of Monasticall discipline in the East S. Antony I meane who taught his Schollers that the Scriptures were sufficient for doctrine and S. Basil who unto the question Whether it were expedient that novices should presently learne those things that are in the Scripture returneth this answere It is fit and necessarie that every one should learne out of the holy Scripture that which is for his use both for his full settlement in godlinesse and that hee may not be accustomed unto humane traditions Marke here the difference betwixt the Monkes of Saint Basil and Pope Hildebrands breeding The Novices of the former were trayned in the Scriptures to the end they might not be accustomed unto humane traditions those of the latter to the cleane contrarie intent were kept back from the studie of the Scriptures that they might be accustomed unto humane traditions For this by the foresaid author is expressely noted of those Hildebrandine Monkes that they permitted not yong men in their Monasteries to studie this saving knowledge to the end that their rude wit might be nourished with the huskes of divels which are the customes of humane traditions that being accustomed to such filth they might not taste how sweet the Lord was And even thus in the times following from Monkes to Friars and from them to secular Priests and Prelates as it were by tradition from hand to hand the like ungodly policie was continued of keeping the common people from the knowledge of the Scriptures as for other reasons so likewise that by this meanes they might be drawne to humane traditions Which was not onely observed by Erasmus before ever Luther stirred against the Pope but openly in a maner confessed afterwards by a bitter adversarie of his Petrus Sutor a Carthusian Monke who among other inconveniences for which he would have the people debarred from reading the Scripture alledgeth this also for one Whereas manie things are openly taught to be observed which are not to be expressely had in the holy Scriptures will not the simple people observing these things quickly murmure and complaine that so great burdens should be imposed upon them whereby the libertie of the Gospell is so greatly impaired Will not they also easily be drawne away from the observation of the ordinances of the Church when they shall observe that they are not contained in the Law of Christ Having thus therefore discovered unto these Deuterotae for so S. Hierome useth to style such Tradition-mongers both their grandfathers and their more immediat progenitors I passe now forward unto the second point OF THE REAL PRESENCE HOw farre the real presence of the bodie of Christ in the Sacrament is allowed or disallowed by us I have at large declared in an other place The summe is this That in the receiving of the blessed Sacrament we are to distinguish betweene the outward and the inward action of the Communicant In the outward with our bodily mouth wee receive really the visible elements of Bread and Wine in the inward wee doe by faith really receive the bodie and bloud of our Lord that is to say wee are truely and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified to the spirituall strengthning of our inward man They of the adverse part have made such a confusion of these things that for the first they do utterly denie that after the words of consecration there remaineth anie Bread or Wine at all to be received and for the second do affirme that the bodie and bloud of Christ is in such a maner present under the outward shewes of bread and wine that whosoever receiveth the one be he good or bad beleever or unbeleever doth therewith really receive the other We are therfore here put to prove that Bread is bread and Wine is wine a matter one would thinke that easily might be determined by common sense That which you see saith S. Augustine is the Bread and the Cup which your very eyes doe declare unto you But because we have to deale with men that will needs herein be senselesse wee will for this time referre them to Tertullians discourse of the five senses wishing they may be restored to the use of their five witts againe and ponder the testimonies of our Saviour Christ in the sixt of Iohn and in the words of the Institution which they oppose against all sense but in the end shall finde to be as opposit to this phantasticall conceit of theirs as anie thing can be Touching our Saviours speech of the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his bloud in the sixth of Iohn these five things specially may be observed First that the question betwixt our Adversaries us being not Whether Christs bodie be turned into bread but whether bread be turned into Christs bodie the words in S. Iohn if they be pressed literally serve more strongly to prove the former then the latter Secondly that this Sermon was uttered by our Saviour above a yeare before the celebration of his last Supper wherein the Sacrament of his bodie and bloud was instituted at which time none of his hearers could possibly have understood him to have spoken of the externall eating of him in the Sacrament Thirdly that by the eating of the flesh of Christ and the drinking of his bloud there is not here meant an externall eating or drinking with the mouth and throate of the bodie as the Iewes then and the Romanists farre more grossely then they have since imagined but an internall and a spirituall effected by a lively faith and the quickning spirit of Christ in the soule of the beleever For there is a spirituall mouth of the inner man as S. Basil noteth wherewith hee is nourished that is made partaker of the Word of life which is the bread that commeth downe from heaven Fourthly that this spirituall feeding upon the bodie and blood of Christ is not to be found in the Sacrament onely but also out of the Sacrament Fiftly that the eating of the flesh and the drinking of the bâ—ood here mentioned is of such excellent vertue that the receiver is thereby made to remaine in Christ and Christ in him and by that meanes certainly freed from dâ—ath and assured of everlasting life Which seeing it cannot be verified of the eating of the Sacrament whereof both the godly the wicked are partakers it proveth not onely that our Saviour did not here speake of the Sacramentall eating but further also that the thing which is delivered in the externall part of the Sacrament cannot be conceived to be really but sacramentally onely the flesh and blood of Christ. The first of these may be plainly seene in the Text where our Saviour doth not onely say I am the bread of life vers 48. and I am the living bread that came downe from heaven vers 51. but addeth also in the 55. verse For my flesh is meate indeed and my bloud is drinke indeed Which words being the
