against Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s who had advanced him to the Empire nor to be so unthankeful to him as to countenance any impious opinion that was held against him Adde to these two though these the great Patriarchs of the Roman and Egyptian Churches the suffrage of the Fathers assembled at the Councel holden in Ariminum who writing to the same Constantius and speaking of our Lord and Saviour addes these following words viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say By whom thou reignest and hast Dominion over all the world And this no question is the reason why all Christian Princes do place the Cross upon the top of their Royal Crowns For though they use it as a badge of their Christianity and to acknowledge that they are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ yet by allotting to it the superior place they publish and confess this also that they do hold their Crowns by and under him Let us
under him saith the Apostle Nor must we understand it so as it Christ delivering up the Kingdome had no more to doe but was reduced to the condition of a private Saint that were injurious to the dignity of our Lord CHRIST IESVS Nec sic arbitremur eum traâ—iturum Deo Patri ut adimat sibi as St. Austin hath it we must not think saith he that he will so deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father as to devest himself of all Power Majesty Not so His meaning is but this at most taking the word Kingdome in the usual and accustomed sense that the form of governing this Kingdome shall then be altered Sâ—n Hell and Death being all subdued as in himself before so in all his Members and Heaven replenished with those Saints for whose sakes principally he received the Kingdome And though this Exposition be both safe and general yet I conceive it may admit another sense and such as do most happily avoid those difficulties which otherwise it may seem to be subject to What then if we should say that by Regnum here we are so understand only filios Regni if by the word Kingdome in this place St. Paul meaneth those who are called the Children of the Kingdome in another place and that by the delivering up of the Kingdome unto God the Father we are to understand no more then the presenting of his children Behold I and the children whom thou hast given me to the fight of God to be received into his glories and crowned by him with immortality Assuredly if I should both say it and stand to it too I should not think the Exposition either forced nor new Not forced for Metonymies of this kinde in the Book of God and in all Classick Authors too are exceeding obvious For Classick Authors first to name two or three we have in Tacitus Matrimonium Principale pessimum principalis Matrimonii instrumentum for the Princes wife And in the Poet Coelum Heaven for Coelites the heavenly Citizens as Coelo gratissimus amnis a River very acceptable unto those in heaven O Coelo dilecta domus an house beloved of the Gods in another Poet. Thus also in the holy Scripture Regale Presbyterium a Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. vers 8. is put for a society of Royal Priests Regnum which is the word here used is in our English rendred Kings Fecit nos Regnum sacerdotes saith the Vulgar Latine He hath made us Kings and Priests saith our Translation Apoc. 1. vers 6. And more then so in the 13. of St. Matthewes Gospel the word Regnum is directly used by Christ our Saviour pro filiis Regni the Kingdome for the sons of the Kingdome The Kingdome of Heaven saith he is like a Merchant man i. e. the children of the Kingdome of Heaven are like to Merchant men seeking godly pearls vers 24. Use but the word so here as in that of St. Matthew and the delivery of the Kingdome unto God the Father will signifie no more then the presenting of the Saints as before I said or tendring Gods adopted Sonnes which are the children of the great King and the Kingdome too to their heavenly Father This shews the Exposition is not forced we are sure of that And we have hopes to prove that it is not new being I think as old as St. Augustines time For asking this question of himself What is the meaning of this Text Then shall he deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father He makes this answer Quia justos omnes in quibus nunc regnat c. The meaning is that he shall bring the righteous persons in whom he reigns as Mediator between God and man unto the blessed Vision of Almighty God that they may see him face to face And in another place to the same effect It is as much as if he should have said in other words Cum perduxerit credentes ad contemplationem Dei Patris Then shall he bring the faithfull to behold the face of God the Father Which Faithfull or the body of his holy ones he cals plainly in another place by the name of Regnum the word here used by the Apostle affirming of the Saints of God eos ita esse in Regno ejus ut ipsi etiam sint Regnum ejus They are saith he estated in the Kingdome of God but so as to be his Kingdome also But this discourse is out of season though not out of the way For though our Saviour shall deliver up the Kingdome unto God the Father in what sense soever we understand it yet shall not this be done till after the day of general Judgement till he hath judged the quick and dead and given to every one according to his works Which is the last act of his Regal Office and the subject of the following Article ARTICLE VIII Of the Eighth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed unto St. MATTHEW 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Inde venturus judicare vivos mortous i. e. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead CHAP. XV. Touching the coming of our Saviour to Iudgement both of quick and dead The souls of just men not in the highest state of blisse till the day of judgment and of the time and place and other circumstances of that action WE are now come unto the last and greatest act of the Regal Office the supreme power of Iudicature and to the best part also of the Royall power potestas vitae mortis the power of life and death as the Lawyers call it All other acts of the Kingly function he executeth sitting at the right hand of God in the Heavenly places But when he cometh to judge both the quick and the dead his Judgement-seat shall be erected in some visible place though still at the right hand of Almighty God where both the wicked shall behold him to their finall confusion and his obedient Servants finde accesse unto him to their endlesse comforts And this is also the last and highest degree of his exaltation the last in order but the highest in esteem and honour The first step or degree of his exaltation was his descent into hell to beat the Devill at his own home in his strongest fortresse and take possession of that part of his Kingdome Devils as well as Men and Angels things under the earth as well as on the earth and above the heavens being to bow the knee before him and be subject to him This was done only in the fight of the Devils and the infernal fiends of hell but in the next which was his resurrection he had both men and Angels to bear witnesse to it and some raised purposely from the dead to attend him in it The third degree or step for he still went higher was his ascending into heaven performed openly in the sight of the people and so performed that it excelled all the triumphs which were gone
become so monstrous that it is grown bigger than all the rest of the Body For do not his own Canonists say that the Pope hath power of both the Swords that Christ committed to St. Peter and in him to them Terreni coelestis imperii jura The rights both of the Earthly and Heavenly Kingdoms Was it not openly affirmed in the Council of Lateran In Papa esse omnem potestatem c That in the Pope there was vested an authority over all powers both in Heaven and Earth And in pursuance of this power have they not frequently deposed Kings absolved the Subjects of the Oaths of Allegiance and disposed of Kingdoms till at last his Parasites came to broach this Tenet Papam esse verum Dominum temporalium ita ut possit auferre ab alio quod alias suum est c. That is to say That the Pope onely is the true and direct Lord of all Temporal States so that he may deprive whom he will of his estate without any remedy All Bishops and Princes whatsoever not being the Proprietaries of their own estates but Bailiffs and Stewards under him Thus also in Spiritual matters do they not teach that the whole World is his Diocess that he is Ordinarius omnium hominum and Episcopus totius orbis the ordinary Judge of all mankinde and Bishop of the whole world and that being thus possessed of this general Bishoprick Omnes Episcopi descendunt à Papa quasi membra à Capitè de plenitudine ejus omnes recipiunt All Bishops derive their power from him as the Body doth motion from the Head and that of his fulness they have all received That if the Pope should teach as he may and doth Virtutes esse vitia vitia esse virtuâ—es That vertue is vice and vice vertue we were bound to believe him And more than so That what crime soever he commit he is not to be censured or condemned for it Nec à Concilio nec à tota Ecclesia nec à toto mundo neither by a Council nor by all the Church together nor the whole World neither So privileged in a word he is that as one of them saith Si Papa innumerabiles populos catervatim secum ducat mancipio Gehennae c. If the Pope draw infinite companies of people with himself to Hell yet must no mortal man presume to reprove him for it Why so The Reason is most plain and evident Quia Papa Christus unum faciunt Consistorium because the Pope and Christ conjunct do but make one Consistory and consequently it must be as great a Sacrilege to question the acts of the Pope as those of Christ. We see by this to what a monstrous greatness this Head is grown