its course it could not without a positive force or power communicated unto it from The Creator in whom as the Apostle speakes it moves But it ceased for a while to move without any positive force or power to inhibit or restrain its course But as we said by meer substraction of that power by which it moves So long as it continues its course it both moves and hath its Being in God and it is partaker of two branches of His Almighty Power But when it stood still it onely had its Being in him The influence of the other branch of Power was intercepted Now the Argument drawn from those works which we call The works of nature unto works miraculous or supernatural would in this case hold a majore He that dayly makes the Sun to compasse the world is able to stay its course when he pleaseth 4. A miracle likewise it was and a great one too that The three Children should be untouched in the midst of the flaming furnace yet neither was there a greater nor more immediate positive effect of Gods Power in the restraint of that fire then then was in the sustaining other Fire which at other times devoured the bodies of his Saints The Holy Martyrs who loved not their lives unto the death but gave them up for the Testimonie of the Lord Jesus For Without the co-operation or concurse of Gods Power the fire could not have touched their bodies Wherein then did the Miracle Recorded in Daniel and experienced in the three children properly consist Not so much if at all in fencing their bodies from the violence of the flame by imposition or infusion of any new created qualitie into their bodies as in substracting or withdrawing his ordinary Co-operation from the fire whose natural propertie is to consume or devour bodies combustible such as the bodies of the three Children by nature were The only cause why the fire did not burn them was the substraction or withdrawing of Gods Co-operative Power without whose strength or assistance the hottest furnace that Art or experience can devise cannot exercise the most natural operation of fire For as the substance of the fire cannot subsist or have any place in the Fabrick of this universe unless it be supported by Gods Power sustentative So neither whilst it subsists or hath actual being amongst Gods creatures can it work or move without the assistance of Gods co-operative or all-working Power In Him both these Powers are one both as he is are infinite But as communicated unto his creatures they are not altogether one but two participated branches of his infinite Power And in the burning of the Martyrs or in other destructions made by fire both branches as well of his sustentative as of his co-operative power are manifested Whereas in the preserving of the three Children from the violence of the flaming furnace the one branch only to wit His Power sustentative was communicated to the fire the other branch to wit the participation of his co-operative or working Power was for the time being lop't off from the body or substance of the fire Now this withdrawing of his co-operative Power from the fire was a true document or proof that he is the God and guide of nature That without him the fire even whilst it is for nature and substance most compleat cannot perform the proper work or exercise of its nature The necessary consequence of which Proof or experiment is this That he is the Author or fountain as well of all the works or exercises of natural causes as of natural bodies or substances themselves And if we consider his Power not in it self but as communicated to his Creatures or natural Agents it is and ought to be acknowledged greater in those works which we call works of nature and of which we have dayly experience then it was in either of these two Miracles before mentioned Both of them were for this Reason only Miraculous in that they were most unusual and without the circuit of any experiment or observation in the course of nature before the times wherein they hapned 5. To raise Mens Bodies out of the Grave or out of the Elements into which they have been dissolved is far more unusual then to raise up Corn out of putrified seed and in this respect the Resurrection which we hope for must be acknowledged a work more Miraculous and wonderful then the yearly springing of Corn of fruits of herbs or grass But may we say in this Case as in the former that the Power of God is no less but rather greater in these ordinary works of nature as in causing herbs fruit or corn to sprout or fructifie with advantage of increase then it shall be in the Resurrection of the dead which is a work not of Nature but miraculous and supernatural a work in which natural Causes shall not be entertained nor imployed by God No there shall be a manifestation of greater Power then either of Gods Sustentative Power by which all things that were created are still preserved or of His Co-operative Power without whose participation nothing which is so preserved can work at all or perform the exercises of its proper nature The Power indeed by which He Preserveth all things is the self same Power by which He Made all things out of nothing The Preservation of things that are is but a continuation or proroguing of the first Creation As all things are made of Nothing so would they instantly return into Nothing were they not continually supported and preserved by the self same Power by which they begun to Be when they were not Creation and preservation differ onely in sensu connotativo only in relation not in substance Creation includes a Negation of Being before For all things that are took their beginning by Creation Conservation supposeth a beginning of things that are and includes a Negation of their returning into nothing These Two Negations being abstracted or sequestred the Creation of all things and their Conservation are as truly and properly the same Power or work of one and the same party as the way from Athens to Thebes and from Thebes to Athens is the same But if the Continuation of things that are be a Creation or if the self same Almighty Power be still manifested in the preservation of things temporal that was manifested in the first Creation what greater power can be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily manifested and ought to be acknowledged in the preservation and daily increase of herbs of fruits of corn sown and springing out of the earth Or if any greater power shall be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily experienced in these works of nature how shall we justifie our Apostles Argument in this place to be an Argument of proportion or an Argument as we said before from the greater to the lesse or an Argument à pari from The like Case or Instance The Argument
motion in all the Interim between the day of their dissolution and the last day By the Resurrection they shall not only recover life sense and motion but the life which they get shall be indowed with Immortalitie the bodies shall be clothed with Glory This change of our mortal bodies into immortal is much greater then the most plentifull increase which any seed doth yield One seed or grain may in some soils bring forth thirty in others sixtie in others a hundred but immortality added to the life of the body is an increase in respect of this mortal life which now we lead inexpressible by any number The life of Methuselah is not comparable to it albeit the years which he lived on earth were multiplied by the dayes contained in them and both multiplied again by all the minutes and scruples conteined in the dayes and years which he lived And yet after this increase of life our bodies shall be the same they were for nature and essence but not the same for qualities or capacities whether of joyes or pains In these respects they shall differ far more then any corn growing doth from the seed from which it springs And this difference of qualities between the bodies which die and shall be raised again was all that our Apostle sought or intended to illustrate or set forth by that similitude which he useth Thou sowest not the corn which shall be that is not the same corn for quantitie for qualitie for vigour of life nor shall mens bodies be raised again to such a life only as they formerly had or to such a corruptible estate as that wherein death did apprehend them but to a life truly immortal 8. The second question proposed by the Corinthian Naturalist was with what bodies shall the dead come forth or appear And the direct Answer to this Question is included in the former similitude so much insisted on before as that it needs not to be repeated here the Effect of it is This That they shall come forth with bodies much more excellent then those with which they descended into the grave And of this general Answer included in the similitude of the Corn or Seed sown all the Exemplifications following unto verse 45. are native Branches 39. All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of birds 40. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars for one Star differeth from another in glory 42. So also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption 43. It is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 44. It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body c. Thus much of the Positive Force of our Apostles Argument drawn from the similitude of the Corn which by the Law of Nature must die before it be quickned and receive increase 9. But of this similitude it is no native branch or part whether the corn which dies being sown do rise again the next year for vital substance or life the same which it was whilst it was contained in the blade or ear the year before certainly it is not the same for Corpulencie for matter or quantitie But whether the seeds of life or spirit of corn do not remain the same by continuation though in divers bodies or matter our Apostle disputes not nor do I dispute This is a curiositie which cannot be determined in the Pulpit without appeal unto the Schools The vital spirit or essence of the Corn may be so far the same in the corn which is sown and which is reaped that if we should for disputation sake suppose or imagine what some have dogmatically affirmed to wit That the corn sown were endowed with sense or feeling were capable of pleasure or pain the pleasure which it formerly enjoyed might be renewed increased or multiplied with increase or multiplication of its bodily substance so might the pain which it had felt before it was sown be renewed and increased after it were quickned again if any sort of corn were appointed as some men are to torture and punishment Now albeit we must believe that mens bodies after the Resurrection shall be the very same for substance which they were before death yet are we not bound to believe that they shall be any further the same then that every man which died in his sins may in his bodie feel an infinite increase of those miseries which he had deserved and in some sort felt whilst he lived on earth Or that every man at the last day may reap an infinite increase of those joyes and comforts of which in this life he had some tasts or pledges whilst he sowed unto the spirit For as the Apostle elsewhere speaks he that soweth unto the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption a full crop of all the miseries incident to mortalitie but miseries more then mortal miseries everlasting and never dying And he that in this life soweth unto the spirit shall at the Resurrection of the spirit reap life but a life immortal without end without annoyance or interruption of joy Again they extend the former similitude too far which from it would gather that as there is a natural force or previal disposition in the corn sown by which as by a secondary cause or instrumental mean it is quickned and increased So there be natural seeds of life in the putrified reliques of mens bodies or remnants of the matter dissolved out of which life immortal shall so spring as the blade doth out of the seed which is sown only by the sustentative or operative power of God by which all things are supported or enabled to produce their natural effects For although it be true that the works which we ascribe to nature are wrought by God or by continuation of the same power by which they were first created and set a working yet the Resurrection of mens bodies shall not be wrought by the mere continuation of This Power There must be more then a conservation of their matter more then an usual co-operation with the Elements out of which they are raised there must be even a new creation of their bodies yet not a Creation of them out of nothing but out of the scattered fragments of their matter such a creation as the works of the fifth and sixth day were when God commanded the sea or water to bring forth fishes in their kind and the earth to bring forth trees or plants in their kinde These were not effects of nature or of that power only by which the Sea and earth were from
