by him suffered the generality of them at the least to walke in their own wayes and fulfill those lusts to which they naturally were addicted And some there were who by conforming of their lives to the Law of nature and cherishing those good motions which they felt within them attained unto so clear a knowledge of the nature of God and such an eminent height in all moral vertue that greater was not be found amongst those of Israel For what could any Iew say more of the nature of God his divine Attributes his Power and Providence the making of all things out of nothing by Gods mighty hand and the sustaining of the same by his infinite wisdome then we have formerly declared to have been believed by the most knowing men amongst the Heathens whom they called Philosophers Insomuch as we may justly think as Octavius did Aut nunc Christianos Philosophos esse aut Philosophos jam tunc fuisse Christianos that in this point Philosopher and Christian had been termes convertible Nor did they rest themselves contented with that general knowledge of his eternal Power and Godhead which they had studied and found out in the book of nature but they knew also very well that God was to be worshipped by them in their best devotions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place to worship God is one of the first counsels in the Grecian Oratour And it was Catos first rule which we learnt at School that God being as he is a Spirit is to be worshipped by us with spiritual purity Si Deus est animus nobis ut carmina dicunt Hic tibi praecipue sit pura mente eolendus Which may be Englished in these words If God as Poets say a Spirit be Then with pure minde let him be serv'd by thee Which principle of natural piety being planted in them there is no point of reverence whatsoever it be either required of or practised by the people of God in his outward worship which was not punctually performed by the antient Gentiles Of Solomon it is said in the book of Kings that when he had made an end of praying all his prayers and supplication to the Lord he rose from before the Altar of the Lorld from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up unto the heavens Where we finde kâ—eeling on the knees and lifting up of the hands to be the usuall as indeed the fittest posture in the act of prayer Finde we not that the Gentiles did observe the same and went as far as Solomon if not beyond him First for the lifting up of hands we finde in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgil Duplices tendens ad sydera palmas in Ovid Vtraque Coelo brachia porrexit and finally Tendere palmas ad delubra deum in an old Latine Poet cited by Lactantius And as for kneeling on their knees they so little scrupled it that they conceived themselves not to do enough in the adoring of their Gods unlesse they flung themselves prostrate on the ground before them Of which Ovid thus speaking of Deucalion and Pyrrha Vt Templi tetigere gradus procumbit uterque Pronus humi gelidoque pavens dedit oscula saxo Which is thus Englished by G. Sandys Then humbly on their faces prostrate laid And kissing the cold stones with fear thus prai'd The like may be affirmed of lifting up the eye to the throne of grace when we petition God for his mercies towards us Which as it is exemplifyed in that of David Early in the morning will I direct my prayer to thee and will look up so do we finde it parralleled in that of Virgil Illi ad surgentis conversi limina solis which if it rather seem to speak of turning to the East in the act of prayer then of lifting up the eyes to heaven let us take that of Ovid which is plain enough where speaking of poor Io and her prayers to Iupiter he saith that she looked up to Heaven tendens ad sydera vultus when she made her prayers And lest it should be thought as perhaps some will be apt to think that they stood more upon the outward reverence of the body then the inward purity of the soul in the act of worship remember Catos pura mente which before we had And add to that the memorable saying of the wiseman Socrates that God regardeth not so much the perfumes which were used in sacrifices as the souls and virtues of mortal men or that of Persius one of the Latine Poets who doth require that in all their addresses to the Gods they should be sure to take along with them Compositum jus fasque animi sanctosque recessus Mentis i. e. a soul replenished with righteousness and religious thoughts Upon which words Lactantius who doth cite them giveth this glosse or descant Sentiebat non carne opus esse ad placandam coelestem Majestatem sed mente sancta that he conceived the sanctity of the minde to be more necessary for the appeasing of the Gods then any service of the body But being that these applications and addresses howsoever qualifyed were made to those that were no Gods they cannot scape the censure which St. Paul gives of them that knowing God they worshipped him not as God but became vain in their imaginations changing the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things The like may also be affirmed of those frequent sacrifices wherewith they sought to expiate their offences and appease the anger of their Gods The rites and reason of the which they received from Noah and not from any diabolicall suggestion as some men conceive as Noah had them by tradition from the elder Patriarchs For being well enough perswaded that the Gods were much offended at the sins of men and finding many terrible effects of divine vengeance to pursue them they could not better study their own indemnity then to have recourse unto those sacrifices which had been found effectual in the former times for the appeasing of Gods anger and expiating those offences which they had committed Examples of this kinde in all antient Authors Greek and Latine are obvious to the eye of every reader T is true the Devil did maliciously pervert this Institution and caused it in tract of time to be so altered in the object that in stead of being offered to the God of Heaven they sacrificed to Idols made of silver and gold even the work of mens hands worshipping and serving the creature more then the Creatour as St. Paul saith of them whereby the truth of God was changed into a lie and that which first was instituted for a Propitiation became to them a manifest occasion of falling into greater and more hainous sin And it is also true that the Devil not content with this first imposture in drawing to himself
for sin should he not redeeme us Since therefore he was at this time to bear the burden of our sins in his body and to have the chastisement of our peace laid upon him and did withall behold the fiercenesse of Gods wrath against sinfull man how could he choose but fear the effects thereof and pray against them For though he were assured that this wrath of God would not proceed against him unto condemnation yet he knew well that God had infinite means to presse and punish humane nature above that which it was able to bear And therefore he addressed himself to his heavenly Father being sure that God at his most earnest and fervent prayer would proportion the pain he was to suffer according to the weaknesse of that flesh which he bare about him that neither his obedience might be staggered nor patience overwhelmed and swallowed up in despair Besides there might be somewhat else in the cup provided for him then the wrath of God with all the fears and terrors which depend upon it which might make him so unwilling to tast thereof so earnestly desirous to decline the same For many of the Fathers think that Christ did pray more vehemently to have that cup passe from him because he saw the Iews so eagerly inclined to force it on him and knew that if he drank thereof and took it from their murderous and bloudy hands it could not but draw down upon them such most grievous punishments as the dispersing of their nation and the rejection of them from the Covenant and grace of God For thus saith Origen for those men then whom he would not have perish by his passion he said Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me that both the world might be saved which was the principal matter aimed at and the Jews not perish by his suffering St. Ambrose thus Therefore said Christ take this cup from me not because the Son of God feared death but for that he would not have the Jews though wicked to perish Ne exitialis esset populo Passio sua quae omnibus esset salutaris lest his passion should be destructive to them which was to be healthfull unto all Of the same minde is Hierome also Christ said not let the cup passe from me but let this cup passe from me i. e. this cup provided by the Jews which can have no excuse of ignorance if they put me to death considering that they have the Law and the Prophets which foretell of me So that Christ makes not this request as as fearing to suffer but in mercy to the former people Sed misericordia prioris populi ne calicem ab illis propinatum bibat that he might not drink the cup which was offered by them Whose judgement in this point is so well approved by venerable Bede our Country-man that he is loath to change the words And certainly this consideration of those worthies stands on very good reason For if he so much pitied the ruine of the City and desolation of their land by the hands of the Romans that he wept upon the thought thereof what sorrow and disconsolation shall we think he took to thinke of the perpertual destruction of so many thousands and their posterities for ever thorow their own madnesse in thirsting after his bloud What grief and anguish must it be unto him to foresee the rejection of that people from the favour of God by their rash and wicked desire to have his bloud upon them and upon their children at his arraignment before Pilate For if Moses and Paul so vehemently grieved at the fall of their Brethren according to the flesh that for their sakes the one wished to be wiped out of the book of God the other most sacredly protested the great heavinesse and continual anguish which he felt for them in his heart how much more might it grieve the Saviour of the world who much exceeded both the other in compassion and mercy to see himself who came to blesse them and to save them to be the rock and stone of offence that should stumble them and their children striking them with perpetual blindnesse and bruising them with everlasting perdition through their unbelief But whether this was so or not as it may be probable most sure it is that many things concurred together to make up the measure of those sarrowes fears and terrors which were then upon him and against which he prayed so fervently and with such prostration Insomuch that having offered up his prayers and supplication to him that was able to save him from death with strong crying and tears to him who was able had he pleased to take away that cup from him but howsoever able and willing both to mitigate the sharpnesse of it and abate the bitternesse the Lord thought fit to send him comfort from above by his heavenly Ministers And there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven strengthning him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Greek which by the vulgar Latine is translated confortans eum comforting him by the translatour of the Syriack confirmans eum strengthning or confirming him as our last translation The word in the Original will bear both constructions both being of especial use in the present businesse For if we look upon our Saviour in the middest of his anguish praying unto the Lord that if it were possible that cup might passe from him the Angel may be thought to be sent unto him with a message of Comfort touching the mitigation of his sorrows the speedy end they were to have and the inestimable benefit that by his sufferings should redound unto all the world and then it is confortans eâ—m as the vulgar Latine But if we look upon him as resolved to submit himself to his Fathers pleasure not my will but thy will be done and patiently to endure whatever he should lay upon him the Angel may be thought to be sent unto him to strengthen and confirme him in that resolution and then it is confirmans eum as the translatour of the Syriack reads it But which soever of the two it was certain it is that the appearance of the Angel had some special end God doth not use to send about those heavenly messengers but on businesses of great importance And though there be no constat in the book of God what this businesse was on which the Angel was sent down by the Lords appointment yet we may probably conceive that it was to give him this assurance that his prayers were heard whether they tended to the mitigation of his present sorrows or the accepting of his death and passion as a full perfect and sufficient satisfaction for the sinnes of the world For the Apostle having told us in the fift to the Hebrews that when in the days of his flesh he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from
death he addeth in the very next words that he was heard in that he feared that is to say the prayers and supplications which he made to God were not ineffectuall but he obtained that of the Lord for which he prayed so earnesly and devoutly to him in regard that his said prayers proceeded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the text from a godly and religious fear such as the School men call by the name of the fear of reverence Now that the matter of these prayers might be in reference to his offering of himself for the good of mankinde many of the Fathers say expressely St. Paul here saith as Ambrose writeth that Christ offered prayers and supplications non timore mortis sed nostrae causa salutis not so much for the fear of death as for mans salvation and thereupon Paul saith in another place that the bloud of Christ cryed better things for us then the bloud of Abel so saith Primasius Totum quicquid egit Christus in carne c. All that Christ did in the flesh were prayers and supplications for the sins of mankinde and the shedding of his bloud was a strong cry in which he was heard of God his Father in regard of his reverence i. e. for his voluntary obedience and most perfect charity The like saith Haymo on the text a writer of the middle times but of very good worth who keeps himself in the particular to the words of Primasius But above all Sedulius comes most home to the point in hand a writer of good credit under Theodosius the 2. Ann. 430. or thereabouts Christ saith he prayed with tears not shed for fear of death but for our salvation and was heard of God the Father when the Angel did comfort him for his reverence either his with his Father or else his Fathers towards him So that if either the mitigation of those feares and terrors which were then upon him or the acceptance of his death in ransome for the sins of the world were any part of those prayers which he made in the Garden as in all likelihood they were it could not but be most comfortable news unto him that his prayers were granted and the Angel a most welcome messenger by whom such comfortable news was sent And this we may the rather think to be the message which the Angel brought in regard that after this we finde no more mention of those fears and sorrows which formerly had seized upon him but that he cheerfully prepared himself for the stroke of death and called up his Disciples to go forth to meet it So carefull was his heavenly Father of his dearest Son as not to hold him in suspence but to impart unto him upon all occasions how grateful his obedience was how infinitely he was pleased with