how unproportionable to the Body his own Creatures make him And yet he is not onely greater than all the Body but he is all the Body too the Pope and Church being grown to be Terms and Convertible For so saith Gregory de Valentia Per ecclesiam caput ejus intelligimus c By the Church we mean her head and by that the Pope Dominicus Bannes affirms the same Pro eodem omnino reputatur autoritas ecclesiae universalis autoritas summi pontificis The authority of the Pope and that of the Universal Church is altogether the same The whole authority of the Church abideth in him saith Thomas Aquinas It remains all in him saith Silvester another of their principal Schoolmen Bellarmine is more plain than any Papa potest dicere ecclesiae i. e. sibi ipsi The Pope saith he may tell the Church that is himself His meaning is That lest the Pope should want Remedy when offence is given him he may be Judge in his own cause and on complaint unto himself see the matter mended But this he learnt of Innocent the Third Pope of that name who challenged to himself the cognizance of some points in difference between King Philip of France and Iohn King of England because it is written in the Gospel Dic ecclesiae as I have read in some good Author but cannot call to minde in whom Never did Text of Scripture meet with two such learned Glossaries never was Pope and Cardinal better matched nor need I adde more in so clear a case unless it be that commonly they call the Pope Virtualem Ecclesiam or the Vertual Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek because what power soever doth of right belong to the Body Collective of Christs Church the Church Essential as they term it is vertually contained in his person onely Me thinks it might have been enough for a single man to have been counted onely for a Chapel of Ease But such is the ambition of the Pope of Rome that unless he may be taken for the Catholick Church he passeth not for being reckoned for a Church at all And yet this of the two is the lovelier Error Better the Church be all head than no head at all And such a Church that is all body and no head at all have some of our Reformers modelled in their later Platforms The Presbyterian Party first began this Monster which those of the Independent way have now fully perfected The Presbyterian Form being hatched in a popular state but such as did acknowledge a supream command in the great Council of that City first make all Ministers equal amongst themselves and then associate with each Minister two or more Lay-Elders whom they invest joyntly with all manner of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction which antiently and of right did belong to Bishops But this Presbytery thus constituted is not so supream but that it is accomptable to the Classis within which it is as that unto the Provincial Assembly and all unto that National Meeting which being made of the Deputed Ministers and Lay-Elders out of each Presbytery hath the name of General not such a General Assembly as St. Paul speaks of though possibly the name may allude to that For neither are they the Church of the first-born nor all of them at all times of the number of those whose names are written in the Heavens But let them call it what they will they have given us such a Model of Church-Government as was not known amongst the Antients and made it in effect but an headless body The Ruling Members being all equal in themselves and yet so Heterogeneous in the whole Compositum that the greatest part thereof are men of inferior quality men of Shops and Trades and consequently uncapable of Spiritual Powers Which if it do not make the Church to be all Body doth yet come very near it to a Tantamount But what the Presbyterians wanted to compleat this Monster hath since been added by the Brethren of the Independency who living in the waste and deserts of New England where every man was a king in his own opinion and had so much of Caesar in him
transgression was an untouched Virgin a Virgin though betrothed to her husband Adam for she was a Virgin espoused from her first creation when she conceived sin and brought forth iniquity and Mary was an espoused Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Ioseph when she conceived the Son of righteousness and brought forth salvation And as the first woman conceived death by believing an evill Angel without consulting with her husband till the deed was done so the espoused Virgin of the present Article conceived in her body the Lord of life by believing the words and message of a good Angel her husband being not made privy to it till he perceived she was with child Some reasons then there were why it should be so why Christ our Saviour should be born of the purest Virgin though those reasons do not make it to be lesse a miracle for nothing but a miracle and the holy Ghost could have begotten such a child upon such a Mother That by this means the miserable fall of man was to be repaired it pleased God to declare unto our wretched Parents before they were exiled from the garden of Eden It was the first and greatest comfort which was given unto them that the seed of the woman should break the head of the serpent and that the serpent should but bruise the heel of the womans seed that is to say that there should one be born of the womans seed who by the sufferings of his body his inferiour part should overcome the powers of Hell and set man free from that captivity in which he was held bound by Satan And as it was the first in the generall promise so was it as I think the cleerest and most evident light to point us out to the particular of bringing this great work to passe by a Virgin-birth Though Adam was the root of mankinde and lost himself and his posterity by his disobedience yet was the promise made to Eve a Virgin and not to Adams seed at all nor any to be procreated from the seed of man It is a common resolution of the Schoolmen that if Eve only had transgressed Adamo in innocentia permanente Adam continuing still in his first integrity neither the souls of their posterity had been tainted with original sin nor their bodie made subject unto death It was in Adam that all die as St Paul hath told us It is in Adam that all die but 't was in Eve that all should be made alive not in Eves person but her seed The promise made to Eve a Virgin that her seed should break the serpents head fore-signifyed that our redeemer should be born of a Virgin Mother such as Eve was when this first publication of Gods will was made A clearer evidence then which as to this particular I think is hardly to be found in the book of God that so much celebrated place of the Prophet Isaiah Behold a Virgin shall conceive not being primarily intended of the birth of CHRIST though in his birth accomplished in a more excellent manner then first intended by the Prophet The estate of Ahaz King of Iudah at that time stood this A storme was threatned to his Kingdome from the joynt forces of Rezin King of Syria and Pekah King of Samaria which so dismaid the hearts of Ahaz and of all his people that they were as the trees of the wood moved with the wind as the text informes us not knowing upon what to fasten nor for what to hope In this great consternation comes Isaiah to them with a message from God assuring them of the speedy destruction of those Kings whom they so much feared But this when Ahaz durst not credit nor would be moved to aske a signe from God to confirme his faith and to assure himself of a quick deliverancâ— it pleased God to give him this by the mouth of the Prophet Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel Butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evill and choose the good For before the child shall know to refuse the evill and choose the good the Land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her Kings To say that this was literally and originally meant of the birth of CHRIST is not consistent with the case and circumstances of the present businesse The King and people were in danger of a present war and nothing but the hope of a present deliverance was able to revive their desparing hearts And what signe could it be to confirme that hope that after 700. years and upwards for so long time there was between the death of Ahaz and the birth of Christ a Virgin should conceive and bring forth a Son Cold comfort could there be in this to that generation who could not hope for so long life as to see the wonder So that the literal meaning of the Prophecie is most like to be that before some noted Virgin then of fame and credit or else within that space of time that any who was then a Virgin should conceive a child according to the ordinary course of nature and that that child should be of age to know good from evill the two Kings spoken of before should be both destroyed That so it is seemeth very evident to me by the successe of the businesse For in the next Chapter we find that Isaiah went unto the Prophetesse perhaps the Virgin spoken of in the former passages and she conceived and bare a Son whom the Lord commanded to be called Maher-shalal-hash-baz and gives this reason for the name being so unusuall that before the child shall have the knowledge to cry my Father and my Mother which is the same with that of refusing the evill and choosing the good the riches of Damascus and the spoyle of Samaria shall be taken away before the King of Assyria And so it proved in the event For before this Maher-shalal-hash-baz so conceived and born was able to distinguish of meats or know his Father and Mother from other people was the word fulfilled which God had spoken by the Prophet touching their deliverance Pekah being slain by Hoseah the son of Elah and Rezin by Tiglath-Pilesar the King of Assyria within two or three years after the said signe was given Of which see a King 16.5 6 7 c. Chron. 17.1 But then we must observe withall that this Prophecie being thus fulfilled in the literal sense according to the Prophets intent and purpose contained in it a more mystical meaning according to the secret purpose of Almighty God this temporal deliverance of Ahaz and the house of Iudah from the hands of two such potent enemies being a type or figure of that spiritual and eternal deliverance which he intended unto them and to all mankinde from the tyranny of sin and Satan Which secret will and purpose of Almighty God being made known to the Evangelist by the holy Ghost he might