Dominion of propertie for the most part respects things corporall Howbeit even men or reasonable creatures are sometimes subject to both Branches of Dominion but in different measure according to the severall rites or customes of diverse ages nations or people Such as the Latins call Servi or Servuli slaves or servants properly so called were in bonis Domini they were the goods or possession of their Masters These bodily Lords had not only Dominion of Jurisdiction over but Dominion of propertie to their persons No law did restrain their Masters from disposing of these servants as they pleased as either to exchange give away or sell them and their children The poor servants did oftentimes mutare dominum non servitutem change their Lords without any exchange or alteration of their slaverie Sometimes the Romans had and some other nations at this day have Dominium vitae necis power or dominion to kill maim or wound their servants without any restraint or controll of law But this absolute power to dispose of their slaves or servants was afterwards by the Romane Law inhibited Lords and Masters of private servants were lyable to the sentence of publick Law if they did use intolerable crueltie or severitie towards their slaves But by the Lawes or most Christian nations this absolute Dominion of Lords over their servants and consequently this kind of subjection and slaverie is taken away For every Christian is an Israelite or Hebrew and somewhat more All are in reputation the Sons of Abraham Now the positive Law of God before our Saviours time did exempt the Sons of Abraham by the free woman from slaverie The Kings of Judah might not make bondmen of their brethren the Sons of Jacob. 3. Albeit we retein the name of Masters and Servants yet neither are the one sort properly called Domini nor the other Servi A master with us is no more then Pater familias amongst the Latines and those whom we call servants are famuli Every Father of a familie hath Dominium Jurisdictionis a right or power of Jurisdiction over his familie but not Dominium proprietatis not right or power of propertie in their persons Howbeit even this power or Dominion of Jurisdiction is limited as well by the Lawes of God as of man No father of his family may correct any of his familie as he pleaseth but in such cases and so far as the Law will permit And according to the different condition of the parties over whom the Father of the familie hath this power of Jurisdiction or correction must the exercise of it be alwayes tempered No husband or Master of a familie may exercise the same power over his wife which he doth over his children No man by the Law of nature ought to use his children as his servants or apprentices unlesse they be such by estate or condition of life Nor can a Master of a familie which is of a more ingenuous or generous profession put his servants or apprentices which are of the same profession upon such services as a Master of some inferiour trade or profession may put his servants to A Merchant may not imploy an apprentice to that profession in such workes and services as are proper to and well befitting a Tinker or Cobler or some other inferiour crafts-man or day labourer Howbeit every Master of an apprentice or hired servant hath a right or power not only of Iurisdiction or of government but of propertie though not over his servants bodie or person yet over his bodily labours or imployments Apprentices or servants which are as free born and of parentage as good perhaps better then their Masters have no power to dispose of their own Labours or imployments but must herein follow their Masters directions and appointment and in case they alienate their industrie from their Masters service though to their owne profit without his leave they are subject to his power or Jurisdiction he may authoritatively admonish chastise or otherwise require satisfaction for wronging him by mis-expense of time or in that power or interest which he hath by Covenant in their labours or imployments Yet may not any master of a familie punish a servant as he pleaseth or as his passion shall suggest but so far only as the Law shall permit For every master of a private familie is under the power or Dominion of the publick Magistrate and subject if he be a Christian to Ecclesiastick Censure in case he transgresse the manner or measure of the punishment which the Law of God or of man doth permit him to excercise only within his familie Nor may any Master exact those services or bodily imployments of his servants or apprentices at all times or upon all dayes which at sometimes or upon most dayes he may If a servant should refuse to labour in his ordinary vocation upon the Lords day though commanded so to do by his Master the Master hath no lawfull power of Iurisdiction over him no power to chastise him for such refusall because the Masters right or power to dispose either of his own or of his servants imployments for that day is inhibited by the Law of God and of his Church which hath Dominion of Iurisdiction in those Cases over Masters 4. The issue of these Generalities concerning Lordship or dominion is this Though there be many which are called Lords and Masters and many there be which really and indeed are such yet is there in truth but One Absolute Lord whether we speak of the Lordship or Dominion of proprietie or of Iurisdiction and that is God For by right or title of Creation he hath more absolute power over all his creatures then any creature then absolute Kings and Monarchs as we call them then any chief Lord hath over his Lands or Goods over any thing which they can call theirs whether by gift purchase or inheritance For whatsoever by these or any other means is theirs as money goods or any other bodily substance they did not make any parcel or matter of the substance of it but only acquired a right or title to it being made As they cannot create or make any thing out of nothing so can they not utterly destroy or annihilate any thing created or made The height of all created Power is only to amend or marre the fashion of things and this is but permitted yea even the permission it self presupposed this power is still subordinate in the exercise of it to an higher power But God doth found his right of Dominion over all things or his power to dispose of them and of their appurtenances in their very radical Being This is his sole Gift Nor is His power or dominion only more Soveraign or intensively greater over the most noble bodily substance that is then any creature can have over the least thing that is but it extends also unto those substances which are not subject to man or any creatures dominion He hath a more Soveraign Title of dominion
Or did he give us as the Church of Rome saith Evangelical Counsels as Additionals unto the Law In no wise Christ taught no other things then his Apostles after his resurrection did preach and his Apostles taught no other things then Moses and the Prophets had taught Acts 26. 22. But these they taught after another maner then the Scribes and Pharisees did then the ordinary Expositors of the Law and the Prophesies had done So that Gods will concerning man was more fully declared by Christ then it was by Moses or by the Prophets the very true meaning of Moses himself and of the Prophets was more fully revealed and clearly manifested unto mankinde in Christ then it was to Moses himself or to the Prophets Unto me saith our Apostle Ephes 3. 8 9 10. who am less then the least of all Saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mysterie which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ To the intent that now unto the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And by this more full declaration of Gods Will in Christ we Christians are tyed unto more strict observance of His Will known then men were tyed unto before Christ was declared to be the Lord Admitting the Services to be the very same yet the same services are now due under a double Title They are due to God the Father by right of Creation and due to Christ as he is Lord For God the Father is to be honored not onely in himself but in Christ 6. God when he gave the moral Law to Israel useth this Preface I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was his peculiar right or Title unto Israel and the Precept grounded upon this Title follows Thou shalt have no other Gods but me But you may remember how it was foretold by the Prophet Jeremie Jer. 23. 7 8. That it should no more be said the Lord liveth which brought the children of Israel out of Egypt But the Lord liveth which brought up the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Land Or according to the prime Grammatical sense of the word principally intended by the Holie Ghost out of the Land of darkness and This was fulfilled onely in Christ So that He who was the Lord of Israel by right of redemption from Egyptian bondage is now become the Lord of every Language of every Nation and Kindred by a more peculiar Title by right of redemption from the Powers of darkness and from Hell it self Hence saith our Apostle 1. Cor. 8. 5 6. Though there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth as there are Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him As the Israelites are forbid to have any other God besides the Lord which brought them out of the Land of Egypt so are we Christians forbid to have any Lords or Masters besides Christ So saith our Saviour Matth. 23. 8 9 10. Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ call no man your father upon the Earth for one is your Father which is in heaven And he repeats the former Caveat Neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ He that forbids them to be called Masters over others doth likewise forbid them to be servants to other Masters besides himself And this Duty is more fully exprest by our Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 23. Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men He no way forbids bodily service but rather injoyns such as were servants properly so called that is slaves or bond-men to continue in their calling ver 20 21. as knowing bodily servitude not to be incompatible with Christian liberty no not with the Liberty of the Sons of God He that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man likewise he that is called being a Free-man is Christs servant What service of men then doth Christ or his Apostles forbid The vassalage of our reason or understanding or the submission of our consciences to the pleasures or services of men or of the corrupt times wherein we live Thus to alienate our service from Christ to any mortal men is whether you list to call it a branch of Sacriledge or Idolatry if not more gross yet certainly more deadly in all such as confess Christ to be their Lord then the worshipping of stocks and stones was either in the Heathen or in the Israelites themselves before Christ was declared to be the Son of God and solemnly proclaimed to be the Lord. To give you another Instance how Gods Will is more exactly done by Real Confession of Christ to be THE LORD 7. This is the will of God saith the Apostle 1 Thess 4. 3. Even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God To this duty the Israelites were as truly tyed as we Christians are It was as the Apostle intimates a necessary branch or fruit of the true knowledge of God a service due unto him as he was the Creator But unto this same duty the Israelites were not bound by so many ties as we Christians are It is required of us by a strict peculiar Title not onely by our knowledge of God as our Creator nor by our acknowledgement of Christ to be the Lord as this Title of Lord hath relation onely unto servants he may and doth exact this duty at our hands not onely by right of Redemption or by paying the ransom for our sins upon the Cross but by right of Espousals or by Title of Lord as he is the Head and Husband of his Spouse the Church No motive can be so forcible to deter men from transgressing this negative Commandment or for incouraging them to do Gods Will in the affirmative part of the former Commandment as that of our Apostle 1 Cor. 6. 13. 14 15. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And again ver 20. Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods 8. It was well observed long ago by Occolampadius that
and Dignity of Lord and to put on The Affection of a Priest perpetually to make intercession on our behalf for Remission of sins past Rom. 3. 26. and for Grace whereby for the future we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Seeing then we have so great an High Priest Let us hold fast our Profession And let us come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and finde grace to help in time of need Worthy is THE LAMB that was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honor and Glory and Blessing Revel 5. 12. And THE LAMB shall overcome them for He is LORD OF LORDS and KING OF KINGS Rev. 17. 14. SECTION III. Of Christs coming to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ That every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Acts 17. 30. But now God commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given all men assurance in that he raised him from the dead Daniel 7. 9. Rom. 14. 9. To this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living We shal All stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God Revel 20. 12. CHAP. IX THe First Words contain an undoubted Maxim or principal Article of our Faith yea such a Plurality of Articles of Christian Belief that I could not choose fitter for continuation of my former Argument concerning Christs Lordship or Dominion And His Dominion as was said before was A Dominion both of Property and of Jurisdiction We are his servants not our own Men as we say we may not dispose of our own souls or bodies much less of our bodily imployments or endeavours as We please but as He pleases Or in case we wrong him by alienating the imployments of our bodies or of our souls from his service who hath the full Dominion of Propertie we cannot exempt our selves from his Dominion of Jurisdiction to which all flesh is lyable without Appeal Now of his Dominion of Jurisdiction or of his Royal Power over us the Exercise of Final Judgment is the Principal Part And of this Judgment the general Sum or Abstract is contained in 2 Cor. 5. 