answer of Ratrannus was directed had then in his Court a famous countrey-man of ours called Iohannes Scotus who wrote a booke of the same argument and to the same effect that the other had done This man for his extraordinarie learning was in England where hee lived in great account with King Alfred surnamed Iohn the wise and had verie lately a roome in the Martyrologe of the Church of Rome though now he be ejected thence Wee finde him indeed censured by the Church of Lyons and others in that time for certaine opinions which he delivered touching Gods foreknowledge and predestination before the beginning of the world Mans freewill and the concurrence thereof with Grace in this present world and the maner of the punishment of reprobate Men Angels in the world to come but we finde not anie where that his book of the Sacrament was condemned before the dayes of x Lanfranc who was the first that leavened that Church of England afterward with this corrupt doctrine of the carnall presence Till then this question of the reall presence continued still in debate and it was as free for anie man to follow the doctrine of Ratrannus or Iohannes Scotus therein as that of Paschasius Radbertus which since the time of Satans loosing obtayned the upper hand Men have often searched and doe yet often search how bread that is gathered of corne and through fires heate baked may be turned to Christs bodie or how wine that is pressed out of manie grapes is turned through one blessing to the Lords blood saith Aelfrick Abbat of Malmesburie in his Saxon Homily written about 650. yeares agoe His resolution is not onely the same with that of Ratrannus but also in manie places directly translated out of him as may appeare by these passages following compared with his Latin layd downe in the margent The bread and the wine which by the Priests ministery is hallowed shew one thing without to mens senses and another thing they call within to beleeving mindes Without they be seene bread wine both in figure and in taste and they be truely after their hallowing Christs body and his blood by spirituall mysterie So the holy font water that is called the well-spring of life is like in shape to other waters and is subject to corruption but the holy Ghosts might commeth to the corruptible water through the Priests blessing and it may after wash the body and soule from all sinne by spirituall vertue Behold now we see two things in this one creature in true nature that water is corruptible moisture and in spirituall mysterie hath healing vertue So also if we behold that holy housel after bodily sense then see wee that it is a creature corruptible and mutable If we acknowledge therein spirituall vertue then understand we that life is therein and that it giveth immortalitie to them that eate it with beleefe Much is betwixt the bodie Christ suffered in and the body that is hallowed to housel The body truely that Christ suffered in was borne of the flesh of Mary with blood and with bone with skin and with sinewes in humane limbs with a reasonable soule living and his spirituall body which we call the housel is gathered of many cornes without blood and bone without lim without soule and therefore nothing is to be understood therein bodily but spiriâ—ually Whatsoever is in that housel which giveth substance of life that is spirituall vertue and invisible doing Certainly Christs body which suffered death and rose from death shall never dye henceforth but is eternall and unpassible That housel is temporall not eternall corruptible dealed into sundry parts chewed betweene teeth and sent into the belly This mysterie is a pledge and a figure Christs bodie is truth it selfe This pledge wee doe keepe mystically untill that we be come to the truth it selfe and then is this pledge ended Christ hallowed bread and wine to housel before his suffering and said This is my body my blood Yet he had not then suffered but so notwithstanding hee turned through invisible vertue the bread to his owne body and that wine to his blood as he before did in the wildernesse before that he was borne to men when he turned that heavenly meate to his flesh and the flowing water from that stone to his owne blood Moses and Aaron and manie other of that people which pleased God did eate that heavenly bread and they died not the everlasting death though they dyed the common They saw that the heavenly meate was visible and corruptible and they spiritually understood by that visible thing and spiritually received it This Homily was appointed publikely to be read to the people in England on Easter day before they did receive the communion The like matter also was delivered to the Clergie by the Bishops at their Synods out of two other writings of the same Aelfrick in the one wherof directed to Wulfsine Bishop of Shyrburne we reade thus That housel is Christs bodie not bodily but spiritually Not the body which he suffered in but the bodie of which he spake when he blessed bread and wine to housel the night before his suffering and said by the blessed bread This is my body and againe by the holy wine This is my blood which is shed for many in forgivenesse of sinnes In the other written to Wulfstane Archbishop of Yorke thus The Lord which hallowed housel before his suffering and saith that the bread was his owne bodie and that the wine vvas truely his blood halloweth daily by the hands of the Priest bread to his body and wine to his blood in spirituall mysterie as wee reade in bookes And yet notwithstanding that lively bread is not bodily so nor the selfe same body that Christ suffered in nor that holy vvine is the Saviours blood which was shed for us in bodily thing but in spirituall understanding Both be truely that bread his body and that wine also his blood as was the heavenly bread which vve call Manna that fedde fortie yeares Gods people and the cleare water which did then runne from the stone in the vvildernesse vvas truely his blood as Paul wrote in one of his Epistles Thus was Priest and people taught to beleeve in the Church of England toward the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh age after the Incarnation of our Saviour Christ. And therefore it is not to be wondered that when Berengarius shortly after stood to maintaine this doctrine manie both by word and writing disputed for him and not onely the English but also all the French almost the Italians as Matthew of Westminster reporteth were so readie to entertaine that which hee delivered Who though they were so borne downe by the power of the Pope who now was growne to his height that they durst not make open profession of that which they beleeved yet manie continued even