and did apply it to the birth of Christ born of a most immaculate Virgin as a more punctual fulfilling of that sacred Prophesie then what before had hapned in the days of Ahaz But MARY as she was a Virgin a Virgin and the heir of the promise which was made to Eve and made to Eve when she was yet a Virgin though espoused to Adam so was she also a daughter if not an heir to all those blessings which God had promised unto David the heir as some suppose of the Royal Famiâ—y and thereby gave our Saviour an unquestioned title to the Realm of Iewry But this I take to be a supposition so ill grounded though I see great pains taken in defence thereof that I dare not lay any part of my building on it 'T is true the Iews who knew of his descent from David and greedily laid hold upon all occasions for the recovery of their lost liberties sought after him to make him King But this they did not on an opinion that he was the next heir unto the Crown but because they thought him best able to make good the Title For having seen him feed so many thousands of men with no more provision then only a few Barly loaves and two small fishes they presently conceived that he was able to raise victuals for a greater Army then could be possibly withstood by the powers of Rome The text and context make this plain to a Vulgar Reader For no sooner had the people beheld the miracle but presently they said of a truth this was the Prophet whom they did expect and if a Prophet and that Prophet whom they did expect then who more fit then he to be made their King Nor to say truth was our Redeemer a Descendent of the Royal line but the collateral line of David none of which ever claimed the Kingdome or the title of King or exercised any special power save Zorobabel only and that but temporary for the better setling of the people after the Captivity The Crown being entailed on Solomon and his posterity ended in Ieconiah the last King of that race on whom this curse was laid by the Lord himself that no man of his seed should prosper CHRIST therefore could not be of the seed of that wretched Prince because we know his work did prosper in his hands and that he is the Author of all prosperity both to Iew and Gentile And more then so the self same Prophet telleth us in the following chapter that the Lord would raise unto David a righteous branch a King which should both reign and prosper which is directly contradictory to that before whose name should be the Lord our righteousness and must be meant of Christ and of none but him Though Ioseph might naturally spring from this Ieconiah though it remain a question undecided to this very day whether Salathiel were his natural or adopted son yet this derives no title unto CHRIST our Saviour who was not of the seed of Ioseph though supposed his son Our Saviours own direct line by his Virgin-Mother was not from Solomon but Nathan the son of David of whom the holy Ghost saith nothing as concerning the Kingdome for Mary was the daughter of Heli the son of Matthat the son of Levi and so forth ascendendo till we come to Adam according as it is laid down in the third of Luke And this I call the line of Christ by his Virgin Mother on the authority of St. Augustine in some tracts of his the Author of the Book called De ortu Virginis extant amongst the works of Hierome and many late Writers of good credit besides the testimony of Rabbi Haccanas the son of Nehemiah a Doctor of great esteem amongst the Iews who telleth us that there was a Virgin in Bethlehem Iudah whose name was Mary the daughter of Heli of the kindred of Zerubbabel the son of Salathiel of the Tribe of Iudah who was betrothed to one Ioseph of the same kindred and Tribe Nor can I see to what end St. Luke writing after St. Matthew and having doubtless seen his Gospel should make another pedegree for Ioseph then was made already and that so different from it in the whole composure from Christ to David I take it therefore for a certain and undoubted truth that St. Luke reckoneth the descent of our Lord and Saviour by the line of his Mother the daughter of Heli Ioachim he is called in our Vulgar stories who is said to be the Father of Ioseph because he married his said daughter as Ioseph is there said to be the Father of Christ because he was husband to his Mother Some other difference there is in these two Genealogies as that St. Matthew goes no higher then Abraham and St. Luke followeth his as high as Adam the reason of the which is both plain and plausible For Matthew being himself a Iew and writing his Gospel originally in the Hebrew language for the instruction of that people could not bethink himself of a better way to gain upon them then to make proof that Christ our blessed Saviour was the Son of Abraham in whose seed the whole Nation did expect their blessedness And on the other side St. Luke being by birth a Gentile of the City of Antioch and so by consequence not within the Covenant which was made to Abraham carryeth on the descent of Christ as high as Adam who was the common Father both of Iews and Gentiles to shew that even the Gentiles were within the Covenant which was made in Paradise touching the restauration of lost man by the Promised seed For Maries birth and parentage I think this sufficient A little more may here be added of the title of Virgin because called in this Article the Virgin as by way of eminency The Virgin Mary saith the Article and not a Virgin known or called by the name of Mary Somewhat there is in this there is no doubt of that whether so much as many do from hence infer may be made a question That she continued still a Virgin after Christs nativity I am well resolved of notwithstanding all the cavils made against it by the Ebionites Helvidius Iovinian and the Eunomian Hereticks For who can think that Ioseph after such a revelation from the God of Heaven that she had conceived with childe of the holy Ghost should offer to converse with her in a conjugal manner or that the blessed Virgin if he had attempted it would have permitted that pure womb which had been made a Temple of the holy Ghost to be polluted and profaned with the lust of man The piety of both parties is a forcible argument to free them from an act so different from all sense of piety And yet Helvidius and his fellows had some Scripture for it for even the Devil could come in with his Scriptum est namely that passage in St. Matthew where it is said of Ioseph that he knew her not
time from the holy Passeover Notable hypocites that made no conscience of committing a most wilfull murder and yet would make the world believe that they stood upon the mint and cumin the very niceties of the Law But here they were to fit their Compasse to another wind The crime of Blasphemy whereof they had convicted him amongst themselves would not work on Pilate who questionlesse had rather that the Iews had been of any or of no religion then of what they were That which amongst the Romans was accounted holy was by the Iews esteemed an abomination Profana illic â—â—â—â—a quâ— apud nos sacra as it is in Tacitus They must finde somewhat else wherewithall to charge him then that he called himself the CHRIST or the Son of God if they expect that Pilate should condemn him for them And to this end they do impeach him of high treason raising sedition in the State and setting up another King to oppose the Romans We found say they this fellow perâ—â—â—ting our nation forbidding tribute to be paid to Caesar and calling himself Christ â— King and whosoever makes himself a King speaketh against Caesar at the least and disputes his title to that Kingdom This last was it which more perswaded with the Governour then all the other branches of the accusation which he knew well proceeded only from the malice of that head-strong people and yet he was resolved to try all ways to appease their fury at least not to embâ—ue his own hands in the bloud of the innocent He laboured first to satisfie the people in it tels them he found no fault at all in the man accused that if they had a law which declared him guilty they might do well to take him back and try him according unto that And when that would not work upon them but that they cryed out Crucifie him crucifie him with the greater violence he caused him to be sent to Herod as being esteemed a Galilean and consequently belonging to his jurisdiction Thither the chief Priests also followed him and accused him vehemently but could prevail no more with Herod then before with Pilate save that the men of war which belonged to Herod despised him as a man of no consideration exposed him to contempt and scorne and returned him back Pilate then seeing how things went and that somewhat must be done to content the Iews fell on a resolution to chastise him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. by stripes and whipping saith Theophylact and so let him goe And this accordingly he did for the Text saith that Pilate took Jesus and scourged him And more then so the unruly Souldiers were permitted to abuse him in what sort they listed They stripped him of his own cloaths and arraied him in a scarlot robe they platted a crown of thornes which they set on his head and put a reed into his right hand which done they â—owed the knee before him and mocked him saying Haile King of the Iews some of