10. Before I enter upon the Particulars therein contained I am in General to advertise That albeit the Scripture be such A Compleat Rule of Christian Faith That neither those which are appointed to interpret the Scriptures ought to propose or commend any point or doctrine as an Article of Faith unto others nor are others bound to believe any thing as a Point of Faith unless it be either expresly contained in the Scriptures or may out of the express testimonies of them be deduced by infallible Rules of Reason and Art Yet in the things believed because contained in Scripture there is a Difference to be observed Some things we believe without any Ground at all besides the meer Authority of Scriptures Other things we beleive from the Authority of Scriptures too yet so as we have the truth which the Scriptures teach concerning them ensealed unto us by Experiments answering to the Rules of Scriptures And these Experiments be of two sorts Either Observable in the general Book of Nature and course of times or Observable in our selves Of this later rank are the Articles of the Godhead of the Creation of Divine Providence of Original Sin of Final judgment and of Life and Death everlasting The Being of a Godhead or Divine Power the very Heathens which knew not Scriptures did in some sort believe of Gods Providence and of Judgment after this life the Heathens likewise had divers Notions which were as rude materials or stuffe unwrought The frame or fashioning of which Notions into true and Christian Belief cannot otherwise be effected then by the Rules of Scripture which are The Lines by which the structure or edifice of Faith must be squared or wrought Now whatsoever the Heathens without the help of Scriptures or Divine Revelations did believe or conceive concerning the Points mentioned Every Christian man which doth believe the Scriptures though but by an historical Faith may much better believe and conceive by the help of Scriptures albeit his affections be not as yet sanctified by the Spirit of Grace although he be but in the Estate of a meer Moral or Natural man so he be not delivered up unto a Reprobate sense The Branches then of my Meditations concerning this Grand Article of Christs coming to Judgment shall be in general These First Of the Natural Notions which the Heathens had and which every natural man so his Conscience be not seared may have Experienced in himself of a Final Judgment after this life or of a Recompence according to his wayes or works The Second By what Authoritie of Scriptures the Exercise of this Final Iudgment is appropriated to Christ The Third The manner of Christs coming to Iudgment The Fourth The parties that are to be Iudged to wit the Quick and the Dead The Fifth The Sentence or Award of this great Iudge and that is Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death Thus you see Three Principal Articles of Our Creed to wit This of Christs coming to Iudge the quick and the dead and the Two last viz. The Resurrection of the body and The life everlasting are so link't together that they cannot be so commodiously explained in several as they may be in this proposed Link or Chain CHAP. X. Of the Natural Notions which the Heathens had and the Internal Experiments which every true Christian may have answering to these Notions of a Final Judgment 1. THe Notions which the Heathens had of a Iudgment to passe upon them after this life were of Two Sorts Either Implicite and Indirect such â—s give better Testimony to us then they made of it to themselves or Direct and Express though indefinite and imperfect and mingled for the most part with some errour And these Later are most frequent in the ancient heathen Poets Many of whose Testimonies to this purpose are so Express and direct that they may well seem to have been taken from some scattered Traditions of that truth which God had revealed unto the Patriarchs before the Law was written or from the written Law it self which it is probable Plato with some other Philosophers and Poets had read at the least received at the second hand However unless the truth concerning this point delivered in Scriptures had been imperfectly implanted in mens hearts by nature these meer natural men could not have submitted their Assent or Opinions unto it That not the ancient Poets onely but the ancient Philosophers had an
Wolves of Lyons or Tygers Such as had been given over to beastly pleasures were to take up their habitations in the bodies of Swine The souls of others less harmful yet stupid and dull had their transmigration allotted by this Philosopher into Sheep or Calves This Metempsychosis or flitting of mens souls into the bodies of beasts is described by Ovid in the 15. of his Metamorphosis seeking to give some countenance to his poetical fictions from Pythagoras his Philosophical opinion plausible in ancient times And from this conceit or opinion it was that Pythagoras and his followers did abstain from eating of any flesh whether of birds or beasts and laboured by all means to perswade others to like abstinence lest by killing or devouring them they might indeed kill or devour their dearest friends kinsfolks or neighbors Mandere vos vestros scite sentite colonos The souls of vertuous or good men or of better spirits did in this Philosophers opinion either go into some place of happiness or else return into some humane body again So as one and the same man might be often begotten born or die Thus Pythagoras himself thought that Euphorbus his soul was come into his body that he himself had been present at the siege of Troy in the shape and likeness of him that was called then Euphorbus whose body was turned to dust long before any part of this Pythagoras his body was framed And in the confidence of this opinion or imagination he laid claim unto Euphorbus his Shield as the Right Owner of it This Opinion or Imagination though gross and foolish doth yet include These Two Branches of Truth First That Animus cujusque est unusquisque The soul or mind of man is the man himself And Second That the Soul remains in Being after the Body or visible part which is but as the Case or Husk be dissolved Both These Tully had Collected as he professes in his Book De Senectute from the followers of Pythagoras of Socrates and Plato These Both he or the Person he makes Speaker there repeats in his piece De Somnio Scipionis Tu vero sic habeto Te non esse mortalem sed corpus hoc nec enim is es quem forma ista declarat sed mens cujusque is est quisque non ea figura quae digito monstrari potest Deum te igitur scito esse Yet were it possible or had God to whom all things are possible so appointed that one and the same immortal soul of man should have its habitation in two three or more distinct bodies they should not be so truly many men as one and the same man for the unity or Identity of mans person depends more immediately and necessarily upon the unity or Identity of the soul then upon the unity or Identity of the body This progress of one and the same soul through divers bodies was not in the opinion of such as first conceived or nurst it to continue for ever For Pythagoras did not deny an eternal Rest unto mens souls after this pilgrimage or progress were ended Now this progress or pilgrimage as some avouch was to endure but unto the production of the third or fourth Body 4. From Pythagoras and the Druides whom Pythagoras did rather follow then teach Plato did not much differ All of them in some Points hold good consort with Christianity In these especially First That the soul of man doth not perish with the body from which it is by death dissolved Secondly That it should go well with such as lived well and ill with such as lived amiss after the dissolution of soul and body But how often one and the same soul by Plato's opinion might become a widower how long it might so continue or with how many several bodies it might successively match we will not question In this and the like particulars Pythagoras and Plato might many wayes err without any gross inconsonancy to their general principles And one of Plato's general Principles was That the humane soul was in the body tanquam nauta in nave after such a manner as the Master Mariner is in the ship to direct and guide it And as a Mariner may without loss undertake the government of divers Ships successively so one and the same reasonable soul might guide or manage sundry bodies In the opinion of Pythagoras or Plato diversity of actions of manners of dispositions did no more argue diversity of human souls or spirits then variety of musical sounds in various wind-instruments as in the Sackbut Cornet Shalm or Trumpet doth argue diversity of breath or of Musicians One and the same musician may wind them all successively and yet the musick shall be much different because of the diversity of the instrument In all these opinions they did only err not knowing the Scriptures They did not err against at least their error includes no opposition unto the Power of God For if it had pleased him thus to place the soul in the body or to take it out of one body and put it into another as these Philosophers dreamed so it might have been so it must have been Nor did their error include any denial of the Power of God but rather an approach or step to the discovery or acknowledgement of it against modern Atheists Others there were who held a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a Regeneration or new production of one and the same man again These were the Genethliaci or Nativitie-Casters of whom S. Augustine out of Varro speaks Lib. 22. De Civitate Dei Cap. 28. The time which as That Father there saies they prefixed for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or re-production of the self-same men which formerly had been was 440. years Though as you will soon see other Authors make it far above that proportion This particular errour of theirs took its original from an errour common to most Philosophers whose generally affected custom it hath been to assign some External cause of every External or visible Effect And some modern Astrologers make the heavens such total causes of Sublunary Effects that if the position and conjunction of stars should possibly come to be the self same again as they formerly have been the self same bodies should be produced again which formerly had been And 16000 years I take it in the account of these ancient Astrologers did make up the full period or circuit of all celestial motions Now it is a general Maxim in Philosophie Idem secundum Idem semper producit Idem If the influence of the stars were the full and total cause of the Sublunary Effects it would follow directly that when the conjunction of Stars which 〈…〉 his influence returned the same again which it had been 〈…〉 years more or fewer the Sublunary Effects or events should be the same as they then had been and the same men which had formerly dyed should revive again 5. The Genethliaci did foully err in
imagining the stars or host of heaven to be the adaequate or total causes of Sublunary Effects or alterations They might err again in Calculating the Course of the Starrs and for ought I know they did err in denying or not avouching the Immortalitie of the soul But herein they come the nearest to us Christians in this Article That they held it possible and agreeable to Nature for one and the same body for one and the same man consisting of body and soul which had been dissolved for many thousand yeares before to be restored to life again But whereas they thought the conjunction of stars to be the full and total cause of sublunary effects let us suppose Gods Will or Powerfull Ordinance to be the sole cause of all things and there will be no contradiction or impossibilitie in nature why the self same men which have been may not bee again albeit they had died more then 5000. years ago For his Will as it is more powerfull then all the influence of stars so is it more truly One and the same then any conjunction or aspect of stars can be yea His Will or His Power was the true immediat or total Cause of the Matter of every thing as well as of its forme or soul The true cause likewise of the conjunction of the soul and body 6. It being then admitted that the Genethliaci did deny the Immortalitie or perpetual duration of the reasonable Soul which to deny is a gross heresie in Christianitie yet this Errour in them was more pardonable by much then the Inference which some Christians make who holding the Immortalitie of the soul hold it withall to be an Antecedent so necessary for evincing the future Resurrection of the body or restauration of the same man who dyes that if the soul were not immortal there could be no resurrection of the body no Identical restauration of men that perish and are consumed to dust They which deny the Immortalitie of the soul do therefore erre because they know not the Scriptures nor the Will of God revealed in them concerning the state of the soul after death For if the soul of Christ as man were as we must believe it was of the same nature that our souls are of if his soul did not die with his body our souls shall not die with our bodies Now Christ at the very point of death or dissolution of soul and body did commend his soul into his Fathers hands And God the Father took a more special care of his soul then either Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea did of his body That God likewise did take the souls of the faithful into his custody at their departure from their bodies our Saviour long before had taught us in his Answer to the Sadduces Matth. 22. 31 32. As touching the resurrection of the dead have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living And as St. Luke addeth Chap. 20. ver 38. All live unto him not alwayes in their bodies but alwayes in their souls which alwayes expect a second conjunction or re-union to their proper bodies And St. Stephen when his persecutors did destroy his body commends his soul into Christs hands as Christ had done His Soul into the hands of his Father So that no man can doubt of the Immortality or perpetual duration of the soul unless he be altogether ignorant of these and many like passages in the Scriptures But they which deny all Possibilitie of the Resurrection or Identical restauration of the same man to bodily life in case his soul were mortal or might utterly cease to be with the body do err not only out of ignorance of the Scriptures or of The Will of God revealed in Scriptures but this their ignorance supposeth an ignorance or denial of the Power of God For God who is able out of stones to raise up children unto Abraham is no less powerful perfectly to restore the self same body and soul which now are and really to represent the self same man which now is albeit both body and soul should at his death not only die but be utterly annihilated that is although no more either of body or soul did remain after death then was extant before the first Creation of all things Now before the first Creation there was not so much as a particle or least portion either of mans soul or body For all things were created out of Nothing and all things might be created the same again that now they are albeit they were by Gods power or by substraction of his influence totally resolved into nothing 7. All these Propositions following are most true 1. That as God did make all things of nothing so he is able if it should please him to resolve all things into nothing This is essentially included in the Article of Omnipotencie So is this Second likewise Although all things created were resolved into nothing God is able to make them again the self same substances that they sometimes were or now are So likewise is this Third Albeit the bodies of men be not utterly resolved into nothing when they die but into the Elements of which they consist or are compounded as into the Earth Air Water c. yet every mans body at the day of final appearance before our Judge may be Numerically the same that now it is All these Propositions are Objectively Possible that is they imply no Contradiction in nature and not implying any contradiction in nature they are the proper Objects of Omnipotent Power That is God is able to work all these Effects in nature which unto Nature or natural Causes are impossible But that either the souls or bodies of men shall be annihilated or resolved into nothing we are not bound to believe because the Scripture doth no where testifie Gods Will or purpose so to resolve them Their annihilation or dissolution their re-production or re-union meerly depends upon the Will or Powerful Ordinance of God And albeit the Resurrection of one and the same man may be demonstrated to be in Nature possible Yet That this Possibilitie shall be reduced into Act That every Man shall undoubtedly rise again in the body to receive that which he hath done in his body Or With what manner of body for qualifications they shall arise This cannot be taught by Nature but must be learned or believed from Scripture To begin with the Second Proposition Although all things created were resolved into nothing God is able to make them again the self same numerical substances that they sometime were or now are For Proof of this Proposition I take as granted That all things which by Creation took their beginning had a true Possibilitie of being numerically what they were before they actually were otherwise it was impossible for them actually
