soules of the dead are receaued to corruption or destruction so called for that they are neuer satisfied but alwaies expect more euer since man was adiudged to death for sin and though in the great conceit of your owne skill you tell me that my not considering or not caring for the vse and manner of the Hebrew tongue causeth my mistaking as in these places so likewise in all or most of the rest and causeth mine error in this maine question Yet I hope I shall let the Reader see in the end that proud ignorance leadeth you so rashly to resolue as you doe both of the words and places in question and likewise of my positions Mercerâ—… a man of no meane skill in the hebrew tongue as appeareth by his paines therein taken in his additions to Pagnines Lexicon perused and published by Ceallere and Betrame two learned hebricians of our age obserueth that hoc nomine generaliter locasubterranea tendendo centrum versus appellantur the places vnder the earth euen to the middle or center thereof are generally called by this name Sheol as by another name of the same signification it is elswhere called Erets tachtith the lower or lowest earth Ezechiel 31 and often with an adiect sheôl tachtijah for explanations sake Proprie insernum dixeris ita vt locum significes Hinc cum verbo descendendi passiâ—… iungitur Properly you may call it hell or the place below for which cause it is euery where ioined with a Verb of descending Forstere in his hebrew Dictionary repeating what others thought of the sense of the word Sheol as that some tooke it for the pit others for the graue some for death it selfe some for the state of the dead plurimi vero inferum id est locum damnatorum and the most tooke it for hell euen the very place of the damned addeth in the end I am of this opinion that I thinke it importeth in the Scripture most often the place where the dead are vnder the earth so called for that it cannot be satisfied as Lactantius in certaine verses of his seemeth to render that Etymologie of the word Inferus insatiabiliter caâ—…a guttura pandit Hell opcneth wide his vnsatiable throat Et aliter verti commodè non potest quà m nomine infernus and cannot be otherwise conueniently translated then by the name of Infernus hell or the places below Deuter. 32 A fire is kindled in my wrath and hath burned to the nethermost hell So doth Ezechiel vse another word of the same signification ca. 31. Thou shalt be cast downe erets tachtith to the lower earth Pagnine vnknowen to no man that is learned for his labours in the hebrew tongue saith Sheôl sepulchrum infernus Gehenna Sheol signifieth the graue hell Gehenna Munstere Sheolidem quod sepulchrum fonea infernus Sheol is as much as the graue the pit and hell Auenarius Sheol sepulchrum item infernus id est locus inferior sub terra St de impijs dicitur significat perditionem Sheol is the graue also hell that is the lower place vnder the earth When it is spoken of the wicked it signifieth perdition Lauater Sheol non tantum significat locum damnatoruÌ„ sed etiam foueâ—…m vel sepulchrum Sheol doth not only signisie the place of the damned but also the pit or graue And before them all Lyra well learned in the Hebrew tongue if not a Iew borne sayd Accipitur infernus in Scriptura dupliciter infernus which is the Latin translation of Sheôl is taken two waâ—…es in the Scripture one for the pit where the Carcasses of the dead are put the other for the place whither the soules of the damned descend The trueth of their iudgements that Sheol signifieth the places vnder the earth where the bodies and soules of the dead are receaued will appeare by the very confession of the Rabbins themselues as well as by the direction of the Scriptures Touching the situation of Sheol Rabbi Abraham saith Sheol mâ—…kom aamakhephec bashamaijm shehu marom Sheol is a deepe place opposed to heauen which is on hie And againe Sheol is the lowest place of the whole earth opposite to heauen Rabbi Leui. Sheol hi mattah bemuchalat vehi markez Sheol is absolutely below is the center of the earth And that with them it importeth hell I meane Gehenna the place appointed to torment the soules of the wicked there can be no question Rabbi Iehosuas the sonne of Leui deliuering the names of hel that are occurrent in the Scripture saith there be seuen names of Gehenna and these they are Sheol Abadon destruction Bor Shachath the pit of perdition Bor Sheon the lake of ruine or roaring Tith haiauen the bottom of the myre Zal-maueth the shadow of death Erets tachtith the lower earth In the exposition of the 11 Psalme there are repeated as places of abode for the wicked in Gehenna Sheol Abadon Erets tachtith Dauid Kimchi commenting on these wordes of the 9. Psalme sinners shall be turned to Sheol saith Vuederash lishola hu gehinnam and in derash Sheol is Gehenna Elias the Leuite in his Caldaie Lexicon sayth Veiesh Sheol Methurgemim gehinnam Sheol with the Translators or Interpreters is Gehenna The Caldaie paraphrase expressing those wordes of Dauid The shape or beautie of the wicked shall consume in Sheol but God will redeeme my soule from the hand of Sheol thus rendereth them Their bodies shall wax olde in Gehenna but the Lord will redeeme my soule from gehenna Rabbi Salomon likewise expoundeth Sheol in that place by Gehinnam So in the sixth Psalme it is sayd Whosoeuer is not circumcised iored Gehinnam goeth to Gehenna as Esay threateneth Sheôl hath enlarged it selfe Rabbi Moses Hadarsan vpon the first of Genesis Gehenna is sayd to be deepe as it is in the ninth of the Prouerbs In the deepe of sheôl are the ghests of an harlot The Hebrew glosse vpon those wordes of God vttered by Moses A fire is kindled in my wrath and shall burne to the nethermost Sheol sayth In my wrath that is in the midst of Gehenna as it afterward followeth and shall burne to the lowest sheôl Rabbi Ioden expounding the wordes of Dauid Thou hast deliuered my soule from the nethermost Sheol sayth The way of Adulterers leadeth to the deepe of hell and therefore he sayth Thou hast deliuered my soule from the nethermost sheôl With whom Rabbi Selomo concordeth The way of Adulterers is to be in the deepe of hell and thence hast thou delinered me sayd Dauid when Nathan sayd vnto me The Lord also hath taken away thy sinne And lest we should doubt what they meane by Gehinnam Elias the Leuite sayth Kareü Rabbothenu mekom ônesh hareshaim achar motham gehinnam Our Rabbins call the place of punishment for the wicked after their deaths Gehenna Neither want these Iewes that auouch Sheol
is into hell Euthymius After death they shall descend to hell Lyra. Into the lower parts that is to Gehenna which is in the lower parts of the earth So Pellican They that seeke me to death shall fall on destruction and be rather thrust downe to hell Pomerane These things shew that all the endeuours of such as be enemies to godlinesse shal be frustrate and they shall descend to hell to euerlasting death Westhmerus followeth Pomerane word for word Bucer Dauid denounceth destruction to his enemies seeking his soâ—…le to death as that they should be cast downe to hell which he meaneth by the lower parts of the earth The verse ensuing fortelleth the reiection of their carcaâ—…es to be meat for Foxes Felinus insisteth on the very same words Mollerus They shall goe to the lowest parts of the earth that is they shall vtterly perish and descend to hell and their carcasses be cast abroad in the fields to be torne and deâ—…oured of wild Beasts Hauing now found by the circumstances of the Scriptures themselues as also by the iudgement of so many Iewish Rabbins Christian writers old and new expositors that your heaping vp of Hebrew phrases is but the vaine broching of your owne fansies and consequently that there is no cause for you to controle the full consent of so many learned Fathers as haue applied the Apostles wordes to Christs descent to the lower parts of the earth that is to hell which the Scriptures place vnder the earth Let vs see which of these two senses yours or mine best fitteth the apostles purpose Of yours I may safely say it hath no coherence with the wordes nor intent of the Apostle For these two verses the ninth and the tenth interposed wiâ—…h a parenthesis apparantly pertaine to the verifying of Dauids wordes cited immediately before in the eight verse that Christ ascending on high lead captiuitie captiue Before Christes ascending by way of relation the Apostle putteth Christes descending and because descending and ascending must haue contrary extreames from which and to which the motion is made therefore to the highest heauens aboue which Christ ascended Paul opposeth the lowest parts of the earth to which Christ first descended The end of his descending is comprised in Dauids wordes to leade Captiuitie Captiue which must be from the place of their chiefest strength euen as the end of his ascending after hee had led captiuitie Captiue was to giue gifts to men Now these two are the greatest blessings that Christ in this life bestoweth on his Church and in order follow one the other as Dauid first and after him the Apostle setteth them For we were first to be deliuered from our enemies and from the hands of all that hate vs I meane the enemies of our soules as Zacharie filled with the holy Ghost did prophesie we should before we could serue him without feare in holinesse and righteousnesse as wee ought to doe â—…ll the dayes of our life Deliuerance from the power of our enemies we had none but by Christs conquering them and leading them Captiue And full conquest ouer them Christ had none but by rising from the dead and treading vnder his feet all their power and strength not onely against himselfe but against all his And no place fitter to dissolue and breake all their force and might then in the chiefe castle of their kingdome which is hell seated in the lower parts of the earth So that this exposition of the learned and auncient Fathers which I before abundantly deliuered in their owne wordâ—…s is so farre from any iust challenge that it orderly and plainely lightneth and iustifieth the wordes of Dauid which the Apostle there taketh vpon him to illustrate Now in your exposition there is no such thing For first the graue is not in the lower parts of the earth nor opposite to the height of heauen whither Christ ascended according to the Apostles wordes Next Christ descending to his graue was rather lead captiue of death then shewed any conquest ouer death Thirdly before Christ many rose from the graue as well aunciently raised by Elias and Elizeus as then newly by Christ himselfe But this conquest which Dauid heere celebrateth was not ouer the graue onely but ouer hell Satan sinne death and all the power and feare of the enemie which Christ led Captiue leauing none vnconquered and made an open shew of them triumphing ouer them in his owne person as the same Apostle elsewhere deliuereth Therefore this place must stand for good till you or your friends bring better helpes to vnioynt it then your and their idle phrasiologie gainsaying the whole Church of Christ for your priuate nouelties and vanities Where you expound the text and say he descended to the lowest and ascended to the highest that he might fill all places with the presence of his manhood you speake both inconueniently and farre from the Apostles meaning You adde to it with his presence very deceitfully in a differing letter like the text and together with the text What censure this deserueth the godly doe know What censure deserue you that cannot speake three lines without an open iniurie or manifest folly You first confesse I expound the text and then you charge me with adding to the text as if any man could possibly expound any place of Scripture and adde nothing to the wordes Then were plaine reading of the text the best expounding of it and so should all exposition be superfluous and iniurious as most of your expositions are And who besides you so deepely doteth as to charge an expositour with saying somewhat besides the text but I adde it in a different letter like the text and together with the text I cannot expound any place of Scripture but I must insert the wordes of the text which I expound and ioyne them together with mine owne The text I cite not three lines before exactly as it lieth in the apostles writings and set by the side the quotation of the place Ephes. 4. with a direction to the wordes alleaged by me out of the apostle I then reason from the true meaning of the apostles wordes who saith that Christ first descended to the lower parts of the earth and ascending on high lead captiuitie captiue Whence did Christ lead captiuitie captiue but from the lower parts of the earth If that were the purpose of his descending the lower parts of the earth were the place whence he lead captiuitie euen all his our enemies captiue And so I made the conclusion of mine owne and not a fresh allegation as you absurdly mistake of the Apostles words Christ then descended into the lower parts of the earth and thence lead captiuitie captiue that he might fill all places with his presence Where if your eies were not more then dimme you might soone see I quoted no text as I did before but declared by mine owne wordes inserted what I gathered out of the
hath destroied death and purchased life for vs. And therefore after Chriâ—…s resurrection and ascension to aske who shall ascend to heauen to procure vs life or who shall descend into the deepe to destroy death for vs is to frustrate through infidelity that which Christ hath done for vs. If we confâ—…sse with our mouths and beleeue with our hâ—…arts that God hath raised vp Iesus from the dead to be Lord ouer all that is to giue life and saue from death whom he will we shal be saued this is the Apostles purpose As for merit-mongers of whom you say the Apostle speaketh these words it is an idle and drowsie conceit of yours These words doe no waies fitte presumers on their merits for they thinke they shall ascend to heauen by their workes they aske not who shall ascend and in the bottom of the sea what merits can you deuise or to what creatures there should Pharises seeke how to fulfill the law what bables be these to be wreathed into the Apostles words or who but you would place all the creatures of God either in heauen or in the bottom of the sea If you cannot write as a diuine speake yet as a man of common sense or vnderstanding And all these senses you say the Apostle may insinuate in this word I thinke as soone all as one but that the deepe in one and the same sentence should signifie the graue the bottom of the sea and the whole state of the dead is a flower of your field it groweth in no wise mans garden I may not omit to shew how you deale here againe with the Text. You alleage it â—…e descended into the deepe But he is cunningly added neither are these words meant of him Your eyes be not paires that perceiue not the difference betwixt a quotation and a conclusion gathered out of the Apostles words In the 220 page with which you cauill the letter b pointing to Rom. 10. in the margine is set after he and next before descended to the deepe So that any sober man might soone see I alleaged not this word he as out of the text but inferred it as the true meaning of the Apostle And whether I haue better reason to say these words are meant of Christ as all Interpreters new and olde doe than you haue to say they are meant of a Pharâ—…aicall Merit-monger that seeketh to learne of fishes in the deepe of the sea how to fulfill the Law let the Reader iudge now he hath heard vs both The like praâ—…se you vâ—… againe in the Psalme There is no word to exprâ—…sse beneath which you put into the text of your owne head Were there no word importing so much yet so long as the word added is expresly ratified by many places of Scripture as appeareth Esay 14. vers 9. and Prouerbs 15. vers 24. in plaine words that Sheol is beneath and the addition is in another letter different from the rest before and after your Mastership might haue taken it for an explication inserted and not for any part of the text cited But you neuer suppose that the Printer may sometimes mistake or mis-set my directions and that maketh you so fast to fome at mouth with my falsifying the word of God of purpose and for aduantage where you rather lie of purpose or for aduantage since I doe not offer there to build any thing on that word nor so much as mention it in my collection there which if I would haue done Scriptures enough besides this would warrant my assertion And what if you whet your teeth against the trueth and the word there of it selfe will beare this addition without any corruption is not your time well spent to play the Bedlom in this sort and in the end to betray your owne ignorance and malice The Septuagint translate the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if I descend or go downe to Sheôl whom the Greeke Fathers follow The West Church kept the same word as is euident by all the Latine Fathers The Chaldaie paraphrase sayth Veêmuc lishjol If I depresse or humble my selfe downe to Sheol where the word is mac to be depressed downe or humbled low Ierom sayth If I lie downe in Sheól New Writers well skilled in the Hebrew tongue as Pellican Pomerane and others continue the word of descending and many that change it retaine the same sense as Vatablus Heâ—…raismus prosietiam descendam ad Ima it is an Hebrew phrase importing thus much If I doe descend to the parts beneath Westhmerus expoundeth it Si descendam in infima loca terrae If I descend to the lowest places of the earth Mollerus Si ettam descendam ad Ima If I should descend to the places beneath Dauid Kimchi obserueth that this word is not only to spread but withall it hath in it the force of lematta below beneath Augustâ—…us â—…stinianus translated the Arabick with the word of descending If all these haue falsified the word of God in so translating and expounding this place then haue I mistaken in following their iudgements but that I falsified of purpose or for an aduantage that is the meale of your mouth not vnlike the rest of your griest Howbeit it is eâ—…ident the Hebrew word hath in it as Kimchi noteth the signification of sub infra and in that respect importeth a bed where a man lieth downe in a lower position than he had before For which cause I might lawfully render the word as I did If I lie downe or lodge beneath in sheól Since Sheol by the Scriptures is a place whither a man must descend though indeed to preuent all challenge I was content to expresse the force of the word in another letter Our second and most principall reason is this If there be not one place of Scripture to proue that Christs soule was in hell then you ought to denie that opinion but you haue not indeed any one place that proueth it therefore it ought to be denied You shew your Logâ—… where little need is keepe it if you be wiâ—…e till it may stand you in more steed Euery Child knoweth or at least hath heard that faith must depend on the word of God Wherefore if it be no where written we meane not to beleeue it But if when the words be plaine you will wrest them with figures and phrases to another purpose then giue vs leaue if your proofes be not sound and good to tell you that our faith relieth on the singlenesse and plainnesse of the word of God so receaued and beleeued since Christ had a Church on earth And though you can make shewes with diuers acceptions and figuratiue senses of words yet that is no reason to reuerse the trueth written For giue me the like liberty without regard of faith and trueth and I can shift of any word whatsoeuer in the Scriptures yea the chiefest and mainest grounds of Religion I can elude with different