them in the mean time spitting on his face some striking him with their hand and others smiting on the head with that very reed which they had put into his hands in stead of a scepter Never did innocent man indure such a world of contumelies yet this was not all for in this dresse they bring him forth unto the people that they might recreate themselves with that wofull spectacle and Pilate like those fellowes which shew fights and motions ushereth it in with Ecce homo or Behold the man and yet declares before them all that he found no fault in him A most just Judge first to pronounce him innocent and then to scourge him then to expose him to such scorn and misery and after that again to pronounce him innocent to absolve him of all crime which deserved death at the tribunal of his own conscience and presently to give him up to the peoples fury by an order and determinate sentence from the judgment seat in foro judicii and in conclusion when he most wickedly and wilfully had given him over to be murdered whom by all laws of God and Men he was bound to save to play the open Hypocrite before all the world washing his hands and saying in the hearing of all the multitude that he was innocent from the bloud of that righteous person Never was innocent man accused more falsly prosecuted more maliciously nor condemned more unjustly then our blessed Saviour And now to make a brief recapitulation of our Saviours sufferings under Pontius Pilate taking in some of those which are yet to come tell me if on a due consideration of them they were not beyond measure grievous and unsupportable yea such as would have made any mortall man to sinke under the meer burden of them to the bottom of hell if he suffered not most bitter things from heaven earth and hell and in all that any way pertained to him He suffered at the hands of God his Father and of men of Iews and Gentiles of enemies insulting and of friends forsaking being betrayed by one of his chief followers forsworn by another and abandoned by all the rest He suffered from the Prince of darknesse and all his mercilesse and cruel instruments from all the elements of the world the Sun denying to him light the Aire breath and the Earth supportance He suffered in all things that pertained to him that is to say in his name being condemned as a Blasphemer an enemy to Moses the Law the Temple and the worship of God to his own nation also to Caesar and the Romans traduced for a Glutton a companion of Publicans and sinners a Samaritan one that had a Devil and finally did all his miracles by the power of Belzebub next in the things which he possessed when they stripped him out of his garments and cast lots upon his seamlesse coat in his Friends greatly discomforted and dismaid at the â—ight of so many miseries and afflictions as were laid upon him in his soul compassed round with sorrows and distressed with fears besetting him on every side and that even to death in his body when his cheeks were swollen with buffeting his face defiled with being spit on his back torn with the whip his head pierced with the crown of thornes his eyes offended with beholding the behaviour of his most proud insulting enemies his ears with hearing their most execrable Blasphemies his tast with the myrrhe and gall which they gave him to drink his smell with the stench and horror of the place wherein he was crucifyed being a place of dead mens souls and to consummate the extremity of his paines and sorrows his hands and feet digged thorow with those nails which fastned him unto the Crosse his side boared thorow with a speare and during all the time of his Crucifixion his naked body publickly exposed to the view of all spectators So that we see his sufferings under Pontius Pilate deserve
of Canaan on the Priests and Levites being his in his own right Originally by the law of Nature and by him challenged and appropriated as his own domaine All the Tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lords Here 's the Lords claim and title to them as his own propriety Behold I have given the children of Levi all the Tenth or Tithes in Israel for an inheritance for the service which they serve even the service of the Tabernacle of the Congregation There 's the collation of his right on the Tribe of Levi whom he made choyce of to attend in his holy Tabernacle and to do service at his Altar And they continued the inheritance of the Tribe of Levi until the Priesthood was translated unto Christ our Saviour who being made by God the true owner of Tithes a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech became invested ipso facto with that right of Tithing which God had formerly conferred on the Priests and Levites and consequently with a power of disposing of them to them that minister in his Name to the Congregation The second argument which the Apostle doth afford us in this case of Tithes is the Prerogative which Melchisedech haâ— iâ— that particular above Aaron and the sons of Levi. Levi also saith he which received Tithes paid Tithes in Abraham for he was yet in the loyns of his Father when Melchisedech met him Heb. 7.9 10. Then which there cannot be a stronger and more pregnant argument to prove that Tithes are no Mosaical institution or the peculiar maintenance of the Levites but that they are derived from an higher Author and are to be continued to the Ministers of a better Testament For the Apostle taking on him to prove this point that the Priesthood after the Ordâ—â— of Melchisedech was better and more perfect then that which was according to the Order of Aaron useth this argument to evince it and it is a weighty one indeed that Levi himself though he received Tithes of his brethren by the Lords appointment yet he and all his Tribe paid their Tithes to Melchisedech being all vertually and potentially in the loyns of Abraham at such time as Melchisedech met him and consequently being as effectually tithed in Abraham as all mankinde have sinned in Adam from whose loyns they sprung Nay we may work this argument to an higher pitch and make the full scope of it to amount to this That if the Tribe of Levi had been in full possession of the Tithes of their Brethren when Melchisedech met with Abraham and blessed him as became the High Priest of God to do or if Melchisedech had lived in Canaan till their setling in it they must and ought to have done as their Father did and paid their Tithes unto Melchisedâ—eh as the Type of Christ in reference to his everlasting and eternal Priesthood But seeing that this common place hath been so much beaten on I shall only alter some few words of that Noble Gentleman and great Antiquarie Sir Henry Spelman to make his argument more suitable to my present purpose and so close this point Insomuch saith he as Abraham did not pay his Tithes to a Priest that offered a Levitical Sacrifice of Bullocks and Goats but unto him that presented him with Bread and Wine which are the Elements of the Sacrament ordained by Christ this may serve well to intimate thus much unto us that we are to pay our Tithes unto that High Priest an High Priest of Melchisedechs Order who did ordain the Sacrament of Bread and Wine and unto them in his behalf who by his Ordinance and appointment in the Word Hoc facite administer the same unto us And so much for the Sacerdotal Office of our Lord and Saviour which he doth execute for our good at the right hand of God we now proceed unto the Regal which though it is most eminent in his coming to Iudgement and so more properly to be handled in the following Article yet for so much thereof as is exercised at the right hand of God we shall reduce it under this in the following chapter CHAP. XIV Of the Regal or Kingly Office of our Lord as far as it is executed before his coming unto Iudgement Of his Vice-gerents on the Earth and of the several Vice-roys put upon him by the Papists and the Presbyterians WE have not yet done with this branch of the Article that of our Saviours sitting at the right hand of God For of the three Offices allotted to him that of the Priest the Prince and the Prophet all which are comprehended in the name of CHRIST that of the Priest is wholly executed as he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty And so is so much also of the King or the Regal Office as doth concern the preservation of his Church from the hands of her enemies the Regulating of the same by his holy laws and indeed every act and branch thereof except 〈◊〉 of Iudicature which is most visibly discharged in the day of judgement Of all the rest we shall now speak and for our better method and proceeding in it must recall to minde that we told you in our former Chapter how both the Kingdome and the Priesthood of our Saviour Christ did take beginning at the time of his Resurrection He was before a King Elect designed by God to this great Office from before all worlds but not invested with the Crown nor put into the possession of the Throne 〈◊〉 David till he had conquered Death and swallowed up the grave in victory That he was King Elect and in designation is evident by that of the Royal Psalmist where he brings in God Almighty speaking of his only Son and saying I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion as evident by that of the Prophet Daniel where he telleth us that in those days those days which the Apostle calleth the fulness of time the God of Heaven shall set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed which can be meant of none but the Kingdome of Christ. And that we may not have the testimony only of Kings and Prophets which were mortall men but also of the blessed Angels those immortal Spirits we have the Angel Gabriel saying of him to his Virgin-Mother that the Lord would give unto him the Throne of his Father David and of his Kingdome there should be no end But yet he was but King Elect and in designation born to the Crown of the Celestial land of Canaan as the Heir apparent and by that name enquired for by the Wise men saying Vbi est ille qui natus est Rex Iudaeorum i. e. where is he that is born King of the Iews as our Englâ—sh reads it And so do all translations else which I have seen except Bezas and the French which doth follow him And he indeed doth