and the self same man as if he had been but once created or had continued from his creation without any interruption of his duration or existence This implies no more contradiction in nature then to say that the King may create one and the same man twice Earl or Duke or make him often the same Magistrate The Office or dignity may be the self same albeit there be some vacancie or interruption in the Administration or duration of it As if a man was deposed of his Office and dignity at the end of the first year and restored again at the end of the second year this would imply a diversity of Creation or advancement no diversitie at all in the Office or dignitie unto which the same person is twice advanced Now Gods Power over all his creatures either utterly to annihilate them or to interrupt them in their actuall existence or duration and to create them in the self same or better estate again is farre greater and more Soveraigne then any Princes civill power to advance or depose his subjects or to restore them intirely to their former dignities Admit then That God had resolved the first man Adam into nothing at the very first instant wherein he did eat the forbidden fruit with purpose not to create him again untill the last trumpet shall sound to Judgement the Terrour of that day should make as deep impression in him then first restored to life and sense again as if he had suffered him to live but one day and had called him at even unto Judgment or a final accompt as terrible as in that last day it shall be to all that die in their sins This whole time of vacancy or cessation from actual Being for almost six thousand years would not have seem'd so long to him at his Resurrection as a night past over in a dead sleep is to a malefactor which had murthered his Father in the Evening and is drawn to the execution as soon as he awakes in the morning Thus much of Gods Power in general to raise up the self same men again which have been long dead or by supposition more then dead utterly resolved into nothing Now if we must acknowledge it as an essential Branch of the Almighty Creators Power to be able to raise up or create the self same men again although they had been annihilated or turned to nothing we must needs acknowledge it as a fruit or effect of the same Power to re-unite every mans soul and body again at the last day seeing the soul as Christian Faith doth teach us doth still remain the same it was the body being not utterly annihilated or consumed to nothing but only resolved into dust or into the Elements of which it was first made Sed quomodo inquis dissoluta materia exhiberi potest Consider a temetipsum O homo fidem rei invenies Recogita quid fueris antequà m esses utique nihil meminisses enim si quid fuisses Qui ergo nihil fuer as priusquam esses idem nihil factus cum esse desieris cur non posses esse rursus de nihilo ejusdem ipsius Auctoris voluntate qui te voluit esse ex nihilo Quid novi tibi eveniet qui non eras factus es cumiterum non eris fies Redde rationem si potes quâ factus es tunc require quà Fies Et tamen facilius utique fies quod fuisti aliquando quia aeque non difficile factus es quod nunquam fuisti aliquando Quaecunque te materia destruxerit hauserit aboleverit in nihilum prodegerit reddet te ejus est nihilum ipsum cujus est totum This is the sum of Tertullian's Collections Apolog. cap. 48. 10. This Power of God to create man of nothing and to create every one the self same man he was albeit he had been annihilated or turned into nothing The School Divines of the Romish Church acknowledge and with great subtilty of wit and strength of Argument prove out of the Article of Gods Omnipotencie unto which all Possibilitie meerly Logical or which implies no evident contradiction in nature is alwayes subject and obedient But of This as of most other Orthodoxal Doctrines or Principles of Faith wherein we hold communion and consort with the Roman Church the modern Advocates of that Church the Jesuites especially make a very malicious and Sinister use The most learned amongst the modern Jesuites being pressed by our Writers with the gross absurdities and scandalous inconveniences which necessarily follow upon their doctrine of Transubstantiation or of Christs local Circumscriptive bodily presence in the blessed Sacrament Fly to this doctrine of Gods Almighty Power whereby he is able to create one and the self same Individual Substance again and again as oft as it pleaseth him as to their last Hold and refuge Their only hope is that this General Doctrine being made plausible by them they shall be able to make their quarrel Just not in it self but upon expected advantage if any of our Writers should be so forward as in divers other Cases some have been too forward to deny their Antecedents when as they should Traverse the Inference or conclusions which they labor with subtiltie to infer from plausible and Orthodoxal Premisses Howbeit this Antecedent That God is able to create the self same man or bodily substance again and again and as oft as it shall please him no Protestant Writer to my observation hath yet denied none as I hope will ever deny But such is our adversaries confidence of Christs promise to St. Peter I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail Luke 22. 32. and of the Popes authority as of Peters pretended Successor in this promise that whatsoever doctrine the Pope shall deliver ex Cathedra as he hath done this doctrine of Transubstantiation for a point of Faith they think God bound in Justice to use his absolute and Omnipotent power to make it true For if the Pope or the visible Romish Church could possibly err in this or any other point of faith God by their doctrine should fail in the performance of his former general promise which undoubtedly he will not do so long as he hath power to make his promise good or to make the visible Churches interpretations true and justifiable to the preservation of whose Infallibility he hath as they teach bound himself by solemn promise 11. But The Question betwixt us and them Concerning Christs local or circumscriptive Bodily presence in the Sacrament is not whether God can make one and the same body to be at one and the same time in divers places or whether He can create one and the same body again in every hour or in every place as shall seem good to him But whether it be his will to use this his power Or whether his will thus to do be so fully revealed in Scripture as that we are bound to believe That he doth or will make Christs
very Bodie and Blood to be locally present in every place where and at all times when that blessed Sacrament shall be celebrated This we deny And the former Principle or Antecedent That God is able to create the self same body as often as it pleases him will never infer their intended Conclusion Not to question what God can do we further add For Christs body or whole Christ God and man to be bodily present by this means in many places at once or in all places at all times wherein that blessed Sacrament shall be celebrated is one of those things which according to their rules as well as ours cannot be done as implying an evident Contradiction in nature It may not be believed nor imagined because God did never bind any man to believe such an impossibilitie or Contradiction as is involved in this doctrine It is altogether without the compass of the most miraculous work which God hath at any time wrought or ever promised to work All the former Instances or Cases possible concerning Gods Power to make one and the same man again after he had been annihilated are most unlike to their intended Conclusion All the former Instances or suppositions are free from all color or suspition of Contradiction in nature This supposed Creation of Christs Body often since his death implies as many and as manifest Contradictions as there have been Masses in the Romish Church Not only these Assertions but the dissimilitude also of the Case in question to the former Cases will be immediately made clear from the very Definition of Creation To create a body is to make it of nothing and to make the self same Body which formerly had been but is resolved into Nothing out of Nothing again is but a second exercise of his Creative Power and whatsoever God before hath done he is able to do the same again But the Body of Christ they acknowledge to be immortal and absolutely exempted not only from Annihilation or resolution into Nothing but from all danger of Corruption or diminution Again whatsoever is Created whether at the first second or third time hath no Actual being until it begin to be by Creation Now to make that very thing begin to be or to begin to be out of nothing which already actually is is something is immortal and more glorious then any other creature implies a manifest Contradiction But Christs Body they grant to be immortal since his Resurrection more unalterable then the heaven of heavens so immortal that it can never cease to be what it is therefore it is impossible that it should begin to be by a new creation or be created again For that which is created or may be created again must first be resolved into nothing or cease to be before it can be created again seeing creation is the making of that which is not out of Nothing or be made again by means miraculous If then Christs Body be locally present in the Sacrament it must either be created again and this supposeth either annihilation or dissolution of it or else it must be brought out of the heavens into the Priests hands or else the presence of it in many places must be created but Local Presence is altogether uncapable of Creation for it is a Meer Relation which can neither be created nor made but resulteth from or followeth upon the motion of things created from one place to another or from their creation or beginning to be in that place wherein they are said to be created 12. So it fares with our Adversaries in this Argument as it doth with Boot-halers or night-riders which have caught an unlawful prey being hotly pursued by the right owners Now their manner is to divide the spoil and their company that they may carry one part one way and another part another way that so whilst one is pursued others may escape without pursuit or rescue of the prey Through the ignorance or carelesness of Gods people which should have kept a better watch over their own souls the Romish Priests had made a gainful prey by transporting the native sense of our Saviours Words in the institution of the Sacrament to justifie the doctrine of Transubstantiation And since they have been pursued by reformed Writers as Cozeners and Cheaters of Gods people some of them run one way some another Some of them seek to maintain Christs local presence or Transubstantiation by the former doctrine of Gods Almighty Power which is able to create one and the same body often Others seek to maintain the same doctrine and carry away the prey by the manner of Angelical motion from one place to another in an instant or moment of time And if they could draw such as pursue them into these straits and subtilities they hope to make their part good against such as are not much conversant in the School-mens nice disputes concerning the nature or motions of Angels or know not the difference between the nature and motions of Spirits and Spiritual Bodies Others seek to maintain the same doctrine by the infinitie of divisible quantities as if it were possible for a flies wing to overspread the whole earth as a hen doth her chickens And that Christs Body may by this kind of Infinitie be in many places at once in as many as God shall appoint hoping by this means to cast a mist before the eyes of such Readers as know not the difference betwixt a real material or substantial and a mathematical or imaginary quantitie But all these fictions or suppositions they cast forth only to offer play unto their adversaries or to gain some time for invention of new shifts None of them dare pitch upon any or all of these wayes or imaginations or put the Case upon this issue Whether any of them be in nature possible or agreeable to the Analogie of Faith The only point wherein they agree is the submission of their judgments or imaginations to the authoritie of the Church which is no better agreement then if amongst a multitude of unlearned men one of them should maintain that snow is white another black another pawn his estate that it is blew and a fourth that it is green and yet in the end refer themselves to be tried by some Philosopher which had written of the nature of Snow in a language that none of them understands whose books they know not where to find For what the Church is that cannot err or of whom it consists the French and Italian Catholicks do not agree Or if we take the Church for the Trent Council confirmed by the Pope the Jesuites themselves cannot agree about the meaning of it in this point Divers of them do in Effect deny any Transubstantiation in this Sacrament albeit that Council under pain of curse enjoyneth all Christians to believe That there is a true Conversion of the bread into the substance of Christs Body and of the wine into the substance of his Blood and