their Creede yet retained the sense and meaning of them in that they were perswaded this was the law of humane necessitie without Christ that as mens bodies were buried so their soules descended to hell which descent Christ refused not to restore men as Hilarie and others auouch This you say was Ruffines owne meaning who going about to proue by the Scripture that Christ descended to Infernum sheweth that he meaneth his death hereby his buriall I suppose few men will trust you hauing tried you false so often Ruffine going about to prooue by the Scripture of the old Testament that euery part of Christes passion and his resurrection was fore-shewed in the law and the Prophets plainely distinguisheth his death buriall and descent to Hell For Christs death he saith spiritum post haec scribitur reddidisse after this it is written that hee gaue vp the Ghost This was fore spoken by the Prophet saying into thy handes I commend my spirit Sepultus quoque perhibetur He is then said to be buried For which he alleageth a place of Ieremie and addeth Euidentissima haec Sepulturae eius indicia propheticis vocibus designata sunt accipe tamen alia These most manifest signes of his buriall are expressed in the Prophets speeches and yet thou shalt haue other Where he alleageth three other places of Scripture how fitly to his purpose I need not pronounce Then commeth he to Christes descent to hell and saith Sed quód in Infernum descendit euidenter praenunciatur in Psalmis That also he descended to hell is evidently fore told in the Psalmes Now whether his places bee aptly cited or no is not to the question though you make that your whole aduantage For first they be as aptly cited as the rest Next they haue euery one of them somewhat more in Rusfines apprehension then of Christes buriall For hee standeth not onely on those wordes the dust and corruption of death but hee fastneth most on the words of descending and bringing downe in limum profundi to the mire of the deepe Which things though you flurt at as waighing light in your eyes it is certaine he intended thereby more then the graue as is euident by his owne wordes For citing the place of Peter thus In which spirit Christ descended to preach to the spirits inclosed in prison which were incredulous in the dayes of Noe he addeth in quo quid operis egerâ—…m in Inferno declaratur in which it is declared what Christ did in hell In the graue I trust Christ did nothing In Paradise he did not preach to those that were in prison disobedient in the dayes of Noe. Since then this end of Christs descent to hell is expressed by Ruffinus and this could not bee done either in the graue where nothing can be done or in heauen where these disobedients were not in prison It is cleere that Ruffinus had no such meaning as you make him by Christes descent to intend no more but his death and buriall He holdeth indeed that Christ went downe to Infernum that is to Limbus patrum as an opinion then common among them and worthie as he thought to be beleeued If hee ment this as you now confesse then he ment more by Christes descending to Infernum then Christes death and buriall And so by your owne mouth you are conuinced of a lie fathered on Ruffinus against both his words meaning And yet I find no such expresse mention or description of Limbus in Ruffines words as you would seeme to impose vpon him He mentioneth Christs conquest ouer hell quód Inferna sibi Regna 〈◊〉 that Christ would subiect the Infernali kingdome to himselfe qui mortis habebat Imperium disruptis Inferni claustris velut de profundo tractus he that had the rule of death was drawen as it were from the deepe the cloisters of hell being broken open He saith also Animabus de Inferni captiuit ate reuocatis the soules being reuoked from the captiuitie of hell but whom he thereby meaneth he expressed before with the Apostles words when he said qui simul consuscitauit nos simulque sedere fecit in caelestibus Christ raised vs vp together with himselfe and made vs sit in heauenly places with him So that if you and your friends when you prate so much against all or the most of the auncient fathers as vpholding Limbus would bethinke your selues that most of them speake indifferently as well of the liuing and yet vnborne as of the dead before Christes time when they say that soules were deliuered out of the bondage and captiuitie of hell and Satan you should doe them lesse wrong and lesse deceaue your selues then now you doe And for those fathers that indeede were of this opinion that before Christes resurrection Abrahams bosome was vnder the earth you shall doe well to thinke and speake more reuerently of them considering what master Bullingere a learned and graue Diuine resolued euen of that point Sinus Abrahae aliud non est quam portus salutis vbi autem fuerat quondaÌ„ hic locus an apud superos an apud inferos nolo pronunciare imo malo ignorare quam temere definire quodliteris sacris expressum non habeo In his vt curiosus esse nolo ita nihil desinio cum nemine super hac re contendere volo Satis mihi est intelligere fateri veteres sanctos in refrigerio loco vtique certo non in tormentis ante ascensionem Domini fuisse vt maximé ignorem vbi ille locus fuerit The bosome of Abraham is nothing els but an entrance or port of saluation Where this place formerly was whether aboue in some part of the heauens or below vnder the earth I will not pronounce Yea I had rather be ignorant thereof then roshly to define that which I find not expressed in the Scriptures In these things as I will not be curious so doe I determine nothing neither will I contend with any man about this matter It shall suffice me to vnderstand and confesse that the godly of the old Testament were in a certaine place of rest not in terments before the oscension of Christ though I know not where that place was That it was no part nor member of hell we haue S. Austins firme resolution grounding himselfe on the words which our Sauiour in the Gospell ascribeth to Abraham Betweene you and vs there is a great gulfe setlâ—…d But whether it were vnder the earth till Christs resurrection of that some fathers doubted wherein we may not be reprochfull to them though we dissent from them since the Scriptures as this great Diuine thinketh expresly decide not the question Ignatius you thinke is cleerely yours likewise one Thaddeus by Eusebius report one of the 70. disciples which the Euangelist Luke speakes of Also Athanasius Creed Ignatiâ—… saying Christ desâ—…ended to hades alone but rose againe with many meaneth euidently
call it they labour more to impeach my proofes than to iustifie his former reasons and as it were slipping their owne necks out of the coller they inuade my Sermons with their whole might making the world beleeue I haue not only proued nothing but vttered such strange positions as no Diuinitie will endure Howbeit in their hoatest onsets I might soone perceiue they still wrested my words from their right sense as they did both Scriptures and Fathers and shrouded themselues vnder certaine generall and ambiguous phrases as That Christ suffered the proper wrath and meere iustice of God and full punishment of sinne in substance though not in circumstance with which they seeke to blinde the Reader and intangle the Opponent that he should neuer finde their exact and particular Assertion but they would alwayes be sure to haue a refuge to their large and vnknowen couerts from which they step not an inch and without which they say nothing for feare to be taken tardie with heresie or open impietie To waste time and enter brabbles about words my manifolde businesses and publike seruices did not suffer me and had not my late Soueraigne now with God at her last being at the Castle of Farnham taken knowledge of the things questioned betwixt me and them and directly commanded mee neither to desert the doctrine nor to let the calling which I beare in the Church of God to be trampled vnder foot by such vnquiet Refusers of trueth and authoritie I confesse to your excellent Maiestie I had made farre shorter worke with them and not spent a quarter of the paper which now is bestowed on the cause Vpon her appointment which was sacred to me notwithstanding my sicknesse which detained me two yeeres from studie whiles I was forced to seeke the recouerie of my health and many other affaires and attendances which continually called me away I beganne to reuiew the whole and since there was neither order nor method in their writing to trace them in their confusion which hath beene most tedious and in the end to let them see That neither for themselues nor against me in that whole Defence they haue vttered one true sentence though the waightiest and most of their matters besides their darke and deceitfull generalities be proposed with as it were in a sense it seemeth after a sort and such like wauering and perplexed speech I haue openâ—…d to your most sacred Maiestie most prudent Prince the cause and course of this large Suruey which it hath pleased God to reserue to your Princely view my late Soueraigne being taken out of this life the beginning of that Summer wherein I meant to commit it to the Presse and so had I done the first yeere of your Maiesties entring into this Realme had not the infection of your principall citie and my attendance on your Maiestie as my duetie bound me here in this countrey stayed me The points handled in the former Sermons and iustified in this later Suruey are many and those very materiall the chiefe heads whereof though they appeare aswell in the Titles ouer â—…ch Page as in the Table prepared of purpose to helpe the confusion of their Defence yet I will summarily contract and annex to these presents that your Princely wisdome may with more ease perceiue in euery of these things controuersed what I defend and censure the same when it hath pleased your Highnesse at your leasure to view the particular parts and proofs as it seemeth best to your learned and religious iudgement My only desire and humble petition to your most sacred Maiestic as becommeth a Christian Bishop is That in the foundations of our faith I meane the worke and meane of our Redemption and Reconciliation to God by Iesus Christ men be not suffered vnder your godly gouernment to preach or publish their vnwritten fansies and by their continuall Synecdoches which are manifest additions to the Word of God to alter and inuert the Trueth so plainly fully and frequently deliuered by the Apostles of Christ in the sacred Scriptures lest if they get this liberty with vnnecessary figures where they list to interlace the Word of God in these maine points of Saluation they leaue neither doctrine nor discipline sound in the end And as in the first question they adde to Christes sufferings the death of the soule and of the damned though there be no such thing warranted or witnessed in the Scriptures so in the second they outface Christes Descent to Hell with phrases and figures when it is plainly professed in the Creed where not phrases of speech but Articles of faith are deliuered and expressed in the Scriptures That Christes soule was not left or forsaken in hell and that very place alleaged by Peter as properly pertaining to Christ and no way common to him with Dauid who being a Prophet knew that God had sworne with an oath to raise vp Christ to set him vpon his Throne to make him Lord of all and Christ that is the anointed Sauiour of his people from Sinne Death and Hell And though all the Fathers Greeke and Latine from the Apostles times haue receiued beleeued and deliuered that to be the sense of Peters words as likewise of Pauls That Christ who ascended on high descended first to the lower parts of the earth yet they sticke neither at Scriptures Creeds nor Fathers but wrench and wrangle with them all subiecting euery thing to their sleights and shifts that they may raigne as they will in the Word of God Where likewise they shame not to condemne all the Fathers Greeke and Latine as conspiring against the Trueth and peruerting the Scriptures by altering the authentike vse of words for which they appeale to Plato and prophane Poets This the Treatiser blusheth not to write This Iaffirme It is only the Fathers abusiue speaking and altering the ancient sense of Hades that hath bred this â—…rrour of Christes descending into Hell their vnapt and perilous translating it into Latine Inferi and our naughtie and corrupt translating in English Hell hath confirmed the same And note heere this first It is a thing too rife with the Fathers yea with some of the ancientest of them to alter and change the authentike vse of words whereby consequently it is easie for errours and grosse mistakings to creepe in This lowd and lewd Proclamation he maketh against all Christian Writers Greeke Latine and English since the first foundation of the Church and yet therein erreth most absurdly and shamefully For the Greeke Fathers vse the word Hades as the Apostles and Euangelists did for the place where torments after this life are prepared for the wicked and the prophane Graecians one conceit of Socrates excepted did alwayes take it for a place of darkenesse vnder the earth whither they thought good and bad descended the wicked to punishment the better sort to such delights as carnall men dreampt of after death in their Elysian fields In both these questions I haue not spared most
to the places where these things are handâ—…ed and iudge in Gods name as he findeth cause remembring that he which withstandeth or neglecteth the trueth withstandeth and neglecteth his owne saluation First that no Scripture doth witnesse or warrant Christs suffering the true paines of hell in his soule see either the proposing of their opinions that so thinke or the examining of their proofes which are brought for that conceit or the shutting vp of that part which sheweth the summe of all aforesayd which I close in this wise Then are there in the sacred Scriptures neither any praedictions that Christ should suffer the paines of hell in his soule heere on earth nor causes why he must suffer them nor signes that he did suffer them and consequently what soeuer is pretended no proofe that these sufferings must be added to the Crosse of Christ before the worke of our saluation can be perfect Secondly that such paines of hell as the Scriptures expresse and auouch may not be applied to Christ without apparent impietie reade what I write concerning the particulars and settle thy iudgement gentle Reader as thou likest best I desire not to preuaile where I bring not sufficient proofe emptie words on either side are slender meanes to quiet thy conscience or settle thy faith if thou seeke to be religious Thirdly where the whole course and tenor of the sacred Scriptures do plainly and fully ascribe our Redemption and the remission of our sinnes to the death and bloud of Christ Iesus I dare not delude the words of the Holy ghost as if they were euery where improper or imperfect but by the foure first effects of Christs crosse I make it appeare how sufficient our saluation is by the bloud of Christ without anie supplie of hell paines to be suffered in the soule of Christ. Lastly since no Christian man may doubt but we are redeemed and saued by the death of Christ how farre it is from all sense and shew of holy Scripture to subiect Christ to the death of the soule and how repugnant to the mouthes and mindes of the ancient and catholike fathers I insert a speciall discourse and thence obserue that where whensoeuer the Holie ghost speaketh of the death of Christ he meaneth the death of Christs body suffered on the altar of the Crosse and by no meanes the death of Christs soule These things being thus sensibly and plainly set downe to the view and reach of all men were they neuer so simple if they were Christians what reason had you Sir Refuter in your Treatise to slide from all this and to delude your Reader by telling him that the whole controuersie had in it two points 1 That Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God 2 That after his death on the Crosse he went not into hell in his soule as if I proposed or proued nothing in the first part of my Sermons but that Christ did not suffer for vs the wrath of God did I or could I make or mooue anie such question that in preciâ—…e words taught the wrath of God against our sinnes was verie great in the Crosse of Christ did I not in plaine termes ascribe to Christ a double sense of Gods wrath the first pursuing our suretie being innocent and obedient and euen his owne and onelie sonne with all maner of corporall and temporall scourges vnto death before it could be pacified the next a serious contemplation of that eternall and intolerable vâ—…ngeance which the Iustice of God had in store for vs by reason of our manifolde sinnes whose danger and destruction touched him as neere through the tendernesse of his loue and pitie as if it had beene imminent ouer his owne head But this you will say is not the wrath which you meane Sir whatsoeuer your meaning be which is scant knowen to your selfe as anon we shal better perceiue the words of your Treatise setting the very question to which your Reader must looke ouerlashed with two palpable vntrueths vnfit for a man of that care and conscience which you would seeme to haue For first this could be no question with me whether Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God who exactly affirmed that Gods wrath was great in the Crosse of Christ and admitted in the soule of Christ a sight and sense of Gods temporall wrath inflicted on his bodie and of Gods eternall wrath prepared for our sinnes Againe had I moued that question which I neuer meant doth the first part of the controuersie containe no more but Whether Christ suffered the wrath of God or no are your hell paines so soone vanished into smoake is the death of Christs soule no question with you whether the death of Christs bodie and the shedding of his bloud be the full price of our Redemption and cause of our reconciliation to God is it not worth the asking nor worth the answering but you ranne from the rest not able to iustifie that which I disproued and then as your maner is you catch a large and licentious word and currie that till you confound both your selfe and your Reader For who but you would haue proposed such a question Whether Christ suffered for vs the wrath of God knowing that in the Scriptures themselues according to which we must frame our speech in matters of faith there are many degrees and differences of Gods wrath whereof some may be attributed to Christs sufferings without offence others can not without plaine impietie and therefore the question which you proposed in your Treatise was but a very stale to make your Reader gaze at whiles you shifted aside from the matter which I moued The one you will say is a proofe of the other for he which suffereth Gods wrath must needs suffer the paines of hell That was and must be the whole strength of your Treatise vnlesse you will confesse that you meant to waste your paper and mocke your Reader with a number of emptie and idle fansies But how faint and feeble that foundation was to beare so great a building the conclusion of my Sermons doth sufficiently shew In which I tolde you that either your argument must be vitious if your antecedent were particular or if to make your argument good you enlarged your antecedent to be generall your first proposition would be both iniurious and blasphemous For though Christ might and did suffer some parts of Gods wrath as the Scripture vseth that word which is all that your indefinite proposition will implie yet it would no way follow that he therefore suffered the paines of hell And if to amend your consequent you did affirme that Christ suffered the whole wrath of God and euery part thereof and so by consequent the paines of hell also the forme of your argument was bettered but your antecedent on which the conclusion must depend was a most false and wicked assertion for then must Christ haue suffered reprobation desperation eternall