that zeal constancy which he had manifested in his greatest and most fiery trials In which regard no sooner had he driven away the Devil in that great temptation which at first he suffered in the Wilderness but behold the Angels came and ministred unto him as St. Matthew telleth us And here no sooner had he overcome the difficulties which flesh and bloud and humane frailty had proposed unto him and called upon the Lord for strength to goe through with so great a work and for the acceptation of that offering he was then to make but straight an Angel came from Heaven to strengthen him in his sufferings and comfort him in his afflictions No mention after this of those fears and sorrows which formerly had seised upon him and of the which he had complained so sensibly unto his Disciples But then perhaps it will be said If on the coming of the Angel he received such comforts what then could bring him to that Agony which the Gospel speaks of and speaks of in the very next words to those of the appearance of the holy Angel an agony so sharp and piercing that his sweat was as it were great drops of bloud I know indeed that many do impute this Agony to that extremity of grief which our Saviour suffered and others to those hellish and infernal torments which they conceive according to the new devise to have been within him and that the bloudy sweat which the Scriptures speak of was an effect or consequent of those griefs and torments But on a further search into the business we shall finde it otherwise the Agony into which he fell proceeding not from the extremity of pain or sorrow but from a greater vehemency in prayer And being in an agony saith the Text he prayed more earnestly in which he was so zealously inflamed against sin and Satan that he powred forth not only the strength of his soul but the very spirits of his body For though the word Agony be sometimes improperly taken for fear yet properly it is affirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of him that is ready to descend to any combat or conflict as Orion a most antient Grecian observeth in which regard Damascen gives this exposition of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standing in doubt or fearing lest we fail in our undertakings we are said to be agonized or to be in an agony And hereto Aristotle that great and wise Philosopher agreeth also where he sheweth not only that an agony may be where there is no fear as when we attempt things honest and commendable though difficult to be attained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for which men strive and are agonized without fear but also that sweating in an agony proceeds not from fear but rather from zeal and indignation An agony saith he is not the passing of the natural heat from the higher parts of the body to the lower as in fear but rather an increase of heat as in anger and indignation and he that is in an agony is not troubled with fear or cold which crosseth ex diametro this new devise but with expectation of the event So that an agony to speak properly inferreth neither fainting fear nor deadly pain as some misconceive it but noteth a contention or intension of body or minde whereby men labour to perform their desires and strive against the dangers which may defeat them of and in their enterprise And for this agony of Christs if we compare it with those circumstances which attend the text we shall plainly see that it proceeded not from the extremity of grief or sorrow against both which he had received strength and comfort by the hands of the Angel but from that fervency of zeal and contention of minde to prevail in that which he desired and to remove all rubs and difficulties which were set before him The Devil as we know did attempt our Saviour at the first entrance on his Ministery when he was first proclaimed to be the Son of God though then he had no more quarrel to him then to finde out the truth of that proclamation whether he were the Son of God or not
which the voice from heaven proclaimed him openly to be But since that time there had been many bickerings between them in which the Devil always went away with the loss his Ministers disgraced and their crimes laid open even in the sight of all the people his Kingdome in the souls of men in danger to be lost for ever by the preaching of that Gospel which our Saviour taught and as a preparative thereunto himself ejected violently out of many of his strongest holds and fortresses I mean the bodies of those men which he had possessed And then why may we not conceive that either to revenge himself on his mortal enemy in a desperate hope to prevail against him he had now mustred all his forces for another onset and was resolved to put the whole fortune of his affairs upon the issue of this combat and by the issue and success thereof of so great a battel to decide the title which he pretended and laid claim to in the souls of mankinde Why may not this be thought the conflict in which our Saviour was ingaged or willingly had ingaged himself on the appearance of the Angel for the success whereof he prayed so earnestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Greek with greater earnestness of minde and fervency of zeal then he did before For my part I can see no reason but it might be so Certain I am that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a race a wrastling or some such solemn publick exercise and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number denote such things as appertain to those games and exercises Thus read we in the book of Maccabees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cum quinquennalis Agon Tyro celebraretur i. e. when the games of every fift year were kept at Tyre and in the first to the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nam qui in Agone contendit c. i. e. Every man that striveth for the mastery as the English reads it And it is plain to any who is conversant in the Greek not only that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie to be solicitous and in anguish but also to contend or strive about the victory but also that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word here used by the Evangelists though it doth generally denote a dismaying sorrow yet is used sometimes to express Luctantis angustias difficillimas the straights which Wrastlers are reduced to in those publick exercises But whether this conjecture be approved or not for I leave it arbitrary there is no question to be made but that the bloudy sweat which the Scripture speaks of proceeded not from fear but fervency not from the anguish of his heart but from that heat of zeal and strong intension of minde which was then upon him It could not come from fear that 's certain for fear as Galen hath observed doth presently drive the bloud and spirits towards their Fountain and contracteth them together by cooling the uttermost parts of the body For on the apprehension of any imminent danger the bloud and spirits which are naturally diffused through all the parts of the body repair immmediately unto the heart as the principal fortress for the strength and preservation of the whole repercussis spiritibus atque in intimos cordis sinus receptis as we read in Scaliger So that the bloud and spirits being drawn back to the heart or towards their fountain as Galen saith as usually they are in the case of fear it cannot be that any extremity of fear should be the cause of such an unusual kinde of sweat as that which did befal our Saviour And on the other side it is no new thing that fervency of zeal and a vehement contention of the minde being they heat and thin the bloud and not cool and thicken it as we are told by Galen that fear doth most commonly should produce such a strange effect as a bloudy sweat For the Physitian whosoever he was who writ the Book De utilitate respirationis amongst Galens works doth affirm for certain Contingere poros ex multo aut fervido spiritu adeo dilatari ut etiam exeat sanguis per eos fiatque sudor sanguineus that is to say it sometimes hapneth that abundant or fervent spirits do so dilate the pores of the body that bloud issueth out by them and so the sweat may be bloudy Which observation being true as no doubt it is we may well think if we look to the order and sequence of the Gospel that the fervent zeal of our Redeemer extremely heating the whole body melting the spirits rarifying the bloud opening the pores and so colouring and thickning the sweat of Christ might in most likelyhood be the cause of that bloudy sweat Doth not the Gospel say expresly that being in an Agony or dangerous and dreadful conflict he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of bloud falling down to the ground and was not then that bloudy sweat a natural and proper effect of that fervency and zeal of prayer of which it is made a consequent in the holy Gospel Certain I am that Zuinglius one of the first men that laboured in the present Reformation of the Church did conceive it so Non lacrymas modo oculis sed sanguinis guttas e corpore exprimit seria devota oratio c. Serious and fervent prayer saith he doth not only draw tears from the eyes but a bloudy sweat also from the body as we see in Christs agony And doth not Bernard say to the same effect that Christ falling into an agony and praying the third time seemed to weep not only with his eyes but with all the parts of his body Nor doth it hinder us at all that the drops are said to be great great drops of bloud as in the English such as the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines Grumi but doth rather help us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed doth sometimes signifie the congealed parts of that which is liquid and the compacted peeces of that which is powdered But it stands very well with reason that Christs sweat might be thick by reason it issued from the inmost parts of his body and was mixed with bloud or might break out in great and eminent drops as coming from him violently and abundantly and being coloured with bloud and congealed with the coldness of the ayr might trickle down like strings or great drops of bloud to the very ground The greater those drops seemed to be the greater was that fervency of Spirit in which he prayed unto the Lord the greater the occasion he had to powre sorth those prayers He was now in his great incounter with the powers of darkness the safety and salvation of all mankinde depended on the issue and success thereof Angels and Archangels and all the hosts of heaven were gathered as
to signifie the place of meeting and the people which did therein meet That by these words Ecclesia quae est domi ejus St. Paul meaneth not a private family but a Congregation Severall significations of the word in the Ecclesiasticall notion of it The Clergy sometimes called the Church The Church called Catholick in respect of time place and persons Catholick antiently used for sound and Orthodox appropriated to themselves by the Pontificians and unadvisedly yeelded to them by the common Protestants Those of Rome more delighted with the name of Papists then with that of Christian. The Church to be accounted holy notwithstanding the unholinesse of particular persons The errour of the old and new Novatians touching that particular confuted by the constant current of the book of God Neither the Schismatick nor the Heretick excluded from being Members of the Catholick Church The Catholick Church consists not only of Elect or Predestinate persons The Popes supremacy made by those of Rome the principall Article of their faith Of the strange powers ascribed unto the Pope by some flattering Sycophants as well in temporal mattters as in things Spiritual The Pope and Church made termes convertible in the Schools of Rome The contrary errour of the Presbyterians and Independents in making the Church to be all body St. Hieroms old complaint revived in these present times The old Acephory what they were and in whom revived The Apostles all of equall power amongst themselves and so the Bishops too in the Primitive times as successors to the Apostles in the publick government Literae Formulae what they were in the elder ages Of the supremacy in sacred matters exercised by the Kings of Iudah and of that given by Law and Canon to the Kings of England CHAP. III. Of the visibility and infallibility of the Church of Christ and of the Churches power in expounding Scripture determining controversies of the faith and ordaining ceremonies WHat we are bound to believe and practise touching the holy Catholick Church in the present Article The Church at all times visible and in what respects The Church of God not altogether or at all invisible in the time of Ahab and Elijah nor in that of Antiochus and the Maccabees Arianisme not so universal when at the greatest as to make the Church to be invisible The visibilitie of the Church in the greatest prevalency of the Popedom not to be looked for in the congregations of the Albigenses Husse or Wicliffes answer to the question Where our Church was before Luthers time the Church of Rome a true Church though both erroneous in Doctrine and corrupt in manners The Vniversal Church of Christ not subject unto errour in points of Faith The promises of Christ made good unto the Vniversal though not to all particular Churches The opposition made to Arianism in the Western Churches and in the Churches East and West to the Popes Supremacy to the forced Celibat of Priests to Transubstantiation to the half Communion to Purgatory Worshipping of Images and to Auricular confession General Councels why ordained how far they are priviledged from errour and of what authority The Article of the Church of ENGLAND touching General Councels abused and falsified The power of National and Provincial Councels in the points of faith not only manifested and asserted in the elder times but strenuously maintained by the Synod of Dort Four Offices of the Church about the Scripture The practises of the Iews and Arians to corrupt the Text. The Churches power to interpret Scripture asserted both by Antient and Modern Writers The Ordinances of the Church of how great authority and that authority made good by some later Writers The judgement and practice of the Augustane Bohemian and Helvetian Churches in the present point Two rules for the directing of the Churches power in ordaining Ceremonies How far the Ordinances of the Church do binde the Conscience CHAP. IV. Of the Communion which the Saints have with one another and with CHRIST their Head Communion of affections inferreth not a community of goods and fortunes Prayers to the Saints and adoration of their Images an ill result of this communion THe nature and meaning of the word Communio in the Ecclesiastical notions of it The word Saints variously taken in holy Scripture In what particulars the Communion of the Saints doth consist especially The Vnion or Communion which the Saints have with CHRIST their Head as Members of his Mystical body proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Communion which the Saints have with one another evidenced and expressed in the blessed Eucharist Of the Eulogia or Panes Benedicti sent from one Bishop to another in elder times to testifie their unity in the faith of Christ. The salutation of the holy kiss how long it lasted in the Church and for what cause abrogated The name of Brothers and Sisters why used promiscuously among the Christians of the Primitive times Of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Love Feasts in the elder ages The readiness of the Christians in those blessed times not only to venture but to lay down their lives for one another Pleas for the community of the Estates studied by the Anabaptists and refelled by the Orthodox The natural community of mankinde in the use of the creatures contrary unto Law and Reason and to the pretentions also of the Anabaptists themselves The Orthodoxie in this point of the Church of England A general view of the communion which is between the Saints departed and those here on earth The Offices performed by godly men upon the earth to the Saints in Heaven That the Saints above pray not alone for the Church in general but for the particular members of it The Invocation of the Saints how at first introduced Prayers to the Saints not warranted by the Word of God nor by the writings of the Fathers nor by any good reason Immediate address to Kings more difficult then it is to God The Saints above not made acquainted in any ordinary way with the wants of men Arguments to the contrary from the Old Testament answered and laid by An answer to the chief argument from the 15. chapter of St. Luke Several ways excogitated by the Schoolmen to make the Saints acquainted with the wants of men and how unuseful to the Papists in the present point The danger and doubtfulnesse of those ways opened and discovered by the best learned men amongst the Papists themselves Invocation of the Saints and worshipping of their Images a fruit of Gentilisme The vain distinctions of the Papists to salve the worshipping of Images in the Church of Rome Purgatory how ill grounded on the use of Prayers for the dead Prayers for the dead allowed of in the primitive times and upon what reason The antient Diptychs what they were The heresie of Aerius and the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning Prayer for the dead Purgatory not rejected only by the Church of England but by the whole Churches of