granted to the faithfull and punishment to the unfaithfull Wee are not to put on black mourning garments here when our friends there have put on white This is not a going out but a passage and this temporall journey being finished a going over to eternitie Let us therefore embrace the day that bringeth every one to his owne house which having taken us away from hence and loosed us from the snares of this world returneth us to Paradise and to the kingdome of heaven The same holy Father in his Apologie which hee wrote for Christians unto Demetrian the proconsul of Africk affirmeth in like maner that the end of this temporall life being accomplished we are divided into the habitations of everlasting eyther death or immortalitie When we are once departed from hence there is now no farther place for repentance neyther any effect of satisfaction here life is eyther lost or obtayned But if thou saith he even at the very end and setting of thy temporall life dost pray for thy sinnes and call upon the onely true God with confession and faith pardon is given to thee confessing and saving forgivenesse is granted by the divine piety to thee beleeving and at thy very death thou hast a passage unto immortalitie This grace doth Christ impart this gift of his mercy doth he bestow by subduing death with the triumph of his crosse by redeeming the beleever with the price of his blood by reconciling man unto God the Father by quickening him that is mortall with heavenly regeneration Where Salomon sayeth Ecclesiast 12.5 that man goeth to his everlasting house and the mourners goe about in the street S. Gregory of Neocaesarea maketh this paraphrase upon those words The good man shall goe rejoycing unto his everlasting house but the wicked shall fill all with lamentations Therefore did the Fathers teach that men should rejoyce at their death and the ancient Christians framed their practise accordingly not celebrating the day of their nativitie which they accounted to be the entry of sorrowes and temptations but celebrating the day of death as being the putting away of all sorrowes and the escaping of all temptations And so being filled with a divine rejoycing they came to the extremitie of death as vnto the end of their holy combates where they did more clearely behold the way that ledd unto their immortalitie as being now made neerer and did therefore prayse the gifts of God and were replenished with divine joy as now not fearing any change to worse but knowing well that the good things which they possessed shall be firmely and everlastingly enjoyed by them The author of the Questions and Answeres attributed to Iustin Martyr writeth thus of this matter After the departure of the soule out of the body there is presently made a distinction betwixt the just and the unjust For they are brought by the Angels to places fit for them the soules of the righteous to Paradise vvhere they have the commerce and sight of Angels and Archangels c. the soules of the unjust to the places in hell That is not death saith Athanasius that befalleth the righteous but a translation for they are translated out of this world into everlasting rest and as a man would goe out of a prison so doe the Saints goe out of this troublesome life unto those good things that are prepared for them S. Hilary out of that which is related in the Gospell of the rich man and Lazarus observeth that as soone as this life is ended everie one without delay is sent over either to Abrahams bosome or to the place of torment and in that state reserved untill the day of judgement S. Ambrose in his booke of the good of Death teacheth us that death is a certaine haven to them who being tossed in the great Sea of this life desire a rode of safe quietnesse that it maketh not a mans state worse but such as in findeth in every one such it reserveth unto the future judgement and refresheth with rest that thereby a passage is made from corruption to incorruption from mortalitie to immortalitie from trouble to tranquillity Therefore he saith that where fooles doe feare death as the chiefe of evills wise men do desire it as a rest after labours and an end of their evills and upon these grounds exhorteth us that when that day commeth wee should goe without feare to Iesus our redeemer without feare to the Councell of the Patriarches without feare to Abraham our father that without feare wee should addresse our selves unto that assembly of Saints and congregation of the righteous forasmuch as we shall goe to our fathers we shall goe to those schoolemasters of our faith that albeit our workes fayle us yet faith may succour us and our title of inheritance defend us Macarius writing of the double state of those that depart out of this life affirmeth that when the soule goeth out of the bodie if it be guiltie of sinne the Divell carrieth it away with him unto his place but when the holy servants of God remove out of their bodie the quyers of Angells receive their soules unto their owne side unto the pure world and so bring them unto the Lord. and in another place moving the question concerning such as depart out of this world sustayning two persons in their soule to wit of sinne and of grace whither they shall go that are thus held by two parts hee maketh answere that thither they shall goe where they have their minde and affection setled For the Lord saith hee beholding thy minde that thou fightest and lovest him with thy whole soule separateth death from thy soule in one houre for this is not hard for him to doe and taketh thee into his owne bosome and unto light For he plucketh thee away in the minute of an houre from the mouth of darkenesse and presently translateth thee into his owne kingdome For God can easily doe all these things in the minute of an houre this provided only that thou bearest love unto him then which what can be more direct against the dreame of Popish Purgatorie This present world is the time of repentance the other of retribution this of working that of rewarding this of patient suffering that of receiving comfort saith S. Basil. Gregory Nazianzen in his funerall orations hath manie sayings to the same purpose being so farre from thinking of anie Purgatorie paynes prepared for men in the other world that hee plainely denieth that after the night of this present life there is any purging to be expected and therefore hee telleth us that it is better to be corrected and purged now than to be sent unto the torment there where the time of punishing is and not of purging S. Hierome comforteth Paula for the death of her daughter Blaesilla in this mater Let the dead be lamented but such a