fetch your wood to nourish hell fire and see whether it make no more for the one then for the other Against Senacherib that proud and blasphemous king of Assyria the capitall and cruell enemie of Gods people and Church the Prophet denounceth vengeance in this wise The Lord shall cause the glorie of his voice to be heard and shall shew the stroke of his arme with the anger of his countenance and flame of deuouring fire with scattering and tempest For Tophet is prouided of olde it is euen readie for the King God hath made it deepe and wide the burning thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord doth kindle it as a current or riuer of brimstone Tophet was a place built by hand in the valley of Hinnom nere to Ierusalem made deepe and wide to containe whole Pyles of woode which the Priests of Molech with their deuices and prouisions could readily kindle and raize to huge and mightie flames to inclose and consume the children that were presented to their Idole To this place and vse the Prophet alludeth when he threatneth the King of Asshur and to comfort the Iowes that God had care ouer them he assureth them that Gods Tophet was prouided of olde and readie for the King of Asshur that it was deepe and wide to receiue him and all his retinue and the burning thereof as the fire of much wood the breath of the Lord kindling it as a flood of brimstone That Tophet was a place in the valley of Hinnom a part of Gehinnom BVILT HIE of purpose to burne children in the fire appeareth by Ieremie The store of wood heaped there and the rage of fire kindled there is euident by Esays comparison when he sayth The burning thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord as a Riuer of brimstone kindling it fire and much wood is the fire of much wood to which he compareth the burning of hell for wood without kindling maketh no fire And so the Chaldaie paraphrast expresseth it A flame of sire is there in hell kindled LIKE AS in much wood And to euery man meanely seene in the Hebrew tongue it is a knowen Rule that Caph the note of similitude is often vnderstood in the Scriptures and then specially when it is added to one part of the Periode for example Flie to your mountaine a bird that is LIKE a bird Zion shall be plowed a field that is LIKE a field A Lyons whelpe Iudah from the pray shalt thou ascend that is LIKE a Lyons whelpe All flesh is grasse and the glory thereof is as the flower of the field that is all flesh is LIKE grasse And in this place of Esaie it is so the rather because the aduerbe of similitude is expressed in the next member where it is said the breath of the Lord LIKE a streame of brimstone doth kindle it which argueth that the former part must likewise be vnderstood the burning thereof is A s a fire of much wood which in effect is a mightie flame This then being a comparison what reason haue you Sir Discourser to pronounce that the Scriptures shew no more true fire in hell then much wood since fire was the maine respect why hell was likened to Tophet wood was not and without fire hell is no more like to Tophet then it is to a bodkin which if it be thrust into a mans body will raize paine enough And therefore these amplifications must either vtterly be voyde and import nothing knowen to the Iewes or else there must be fire in hell as there was in Tophet and that like the fire of much wood which is violent and raging and as a torrent of brimstone which flameth all with fire if it be once kindled And since Christ called hell Gehinnam for the resemblance it had to the flames of Gehinnom as is before prooued what maruaile if the Prophet speaking by the same spirite compared hell to Tophet which was the place in Gehinnom where the mightiest fires to burne men were made in his time Or if we follow not the Chaldaie paraphrase to make wood a comparison but leane to the later writers who make it a metaphore and referre it either to the continuance of hell fire or to the sinnes soules and bodies of the wicked feeding and nourishing the fire of hell as wood doth our common fire what gaine you by that If one word in the sentence be figuratiue will you conclude all the rest to be figuratiue so may you as well anouch all the Articles of our faith to be allegoricall because sitting at the right hand of God is a plaine allegorie And are there no moe places in the Scriptures mentioning hell fire besides this of Esaie Or if there be as there be exceeding many which haue no similitudes nor metaphores in them will you allegorize them all because this place of Esaie hath one similitude or metaphore in it whether this haue any learning reason or sense in it let the Reader iudge And because I haue mentioned the opinion of the latter writers making wood a metaphore in this place of Esaie and yet confessing the fire of hell to be a true substantiall aud externall fire I thinke it not amisse to let the Reader see what diuerse of them in true religion and learning not inferior to any of our time haue professed touching either of these points Peter Martyrs iudgement of GEHENNA we heard before who maketh Tophet all one with GEHENNA and saith of Tophet Esaie in his 30. Chapter calleth that place of Gehenna Tophet and fire vnquenchable as hauing much wood and brimstone to nourish it The Prophet also setteth downe the breath wherewith the fire is blowne that it may flame the more siercely Munster in his Annotations vpon the 30. of Esaie saith Gehenna is here called Tophet Dicit habitaculum illud esse igâ—…eum That place or habitacle the Prophet saith is all fierie to let thee vnderstand that the torment there is euerlasting For the vncleane lustes of the mind which here are not purged by faith shall be the nourishment of that eternall flame IN STEEDE of wood and coales And also the conscience within shall afflict the wicked as a kind of fire Hell is perpetuall because the Spirite and will of the Lord giue euerlasting force of fire to it Bullinger in his 90. homilie vpon the same Chapter Our Prophet calleth hell Tophet as our Sauiour called it Gehenna And indeede Tophet or Gehenna did burne and flame with perpetuall fires deuouring their children which seduced with a diuelish error thought they offered them vnto God when they offered them vnto the diuell As then in Tophet wretched men were skorched with fire so in hell all the wicked are tormented with euerlasting fire Therefore hell is rightly called Tophet and Gehenna whose inside or burning is fire that is if thou aske what is in hell there is fire and burning or
Prophets not as wanting soueraigntie and sufficiencie in himselfe aboue all Prophets but leading them that knew him not to consider better of those Scriptures which they knew It is as true of Pauls writings as of the rest of the Apostles and Prophets which S. Augustine affirmeth De quorum scriptis quòd omni errore careant dubitare nefarium est Of whose writings to doubt whether they be free from all error is plaine wickednesse Neuerthelesse I well perceiue that all this great shew of cleauing to the Fathers iudgements is but coloured in you For in other points againe we see when they speake not to yoúr liking the case is altered I see in this booke where you forsake the ancient and learned Fathers that is as you speake in my case you conâ—…mne despise them The more vniust then and iniurious was your slander that I went about by the vse of one word which olde and new Diuines vsed in like sort before me to make the Fathers of equall authoritie with the Scriptures since now you can both obserue and obiect that euen in this booke which you impugne I say and do the contrarie And though I be farre from repenting or misliking any thing that I sayd touching the prerogatiue of the sacred Scriptures and their irrefragable authoritie against all the words and wits of men yet can I not chuse but note your negligence that marke neither what nor of whom I speake Had I brought Fathers in matters of faith against or without the Scriptures you had some colour to choake me with mine owne words but taking care as I did that in cases of faith the Scriptures should be plaine and perspicuous for my purpose before I cited them and the testimonies of the Fathers euident and concurrent with the Scriptures how doe I crosse any of those places which you quote out of my writings touching the authoritie and sufficiencie of the Scriptures in points of faith or what agreement hath your dissenting from the Scriptures and Fathers in the chiefest keyes of Christian religion with my leauing them in some expositions and positions not pertinent to the faith nor generally receiued of them all It is vanitie enough to dreame of contradictions where none are and as great infirmitie not to see that which lieth before your eyes but to pronounce that you know how wauering and slipperie I am for the most part therein when you neither consider nor conceiue what I say that is more than childish temeritie As I sayd so I say againe In Gods causes Gods booke must teach vs what to beleeue and what to professe and therefore what I reade in the word of God that I beleeue what I reade not that I doe not beleeue Yea I adde thereto S. Basils conclusion If all that is not of faith be sinne as the Apostle sayth and faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God all that is without the Scripture inspired from God as not being of faith is sinne This confession I constantly holde and as in the first booke which you quote I directly and expresly defend that no point of faith should be beleeued without Scripture so in my Sermons I no where varie from it how slipperie soeuer your tongue be to tell a tale in stead of a trueth I doe reiect Austens opinion in three speciall points and diuers Fathers in two other cases and some of those things I affirme against all the Fathers and almost against all the Church and yet I bitterly reproue you for vsing the like libertie Doe I any where reiect S. Augustine or all the Fathers in any point of doctrine necessarie to our saluation as you do in the chiefest grounds of our redemption And when I let the Reader vnderstand that the reasons which some Fathers bring to fortifie their priuate opinions are not sufficient for to force consent to be giuen vnto them doe I call them fond absurd without reason or likelihood and paradoxes in nature as you do These two things I iustly reproue in you which I my selfe doe not fall into for all your fitning In the maine principles of Christian religion and our redemption you make the best learned Fathers ignorant of their Creed and Catechisme and when their expositions of the Scripture crosse your imaginations you Reuell against their Iudgements as void of sense and reason This doâ—… I not In the rule of faith I renounce not their maine consent nor vndoubted maximes least I conclude them or my selfe to erre in faith In other questions of lesâ—…e importance wherein they differ sometimes from ech other sometimes euen from themselues I let the Reader see their reasons and leaue him free to follow what he liketh or to suspend his iudgement if he find cause therefore This libertie I neuer take from you nor mislike it in you but when you pronounce all to be absurd fond and foolish that yeeld not to your fansie wherein you doe not onely proudly aduance your owne dreames as necessary Doctrines but reprochfully preiudice the freedome of others This difference is not my deuise the auncient consent of Godly Fathers saith Vincentius is with great care to be searched and followed of vs not in all the questions of the Diuine Law but onely or chiefly in the Rule of Faith Whether therefore the bodies of such as arose and came out of their graues after Christs resurrection returned againe to corruption or still kept the honor of immortalitie which was bestowed on them as also when Christ said to the theefe on the Crosse this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise whether Christ ment the presence of his humane soule or of his Diuine glory should be that day in Paradise and so whether the soules of the faithfull dâ—…parting this life goe straight to heauen or stay in a place appointed them of God till the day of iudgement and likewise whether Abrahams bosome were a receptacle for soules within the earth and neere to hell or far aboue the earth and lastly whether the loosing of Adam from hell by Christs descent thither which the whole Church almost seemed to hold by tradition freed onely the person of Adam from the place of hell or both him and his posteritie from all feare and danger of hell These be things that may be liked disliked or suspended without any manifest breach of faith and wherein Saint Austen probablely disputeth but determineth nothing for certaintie to be beleeued alwaies tempering his words in these cases with Ego quidem non video explicent qui possunt nondum intelligo nulla causa occurrit nondum muâ—… I see not how let them declare it that can as yet I vnderstand it not I conceaue presently no cause as yet I find it not cleere If I then laboured with respectiue words and other places of the same Fathers to shew wherein they doubted or dissented who but a light head and slipper tongue would call this
Whereupon Pilat maruailed that Christ was so soone dead And the Lord himselfe said None taketh my soule from me but I lay it downe of my selfe I haue power to lay it downe and power to take it againe To which it pertaineth that is written he bowing downe his head gaue vp his spirit for other men first dye and then their heads hang but Christ first laid downe his head and then voluntarily rendered his soule to his Father Many moe might be brought of all ages and places confessing the same but if these suffice not what may be enough I doe not know To decline the Scriptures and Fathers that make against him the Discourser hath deuised two shifts very like the rest of of his tenents that is void of all truth and iudgement I deny not saith he but Christ might shew some strange vnusuall thing apparantly to the beholders in vttering his last voice which might very much mooue the beholders and hâ—…arers Adde hereunto that experience sheweth as Phisitians say how some diseases in the body bring death presently after most strong and violent crying Namely in some excessiue torments as of the stone Things reported and expressed in the Scriptures touching the strange and wonderfull manner of Christs death you deny and dreame of things there no way mentioned to coulour your matter and cosin your Reader That Christ did render his soule into his Fathers hands when as yet neither speech sense memory nor motion began to faile is diligently obserued by the Euangelists and was greatly marueyled at by the Centurion which saw the manner of his death As also that he breathed out his soule of his owne accord when he had spoken those words without any former or other degrees or pangs of death appearing in him is likewise witnessed by the Scriptures and constantly auouched by all the Fathers Saint Luke saith and speaking these words he breat hed out his soule Saint Mathew and crying with a loud voice he dismissed his spirit Saint Marke and sending a strong voice from him he blew out his Soule This did he of his owne accord and power None taking his soule from him as in death they doe ours but declaring himselfe by laying of his soule when he would and as he would to be Lord and master of life and death This is fit for all Christians to confesse least they dishonor the death of Christ by depriuing his person of that power and glory which he openly shewed in the eyes eares of all his persecutors This you shift of and instced thereof imagine some strange and VNVSVALI accident in the manner of Christs death which neither the Scriptures report nor you can expresse wherein you shew your selfe forward to inuent what is not written and backward to beleeue what is written which is the trade of such men as meane to make a shipwracke of their faith That a man may dye crying as Christ did you haue found at length if not from Diuines at least from Phisitians for I perccaue you haue sought all sorts of helps both farre and neere to vphold your fansies Pâ—…rchaunce Phisitians may tell you when a painefull disease possesseth the parts which are no fountaines of life or sense a man may cry till sense and strength begin to faile and so hasten his death by the violent spending of his spirits but that a man may by any course of nature retaine perfect memorie sense motion and speach to the very act of breathing out his soule I assure my selfe no wise Phisitian will affirme And if any more humorous then learned will wade so farre without his Art he must vnderstand that his word may not ouersway the Rules of Diuinitie and Principles of nature For what are the powers and faculties whereby the soule is conioyned with the body but life sense and motion so long then as they last the soule by nature neither doth nor can forsake the body But when sense and motion first outward and then inward are oppressed and ouerwhelmed then life also perisheth and the soule may no longer abide in her body the vnion by which she was fastened vnto it being wholy dissolued Wherefore death which is the priuation of life by Gods ordinance for the punishment of sinne by degrees surpriseth and in the end quencheth all sense and motion and so forceth the soule to forsake her seate which by Gods appointment is violently parted from hir body whether she will or no but neuer till the effects oflife which are sense and motion be first decayed and abolished A sowne is the suddainest ouerwhelming of the powers of life which any natural experience doth teach vs and yet therewith though outward sense and motion doe faile at an instant and the inward be very weake and almost insensible the soule doth not presently depart but stayeth a time till all sense and motion without and within except the partie be recouered be vtterly extinguished Wherefore in all men by necessitie of nature the powers and parts of life decav in some sooner in some later before they die and therefore in Christ on the Crosse it was MIRACVLOVS and aboue nature that hauing full perfect outward and inward sense speech and motion he did in a moment when he would and as he would render his soule into the hands of his Father without any farder decayes or other degrees of death precedent then the very act of breathing out his soule which left his body presently and perfectly dead Thou hast gentle Reader the causes and prooses that mooued me to obserue the manâ—…r of Christes death to bee different from ours which whether they be consonant to the Scriptures and rightly conceiued by those learned and ancient Fathers which I haue named vnto thee I leaue to thy discrecte iudgement assuring thee there is nothing to hinder the maine consent of so many old and new writers in a matter of so great consequence but onely the headdinesse of this discourser who vpon a bare pretence of one peece of Scripture not well vnderstood and worse applied thinketh he may worke wonders and conclude all these graue and sound Expositours to be so ignorant of the sense of that place and so vnable to reach to the depth of those words Christ was LIKE VS IN ALL things that with one accord they would affirme a sine fable a Paradoxe in Nature and contrarie to Scripture Howbeit it is no newes with this man to defend that Christ was distempered ouerwhelmed and all confounded both in all the powers of his soule and senses of his body He boldly auoucheth it was so with Christ before his death in the Garden and on the Crosse and therefore hee presumeth it might much more befall him at his death But let him keepe these secrets to himselfe I doubt not Christian Reader but thou wilt be well aduised before thou put the Sauiour of the world and the Sonne of God out of his wits or senses to make way for