indeed would directly follow He that is able to make men live again that have been dead for a thousand years is also able to quicken the corn in the next month which died the last month This kind of Argument would be as clear as if you should say That he that is able to make ready payment of a thousand pounds may soon and easily pay an hundred But you would take it as an impertinent or indiscreet allegation to say I know this man is able to pay you an hundred pounds therefore I would perswade you to take his bond for a thousand But our Apostles Argument in this place may seem less probable and it is at least to appearance but Thus God dayly raiseth up corn within a year after it is sowen Ergo he shall raise up Adams body which was consumed to dust five thousand years ago 6. To frame the Apostles Argument which is an Argument of Proportion aright you must take his Principles or grounds into your consideration Now he first supposeth and takes it as all good Christians ought to do for granted that God doth give that body unto every seed with which it ariseth or cometh out of the ground The increase of things sown or planted is not in his Language or Philosophie the meer Effect or gift of Nature For even Nature her self or whatsoever she hath to bestow is the gift of God That which Philosophers call Nature is in true Divinity nothing else but The Law which God hath set to things natural or subject to change or motion Now he which made this Law whether for guiding bodies sublunary or celestial can dispense with it at his pleasure He sometimes inhibits the ordinary course of the Law of Nature by substraction as it were of his Royal Assent or by suspending the concurrence of his Operative Power And sometimes again he advanceth the state of things natural by creating or making a New Law unto the manner of their Being or of their Operations that is he changeth their Qualities though not their Natures or Essences Thus much presupposed or premised our Apostles Inference is as firm and strong as it is Emphatical Stulte Tu quod Seminas O Fool that which THOU sowest is not quickened except it die c. The force or Emphasis may be gathered thus If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit much more will the same God give a body to The Seed which He Himself doth sow much more will he quicken it after it hath been dead seeing the End why he sowes it is not thy temporal benefit or commodity but His Own immortal glory When God did enact that severe Law from which death natural takes its original Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return the Intent or purport of that Law was not that man by returning to dust should utterly or finally perish and be for ever as if he never had been What then was the intent or purport of this Law That mans body should be committed unto the earth as seed is committed to the ground that as the corn which springs out of the earth returns to earth again and is still raised up with advantage and increase unto the Sower So the bodies of men after that by the first mans folly they became corruptible and certain to suffer corruption whether in the earth in the air or in the Sea might be raised again but not to corruption that God may receive the seed which is sown with increase of Glory to himself this increase of Glorie being rooted in the increase of their happiness by whose immortalitie he is immediately glorified Thus much of the former difficulty to wit how our Apostles Instance or experiment in the work of nature doth infer his intended Conclusion to wit the future Resurrection from the dead And from the Solution of this Former the Second may easily be assoyled 7. The second Difficulty was How this Instance or Experiment of the Corn dying and being quickened again can fit or parallel the Resurrection of the body seeing the Corn which is quickened or springeth up is not The same body which was sown Whereas it is a Point of our Belief that the same numerical bodies which die and return to dust or are resolved into ashes or into the Elements of which they consist shall be raised up at the last day For if The Body raised up were not the self same that died the Body which died should not be parttaker either of pain or joy everlasting but another Bodie should be tormented or glorified instead of the Body which died Every man should not receive reward or punishment according to that which he had done in the body or at least this reward or punishment should not be received in the same Body in whhic he had done ill or well Aquinas a Great School-man in his time labours to assoyl the proposed Difficultie by framing the Apostles Argument Thus. If Nature can repair that which dies Idem Specie that is If Nature can make it to be of the same Kind it was though not the same numerical body it was as he that sows Wheat reaps Wheat not Rie or Barley though not the self same grains of Wheat which he sows Then The God of nature and Creator of all things shall raise up the bodies of men which are his seed and proper husbandry the very self same which they were not the self same for kind or specifical Unity but the same Individuals Of all the bodies which have died not one shall miscarry not so much as a hair of any mans head or any least part of his body shall finally perish But though all this be True yet is it Impertinent it fals not within the compass of our Apostles Inference in this place who neither affirms nor denies nor took it so much as into his consideration whether the Corn which springs up be the same Individual Nature or substance which did putrifie and die in the ground The utmost Circumference of his considerations or thoughts extends no further then thus That the Body which God doth give to every seed is not for qualitie the same which was sown for it was sown Bare Corn without blade husk or ear and loseth that corpulencie or quantitie which it had But it springs not up bare Corn. The new life which it gets in the womb of the earth is cloathed with a fresh body capable of nourishment and growth of both which it was uncapable whilst it was severed from the ear wherein it grew or after the stalk was cut down And This Change or alteration in the Corn sown and springing up doth well fit the Change or alteration which shall be wrought in our Bodies at the Resurrection or last day Our bodies by death become more uncapable of nourishment then the corn severed from the ear or cut down for they are utterly deprived of life of sense of
at the last day the same it was when he died by Recollecting or putting together the self same material parts whereof his soul was possest at her departure from the body is not impossible That the bodies of all men should at the Resurrection become the same they were by this means not by Creation of new bodies or by new creation of any bodily substance or new matter out of nothing the Heathens it seems did conceive to be the Opinion of the ancient Christians when the Gospel of Christ concerning the Resurrection of the body begun to be prest and preached among them For to disprove Christians Belief of this Article or at least to defeat Christians of their hopes of a bodily Resurrection to a better life their heathen persecutors did burn their bodies unto ashes and afterwards sow their ashes some in the waters some in the air or expose them to the blasts of boysterous winds hoping by these practises to find the God of these Christians a cumbersome work before he could accomplish what they profest he had promised unto them concerning the Resurrection of the same bodies and of rendring to every soul the same material portions whereof it was sometimes seized But whether the malicious heathens did punctually oppose these practises unto the assertions of the Christians as if from their mouths they had heard that the Resurrection of the body should be accomplished by Recollection of all the particles into which it had been resolved through what Elements soever they had been in long tract of time dispersed or whether these Heathens did thus practise upon the Christians bodies out of their own imaginations as not conceiving any other means possible by which every man might arise with his own body I find not upon Record Some of the Antient Fathers in their Arguments against the Heathen or in their Apologies for This Article of our Faith suppose the Resurrection of the body shall be accomplished by the Recollection of the Reliques or Fragments into which each ones bodie hath been dissolved And to this purpose use divers Similitudes or illustrations drawn from Gold-smiths or Refiners of Metals who by their Art or Mysterie can extract the fragments of Gold or Silver out of any other metal or body with which they are mingled Howbeit other of the Fathers and sometimes the same Fathers which use these Similitudes or illustrations principally rely upon Gods Creative Power by which he made all things out of Nothing or by which he multiplieth or advanceth things that have some actual Being unto a more excellent and more plentiful kind of Being It was an exercise of the Creative Power to turn Water in an Instant into Wine to multiply five loaves and two fishes unto the sustentation of more then five thousand men besides the fragments remaining which were ten times more then the provision it self And in thus resolving the possibility of every mans Rising with his own Bodie into the Power of God whereby he is able either to make all things out of nothing or to make one thing out of another by means miraculous and far surmounting all force of natural Agents the antient Fathers did wisely For admitting what no Christian can denie that Gods Skill or knowledge to recollect all the several parcels of every mans bodie which way soever dispersed doth infinitely exceed the most exquisite Skill of any Mineralist or Refiner in severing one metal from another and in wedding and uniting every parcel fragment or remnant of what kind soever with others of it own kind Yet this Infinite Skill or knowledge in Recollecting or uniting the several parts of mens bodies which have been dissolved by death could not suffice to the supportance of that truth which in this Article we all believe against the assaults of the Atheists unless this infinite Skill or knowledge were seconded with an infinite Creative Power 4. Against the Recollection of all the Reliques or fragments of mens bodies the Atheist or subtil Naturalist would thus Object All Christians do not die a natural death all come not to the Sepulchres of their Fathers many perish in the Sea and the bodies of many which thus perish are quite devoured by fishes Sea-monsters or other inhabitants of the Sea and the fishes which thus devour even Christian men are again devoured by other men and those men again which have sed on fishes which devoured men become a prey unto other fishes and these fishes are taken again and eaten by men The men that eat these fishes may saies He and we may suppose they do become a prey unto the Canibals a barbarous and monstrous people which feed as greedily upon mans flesh as any Sea-monster or ravenous land Creature would feed on theirs Now the matter or bodily substance of every man that is devoured by fishes or other inhabitants of the Sea is turned into the matter or bodily substance of the devourer The matter again of every fish that is eaten by man is converted or changed into the matter or substance of that man which eats it The Canibal would not so greedily feed upon mans flesh as he doth unless he were truly nourished by it and nourishment is the conversion of the matter or substance eaten into the matter or substance of him that eateth it Now if the Resurrection of every man with his own body with the same body from which his soul was by death divorced did only or principally consist in the Recollection or re-union of the same material parts or reliques which were dissolved by death it would be a hard point to resolve or satisfie the Atheist or incredulous Naturalist how it were possible that every man should have the self same Bodie that he had at the hour of death To twist the difficultie harder according to the Atheists suppositions which are not impossible nor in ordinary conjecture improbable From what creature shall the first mans body which the fish devoured be challenged Or what creature shall the Almighty injoyn to make restitution of his intire matter Shall the Almighty injoyn the fishes of the Sea to cast up the morsels of mans flesh which they have eaten as the Whale did Jonas But it is supposed that the bodily substance or matter of the man was converted into the substance or bodies of the fishes which did eat him for God did not preserve either the life or bodily matter of men devoured by fishes as he did preserve Ionas Shall the mans bodie then be repaired out of the matter or bodily substance of the fishes which did eat him But that as the Atheists suppose and is not in it self improbable other men have eaten and turned it into the matter and substance of their bodies And these men again have been eaten by other fishes or by such Land-monsters as the Canibals Shall the first then or second mens bodies be repaired out of the bodily substance or matter of these later men which have eaten
the fishes that eat the former or out of the bodies of Canibals which have eaten them The Question then remains How the bodies of those men shall be repaired or from what Elements shall the Reliques or dissolved fragments of their bodies be recollected Seeing their bodies also have been either immediately devoured by Canibals or mediately by other men which have eaten the creatures that have devoured the former men The Canibals which devoured men must by this Article of Christian Faith arise again with their own bodies not with the bodies of other men whom they have devoured how then is it possible for every man to arise with his own body seeing the bodies of many men at least the reliques or fragments into which they are dissolved have been swallowed up by some one ravenous creature and some one Canibals humane body may successively be the Tomb or Sepulcher of many mens bodies And here me thinks that question which the Sadduces put unto our Saviour concerning the woman which had been married to seven brethren one after another might be more punctually proposed concerning the women of Samaria or Jerusalem which in the extremitie of seige did make their hunger-starved stomacks the grave or Sarcophagus of those tender Infants whom they had lately conceived in their womb and brought forth with joy The Question by the Sadduces was thus proposed Which of the seven brethren should have the woman to wife at the Resurrection seeing she had been wife successively to all the seven The Atheist or Naturalist would propose his Question thus Whose shall the bodies of the Infants which their mothers devoured at the day of the resurrection be shall they belong as appurtenances to the bodies of their mothers of which they were though most unnaturally made natural or material and substantial parts a little before these cruel mothers died But then the Infants should have no bodily substance they could not arise with their own bodies Or shall the reliques of the bodies which their mothers swallowed be drawn or extracted as a refiner doth gold out of dross or silver out of baser metal out of the ruines of their mothers bodies but so their mothers should seem at the resurrection to want part of their bodily and much pined substances which they had at the separation of their souls and bodies Their bodies by this supposition cannot be the same they were when they dyed 5. This Difficultie might by many like Instances be both increased and inlarged but the same Answer which our Saviour gave unto the Sadduces Matth. 