read it in a different way Vbi est Rex ille Judaeorum qui nat us est But I will not now dispute this point of the translations Suffice it that our Saviour was designed to the Crown of David long before his birth and did not waive his title to it when he was alive Yet was he not actually inaugurated till his resurrection nor intronized at Gods right hand untill his ascension That he was a King in designatiton long before his birth we have proved already And that he did not waive the title when he was alive is proved as plainly by that part of the accusation which the Priests and Pharisees made against him objecting that he called himself Christ a King And when he was interrogated on that Article by Pontius Pilate viz. Art thou the King of the Iews or not he let it passe as a thing granted with a Tu dixisti thou hast said it only distinguishing of his Kingdome and telling him upon more discourse about that point that his Kingdome was not of this world That was enough to rectifie the errour and possesse the Deputie that he had no designes to disturb the State or set on foot his claim to the Crown of Israel though he was sure of finding a considerable party amongst the people who would have made him King by force if he had not removed himself out of their sight And yet had God some further evidence to extort from Pilate and not from him only but from all his Souldiers touching the Kingdome of his CHRIST The Souldiers they arraied him in a purple or imperial robe they set the Crown upon his head though a Crown of thornes they put a scepter in his hand and then bow the knee saying Hail King of the Iews Their purpose I confesse was only to expose him to contempt and laughter But God had also his ends in it and in the vanity of this humour brought forth that acknowledgment which in a serious way they had never uttered A deo veritas ab invitis etiam pectoribus erumpit said Lactantius truly So Pilate before whom he had been accused for taking to himself this title did on the Crosse confirme it to him and freely granted him that honour for taking which or nothing he had been condemned IESVS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE IEWS was a fair testimonie to proceed from the mouth of Pilate the fairer in regard that he stood resolved not to have it altered but made this peremptory answer when the Priests proposed it Quod scripsi scripsi what I have written I have written God certainly was in Pilates mouth and he knew it not For thus became Christs title manifested to the Greeks and Romans and published all abroad by those very means which were intended to suppresse it So unsearchable are the Counsels of Almighty God and his wayes past finding out as the Prophet hath it A Kingdome then our Saviour had and that acknowledged and confessed by his very enemies though all of them mistaken in the nature of it And to say truth the generall opinion of Christs temporal Kingdome was become so epidemicall a disease amongst Iews and Gentiles that neither the wisdome of the Grecians nor the word of God amongst the Iews nor God the word then conversant with his own Disciples could remove the malady And first beginning with the Iews the Oracles of God had long since promised a Messiah but they were wretchedly deceived in the manner of his coming to them expecting such a one as should be answerable to their present miseries and free them from that yoak of bondage which the Romans at that time had laid upon them And as the wise Philosopher tels us that the same man doth place his summum bonum upon divers blessings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being sick he thinks it to consist in health if poor in riches even so this people being under the captivity of a second Babylon dream of no other happinesse then present liberty For this cause they expected such a Messiah whose sword should free them from that thraldome whose Kingdome should be more apparent to the faith of the eye then the eye of faith This was it which made Herod tremble and all Hierusalem with him i. e. as many in Hierusalem as did hold his faction when the wise men demanded saying Where is he that is born King of the Iews This made him murder the young children in Bethlem Iudah and amongst them one of his own sons as the story telleth us a man more cruel in his fears then in his anger The Courtiers most and many of the better sort of people also were all alike possessed with the same poor fancie For seeing the glory of Herods Palace and experimentally knowing his prowesse they conceived him to be the Messiah and on that ground as many learned men are of opinion were called Herodians As for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the baser and ignoble multitude certain it is that the ambition of their hopes did ascend no higher Upon which ground some of them flocked unto Theudas who boasted of himself to be some great body others to Iudas of Galilee who exhorted not to pay tribute both thought to be the King they had so long looked for but miserably deceived in both as the issue proved Their expectation of a temporall Messiah did not fail them yet CHRIST is the next they set their rest on and would have made him King by force He that could feed so many thousands with a few loaves of bread was likely to maintain an Army with no charge at all Afterwards in the days of Hadrian the Roman Emperour they placed their hopes on one Barchochab His name did signifie as much as the son of a star which made them take him for that star of Iacob of which Balaam prophecied and taking him for such to reverence him as Eusebius tels us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he were a star which came down from heaven A Star indeed he proved but a falling star drawing the people generally into rebellion against the Romans on which they were for ever banished from their native Country Nor was it thus only with the Iews in generall but those who had more near relation to their Lord and Saviour The Secretaries to this King the Apostles had all of them their hope stonger then their faith and did already contend amongst themselves which of them should be greatest in their Masters Kingdome Not in his Kingdome of grace nor in that of glory for they dreamed of neither but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his temporal Kingdome rather which they all looked after The seventy which were Clerks of his Counsel so conceived it also and it is no marvell Nam quis viam rectam teneret errante Cicerone We thought said Cleophas that this had been the man that should have delivered Israel Delivered Israel from whom Not
Civil State Not if the State were popular for there were then no popular States when that rule was made the Government of the Church should be also popular but that within such principal Cities as were assigned for the residence of the Civil Magistrate the Prelates of the Church should be also planted This I am sure no learned Romanist can deny And granting this I would have any of them shew when any Monarch having divers Kingdomes under his command did ever yet appoint one General Viceroy to command them all Certain I am that the Assyrian Monarchs had in their several Provinces several Governours as is apparent out of the Book of Daniel So had the Parsians too in the Book of Hester and so the Romans too in St. Lukes Gospel Not to say any thing of the Monarchs of the present times all using the same Arts of Empire And then what reason can there be considering that the Church is bound to follow the external Government of the Civil State that one Lieutenant General should be thought so necessary to govern all Churches in the World seeing one General Vice-roy was not thought sufficient to govern but a few particular Kingdomes Or were it fit and necessary that it should be so yet those of Rome can shew no more Commission from our Lord and Saviour for the appropriating of this Office to St. Peters Chair then a bare Tradition For Bellarmine although he laboured no man more in the search hereof could finde no Text in all the Gospel which would serve his turn and thereupon concludes at last that howsoever some Supremacy in sacred matters might seeme allotted to St. Peter tamen Pontificem Romanum Petro succedere expresse non haberi in Scriptura yet that the Pope succeeded Peter is not found in Scripture What then shall we conceive of the Popish Parasites who give their Pope the title of Vice-deus as Paulo V. Vice-deo the Numeral letters of the which make up 666 as one well observeth but that they are instruments to bring in the Antichrist What of that horrid blasphemie of Petrus Bertrandus who boldly taxeth Christ of great indiscretion in case he had not left behinde him such a Vicar General Visus esset Deus ut cum reverentia ejus loquar indiscretus fuisse nisi unum post se talem Vicarium reliquisset as his own words are and such they are as never any Christian durst pronounce but he If then it be so disagreeable to the Kingdome of Christ to have one General Vice-roy to direct the whole let us next see whether they have not somewhat better provided for him who would impose upon the Church as many petite Popes as there be Parishes if not three for one For by their Plat-form every Parish must be furnisht with a distinct Presbyterie and that Presbyterie to be absolute within it self having authority to censure excommunicate and what not else that appertaineth to Ecclesiastical jurisdiction By means whereof they make Christs Body far more monstrous then the monster Hydra not to have seven