any reason or learning ergo Christs dead bodie depriued of soule and sense was the whole Ransom for our sinnes for that he meaneth by Christs death or ergo no action nor passion of Christs soule before or on his crosse was meritorious If I say these conclusions doe necessarily follow out of those words or out of the meaning of them then I must confesâ—…e I am fowly ouershot in my speach But if these be most ignorant and absurd collections from my words and from theirs that vsed that speâ—…ch before me then mayest thou see Christian Reader what meaning this man hath throughout this booke purposely to peruert and misconster all that I say to make thee beleeue I broch some strange and wonderous Doctrine But shifts lâ—… hid but a while the shame in the end will be his How then can that which I sundrie times teach of Christs sufferings in his soule be true if our whole ranâ—…om and propitiation be bodily bloudy and deadly only which is the point â—…here stand on What contradiction finde you in my words that Christ might haue and had sufferings in his soule as feare sorrow and affliction of minde and yet died no death but only a bodilie Only a bodily death doth not exclude all paines which are not bodily but all deaths saue the death of the bodie Wherefore my conclusion is whâ—…re it was That the death which the Mediator must suffer for sinne by the Apostles doctrine must onely be bodily and bloodie and therefore by no meanes the death of the soule or of the damned Yet this â—…as not our whole râ—…some you say nor the whole sacrifice for sinne the sufferings of his soule must be added vnto it When I speake of Christes death I vnderstand that maner and order of his death which the Euangelists describe for so the Scriptures meane when they speake of Christes death and from that death I doe not seuer those sufferings of his soule which the Scripturâ—…s mention because the sharpnesse of that death which his body was to suffer draue him to the deepe consideration of the cause why of the Iudge from whom and the captiue for whom he suffered Christ otherwise had not suffered death as a Redeemer if he had been ignorant of any of these or compelled by force to endure the furie of the Iewes he had power enough to stay their rage decline their bloudie hands yea to auert or decrease the paines as he thought good but because he was to offer himselfe as a willing sacrifice to suffer death to saue vs from the wrath of his Father he layed aside his owne power and submitted himselfe wholly to be disposed at his Fathers will which the Scriptures call his obedience vnto death When therefore he foresaw and felt how sharpe and painfull that death would be and was which he must and did suffer for our sinnes was it possible he should not fully cast the eyes of his â—…inde vpon the horror of our sinnes which did so sting him vpon the fiercenesse of Gods wrath which did so pursue him though he were his innocent and only sonne and vpon the terrible vengeance that rested for vs if he should mislike or refâ—…se to beare the burden of our offences If any man learned thinke it possible for Christ to suffer the one and not in spirit most cleerely to see the other I am content he shall seâ—…er the sufferings of Christs soule from the griefe and anguish of his bodily death but if it be more than absurd so to conceiue then finde we that the sight and sense of Christes extreame torments in bodie caused and vrged his soule thorowly to beholde these things with feare and sorrow which in themselues were most fearefull and could not châ—… but affect Christes soule deeply and diuersly As for the whole ransome of our sinne we shall haue occasion in the next reason more largely to treate of But you haue reasons you say to confirme your maine matter among manie these two the first the Iewish sacrifices shadowing and foreshewing the second the sacraments of Christians testifying and confirming that the true sacrifice for sinne was bodily and bloudy Still what trifling is this doth any in the world denie that the true sacrifice for sinne was the bodie bloud and death of the Redeemer Wherefore the proposition must be as I did set it in your behalfe the Iewish sacrifices were shadowes or figures and our sacraments were signes of our whole and absolute redemption by Christ I say of the whole and entire propitiatorie sacrifice or els you shrinke and leaue the question When I lacke one to set propositions in my behalfe I will send to you for helpe till then spare your paines except you might reape more thanks But you must learne to get you plainer termes or at least more plainly to expound them if you will needs be a setter of propositions for what is the WHOLE sacriâ—…ice propitiatorie and what is our WHOLE redemption By the whole sacrifice meane you the whole person of Christ that gaue himselfe for vs or intend you the whole action whereby he sanctified submitted and presented himselfe as a sacrifice of a sweet smell vnto God or by the whole vnderstand you all that in Christ was deuoted and deliuered vnto death for the satisfaction of Gods iustice And so our whole redemption doe you referre it only to remission of sinnes as the Apostle doth when he sayth We haue redemption through Christes bloud euen the forgiuenesse of sinnes or also to deliuerance from the dominion and infection of sinne and to the abolishing of all corruption in soule and bodie which is our whole and absolute redemption When the powers of heauen shall be shaken and the Sonne of man come in a cloud with power and great glorie then lift vp your heads sayth Christ for your redemption draweth neere You are sealed by the holy Spirit vnto the day of redemption sayeth Paul And Dauid God shall redeeme their soules from deceit and violence that is he shall deliuer their soulâ—…s The Saints as the Apoâ—…e speaketh were racked and would admit no redemption to obtaine a better resurrection where by redemption he meaneth deliuerance As Zacharias sayd God hath visited and sent redemption to his people that is saluation or deliuerance from our enemies and from the hands of all that hate vs to serue him in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of our life So that our whole and absolute redemption compriseth all the degrees and steps of our saluation as iustification sanctification and glorification and these though they were merited and obtained for vs by Christes obedience vnto dâ—…ath yet are they performed and accomplished by diuers other meanes therewith concurring and thereon depending as by the grace of his spirit the working of his power and glory of his comming And therefore the words which you haue set in my behalfe are like their authour that is they are
you once denie it For where you affirme that certaine Sacrifices of the Iewes set foorth those sufferings of Christs soule which you meane and I vtterly denied that any sacrifices of the Iewes did shew the suffering of hell paines in Christs soule or any other kind of death besides the death of the body only you take not the paines to make any proofe of that you aâ—…rme but stand in your state and say you deny my assumption As if the negatiue being mine and the affirmatiue yours you were not by all rules of Râ—…ason to prooue your aâ—…atiue and it sufficed me to stand on the negatiue till you made iust proofe of the contrary Here you will say you doe bring proofe for your assertion Here indeed you spend three leaues in talking of it as your manner is howbeit your word is here as throughout your writings the best warrant you offer vs for this cause But let vs heare your examples and proofes First that sacrifice consisting of two goats a slaine and a scape-goat You obiect heere against first that I abuse the Text. That were a great fault but let vs view the Text. Against your instance of the Scape-goat figuring as you would haue it the suffeâ—…ings of Christs soule I made three exceptions First that the Scripture did not call the Scape-goat a Sacrifice for sinne Secondly that no proofe was or could be made that the Scapegoat signified the soule of Christ Thirdly that if both those were granted which were no way proued the Scape-goat suffering nothing but being let loose into the wildernesse did rather inferre that Christes soule was freed from all such sufferings as you would force vpon it To the last which is the chiefest you take the paines to say little and so giue the Reader to vnderstand that your bolde assertion is the best foundation of your proofe for if you can not shew as you neither doe nor can that the Scape-goat by the Scriptures suffered any thing how will you bring it about that the Scape-goat figured the sufferings of Christes soule shall no suffering be a figure of suffering such may your figures be but the wisdome of God maketh figures for similitude and resemblance to the trueth and not for contrarietie to it as you do The chiefest point then you cleane slide from and take holde on some words in Moses text about which you thinke you may wrangle with some more likelihood The verie expresse wâ—…rds of the text you say are these Aaron shall take of the people two goats for a sinne offering And verie good reason must I bring to frustrate so plâ—… a speech I am farre from bringing any thing to frustrate the Scriptures but if the Scripture expresse it selfe I preferre that before your misapplying the words to your will Aaron shal take of the congregation of the children of Israel two goats for sinne So stand the words if you will needs appeale precisely to the text Here is a taking of two goats and an intent for sinne declared in generall but the particular maner of vsing and ordering either of them according to Gods appointment followeth in distinct and direct wâ—…ds Aaron shall take the two goats and make them stand before the Lord at the doore of the Tabernacle And Aaron shall giue lots vpon both goats one lot for the Lord and another for the Scape-goat And Aaron shall make the goat on which the lâ—… fell for the Lord to draw neere and shall make him reddie or sacrifice him for sinne For here is AASA'HV added which in the Scriptures vsually signifieth to make readie a Sacrifice And he shall kill the goat that is for sinne for the people and bring his bloud within the vaiâ—…e In as plaine words as the former be or any can be that goat on which the lot fell for the Lord must be made readie that is sacrificed for sinne of which he spake at first and that which was the peoples sinne-offering must be slaine and his blood brought within the vaile But neither of these agree to the Scape-goat therefore the Scape-goat was not the sinne offering for the people which the Scripture in that place mentioneth These words you say proue not that the Scape-goat was no sinne-offering at all These particular circumstances doe plainly proue which of the two goats was made the peoples sinne-offering and so conuince that you inlargc the words of Moses without any iust ground to serue your owne conceit Two sinne-offerings were not taken from the people but two goats were taken for sinne and one of them sacrificed for the people as was after prescribed and performed and Aaron commanded for him and his house to offer a bullocke for his sinne-offering So that where the Scripture mentioneth no moe sinne-offerings for the people but one neither vseth the word AASA but to one of them that one was prepared and slaine by Gods commandement as a sinne-offering for the people where the Scape-goat was preserued aliue and sent away into the wildernesse to shew the force of the former sacrifice by carying with it the sinnes of the people I take a sacrifice and offering in the largest sense as signifying any consecrated thing giuen to God to appease him for sinne And such vnbloudie sinne-offerings very manie we shall finde in Moses Law Wherefore the Scape-goat may be a sinne-offering though it were not slaine or bloudie That the word Sacrifice may be diuersly taken and applied to things vnbloudie and ghostly I haue no doubt but that one and the same word in one and the same place should import both a bloudie and vnbloudie sacrifice for sinne is a shift of yours without all sense it hath no shew in the sacred Scriptures Againe the sacrifices for sinne were they bloudie or vnbloudie which are mentioned in Moses law and namely in all those places which you quote in your margin they were all without exception OFFERED to God by FIRE the things liuing suffered first death by effusion of bloud the things without life as flowre oyle wine and such like were cast into the fire where the bloudie sacrifices were burned and so without bloud or fire no sacrifice for sinne is appointed in Moses law Since then the Scape-goat was neither slaine nor touched with fire but sent forth aliue into the wildernesse what do those examples of things vnbloudie yet offered by fire helpe you to proue that the Scape-goat liuing was such a sinne offering as many are found in Moses law Can there be any thing in the world more full and strong to prooue that the Scape-goat also was a true sinne-offering or rather a true part of this whole and entire sinne-offering consisting and being compleat in both these goats the slaine and the Scape-goat For as the slaine so the Scape-goat we see was CONSECRATED to the Lord and here OFFERED to make reconciliation by him and separated from men and barâ—… vpon him all the sinnes of the
people You be come now from a sinne-offering to a part of a sinne offering and that you proue because the Scape-goat was CONSECRATED and OFFERED to make reconciliation by him All these words are your owne adding to the text and if you keepe that course you may proue what you list if not by the Scriptures at least by your commentaries vpon the Scriptures The words of Moses in that verse which you quote are those And the goat on which the lot fell to be the Scape goaâ—… shal be brought aliue before the Lord LECAPPER to pray ouer him oâ—… to carie away sinne by him and to send him for the Scape-goat into the desert You aske whose translation this is Theâ—…s that had better skill in the Hebrue tongue than you or I. The ancient translation of the Latine Church hath vt fundaâ—… preces super â—…um to make prayers ouer him which Isychius Nicolaus de Lyra and Arias Montanus â—…o follow Pagninâ—… sayth ad emundandum per illum to clense or cary away sinne by him which Vatablus in his notes varieth by adrogandum to pray ouer him That the Scape-goat was consecrated or offered there are no such wordes in Moses text except you meane that the bringing of the goat before God was the offering of it and the praying ouer it was the consecrating of it but these be sillie coniectures to proue the consecration and oblation of a Sacrifice The Scape-goat therefore was not the halfe sinne-offering of the people as you pretend it was a sensible figure of the acceptance of the former Sacrifice whose bloud was carried within the vaile and made a full propitiation for all their sinnes as much as those Sacrifices could effect And in token thereof the Priest was willed before their faces by imposing his hands and confessing their iniquities to let them see that the Lord remoued all their sinnes out of his sight as that goat was caried away from the sight of men into the wildernesse So that the Scape-goat was nothing giuen to God for sinne as you would haue it but shewed rather a reiection and detestation of sinne by his departure into the desert and was no sanctified and accepted sacrifice for sinne as the other was whoâ—…e bloud did make the purgation of their sinnes and reconcile them to God by his figuring and their beleeuing in the true and eternall sacrifice for sinne Was not the Scape-goat then a figure of Christ as well as the slaine goat Though certaine Fathers doe sometimes resemble the Scape-goat to the wicked and reprobate which is not so wide a wandering from the trueth as your wresting it to signifie the sufferings of Christes soule yet neither did I nor doe I gainsay but the Scape-goat might in some sort be a figure of Christ notwithstanding all things in it can not be proportioned to Christ for so no figure can match him yet that doth not proue it to be sacrifice for sinne much lesse to foreshew the sufferings of Christes soule There were many figures of Christ yea of Christes death as the Brasen Serpent the Rocke in the desert Sampson Ionas and many such which were no sacirfices and so might the Scape-goat prefigure either the cause or shame of his death or both as the slaine goat did the maner and power of his death and yet be no sinne-offering Iustine Martyr sayth The two goats designed the two commings of Christ the first when the Elders of the people and Priests laying their hands on him and putting him to death SENT HIM AVVAY AS THE SCAPEGOAT The second when they shall acknowledge him whom they dishonoured to be the sacrifice for all repentant sinners Teâ—…ullian is of the same minde One of the goats arayed in redde scarlet aecurfed and spet on beaten and punched by the people was cast out of the city into a place of perdition thus marked with manifest signes of the Lords passion The other offered for sinne and giuen for food to the Priests of the Temple secundae repraesentationis argumenta sign bat sealed the effects of his second appearing Theodoret referreth the two goats to the two natures of Christ the â—…laine goat to represent the passible nature of his flesh the Scape-goat to shew the impassible nature of his Diuinitie Isychius doth the like Caluine a man of sharpe iudgement and in some sense a mainteiner of the sufferings of Christes soule yet doth not applie the Scape-goat as you doe but either to witnesse the resurrection of Christ as the slaine goat did dcclare his death or to shew that Christ was a man deuoted to beare the shame and punishment of sinne for others There is heere set downe sayth he a doubble way of cleansing sinne For of the two goats one was offered for a sacrifice after the maner of the Law the other was sent forth aliue to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a thing deuoted to destruction for others or an of-scouring of the people The truth of either of these figures was exhibited in Christ because he was the lambe of God whose slaying abolished the sinnes of the world and that he might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one deuoted or appointed to beare the plague for others all beautie was quenched in him and he reiected of men There may be brought a more curious speculation that the sending away of the Scape-goat was a figure of Christes resurrection but I embrace that which is more simple and certaine that the goat sent away aliue and free was VICE PIACVLI as a thing deuoted to beare the brunt for others that by his departure and leading away the people might be assured their sinnes did vanish and were caried farre out of sight So that though the Priest brought one goat aliue for a reconciliation yet God was not pacified without bloud quia vis expiationis a sacrificio alterius Hirci pendebat because the force of cleansing sinne depended on the sacrifice of the other slaine goat Thus haue we manie significations of the Scape-goat referred euen to Christ by old and new writers and euen by some whom you would seeme most to follow and yet none of them applieth it to the sufferings of Christes soule So that your assertion in that behalfe is but your meere imagination farther from the words of Moses than their coniectures which you count widest off But you will proue it by maine might that shall remoue mountaines before it It must needs be then that the Scape-goate signified Christ yea doubtlesse Christ man For the godhead could be no sinne-offering neither did it make reconciliation for sinne neither did the Deitie beare our sinnes vpon him properly all which the Scape-goate did If it were Christ man it could not be his body for his body was slaine bloudily the Scape-goate was not slaine It must then be of necessitie I thinke the humane MORTALL Soule which the Scape-goate signified I know not