22. 29. will sufficiently satisfie the Atheists Objection though not the Atheist himself He therefore errs because he knows not the Scriptures nor the Power of God We may further add In these Collections he therefore errs because he knows not the Passive obediential Power or capacitie of nature as subject and obedient to the Active or all-working Power of God How cunningly soever the aforesaid or the like knot may be cast by the Naturalist it hath Two Loops by which it may easily be loosed by which it doth in a manner unloose or untie itself First The Atheist takes that as granted which he can never prove nor make probable out of the course of Nature to wit that when one living creature devours another as when fishes devour men or men feed on fishes or when one man eats another the whole Matter or bodily substance of the creature devoured should be converted into the matter or bodily substance of the cater or devourer This never fals out in the whole course of nature Of the most nourishing live creature that is some part or fragment is not fit for nutriment Not the greediest fish that is can so intirely devour a man but some part of his bodily substance will dissolve into the water air or some other Element or mixt bodies so will some part of the fishes or live creatures which men eat alwayes dissolve into some other bodily substance besides the substance of the man which eats them So that notwithstanding all the former supposed transmutations or all that can be in like case supposed some part of every mans body still remains not converted into the substance of any other bodies but into the air earth or water And our of these reliques and remainders every mans body may be raised again and raised again the self same it was but in a condition much advanced and improved for the Better As a great tree grows out of a small and slender root by the Creators Power by that Power which made the earth to bring forth trees most perfect in their kind in an instant So the least fragment of mans body which remains either in the earth in the water or in other Elements may in a moment grow into an intire or perfect bodie And this manner of the Resurrection of one and the same body not by an intire Recollection or gathering together of all the materal parts whereof the same body did sometimes consist but by the Improvement or Multiplication of some one or few principal portions of the body which hath been seems most agreeably to our Apostles Inference in this place of which hereafter 6. Secondly All the Objections of the Atheist or Naturalist against this Article are grounded upon another supposition taken by them as granted which notwithstanding in true Philosophy is apparently false And their false Ground or Supposition is this That unto the Identity or Unity of the same vegetable or sensitive body be it the body of a man of a beast or of a tree the Unity or Identity of the same material parts is necessarily required The grossness of this Paradox or false supposition will appear from the very explication of the Terms The demonstration of its falshood may be made ocular and palpable out of any vegetable or live body wherein the Atheist or Naturalist can make Instance but most apparently in the Oak which is the longest a dying of any tree in the Hart or Raven which are the longest liv'd amongst the beasts of the field or fowls of the air An Oak albeit it stand four hundred years or unto whatsoever height or greatness in that time it grows is still the same tree or vegetable body which it was at the first plantation yet the Material Parts of it cannot be altogether or for the most part the same that they were The whole Matter or bodily substance of it when it was first set was not the thousandth part of that bodily substance which after three hundred years growth it hath And of the matter which it had when it was but a yard high it is not imaginable that any one part so much as a pins head should be remaining the same it was after it come to be twenty yards in height and a yard in thickness It could not grow in height or breadth unless some parts of the matter which it first had did dayly exhale or evaporate
and new matter come into their places Augmentation and growth in vegetables necessarily supposeth nutrition and nutrition includes a dayly decay of nutriment gotten or of the matter whereof the body consists and a new supply or reparation of the matter or substance lost or wasted by preparation of some new nutriment A Raven likewise is the self same Fowl when it is ready to die for age that it was when it was first hatched but the matter of it cannot possibly be the self same it is not conceivable that so much as an inch of the same matter which it had when it was first hatched should continue in it the same till death For its natural heat doth perpetually consume or wast some part of its matter or substance and its blood without perpetual nourishment by new food or matter prepared would be dried up by its natural heat For life consists in calido et humido in heat and moisture and cannot be continued in any live creature without continual nutriment more then the fire or flame can be preserved without fewel Nor could the life or natural heat wherein life specially consists stand in such perpetual need of nutrition or new mater whereon to feed unless there were a continual dissolution of some material parts which vanish or expire out of the body though not so visibly yet as certainly as fume or smoak doth out of the fewel wherewith the fire or flame is fed Unless there were some precedent diminution or wasting of the material parts in mans body there could be no proper growth or augmentation of the whole body or of every part For if every least particle did remain the same it was as well for quantitie as for qualitie the whole body could not be augmented in every part but it must be as great again as it was before after every such growth or Augmentation For there can be no Augmentation or growth in any part otherwise then by addition of some sensible nutriment Now if every least part be augmented by addition of some new or sensible matter or substance the addition which is made unto every least part would be as great as the part to which it is added For it is supposed that every least part is augmented and augmented it cannot be but by addition of some other sensible body which cannot be less then the least part sensible of a body or of a sensible body 7. But if we grant as the truth is that the material parts of the body augmented remain not the self same to day which they were yesterday or a week ago but are still fluent and wasting other material parts coming into their place with some addition of quantitie so as the addition in bodies growing by dayly nutriment be still greater then the wast or diminution The manner of natural growth or augmentation may be easily conceived And it was a truth of nature excellently expressed by the great Philosopher Aucto toto augetur quaelibet pars etiam minutissima Whensoever the whole body is augmented every least part is augmented As if the whole body in the space of a year be augmented by the quantitie of a palm or a span the thousandth part of the body must be augmented by the thousandth part of a palm or span But thus the whole body as the same Philosopher observes is in every part augmented non quoad formam sed quoad materiam And his reason is qua materia est in perpetuo fluxu because the material parts of mans body are perpetually fluent alwayes decaying and alwayes repaired It is a maxim again of the same Philosopher that Auctum manet idem numero that every vegetable body being augmented how long soever the growth or augmentation lasts is numerically the same it was The case then is clear out of the Book of Nature by which the Atheist or infidel will only be tryed That the body or bodily life of man how long soever he live remains one and the same from his birth unto his death albeit the matter of which his body is composed and wherein his life is seated do not remain the same As the face or image of the Sun remains the same in a water or river albeit the parts of the water in which it is imprinted do not continue the same but as one portion of water slideth away another comes in its place altogether as apt to take the impression or picture of the Sun as the former Or as the light continues one and the same in a lamp albeit the oil which preserves its light do continually wast For one drop or portion of the same oyl or of new oyl poured in is as apt to continue the light as the former drops were which are wasted The light then remains the self same albeit the oyl continually wast So that unto numerical Identitie of the same light the numerical unitie or Identitie or the same portion of oil is not required cannot possibly be had It sufficeth that the oyl or matter which feeds the lamp be the same by Equivalencie By these and many like unquestionable instances in nature the Atheists or infidels supposition is altogether false to wit That unto the Resurrection of the same body or unto the restauration of the same bodily life the Identitie of matter or of material parts which it formerly had is necessarily required I adde that This Identitie or unitie of matter is less needfull unto the numerical unitie or Identitie of mans body because the soul of man amongst all other vegetables is only immortal and remaineth the same it was after it be severed from the body 8. Taking then the first supposition of the Atheists as True Suppose the bodily matter of some men to have been altogether or intirely transubstantiatea or changed into the bodily substance of some other men and that two or three of such men might have the whole bodily substance of some other man or child in their bodies when they died it is no probable Argument or forcible Objection to say This man or child whose bodily substance is supposed to be converted into the substance of other men cannot arise again with the same body which he had because he cannot have the same matter which he had unless the other lose some part of the matter which they had in them when they died Suppose the material parts of every man were utterly annihilated when they died yet their bodies may be made the self same again which they were not only by Creation of new matter out of nothing but out of any matter or Elements prae-existent so prepared and proportioned to their individual nature or bodily life as the former was For the numerical unitie or individual entitie of every nature consists in the unitie or proportioned correspondencie to that modell whereto the Almighty Creator did frame it To conclude then seeing the Resurrection of the same bodies wherein we die must be wrought by the Power of God
it is fitting that we refer the particular manner how our bodies shall be intirely restored unto God himself We will not dispute whether the Resurrection of every man in his own body shall be wrought de facto by recollecting of the dust into which men are turned or of the same material parts which every man had when he died or whether it shall be wrought by Creation of some new matter or only by preparing some other Elementary matter prae-existent and working it into the same individual temper or constitution into which our bodily food or nutriment was wrought whilst we lived It sufficeth to have shewed that every man may arise with his own body by any of the former wayes or partly by one partly by another Lastly the Recollection of the same material fragments or reliques into which our bodies are dissolved is no more necessary by the Principles of nature or true Philosophie unto the constitution of the same bodies at the day of the Resurrection which before have been then the recollection or regresse of the same matter or nutriment whereof our blood or flesh was made or by which our life was preserved in childhood is unto the continuance or constitution of the same life flesh or blood in old age The life of every man in old age is the same the body the same the flesh the same the blood the same which it was it childhood albeit the blood or greatest part of our bodies in childhood was made of one kind of nutriment and the blood which we have in mature or old age be made of another much different nutriment Yea albeit we alter our food or diet every year yet our bodies remain still the same every finger the same whilst it continues in the body and whilst this bodily life continues For albeit the nutriment be of divers kinds yet nature or the digestive facultie works all into one temper and this temper continues the same in divers portions of the matter which is continually fluent and the same only by Equivalencie Now if nature by Gods appointment and co-operation can work divers kinds of food or nutriment into the same form or constitution it will be no improbable supposall to say that The God of nature can work any part of the Element of water of ayre or of earth any fragment or relique of Adams body into the same individual form or mould wherein the bodily life of the man that shall be last dead before Christs coming to Judgement did consist Yet will it be no hard thing for God to make Adam the self same body wherein he died out of the reliques of this mans body To work this mutual exchange between the material parts of several mens bodies without any hinderance or impeachment to the numerical Identity of any mans body or without any prejudice to this truth That every man shall arise with his own body which we Christians believe is impossible to nature or to any natural causes they can be no Agents in this work yet it is no wayes impossible for it implyeth no contradiction for nature thus to be wrought and fashioned by the Creator and preserver of mankind In avouching thus much we say no more then some I take it meer Philosophers have delivered in other Termes Quicquid potest prima causa per secundam idem potest per se sola Whatsoever the first cause doth by the instrumental Agencie or service of second causes the same he may do by his sole Power without the service of any instrumental or second cause Now God by the heart by the Liver and by the digestive facultie as by causes instrumental or secondary doth change the substance of herbs of fruits of fish of roots into the very substance of mans body without dissolving the unitie of his bodily life and therefore if it please him may change the material parts of one man into another mans body or substance without the help or instrumental service of