Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	article_n	believe_v	creed_n	2,820	5	10.5298	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23678	A practical improvement of the articles of Christ's descent into hell and rising again from the dead in a sermon, preach'd in the parish church of Bridgewater, on Easter-Day, Anno Domini, 1697 / by William Allen.	Allen, William, fl. 1681-1697.	1697 (1697)	Wing A1078; ESTC R16583	15,368	32

A PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT Of the Articles of Christ's descent into AND Rising again from the Dead IN A SERMON Preach'd in the Parish Church of Bridgewater on Easter-Day Anno Domini 1697. By WILLIAM ALLEN ● ● Vicar of Bridgewater in Somerset What will this Babler say because he Preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrection Acts 17.18 Am I therefore become your Enemy because I tell you the Truth Gal. 4.16 London Printed for J. Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard and J. Miller Bookseller in Sherborne and at his Shop in Yeavill 1697. TO JOHN HARVEY Of the Castle in Bridgewater Gent. T IS a Priviledge that the Country Ministers are bless'd with above your great Towns Vicars or Lecturers that their People remembring their Catechisms presume not to think themselves more Learned or Wiser than their Teachers but according to Christian Primitive Modesty and Doctrine they Learn of and Obey Reverence and are Ruled by their Spiritual Pastors But your Corporation Catechumens your Men of Gath are big of themselves especially if Opulent and Thriving and will not allow Master Parson whether he belongs to Church or Conventicle for that 's the diminitive word they scornfully Salute with the Levitical Order whether in Gown and Cassock or in Coat and long Cloak they will not I say allow them so much as to think otherwise than they think nor to speak otherwise than they would have them speak nor grant that their University Education or much Study or many years Exercise in the Ministry gives them any ascendant above their Level If they will not say their Pater-Noster the way they would have them they shall have no Peter's Pence from them Thus stands the Case of your Town and City Clergy And some of the Sons of the Church I am loath to think them Sons of Belial but they have appear'd such Sons of strife and stiffness as indeed provok'd me against mine inclination to publish the following Sermon at the Preaching of which two of your discontented Pew-Mates carried themselves as at other times ever since the * Tho' they have very early taken the Oaths to K. W. and Q. M. Revolution with all the proud and insolent contempt imaginable yea and in seeming great rage and wrath quitted the Congregation as if I had been about overturning Foundations and deny'd the Faith once deliver'd to the Saints and were running apace to the Dissenters and was doing their work This is the Charge and this is the Crime and I think it a very great one too if I should think say or do any thing against the Church But I have deliver'd no more than what you may read in the Bishop of Worcester's Discourse against the Socinians or in Dr. Lightfoot Bishop Peirson Dr. Towerson and others of our Learned Church of England The Dissenters as the Novatians of Old may be right in their Doctrine except in that which causes or occasions their separation And I heartily wish all that are Zealous for or against Ceremonies were as warm for Peace and Holiness Truth and Concord and that all of us as Disciples of the humble and holy Jesus under the Ministry of Paul or Apollo would as new-born-Babes desire the sincere Milk of the word that we may grow thereby in Grace and substantial Knowledge which is the earnest and sincere Prayer of the Minister of the Parish and Parish Church of Bridgewater and therefore your very Humble Servant William Allen. From my Study Bridgewater April 1697. THE PREFACE IT was an early Custom in the Asian Church and continues so to this very day says Sir Paul Ricaut for Christians to Salute each other with this Chearful Congratulation on Easter Morning Christ is Risen and the Return is Christ is Risen indeed For 't was a melancholy interval with Christ's first Disciples which he foretold them of that they should mourn when the World did rejoyce All the while the Son of Righteousness was in an Eclipse his poor Disciples were in a state of darkness and fear and trouble and almost despondency as we may gather from their faint hopes in their way to Emaus Luke 24.21 We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel But in a farther Conference our Saviour chides and rebukes them for their little confidence O Fools and slow of Heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken whereof this is one Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption He descended into Hell is one of the Articles of that which we call the Apostle's Creed Not that I believe it is in totidem verbis any more the Apostle's-Creed than it is yours or mine Indeed there was a certain Writer tells us a Story That the Apostles before their parting from Jerusalem into the several parts of the World to Preach the Gospel agreed upon a form of Christian Faith and that every one cast in his Symbolum or Article which made just Twelve But for this we have only this one Man's word but all the other Ancients know nothing of this Matter Or that the present Creed commonly call'd the Apostle's-Creed was as Ruffinus reports theirs All the Learned now a-days in Church-History are agreed it was never composed by them Not but that there was a form of sound words but not as now Some were derived from the Apostles or from their days As I Believe in God the Father Or as the Greeks read it in One God the Father in opposition to the Polytheism of the Heathens And in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son our Lord I Believe in the Holy Ghost the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting These are all we can call Primitive from the Apostles Tho' all the other are true yet the others were added since in opposition to Heresies as they sprang up in the Church As was Conceiv'd by the Holy Ghost was put in in opposition to the Carpocratians Ebonites and Corinthians who taught that Christ was born in the ordinary and common way as other Men and Women are Was Born of the Virgin Mary Suffer'd under Pontius Pilate was placed in the Creed in contradiction to the Docetae Simonians and others who affirmed Christ to be a Man not really but phantastically and in appearance I believe the Remission of Sins was added to the form of words against the Basilidians and Novatians They only held that not all Sins but only involuntary ones would be remitted The other deny'd remission to the lapsed But to come more immediately to my Theam and to trace no longer the rest The Article of the descent into Hell was brought in toward the latter end of the Fourth Century From this account of the Creed I may again assume my assertion that that we commonly call the Apostles as it stands in our Liturgy is no more their Creed than it is mine or yours That is you and I believe all these Articles because they are in the Scriptures and