owne words and hereafter by your leaue tell you it is a plaine lye and a meere shift if you father your termes of Christs meere blood and single bodie vpon me as any part of the Question which I mooued or Doctrine which I defend Wherefore I pray thee Christian Reader once more to take notice that I be not driuen in euery page to proue one and the same thing against the Discoursers vnsauery childish and Idle phrases with which he would faine elude the Scriptures and delude the world Your confession both of my Sermons and conclusion Sir Descourser is this Sundry times you teach that Christ did suffer peculiarly and seuerally some proper punishments in his soule besides his bodily sufferings yea that this was a part of his crosse and the effect of Gods wrath on his soule as well as the suffering in his body Against my words so often witnessed in my writings and so openly confessed by your selfe you take vpon you by some secret reuelation belike to know my meaning that no more but the shedding of Christs blood MEERELY is the full satisfaction of all our sinnes which MEERE BLOOD of Christ the Scriptures meane not nor onely his body SINGLY and SIMPLY considered The MEERE blood and SINGLE and SIMPLE body of Christ with such like couerts of your cause are termes fit for such a teacher as you are to which if you could once conuert the Question we must haue as many Lexicons to bring vs out of these Laberinthes as there be leaues in your booke Keepe them therefore as whelps of your owne litture the faith of Christ and the word of God hath stood without them these sixteene hundered yeeres What I meane by the body and blood of Christ giuen and shed for our Redemption and the remission of our sinne I haue meetly well expressed I must not in euery section fall to fresh repetitions When I speake as the Scripture speaketh I meane as the Scripture meaneth They know not your new termes of the MEERE blood nor of the single and simple body of Christ but by his blood and death they meane that manner of shedding his blood and that kind and course of death suffered in the body of his flesh which the Gospell describeth no way excluding from Christ when he presented himselfe before God to vndertake mans cause the due consideration of mans infirmitie and iniquitie abounding or of Gods iustice therewith displeased nor his humble and voluntary submission to the mightie hand and righteous will of his heauenly Father to excuse vs from the heauie iudgement that otherwise did hang ouer our heads So much as the Scriptures mention in declaring the manner of his death and bloodshedding so much they containe in the name of his Crosse blood and death For as the description which the holy Ghost maketh is in no point idle so the comprehension of all vnder one word excludeth nothing formerly described This I take to be a sound and sure way to expound the Scriptures by their owne direction and intention For since the manner and order of Christs death was so carefully regestred by the spirite of God that we should not be ignorant of it whensoeuer the Scriptures speake of Christs Crosse blood and death they referre vs to all that which either by the Prophets was foretold or in the Gospell is expressed touching the order and manner of his death And so Christ died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures as Paul addeth Then to take any thing from it which is mentioned in the Scriptures or to adde any thing to it which is not there expresly recorded is to depart from the word of trueth and to dishonor and deface the death and bloud of Christ with our inuentions This being my meaning euen from the beginning as my words declare I moued these two generall questions The first Whether in the crosse and death of Christ described in the Scriptures the death of the soule or the death of the damned were by any good warrant of the sayd Scriptures comprised Secondly Whether the crosse and death of Christ as the Scriptures describe them be not the full and perfect price of our redemption from sinne and reconciliation to God by the testimonie of the same Scriptures without the death of the soule or paines of the damned The Discourser finding himselfe inclosed with these questions speaketh directlie to neither and prooueth nothing in either but declining the enuie of these speeches the death of the soule and the paines of the damned which indeed are the points misliked and reiected he changeth the first question into the generall termes of suffering Gods wrath and the soules proper suffering which may import manie things besides those two and in the second he euery where beareth the Reader in hand that by the death and bloud of Christ I meane the MEERE bodily sufferings of Christ without anie sense or sorrow of the soule in her spirituall powers And lest the Scripture should stand in his way he casteth them all behinde him that any way witnesse the force and merit of Christes death and bloudshedding as figuratiue speeches because they name not the MEERE bloud of Christ nor only his body SINGLY considered But Sir all this while you forget that you haue proued nothing but onely supposed and auouched what pleased you and that in matters of faith you may not adde to the word of God without manifest apostasie The things questioned by me were the death of the soule and the verie paines of the damned as appeareth euidently by my words when I first mooued the question Of these you say nothing all this while which yet you must soundly fully proue before you may adde them to the words of the Holy ghost testifying the power vertue of Christes bloud and death Therefore howsoeuer you seeme to shift off the Scriptures as figuratiue speeches with your MEERE and SINGLE termes they will sticke faster by you than so For as there can be no doubt of my meaning comprising all in the death and bloud of Christ which the Scriptures report of the order and maner of his sufferings when he yeelded himselfe to die for the sinnes of the world according to the counsell of his Fathers wil so you may not presume any thing to be conteined in the death or crosse of Christ as requisite for our redemption which is not cleerely witnessed by the Scriptures Proue therefore by the Scriptures that Christ died the death of the soule or the death of the damned which are the true paines of hell and then adde it to the crosse of Christ when you will Till so you do the Scriptures which I haue produced stand in their full strength against you For as they bind all Christian men stedfastly to beleeue that which is written touching their redemption by the death and bloud of Christ so do they straitly prohibit all and euery be they men or Angels to adde any other
life of all And that this is most perfect charitie I will cite our Sauiour himselfe for a witnesse where he saith greater loue hath no man then to lay downe his soule for his friends By all this Christ teacheth his Disciples to be so farre from shunning daungers and troubles for the saluation of men that the death of the flesh must not be refused for euen to that doth charitie stretch Fulgentius an other of the Fathers on whom you would faine fasten your error of Christs redeeming our soules by the death of his soule and our bodies by the death of his body not only noteth when and how Christ laid downe his soule for vs but why that phrase is applyed to Christs death and to all theirs that die willingly for loue not necessarily vpon constraint The whole man Christ laid downe his soule when his soule departed his flesh dying on the crosse And so againe Christ dying in the flesh laid downe his Soule and shewing the difference betwixt deliuering the body to death and giuing or laying downe the soule He saith Where loue is not the body is said to be deliuered but not the soule to be laid downe as the vessell of election plainly testifieth If I giue my body to be burnt and haue no loue it auayleth me nothing Here Paule declareth that without loue the body may be yeelded but not the soule laid downe For where he purposeth to signifie the purenesse of his loue he thus writeth to the Thessalonians Our goodwill was to bestow on you not onely the Gospell of God but euen our owne soules and to proue this an effect of his loue he addeth because yee were deare vnto vs. So that it is proued by manifest witnesse of Scripture that there wanteth loue where the body onely is layed downe to death but there is charitie where the soule is laid downe together with the body Beda Ponere ergo animam mori est Sic Apostolus Petrus Domino dixit animam pro te ponam id est pro te moriar carne To lay downe the Soule is to die So the Apostle Peter said to Christ I will lay downe my Soule for thee that is I will die in the flesh for thee A good sheepeheard saith Christ layeth downe his soule for his sheepe He did that he taught he performed that he commaunded he laid downe his Soule for his sheepe and shewed vs a way to contemne death which we must follow and a paterne after which we must be Printed which is first to extend our outward works of mercie towards his sheepe then if neede be to offer our death for them The later writers are all of the same mind and expound those words of our Sauiour the Sonne of man came to serue and to giue his soule a ransome for many and I lay downe my soule for my sheepe to haue none other sense then that he would die for vs as the Fathers before them did expound the same Erasmus in his paraphrase expressing our Sauiours meaning in both places saith in the person of Christ Therefore I came euen to serue the welfare of all in so much that I thinke it no burden to giue my life by the losse of one soule to redeeme many And againe Therefore my Father loueth me singularly as his Sonne because of mine owne accord I bestowed my life for the safetie of my Fathers flocke Bullinger likewise in the person of our Sauiour I came to serue the good of all and that which is farre greater I came into this world to giue my life for sinners And so I yeeld my selfe to death and euen to the death of the crosse that my sheepe beleeuing in me may liue by my death And alleadging and relying on Saint Austens words on the same place he addeth out of Austen To lay downe the soule is to die So Peter the Apostle said to his Master I will lay downe my soule for thee that is I will die for thee Attribute this to the flesh for when the soule goeth out of the flesh and the flesh remaineth without a soule then is a man said to lay downe his soule What saith the Euangelist Christ bowing his head gaue vp the Ghost this is to lay downe the soule Musculus Christ declareth what his ministerie is euen to redeeme mortall men and the chiefest degree of this ministerie is that he would giue his soule for them Then are we redeemed by the onely begotten Sonne of God and that dearely euen with his owne death For the Lord of heauen and earth humbled himselfe vnto death and that vnto a most shamefull death What was more vile or more abiect in the world then the death of the crosse And in the person of Christ Therefore my Father loueth me because I lay downe my soule that is because I die for my sheepe Caluine vpon those words of Christ I came to giue my soule a Redemption for many Therefore Christ mentioneth his death that he might withdraw his Disciples from a peruerse imagination of an earthly kingdome In the meane time the force and fruite of his death is aptly and rightly expressed whiles he affirmeth his life to be the price of our Redemption Whence it followeth that the price of our reconciliation with God is no where found but in the death of Christ and so It is no maruaile that Christ affirmeth himselfe to be therefore loued of his Father because he esteemeth our saluation dearer then his owne life He would by this arme his Disciples least seeing him soone after to be caried to death they should faint in hart as if he were oppressed by his enimies but rather acknowledge it to be the wonderfull prouidence of God that he should die to redeeme the flocke Gualter Christ saith he came to giue his soule to be the price of Redemption for many This passeth all offices that men may yeeld one to another For as him selfe saith no man hath greater loue then this to giue his soule for his friends But he vouchsafeth to die for his enimies And dying for vs he bestowed life on vs because his death was a ransome sufficient for the sinnes of the world And so A good sheepeheard saith Christ layeth downe his soule for his sheepe b As if he should haue said who can deny him to be a good sheepeheard that so much loueth his sheepe as not to refuse to redeeme their safetie with the losse of his owne life And because the Sonne of God hath exposed or yeelded his life for vs who can doubt but he hath satisfied abundantly for vs Vitus Theodorus Christ saith the sonne of man came to minister and to giue his life for the Redemption of all That surely is the chiefest and truest loue and seruice when a man serueth his enimies with body and life And likewise in the person of Christ. I alone am the good
to trouble the people with that Question and therefore I rested on a knowne and confessed principle of Christian truth and faith that we inherite pollution and death from Adams flesh without resoluing whence the Soule commeth which I did refraine before the multitude to speake of And since by the Scriptures the first Adam was a figure of the second the flesh of Christ giuen for vs must be as able to clense and quicken vs as Adams flesh was to defile and kill vs. To this reason you here pike many quarrels but in the end you slide it of as else where answered Your first quarrell is that I force what I promised to forbeare euen the difficultie whence the Soule of man is deriued As though the grounds of our Faith might be doubted because that Question in former times was vndecided That we deriue flesh from Adam and haue men for the Fathers of our bodies did neuer man yet that was in his right wits call in Question were he Christian or Heretick Iewe Turke or Pagan That likewise wee deriue with our flesh pollution and death from Adam the faith of Christ rightly grounded on the Scriptures doth not suffer vs to stagger at though whence our Soules are giuen vs some haue stood perplexed You thinke it much I should deliuer the one which is the pollution of our flesh professing not to determine the other and make it in me a kind of inconstancie to vrge the propagation of the flesh with her sequels of which no Christian may doubt because I thought it not fit to trouble the people with the deriuation of the Soule But so hath the Church of Christ alwaies done it hath cleerely confessed the deriuation of sinne and death from Adam and made it necessarie for all Christian men so to beleeue though some would not hastily or could not easily resolue the doubt whence the Soule commeth If our Soules arise in Generation from Adam as well as our flesh how can your reason be good by any possibilitie The conceit that our Soules are ingendred together with the seede of our bodies is so grosse and pestilent an error and so repugnant to all authoritie Humane and Diuine and so dissident from dayly experience that I had no cause to make that a Question in Religion or therein to refraine the audience of the people Ex nullo homine generantur Animae Soules are not generated from any man saith Ambrose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The principall facultie of the soule sayth Clemens Alexandrinus by which we haue discourse of reason is not engendered by proiection of seed Anima vtique nunquam ab homine gignentium originibus prebetur The soule neuer commeth from man in the generation of men sayth Hilarie Ierom vpon those words of Salomon the spirit of man after death returneth to God that gaue it writeth thus Ex quo satis ridendi sunt qui putant animas cum corporibus seri non à Deo sed à corporum parentibus generari Whereby they are worthy to be thorowly derided which thinke soules to be sowen together with bodies and not to be from God but to be generated by the parents of our bodies For since the flesh returneth to the earth and the spirit to God that gaue it IT IS MANIFEST that God is the Father of our soules and not Man And when Ruffinus professed he could not tell how the soule came to be ioyned with the body whether by propagation from Man or infusion from God Ierom replieth If the soule come by propagation then the soules of men which we grant are eternall and the bruit beasts which die with the bodie haue one condition And doest thou maruell that the Christian brethren are scandalized at thee when thou swearest thou knowest not that which the Churches of Christ confesse they know Theodoret in many places giueth the like testimonie The Church beleeuing the diuine Scriptures sayth the soule was and is created as well as the bodie not hauing any cause of her creation from naturall seed but from the Creatours will after the bodie once perfectly made The most diuine Moses writeth that Adams bodie was first made and afterward his soule inspired into him Againe in his lawes the same Prophet plainly teacheth vs that the bodie is first made and then the soule created and infused And blessed Iob spake thus to God Diddest thou not powre me forth like milke and thicken me like curds of cheese thou diddest clothe me with skinne and flesh and compact me with bones and sinewes And when by this Iob had shewed the frame of his bodie to be first made he addeth a thankesgiuing for his soule saying Life and mercie thou laydst with me and thy watchfulnesse preserued my spirit This confession touching the soule and bodie of man the Church hath learned from the diuine Scriptures The same reasons and resolutions he repeateth elsewhere in his fift sermon touching the nature of man Leo the great The Catholike faith doth constantly and truely preach that the soules of men were not before they were inspired into their bodies nec ab also incorporentur nisi ab opifice Deo neither are put into the bodie by any other workeman than God And Austen himselfe who to decline that difficultie how the soule commeth to be infected with originall sinne was the first that made this doubt whether the soule were created and infused or els deriued from the soule though not by the seed of the parents refuseth Tertullians opinion That the soule riseth from the seed of the bodie as peruerse and strange to the Church of Christ They sayth he which affirme soules to be drawen from the parents if they follow Tertullians opinion tooke them to be in some sort bodies corpulentis seminibus exoriri and to rise from the seed of the bodie quo quid peruersius dici potest than the which what can be sayd more peruerse Now in Austens rehearsall of heresies Tertullians assertion That the soule was a kind of bodie is excused as no heresie but his conceit That the state of the soule is propagated by traduction of seed is expresly put amongst his errours From these auncient Fathers swarue not the best of our new writers Bullinger All those other opinions haue beene refuted with sound reasons by the writers Ecclesiasticall and that receiued and auouched for the truest which teacheth the soule to be created of nothing and to be infunded into the bodie from God when the childe hath his perfect shape in his mothers womb And that we are not at this day otherwise created of God than by infunding the soule into the bodie first fashioned Iob is a most plentifull witnesse where he saith Thine hands o God haue made me and fashioned me wholly Didst thou not stroke me like milke and curd me like cheese with skinne and flesh thou coueredst me with bones and sinewes thou
We inherite pollution by Adams flesh before our Soules come to our bodies and that sufficeth for my reason though the pollution which we inherite be deriued as well from the Soules as from the Bodies of our Parents because their bodies when they begat vs were ioyned with their Soules whose naturall and animall faculties were still in them wholy corrupted and their sinnes communicated vnto their bodies though their spirits were renued and sanctified The very Seed of which we were begotten and conceaued was an vncleane thing as Iob calleth it when he saith Who can make a cleane thing of an vncleane and corruptible that is full of Corruption as Peter nameth it when he saith borne againe not of corruptible Seed of which we were borne by our Parents The corruption of sinne then is first deriued by our Bodies though our Soules be likewise wrapped in the same pollution and condemnation that our bodies are and sinne still abideth and rebelleth in our flesh so long as we liue though our Soules be washed and clensed from sinne And therefore the Apostle calleth our flesh the flesh of sinne in the similitude of which Christ was sent and confessed that in his flesh dwelt no good thing assuring vs that though Christ be in vs the body is dead because of sinne when the Spirit is life or liueth because of righteousnesse Neither is this newes to Zanchius whom you cite in your Treatise as if he fauoured your error Quod attinet ad contagium illud certe citra controuersiam in corpore primum inest deinde per corpus in animam deriuatur Iob docet aperte cap. 14. Quis potest facere mundum de immundo conceptum semine Quid autem proprie de immundo concipitur semine Caro. As for the contagion of originall sinne that is surely without Question first in the body and after by the body is deriued into the Soule Iob teacheth vs plainly in his fourteenth Chapter Who can make one cleane conceaued of vncleane Seede Now what is properly conceaued of vncleane Seede Flesh. If any man list to read more I remit him to that place of Zanchius least I should be ouerlong or else to Peter Martyr where he largely treateth thereof against Pigghius The common receaued Opinion is saith he that the Soule draweth originall sinne by her coniunction with the body which is infected and vitiated from our Parents Wherefore if any aske what is the seate or subiect thereof as they vse to speake We answere that originall sinne hath place in the flesh as in the roote and beginning thereof afterward from that fountaine it occupieth the Soule and so is extended through the whole man Idcirco semen est instrumentum quo hoc peccatum ex parentibus traducitur in filios Therefore the Seede of man is the instrument whereby this sinne is traduced from the Parents to the children And least he should seeme to rest himselfe on the receaued opinion onely not long after he addeth Now reasons are to be brought which may firmely and soundly prooue that originall sinne is propagated in men by Seede and generation And that we will therefore shew out of the Scriptures because many reclaime and thinke this whole matter to be a fiction With one breath you ouerthrow your selfe For you say we haue pollution before the soule commeth whence soeuer it commeth Yea whence soeuer What if the soule doe come in and by generation you see how you crosse your selfe To that peruerse and false supposition of yours that the soule of man commeth in and by generation which now you cleaue so fast vnto for an aduantage I neuer gaue any allowance or forbearance Looke to my words as narrowly as you can I say the minor proposition of my reason is cleere without intermedling with the question whence not when the soule commeth I there resolue that the soule is the life of the bodie not of seede nor of blood as you grossely would wrest my speech and therfore before life come the soule which bringeth life commeth not to the bodie Then if pollution cleaue to the flesh before life come as Ambrose teacheth and consequently before the soule come which commeth not before the bodie is made as I auouch whence soeuer it commeth it is euident that Adams flesh defileth and so condemneth vs before the soule come You in the abundance of your wit take whence soeuer to be as much as when soeuer and so by your misconceiuing you would fasten a contradiction to my words But coaxe not your selfe with such contrarieties grounded vpon your owne most ignorant mistaking I made no question of the time when but of the roote whence the soule commeth I learned by Leo that the Catholike faith did truely and constantly teach that the soules of men were not before they were inspired into their bodies and consequently the bodie must first be framed before the soule can be inspired And the contrarie conceite which you now take holde on is a manifest repugnancie to the Church and faith of Christ. I saw that inconuenience which you see not when you pronounce sinne is not in our flesh without a soule that is neither before nor after the soule For if the soule of man arise in and BY GENERATION and that can be no man which neuer had mans bodie what kind of creatures I pray you call you those abortions and scapes that passe from their mothers when they are yet but seede or blood before the body be framed Soules they haue in and by generation as you now suppose bodies they haue none that be humane Men therefore they be not for want of bodies other kinds they are not seeing they haue soules what name then will you giue to these vnfashioned births hauing reasonable and immortall spirits as you imagine or what place will you assigne them after this life We all must appeare before the Tribunall of Christ euery one to receiue things done in or by his bodie They haue nothing to receiue for any thing done in or by their bodies which they neuer had neither can they expect the resurrection of the bodie which pertaineth not to them It is sowen saith the Apostle a naturall body it is raised a spirituall bodie These haue no naturall bodies of men and so shall neuer rise with spirituall and glorified bodies yea they haue no part in Christs resurrection which was corporall since they do not communicate with him in their bodies which may be conformed to his glorious bodie You must then deuise some new name and some new place for those new creatures of yours which hauing no bodies of men can not by the Scriptures looke either for the resurrection or for the saluation promised to men You doe not auouch it you will say you did but obiect it Your most euident truth as you call it that sinne cannot be found being in any thing where a reasonable soule is wanting