the nutritive or digestive faculty or any other instrumental cause All this he may do immediatly by His sole Power But whether it be His Will so to do or no at the last day be it ever reserved with all reverence and submission to his infinite wisdom alone 9. One scruple more there is wherewith ingenuous minds and well affected may be sometimes touched The doubt may be framed Thus. Although it be most true and evident from the Book of nature that the natural or digestive faculty of man doth preserve the unitie of bodily life entire by diversitie of mater or nutriment yet the living body so preserved is one and the same by continuation of existence or duration His dayes whilst natural life continues are not cut off by death he doth not for a moment cease to be what he was But when we speak of Resurrection from death when we say the dead shall arise with their own bodies here is a manifest interruption of bodily life or of mans duration in bodily life His body ceaseth to be a living body as it was And therefore if he must live again in the body the body to which his soul shall be united at his Resurrection may be called his own body because it shall be inhabited or possessed with his immortal soul but how shall it be The same body which he formerly had seeing the existence or duration of him or of his soul in the body is divided by death and division destroyeth unitie This leaf or paper is one yet if we divide it in the middle it is no more one but two papers The question then comes to this short and perspicuous issue Whether the uninterrupted continuance of duration or existence or unitie of time wherewith the duration of mans life is measured be as necessary to the Unitie or Identity of his bodily Nature or Being as Unitie or Continuation of Quantitie is unto the Unitie of Bodies divisible or quantitative The determination or Judgment is easie The Book of Nature being Judge it is evident That Unitie of Time or continuation of mans life without interruption is but Accidental to the unitie of bodily nature or being It is a circumstance only no such part of the Essence or nature as continuation or unitie of quantitie is of the unitie of bodies divisible for time and quantitie are by nature divisible whereas the nature of man or other things that exist in time is indivisible It is true Division makes a pluralitie in things that are by nature divisible but not in natures indivisible Every thing that is divisible though it be unum actu yet it is plura in potentiâ In that it may be divided it is not purely simply or altogether one but may be made two or more And whilst it remains one it is one by conjunction of parts The entire substance of any natural bodie as it is divisible or subject to dimension cannot be contained under one part of quantitie but part of it is
Emperours or in love to their Religion is a matter of no greater difficulty then to induce a Merchant to lay out an hundred pounds sterling in his own Country upon such assurance as this world affords to receive ten thousand pounds either in the same coyne or in valuable commodities in another Country by way of return or bill of exchange 9. But as for us Christians albeit our hopes of heaven be far more glorious then theirs can be albeit our Faith which is the ground of our hopes be most firm and sound whereas their belief of such a heaven as they hope for is but grounded upon the sand yet in as much as the most part of Christians have no distinct conceit or notion of the heavenly joys which they hope for but believe them only in general or in gross to be exceeding great their Faith is in a manner but dead their Hopes have no operations upon their affections they do not sway them to constancie in any honorable adventures or undertakings for the heavenly Canaan We that be Gods Embassadors may spend our spirits and our breaths and be answered only with Religion consisting in words or with a zeal of hearing Gods Word not of doing it The Case of most Hearers is much what like to the Case of a man extreamly sick and opprest with distempered humors There is no man so sick unless he be possest with deep melancholy or a frenzie but will acknowledge in the general that such a Diet as his Physician prescribes him is good that such meats as he seeth men in health to feed upon with delight are pleasant and useful for preserving health But press him to make his words good by his practise in particular and you shall find a Real Contradiction those meats which out of his former experience he acknowledgeth to be sweet and pleasant are to him in this distemper and indisposition of body bitter and abominable The best Diet which the Physician can prescribe him is nothing so welcom to him as those meats and drinks which the distempered humor longeth after And albeit you urge him with the authoritie of Hypocrates Galen or other famous Professors of Physick yet you shall not perswade him to follow their Counsel until he have in some measure recovered his Tast and the only means to recover it must be by the removing the noxious humor wherewith it is oppressed Yet such as are bodily sick have had some Tast and experience of wholsom food in the time of their health for bodily health ordinarily goes before bodily sickness But The spiritual diseases of our Consciences have precedencie of spiritual health we all are soul-sick from our birth even in the womb And for this reason it is That to work a Longing in us after a spiritual health or to bring us in love with true spiritual food is a matter of far greater difficulty then to bring a man bodily sick unto a liking of wholsom bodily food We may perswade Men in the General That the joys of heaven infinitely exceed all the pleasures of this life And thus far they will easily believe us But without some Tast or rellish of them no man will set his heart to seek after them 10. For us to give men or men to take A True Rellish of them it is not ordinarily possible until our hearts and consciences be in some good measure disburthened of fleshly lusts of worldly desires or freed from minding earthly matters The ordinary Physick which God doth use in working this First Cure is some Cross affliction or chastisement Every Cross or branch of affliction which in this life can befall us is in the intention of Gods providence as a peculiar Medicine to purge our souls of some one vain delight or other Now If we would seriously ruminate upon the particular afflictions which befall us or suffer the sting of conscience to have its work whensoever our hearts do smite us This would be a good preparation for the recovery of our spiritual Tast without whose recovery we cannot be purified according to the purification of the Sanctuary But say the Lord hath laid no cross no affliction upon us yet this is a Diet so necessary for the soul That every one in case the Lord do not must afflict his own soul that is he must sometimes humble himself in fasting and prayer for this in the language of Canaan is to afflict the soul without such exercises voluntarily undertaken not as meritorious or profitable in themselves but as useful for enjoying of our selves and the gaining of free and retired thoughts our spiritual Tast is not usually recoverable or being in some measure recovered cannot be preserved But you will ask Wherein doth this spiritual Tast consist what is the object of it or that which answers unto it as bodily food doth unto bodily tast or What is the best dyet for recovering of it This you are to learn from our Apostle Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink it neither consists in our use or abstinence from these what is it then Righteousness peace and joy in the holy Ghost These words if you mark them are well placed First Righteousness Then peace lastly Joy in the holy Ghost For as the Prophet had said long before Opus justitiae pax Peace the peace of conscience towards God towards men and with our own souls and affections is the resultance or work of righteousness as it is opposed unto iniquity For There is no peace to the wicked saith my God Esai 57. 21. Joy there may be without this peace or serenity of conscience but no Joy in the Holy-Ghost without it Peace of conscience is as the first Tast or smell of eternal rest The first sign or Symptome of spiritual health restored Joy in the Holy-Ghost is to the soul as that chearfulness or livelinesse which accompanieth perfect health is unto the body Righteousness or its works are as the food or dyet by which this spiritual health and livelinesse of the soul is procured 11. So then he that desires to have a true Tast of the heavenly gift or of the powers of the life to come must enure himself to the works of righteousness of that Universal Righteousness whose practise is commended unto us in the Affirmative and positive precepts of the first and second Table It is not enough to abstain from the evil works prohibited in the Negative precepts of both Tables This abstinence is as the matter or privation of that true righteousness whereof peace is the work or fruit Howbeit even this Inchoative Righteousness or imperfect Embryon of it is seldom or never framed and conceived without some chastisement or correction which are as gentle Remembrancers of the horrours of the second death Nor is this Inchoative or privative righteousnesse alwayes framed by chastisements or such remembrances but by patient suffering of them or by embracing them as so many tokens
Reformation and Refining was that they made The Church which in their Language was the bodie of the Clergie A body Politick or kingdom distinct from the body of the Layetie holding even Christian Kings and Emperours to be Magistrates meerly Temporal or civil altogether excluded from medling in affairs Ecclesiastick Now this being granted the Supream Majestie of every kingdom State or nation should be wholly seated in the Clergie The greatest Kings and Christian Monarchs on earth should be but meer vassals to the Ecclesiastick Hierarchie or at the most in such subordination to it as Forraign Generals and Commanders in chief are to the States or Soveraignties which imploy them who may displace them at their pleasure whensoever they shall transgresse or not execute their instructions or Commissions For this reason as in the handling of the first verses of the 13. Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans hath been declared unto you before All the disputes or Lawes concerning the Supremacie of Kings or Free States within their own Dominions were to no purpose unlesse this Root of mischief and Rebellion be taken away which makes the Clergie a body politick or Common-weal Ecclesiastick altogether distinct from the Layetie-Christian Now this erroneous Root of mischief hath been well removed by the Articles of Religion established in this Church and Land Article the 37. wherein The same authoritie and power is expresly given to the Kings of this Realm and their successors which was in use and practise amongst the Kings of Judah and the Christian Emperors when kingdoms and Common-weales did first become Christian The Law of God and of nature will not suffer the Soveraign Power in Causes Ecclesiastick to be divorced from the Supream Majestie of any Kingdom or free Soveraigntie truely Christian But what be the contrary Errors into which such as take upon them to be Reformers of the Reformation already made have run headlong Or how do they the same things wherein they judge the Romanists The Romanists as they well observe deserve condemnation by all Christian States for appropriating the Name or Soveraign Dignitie of the Church unto the Clergie and by making the Prerogative of Priests and Prelates to be above the Prerogatives of Kings and Princes The Contrary faction of Reformers not content to deprive the Clergie of those civil Immunities and priviledges wherewith the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Fundamental Law of this Kingdom have endowed them will have them to be no true members of the Common-weale or Kingdom wherein they live Or at the best but such Inferior members of the Common-weale as the Papists make the Layetie to be of the Church men that shall have no voice in making those Coercive Lawes by which they are to be governed and to govern their flocks yea men that shall not have necessary voyces in determining controversies of Religion or in making Rules and Canons for preventing Schisme I should have been afraid to beleeve thus much of any sober man professing Christianitie unlesse I had seen A book to this purpose perused as is pretended in the Frontispice by the Learned in the Laws But the Author hath wisely concealed his own name and the names of those learned in the Lawes which are in grosâ—â— pretended for its Approbation And therefore I shall avoid suspition of ayming at any particular out of mis-affection to his person in passing this general Censure No man could have had the heart to write it no man the face to read it without blushing or indignation but he that was altogether unlearned and notoriously ignorant in the Law of God in the Law of nature and in the Fundamental points of Christianitie 6. All Errors in this kind proceed from these Originals First The Authors of them Charitie may hope by Incogitancie or want of consideration rather than out of Malice seek to subject the Clergie unto the same Rule unto which the Church was subject for the first 300. years after Christ during which time the Kings and Emperours under which the Christians lived were Heathens And whilst the chief Governours were such no Christians could exercise Coercive Authoritie as to Fine imprison or banish any that did transgresse the Lawes of God or of the Church The Apostles themselves could use no other manner of punishment besides delivering up to Satan Excommunication or inhibition from hearing the word or receiving the Sacraments Secondly the Authors of the former Errors consider not That whilest the Church was in this subjection to meer Civil and not Christian Power the Lay-Christians of what rank soever though noble men by birth were as straightly confined and kept under as were the Clergie Yea the Clergie in those times had greater authoritie over Lay-Christians then any other men had Authority much greater over the greatest then any besides the Romish Prelates do this day challenge over the meanest of their flocks But after Kings and Emperors and other supream Magistrates were once converted to the Christian Faith their dignities were no whit abated but gained this Addition to their former Titles that they were held supream Magistrates in Causes Ecclesiastick That is they had power of calling Councils and Synods for quelling Schisms and Heresies in the Church power likewise to punish the Transgressors of such Laws or Canons as had been made by former Godly Bishops or Prelates which lived under Heathen States or of such as the Bishops or Clergy which lived under their Government should make for the better Government of Christs Church Unto punishments meerly spiritual which the Apostles and Bishops had formerly only used Christian Emperors added punishments temporal as imprisonment of body loss of goods exile or death according to the nature and qualitie of the transgression But that any Laws or Canons were made by Christian Kings or Emperors for the Government of the Church or that any Controversies in Religion were determined without the Express Suffrages and Consents of Bishops and Pastors though all wayes ratified by the Soveraigntie of the Nation or State for whom such Canons were made no man until these dayes wherein we live did ever question 7. And of such as question or oppose Episcopal Authoritie in these Cases I must say as once before out of this place in like case I did If Heathen they be in heart and would perswade the Layetie again to become Heathens their Resolutions are Christian at least their conclusions are such as a good Christian living under Heathens would admit But if Christians they be in heart and profession their Conclusions are heathenish or worse For what Heathen did ever deny their Priests the chief stroke or sway in making Lawes or ordinances concerning the Rites or service of their Gods or in determining Points Controverted in Religion To conclude this Point The men that seek to be most contrary to the Romish Church and are most forward to judge her for enlarging the Prerogative of Priesthood beyond its ancient