heads only but seven hundred thousand Yet this device both new and monstrous though it be must needs be reckoned a chief part of our Saviours Kingdome For as their Champions gave it out in their publick Writings their Controversie was not onely about Caps and Surplices as the world imagined but whether IESVS CHRIST should be King or not Their Discipline they honoured with the Title of Christs holy yoke his Scepter and their endevours as they said aimed at this end only to build up first the wals of Hierusalem and then to set Christs Throne in the midst thereof For why say they the planting of Presbyteries is the full placing of Christ in his Kingdome which whosoever shall reject I use their own words still no others refuse to have Christ reign amongst them and do deny him in effect to be their King Thus went the cry of old for the Presbyterians and now the Independents use the self same words appropriating Christs Kingdome and his Throne and Scepter unto their separate Congregations and Conventicular meetings And questionless it were an excellent representation of Christs glorious Kingdome to have a company of shop-keepers and inferiour handicrafts sitting upon the bench with their zealous Pastour as if they were the twenty four Elders in the Revelation pronouncing some sad judgement on the Tribes of Israel and after hasten to their Trades as Quintius the Dictator did unto his plough ut ad opus relictum festinasse videatur as my Author hath it And yet so highly do they magnifie this new Kingdome of theirs which they have raised up for themselves in our Saviours Name that Kings and Princes must be suffered to rule no longer then they submit themselves and their Supreme power to the divine authority of their new Presbyteries For Beza quarrelleth with Erastus and thinks him guilty of high Treason against God Almighty quod Principes Reges a Divina ista Dominatione exemerit because he doth not think it fit that Kings and Princes should submit unto this fine yoak the Iudgement seat of Christ as he idlely cals it And some amongst our selves have not spared to say that a true government of the Church there can never be till Kings and Queens submit themselves unto the Church subject their Scepters and lay down their Crowns before this Throne yea lick up the very dust of the Churches feet and willingly endure such Censures be they what they will as the Divine Presbyterie shall impose upon them Huic Disciplinae omnes Reges Principes fasces suos submittere necesse est as Travers once did state it in his Book of Discipline And could they bring it once to that as they much endevour it it were Regale Presbyterium a Royal Presbyterie to the purpose though not unto the purpose the Apostle speaks of To joyn these Foxes the Genevian and Roman both together which though they look two several ways as if they were to run quite contrary to one another do yet carry fire-brands in their Tayles as once Sampsons did and like them are combined to destroy our harvest I would commend unto them that Vice-roy or Vicar General for I perceive they will have one which once Tertullian did commend to the Primitive Church even the holy Ghost For in his Treatise de Virgin veland he calleth him in plain tearms Vicarium illum Domini Spiritum sanctum and doth assign this Office to him dirigere ordinare ad perfectum perducere Disciplinam to direct order and dispose of us in such a manner as may make us perfect at the last in all Christian piety But if they will have nothing to do with the holy Ghost as I think they will not in this business we shall then finde them lawful Vice-roys made of flesh and bloud and those too of Christs own appointment not of mans devising That he doth
and Martyrs approving and applauding as before I said that most righteous judgement which CHRIST shall then pronounce against all the wicked saying Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels This dreadful sentence thus pronounced and the condemned persons being delivered over by the Angels of God to the Devil and his according to the sentence of that righteous Iudge CHRIST shall arise from his Tribunal and together with his elect Angels and most blessed Saints shall in an orderly and triumphant manner ascend into the Heaven of Heavens where unto every one of his glorious Saints he shall bestow the immarcessible Crown of glory and make them Kings and Priests unto God the Father When all the Princes of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of CHRIST God shall be still a King of Kings a King indeed of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium always but most amply them For then shall CHRIST deliver up the Kingdom unto God the Father which how it must be understood we have shewn before And the Saints laying down their Crowns at the feet of Christ shall worship and fall down before him saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to God to reign with thee in thy Kingdome for evermore Thus have I made a brief but a plain discovery so far forth as the light of Scripture could direct me in it both of the manner of our Saviours coming unto Judgement and of the Method he shall use in the act of judging That which comes after Iudgement whether life or death whether it be the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell will fall more properly under the consideration of the last Article of the Creed that of Life Everlasting and there we mean to handle all those particulars which I think pertinent thereunto In the mean time a due and serious consideration of this day of Iudgement will be exceeding necessary to all sorts of people and be the strongest bridle to restrain them from the acts of sin that ever was put into the mouths of ungodly men For what a bridle think we must it be unto them to keep them from unlawful lusts nay from sinful purposes when they consider with themselves that in that day the hearts of all men shall be opened their desires made known and that no secrets shall be hid but all laid open as it were to the publick view What a strong bridle must it be to curb them and to hold them in when they are in the full careere and race of wickedness when they consider with themselves that there will be no way nor means to escape this Judgement Though they procure the Rocks to fall upon them and the Hils to hide them yet will Gods Angels finde them out and gather them from every corner of the World be they where they will Though they have flattered their poor souls and said Tush God will not see it or have disguised themselves with fig-leaves out of a silly hope to conceal their nakedness or wiped their lips so cunningly with the harlot in the Book of Proverbs that no man can discern a stollen kiss upon them yet all this will not serve the turn God will for all this bring them unto judgement and apprehend them by his Angels when they go a gathering There shall not one of them escape the hands of these diligent Sergeants Ne unus quidem no not one And finally what a bridle must it be unto them to hold them from exorbitant wickedness as either the crucifying again of the Lord of glory the persecuting of the Saints their mischievous plots against the Church in her peace and Patrimony when they consider with themselves that he whom thus they crucifie is to be their Iudge and that those poor souls whom they now contemn shall give a vote or suffrage on their condemnation and that the poor afflicted Church which they made truly militant by their foul oppressions malgre their tyranny and confederacies shall become Triumphant And on the other side what a great comfort must it be to the righteous man to think that Christ who all this while hath been his Mediator with Almighty God shall one day come to be his Iudge What a great consolation must it be unto him in the time of trouble to think that all his groans are registred his tears kept in a bottle and his sighs recorded and that there is a Iudge above who will wipe all the tears from his eyes and give him mirth in stead of mourning What an incouragement must it be unto him in the way of godliness when he considereth with himself that there is laid up for him a Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day and give it him in the fight both of men and Angels Finally what strength and animation must it put into them to make them stand couragiously in the cause of Christ and to contemn what ever misery can be laid upon them in the defence of Christs and the Churches cause when they consider with themselves that there is no man who hath lost Father or Mother or wife or children or lands and possessions for the sake of Christ but shall receive much more in this present world and in the world to come life everlasting For behold he cometh quickly as himself hath told us and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his work shall be Even so Lord Jesus So be it Amen THE SUM Of Christian Theologie Positive Philological and Polemical Contained in the APOSTLES CREED or Reducible to it THE THIRD PART By Peter Heylyn 1 Cor. 12.13 For by one Spirit are we all Baptized into one Body whether we be Iews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit LONDON Printed for Henry Seyle 1654. ARTICLE IX Of the Ninth ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. IAMES the Son of ALPHEVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Credo in Spiritum sanctum sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam i. e. I beleeve in the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church CHAP. I. Touching the Holy Ghost his divine Nature Power and Office the Controversie of his Procession laid down Historically Of Receiving the Holy Ghost and of the severall ministrations in the Church appointed by him WE are now come unto the third and last part of this Discourse containing in the first place the Article of the Holy Ghost and of the holy Catholick Church gathered together and preserved by the power thereof And in the rest those several Gifts and special Benefits which Christ conferreth by the operation of