thing in property they could call their own but were indeed a people of so extreme a poverty that they no more needed the helps of God or man then the Beasts of the field Fennis mira feritas foeda paupertas non arma non equi non penates as he tels us there And more then so they had attained saith he to the hardest point Vt ne voto quidem opus sit that they had no need nor use of prayers to the gods on high For what need they make supplication to the gods and goddesses for blessings on their Corn and their Wine or Oyl who neither sowed nor planted nor used any husbandry What should they do with houshold gods who had no houses but the Earth only for their bed and the Heavens for the Canopy And yet perhaps these Fenni were not altogether without the knowledge of GOD or to be counted absolute Atheists more then the barbarous people of other new discovered Countries but that they had this Character bestowed upon them because they shewed less signs of any Religion then those Nations did with whom the Romanes had had longer acquaintance and so were more experienced in their rites and customes And of all men that flourished before Tullies time there were none stigmatized with the brand of Atheism but only Diagoras Melius and Protagoras the Cyrenaean to whom some added Enhemerus the Tegaean also Of the two first indeed it is said by Lactantius Protagoras deos in dubium vocavit Diagoras exclusit that Protagoras first called the beeing of the gods in question and that Diagoras was the first who denyed it absolutely who therefore was surnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Atheist as Minutius hath it And yet perhaps it will be found upon further search that neither of the three did doubt or deny this truth that there was a God but that they got this ill repute amongst the Gentiles for scoffing and deriding those Idol-gods whom their neighbors worshipped For of Diagoras it is said that when he cast the Statua of Hercules into the fire he did it with this scoffe or jeere In hoc decimo tertio agone mihi inservias that he should serve him now in that thirteenth labor as he had done Eurystheus in the other twelve And as well known is that of Protagoras also who is said to have thus mocked at the Idolatries of the old Egyptians Si dii sunt cur plangitis si mortui cur adoratis i. e. If they be gods why do you lament them for in the rites and sacrifices of the goddess Isis they used to make great lamentations if dead why do you then adore them As for the third man Euhemerus for these were all of note who stand thus accused he was accounted guilty of Atheism for no other reason but because he had composed an history of the birth lives and actions of the Heathen gods proving that they had been no other then some famous men whose Statua's had been turned to Idols and themselves worshipped by the people in tract of time for some powers Divine Which book of his Lactantius and some others of the Primitive Writers do make very good use of in their discourses with and against the Gentiles 'T is true that on those grounds and on those occasions which are spoken of by Enhemerus the greatest part of the old Heroes as Saturn Iupiter Apollo Neptune Mars Hercules and the rest of that infinite rabble became by degrees to have divine honours conferred upon them And 't is as true that the Egyptians worshipped Apis in the form of an Oxe or the Oxe rather under the name of Apis as being of greatest use to them in the course of their tillage and so they did also Leekes and Onions and divers other of the fruits of the Earth also by which they lived and some strange creatures also which they dreaded most quis nescit qualia demens Aegyptus portenta colat as the Poet hath it As true it is that other Nations worshipped the Sun and Moon and all the rest on the heavenly bodies unto whose glorious light and influences they thought themselves so much heholding Which may be used as a further and most invincible argument to prove that the knowledge of this truth that there was a God was naturally ingraffed in the souls of all men and that this natural inclination was so powerful in them that they rather would have any gods then none at all and therefore made themselves such gods as came next to hand worshipping STOCKS and Stones and Leekes and Onyons and whatsoever else their blinde fancies dictated And this I take it gave the hint to Democritus first and after him to Epicurus and the whole Sect of the Stoicks to set up FATE and Fortune in the place of the Gods or otherwise to invest dame Nature with the powers of a Deity For finding that the biass of all sorts of people inclined them strongly to believe that there was a God they were content to let the gods hold their place in Heaven but then they robbed them of their power or supreme providence in governing the World and ordering the affairs thereof And this was the disease of Davids fool in the Book of Psalms who used to say in his heart that there was no God Not that he was so very a fool as to think there was no God at all but that he thought the God of Heaven was so far above him and so imployed in matters of an higher nature as neither to take care or notice of the things beneath Which therefore he◠as Democritus and the Epicureans after did ascribed to Chance and Fortune or to Fate and Nature And as it seems this errour in the time of the Poet Iuvenal found such a general entertainment amongst the Romanes that he thought fit to tax it in his Satyres thus Sunt qui Fortunae jam casibus omnia ponunt Et Mundum nullo credunt Rectore moveri Natura volvente vices lucis anni Atque ideo intrepide quaecunque Altaria jurant That is to say Some think the World by slippery chance doth slide That days and years run round without more guide Then Natures Rule From whence without all fear Of Gods or men they by all Altars swear But howsoever this opinion carrying a less shew of impiety then that of Diagoras and Protagoras had done before became more generally to be received among the Gentiles yet in effect in rather changed then bettered the state of the question And though it did not strike down all the gods at a blow yet by degrees it lessened their authority amongst the people and brought them to depend wholly upon chance and fortune or on fate and destiny that in the end there might be no other God thought of none of the Heavenly Powers be sued to or adored at all Which plainly was their aim as St. Austin telleth us where notwithstanding their pretences he
it denotes the first person in the Oeconomie of the glorious Trinity There are three that bear record in heaven as St. Iohn hath it the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And in this notion or acception of the word GOD is the father of our Lord and Saviour IESVS CHRIST whom he hath begotten to himself before all worlds generatione 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by such a kind of generation as neither the tongue of Men nor Angels can expresse aright In this respect our Saviour saith of GOD the first person I and my Father are one and in another place which we saw before on another occasion I work and my Father also worketh In this sense God the Father saith of the second person This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And finally in this as no man living no not any of the host of Heaven is to be called the Son of God but the second Person so none of the three Persons takes the name of Father but the first alone Though GGD hath severall sons and by severall means as shall be shewed anone in the place fit for it yet only CHRIST is called his begotten son and therefore God a naturall Father if I may so say unto none but him And this is that which Gregory Thaumaturgus hath told us saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath no other son by nature but thee my Saviour The name of this generation I forbear to speak of It is a point I waived from the very first when first I undertook to expound this Creed as being of too sublime and transcendent nature for the shallowness of my capacity to inquire into It is enough that I acknowledge God to be the Father of our Lord IESVS CHRIST by an eternall generation though I professe my self unable to discourse thereof with any satisfaction to my self or others And for the generation of our Saviour in the fulnesse of time by which he was conceived of the Virgin Mary I shall have opportunity to speak in a place more proper So that not having more to speak of the name of Father as it is personall and hypostaticall in the first Person only I shall proceed to that acception of the word wherein it is taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or essentially and so given to GOD that every person of the Trinity doth partake thereof But first I cannot choose but note that even in that equality or unity which is said to be between the Persons of the blessed Trinity the Father seems to me to have some preheminency above the others For not only the Greek Church doth acknowledge him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root and fountain of the God-head but it is generally agreed on by all Orthodox writers that the Father is first in order though not in time Pater est prior ordine non tempore as Alstedius states it and by Aquinas amongst those of the Church of Rome that the Son or second person is Principiatus non essentiatus that is to say if I rightly understand his meaning that there was a beginning of his existence though not of his essence or a beginning of his Filiation but not of his God-head And yet I dare not say that I hit his meaning for I professe my self uncapable of these Schoole-niceties because I finde it generally agreed on by most learned men that CHRIST receiveth the being and essence which he hath from the Father although not in the way of production of an other essence which was condemned as an impious heresie in Valentinus Gentilis but by communication of the same Add here that those who have most constantly stood up in the defence of the doctrine of the Trinity against some Hereticks of this Age doe notwithstanding say and declare in publick that CHRIST though looked upon as the Son of God in his eternall generation cannot be said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-essentiate And that both Genebrard Lindanus and some others of the Romish Doctors have quarrelled Calvin whom Beza laboureth to excuse in that particular for saying that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hath his God-head from himself wherein he is deserted by Arminius also and those of the Remonstrant party in the Belgick Countries But that the Father Almighty mentioned in my Creed was not and is not both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too hath never been affirmed nor so much as doubted of by any Christian writer of what times soever Next look we on the name of Father as it is taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentially in the holy Scriptures and then it is appliable to every person of the blessed Trinity each of which in his severall person or subsistence may be called our Father Thus read we of the second person for of the first there is no question to be made in the 9. of Esay that unto us a Son is born and that he shall be called wonderfull the mighty God the everlasting Father Vers. 6. Thus in St. Iames we finde that the holy Ghost is called Pater luminum the Father of lights it being his office to illuminate every soul which is admitted for a member of the Church of CHRIST in which respect the Sacrament of Baptisme in which men are regenerated and born again of water and the holy Spirit was antiently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or illumination The reason why the name Father doth in this sense belong respectively to each is because they equally concur as in the work of Creation God the Father creating the world in the Son by the holy Ghost so in those also of Redemption and Sanctification From whence that maxim of the Schools Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa that is to say the outward or externall actions of the Trinity are severally communicable to the whole essence of GOD and not appropriated unto any particular person And yet the name of Father even in this acception is generally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the common course of speech referred to the first Person only as he that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root and fountain of the God-head as before was said For thus hath CHRIST himself instructed us to pray and say Our Father which art in heaven And the Church following his command who hath willed us to pray after that manner beginneth many of her prayers in the publick Liturgy with this solemn form of compellation Almighty and most mercifull Father Not that we do exclude the Son or the holy Ghost in our devotions but include them in him In Patre invocantur filius et spiritus sanctus as Bellarmine hath most truly noted And therefore though we commonly begin our prayers with a particular address to God the Father yet we conclude them all with this through Christ Iesus our Lord and sometimes add to