the writings of S. Cyrill Gennadius Olympiodorus and oâ—hers S. Cyrill from those last words of our Saviour upon the Crosse Father into thy hands I commend my spirit delivereth this as the certaine ground and foundation of our hope Wee ought to beleeve that the soules of the Saints when they are departed out of their bodies are commended unto Gods goodnesse as unto the hands of a most deare Father and doe not remaine in the earth as some of the unbeleevers have imagined untill they have had the honour of buriall neyther are carried as the soules of the wicked be unto a place of unmeasurable torment that is unto Hell but rather flye to the hands of the Father this way being first prepared for us by Christ. For hee delivered up his soule into the hands of his Father that from it and by it a beginning being made we might have certaine hope of this thing firmely beleeving that after death we shall be in the hands of God and shall live a farre better life for ever with Christ. for therefore Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Gennadius in a booke wherein hee purposely taketh upon him to reckon up the particular points of doctrine received by the Church in his time when he commeth to treat of the state of soules separated from the body maketh no mention at all of Purgatorie but layeth down this for one of his positions After the ascension of our Lord into heaven the soules of all the Saints are with Christ and departing out of the bodie goe unto Christ expecting the resurrection of their bodie that together with it they may be changed unto perfect and perpetuall blessednesse as the soules of the sinners also being placed in Hell under feare expect the resurrection of their body that with it they may be thrust unto everlasting paine In like maner Olympiodorus expounding that place of Ecclesiastes If the tree fall toward the South or toward the North in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be maketh this inference thereupon In whatsoever place therefore either lightsome or darke that is either in the foule station of sinnes or in the honest of vertues a man is taken when he dyeth in that degree and order he remaineth for ever For either hee resteth in the light of eternall felicitie with the just and with Christ our Lord or is tormented in darkenesse with the wicked and with the Divell the prince of this world The first whom we finde directly to have held that for certaine light faults there is a purgatory fire provided before the day of judgement was Gregory the first about the end of the sixth age after the birth of our Saviour Christ. It was his imagination that the end of the world was then at hand and that as when the night beginneth to be ended and the day to spring before the rising of the Sunne the darkenesse is in some sort mingled together with the light untill the remaines of the departing night be turned into the light of the following day so the end of this world was then intermingled with the beginning of the world to come and the very darkenes of the remaines thereof made transparent by a certaine mixture of spirituall things And this he assigneth for the reason why in those last times so many things were made cleare touching the soules which before lay hid so that by open revelations and apparitions the world to come might seeme to bring in and open it selfe unto them But as we see that he was plainly deceived in the one of his conceits so have we just cause to call into question the veritie of the other the Scripture especially having informed us that a people for enquiry of matters should not have recourse to the dead but to their God to the Law and to the Testimony it being not Gods manner to send men from the dead to instruct the living but to remit them unto Moses and the Prophets that they may heare them And the reason is well worth the observation which the author of the Questions to Antiochus rendreth why God would not permit the soule of any of those that departed from hence to returne backe unto us againe and to declare the state of things in Hell unto us least much errour might arise from thence unto us in this life For many of the Divels saith hee might transforme themselves into the shapes of those men that were deceased and say that they vvere risen from the dead and so might spred many false matters doctrines of the things there unto our seduction and destruction Neither is it to be passed over that in those apparitions and revelations related by Gregory there is no mention made of any common lodge in Hell appointed for purging of the dead which is that which the Church of Rome now striveth for but of certaine soules only that for their punishment were confined to bathes and other such places here upon earth which our Romanists may beleeve if they list but must seeke for the Purgatorie they looke for somewhere else And yet may they save themselves that labour if they will be advised by the Bishops assembled in the Councell of Aquisgran 240. yeares after these visions were published by Gregory who will resolve them out of the word of God how sinnes are punished in the world to come The sinnes of men say they are punished three maner of wayes two in this life and the third in the life to come Of those two the Apostle saith If we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. This is the punishment wherewith by the inspiration of God every sinner by repenting for his offences taketh revenge upon himselfe But where the Apostle consequently adjoyneth When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with this world this is the punishment which almightie God doth mercifully inflict upon a sinner according to that saying Whom God loveth he chasteneth and he scourgeth everie sonne that hee receiveth But the third is very fearefull and terrible which by the most just judgement of God shall be executed not in this world but in that which is to come vvhen the just Iudge shall say Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the Divell and his angells Adde hereunto the saying of the author of the booke De vanitate saeculi wrongly ascribed to S. Augustine Know that when the soule is separated from the body presently it is eyther placed in Paradise for his good merites or cast headlong into the bottom of hell for his sinnes and that in the dayes of Otto Frisingensis himselfe who wrote in the year of our Lord MCXLVI the doctrine of Purgatory was esteemed onely a private assertion held by some and not an article of faith generally received by the whole Church for why should hee
and cannot lye graunt unto them according to thy promises that vvhich eye hath not seene and eare hath not heard and which hath not ascended into the heart of man which thou hast prepared O Lord for them that love thy holy name that thy servants may not remaine in death but may get out from thence although slouthfulnesse and negligence have followed them and in that which is used by the Christians of S. Thomas as they are commonly called in the East Indies Let the holy Ghâ—st give resurrection to your dead at the last day and make them vvorthy of the incorruptible kingdome Such is the prayer of S. Ambrose for Gratian and Valentinian the Emperours I doe beseech thee most high God that thou wouldest rayse up againe those deare yong men with a speedie resurrection that thou mayest recompence this untimely course of this present life vvith a timely resurrection and that in Alcuinus Let their soules sustaine no hurt but when that great day of the resurrection and remuneration shall come vouchsafe to raise them up O Lord together with thy Saincts and thine elect and that in Grimoldus his Sacramentarie Almightie and everlasting God vouchsafe to place the body and the soule and the spirit of thy servant N. in the bosomes of Abraham Isaac and Iacob that vvhen the day of thy acknowledgement shall come thou mayest command them to be raysed up among thy Saincts and thine elect But yet the Cardinalls answer