Spirit in which we shall discern both his power and office These gifts and graces of the Spirit the School-men commonly divide into Gratis data such as being freely given by God are to be spent as freely for the good of others of which kinde are the gift of tongues curing diseases and the like and gratum facientia such as do make him good and gracious on whom it pleaseth God to bestow the same as Faith Iustice Charity The first are in the Scripture called by the name of gifts Now there are diversity of gifts saith the Apostle but the same Spirit For to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by the same Spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecy to another discerning of spirits to another divers kindes of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues The later are called Fruits by the same Apostle The Fruits of the Spirit saith he are love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance The Gifts are known most commonly by the name of Gratis data the Fruits pertain to Gratum facientia The Gratum facientia belong to every man for himself the Gratis data for the benefit of the Church in common That which God giveth us for the benefit and use of others must be so spent that they may be the better for it because not given unto us for own sakes onely nor to gain others to our selves but all to him In which respect Gods Servants are to be like Torches which freely wast themselves to give light to others like Powder on the day of some Publick Festival which freely spends it self to rejoyce the multitude That which he gives us for our selves must be so improved that we may thereby become fruitful unto all good works vessels prepared and sanctified for the Masters use In the first of these we may behold the power of the Holy Ghost in the last his office His power in giving tongues to unlearned men knowledge to the ignorant wisdom to the simple the gift of prophecy even unto very Babes and Sucklings I mean to men not studied in the Liberal Sciences A power so great that no disease is incurable to it no spirit so subtile and disguised but is easie discerned by it no tongue so difficult and hard which it cannot interpret no miracle of such seeming impossibility but it can effect it In which regard the Holy Ghost is called in Scripture The power of God The power of the most High shall over-shadow thee Luke 1.35 And Christ our Lord having received the ointing of the holy Spirit is said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Acts 10.38 Nor want I Reasons to induce me unto this opinion that when Simon Magus had effected by his sorceries and lying wonders to be called the great power of God but that his purpose was to make men believe that he was the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of God which title afterwards he bestowed on his strumpet Helena and took that of CHRIST unto himself as the more famed and fitting for his devilish purposes Next for his Office that consisteth in regenerating the carnal and sanctifying the regenerate man First In regenerating of the carnal For except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God saith our Blessed Saviour of Water as the outward Element but of the holy Spirit as the inward Efficient which moving on the Waters of Baptism as once upon the face of the great Abyss doth make them quickning and effectual unto newness of life Then for the Work of Sanctification that is wrought wholly by the Spirit who therefore hath the name of the Holy Ghost not onely because holy in himself formaliter but because holy effective making them holy who are chosen unto life eternal So say St. Peter the first and St. Paul the last of the Apostles St. Peter first Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience 1 Pet. 1.2 And so St. Paul But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of our Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 6.11 That is to say Iustified in the Name of our Lord Iesus through Faith in him and sanctified by the Spirit of God through the effusion of his Graces in the Soul of Man The work of Sanctification is not wrought but by many acts as namely By shedding abroad in our hearts that most excellent gift of charity filling our souls with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost by teaching us to adde To our faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity that we be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ. Though Christ be the Head yet is the Holy Ghost the Heart of the Church from whence the vital spirits of grace and godliness are issued out unto the quickning of the Body mystical And as the vital spirits in the body natural are sensibly perceived by the motion of the heart the breathing of the mouth and by the beating of the pulse so by the same means may we easily discern the motions of the Spirit of Grace First It beginneth in the heart by putting into us new hearts more sanctified desires than we had before A new heart will I also give you and a new spirit will I put within you saith the Lord by the Prophet Ezekiel And to what end That ye may walk in my Statutes and keep my Iudgments This new heart is like the new wine which our Saviour speaks of not possible to be contained in old bottles but will break out first in new desires For Novum supervenisse spiritum nova demonstrant desideria as St. Bernard hath it Nor will it break out onely in desires or wishes but we shall finde it on our tongues for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh And if the heart be throughly sanctified we may be sure that no corrupt communication will come out of our mouths but onely such as is good to the use of edifying and may minister grace unto the hearers The same breath in the natural body is Organon vitae vocis as experience telleth us The Instrument of life and voice it is the same we live by and the same we speak by And so it is also in the Body mystical as well the vocal as the vital breath proceeding both alike from the Holy Ghost Nor stayes it onely on the tongue but as the beating of the pulse is best found at the hand so if we would desire to know how the