as also a Crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4.8 and finally a Crown of life by St. Iames Chap. 1.12 With one of which Crowns or some like unto it we shall be all made Kings in Gods heavenly Kingdom as is affirmed by St. Iohn in the Revelation In a word it is sometimes called Civitas Dei viventis or the City of the living God as in that to the Hebrews Chap. 12.5 A City by St. Iohn described to be of pure Gold and as clear as Chrystal the Walls of Iaspar stone and the Gates of Pearl and all the Pavements throughout of most precious stones Which Character we must not understand in the literal but the mystical sense The Man of God in his description of the New Ierusalem selecting such materials to set forth the same as he conceived to be most estimable in the eyes of men Put all which hath been said together and we shall finde That under this one notion of Life Everlasting are comprehended all the comforts which attend the same that is to say A Kingdom and a Crown of glory the joyes and never-fading pleasures which are to be possessed at the right hand of God in that Heavenly City the very Gates whereof are so rich and beautiful O coelo dilecta domus postesque beati A City where we shall possess all divine contentments which possibly the soul of man can aspire unto health without sickness beauty without blemish felicity without admixture of afflictions and joy without disconsolâ—â—ion There shall we for evermore enjoy the Beatifical Vision of Almighty God when we shall see him face to face in his perfect glory and know him as we are known of him not by faith but sight which is the onely object of divine felicity Visio Dei beatifica sola est summum bonum nostrum said St. Augustine truly And in that blessed Vision of Almighty God we shall with joy possess those unspeakable glories which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such as it was not possible for a man to utter which neither the tongue of man nor angels can express aright To which what need we adde the happiness which we shall enjoy in having the society of the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble army of Martyrs the beloved embraces of those happy souls whose sad departure from us we so much lamented What need it be added unto this That there we shall enjoy those favors which the frown of Princes cannot ruine nor the riot of posterity impair nor the tongues of evil people blemish those riches which the rust of pleasure shall not eat into nor the moth of vanity consume nor the great thief of Hell steal from us In a word What need be added unto this That there we shall attain such an height of bliss Vt ne voto quidem opus sit that there shall be no need of prayers but we shall spend our whole eternity in no other office than singing Hymns of praise and glory to the Lord our God All this and more than can be added is comprehended in the glory of that blessed Vision which is all in all But of the glories and felicities of eternal life it is enough to say a little because it is impossible we should say enough Two things there are which may deserve a further and more punctual search because they have been much debated amongst the learned The one about the different degrees in eternal happiness the other about the knowledge which the Saints shall have of one another whether they lived with us or in other ages Of both these I shall venture a word or two in a positive way rather than traverse and debate them in the way of Argument And first beginning with the last It is apparent that the Apostles knew our Saviour after his Resurrection from the grave of death and that the people of Ierusalem the holy City did know those Saints who rose together with our Saviour and appeared unto them though both our Saviour and those Saints rose in glorified bodies Bodies not subject any more unto putrefaction And if a mortal eye could see and distinguish clearly of such bodies as by their Resurrection were become incorruptible how much more may we think that a glorified eye is able to recall unto our remembrance the knowledge of that glorified body which formerly we knew in the state of corruption It is apparent also by our Saviours Parable that Dives and Lazarus knew each other though then in divers places and in different states the one at rest in Abrahams bosom the other in the pit of Hell and in flames unquenchable How much more shall the Saints the Elect of God both know and be made known unto one another abiding in the same place and the same estate and looking daily in the Mirror of Gods blessed Vision which represents all things unto them in their true condition We shall then know as we are known of God as St. Paul hath told us out of which place St. Augustine comforted a poor widow called Italica who mourned heavily for the loss of her husband assuring her That as in this life she saw him with external eyes but with those eyes discerned no more than his outward lineaments so in the life to come she should see him again and in that sight discern the very thoughts of his heart and all his secret counsels and imaginations Nor shall we onely know and be known of those with whom we took sweet counsel together or walked together in the House of the Lord as Friends but at the first sight shall be able to say that this is Abraham Isaac Iacob these are the Saints that went before us these are they who came in the arrere many ages after For Christ our Saviour tells the Iews That they should see Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God Not see them as men see a stranger whom they did not know but see them so as to know who they were by their names and qualities Else could not the discomfort be so great unto them to see their Fathers after the flesh and all the Prophets whom they murdered in a state of glory and they their miserable and unhappy children to be quite excluded from the same And the same Christ our Saviour doth assure his followers That they should sit at the same Table with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven that is to say They should commerce as freely and as knowingly with those antient Patriarks as men that use to eat together in the self-same house Besides the Scriptures do affirm in several places That at the last day shall be a manifest declaration of the just judgment of God when he shall reward every man according to the works which he hath done in the flesh whether good or evil And if the works of every man shall be
properly the fundamental act and radical qualification of the faith of Adam But after he had fallen from his first integrity and that the Lord out of meer pity to his frail perishing creature was pleased to promise him some measure of reparation in the womans seed then did the bruising of the Serpents head by the seed of the woman become a partial object of the faith of Adam and of all those who afterwards descended of him in the line of Grace And yet this was but in a general apprehension of the mercies of God and of his constancy and veracity in fulfilling his word no distinct Revelation being made till the time of Abraham so much as from what branch of the root of Adam this promised blessing was to come A pregnant argument whereof I think is offered to us in the errour of our Grandam Eve who on the birth of Cain her first-born but most wicked son conceived that he should be the man in whom the promise made by God was to be fulfilled and therefore said I have gotten a man from the Lord as our English reads it but rather possedi virum ipsum IEHOVAH I have gotten a man even the Lord IEHOVAH as Paulus Phagius a very learned Hebritian doth correct that reading And as for Abraham himself though it pleased God to tell him more particularly then before was intimated that in his seed should all the families of the Earth be blessed yet so unsatisfied was he as concerning Sarah or that this general blessing was to come of a son by her that when GOD promised such a son from that barren womb by whom she was to be a Mother of Kings and Nations instead of giving thanks to God he returned this answer O that Ishmael might live before thee And though upon the duplicate of this gracious promise that in Isaac should his seed be called he was sufficiently instructed and believed accordingly that the great mercy which God promised to our Father Adam was to descend in time from the loyns of Isaac yet that he should be born of an imaculate Virgin that he should suffer such and so many indignities and at the last a bitter and most shameful death by the hands of those who seemed to boast so much in nothing as that they were the children of this faithful Abraham as it was never that we read of revealed unto him so have we no reason to believe that it was any part or object of his faith at all The like may be affirmed in general of the house of Israel till God was pleased to speak more plainly and significantly to them by the mouth of his Prophets then he had done unto their Fathers in dreams and visions For having nothing further revealed unto them touching Christ to come then what was intimated first in generals to our Father Adam and more particularly specified to their Father Abraham the primary and principal Object of their faith was God alone conceive me still of God the Father Almighty in whom they looked for the performance of those gracious promises which he had made unto their Fathers though of the time when the manner how and other the material points which the Creed contains they were utterly ignorant and consequently could not ground any faith upon them In after times as GOD imparted clearer light to the house of Iacob for the neerer we are to the Sun-rising the more day appeareth so were they bound to give