help of this Rule For Instance to lay this Rule unto St. John Baptists speech Matth. 3. 10 11 12. Now also the ax is laid unto the root of the tree Therefore every tree which bringeth forth not good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire I indeed Baptize you with water unto repentance but he that cometh after me is mightier then I whose shoes I am not worthy to bear he shall Baptize you with the holy Ghost and with fire Whose fan is in his hand and he will throughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the Garner But will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire This Prediction cannot be exactly fulfilled until the Final Sentence be given and put in execution And yet within 43 years after his Baptism by John there was a manifest and lively representation exhibited to the World of his second coming unto Judgement and this representation was exhibited upon the Nation of the Jews The full accomplishment whereof shall at his second coming and not before be universally and exactly accomplished in all Nations and Languages and People Wherein then doth this representation of Final Judgement which at his first coming was exhibited in the Jewish Nation punctually consist In this especially There was such a notorious and manifest Crisis or distinction between the Elect and Reprobate of the Jewish Nation or seed of Abraham at his first coming as in no Nation or People had been experienced before nor shall be experienced in any before the day of Final Judgement in which this distinction of Elect and Reprobates shall not be onely universally manifested but solemnly declared in respect of all mankinde Every Son of Adam shall in that day be irrevocably marshalled or ranked either amongst the absolute Reprobates or absolute Elect In the one or other rank of which estates neither all nor most of every Nation or Church are at all points of time in the Interim to be accounted no not in respect of Gods Eternal Decree Nor may the Verdicts or Aphorisms whether of our Saviour himself or of his Apostles after his death concerning Election or Reprobation be extended to other times or Nations in the same measure or Tenor wherein they were verified and experienced in the Nation of the Jews at or upon our Saviors first coming Thus far to extend them in respect of all Times or Nations were to transgress the Analogie of Faith or received Rules of Interpreting Scriptures and to dissolve the sweet and pleasant Harmony between the Law and the Gospel or between the Evangelists and the Prophets And thus far of the second Point in handling whereof divers passages have intruded themselves which are not impertinent to the third Point CHAP. XII Of the manner of Christs coming to Judgement which was the third General proposed in the ninth Chapter 1. IT is said in the former Prophecie of Daniel chap. 7. ver 13. that One like the Son of Man came in the clouds of Heaven unto the Ancient of days The literal fulfilling of this Prophetical vision is recorded Acts 1. 9. And when he to wit Christ the Son of Man had spoken these things whilest they beheld He was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight But whither he was carried in the Cloud which received him they could not distinctly see Their bodily eyes could not see so much by day as had been revealed to Daniel in vision by night But admit that this cloud did carry him into the presence of the Ancient of days or of God his Father What is this manner of his going into Heaven unto the manner of his coming to Judge the Earth which is The Point in hand Certainly much for so the Angels ver 11. admonished his Disciples which stedfastly beheld the Manner of his Ascension Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into Heaven This same Jesus which is taken from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into Heaven But shall the manner of his coming to Judge the World be in every point like unto the manner of his ascending into Heaven No! then it should not be so terrible as we believe it shall be The chief parts then of this similitude are these Two The First As he did locally and visibly go into Heaven so he shall locally and visibly come to judge the earth The second As he was received into Heaven in a cloud so he shall come to Judge the World as he himself foretold the High Priest and his Complices Matthew 26. 64. in the clouds of heaven The literal meaning of both places and the intent and purpose as well of the Angels as of our Saviour in this prediction infers That this Son of man whom they now beheld with bodily eyes was that very God whose glorious kingdom and reign the Psalmist describes Psal 104. 3. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters who maketh the clouds his chariots who walketh upon the wings of the wind Who maketh his Angels Spirits or the Spirits his Angels his Ministers a flame of fire So they will appear when they attend him Coming to Judgment which will be in flaming Fire In all the manifestations of Christ to be the Son of God The Cloud is still a Witness First In his Transfiguration upon the Mount A Cloud did overshadow him and out of the Cloud this testimony was given him by God the Father Matth. 17. 5. this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him 2. Whilest he ascends to God his Father Acts 1. 9. A Cloud receives him And 3. When he shall come from heaven or from his Fathers presence to judge the earth he shall have a Cloud for his Canopy For more particular Description of the Manner of his Coming the next Point is From what place he shall come Now it is expresly said in our Creed That Christ Jesus our Lord who was conceived by the holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended into hell who the third day rose again from the dead ascended into heaven and there sitteth at the right hand of God shall thence come to Judge the quick and the dead But this word Thence is of ambiguous Reference It may be referred in general either to the Heavens into which he ascended or unto the Right hand of God or unto both Certain it is that he shall come from Heaven as visibly and locally as he ascended thither Yet whether he shall come from the Right hand of God is questionable but not by us determinable unless it be determined already in the first Chapter of this Book what is literally meant by The Right hand of God either in the Creed or in those places of the New Testament out of which This Article is taken If Christs Body as Lutherans did contend chapt 3. § 6. be every where or if
by the Right hand of God only the Power of God be literally meant as many other Protestant Writers take as granted or leave unquestioned then Christ cannot be said to come from the Right hand of God for it is impossible that Christ should come or that there should be any true motion from that which is every where Neither can it be said nor may it so much as be imagined that Christ should depart from the Power of God which wheresoever he be as man doth accompany and guard him But if by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth be literally meant A visible and glorious Throne then Christ may be said as truly and locally to come from thence as from heaven to Iudge the Quick and the dead At least His Throne may remove with him Now that by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth A Visible or local Throne is meant I will at this time add only one Testimony unto the rest heretofore avouched in the handling of that Article which is more literally concludent then all the rest and it is Heb. 12. 2. He endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Not at the right hand of his own Throne but at the right hand of the Throne of God the Father 2. For perfecting this Map or Survey of Christs coming to Judgment already begun would it not be as pertinent to know The Place unto which he shall come as the Place whence he comes By the Rules of Art or method this last Question would be more pertinent then the former But seeing the Scriptures are not in this Point so express and punctual as in the former we may not so peremptorily determine it or so curiously search into it This is certain That Christ after his descending from heaven shall have his Throne or Seat of Judgment placed between the heaven and the earth in the air over-shadowed with clouds But over what part of the earth his throne shall be thus placed is uncertain or conjectural at the most but probable Many notwithstanding as well Antient as Modern are of Opinion That the Throne or Seat of Iudgment shall be placed over the Mount of Olives from which Christ did ascend and This for ought we have to say against it may be A Third Branch of the fore-mentioned similitude betwixt the manner of Christs ascending up into heaven and of his Coming to Judgment that is As he was received in a cloud into heaven over Mount Olivet so he shall descend in the clouds of heaven to Judge the world in the same place But the Testimony of Scripture which gives the best Ground of probability and a Tincture at least of moral certainty to the former opinion or conjecture is that of Zach. cap. 14. ver 3 4. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those Nations to wit all those Nations which have been gathered in battel against Ierusalem and these in the verse precedent were all Nations as when he fought in the day of battel And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the East and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West and there shall be a very great Valley and half of the Mountain shall remove toward the North and half of it toward the South c. This place albeit perhaps in part it were verified in the destruction of Ierusalem yet may it be also literally meant of the Last General Judgment in which the rest of the prophecie following shall punctually and exactly be fulfilled 3. But to leave these Circumstances of Place from which and unto which Christ shall come and utterly to omit the Circumstance of Time which is more uncertain The most useful branch of the Third General Point proposed is to know or apprehend the Terrible manner of his Coming Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord saith our Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 11. we perswade men His Speech is very Emphatical and Significant an Aphorism of Life unto whose Truth every experienced Physician of the soul will easily subscribe For but a few men there be especially in these later times and these must be more then Men in some good measure Christian Men whom we can hope to perswade unto Godliness by the Love of God in Christ our Lord Albeit we should spend our brains in drawing the picture or proportion of the Love exhibited in Christ or give lustre or colour to the proportion drawn by the Evangelists with our own blood But by the Terror of the Lord or by decyphering of that last and dreadful day we shall perhaps perswade some men to become Christians as well in heart as in profession by taking Christ's Death and their own Lives into serious consideration Now of Terror or dread there be Two Corporeal Senses more apprehensive then the rest which are apt rather to suffer or feel then to Dread the evils which befal them The Two In-lets by which Dread or terror enters into the soul of man are the Eye and the Ear. All the Terrors of that last day may be reduced to these Two Heads To the strange and unusual Sights which shall then be seen and unto the strange and unusual Sounds or Voices which shall then be heard If we would search the Sacred Records from the Fall of our first Parents until our restauration was accomplished by Christ or until the Sacred Canon was compleat The notifications or apprehensions of Gods extraordinary presence whether they were made by voice or spectacle unusual have been fearful and terrible to flesh and blood though much better acquainted with Gods Presence then we are When our first Parents heard but the Voice of the Lord God walk in the garden in the cool of the day they hid themselves from his presence amongst the trees of the Garden Gen. 3. 8 10. When Gideon Judg. 6. 22. perceived that he which had spoken unto him albeit he had spoken nothing but words of comfort and encouragement was the Angel of the Lord Gideon said Alas O Lord God because I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face The issue of his fear was Death which happily he conceived from Gods word to Moses Exod. 33. 20. Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live But to assure Gideon that he was not compriz'd under that universal sentence of Death denounced by God himself to all that shall see him face to face the Lord saith unto him ver 23 24. Peace be unto thee fear not thou shalt not die and Gideon for further ratification of this Priviledge or dispensation built an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom that is the Lord send peace or the Lord will be a Lord of peace unto his servants Yet could not this assurance made by the Lord himself unto