purged that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him by the remitting of all our sinnes and the restoring vs to the fauour of God and graunt these words that our sinnes were imputed to him that his righteousnesse might be imputed to vs which yet are not the Apostles words where is the proportion you so confidently speake of that as we are made his righteousnesse so he was made our sinne This comparison vnlimited it notorâ—…ously false and were it true it euerteth all your frame The full and euerlasting reward of his righteousnesse is allotted to vs. Was the wages of our sinnes so imposed on hiâ—… His righteousnesse is now imputed to vs because it shall be perfectly inherent in vs and is presently sealed vnto vs by the spirit of adoption whereby our harts are inherently sanctified Were our sinnes so imputed to him that they should afterward perfectly possesse him To vs God imputeth Christs righteousnesse without our consents and often without our knowledge as in children baptized Were out sinnes imputed to Christ without his vnderstanding or will In vs God hateth out sinnes and ioueth our persons for Christes sake To keepe this comparison will you say that God hated the righteousnesse of Christ and loued the sinne imputed to him for our sakes And were there not so many differences in the maner of Christes hauing our sinnes and our hauing his righteousnesse as there are yet are you no whit the nearer For as we no way deserue to be his righteousnesse so he no way deserued to be our sinne And though God forget all our sinnes and putteth them vtterly out of his sight when he washeth vs from them yet God did not wholly cast Christs righteousnesse out of his remembrance when he did punish him for our sinnes Christ therefore tooke our sinnes from vs and layed them on himselfe but he doth not take his righteousnesse from himselfe to giue it to vs but doth impart it to vs as hauing enough for himselfe and for vs because he is God as well as man So that all our sinnes were imputed to him to make vs iust yet all his righteousnesse is not imputed to vs to make him a finner as you would haue him but he bare the punishment of our sinnes which the Apostle calleth sinne that we might receiue the reward of his righteousnesse not in cogitation or computation only but in deed and execution For euen in this life where we aâ—…e continuall sinners we haue no righteousnesse but what is ioyned with the reall remission of our sinnes pardoned for Christes sake and with the grace of Gods spirit purifying our hearts by faith and inflaming them with the loue of Gods goodnesse and mercie towards vs. Our righteousnesse then in Christ hath more then imputation though imputation be also needfull it hath the seale of Gods spirit possessing our hearts and the inherent graces of faith and loue which God accepteth at our hands and thereby maketh vs partakers of Christes righteousnesse for that we beleeue in the name of his only Sonne Whereas you say the Fathers haue two good senses of the Apostles words Christ was made sinne for vs the one That God made Christ a sacrifice for sinne the other That God vsed him As he doth sinners what is there in both these which we acknowledge not Yea what is this later but the very same point which we vrge You admit both and yet vnderstand neither as you ought to doe If you acknowledge the death and bloud of Christ to be the true and onely sacrifice for sinne then must you acknowledge these three things in it that it was pleasing to God vndefiling the Priest and elensing the sinner If as well the oblation as the offerer were holie and acceptable to God why doe you defend that Christ was sinnefull and hatefull in his sufferings for sinne which was the sacrifice that he offered for sinne If it clensed the offender how could it deâ—…ile the sacrificer who was the Mediatour to God for abolishing sin you will haue one and the same sacrifice to be holie acceptable and auaileable for sinne and yet to be defiled hatefull and accursed with sinne you may call lighâ—… darknesse and good euill and thinke the prophet denouneeth no woe to you because your inuentions are priuiledged But to mine vnderstanding and I thinke to your Readers these plaine contrarieties of holy and defiled acceptable and hatefull righteous and sinnefull in one and the same sacrifice and sufferer at one and the same time will not stand together but you must be colted or cursed in your warbling conâ—…its It is nothing else in all this Question that we held but that God vsed Christ our Redeemer and Suertie As he doth sinners so farre As possibilitie admitteth You neuer want an As to helpe you at need You heare the Fathers say for of their sense you speake that God permitted the wicked to reproch his Sonne and to put him to a shamefull and cruell death as if he had beene the vilest malefactor amongst the multitude thence you collect that God punished Christ As he doth sinners that is with the greatest and sorest torments of death and damnation that are in this life or in hell But this As doth rather plunge you into the mire then plucke you out of it and therefore you adde so farre as possibilitie admitteth Now how farre that is by whom shall we be tried by the Scriptures and Fathers or by your shallow conceits and fancies you haue beene told often enough that where the Scriptures make three kinds of death due to sinners and for sinne the death of the bodie the death of the soule and the second death which is the euerlasting torment of bodie and soule in hell fire and all the learned and Catholike Fathers hold the same confession the two last deaths spirituall and eternall are not onely impossibilities but horrible blasphemies to be ascribed to the person of Christ and to either of these you would not yet speake one word but by stealth Now you haue gotten hold of a double As saying that God vsed Christ As he doth sinners so farre As possibilitie admitteth you thinke your selfe safe and out of this As you will frame vs new deaths of the soule a new Hell and all the same which the damned doe suffer in substance not in circumstance But we haue long looked for your proofes and till they come tie vp your As to serue you for another turne For this the Fathers are not silent if I were so ambitious as you in producing multitudes of men Only Cyprian and Athanasius and Austen shall content me in this Whether my care to teach nothing touching matters of Faith but what I see confirmed by the Scriptures and confessed by the writings of the Auncient Fathers may be called Ambition I leaue it to the Reader my paines haue beene the more therein which if any condemne I referre the Cause to him
saying o Mark 9. Thou dumbe and deafe spirit come out of him and enter no more into him So that the diuell cannot inwardly torment the bodie of man or beast but he must enter it and so possesse it How much lesse can he torment the soule or worke therein but he must likewise possesse it and haue it in his power before he can afflict it The entring and possessing of mens bodies and soules by diuels are no such infernall sâ—… 〈◊〉 as you would make them they are the caueats and admonitions of Christ himselfe p Matth 12. When an vncleane spirit sayth he is gone out of a man and returning sindeth his house whence he came out emptie he taketh vnto him seuen other spirits worse then himsele and they enter in and dwell there and the end of that â—…an is worse then the beginning And q Luke 11. when a strong man armed keepeth his house the things which he possesseth are in peâ—… So that the Scriptures warne vs to haue Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith lâ—…t the diuell finde them emptie and so enter aud possesse them Now touching your Iuniper conceits that Satan inwardly did worke or stirre in Christes heart those strange temptations which you talke of which indeed were wicked and impious cogitations or that he did torment the soule of Christ with the paines of the damned what Scripture I pray you doth warrant these worse then infernall speculations For the diuels themselues confessed they had nothing to doe with Christ and you make them the raisers of strange temptations in Christes heart and inflictors of incomprehensible sorrowes on Christes soule And where they truly acknowledged that Christes word and power tormented them you haue deuised that the diueâ—… should vnspeakably torment Christ on the Crosse. So lawfull is it for you and vsuall with you to take the fulnesse of power and grace from Christ and to subiect his soule and spirit to Satans subtiltie t Defenc pag. 85 li 9. Notwithstanding this heere I 〈◊〉 that howsoeuer the meanes or maner was of Saâ—… and his furious bands assaulting of Christ on the Crosse it made certainly an impression of most 〈◊〉 sorrow and torment in his soule Your single and double vouchers with certainty and warranty are so rise that no wise man will take your word for a grey goâ—…e quill You auouch it and you are certaine of it but how proue you one line or letter of all that here you say Christes stripes and wounds receiued of the Iewes were painfull to him and the taunts mocks and blasphemies of all sorts vttered against him were gâ—…euous vnto him but what is this to the most dolefull and incomprehensible torments inflicted on Christes soule as you say you be assured by the diuell The Euangelists expresse what was done and sayd to Christ on the Crosse that you disdaine as grosse and in your curious but irreligious subtilitie will haue the diuell not only tempt inwardly the spirit of Christ with strange and most wicked cogitations for the diuell hauing by your doctrine power and choise what he would suggest would forbeare no wickednesse but incomprehensibly torment the soule of Christ and when you should make proofe thereof you tell vs you auouch it was certainly so s Defenc pag. 85. â—…i 12. Christ felt and discerned by that meanes the verie stroke of Gods owne hand vpon him and receiued the sting of his wrath and indignation therein which then wrought and was reuealed chiefly then vpon him for all our sinnes Meane you that Christ felt the stroke of Gods owne hand by the temptations or by the torments which Satan offered to his soule If by temptations besides that you giue S. Iames the lie who sayth t Iames 1. God tempteth no man with euill you make God with his owne hand to moue and prouoke Christ to wickednesse which is more then infernall wickednesse to auouch If you meane by torments those you teach must come from the immediate hand of God vpon the soule of Christ and will you make the diuell to be Gods immediate hand Choose here whether all your graue discourse at your first entrance into this question of the soules proper and immediate suffering shall be wholy idle and vtterly false or whether the diuell shall be Gods immediate hand Gods immediate hand is his eternall diuine and almighty power which if you admit the diuell to be I must confesse all my speculations beleeuing but one God and him to be most pure and holy are plaine and grosse in respect of your new found hell and your eternall and almighty Ruler thereof the diuell As for proofe I should wrong you to aske for any it is not your maner to vouchsafe to proue what you say but to say what you list vnder certaine generall stales of words which are but dennes of theeues to rob Christ of his sanctitie and glorie What Christ discerned in his sufferings is neuer like to come from you with any trueth you follow your fansies so much as your best guides which leade you to a sidelesse and bottomlesse pit of absurd dreames and doctrines You distinguish nothing you define nothing you proue nothing onely you wallow in the mire of strange temptations and most dolefull and incomprehensible sorrowes how why or what you can not tell but the hand of God serueth you at all assayes to bring out your misborne and misshapen speculations vnder some shew of religion because you pretend the power of God For my part what the Scriptures euidently auouch of Christes sufferings that I faithfully beleeue what is deuised or added by mens imaginations and fictions I vtterly reiect not as false and presumptuous only but as absurd and irreligious What the Scriptures say Christ discerned in his sufferings I haue often specified which farre differeth from your strange and imaginary speculations They auouch of Christ that he u Acts 2. saw God alwaies at his right hand that he should not be shaken and therfore his heart was glad and his tongue reioyced And x Heb. 12. for the ioy proposed vnto him and therefore discerned by him he endured the crosse and despised the shame thereof Christ himselfe after his last supper y Ioh. 18. knowing all things that should befall him and that z Ioh. 13. his houre was come that he should depart out of this world vnto the Father and that the Father had giuen all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God not onely pronounced the diuel for all his comming against him a Ioh 14. had nothing in him but speaking directly of his passion said b Ioh. 17. Father the houre is come glorifie thy sonne that thy sonne may glorifie thee as thou hast giuen him power ouer all flesh that hee might giue them life euerlasting I haue glorified thee on earth and now Father glorifie me with thy selfe with the glorie which I had with thee
presumptuous follie and other shew of any matter worth the medling with you do make none c Defenc. pag. 91. li. 32. First I heartily intreat the Christian Reader to marke well and to consider how your L. doth contriue three notable equiuocations in these few words Christ suffered in his soule the wrath of God which you seeme to grant but in trueth you doe not And if we adde also the paines of hel then he opposeth a fourth fallacy against vs. And these three or foure are the only pillars of his doctrine I make no pillars of my doctrine but the manifest words of the Holy Ghost teaching vs by the Scriptures the price and maner of our redemption which lest any man should thinke I diuert and wrest to my priuate or secret conceits as you doe I shew the ancient and true Church of Christ did so beleeâ—…e them and expound them before me The pillars of your doctrine are phrases follies and falsities which if you did not hide with generall and ambiguous words the considerate Reader without intreatie would soone marke your mysteries but because you are so kinde as heartily to pray the Reader to marke how you play the man I desire him likewise to obserue how shamefully you come short of your great brags and euen betray your cause to him that well considereth it d Defenc. pag. 91. li. 37. For the three former your first equiuocation is in the word Suffered and about it wee deale in this place e Et pag. 92. li. 19. Now your next equiuocation is in this He suffered in soule Your next in Gods wrath Both which I haue plainly shewed before As also your fourth fallacie which may be called Fallacia accidentis To the three last notable equiuocations as he calleth them here is all that this Defensor speaketh in this place where he would haue thee Christian Reader so considerately to marke some maruellous matters And thus shalt thou often be troubled with his vaine tatling when thou most expectest either his proofs or his promises He sendeth thee backe to peruse his former pages where thou shalt finde as little to the purpose as here thou doest though words he wanted not to couer his conceits Is there be any thing in those pages proued by him which I haue not in the same places confuted I am content to hazzard the perill of thy censure Howbeit I thinke thou mayest perceiue by my carriage that I desire to auoid and preuent all ambiguities as much as in me lieth I speake as plainly as my simple abilitie will suffer me I distinguish thinges as euidently as either the matter permitteth or the trewth requireth And therefore he that in all his defence hath yet vttered not one distinct and cleere sentence touching his cause but clowded and cloaked with proper and meere and such like shifts and shadowes neuer expounded by himselfe and knowen to no man but himselfe hath small reason though as much in this as in the rest to say that fallacies are the Pillars of my doctrine But if thou beleeue Pedlers praising their owne wares then maiest thou credit this booke-maker craking of his cleere and Sunne-shine proofes which he himselfe neither expresseth nor vnderstandeth The equiuocation of the word SVFFERING which in this place his mastershipp will deale withall will giue thee a tast what thou shalt looke for in the rest f Defenc. pag. 92. li 1. The common and ordinarie phrase vnderstandeth herein Christes feeling of paines inflicted on him by way of PROPER punishment and satisfaction for sinne which he vndertooke for vs. Onely this in the ordinarie and vsuall manner of speach is signified by Christes suffering or his passion and so we alwaies vnderstand by it This is one of your enlightned and purified expositions which is as faire and bright as the darknes of Egypt Doe men vsually ordinarily describe Christs passion to be nothing els but the feeling of paines inflictedon him by way of proper punishment who vseth these wordes by way of proper punishment besides your selfe and your adherents who vnder that colour would secretly conuey the paines of the damned into the soule of Christ for what is the proper punishment of sinne that which all sinners not Redeemed by Christ must endure or that which all men being sinners doe endure or that which none endured but Christ alone because it was proper to the dignitie of his person with that punishment which god laied on him by the hands and mouthes of men to satisfie the iustice of God for our sinnes and vtterly to abolish the guilt and wages of our sinne Proper may be either to the damned whose sinnes are neuer pardoned or proper to sinne in all mankinde euer since the first man forsooke his Creator or proper to Christes person and not common to him with the damned Which of all these senses do you containe in the word Proper You spake euen now of equiuocations and made a grieuous complaint to your Reader that I meant to circumuent you with ambiguities and what is this but to turne your Readers eyes aside on me whiles you play your part with the maine worke of Christes passion for mans Redemption how often haue I chalenged in you this shifting with proper and improper when and where pleased you Christes sufferings in all mens speeches saue yours were farre larger than his passion He suffered afliction all the time of his life yea the whole course of his life was a continuall suffering of reproches disdaines dispites besides the naturall infirmities of our flesh as hunger cold wearines weeping and such like which in his person were all sufferings and yet no man calleth his life his passion his passion we take to be the manner of his death and so all his sufferings from the Garden to the graue imposed on him by the hands mouthes or harts of men betraying forsaking or pursuing him were parts of his passion The false accusing and vniust condemning him the mocking reproching and reuiling him to be wicked and forsaken of God were parts of his passion and yet these were no inherent nor sensible paines of which you would seeme to speake when you exclude his affections of feare and griefe of minde as no parts of his passion g Defenc. pag. 91. li. 6. You cunningly take another rare sense of this word as it signifieth the affections of the mind in Christ wholy bent to holines and obedience of god you are a learned Squire that doe not vnderstand the soule suffereth as well by her affections as by her senses and that in Christ the harts and tongues of the Iewes concurred to his passion as well as their hands The affections and perturbations of the soule are vsually and properly called by the Greeke fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Latine passiones passions or sufferings of the minde The Apostles applie the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SVFFERINGS both in Christ and in vs as euenly and