belief to such Revelations or supernatural truths revealed call them which you will which he vouchsafed to make unto them by his holy Prophets Which howsoever they contained in them a sufficient light to guide them to the knowledge of many particular points and circumstances which were to be accomplished in the time and place of Christs Nativity his course of life and sufferings and most shameful death which every one could see when they came to pass that whatsoever had been done by or concerning him did come to pass according as had been sore-signified in the holy Scriptures yet this great light of prophesie which did shine amongst them was but like a Candle in a dark Lanthorn or hid under a bushel and rather served to convince them of incredulity when he was ascended then to prepare them to receive him when he came unto them He came unto his own and his own received him not saith St. Iohn expressely And for the Prophets themselves 't is true that they have in them many positive and plain predictions of the Incarnation Nativity and Circumcision of Christ of his Passion Resurrection and Ascension as also of the most remarkable passages and occurrences in the whole course of his life And yet a question hath been made amongst learned men whether they did always distinctly foresee or explicitely believe whatsoever they did fore-tell or fore-signifie concerning Christ. Nor can I finde but that this question is resolved to this effect that though they had a right apprehension of the truths by them delivered and a foresight of all those future events of which they prophesied according to the accomplishment and sense thereof by themselves intended yet that this foresight of theirs extended not to all branches of divine truth contained in their writings or to that use and application which was after made of them by CHRIST himself and his Evangelists and Apostles with this mark of reference that such and such things came to pass that the sayings of the Prophets might be fulfilled For many things are extant in the Prophetical writings either by way of Typical prefigurations or positive and plain predictions applyable to the life and actions of our Lord and Saviour and the success and fortunes of his holy Church which in all probability was never so intended by those sacred Pen-men For who can reasonably conceive that Moses in the story of the commanded offering up of Isaac the only son of his Father intended to typifie or fore-shadow the real offering up of CHRIST the only begotten Son of God neer the self same place or that this Ceremony in the ordering of the Paschal Lamb ye shall not break a bone thereof did look so far in the first institution of it as to the not breaking of our Saviours legs in the time of his passion or that the setting up of the Brazen Serpent was by him meant to signifie and foreshew the lifting up of the Son of God upon the Cross to the end that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have eternal life as himself applyes it in St. Iohn The like may be affirmed of David to whom the Lord had promised that of the fruit of his body there should one sit upon his Throne for evermore Psal. 132. that God would set his King upon his holy hill of Sion Psal. 2. with many other predictions to the same effect And yet it may be questioned upon very good reason whether he understood
those Prophesies which himself delivered of a spiritual Kingdome in the souls of men such as our Saviour Christ erected in his holy Church in whom the said predictions were accomplished and of whom intended and not rather of the flourishing and continuance of his temporal Kingdome the Royal seat whereof was by him setled on Mount Sion and the renown of his magnificence and personal valour had made so formidable to the Nations which were round about him And may it not be questioned also if not out of question whether that famous Prophesie Behold a Virgin shall conceive had any reference in the intention of the Prophet Isaiah to the Virgin Mary and the birth of Christ But of this more hereafter in another place The like whereof might be made good in most of the rest of the Prophets if one would put himself to the trouble of searching into all particulars which might be disputed or rather if our Saviour CHRIST himself had not already put it beyond all disputes when he thus said to his Disciples that many Kings and Prophets have desired to see the things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them upon which words we may infer that the Evangelists and Apostles being bound to teach no other things in the Church of CHRIST then what had been foretold by Moses and the holy Prophets both knew and taught others also to believe many things of CHRIST which the Prophets no not David himself the Kingly Prophet although they very much desired it did not see nor hear of and therefore that they did not distinctly apprehend the meaning of the holy Ghost in all those things which he was pleased to utter by their mouths or express by their pens touching CHRIST to come For otherwise they must have seen all that the Evangelists saw and have known all the mysteries of the Kingdome of Heaven which the Apostles after our Saviours resurrection either knew or taught which is directly contradictory to our Saviours words and to the truth of his assertion When therefore it is said so often in the holy Gospel that some things were either done or suffered that the sayings of the Prophets might be fulfilled we must not understand it in that sense alone whereof the Prophets did intend it or of that natural proper and immediate end to which the Prophets did direct it but of some further mystical or mysterious meaning reserved in the intention of the holy Ghost and in the fulness of time accomplished by our Lord and Saviour according unto that intention though no such meaning was imparted to the Prophets themselves whose mouths he made the pen of a ready writer But then perhaps it will be said that if the Prophets had not a distinct and explicite apprehension of every thing by them delivered in the way of Prophesie but either knew not what they spake or spake what they did not understand they differed little if at all from the Heathen Sooth-sayers who foretold many things which did come to pass but without any apprehension of the truth thereof For satisfying of which scruple we may please to know that when the evil spirit did intend to foresignifie any thing to come by the mouth of the Sooth-sayers or Diviners amongst the Heathens he used to cast them into a trance or extasie so that they used to rave or speak in those sudden fits that which they neither understood at the time they spake it nor could remember when they came to their sense again These they called Arreptitii in the Latine as being snatched up as it were from the use of their senses to move divine and immaterial contemplations but generally both in Greek and Latine they were called Ecstatici from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Hierome rightly rendreth excessus mentis an exilience or transport of minde adding that he can tell of no other word by which to express it in the Latine Aliter enim Latinus sermo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exprimere non potest nisi mentis excessum Tertullian doth not only make it a transport of minde but such as is conjoyned with a spice of madness Extasin dicimus excessum sensus amentiae instar And such an extasie he thought had been fallen on Peter when saying on the sight of his Masters glorious transfiguration Bonum est nobis esse hic that it was good for them to continue there the Evangelist gives this character or censure of him Nesciens quid diceret that he understood not what he said Luk. 9.33 But this was only a device or conceit of his being now fallen into the heresie of Montanus to countenance by the like frenzy of St. Peter the raving follies or plain madness of Maximilla Prisca and such other Prophetesses to whom that wretched and infatuated man had given up himself Of those or one of them he telleth us in his Book De Anima that in those extasies which she suffered by the Spirit of God she had the grace of Prophesie imparted to her Est hodie soror apud nos Revelationum charismata sortita quas in Ecclesia inter Dominica solemnia per Extasin in Spiritu patitur and this he plainly calleth in another place Spiritalis extasis i. e. amentia a spiritual extasie or madness Whereof he gives this reason in another of his Books against the Marcionites In spiritu enim homo constitutus praesertim quum gloriam Dei conspicit vel quum per ipsum Deus loquitur necesse est ut excidat sensu obumbratus scilicet virtute divina that is to say a man being ravished in the Spirit especially when he beholds the glory of God which he took to be S. Peters case or when God doth please to speak by him which was the case of Prisca and her fellow Prophetesses must needs be ravished from his senses being so fully over-shadowed by the Spirit of God His exposition of the word we allow well of and doubt not but it was a plain spirit of madness which fell on Maximilla and her fellow Prophetesses as well as on any of the Heathen Soothsayers at the time of their prophesying whom for this cause the Latines called Furentes or Furiosos men besides themselves Hi sunt Furentes quos in publicum videtis excurrere vates ipsi absque Templo sic insaniunt sic bacchantur sic rotantur as Minutius hath it In which we do not only finde their name but those frantick and absurd gesticulations which they did commonly express in the time of those extasies to signifie what an heavy burden of the Spirit did then lie upon them But so it was not with the Prophets inspired by God who very well understood what they said and did and did not only prophesie what should come to pass but did it in a constant and coherent way of expression and with a grave