that the glorie of the body may be prayed for which the Saincts shall have at the day of the Resurrection commeth somewhat short of that which the Church used to request in the behalfe of S. Leo. For in that prayer expresse mention is made of his soule and to it is wished that profit may redound by the present oblation And therefore this defect must be supplyed out of his answer unto that other praier which is mâ—de for the soules of the faithfull depaâ—ted that they may be delivered out of the mouth of the Lion and that Hell may not swallow them up To this he saith that the Church doth pray for these soules that they may not be condemned unto the everlasting paines of Hell not as if it were not certain that they should not be condemned unto those paines but because it is Gods pleasure that we should pray even for those things which we are certainly to receive The same answer did Alphonsus de Castro give before him that very often those things are prayed for which are certainely knowne shall come to passe as they are prayed for and that of this there be very manie testimonies and Iohannes Medina that God dâ—lighteth to be prayed unto even for those things which otherwise he purposed to do For God had decreed saith he after the sinne of Adam to take our flesh and he decreed the time wherein he meant to come and yet the prayers of the Saincts that prayed for his Incarnation and for his comming were acceptable unto him God hath also decreed to grant pardon unto every repentant sinner and yet the prayer is gratefull unto him wherein eyther the penitent doth pray for himselfe or another for him that God would be pleased to accept his repentance God hath decreed also and promised not to forsake his Church and to be present with Councells lawfully assembled yet the prayer notwithstanding is gratefull unto God and the hymnes vvhereby his presence and favour and grace is implored both for the Councell the Church And whereas it might be obiected that howsoever the Church may sometimes pray for those things which shee shall certainly receive yet shee doth not pray for those things which shee hath alreadie received and this shee hath received that those soules shall not be damned seeing they have received their sentence and are most secure from damnation the Cardinall replieth that this obiection may easily be avoyded For although those soules saith he have received already their first sentence in the particular judgement and by that sentence are freed from Hell yet doth there yet remaine the generall judgement in which they are to receive the second sentence Wherefore the Church praying that those soules in the last judgement may not fall into darkenesse nor be swallowed up of Hel doth not pray for the thing which the soule hath but which it shall receive Thus these men labouring to shew how the prayers for the dead used in their Church may stand with their conceits of Purgatorie doe thereby informe us how the prayers for the dead used by the ancient Church may stand well enough without the supposall of anie Purgatorie at all For if we may pray for those things which wee are most sure shall come to passe and the Church by the Adversaries owne confession did pray accordingly that the soules of the faithfull might escape the paines of Hell at the generall Iudgement notwithstanding they had certainly beene freed from them alreadie by the sentence of the particular Iudgement by the same reason when the Church in times past besought God to remember all those that slept in the hope of the resurrection of everlasting life which is the forme of prayer used in the Greeke Liturgies and to give unto them rest and to bring them unto the place where the light of his countenance should shine upon them for evermore why should not we thinke that it desired these things should be granted unto them by the last sentence at the day of the Resurrection notwithstanding they were formerly adiudged unto them by the particular sentence at the time of their dissolution For as that which shall befall unto all at the day of judgement is accomplished in every one at the day of his death so on the other side whatsoever befalleth the soule of everie one at the day of his death the same is fully accomplished upon the whole man at the day of the generall iudgement Whereupon wee finde that the Scriptures everie where doe point out that great day unto us as the time wherein mercie and forgivenesse rest and refreshing ioy and gladnesse redemption and salvation rewards and crownes shall be bestowed upon all Gods children as in 2. Timoth. 1.16 18. The Lord give mercie unto the house of Onesiphorus the Lord grant unto him that he may finde mercie of the Lord in that day 1. Cor. 1.8 Who shall also confirme you unto the end that ye may be blamelesse in the day of our Lord Iesus Christ. Act. 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sinnes may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. 2. Thessal 1.6 7. It is a righteous thing with God to recompense unto you which are troubled rest with us when the Lord Iesus shal be revealed from heaven with his mightie Angells Philip. 2.16 That I may rejoyce in the day of Christ that I have not runne in vaine neyther
resurrection of the same thy onely begotten Sonne our Redeemer O God who art the Creator and maker of all things and vvho art the blisse of thy Saincts grant unto us who make request unto thee that the spirit of our brother who is loosed from the knott of his body may bee presented in the blessed resurrection of thy Saincts O almightie and mercifull God vve doe intreat thy clemency forasmuch as by thy judgement we are borne and make an end that thou wilt receive into everlasting rest the soule of our brother whom thou of thy piety hast commanded to passe from the dwelling of this world and permit him to be associated with the company of thine elect that together with them he may remaine in everlasting blisse without end Eternall God vvho in Christ thine only begotten sonne our Lord hast given unto us the hope of a blessed Resurrection grant we beseech thee that the soules for which we offer this sacrifice of our redemption unto thy Majestie may of thy mercy attaine unto the rest of a blessed resurrection with thy Saincts Let this communion we beseech thee O Lord purge us from sinne and give unto the soule of thy servant N. a portion in the heavenly joy that being set apart before the throne of the glory of thy Christ with those that are upon the right hand it may have nothing common with those that are upon the left Through Christ our Lord. At whose comming when thou shalt command both the peoples to appeare command thy servant also to be severed from the number of the evill and grant unto him that he may both escape the flames of everlasting punishment and obtaine the rewards of a righteous life c. In these and other prayers of the like kind we may descry evident footsteps of the primarie intention of the Church in her supplications for the dead which was that the