to him therefore must we sue and address our prayers as often as we stand in need of his help and succour either in stirring up the diligence of our own proper Angels or sending us such for their succour as the case requireth The Angels are his Ministers but not our Masters our Guardians at the best but by no means our Patrons Therefore we must not pray to them in our times of danger but to God that he would please to send them Not unto them because we know no warrant for it in the holy Scripture nor any means might it be done without such warrant to acquaint them ordinarily with our present need by which they may take notice of our distresses and come in to help us 'T is true the Daemons or evil Angels in the state of Gentilism were honoured both with Invocation and with Adoration and the Colossians being newly weaned from their Idolatries thought it no great impiety to change the subject and to transfer that honour on the Angels of light which formerly they had conferred on the Angels of darkness But doth St. Paul allow of this No he blames them for it Let no man saith he beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels Not in a voluntary humility as if we thought our selves unworthy to look up to God and therfore must employ the Angels for our Mediators For this was formerly alleadged as it seems by Zonaras by some weak Christians in the infancy and first days of the Church Of whom he telleth us that they were verily perswaded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say That we ought not to invocate Christ to help us or to bring us to God but to desire that favour of the Angels rather immediate address to Christ being a thing too high for our great unworthiness Nor in the worshipping of Angels which being an effect of their former Gentilism Of which consult St. August Confess l. 10. cap. 42. De Civit. Dei l. 8 9 10. Theodoret upon the Text Clemens of Alexandr Strom. l. 3. Can. 35. Concil Laodicensis was therefore by St. Paul condemned and forbidden as a thing plainly derogatory to the honour of Christ whom they did hereby rob of the glorious Office of being the Mediator between God and man 'T is true that there were some in the Primitive times who were called Angelici who intermingled the Worship of God with the adoration of Angels and lived about the end of the second Century But then it is as true withall that they were reckoned Hereticks for so doing both by Epiphanius in his Pannaion and by St. Augustine in his 39. chap. ad quod vult Deum And not the adoration only but even the invocation of Angels also invocation being an act of Divine worship is by the same Epiphanius condemned for heresie Haer. 38. where he speaks of it as a thing in usual practise amongst the Hereticks called Caini Nor was this worshipping of Angels condemned only by them but by all the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea Canon 35. nor by them only who were guided by a fallible spirit nor by St. Paul only though directed by the Spirit of God but by the very Angels themselves who constantly have refused this honour whensoever by mistake or otherwise it was offered to them For when Manoah in testimony of his joy and thankfulness would have offered a Kid unto that Angel which brought him news from Heaven of the birth of his son the Angel did refuse it saying If thou wilt offer a Burnt-offering thou must offer it unto the Lord By which modest and religious refusal of so great an honour Manoah knew as the Text hath it that he was an Angel And if we may not offer to them the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving then certainly they do as little expect our incense or the oblation of our prayers And therefore it was both piously and acutely said by divine St. Augustine that if we would rightly worship Angels we must first learn of them that they will not be worshipped The like we also finde in the Revelation Where when St. Iohn astonished at the sight of the Angel fell down at his feet to worship him the Angel did refuse it saying See thou do it not for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy Brethren Concerning which we have this memorable passage of the same St. Augustine Quare honoramus eos c. We honour saith he the angels with love not service neither do we build Temples to their honour for they will not so be honoured by us because they know that we our selves are the Temples of God And therefore it is rightly written that a man was forbidden by an Angel that he should not worship him but one God alone under whom he was a fellow-servant with him They then which do invite us to serve and worship them as Gods and so do all which do invite us to pray unto them are like to proud men who would be worshipped if they might though to say truth to worship such men is less dangerous then to worship Angels Finally he resolves it thus and with his Resolution I shall close this point though much more might be said in the prosecution Let Religion therefore binde us to one God Omnipotent because between our mindes or that inward light by which we understand him to be the Father and the truth there is no creature interposed Pray to them then we may not we have no ground for it But pray to GOD we may to send them to our aid and succour when the extremity of danger doth invite us to it And having made our prayers we may rest assured that God will send them down from his holy hill from whence comes Salvation and give them charge to succour us as our need requireth Calvin himself alloweth of this and gives it for a Rule or Precept Vt in periculis constituti a Deo petamus protectionem Angelorum confidamus eos ex mandato Dei praesto fore But behold a greater then Calvin here For our most blessed Mother the Church of England not only doth allow of so good a rule but hath reduced his rule to as good a practise By whom we are taught to pray in the Collect for St. Michael the Archangels day that God who hath ordained and constituted the service of all Angels and men in a wonderful order would mercifully grant that they who always do him service in Heaven may by his appointment succour and defend us on earth through IESVS CHRIST our Lord. Amen Further then this we may not go without entrenching deeply upon Gods Prerogative which as these blessed spirits expect not from us so neither will they take it if it should be offered Non nobis Domine non nobis is the Angels song But so it is not with the Devil or the Angels of darkness who do not only accept of those
how to comfort them with the joyfull news of his recovery Sorrow and grief and anguish and disconsolation our Saviour did begin to feel there 's no doubt of that though not in such a high degree as to make him fall into those extremities of passion as neither to know what he did nor for what he prayed He that could come to his Disciples in the middest of his anguish and reprove them for their sloth and sleepiness had neither lost the use of his speech nor senses And if his prayers were full of faith as no doubt they were for the Scriptures say that he was heard in that he prayed for which could not be without a perfect measure of faith assuredly however he was heavily oppressed under the burden of afflictions he knew full well both what he prayed for and to whom But this was only the beginning of his sorrowes as before was said It followeth in the text both in Matthew and Marke My soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto the death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my soul is compassed round with sorrowes such as doe seem to threaten me with no lesse then death and yet no way to scape them as in both Evangelists And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For as an eminent Prelate of our own doth observe right well The whole work and weight of our Redemption was now before Christs eyes and apprehension in a more exact and lively manner he now appearing before the judgment seat of God then we in this body can discern For as all things needfull shall be present and patent to us when we are brought to Gods tribunall so Christ presenting himself before the judgement of God to the end that man might be redeemed by the ransome which he was to pay for him and Satan ejected from prevailing against his members by his mediation did fully and perfectly behold the detestation which God had conceived against our sins and the power of his wrath provoked by our defection and rebellion as also the dreadfull vengeance prepared and ordained for sin and our dull and carelesse contempt of our own misery together with the watchfulnesse and eagernesse of the common adversary the brunt and burden of all which he was to bear and to avert them from us by by that satis â—action which the justice of God should then require at his hands as a just price and full recompence for the sins of men The due consideration and intuition whereof being in Christ more clear then we can conceive might worthily make the manhood of Christ both to fear and tremble and in his prayers to God to stir and inflame all the powers and parts both of soul and body as far as mans nature and spirit were able with all submission and deprecation possible to powre forth themselves before his God Here was full cause undoubtedly to make him sorrowful and sorrowful unto the death How could it otherwise be conceived when the just and full reward of our iniquities was thus presented to his sight when he beheld the greatnesse and the justnesse of Gods wrath against it and therewithall considered within himself how dear the price must be and how sharpe the pain which should free us of it And on the other side considered how precious his own person was how infinite his obedience how pure his life and yet how that most precious life must be taken from him that by one death and that death only of the body he might deliver us from the death both of body and soul. So then his soul was â—ull of sorrow there was good cause for it but not oppressed with any pains much lesse tormented and inflanted with the pains of hell as some would fain gather from the text for neither tristitia in Latine nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek either amongst divine or humane writers signifie any such impression of pain and torment but an affection only which afflicts the minde rising upon the apprehension of some evill either past or instant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek amongst the choycest humanitians is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Cicero translates opinio recens mali praesentis a fresh opinion of present or impendent evill And Austin telleth us for the Latines that grief and anguish when it is in the soul is called tristitia that is sorrow but when 't is in the body then 't is molestia pain or trouble Thus is the word taken also in the holy Scripture where St. Paul saith I would not come again unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sorrow or heaviness for fear he should have sorrow of them of whom he did expect to be received with joy and where it is affirmed of the rest of the servants when they perceived how cruelly their fellow-servant which was pardoned so great a sum dealt with one of his debters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were very sorry And certainly they might be very sorry on so sad an accident out of a fellow-feeling of their Brothers miserie we have no reason to conceive them to be full of pain Hitherto we have met with such griefs and sorrows in our Saviour as never man endured before but yet they prove not to be such as either did confound all the powers of his soul or astonish all the senses of his body or brought him into such amazement that he considered neither what he said or did Some have endevoured to infer this as before was noted out of the texts and words foregoing but with ill successe and therefore they are fallen at last on an other Scripture which they think makes for them How is my soul troubled saith our Saviour and what shall I say Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this houre Here they observe a contrariety or contradiction in our Saviours words which could not possibly proceed but from a soul distracted and a minde confounded and what could work so strange and sensible a confusion in him but the pains of hell which were within him But whatsoever they observe the most eminent men for parts and learning in the times before them could see no such matter Erasmus in his Paraphrases gives this glosse upon them which Bullinger a learned Protestant writer doth extol most highly and calleth an excellent explication I finde my soul troubled for the day of my death approaching and what shall I say For the love of mine own life shall I neglect the life of the world By no means I will apply my self to the will of my Father Mans weaknesse troubled with the fear of death may say unto him Father if it be possible save me from this hour from this danger of death which is now so near me But love desirous of mans salvation shall presently add Nay rather if it be expedient let death which is desired come for as much as wittingly and willingly by the
eyes of his people did he establish him in the office of the high Priest saying Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech That so it was in his advancement to the throne of his father David shall be made evident in the course of these present Commentaries when we shall look upon him as invested with the regal power And that it was so in his establishment in the Sacerdotal shall be made evident by the testimony of the great Apostle whose words here presently ensue Christ saith he glorifyed not himself to be made the high Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee did confer it on him As he saith also in another place Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech that is to say that from the day and moment of the resurrection at what time the fiâ—st of the two Prophecies were fulfilled which God delivered by the mouth of the Psalmist saying Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee was our Redeemer to begin the execution of the high Priests office after the order of Meschisedech And this appeares to be the meaning of the Apostle in the present place by the words ensuing For presently on the recitall of the words before recited viz. Thou art a Priest after the order of Melchisedech he addes of Christ that in the dayes of his flesh he offered up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death if he had so pleased But finding his Fathers resolution to the contrary he learned obedience though a Son by that which he suffered and finally that being perfect or rather consecrated for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth import most properly he was made the Authour of eternall salvation unto all those that obey him and was called or publickly declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God an high Priest after the order of Melchisedech And to say truth had not the Scriptures been so clear in the proof hereof yet necessary consequence grounded upon comparing of one text with another and that applied according to the principles of natural reason would evince it for us The Priesthood of Melchiseâ—ech as the Scripture telleth us was an everlasting or eternall Priesthood Thou art a Priest for ever for no shorter term and therefore of necessity to be exercised and enjoyed by one who must be as eternal as the office is and yet a man and taken from amongst the Sons of men to offer gilts and sacrifices for the sins of the people But such our Saviour was not take him as a man though otherwise more qualifyed and prepared then any for so high an office untill he had so crushed and broken all the powers of death that death had now no longer title to him or dominion over him which doubtlesse was performed at the resurrection And therefore then and not before when all the ceremonies of his consecration were fulfilled in order did he begin to exercise the function of an endlesse everlasting Priesthood after the order of Melchisedech The order of Melchisedech that