in other things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is the end of the Law saith he because the justifiâ—ation of man which the Law undertook but could not accomplish was perfected and made good by Christ. And secondly both Christ may be said to be the end of the Law and the Law to bring men unto Christ because as Musculus well observeth the Law convincing men of sin exacting a righteousnesse of them which it doth not enable them to performe and again threatning and condemning them for the want thereof Nihil aliud agit quam quod ad Christum ducit per quem justificemur gratis doth lead them as it were by the hand to Christ by whose grace they are freely justifyed In a word our Saviour Christ is said to be the end of the Law and the Law to be a School-master to bring men to Christ because the whole Mosaical oeconomie which in one word is called The Law was for that end and purpose given unto the Iewes that it might instruct them touching the Messiah who was then to come and that in time they might be trained up and prepared to receive him and with him that more perfect forme of life and worship which he should establish at his coming And this is that which was intended by the Writers of the Primitive times when they tell us that the Law was nothing else but the Gospel masked the Gospel nothing else but the Law revealed or the vail taken away from the face of Moses Such passages in the books of the old Testament which relate to Christ before his coming in the flesh were so dark and difficult that those who were well exercised in the law of God and made it their study day and night might very well have asked this question as the Eunuch did Of whom I pray thee speaketh the Prophet this of himself or of some other man But when the Gospel came to be preached and published and that our Saviour had fulfilled all things which were spoken of him by the Prophets then was it easie to discern even by vulgar wits that the whole doctrine of the Gospel was contained in the Law and every thing concerning Christ either fore-shadowed or fore-signifyed in Types and Prophesies To bring this business to an end that both the Patriarchs and the Iews did rely on God for the accomplishment of his promise touching their salvation I do nothing doubt there being such evident testimonies of it from the first to the last I have waited for thy salvation O Lord saith the Patriarch Iacob long before the Law And almost at the expiration or last breath thereof it is said of Simeon that he waited for the consolation of Israel of Anna the old Prophetesse that she spake of CHRIST to all them that looked for redemption in Hierusalem but that they were acquainted with the means and method which God did purpose to make use of in so great a work or did rely on Christ to come for their justification as the Scripture no where saith it for ought I can finde so is there no reason to believe it for ought I can see What then perhaps will some men say had the Iews no advantages of their neighbouring Nations in matters which pertained to eternal life Yes certainly much every way For to the Israelites saith St. Paul pertained the Adoption and the Glory and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises Theirs also were the Fathers and of them according to the flesh was Christ to come The Psalmist hath contracted these prerogatives of the house of Israel into somewhat a more narrow compasse He sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and ordinances unto Israel And then he addes He hath not dealt so with any Nations neither have the Heathen knowledge of his lawes Here was Prerogative enough the communion of his word the publication of his Law the Covenant made with those of the seed of Abraham and thereby their Adoption to eternal life and most unquestionably true it must be thought that there was no Nation under heaven to whom the ordinary means of salvation had been offered with so free an hand as it been to those of Iudah But yet the Psalmist doth not say that God was known only amongst the Iews or that he had not revealed so much of himself unto other Nations as to let them have a tast of his love and goodness or that he had not left them any knowledge of his Law at all for their directions in the way of life and godlyness For first besides the light of nature whith is given to every man that comes into the world and by the which the most barbarous people are instructed that there is a God they could not choose but know him in his very workes The heavens declaring the glory of God and the firmament shewing his handy-work as the Psalmist hath it His power and goodness they had tasted in their severall times in that he gave them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and filled their hearts with food and gladness as the Apostle pleaded it to them of Lystra And for the Law the Apostle telleth us this expresly that the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law and having not the Law are a Law to themselves which shewes the work of the Law written in their hearts their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another But yet they had not such a knowledge either of God himself or the Law of God or any such ordinary outward means to attain the same as God had given at the same time to the house of Israel For they not only had the Law in writing which the Gentiles had not but they had the writings of the Prophets as a comment on it and more then so an ordinance or command from the Lord himself for the publick reading of the Law before them once in every year that they might hear and learn and fear the Lord their God and observe all the things of the Law to do them Greater advantages then these could no people have to bring them up in the assurance of eternal life which if all of them did not attain unto they had no reason to complain that God had been wanting unto them for what could he have done to his vineyard which he did not do but that they were wanting to themselves and made no profit by the Talent which the Lord had given them Reperies eos prius deseruisse quam desertos esse as in another case but of the same people said the Christian Advocate Yet notwithstanding the advantages which this people had the Gentiles were not left so destitute of all outward means to bring them to the knowledge of God as to be capable of excuse in their sins and wickedness though