whole man not the soule separated only might receive publick remission of sinnes a solemne acquitall in the judgement of that great day and so obtaine both a full escape from all the consequences of sinne the last enemie being now destroyed and death swallowed up in victory and a perfect consummation of blisse and happinesse all which are comprised in that short prayer of S. Paul for Onesiphorus though made for him while he was alive The Lord grant unto him that he may finde mercie of the Lord in that day Yea diverse prayers for the dead of this kinde are still retained in the Romane Offices of which the great Spanish Doctor Iohannes Medina thus writeth Although I have read manie prayers for the faithfull deceased which are contayned in the Romane Missall yet have I read in none of them that the Church doth petition that they may more quickly be freed from paines but I have read that in some of them petition is made that they may be freed from everlasting paines For beside the common prayer that is used in the Masse for the Commemoration of all the faithfull deceased that Christ would free them from the mouth of the Lion that Hell may not swallow them up and that they may not fall into the place of darknesse this prayer is prescribed for the day wherin the dead did depart out of this life O God vvhose propertie is alwayes to have mercie and to spare vve most humbly beseech thee for the soule of thy servant N. which this day thou hast commanded to depart out of this world that thou mayst not deliver it into the hands of the enemy nor forget it finally but command it to be received by the holy Angels and brought unto the country of Paradise that because he hath trusted and beleeved in thee he may not sustain the paines of Hell but possesse joyes everlasting which is a direct prayer that the soule of him which was then departed might immediatly be received into Heaven and escape not the temporarie paines of Purgatorie but the everlasting paines of Hell for howsoever the new reformers of the Romane Missall have put in here poenas inferni under the generalitie peradventure of the terme of the paines of hell intending to shrowde their Purgatorie which they would have men beleeve to be one of the lodges of Hell yet in the old Missall which Medina had respect unto we reade expressely poenas aeternas everlasting paines which by no construction can be referred unto the paines of Purgatorie and to the same purpose in the book of the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome at the exequies of a Cardinall a prayer is appointed to be read that by the assistance of Gods grace he might escape the judgement of everlasting revenge who while he lived was marked with the seale of the holy Trinity Againe there be other prayers saith Medina wherein petition is made that God would raise the soules of the dead in their bodies unto blisse at the day of judgement Such for example is that which is found in the Romane Missall Absolve vvee beseech thee O Lord the soule of thy servant from all the bond of his sinnes that in the glory of the resurrection being raysed among thy saincts and elect hee may breath againe or bee refreshed and that other in the Romane Pontificall O God unto whom all things doe live and unto whom our bodies in dying do not perish but are changed for the better we humbly pray thee that thou wouldest command the soule of thy servant N. to be received by the hands of thy holy Angells to be carried into the bosome of thy friend the Patriarch Abraham and to be raysed up at the last day of the great judgement whatsoever faults by the deceit of the Divel he hath incurred do thou of thy pitie and mercy wash away by forgiving them Now forasmuch as it is most certaine that all such as depart in grace as the Adversaries acknowledge that all in Purgatorie doe are sure to escape Hell and to be raysed up unto glorie at the last day Medina perplexeth himselfe exceedingly in according these kinde of praiers with the received grounds of Purgatorie and after much agitation of the businesse too and fro at last resolveth upon one of these two desperate conclusions that touching these praiers which are made in the Church for the dead it may first of all be said that it is not necessary to excuse them all from all unfitnesse For many things are permitted to be read in the Church which although they be not altogether true nor altogether fit yet serve for the stirring up and increasing the devotion of the faithfull Many such things saith he we beleeve are contayned in the histories that be not sacred and in the Legends of the Saincts and in the opinions and writings of the Doctors all which are tolerated by the Church in the meane time while there is no question moved of them and no scandall ariseth from
them And therefore it is no marvaile that somewhat not so fitt should be contayned in the foresaid prayers and be tolerated in the Church seeing such prayers were made by private persons not by Councells neyther vvere approved at all by Councells And we easily doe beleeve indeed that their Offices and Legends are fraught not only with untrue and unfit but also with farre worse stuffe neyther is this any newes unto us Agobardus Bishop of Lions complayned about 800. yeares agoe that the Antiphonary used in his Church had many ridiculous and phantasticall things in it and that hee was faine to cut off from thence such things as seemed to be eyther superfluous or light or lying or blasphemous The like complaint was made not long since by Lindanus of the Romane Antiphonaries and Missals wherein not only apocryphall tales saith he out of the Gospell of Nicodemus and other toyes are thrust in but the very secret prayers themselves are defiled with most foule faults But now that wee have the Romane Missall restored according to the decree of the Councell of Trent set out by the command of Pius V. and revised againe by the authoritie of Clemens VIII I doubt much whether our Romanists will allow the Censure which their Medina hath given of the praiers contained therein And therefore if this will not please them he hath another answer in store of which though his country man Mendoza hath given sentence that it is indigna viro Theologo unworthy of any man that beareth the name of a Divine yet such as it is you shall have it Supposing then that the Church hath no intention to pray for anie other of the dead but those that are detayned in Purgatorie this he delivereth for his second resolution The Church knowing that God hath power to punish everlastingly those soules by which when they lived he was mortally offended and that God hath not tyed his power unto the Scriptures and unto the promises that are contayned in the Scripture forasmuch as he is above all things and a◠omnipotent after his promises as if he had promised nothing at all therefore the Church doth humbly pray God that he would not use this his absolute omnipotencie against the soules of the faithfull which are departed in grace therefore shee