comes after next And touching that we will examine these three things 1. Who Melchisedech was 2. Wherein his high Priesthood did consist 3. In what the Parallel doth stand between Christ and him Concerning the first point who and what he was hath been a great dispute amongst learned men some thinking that he could not be a mortal man and therefore must needs be either the holy Ghost or else the Son of God then appearing to Abraham in the likenesse and similitude of an earthly Prince The last is most eagerly defended by P. Cunaeus a very learned man and a great Philosopher in his book de Republ. Hebraeorum The reason of this difficulty and his errour are those words of St. Paul where he describeth Melchisedech to be without father without mother without descent having neither beginning of dayes nor end of life And this thought he can be no other then the Son of God Others with greater probability both of proof and reason declare him to be Sem the third son of Noah out of whose loins our father Abraham was descended and this opinion hath found most acceptance generally amongst the learned though some of very eminent parts do opine the contrary But whether he were Sem or not or rather some petty King of the Land of Canaan who went forth to congratulate Abraham upon his returne they are much troubled to apply the negative character which St. Paul hath given us to any upon whom they desire to fasten The best and clearest resolution of the doubt which I yet have met with is that Meschisedech whosoever he was is said to be without father and mother in the same sense as he is after said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators render without descent of which his being without father or mother is one branch or member And he is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. without genealogy and not without descent as our English reads because he hath no predecessour either father or mother amongst the rest of the Patriarks whose Genealogies are recorded in the book of God And in this sense as he is said to have no beginning of dayes because the time of his birth is no were remembred so is he also said to have no end of his life because neither the time of his death nor the succession of any after him in his two great offices is specifyed upon the Registers of sacred writ And yet if the Catena Arabica be of any credit we have heard more news of late touching this great man then hath been till of late made known in these Western parts For in their Marginal notes on the 10. of Genesis they say of Phaleg of whom we finde mention vers 25. And this Phaleg was the Father of Heraclim the Father of Melchisedech But in the Chapter going before his Generation is set down in this formal pedegree viz. Melchisedech was the son of Heraclim the son of Phaleg the son of Eber And his Mothers name was Salathiel the daughter of Gomer the son of Japhet the son of Noah And Heraclim the son of Eber maried his wife Salathiel and she was with child and brought forth a son and called his name Melchisedech that is the King of righteousnesse called also the King of Peace By this account Melchisedech was the sixth from Sem and Cousen german unto Serug who was Abrahams Grandfather and being of the linage and house of Sem might well confer that blessing on his Cousen Abraham which had been given to Sem by their father Noah And then one of the greatest arguments to prove Melâ—hisedech to be Sem that namely which is borrowed from the forme and manner of the blessing which he gave to Abraham will be answered easily And were this true as I can hardly reckon it
place where he brings in our Saviour sitting at the right hand of God and making intercession for us In this respect he is called the Mediator of the New Testament Heb. 12.24 that is to say one that doth intercede betwixt God and man to make up the breach that was between them and reconcile poor man to Almighty God And this is such a trust such an high imployment as never was committed unto Saints or Angels but purposely resolved by God for this great High Priest As we acknowledge but one God so can we have no more then one Mediatour and this can be no other then our Lord and Saviour There is one God saith the Apostle and one Mediator between God and man even the man CHRIST IESVS Do we desire to know more of him in this Office from the holy Scriptures hear him then speaking of himself and saying I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me So excellently true is that gloss of Augustines Non est quo eas nisi ad me non est qua eas nisi per me Our Saviour in this case saith he is both the journeys end and the way also Do you desire to hear more from him in this Office from the holy Fathers take then this passage of S. Ambrose Ipse est Os nostrum per quod Patri loquimur he is the mouth by which we speak unto the Father if we hope to speed To state this point more fully as a point in Controversie we are to lay these two truths for a certain ground of our proceeding the first that men are sinners from the very womb and all their righteousness no other then a menstruous cloth the second that God is a God of pure eyes and such as cannot patiently behold our iniquities Such being then the disproportion between God and man how could God look on man without indignation or man lift up his eyes to God without confusion God therefore out of his most infinite mercy gave his Son unto us first for a Sacrifice to be the Propitiation for the sins of the world and after for an High Priest to intercede an Advocate to plead for us unto God the Father to be the Mediator between God and man in all cases of difference and as it were the General Solicitour of our suites and businesses in the Court of Heaven Nay having raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places he made him Master of the Requests appointing him and him alone to receive those petitions and addresses which we make to God and in our name to tender them unto his Father adding his own incense unto our sweet odours that so they might finde welcome at the hands of God And here me thinks this story of Themistocles will not seem impertinent who being banished from Athens his own native soyl was fain to have recourse to Admetus King of the Molossians hoping to finde that safety in a strange land which his own Country could not give him Being admitted into the Kings Chappell he snatcheth up the young Prince into his arms kneels down with him before the Altar and so presented his desires and himself to the King the young Princes Father Which kinde of suing or Petitioning as my Author tels me the Molossians held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the most effectual means of dealing with him and such as could not be denyed I think the Application were superfluous to ingenious ears yet for the driving of it home to our present point take it briefly thus We by our Covenant made to God in holy Baptism are become Aliens to the world and as much hated by it as he at Athens in that respect as much necessitated to cast our selves upon the love and mercy of the Lord our God as he to seek protection in the Court of Admetus And as the young Prince whom he used as his Mediator was of a mixt condition between a King and a subject the Heir not differing from a servant when he is a childe So is our Saviour also between God and man God of the substance of his Father before all worlds man of the substance of his mother born in the world as Athanasius in his Creed Finally as Themistocles did assure himself that he should speed in his requests with King Admetus because the Kings son seemed to solicite for him so we with greater confidence may proceed in our prayers to God the Son of God making continual intercession for us that they may be granted Where note that not our pressing into the Chappel as a thing of course nor falling down before the Altar as a point of ceremony but taking Christ into our arms as he did that Prince will make our prayers to be effectual This verified by Christ himself in his holy Gospel Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name saith he that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son And in another place of the same chapter also Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my Name ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full If on these grounds we make no other Mediators of Intercession then him that was the Mediator of Redemption too for such a nice distinction have some men found out the better to deceive their own souls and rob Christ of his glory Let us not stand accused for Hereticks in the Court of Rome or if we must so stand accused yet let us still worship the God of our Fathers after the way which they call Heresie Certain I am that in the way which they call heresie the Lord was worshipped by our Fathers in the Primitive times Ignatius who lived neer the time of the Apostles and conversed with some of them willeth us to have Christ only before our eyes when we make our prayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Irenaeus who lived next to him I mean in time and not in place gives this counsel also Orationes nostras ad Deum dirigere qui fecit omnia that we address our prayers to him only by whom all things were made Origen goes the right way too though in many other things he was out extreamly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we should make our supplications unto God alone who is over all things to God alone as the chief Donour of the blessing but unto God by Christ as the means to gain it Remember what was said before out of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine to the point in hand and we shall finde no other Mediatours of intercession in the times of the Fathers then the man CHRIST IESVS though those of Rome in pity as it were to our Saviour Christ whom they would gladly ease of so great a burden have liberally bestowed the Office on the Saints departed And though a fullerâ—search into their Position is to be made hereafter in a place more proper when
we shall come to speak of the Communion of Saints yet I shall ask this question first and then dismiss the cause to another day My question is if we must call upon the Saints as our Mediatours but Mediators only of Intercession whether they do commend our requests to God immediately by themselves or by the mediation of Christ our Saviour If they reply immediately and by themselves as certainly their doctrine doth import no less what then shall we return in answer to our Saviour words No man comes unto the Father but by me No nor the Saints departed neither if St. Ambrose erre not Eo nisi intercedente nec nobis nec Sanctis omnibus quicquam est cum Deo Nor we nor any of the Saints saith that Reverend Prelate have access to God but only by the intercession of our Saviour Christ. But if they say they do it by the mediation of our Saviour as needs they must and indeed some of them do of late we do but put our selves to a needless trouble in making our address to them which cannot help us nor aid us in our prayers to Almighty God without first going unto Christ for his furtherance in it Especially considering that our blessed Saviour to whom the Saints themselves must become Petitioners hath called us nay commanded us to come to him as often as we are heavy laden with sin or misery upon his gracious promise to relieve us in it Certainly did these men remember the good old rule Frustra fieri per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora they would not make more Mediators then their case requires nor set up such a number of superfluous Priests to become Intercessors for us in the Court of Heaven instead of that one High Priest whom God hath ordained one so compassionate to us in our distresses and every way so sensible of our infirmities For though there be many other qualifications necessary to the constituting of this great High Priest our Saviour Christ for ever blessed as namely to be holy blameless undefiled separate from sinners and higher then the highest Heavens yet none doth speak such comfort to the souls of men as that he had been compassed with infirmities and therefore like to have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way And such is our High Priest our most blessed Saviour who in the dayes of his flesh had been so afflicted exposed unto the scorn of men and the Temptations of Satan that he was fain to make his prayers and supplication to his heavenly Father and that too with strong cries and tears to be delivered from the dangers which did seem to threaten him His bloudy conflict in the Garden and that of Eli Eli Lamasabachtbani when upon the Cross are proof sufficient that he had need of Consolation And they are proof sufficient for this purpose too that being he suffered and was tempted he is able yea and willing too to succour them that are tempted as the Apostle doth infer concerning him For seeing that such an especial part of the Priestly Office is to make intercession for us in all our distresses it seemed expedient to the wisdome of God that he should finde just occasion in his own person to offer up prayers and supplications with strong cries for himself Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco said the gallant Lady in the Poet. It was a plausible answer which Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary gave a great undertaker in School Divinity upon a pretty question which himself proposed The question was What reason might induce our Saviour to make S. Peter Head of the Church who had thrice denyed him rather then St. John the dear Disciple whom he loved a Virgin and one never tainted with any crime To which when the great Clerk could make no reply but rambled up and down in Gods secret Councels the King thus solved the Probleme for him Si virgo Johannes in fide firmus Pontifex fuisset c. The words are many in the Author but the sum is this That if our Saviour had made St. Iohn to be the Head of the Church he would have looked that all men should have been as perfect and sincere as himself and so have proved more rigorous and severe in correcting sinners then the infancy of the Church could bear whereas St. Peter being conscious of his own infirmities would sympathize the better with them and proceed more in his government towards them with the spirit of meekness Assuredly did I believe that Peter was made Head of the Church I could not have conceived a more plausible reason which might induce our Saviour unto that Election But howsoever I shall make this use of the story that God dealt most exceeding mercifully with the sons of men in providing such an High Priest for them as had in all things been tempted like unto themselves sin only excepted having made himself an offering for sin knew better then any of the Saints or Angels could how to apply the benefit of it to our wants and weaknesses And that indeed is the main business of the Priesthood For every High Priest is ordained for men in things pertaining unto God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins as St. Paul defines him Which gifts and sacrifices as they were only types of that gift and sacrifice which Christ made of himself for the sins of the world so that oblation being made there was no longer use of the Legal sacrifice nor consequently of the Aaronical Priesthood By this one offering of himselfe hath â—e made perfect for ever all them that were sanctified and thereby out a signal remarkable difference between that one Sacrifice of himself and the sacrifices formerly required by the Law of Moses For in the time of the Law the Priesthood daily ministring and oftentimes offering the same things which yet considered in themselves and without reference to his own Sacrifice in Gods secret purpose could not take away sin But CHRIST by this one offering of himself for sin did not only take away the sins of many even of all those which faithfully believe in him and sanctifie them in his bloud by that one offering of his body once for all but having so done what he undertook and knowing that there remained no other sacrifice to be performed he sate him down at the right hand of God expecting there untill his enemies be made his footstool No further sacrifice to be offered then that already offered upon the Cross for what could follow after Consummatum est when all which was foreshadowed in the Legal Sacrifices was in that accomplished And as for that upon the Cross how it alluded to the Sacrifices of the Old Testament in what particulars the shadow and the substance held the best resemblance and of the benefit thereof unto all mankinde we have already spoke in the