the time though it were after restored with greater glory This I did not put for the cause of his agonie as you idlely amplifie but noted it as a respect that might worthily lead Christ to dislike or abhorre death in respect of his perfection and communion with God aboue all men and Angels saue for the will of his father and the good of man which ouerruled this dislike in him g Defenc pag. 105 li 22. You say excellent well but by your practise in all matters so farre as I see you neuer meane to obserue it in Gods cause let Gods booke teach vs what to beleeue and what to professe shew me then where you read in Gods word any or all these to be effectuall causes of this strange 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 my part I shall neuer beleeue you If I did professe to bind mens faiths to these causes of Christes agonie as you doe to your new redemption by the paines of the damned I would shew you where I redde them in the word of God or els I would leaue â—…ch beleeuer to his libertie but I forwarned all men that the Scriptures directly and particularly speaking nothing of the causes of Christes agonie the safest rule that I could find or they could follow was not to depart from any knowen and receaued grounds of Religion and principles of pietie for the causes thereof For since the Scriptures keep silence and our Sauiour himselfe would not shew it to all his Disciples but chose three from the rest to goe with him and tooke the darke time of the night and left those three whose eies were so heauie that they could not forâ—…eare sleepe about a stones cast before he would pray because he would not haue thâ—…m 〈◊〉 to all that he said or did in that place I see no reason why any man should be ouer curious in searching that which the word of God hath not precisely reuealed specially seeing no demonstratiue cause can be giuen of secret affections and voluntarie actions such as these were in Christ. And your audacious and presumptuous boldnesse is the more chalengeable for that you not onely take vpon you to giue the right and exact cause therof out of your owne braine but you light on such a cause as hath no foundation in any part of the Scripture nor any coherence with the maine positions of the Christian faith vnfalliblely deliuered in the word of God Wherfore I haue not transgressed my directions when I teach what iust and waighty respects of feare sorow zeale our Lord Sauior had in the worke of our redemption which might be the causes of that earnest prayer agonie and withall shewed the iudgements and opinions of diuers ancient and learned Fathers concerning the same but you as insolent in your conclusions as in your conceits take vpon you to specifie the full and true cause thereof for which you haue no shew of Scriptures nor touch of reason And such is the cause which you yeeld that thereby you crosse the chiefe streames of faith and trueth most currant in the sacred Scriptures and with all learned and religious antiquitie The same rule then binding you which bindeth me shew you what Prophet Euangelist or Apostle euer taught or thought the paines of the damned to be inflicted on Christes soule in the Garden by Gods immediate hand and that without the paines of hell we could not be 〈◊〉 or els my not beleeuing you will not excuse your enterprise you must answere to God and to all the faithfull for innouating the very roots and branches of their redemption by the bloud and death of Christ Iesus which you auouch to be vnsufficient for the ransome of our sinnes except your hell be thereto added when the Holy Ghost who should best know the trueth being the spirit of trueth hath expressed no such thing in all the Scriptures h Defenc pag. 105. li. 32. Your sixt and last maine cause is that Christ by this his bloudie sweate and 〈◊〉 praiers did nothing but voluntarily performe that bloudie offering and Priesthood 〈◊〉 in the Law This we simply grant If you should truely repeat and conceiue any part The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agonie of my writings you should put your selfe to more paines than you are willing to take iustly to refute it Wherefore your course is either to misrecite or to misconstrue all that you bring In the oblations of the Law which prefigured the death of Christ I obserued that not only the Sacrifice was slaine by the shedding of bloud but that the person of the Priest was sanctified as well as the sinner presented by the Priest to God with earnest and humble prayer to make atonement for the trespasse And since the trueth must haue some resemblance with the figure Christ might in the Garden performe some points requisite to his Priesthood as the sanctifying of himselfe with his owne bloud and presenting his bodie to be the redemption and remission of our sinnes with most instant and intentiue prayer for the transgressours This if you simply graunt as in wordes you say you doe tell vs now which way you will conclude Christes suffering of hell paines in the Garden from his bloudie sweat It hindereth not our assertion Much lesse doeth it further it but yet if there might be a cause of Christes voluntarie sprinckling himselfe with his owne bloud and dedicating it to Gods pleasure for mans redemption besides and without your hellish torments you will come shorter than you recken to make good your conclusion i Defenc. pag. 106. The Scriptures which you cite prooue indeed that Christ now executed his office of Priesthood but will you diuide and exempt his death on the Crosse from his Priesthood Who besides your selfe restraineth Christes euerlasting Priesthood either to the garden or to the crosse But it was one thing for Christ with feruent and submissiue prayer to present and submit his bodie which was his Sacrifice to the will of his Father as he did in the garden and another thing to receiue and admit the violent and wicked hands of the Iewes executing their rage on his bodie with all reproch and crueltie as he did on the crosse Now what had his Priesthood to do with the paines of hell since he was to present and performe the bloudie sacrifice of his bodie prefigured in the Law which he did in the garden and on the crosse And forsomuch as you grant that Christes bloudy sweat and his vehement prayers in the garden were pertinents to his Priesthood prefigured in the Law which indeed is k Hebr. 5. confirmed by the Apostle as you can shew no figure of suffering hell paines or the second death in the sacrifices of the Law no more doth either of these performed in the garden concerne any secret death of the soule which Christ there suffered from the immediate hand of God l Defenc. pag. 106. li. 14. Why say you not aswell that his death
world the death of the bodie that hence both body and soule might be haled to hell though first the soule and after the bodie when at the last day it shall rise from the corruption of the graue to euerlasting destruction To thinke that Christ submitted himselfe to all these sorts of death corporall spirituall and eternall is most hellish blasphemie for so he should not haue redeemed vs but destroyed himselfe bodie and soule foreuer To say that Christ deliuered vs not from all these lincks of death from spirituall death whiles here we liue from eternall death after this life and at the generall resurrection from the power of the graue where our bodies rot in the meane time is heathenish impietie and heresie denying the whole force and fruit of our redemption by Christ. Since then he cleered vs from all and yet suffered not all sorts of death it is manifest which is the Apostles meaning in the wordes by you cited that by one kind of death which in Christ was corporall he freed vs from all power of death heere and heereafter in bodie and soule not preseruing our bodies that they should not turne to dust but restoring them after death which is the farre more marueilous and mightie worke of God And this is euery where so plainly witnessed in the Scriptures and plentifully confessed by the learned and auncient fathers that none but he that is blinder then a bat would professe he seeth no such thing Christ g Matth 20. gaue his life a ransome for many and h Coloss. 2. by the bloud of his crosse pacified things in heauen and in earth i Hebr. 9. By the sacrifice of his bodie once made we are sanctified and k 1. Peter 1. healed by his stripes who bare our sinnes in his bodie on the tree If then the bloud of Christ clense vs from all sinne by which the diuell and death had power ouer vs It is most certaine that Christ abolished sinne and Satan by suffering his bloud to be shed vnto death for the remission of sinnes raising himself that is the Temple of his bodie from death into a glorious and blessed life by which the power and kingdome of Satan were vtterly ouerthrowen l Defenc. pag. 137. li. 15. Against this you haue no reason at all but wordes and wrestings and vaine oftentation of Fathers none of them all denying our sense The reason of all reasons is against it which is that no man nor Angell may adde or alter any thing in the Christian faith without the sure warrant of the sacred Scriptures m Rom. 10. Faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God It is reason enough for me and for all â—…he faithfull that there is no such thing deliuered in the word of God You talke of words and wrestings as knowing them best and vsing them most and herein I am content to stand to the iudgement of the wise and indifferent Reader whether you haue brought ought yet for the death of Christes soule or his suffering the second death but your owne speaches and surmises abusing the wordes of the holy Ghost to your owne fansies without either cause or colour And touching the vaine ostentation of Fathers who as you vaunt deny not your sense I brought ancient learned writers not ignorant of the Christian faith as being the pillars of their times that with great perspicuitie and vehemence denied as I doe the death of Christs soule and affirmed with me the death which Christ suffered in the body of his flesh to be a most sufficient ransome for the sinnes of the whole world Augustins words were n August epist. 99. The same flesh in which only Christ died rose againe by the quickning of the spirit For that Christ was dead in soule that is in his humane spirit who dare 〈◊〉 since the death of the soule in this life is none else but sinne from which he was altogether free This you say denieth not your sense and why because you auouch the death of Christs soule which Austen asketh who dare auouch to say that Christ suffered the death of the soule is with Austen an impudent and wicked presumption and no part of the Christian faith or of mans redemption Austen by the death of the soule ment sinne you will say which you meane not You say by your leaue that Christ o Trea. pa. 42. li. 20. became defiled and hatefull to God by our sinnes And so if pollution of sinne be the death of the soule that kind of death you ascribe to Christ though not for his owne sinnes yet for ours then made his no lesse by guilt then by punishment as you teach directly against the assertion of Saint Austen who saith p August contra Faâ—…stum li. 14. ca. 4. Christ tooke our punishment without our guilt that thereby he might release our guilt and end our punishment But you vnderstand not Austen when he saith there is no death of the soule here but sinne he doth not thence exclude the consequents and adherents to sinne in this life but noteth that onely sinne doth kill the soule because it doth separate vs from God who is the life of the soule and the light and grace of God departing from the soule by sinne the soule dieth that is looseth all her sense of God and motion to God by which she liueth vnto God This with Austen and this indeede by the word of God is the death of the soule which if you attribute to Christ you incurre open and exquisite infidelitie For your meaning therefore it maketh no great matter if you will offer to correct our Creede you must speake as the Scriptures speake and not deliuer â—…s your priuate dreames for the publike doctrine of Christs Church With like neglect you skip the rest auouched by Saint Austen that Christ died onely in his flesh which rose againe by the quickning of the spirit Wherein least you should vse your accustomed euasion that the flesh of Christ compriseth as well his soule as his bodie Saint Austen hath wisely preuented you in saying the same flesh onely died Which rose againe Where if your learning serue you to say that Christes soule rose againe the third day you shall make vs a new resurrection of soules after this life as the Scripture doth of bodies which were a meete deuice for such a diuine as you are How beit Saint Austen naming Christs soule a part from his flesh and affirming of Christs soule that no man in his right wits dare auouch Christs soule died but onely that flesh which rose againe it is as cleere as mans speech may be that he vtterly refuseth the death of Christs soule as an irreligious and vnchristian position and directly teacheth this as a ground confessed in Christian religion that Christ died in his bodie alone which rose againe the third day and not in his soule which no Christian man durst auouch was euer dead Of
others that beleeue the words of Paul are sufficient declaring this to be the very ground of the Gospell which hee receiued and deliuered that Christ e 1. Cor. 15. died for our sinnes according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that hee arose the third day according to the Scriptures Whence by a full and faire coherence I collect that whatsoeuer died in Christ according to the Scriptures that was buried and raised the third day according to the Scriptures But it is more then manifest by the Scriptures that the soule of Christ was neither buried nor raised from death the third day but onely his bodie It is therefore as plaine to me by the all sufficient word of God that the soule of Christ died not for our sinnes according to the Scripture Your f Defenc. pag. 146. li 23. section touching materiall fire in hell I haue sifted at large before I shall not neede to say any more of it Your hemming in all the world on your side g Defenc pag. 147. li. 25. not some nor the most or best but euen all and euery one both Churches and writers in the world who are Protestants leauing none to vphold the doctrine which I deliuer but Papists Iesuites and Friars is as I told you before and must tell you againe an egregious lie so loud and leud that all the belles in London if they should iarre together could not yeeld a more offensiue sound That euery new writer speaketh of some feares sorrowes temptations or painefull sufferings in the soule of Christ neuer was nor is by me denied neither doe I in my Sermons take vpon me to determine what feares temptations paines and sorrowes Christ might and did suffer in his soule onely I added that we must beware we diminish not his faith hope loue confidence obedience patience and other gifts and graces of the spirit of God in the soule of Christ which the Scripture cleerely maketh to be without want defect or measure in him Shunning those sands I left euery man to his libertie to speake or write of Christes feares and sorrowes as farre as any circumstance of holy Scripture did duely enforce but the death of the soule the paines of hell and of the damned and the second death if any sought to fasten on the soule of Christ whosoeuer they were they did it by their owne surmises they had no warrant for any of those in the word of God except they tooke the paines of hell figuratiuely for great and intolerable such as sometimes the Godly in their humane weakenesse thinke and complaine they feele or feare though they come nothing neere the true paines of hell which cannot be endured in this mortall life and flesh by the euidence of nature and Scripture This being my constant course as my Sermons printed doe apparently witnesse what folly what madnesse is this so egerly and often to chalenge me for contradicting the whole world when it is but your immoderate greedinesse or giddinesse to thinke that everie man who writeth any thing of the feares or sufferings of Christs soule doth presently teach as you doe the death of Christs soule and the substance of the most vehement paines of the damned yea the second death to be a necessary part of our redemtion which Christ must suffer before he could ransome vs To censure mens priuate opinions I take no pleasure some men otherwise very learned and laborious haue dipped too deepe in that die as your selfe proue and pronounce by reiecting and reselling the horror of eâ—… nâ—… death in the soule of Christ though Master Caluin say Christ CONFLICTED therewith and the Catechisme auouch Christ was therewithall Pâ—…VSED If you may thus renounce and refute the first deuise and spredders as you thinke them of your proper and spirituall temptations and torments in the soule of Christ giue others leaue to receaue them no farder then they concurre with the Scriptures and with the primatiue church of God I find diuers men speake diuersly but very few and these late that light on the death of Christs soule and suddaine touches of the essentiall paines of the damned from the immediate hand of God which is your fresh and new deuice yea many that are caried away with the generall termes of Gods wrath and horror of his dreadfull iudgements against sin no way like the death of Christs soule and by speciall words debarre all mention of the second death in the sufferings of Christ and those as well English as others How false and soolish your vaunt is of all and euerie church and writer in the world that are Protestants to be of your minde will soone appeare to any that will reade and waigh the workes and wordes of Zuinglius Musculus Martyr Bullinger Aretius 〈◊〉 new 〈◊〉 teach the sufferings of Christs soule without the paines of hell Zanchius and of sundry others as sound in faith as ripe in iudgement as diligent in reading and sufficient in all kinde of learning as the best you can name either broching or bowing towards your late conceits who though they teach that Christ suffered in soule and body as I doe yet they assigne farre other sufferings in the soule of Christ then your essentiall paines of the damned I may not stand to make new discourses touching new writers a place or two shall serue for all and so an end of this matter Bullinger vpon those words of Esay Christ layd downe or made his soule a sacrifice sor sinne saith h 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…3 To make his soule a sacrifice for sinne is to offer himselfe to be a sacrifice to Purge sinnes And he saith Christs soule and not his flesh not that the flesh of Christ was not offered for vs but that whole Christ body and soule offered himselfe to God and that willingly from his heart and of his owne accord and whole Christ was the expiation of our sinnes licet interim neque diuinit as sit passa neque anima mortua sed caro de quare beati Patres Vigilius Fulgentius contra Haereticos religiose disputarunt Though during that time neither his diuinty suffered NOR HIS SOVLE DIED but his flesh whereof the blessed fathers Vigilius and Fulgentius haue religiously discoursed against Heretickes Zanchius whose learned workes are to me in steed of many writers that are caried with faction and affection to vphold whatsoeuer some other men say though he could not for his often and great labours get time to finish his purposed treatise of mans redemption in that exact manner that he hath donne the rest yet commenting on S. Paules Epistles as occasion was offered he fully deliuereth the matter and manner of our redemption to be the only sacrifice of Christs body and bloud other propitiatory sacrifice for sinne then that he acknowledgeth none though he ascribe to the soule as well her sufferings as her sacrifice i Zanchius in ca. 2. epist. ad Philip. v. 8. All things