doth pray that he would vouchsafe to free them from everlasting paines and from revenge and the judgement of condemnation and that he would be pleased to rayse them up againe with his Elect. But leaving our Popish Doctors with their profound speculations of the not limiting of Gods power by the Scriptures and the promises which he hath made unto us therein let us returne to the ancient Fathers and consider the differences that are to be found among them touching the place and condition of soules separated from their bodies for according to the several apprehensions which they had thereof they made different applications and interpretations of the use of praying for the dead whose particular intentions and devotions in that kinde must of necessity therefore be distinguished from the generall intention of the whole Church S. Augustine that I may begin with him who was as the most ingenious so likewise the most ingenuous of all others in acknowledging his ignorance where hee saw cause being to treat of these matters maketh this Preface before hand unto his hearers Of Hell neyther have I had any experience as yet nor you and peradventure it may be that our passage may lye some other way and not prove to be by Hell For these things be uncertain and having occasion to speake of the departure of Nebridius his deare friend Now he liveth saith he in the bosome of Abraham whatsoever the thing be that is signified by that bosome there doth my Nebridius live But elsewhere he directly distinguisheth this bosome from the place of blisse into which the. Saincts shall be received after the last judgement After this short life saith he thou shalt not as yet be where the Saincts shall be unto whom it shall be said Come ye blessed of my Father receive the kingdome which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world Thou shalt not as yet be there who knoweth it not But now thou mayest be there where that proude and barren rich man in the middest of his torments saw a farre off the poore man sometime full of ulcers resting Being placed in that rest thou dost securely expect the day of judgement when thou mayest receive thy body when thou mayest be changed to be equall unto an Angell and for the state of soules betwixt the time of the particular and generall judgement this is his conclusion in generall The time that is interposed betwixt the death of man and the last resurrection contayneth the soules in hidden receptacles as every one is worthy eyther of rest or of trouble according unto that which it did purchase in the flesh when it lived Into these hidden receptacles he thought the soules of Gods children might carry some of their lighter faults with them which being not removed would hinder them from comming into the kingdome of heaven whereinto no polluted thing can enter and from which by the prayers and almes-deeds of the living he held they might be released But of two things he professed himselfe here to be ignorant First What those sinnes were which did so hinder the comming unto the kingdome of God that yet by the care of good friends they might obtaine pardon Secondly Whether those soules did endure anie temporary paines in the Interim betwixt the time of Death and the Resurrection For howsoever in his one and twentieth book of the City of God and the thirteenth and sixteenth chapters for the new patch which they have added to the foure and twentieth chapter is not worthy of regard he affirme that some of them doe suffer certaine purgatorie punishments before the last and dreadfull judgment yet by comparing these places with the five and twentieth chapter of the twentieth booke it will appeare that by those purgatory punishments he understandeth here the furnace of the fire of Conflagration that shall immediatly go before this last judgement and as he otherwhere describeth the effects thereof separate some unto the left hand and melt out others unto the right Neither was this opinion of the reservation of soules in secret places and the purging of them in the fire of Conflagration at the day of iudgement entertained by this famous Doctor alone diverse others there were that had touched upon the same string before him Origen in his fourth book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we have him translated by Ruffinus for in the Extracts selected out of him by S. Basil and S. Gregory wee finde the place somewhat otherwise expressed saith that such as depart out of this world after the common course of death are disposed of according to their deeds and
merits as they shal be judged to be worthy some into the place which is called Hell others into Abrahams bosome and through diverse eyther places or mansions and in his Commentaries upon Leviticus hee addeth further Neyther have the Apostles themselves as yet received their joy but even they doe expect that I also may be made partaker of their joy For the Saincts departing from hence doe not presently obtaine the full rewards of their labours but they expect us likewise howsoever staying howsoever slacking Then touching the purging of men after the Resurrection he thus delivereth his minde in his Commentaries upon Luke I thinke that even after our resurrection from the dead we shall have need of a sacrament to wash and purge us for none can rise without pollutions and upon Ieremy If any one be saved in the second resurrection he is that sinner vvhich needeth the baptisme of fire which is purged with burning that whatsoever he hath of wood hay and stubble the fire may consume it Neither doth Lactantius shew himselfe to varie much from him in eyther of those points for thus he writeth When God shall judge the righteous he will examine them by fire Then they whose sinnes shall prevaile eyther in weight or number shall be touched with the fire and burned but they whom perfect righteousnesse and the ripenesse of vertue hath throughly seasoned shall not feele that fire for from thence have they something in them that will repell put back the force of the flame so great is the force of innocency that that fire shall flye back from it without doing anie harme vvhich hath received this power from God that it may burne the wicked and do service to the righteous Yet notwithstanding let no man thinke that the soules are presently judged after death All of them are detayned in one common custodie untill the time come wherein the great Iudge doth make tryall of their doings In like maner doth S. Hilary write of the one part All the faithfull when they are gone out of the bodie shall be reserved by the Lords custodie for that entry into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and thus of the other Being to render an account of every idle word shall we desire the day of judgement wherein that unwearied fire must be passed by us in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soule from sinnes must be endured for to such as have beene baptized with the holy Ghost it remaineth that they should be consummated with the