an ordinary way they can have notice given them of our present wants or be made privy unto our necessities In these two Negatives consists the difference between us in the present Controversie and though it be in all cases difficult and in some impossible to prove a Negative yet we have no small hopes to do it First for the first We do not think it lawful to pray unto them because that by the testimony and confession of the very adversary we have no warrant for it from the holy Scriptures Sure I am that Dominicus Bannes a Dominican Frier and one of the learnedst of the pack doth confess ingenuously That the Doctrines of the Invocation of the Saints and the Worship of Images are neither taught expresly nor implicitely in the Word of God Orationes ad Sanctos faciendas imagines esse venerandas neque etiam expresse neque involutè Scripturae docent which is as full and home as can be And in this case we say in general as did St. Ierom of another but of different nature Non credimus quia non legimus We cannot think that there is such a duty to be practised because we do not finde it any where commanded and that as we embrace those things which are there delivered Ita ea quae non sunt scripta renuimus so we reject those things whatsoever they be if pressed as Doctrinals or necessary Moral duties which are not written in the same And more particularly we say as St. Cyprian did That to pray in any other manner than Christ hath taught us is not onely ignorance but sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What Scripture saith Epiphanius speaking in this very case doth require this of us Which of the Prophets doth allow that any man much less a woman should be worshipped by us and Invocation questionless is an act of Worship His inference is That if it neither be allowed nor required by them then no such thing is to be done Again we do not think it lawful because the holy Scripture seems to be against it St. Paul hath given it for a rule That none are to be invocated or prayed unto but those on whom we do believe How shall they call on him saith he in whom they have not believed Which Text the Fathers used of old to prove against the Arians and the Macedonians that Iesus Christ our Saviour and the Holy Ghost were verily and truly God because the Christians did believe in them and pray unto them For which consult Tertullian de Trinit cap. 14. Origen in his Comment on the Tenth to the Romans St. Basil De Spi. Sancto cap. 22. and Athanasius in Orat. 2. Arianos An Argument no way concludent on the Fathers side in case the Saints may be invoked as well as he For how could they infer from hence That Christ was very God because prayed unto in case the Saints were also capable of Invocation How easily might the Argument have been retorted by those several Hereticks If Invocation of the Saints who certainly were no other than the sons of men had been accounted in those times for good Catholick Doctrine And though the Papists shift off this and the like illations by saying That they pray not to the Saints departed as to the Authors of those benefits which they crave at their hands Sed ut eorum meritis precibus orationes nâ—strae effectum sortiantur as Aquinas hath it but that by their great merits and intercessions our desires may the sooner be obtained Yet this will prove no Plaister for the general sore nor save the common people from down-right Idolatry The Cardinal indeed thus resolves the case That it is lawful for us men to pray unto St. Peter to have mercy on us to save us and set open to us the Gates of Heaven to grant us health and patience and what else we want Modo intelligamus tuis precibus meritis if so we understand it thus Do all these things which I desire by thy prayers and merits But I would fain know of Bellarmine if he knew himself how many of the vulgar sort whatever may be said of some Learned men have ever learnt or practised such a reservation or if they have how far it may extenuate and excuse the sin Lastly We do not think it lawful because we cannot be perswaded that it stands with Reason which reasonable men must needs allow some place to in matters appertaining to the worship of God And Reason tells us how improper and absurd it is To pray to those of whom we have no certainty that they hear our prayers but certainty enough that they cannot grant them The gifts and graces which we ask for not being in the power of the Saints to give as is acknowledged generally in the Schools of Rome Which Reason is so strong on the Protestant side That the Papists have no way to bear off the blow but by an illustration drawn from the Courts of Princes To whom since every private subject may not have access they are necessitated to make use of some powerful favorite or otherwise to commend their sute and tender their Petitions to those which are in ordinary attendance on him And this perhaps we would not stick at were our access to God in Heaven as difficult as it is sometimes unto Kings on Earth or that our Saviour Christ had not undertook the office of recommending our desires to his Heavenly Father But we know well that God hath told us That his eyes are always over the righteous and his ears open to their prayers not open onely as to hear them but to grant them too Nisi quod promptè audiat audita tribuat as it is in Salvian And well we know that Christ hath called us to him saying Come unto me all ye that be heavy laden and I will refresh you Incouragement enough for us to go to him and to God by him there being no way but by him to his Heavenly Father as himself telleth us in St. Iohn Besides this difficulty of access unto Kings and Princes and their dispatch of business by their servants is not if pondered as it ought an Argument either of their Power and Majesty but of their impotency and their weakness Though they are Gods by office they are men by nature and as they cannot come to know the desires and grievances of inferior Subjects but by allowing others to receive their sutes so should they personally attend the business of every Suter they could not eat at all to repair nature nor sleep or slumber to refresh it St. Ambrose very happily hath taken off all colour of so poor a subterfuge whose words I shall lay down at large as being unanswerably home to the present point Ideo ad Reges itur per Tribunos Comites quia homo utique est Rex nescit quibus debeat Rempub. credere Ad Deum
autem quem nihil latet omnium enim merita novit promerendum suffragatore non est opus sed mente devota Vbicunque enim talis ei loquutus fuerit respondebit illi that is to say We therefore have recourse to Kings by Lords and Courtiers because the King is but a man and knows not whom to trust with the Publick Government But to obtain the favor of God from whom nothing is hid for he knoweth what every man deserveth we need no other spokesman than a pious soul with which whosoever comes unto him shall graciously be both heard and answered by him In the next place We grant that in some cases as before is said some of the Saints do pray for some of us in particular but yet we do not think as the Papists do that there is any ordinary way to give them notice of our wants or make them privy unto our necessities If so then it is in vain for us to make our Prayers to them who can neither hear us nor know in any Ordinary way what we pray for to them And so far it is granted by the greatest Champions of the adverse party Si non cognoscant nostr◠orationes videtur otiosum supervacaneum ad ipsos orare saith their great Schoolman Fr. Suares Now that the Saints departed have no knowledge of our wants or wills conceive me still of any ordinary way of communication is evident by that passage in the Prophet Isaiah Abraham saith he is ignorant of us and Israel doth not acknowledge us If so if Abraham himself to whom the promises were made and Israel the father of all the Tribes were ignorant of the affairs of that very people which descended from them what knowledge then should we conceive in the Saints departed after so many ages as have intervened since the death of most of them concerning us and our affairs who are so very strangers to their Blood and Families But lest perhaps it may be thought that the Communion of the Saints supplieth that defect or that the Saints of the New Testament are invested with a greater privilege than were the Patriarcks of the old It is assured us by St. Augustine that they know nothing of our actions or of our occasions Spiritus defunctorum non videre quaecunque eveniunt aut aguntur in ista vita hominum as that Father hath it More positive and particular is St. Ierome in it who speaking of Nepotianus hath this notable passage viz. Quicquid dixero quia ille non audit mutum videtur cum quo loqui non possumus de eo loquinon desinamus i. e. Whatsoever I shall speak doth but seem as dumb because Nepotian doth not hear me and therefore since I can no more speak with him I will be the longer in speaking of him And though the Fathers in their Funeral and Anniversary Orations which they made in honor of the Saints and at the Tombs of the Martyrs make many Rhetorical compellations of them and Apostrophes to them to which the Popish Invocation of Saints owes much of its Original as the learned Primate of Armagh very well observeth yet was it but with ifs and ands as in that of Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear saith he O thou soul of renowned Constantine if thou have any sense or notion of these affairs And now at last the point is brought unto an issue By them of Rome it is supposed that there is knowledge in the Saints departed of all things hapning in the Earth that they take notice of our prayers are privy unto our necessities and therefore that it were a Solecism in the way of piety not to address unto them our Petitions We stand on the defensive part and so reply upon them with an Absque hoc Sans ceo no such matter verily Let them prove this and if they prove not this sufficiently then they prove just nothing and we will either be non-suted and acknowledge judgment or yeeld so far at lest unto them that though this praying unto Saints be the furthest way about yet we may think it possibly the next way home And first out of the Old Testament they produce Iacob and Moses to give in evidence on their side Reverend men against whom we shall not take exception Of Iacob it is said That in his Benediction of the sons of Ioseph he used these words And let my name be named on them or called on by them as the Margin of our last translation and the name of my Father Abraham and Isaac And Moses saith the Text besought the Lord his God and said Remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob thy servants unto whom thou swarest by thine own self To both which Texts the one being but an Exemplification of the other onely this Answer is returned by Calvin Iudaeos patres suos ad ferendas sibi suppetias non implorasse c. That Moses and the sons of Ioseph and the other Iews did not in these and other places of this nature make any prayers to Abraham Isaac or Iacob but onely did desire of God to call to minde the Covenant he had made with them and in them to and with their whole posterity which though it satisfie very fully as to the objection yet we will go to work in another manner and against this and all the other Testimonies which they either have produced already or shall produce hereafter to the point in hand out of the Books of the Old Testament shall save unto our selves the benefit of exception exception not against their persons but against their evidence For in the opinion of the Papists the Patriarcks all of them were in Limbo Patrum before the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour in the retired and secret Caverns of the Earth debarred from all access to Almighty God from all commerce and traffick with us mortal men in as much want of Heavenly comforts as those by them supposed to be in Purgatory though in far less pain The truth or probability of this opinion I dispute not here having declared my self in that point already All that I shall from hence infer be it true or false is That according to their own Divinity the Fathers before Christs Resurrection could very ill sollicite the affairs of the Iews their children as being not till then admitted to the Court and presence of the Lord Almighty nor yet possessed though sure enough at last of their own felicities Bellarmine that great master of Controversies hath resolved it so Because saith he the Saints and other holy men who died before Christ came in the flesh did not enter into Heaven did not see God nor could by any Ordinary means understand the prayers of those who sued unto them therefore it was not used in the Old Testament to say Holy Abraham pray for me but men prayed by themselves for themselves to God and alleged the merits of the Saints