he the preeminence in all things if all the Patriarks and Prophets were there before him againe the words of Abraham reach no farder then vnto men they restraine not Angels from descending and ascending and much lesse the sonne of God If none without exception could goe fro heauen to hel as you would construe Abrahams speach how fell the Diuell and his Angels from heauen to hell how did Saint Iohn see an Angel come downe from heauen hauing the key of the bottomlesse pitte binding shutting vp Satan in that pitte if Angels may passe from the one place to the other how much more might Christ who is the Lord head of Angels and hath the keies of hell and death But since the Scriptures anouch Christes soule was not left in hell there are plainer and exprâ—…sser words for the being of his soule in hell then in Abrahams bosome so if there be no returne thence no not for Christ himselfe then by your lame and lewd collection you condemne Christs soule to perpetuall prison in hell And how commeth it to pasâ—…e by your diuinity that Abraham must receaue Christs soule into his bosome who was the Redeemer and Sauiour of Abraham is your skill so great that you forget Christ to be the sonne of God and so meeter to receaue Abrahams soule into his protection then to be receaued of Abraham but what will you not say and suppose to continue the credit of your conceits in the eies of the simple though no wise man vnlesse wedded to your deuices will any thing be mooued with these weake suggestions As touching Austens diuers opinion and yours see before page 29 and your page 360. Could you find any diuersity worth the marking between Austens opinion and mine touching Christs words on the crosse to the thiâ—…fe your modesty would serue you to make the most of it but if I repeat diuers opinions of learned writers and leaue the Reader to his Christian liberty which he best liketh what offence take you at that except it be that I follow not your trade which is to despise all the world besides your selfe Indeed in your 29 Page you say I reiect Austens exposition of Christes words to the Thiefe this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise which Austen vnderstandeth of the thiefes soule and Christs diuine presence in Paradise but you keepe your wont to tell taâ—…es for trueth and to wast words when you want good matter For I doe not reiect Austens exposition but only adde as now I doe since there is no Scripture to fasten Christs soule to hell for the whole time of his death Christs soule might after death at diuers times be in Paradise and in hell Wherein I leaue the Reader to his discretion which of those two expositions he will embrace Neither did I in this anouch more then Austen himselfe els where is content to yeeld For reasoning against Felicianus the Arrian he saith Seddicet aliquis deitatis hanc non animae Christi credimus vocem But some will say we beleeue this to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise was the voice of Christs deity and not of his soule To which part then of the thiefe doe we take this promise was made this day saith Christ to the thiefe shalt thou be with me in Paradise whose body the common death had inclosed vntill the resurrection to come It was then the soule of the thiefe to which Christ promised and performed this Whereupon he concludeth Si igitur mortuo corpore ad Paradisum anima mox vocatur quemquamne adhuc tam impium credimus qui dicere audeat quoniam anima seruatoris nostritriduo illo corporeae mortis apud inferos custodiae mancipetur If then the body of the thiefe dying his soule were presently called to Paradise shall we thinke any man so wicked as to dare say that the soule of our Sauiour during the three dayes that his bodie lay dead was held in the custodie of hell So that though S. Austen acknowledge the other sense of Christes diuine presence in Paradise to be multo expeditior ab ijs omnibus ambiguitatibus liber farre the easier and freer from all obiections yet he doth not endure that any man should so fasten the soule of Christ to hell for the time of his death that Christ might not thence depart and be in Paradise when pleased him as well as the Thiefe but must stay in hell as if he were kept in custodie How you will doe to maintaine that Christ went indeed to them but presently left them that he might goe to hell I know not In this I doubt you walke without your guide If I did vse any such wordes that Christ must presently post from heauen to hell as if he were like to be benighted afore he came thither you might busie your braines with lacke of time and want of guides but if Angels present themselues heere from heauen in a moment and time almost insensible what should hinder the soule of Christ endued with greater power and might then any Angel to goe at what time and with what speed he would to doe that which the Scriptures testifie he did If then the Prophets and Apostles beare witnesse that his soule was in hell and there not left but ascending vpward ledde captiuitie caâ—…tiue and spoiled powers and principalities why play you the iade in iesting at an Article of the Christian faith as if the way were long and tedious betweene Paradise and hell so that Christ must haue some time and helpe to dispatch so great a iourney The Apostle teacheth that the resurrection of the dead shall be in a moment and in the twinckling of an eie If so generall and strange a worke as to haue all their soules out of Paradise and hell ioyned to their bodies and their persons aliue caught vp to the iudgement seate of Christ in the aire shall be wrought in all the sonnes of men elect and reprobate at an instant what incredible thing is this except to an infidell that he which made heauen and earth with a word should in as short time as he saw cause shew his humane soule to the powers of darknesse in the midst of their kingdome and take all strength and rule from them and lead them captiue at his pleasure And therefore neuer calculate so curiously the distance or passage from Paradise to hell if these things were not marueilous in mans eies they were not meet workes for the Sonne of God but examine soberly whether the Scripture auouch any such presence of Christes soule in hell and conquest ouer hell And if that appeare teach men to leaue the rest to the mightie hand of God which brought the soule of his Sonne thither in what time and maner he thought good and might best make for his glory I adde that which is cleere and certaine yea that which your selfe rightly beleeueth and professeth with
to be our Suretie s Iob. 19. u Psal. 30. u Psal. 78. x Esa. 44. y Esâ—… 63. z Psal. 34. a Psal. 130. b Oâ—…e 14. c Hebr. 1. d Defenc. pag. 77. li. 34. e Hebr. 7. Hebr. 7. Christ a Surety to vs of the new Testament f Matth. 20. g Psal. 22. h Ephes. 1. i Defenc. pag. 78. li. 1. k Trea pa. 93. li. 6. 9. It is a most hainâ—…us error to subiect God to any bondage l Defenc. pag. 78. li. 11. Christ made himselfe vnder the law by loue when he was free from the Law and Lord of the Law m Matth 12. vers 8. n Matth 12. vers 6. o Galat. 3. p Defenc. pag. 78. li. 15. Thouâ—…h Christ â—…ay be called a voluntarie Suretiâ—… yâ—…t was he truely a mercifull Redeemer q Defenc. pa. 78. li. 23. Christ vnderâ—… to be our Redeemer 4â—…0 yeeres before he was made man r 1. Cor. 2. s â—…om 5. t Gaâ—…at 4. u 1. Tim 1. x Galat. 5. y Psal. 22. z Ioh. 8. a 1. Cor. 9. b Defenc. pag. 78. li. 26. The willing offer of the Sonne to be our Redeemer did induce the decree of the whole Trinitie c Gaâ—…at 4. d Rom. 5. e 1. Cor. 2. f Act. 20. Gods promise â—…ust not â—…e called â—…on â—…age Deâ—…nc paâ—…â—…8 li 29. The person of Christ could not be bound but his humane will was guâ—…ded by his diuine will h Luc. 17. i Ad Philâ—…mon v. 14. k Osâ—… 11. v. 4. There was no necessitie in our Redemption but Christs will power and libertie l Eph. 5. v. 25. m Philiâ—… 2. n Iohn 10. o Iohn 2. p Eph. 5 v 2. q August dâ—…fi de contra Manuâ—…eo cap. 26. r Idem in Psal. 87. Idem â—…n Iohannem tracta 1â—… t x 〈◊〉 y z a c Iâ—…em de fide 〈◊〉 2 cap 1 Idem â—…i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1â—… l m Iâ—…em in Psal. 87. n Idem Qâ—…st 13. de 〈◊〉 Arbitriâ—… o Damasâ—… Orthâ—…doxa fideâ—… li. 3. ca. 20. p Bernard ferâ—…a â—… 〈◊〉 paenosae q r Idem ibid. s Idemotid t Catechis anâ—… 1574. edit fo 66. u Fol. 67. x Fâ—…l 67. The Fathers disclaime all necessitie in the death of Christ. y â—…ph 5. â—… Defenc. pag. 78. li. 34. z Galâ—…t 2. Rom. 8. b Defenc. pag. 78. li 36. c Aâ—…gust de â—…de contrâ—… Manichees cap. 〈◊〉 d Cypriaâ—… de Passionâ—… Chrâ—…sti e Nazâ—…z 1. Epist. ad Clâ—…donium f Damascâ—… Or. thodâ—… fidei li. 3. cap. 8. g Bernard sâ—…per Cantic Sermâ—… 11. h Zanchiuâ—… in 2. cap. ad Philip i Caluinus iâ—… cap. 15. Ioannis vers 13. k The second Sermon of the Passion pa. 11. l Defenc. pag. 79. li. 4. m Panormâ—…tan râ—…brs de fide â—…ussoribus n Dâ—…gest li. 2. Tit. 11. si quis cautiâ—…nibus legâ—… qâ—…tiens n Dâ—…gest li. 2. Tit. 11. si quis cautiâ—…nibus legâ—… qâ—…tiens o Defenc. pâ—…g 79. h. 10. p Fol. 64. q e Ezech. 18. vers 20. f Defenc. pag. 79 li. 22. t Cyâ—…rian dâ—… Pass Christi u August in Psal. 21. x Leo de Passiâ—… Domin Sermâ—… 16. y Acts. 9. z Matth 25. a Luke 10. b Matth. 10. c 1 Sam 8. d Zachar. 2. e Damasc. Orâ—…ae sides li. 3. cap. 25. f Ibidem li. 4. cap. 19. g Cyprianâ—… de Passione The Defâ—…nder â—…pareth Christ â—…n want of comfort with the daâ—…ed h Psal. 16. i Heb. 12. k Defenc. pag. 11. li. 25. 27. l 2. Cor. 1. m Rom. â—… n 2. Tim 2. o Heb. 2. p Heb. 5. q Defâ—…nc pag. 79 li 28. I mislike not the naâ—… but the bondage of a Surety in Christ r Conclus â—…a 279. li. 34. s Defenc. pag. 79. li. 35. t Conâ—…lus pa. 279. li. 28. u Ibid. li. 25. x Galat. 3. A man may aâ—…scharge an others dobt and not be bound thereto The rule of Iustice suffereth the stronger to beare the burden of the weaker y Iohn 1. z Defenc. pa. 80. li. 7. Similitudes are not alwaies of things lawfull a 1. Thess. 5. b Luke 18. c Matth. 25. d Luke 16. e August Epist. 3. ad Voâ—…us f Marke 14. g Acts. 4. h Esa. 10. i Defenc. pag. 80. li. 28. k Trea. pa. 45 li. 9. l Co'oss 2. 12. m Vers. 13. n 14. o 15. p Ephes. 4. q Syriaca translat in vers 15. cap. 2. ad Co. â—…ss r 〈◊〉 de Trinitate â—… 1â—… r Hilarius de Trin tate li. 1. t Idem de Trinitate li. 1â—… u Idem li 9. x Ambros. de 〈◊〉 li. 3. ca. 2. y Pactaâ—… serm de Baptismâ—… z Epist. 5â—… de Agone Christi ca. 2. a August contra Faustum li. 16. ca. 19. b Zanchius de operibus Deo parte 1. li. â—… ca. 13. The diueâ—… tormented not Christs Soule on the Crosse. c Reuel 12. d Luk. 11. e Mâ—…k 3. f Leo de Passione Demiâ—… Serm. 14. g Defenc. pag. 80. li. 35. h Genes 3. i Defenc. pag. 81. li. 1. k Pag. 81. li 2. l Defenc. pag. 81 li. 4. * Defenc. pag. 81. li. 9. * 〈◊〉 b Defenc. pag 149. li. 7. c Ibid. li. 16. d Iohn 12. e Iohn 14. f Defenc. pag. 149. li. 20. g Act. 2. v. 34. h Irenaeus li. 5. ca. 31. i Iusâ—… 〈◊〉 75. k Tertullianus aduersus Marcionem li. 4. l Idem de aâ—…ima ca. 55. m Origen in Leâ—…t homil 7. n Hilarius in Psal. 2. o Ambros. de boâ—…o mortis ca. 10. p Chrysost. in 1. Epistolam ad Corinth homil 39. q Ibidem r August in Psal. 36. s Thâ—…dor in 11. ca. Epist. ad Hebreos t Oâ—…cume in 11. ca Epist. ad Hebreos u Andreaâ—… Câ—…sari in 〈◊〉 ca. 18. x Theophylact. in 11. ca. epist. ad Hebreos y Bernard in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanct. serm 3. z Luke 16. How many heauens the Scriptures make z Luke 16. How many heauens the Scriptures make z Luke 16. How many heauens the Scriptures make a 2. Coâ—… 12. ver 2. b 2. Coâ—… 12. ver 4. c Matt. 8. 13 d Matth 26. d Marke 14. e Genes 1. f Genes 22. g Iudae epist. vers 6. h Iob. 15. i Esa 14. k Reuel 21. s Psal 〈◊〉 m Esa. 63. n Iâ—…m 25. o 〈◊〉 â—…gs 8. p Psal. 148. q 〈◊〉 7. r Ephes. 4. s 〈◊〉 1. t A. 〈◊〉 de 〈◊〉 li. 〈◊〉 ca. 1. u Gâ—… 〈◊〉 1. x Reuel 6. y Reuel 7. z 2. Tim. 4. a 1. Pet. 1. b 1. Iohn 3. c Coloss 3. d M. atth 25. e Calâ—…us in 〈◊〉 f g Chrysost. 〈◊〉 28. in Epistolam ad 〈◊〉 h August de 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 12. ca. 9. li. 13. ca. â—… 〈◊〉 ad I 〈◊〉 ca. 108. i Caluinus 〈◊〉 li. 3. ca. 25. § 6. k Defenc. pag. 149. li. 23. l August 〈◊〉 99. m Ireneus li. 5. ca. 31. n Cyprian de pass Christi â—…ant carmâ—…â—…ie doâ—… resurrectioâ—… p Athanasius de humanitate Christi contra Aâ—…nos q Idem contra Aâ—…ian oratio 4. r Idem de
deuice to the doctrine of our saluation than what is euidently reuealed and directly witnessed in the Scriptures Whether it be of Christ sayth Austen or of any other thing what soeuer touching the faith I say not if we who are no way comparable to him that so spake but that which followeth if an Angell from heauen teach you BESIDES that which you haue receiued in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospell holde him accursed It is a manifest fall from the faith sayth Basil either to abrogate any thing that is written or to bring in any thing that is not written For when once we beleeue the Gospel sayth Tertullian this we first beleeue that there is nothing besides which we ought to beleeue So that the meere bloud and single bodie of Christ are but sleights of yours with vnknowen phrases to draw your Reader from asking or eying your proofes for the death of Christes soule and the paines of the damned to be suffered by him before wee could be redeemed The Scriptures are maine and manifest for that which I beleeue and teach and which the whole Church of Christ before mee taught and beleeued these fifteene hundred yeeres afore your conceit of hell paines in the soule of Christ was either hatcht or heard of The sufferings of the soule and the wrath of God which things you now catch holde on to make some introduction to your secret and priuate fansies are too generall to inferre either the death of the soule or the paines of the damned except to the rest of your absurdities you will adde these that the soule neuer suffereth but it dieth the death of spirits and that Gods anger in this life hath none other effects but damnation Here you vrge a reason against vs if then our soules be not redeemed by the blood of Christ our bodies haue no benefite of Redemption from death You hunt so headily after aduantages of words by some ambiguitie in them that you neither remember what the Scriptures teach nor what your selfe defend nor when I vse a word in the same sense that the Apostle doth It is not my deuise but the Apostles doing to take REDEMPTION of the body for the incorruption of the same We sigh in our selues saith Paul wayting for the Redemption of our body And againe you are sealed by the holy spirit of God vnto the day of Redemption When that day shall be our Sauiour telleth vs in these words When the powers of heauen shall be shaken and you see the sonne of man come in a cloud with power and great glory then lift vp your heads for your Redemption draweth neere In all which places Redemption is taken for none of those mercies or graces which are bestowed on Gods children in this life but for that glorie and immortalitie which shall be reueiled on them when Christ shall come to iudge the world and namely the Redemption of the body for that incorruption wherewith our vile bodies shall bee changed and made like to his glorious body Take then the Redemption of the body for the incorruption of the same as the Apostle plainely doth and I did and see what absurditie or obscuritie there is in my reason which you so much wrangle with and wonder at as though it passed all vnderstanding The Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must needes bee either of body or of soule we haue no more parts to be redeemed by Christ. But the Redemption of our bodies we haue not in this world we must waite for it till this corruptible put on incorruption The Redemption therefore which we haue in this life or shal haue before the last day is the Redemption of our soules And so the words of Peter You were Redeemed with the precious bloud of Christ and of the Saints in heauen saying to the Lambe Thou hast redeemed vs to God by thy bloud pertaine expresly to the Redemption of their soules because their bodies then did and yet do lie in corruption What so strange monsters or marueiles doeth your Logicall head finde in this reason that you should make such wonderizations at it and protestations against it Is it not open and easie to all that be meanely witted or soberly minded But you haue three things to note in my words which you alleage 1. The Proposition is vaine and Illogicall hauing no consequence in it at all It is a speciall point of Art memoratiue in you to note three things and vtterly to forget two of them For in this whole Section you doe not so much as mention any second or third thing to bee noted in those words which you cite The first and al which you note is that my proposition is vaine Illogicall and vncoherent Your idle and vntheologicall head hath ouer busied it selfe with many mad multiplications and what ifs vpon this proposition and yet you come nothing neere the sense or coherence of it The Proposition hath two parts whereof the second is either an illation out of the Apostles words vpon the first being a supposition of yours if we limit it to the time of this life or if wee speake without restraint of time as you doe it is a necessarie consequent to the former being the condition and cause of the latter That our soules are not redeemed by the bloud of Christ but by his soule is a resolution of yours wherewith you giue a fresh on-set in the next Section as the Reader shall there perceiue though here in shew you somwhat relent after your inconstant maner That being a position of yours I added by the Apostles warrant that our bodies haue not their Redemption in this life but must stay for it till the day of Redemption or generall resurrection And so the reason standeth If our soules be not here redeemed by the bloud of Christ which is your Assertion our bodies by the Apostles doctrine haue no Redemption in this life But this That wee should presently haue no Redemption in body or soule by the bloud of Christ is quite m contrarie to the words of Peter who sayth Yee are redeemed by the bloud of Christ not yee shall be and of the soules in heauen that say to Christ thou hast redeemed vs by thy bloud when their bodies were rotten in the earth Since therefore either body or soule must haue Redemption in this life and the body as Paul assureth vs hath not Redemption in this life Ergo the Redemption which we haue in this life by the bloud of Christ must bee referred to our soules and our bodies must expect the generall day of Redemption in the end of the world before they shall haue it If the sober and wise Reader vnderstand not this reason or can dislike the sequence of it I am content he shall condemne it as darke and obscure but if it be open to all mens eyes saue yours then is your