he only made a shew of faith which he never had Why so Quia Lucas aperte testatur eum credidisse because S. Luke affirms that he did believe being convinced by the signs and miracles which S. Philip wrought as many others of Samaria at the same time were And yet no doubt but Simon Magus was a Reprobate a man rejected by the Lord in regard of his wickedness and that his heart was not right in the sight of God and afterwards an author of such mischief in the Church of God that Ignatius who lived neer those times very rightly cals him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first begotten of the Devil The like mâ—y be affirmed also of Alexander Hymeneus and Philetus who had been made partakers of the Faith of CHRIST and were zealous in it for the time but afterwards made shipwrack of it denying amongst other Articles of the Christian faith that of the resurrection of the dead and thereby overthrowing the faith of some Men questionless given over to a reprobate sense or else we may be well assured St. Paul had never given them over to the hands of Satan as it is plain he did But what need search be made into these particulars when Calvin himself affirms in general Reprobis fidem tribui eosdem interdum simili fere sensu atque Electos affici eosque merito dici Deum sibi propitium credere c. that Faith is given unto the Reprobate that sometimes they are touched with the like sense of Gods grace as the Elect ones are and may deservedly be said to believe that God is favourable and propitious to them God sometimes makes the Sun of Righteousness as well as the Sun of Heaven to shine on the evil and on the good Which notwithstanding Faith is called and that most properly Fides Electorum the Faith of Gods Elect in that and other places of the Book of God because the fruits thereof are in them more visible the confession of the same more fervent the seeds thereof more fastly rooted and the fruit more durable For which cause possibly the Apostle doth there join together the faith of Gods Elect and the knowledge of the truth which is after godliness Which is indeed the special difference which is between the faith of the Elect and the faith of the Reprobates For if the fruit be unto holiness no question but the end thereof will be life everlasting It is not then the weakness or the want of faith which doth alone exclude the Reprobate from the Kingdom of Heaven and make him finally uncapable of the grace and favour of the Lord in the day of judgement but the want of a good conscience in the sight of God And therefore if we mark it well St. Peter did not charge it upon Simon Magus that he wanted faith or that his faith was only a dissembled hypocritical faith upbraiding him as formerly Ananias in another case that he had not only lyed unto men but unto God but that he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity not having his heart right in the sight of God Nor did St. Paul accuse the said three Apostates that they never had received the faith or that the faith which they received was not true and real but that first having put away a good conscience they afterwards made shipwrack of the faith also blaspheming God and scattering abroad their dangerous errours to the seducing of their brethren If Simon had repented of his wickedness as St. Peter advised it may be charitably supposed that the thoughts of his heart had been forgiven him And Hymeneus and Alexander if they had made good use of the Apostles censure when he delivered them unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh no question but their spirits might have been saved in the day of the Lord IESUS Which may suffice for answer to the first objection touching the faith of reprobates as they use to call them whose firm assent to supernatural truths revealed makes them not inheritable to the Kingdom of Heaven because they hold the truth revealed in unrighteousness and so become without excuse as St. Paul tels us in another case of the antient Gentiles The next Objection is that if this phrase in Deum credere import no more then this that there is a God and that all his words are Divine truths and all the world the workmanship of his hands alone the Devils do belieue as much as St. Iames assures us Thou believest saith he that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble Iam. 1.19 The answer unto this is easie St. Iames assures us of the Devils that they believe there is one God but doth withall assure us this that this belief of theirs confirms them in the certainty and foreknowledge of their everlasting damnation the apprehension of the which produceth nothing in them but fear and horrour The Devils do believe that there is a God and that this God is just in all his actions and righteous in all his ways unchangeable in his Decrees Yesterday and to day and the same for ever What other comfort can they reap from this faith of theirs but that being once condemned by God to eternal fire they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgement of the great and terrible day For knowing that the judgements of the Lord are just and his doom unchangeable they must needs know withall the certainty of their own damnation or else they cannot properly be affirmed to believe this truth that there is a God And as they do believe that there is a God so they believe also that he is the Maker of heaven and earth For being at the first created by Almighty God with so great perspicacity and clearness of the understanding they could not choose but know the hand that made them and consequently believe that he made all those things which are ascribed to God in the holy Scripture Though by their fall they lost the favour of the Lord their first estate in which they were created by Almighty God the grace by which they stood and the glories which they did possess yet lost they not that quickness and agility of motion that perspicacity and clearness of the understanding wherewith they were endowed by God at their first Creation But what makes this unto their comfort when the same knowledge or belief call it which you will by which they are assured that God made the Heavens and the Earth and all the things therein contained will keep them always in remembrance of this most sad truth that he also made an Hell of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth prepared for the Devill and his Angels To go a little farther yet the Devils did not only believe long since that CHRIST was come in the flesh but publickly proclaimed him in the open
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