in every point come home to this Pagan Theology in the worshipping of those Daemonia they do not onely pray to the Saints departed but dedicate unto their proper and immediate service as the Gentiles did to their Daemonia Temples and Festivals and Altars and set forms of worship and at the last advance their Images also in the Church of God and give them the same veneration which they conceived was due to the Saints themselves For Instans est Theologorum sententia imaginem honore cultu eodem honorari coli quo colitur id cujus est imago as Azorias telleth us for all so that it is the common and received opinion of the Church of Rome and not of some particular Schoolmen as they use to plead in other cases And certainly they that shall seriously observe with what laborious Pilgrimages magnificent Processions solemn Offerings and in a word with what humble bendings of the body and affectionate kisses the Images of the Saints have been and are still worshipped in the Church of Rome cannot be otherwise perswaded but that that she is relapsed again to her antient Gentilism It is true the better to relieve themselvs in this desperate plunge they have excogitated many fine distinctions as Terminativè and Objectivè Propriè and Impropriè Per se per accidens which howsoever they may satisfie the more learned sort are not at all intelligible to poor simple people What said I That they may give satisfaction to their learned men No such matter verily For Bellarimine himself confesseth That they who hold that any of the Images of Christ our Saviour are to be honored with that kinde of worship which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are fain to finde out many a nice distinction Quas vix ipsi intelligunt ne dum populus imperitus which they themselves much less the silly ignorant people could not understand Which makes me think that sure the Cardinal was infatuated with the spirit of dotage himself defining positively in the self same page Imagines Christi impropriè per accidens posse honorari cultu latriae That by the help of a distinction our Saviours Image might be honored with the highest worship But this I do accompt a fruit of this Iconolatriae this Image-worship as they call it that it draws down on them who use it that most heavy curse That such as worship them are made like unto them Now as it is in Bellarmines judgment with the Image of Christ so is it also with the Images of the Saints departed The worship which is given unto them in the Church of Rome not being to be salved with a dark distinction which neither the poor ignorant people no nor the greatest Clerks which they have amongst them have light enough to understand And though perhaps some men of learning may be able to relieve themselves by these distinctions yet I can see no possibility how the common people who kneel and make their prayers directly to the image it self without being able to discern where the difference lieth between their Propriè and Impropriè or Per se per accidens can be excused from palpable and downright Idolatry Adde unto this the scandal which is thereby given unto Iews and Turks and the great hinderance which it doth occasion unto their conversion who do abominate nothing more in all Christianity than this prophane and impious adoration of Images In which respect we may affirm with safety of the modern Romans what St. Paul tells us of the antient viz. Nomen Dei per vos blasphemari inter gentes that by their means the Name of God is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles But of this Argument enough though neither improper nor impertinent to our present business both Invocation of the Saints and Adoration of their Images having been brought into the Church under colour of maintaining that communion which ought to be between the Saints upon the Earth and the Saints in bliss betwixt the members of the Militant Church and the Church Triumphant both of them making that one body whereof Christ is Head And under the same colour also have they obtruded on the Church their device of Purgatory and all the suffrages and prayers of the Saints alive for those which are deceased but not yet in glory For as it seems the prayers which many of the Saints in bliss make for them on Earth is but in way of a requital for some former courtesies because by reason of their prayers and devout oblations their souls had been delivered out of Purgatory and by that means exalted unto such a degree of happiness as to enable them to pray for their Benefactors This is Ka me ka thee as the saying is If by my prayers a soul hath been delivered from the fire of Purgatory it is all the reason in the world that he should remember me when he comes into his Kingdom or if he do not that I call upon him and put him in remembrance of his obligation It is true that prayer to and for the dead is of larger latitude than to refer to those onely who have been in Purgatory Our Masters in the Church of Rome requiring prayers unto some Saints who were never there as the blessed Virgin Mary the Apostles Martyrs and Primitive Antiquity allowing prayers and offerings for the Saints deceased when as these Purgatorian fires had not yet been kindled For prayer and offering for the dead there is little to be said against it It cannot be denied but that it is antient saith our Learned Andrews I can admit prayer for the dead and deny your purgatory I can give you reasons to pray for the dead and yet keep far enough from Purgatory saith as learned Montague It was indeed a custom of the Primitive Church not onely to make commemorations of the Saints departed for the instruction of the living and honor of the dead as before was said but to name them at the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist offering to God that reasonable service for them that had departed and did rest in peace in sure and certain hope of a Resurrection To this effect there is a passage in the Liturgy ascribed to St. Iames which as Brerewood very well observeth was questionless the Publick Liturgy of the Church of Ierusalem to this effect That God would remember all the faithful that are faln asleep in the sleep of death since Abel the just to this present day and that he would vouchsafe to place them in the Land of the living To this effect we do not onely finde in Cyprian Sacrificamus pro mortuis the offering of the Sacrifice of praise and prayer in behalf of the dead but an express order taken by him that Gemimus Victor who had made one of the Presbyters of the Church of Carthage executor of his last Will and Testament and thereby wholly taken him off
from the work of his Ministery should neither be named in the Offertory nor any prayer be made for him at the holy Altar Ne deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur as his words there are To this effect we have this clause or prayer in St. Chrysostoms Liturgy Offerimus tibi rationalem hunc cultum pro iis qui in fide requiescunt majoribus scilicet Patribus Patriarchis Prophetis Apostolis Praeconibus Evangelistis Martyribus Confessoribus c We offer this reasonable sacrifice unto thee O Lord for all that rest in the Faith of Christ even for our Ancestors and Predecessors the Patriarcks Prophets and Apostles Evangelists Preachers Martyrs Confessors c. And finally to this end served the antient Diptychs being Tables of two leaves apeece in the one of which were the names of such famous Popes Princes and Prelates men renowned for piety as were still alive and in the other a like Catalogue of such famous men as were departed in the Faith as is observed by Iosephus Vice Comes in his Observat. Eccles. de Missae apparatu Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 17. and by Sir H. Spelman in his learned Glossary Out of these Diptychs did they use to repeat the names both of the living and the dead at the time of the Eucharist as appears plainly by that passage of the Fift Council of Constantinople In which we finde first That the people came together about the Altar to hear the Diptychs Tempore Diptychorum cucurrit omnis multitudo circumcirca Altare and then that recital being made of the four General Councils as also of the Arch-Bishops of blessed memory Leo Euphemius Macedonius and other persons of chief note who had departed in the Faith of our Saviour Christ the people with a loud voice made this acclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory be to thee O Lord. Not that it was the meaning of the antient Church to pray for the deliverance of their souls from Purgatory since they never thought them to be there but partly to preserve their memory in the mindes of the living and partly to pray for their deliverance from the power of death which doth yet tyrannize over the bodies of the faithful the hastning of their Resurrection and the joyful publick acquitting of them in that great day wherein they shall stand to be judged at the Tribunal of Christ. These were the ends for which the Offerings and Prayers for the dead were made Which being very consonant to the rules of piety found such a general entertainment in the Primitive times that none but Aërius and his followers disallowed the same Of him indeed it is reported by St. Augustine Illo cum suis Asseclis Sacrificium quod pro defunctis offertur respuebat that he and his followers admitted not of Sacrifices in behalf of the dead the Sacrifices he meaneth are of praise and prayer for which and others of his Heterodox and unsound opinions he was condemned for an Heretick by the antient Father and so remains upon record Concerning which take here along the judgment of Dr. Field once Dean of Glocester who speaking of Aërius and his Heterodox doctrines resolves it thus For this his rash and inconsiderate boldness and presumption in condemning the Vniversal Church of Christ he was justly condemned For howsoever we dislike the Popish manner of praying for the dead which is to deliver them out of their feigned Purgatory yet do we not reprehend the Primitive Church nor the Pastors and Guides of it for naming them in their publick prayers thereby to nourish their hope of the Resurrection and to express their longing desires of the consummation of their own and their happiness which are gone before them in the Faith of Christ What Bishop Andrews and Bishop Montague have affirmed herein we have seen before and seen by that and by the judgment of this Reverend and Learned Doctor That the Church of England is no enemy to the antient practise of praying for the dead in the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist though on the apprehension of some inconveniences as her case then stood it was omitted in the second Liturgy of King Edward the sixt which is still in force But howsoever it was so omitted in the course of the Eucharist yet doth it still retain a place in our publick Liturgy and that in as significant terms as in any of the formulas of the Primitive times For in the Form of Burial Having given hearty thanks to Almighty God in that it hath pleased him to deliver that our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world We pray That it would please him of his infinite goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his Elect and to hasten his Kingdom that we with that our Brother and all others departed in the true Faith of Gods holy name may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory But Prayers and Offerings for the dead as before was said are no proofs for Purgatory The Church of England which alloweth of prayer for the dead in her Publick Liturgy hath in her Publick Articles rejected Purgatory as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the same The like do Montague of Norwich and the Dean of Glocester whose words we have before repeated and so doth Bishop Iewel the greatest ornament in his time of our Reformation And as for prayer for the dead saith he which you Dr. Harding say ye have received by tradition from the Apostles themselves notwithstanding it were granted to be true yet doth it not evermore import Purgatory Nor doth he onely say it but he proves it too For bringing in a prayer of St. Chrysostoms Liturgy in which there is not onely mention of the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors but of the blessed Virgin her self he addes I trow ye will not conclude hereof that the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles c. and the blessed Virgin Mary were all in Purgatory Of the same judgment is the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who telleth us That it is most certain that the antients had and gave other Reasons of prayer for the dead than freeing them out of Purgatory And this saith he is very learnedly and largely set down by the now learned Primate of Armagh Where we have the Primate of Armagh in the bargain too But what need such a search be made after the judgment and opinion of particular persons of the Church of England when it is manifest that the Greek Church at this day and almost all the Fathers of the Greek Church antiently though they admit of prayers for the dead yet believe no Purgatory Of which Alphonsus à Castro doth very ingenuously give this note De Purgatorio in antiquis Scriptoribus potissimum Graecis ferè nulla mentio est Qua de
the sin against the Holy Ghost or utterly past hope of pardon Nor is the case much better if we read it wilfully though better with some sort of men than it is with others For miserable were the state of us mortal men if every sin that is committed wilfully which too often hapneth either against the truth of science or the light of conscience should make a man uncapable of the mercy of God as one that blasphemed or sinned take which word you will against the power and vertue of the Holy Ghost A doctrine never countenanced in the Primitive times the Church extending her indulgence to the worst of Hereticks and opening both her arms and bosom unto those Apostataes which with true sorrow for their sins did return unto her condemning the Novatians for too rigid and severe in their bitter Tenet touching the non-admittance of them unto publick penance and after that unto the Sacraments of the Church again Which being premised the meaning of the Text will appear to be onely this That they who willingly offend after they have received the knowledge of the truth and Gospel must not expect another Christ to die for them or that he who died once for their sins should again die for them St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom do expound it so Out of whom Clictoveus in his Continuation of St. Cyrils Commentaries upon the Gospel of St. Iohn informs us That the Apostle doth not hereby take away the second or third remission of sins for he is not such an enemy to our Salvation but saith onely that Christ our Sacrifice shall not be offered any more upon the Cross for the man so sinning And this is further proved to be the very meaning of the Apostle in the place disputed out of the scope and purpose of his discourse which was to shew unto the Iews that it was not with them now as it was under the Law For under the Law they had daily Sacrifices for their sins but under the Gospel they had but one Sacrifice once for all Every Priest saith he doth stand daily ministring and offering often times the same sacrifice but this man JESUS after he had offered one sacrifice sate down for ever at the right-hand of God than which there cannot be a clearer explanation of the Text in question Though Sacrifices were often reiterated in the times of the Law Hic vero nec baptismus repetitur neque Christus bis nisi cum ludibrio mori pro peccato yet neither is Baptism to be reiterated in the times of the Gospel nor can Christ be exposed for sin to a second death without a great deal of scorn as Heinsius hath observed from Chrysostom Some light doth also rise to this Exposition from the words immmediately succeeding where the Apostle speaks of a certain expectation of a fearful judgment Which joyned unto the former verse have this sense between them That he which doth not put his whole trust and confidence in the sufficiency of the Sacrifice already offered but for every sin expects a new Sacrifice also must look for nothing in the end but a fearful judgment which most undoubtedly first or last shall fall upon him The third and last place which is commonly alleged for proof that there are some sins irremissible in their own nature is that of St. Iohn If any man saith he see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask and God shall give life for them that sin not unto death There is a sin unto death I do not say he shall pray for it In which words we finde two sorts of sins a sin to death and a sin that is not to death a sin which is not unto death for the remission of the which a man is bound to pray in behalf of his Brother a sin to death concerning which it seems unlawful for one man to pray for another And yet it doth but seem so neither For the Apostles words I do not say he shall pray for it amount not to a Negative that he shall not pray for it as the fautors of the contrary opinion would full gladly have it 〈◊〉 â—ather to a toleration that they might pray if they would the business being of 〈◊〉 a nature that the