may be proved from them which is our Rule to prove that called the apostle's-Apostle's-Creed by and particularly that of Christ's descent into Hell which is founded upon this Text Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption ACTS II. 27. Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption SAint Peter in a short but notable Sermon demonstrates Jesus to be the Messias The Holy One of God The Lord the Christ First From the Miracles he did in his Life-time they being witnesses of the same v. 22. Secondly By the fulfilling of Prophecy in being not only rejected by his own but Crucified by them according to the determinate Counsel of God ver 23. Thirdly From the Wonders he did not in Life only but in Death he brake thro' the bonds of it the Grave could not detain his Body nor Hades his Soul And this according to Prophecy and Promise Psal 16. v. 10. Which is the Apostle's Quotation and my Text. And the Doctrine or Article of Faith grounded upon it is this That Jesus the Christ and Saviour of the World made a Sacrifice for Sin and actually dead and buried went into the Region of Spirits but returned speedily from thence and reassuming his Body rose victoriously from the Grave In discussing this Doctrine I will shew 1. What is the meaning of Christ's Soul being in Hell 2. The Reason and Occasion of this Article boing inserted in our Creed 3. The Incorruptibility of his Body it did not see Corruption Tho' the Jews gave its Death-wounds yet the wounds putrified not Together with the Use we ought to make of these Considerations I shall not mention the various Opinions about this Article they rather disgrace than instruct but speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and that as concisely and clearly as I can 1. What is the meaning of Christ's Soul being in Hell For with respect to his Godhead we may say of him in the words of the Psalmist Psal 139.7 8. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit whither shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there If I make my bed in Hell behold thou art there But our Discourse is of the Soul of the Messias and that was for a while in Hell Not in the sense the Damn'd are who are in a State of Torment in a Region of Woe and Misery which is full of Flame and Fire as the Rich Man roars out in the Text Luke 16.24 Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame But the Soul of the Messias when he gave up his Ghost passed into the Receptacle of Blessed Souls into that Paradise where the Redeemed and Pardoned are Lodged and where with him went the Repenting Thief on the Cross Luke 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise 'T is this Receptacle of good Souls this Paradise for those that die in Christ that is called Hades that is an invisible State a Being tho' in a remote Region which Eye cannot reach or penetrate I confess 't is a hard matter to beat out of the vulgar Heads the gross conception of the word Hell which sounds to them no other than horrour and blackness of darkness and fire and brimstone The word Hell in our English is harsh and dreadful and speaks to us the place of the Damn'd A * D. Lightfoot place very improper to look for the Soul of Christ when departed out of his Body for Him and His Betrayer Judas to meet in the same place He that had by Death purchased Heaven for others himself after death to descend into Hell This therefore cannot be no is not the meaning of the word Hell where Christ went he came not near that Abyss nor was at all among those Reprobated Crew The word Hell is a word of Latitude and hath a larger signification as all that understand Greek know And I cou'd wish for the sake of the People we cou'd find a softer and more expressive word to speak in for the true easie and natural sense of Hades is an invisible Region the Mansion of blessed Souls which in Scripture is called Paradise Heaven Abraham's-bosom Object If Hades means Paradise why should Christ pray against his being left in Hades and hope that his Soul shall not be left in Hades as he hopes his Body shall not see Corruption Answ He doth not pray thus as if it were not well with his Soul in Hades as to what he enjoyed For his Soul was the Soul of the Messias the Soul of a Redeemer a Soul that was to Conquer Death and not to stay any considerable time from his Body born of the Virgin Mary He had work to do which other Souls had not he was to rise for others justification He was to ascend into the Holy of Holiest as the great High-Priest of our Souls and therefore he must return to his Body that he may as God-Man in Humane flesh for ever enter into the Vale. As if he should say thou wilt not leave me under Death that is my Soul in separation This wou'd be the triumph of the Devil But tho' the Messias's Soul when in its separation was in Bliss and all Holy Souls departed are so yet Christ's Soul had an undertaking that surmounted that of all Humane Souls and therefore to accomplish that he prays for the fulfilling of the Promise That tho' his Soul as others of Humane Kind were really separated yet that his might speedily be re-united for the perfecting of the work he took upon him the form of a Servant and came into the Body at first Secondly The Occasion and Reason of this Article being inserted in our Creed Not that it was there at first but it came in afterward and that occasion'd by a new Heresie that started up in the Church and therefore to obviate that this Article was added as a Truth proveable from Scripture that Christ went into Hades The Errour was this that Christ had no proper Intellectual or Rational Soul Which Heresie was begun and propagated by one Appolonius and his Followers That the Word or the Divinity supplied the place of a Soul and that therefore he was not properly dead when his Body was in the Grave But in opposition to this Error the Christians assert that Christ had a humane Soul that it underwent all the Offices of one in the Body and out of the Body of a humane Soul that first it was infused as other Souls are when a Body was prepared and when in the Body it actuated as other Souls by opening and enlarging its faculties as the Body grew in stature and the Man in years and he hungred and thirsted as other Men did the Union of his Soul and Body being to be preserv'd by