which were dead already that by their merits they might finde success of their prayers unto him And in another place he determineth positively for the matter of fact that though the Saints are prayed to now in the times of the Gospel Ante adventum Christi non invocabantur yet were they not prayed unto or invocated till the coming of Christ. Finding no better comfort for them in the Old Testament let us next follow them to the New in which the Texts most stood upon to confirm their doctrine are in the 15 of St. Luke In the seventeenth verse we read it thus I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth And in the tenth I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth These are the Texts which make most for them and these God knows make very little to the purpose For first according to the Exposition of some Antient writers the hundred sheep mentioned in our Saviours Parable represent the whole body of the Elect both Men and Angels whereof the ninety nine were the holy Angels continuing in their first integrity the stray sheep all mankinde which was lost in Adam for whose recovery the Son of God that good Shepherd Iohn 10.10 did suffer death upon the Cross and so accomplished the great work of mans redemption For this see Hilary on St. Matth. Can. 18. Chrysologus Serm. 168. Titus Bostrensis on the place Isidore in his Book of Allegories not to descend to later Writers though Cajetan and others of the Romish party might be here alleged Which Exposition if admitted overthrows the project for then no more can be inferred from those Texts of Scripture but that there is great joy in the Court of Heaven and in particular amongst the blessed Angels for the redemption or recovery of lost man by Christ. But waving the advantage of this Exposition and granting that those Texts relate to particular persons yet all that can be logically inferred from hence is That the Saints and Angels do know some things and at some times which are done here upon the Earth namely so often and so much as God of his especial grace doth reveal unto them This is all and this we will not grutch them for observe the Inference Our Saviour as his use was spake in Parables even in the Parables of the lost sheep the lost groat and the Prodigal Son A certain man having a flock consisting of an hundred sheep doth lose one of the hundred and after long search made doth finde it and bring it back unto the Fold A certain woman is supposed having a little stock of ten peeces of silver to lose one of her peeces and after great pains taken to meet with it again On this they call together their friends and neighbors and say unto them Rejoyce with us for we have found the sheep and the peece of silver which was lately lost So then unless the man and woman in our Saviours Parable had pleased to call their friends together and imparted to them the finding of the lost sheep and the lost peece of silver the friends and neighbors might have been so far from shewing any great joy at the recovery that possibly they might have never heard of the loss If so then certainly it cannot be inferred from hence that the Saints and Angels which are the friends and neighbors of those several Parables are privy to our wants on Earth by course and ordinary dispensation but onely this that some things and at some times are imparted to them by their God by way of grace and extraordinary revelation No Protestant as I conceive so void of Reason as to make question of the one no Papist hitherto so cunning as to prove the other This though it seem to be a very bold and venturous Assertion may very easily be made good though we should use no other medium for the proof thereof than their own difference and disagreement in the manner of it A difference or contrariety indeed so great and admirable that fire and water will more easily be reconciled than their opinions Five several ways have been invented by the Schoolmen and those that since have travelled in the controversies of the present times by which to make the Saints acquainted with our state on Earth some false others blasphemous and the rest so doubtful that there is no belief to be given unto them no building to be laid on such weak foundations The first of these opinions is Quod sint ubique praesentes that they are present every where in all parts of the world and so no strangers either to our words or actions But this besides the want of sufficient proof doth trench too much on the Prerogative and Attributes of Almighty God there being no power Omni-present but is also infinite and Omni-presence so peculiar unto God himself that the Gentiles chalenged the Christians of the Primitive times for ascribing to their God that privilege whereof both Iupiter himself and all the Topical gods of Nations were conceived uncapable Discurrentem scilicet eum volunt ubique praesentem as Cecilius prest it in the Dialogue The second is That they are made acquainted with the passages of this present world Sanctis mortuis atque Angelis internuntiis by the information of such Saints as were daily added to their number and the relation of those Angels which by Gods appointment pitch their Tents about us Which though it be conjectural onely and is proposed without any proof at all yet for as much as comes within the knowledge of those Saints and Angels we should lose nothing of our ground if we closed in with them But then there are many Prayers and Vows which we make to God that go no further than the heart and do not finde a vent by the tongue at all The Spirit making intercession for us as St. Paul affirmeth with groanings that cannot be expressed which onely he that searcheth the heart saith the same Apostle can take notice of No Saint nor Angel being privy to the groans of the Spirit Some therefore are so far transported beyond the bounds of piety and Christian prudence as in the third place to make the blessed Saints and Angels acquainted with our very thoughts A fancy very prejudicial to the Majesty of Almighty God and indeed as dangerous as blasphemous the attribute of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the searcher of the hearts and reins being proper onely unto God It is God alone that knoweth the heart Acts 15.8 He that searcheth the heart Rom. 8.27 That trieth the heart 1 Thes. 2.4 Which searcheth both the reins and hearts Apoc. 2.23 A high Prerogative not given by any of the Gentiles to their supream deities and therefore quarrelled at in the Primitive Christians because by them ascribed to the Lord their God Et Deum illum suum in