Apostle had no minde to encourage them in it because he could not promise them the success desired but leaving every man to himself to pray or not to pray as his affections to the party or Christian pity of the case might induce him to That by peccatum ad mortem somewhat more is meant than ordinary mortal sins is a thing past question but what it is is not so easie to discover St. Augustine will have the sin which is here called a sin unto death to be that sin wherein a mam continueth until his death without repentance but addes withal That in as much as the name of the sin is not expressed many and different things may be thought to be it Pacianus an old Catholick writer interprets it of peccata manentia Such sins as men continue in till the hour of death St. Ierom reckoneth such men to commit this sin Qui in sceliribus permanent who abide in their wickedness and express no sense nor sorrow of their lost estate The Protestant writers do expound it generally of the sin against the Holy Ghost For which say they no man ought to pray because our Saviour hath testified it to be irremissible And to this end they do allege a place from Ierom affirming Stultum esse pro eo orare qui peccaverit ad mortem That it is a foolish thing to pray for him which sins unto death because the man that is marked out to some visible ruine nullis precibus erui potest cannot possibly be reprieved by prayer But herein Ierom is not consonant to himself elswhere for in another place he telleth us with more probability that nothing else is here meant but that a prayer for such a sin whatsoever it be is very difficulty heard And this I take to be the truer or at least the more probable meaning of the Apostle who saith immediately before This is the confidence which we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us 1 Iohn 5.14 And therefore lest we should conceive that this holds true in all Petitions whatsoever which we make for others he addes That if it be a great sin such as is not ordinarily forgiven but punished with death I dare not say that you can either pray with confidence or that I can give you any great hopes of prevailing in it According as God said to the Prophet Ieremy Pray not for this people for I will not hear thee And though St. Augustine sometimes thought this sin to be final impenitency or a continuance in sin till death without repentance yet in his Book of Retractations he resolves the contrary affirming That
Translation it is called a washing yet in the Greek and Latine both it is a baptization Next to these positive and practical Proofs we will add some natural and experimental Evidences which conclude the same and are more within the compass of the observation of the meanest capacities We see the Sun withdraweth from us every evening the comfort both of light and heat and yet we doubt not of his rising on the morrow morning We go to bed as to our grave yeelding our selves to sleep-which is the image of death with prayers and supplications to Almighty God in hope to be restored unto sense and action on the day insuing We note it in the common course of the works of Nature that Herbs and Plants and all the Flowers of the field do in the time of Winter seem to lose that life which made them flourish with more lustre than the Court of Solomon but we observe withall as a thing of course that the next Spring returns them to their perfect beauties Expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est we have a Spring to come said the Christian Advocate The Husbandman commits his seed unto the ground in expectation of a plentiful and joyful Harvest his hope deceiveth him not at last though that which he buried in the womb of the Earth must die before it quicken unto life again This is another of St. Pauls Arguments to our present purpose Thou fool saith he that which thou sowest is not quicked except it die upon which words of the Apostle take this gloss or descant out of an old Greek M. S. in Bodleys Liberarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Earth laboureth not after the ordinarie manner of a woman in travel Her Infant Corn is not quickned except it die Should it live still it could not be formed in that womb The earth receiveth the bare corn onely and by corrupting it restoreth it in a better fashion than she took it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And can we have saith he a more forcible impression or representation of our own restitution than by this example Observing these things as we do in the works of Nature how can we think so poorly of the Lord our God as if it were not in his power with the like facility to re-give to us our former beauties as either to the Plants or Planets Should we make search into the secret and more wonderful works of prudent nature we may be told by Plinie That dead Bees are restored both to life and motion onely by sprinkling them with Nepenthe young Pellicans by the blood of the old ones and Eels with vinegar and blood The raising of the new Phenix out of the ashes of the old one hath been a thing so generally received over all the world that for my part I dare not question it though I know some do And of the Swallows it is said that at the beginning of Winter they use to fall down together in heaps into the dust or water and there sleep in their Chaos till hearing the voyce of returning Nature at the Spring they awaken out of this dead sleep and live amongst the fowls of the Air again And more than so it is affirmed by George Maior a German writer that he found a company of Swallows lying dead under an old Table in the Church of Witteberge which by an artificial heat he restored to life the ordinary time of nature being then not come in which they should revive of course This makes it plain that nature is no Enemy to a Resurrection by consequent our Faith in this agreeable to the course of Nature and not to be denyed by a natural man though no one Point or Article of the Christian Faith hath been more eagerly opposed by the ancient Gentiles nor more pertinaciously decried by Heretical Christians And howsoever men of inferior parts might make scruple of it yet can I not but wonder at those great Philosophers that they should plead so earnestly against a Tenet so consonant to the waies and works of Nature and otherwise not much a stranger to their own opinions Themselves both Platonists and Pythagoreans acknowledge an eternal being of the soul and though the man did dye and his corps was buried yet the Soul lived again in another Body And so the antient Druides were perswaded also Regit idem spiritus artus Orbe aâ—io as the Poet hath informed us of them The truth of this opinion I dispute not here I know it to be vain and foolish Onely I shall conclude from their own Position and think the Argument will be good ad homines That the same Soul may be as easily beleeved to live again in its own body as in the body of another made of purpose for it And this Tertullian doth retort against those Philosophers who did admit of this Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this transmigration of the soul from body to body and yet deny the Resurrection of that body to which the Soul more naturally ought to be united Si quaecunque ratio praeest animarum humanarum reciprocandarum in corpora cur non in eandem substantiam redeant cum hoc sit restitui id esse quod fuerat as his words there are That which most stumbled both these Philosophical and our Christian Hereticks was That the faithful of the Primitive times did not onely stand for the Assumption of a new Body which perhaps the others would have granted with no great difficulty but the Resurrection of the old The restitution of a body which had either been consumed to ashes eaten by Worms devoured by Fishes and wilde Beasts and finally incorporated into the substance of those Beasts and Fishes which had so devoured it Which being thought impossible by some old Philosophers and not well understood by some poor weak Christians occasioned it on both sides to be called in question and by some Christian Hereticks to be more decried than ever it had been by the Gentiles formerly The Marcionites of old denied it so did Marcus too and so did Basilides Cerdo and the rest of that wicked brood The Anabaptists and Socinians of these times do deny it also although not on the same grounds as the former Hereticks by those it was denied because thought impossible in which they and the Gentiles did agree together by these because they do not think it consonant to the Word of God That flesh and blood should inherit the Kingdom of Heaven as if there were no difference between the substance of flesh and the infirmities and frailties which attend upon it between a natural body and a body glorified Of which more anon In the mean time to satisfie the doubts of those of what sort soever which charge this Article of our Faith with impossibilities we may demand of them these particulars besides what hath been said to the point already viz. Whether it be not equally as possible to Almighty
which were dead already that by their merits they might finde success of their prayers unto him And in another place he determineth positively for the matter of fact that though the Saints are prayed to now in the times of the Gospel Ante adventum Christi non invocabantur yet were they not prayed unto or invocated till the coming of Christ. Finding no better comfort for them in the Old Testament let us next follow them to the New in which the Texts most stood upon to confirm their doctrine are in the 15 of St. Luke In the seventeenth verse we read it thus I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth And in the tenth I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth These are the Texts which make most for them and these God knows make very little to the purpose For first according to the Exposition of some Antient writers the hundred sheep mentioned in our Saviours Parable represent the whole body of the Elect both Men and Angels whereof the ninety nine were the holy Angels continuing in their first integrity the stray sheep all mankinde which was lost in Adam for whose recovery the Son of God that good Shepherd Iohn 10.10 did suffer death upon the Cross and so accomplished the great work of mans redemption For this see Hilary on St. Matth. Can. 18. Chrysologus Serm. 168. Titus Bostrensis on the place Isidore in his Book of Allegories not to descend to later Writers though Cajetan and others of the Romish party might be here alleged Which Exposition if admitted overthrows the project for then no more can be inferred from those Texts of Scripture but that there is great joy in the Court of Heaven and in particular amongst the blessed Angels for the redemption or recovery of lost man by Christ. But waving the advantage of this Exposition and granting that those Texts relate to particular persons yet all that can be logically inferred from hence is That the Saints and Angels do know some things and at some times which are done here upon the Earth namely so often and so much as God of his especial grace doth reveal unto them This is all and this we will not grutch them for observe the Inference Our Saviour as his use was spake in Parables even in the Parables of the lost sheep the lost groat and the Prodigal Son A certain man having a flock consisting of an hundred sheep doth lose one of the hundred and after long search made doth finde it and bring it back unto the Fold A certain woman is supposed having a little stock of ten peeces of silver to lose one of her peeces and after great pains taken to meet with it again On this they call together their friends and neighbors and say unto them Rejoyce with us for we have found the sheep and the peece of silver which was lately lost So then unless the man and woman in our Saviours Parable had pleased to call their friends together and imparted to them the finding of the lost sheep and the lost peece of silver the friends and neighbors might have been so far from shewing any great joy at the recovery that possibly they might have never heard of the loss If so then certainly it cannot be inferred from hence that the Saints and Angels which are the friends and neighbors of those several Parables are privy to our wants on Earth by course and ordinary dispensation but onely this that some things and at some times are imparted to them by their God by way of grace and extraordinary revelation No Protestant as I conceive so void of Reason as to make question of the one no Papist hitherto so cunning as to prove the other This though it seem to be a very bold and venturous Assertion may very easily be made good though we should use no other medium for the proof thereof than their own difference and disagreement in the manner of it A difference or contrariety indeed so great and admirable that fire and water will more easily be reconciled than their opinions Five several ways have been invented by the Schoolmen and those that since have travelled in the controversies of the present times by which to make the Saints acquainted with our state on Earth some false others blasphemous and the rest so doubtful that there is no belief to be given unto them no building to be laid on such weak foundations The first of these opinions is Quod sint ubique praesentes that they are present every where in all parts of the world and so no strangers either to our words or actions But this besides the want of sufficient proof doth trench too much on the Prerogative and Attributes of Almighty God there being no power Omni-present but is also infinite and Omni-presence so peculiar unto God himself that the Gentiles chalenged the Christians of the Primitive times for ascribing to their God that privilege whereof both Iupiter himself and all the Topical gods of Nations were conceived uncapable Discurrentem scilicet eum volunt ubique praesentem as Cecilius prest it in the Dialogue The second is That they are made acquainted with the passages of this present world Sanctis mortuis atque Angelis internuntiis by the information of such Saints as were daily added to their number and the relation of those Angels which by Gods appointment pitch their Tents about us Which though it be conjectural onely and is proposed without any proof at all yet for as much as comes within the knowledge of those Saints and Angels we should lose nothing of our ground if we closed in with them But then there are many Prayers and Vows which we make to God that go no further than the heart and do not finde a vent by the tongue at all The Spirit making intercession for us as St. Paul affirmeth with groanings that cannot be expressed which onely he that searcheth the heart saith the same Apostle can take notice of No Saint nor Angel being privy to the groans of the Spirit Some therefore are so far transported beyond the bounds of piety and Christian prudence as in the third place to make the blessed Saints and Angels acquainted with our very thoughts A fancy very prejudicial to the Majesty of Almighty God and indeed as dangerous as blasphemous the attribute of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the searcher of the hearts and reins being proper onely unto God It is God alone that knoweth the heart Acts 15.8 He that searcheth the heart Rom. 8.27 That trieth the heart 1 Thes. 2.4 Which searcheth both the reins and hearts Apoc. 2.23 A high Prerogative not given by any of the Gentiles to their supream deities and therefore quarrelled at in the Primitive Christians because by them ascribed to the Lord their God Et Deum illum suum in