fire of judgement In S. Ambrose also there are some passages to bee found which seeme to make directly for either of these points as these for the former The soule is loosed from the body and yet after the end of this life it is held as yet in suspence with the uncertainty of the future judgement so that there is no end where there is thought to be an end We reade in the books of Esdras that when the day of judgement shall come the earth shall restore the bodies of the deceased and the dust shall restore the reliques of the dead which doe rest in the graves and the habitacles shall restore the soules which were committed to them and the most high shall be revealed upon the seat of judgement Also that scripture nameth those habitacles of the soules Promptuaries or secret receptacles and meeting with the complaint of man that the just which have gone before may seeme to be defrauded untill the day of judgement which is a very long time of the reward due unto them saith wonderfully that the day of judgement is like unto a crowne wherein as there is no slackenesse of the last so is there no swiftnesse of the first For the day of crowning is expected by all that vvithin that day both they who are overcome may be ashamed and they who doe overcome may obtaine the palme of victory Therefore while the fulnesse of time is expected the soules expect their due reward Paine is provided for some of them for some glory and yet in the meane time neither are those without trouble nor these without fruite and these for the latter With fire shall the sonnes of Levi be purged with fire Ezechiel with fire Daniel But these although they shall be tryed with fire yet shall say We have passed through fire and water Others shall remaine in the fire And if the Lord shall save his servants we shall be saved by faith yet saved as it were by fire Although we shall not be burned up yet shall we be burned After the end of the vvorld when the Angells shall be sent to separate the good and the bad this baptisme shall be when iniquitie shal be burnt up by the furnace of fire that in the kingdome of God the righteous may shine as the Sunne in the kingdome of their Father And if any one be as Peter or as Iohn he is baptized with this fire Seeing therefore he that is purged here hath need to be purged again there let him purge us there also when the Lord may say Enter into my rest that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword not burned up when he is entred into that pleasure of Paradise may give thankes unto his Lord saying Thou hast brought us into a place of refreshment Hereunto wee may adjoine that observation of Suarez the Iesuite They who thinke that the soules of men are not judged at their death nor do receive reward or punishment but are reserved in hidden receptacles untill the generall judgement doe consequently say that as men do not receive their last reward or punishment so neyther are they also purged untill the generall Resurrection and Iudgement do come from vvhence they might say vvith reasonable good consequence that men are to be purged with the fire of Conflagration and with as good consequence also may we further adde that prayers were not to be made for the deliverie of the soules of the dead from any purgatorie paines supposed to be suffered by them betwixt the time of their death and their resurrection which be the only praiers which are now in question In the Resurrection when our workes like unto clusters of grapes shall be cast into the probatory fire as it were into the wine-presse every mans husbandry shall be made manifest saith Gregorius Cerameus sometime archbishop of Tauromenium in Sicilia and No man as yet is entred eyther into the torments of Hell or into the kingdome of Heaven untill the time of the resurrection of the bodies saith Anastasius Sinaita upon whom Gretser bestoweth this marginall annotation that this is the Error of certain of the ancient of latter Greece And we
finde it to be held indeed both by some of the ancient as namely in Caius who lived at Rome when Zephyrinus was Bishop there and is accounted to be the author of the treatise falsely fathered upon Iosephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a large fragment whereof hath beene lately published by Hoeschelius in his notes upon Photius his Bibliotheke and by the latter Grecians in whose name Marcus Eugenicus archbishop of Ephesus doth make this protestation against such of his countrymen as yeelded to the definition of the Florentine Councell We say that neither the Saincts do receive the kingdome prepared for them and those secret good things neyther the sinners doe as yet fall into Hell but that eyther of them doe remaine in expectation of their proper lott and that this appertayneth unto the time that is to come after the Resurrection and the Iudgement But these men with the Latines would have these to receive presently after death the things they have deserved but unto those of the middle sort that is to such as dye in penance they assigne a purgatory fire which they faine to be distinct from that of Hell that thereby say they being purged in their soules after death they likewise may be received into the kingdome of heaven together vvith the righteous That barbarous impostor as Molanus rightly styleth him who counterfeyted a letter as written by S. Cyrill Bishop of Ierusalem unto S. Augustin touching the miracles of S. Hierome taketh upon him to lay down the precise time of the first arising of this sect among the Grecians in this maner After the death of most glorious Hierome a certaine heresie or sect arose amongst the Grecians and came to the Latines also which went about with their wicked reasons to prove that the soules of the blessed untill the day of the generall Iudgment wherein they were to be joyned againe unto their bodies are deprived of the sight and knowledge of God in which the whole blessednesse of the Saincts doth consist and that the soules of the damned in like maner untill that day are tormented with no paines Whose reason was this that as the soule did merit or sinne with the body so with the bodie was it to receive rewards or paines Those wicked sectaries also did maintaine that there was no place of Purgatory wherein the soules vvhich had not done full penance for their sinnes in this world might be purged Which pestilent sect getting head so great sorrow fell upon us that we were even weary of our life Then he telleth a wise tale how S. Hierome being at that time with God for the confutation of this new-sprong heresie raysed up three men from the dead after that hee had first ledd their soules into Paradise Purgatory and Hell to the end they might make known unto all men the things that were done there but had not the witt to consider that S. Cyrill himselfe had need to be raysed up to make the fourth man among them for how otherwise should he who dyed thirtie yeares before S. Hierome as is knowne to every one that knoweth the history of those times have heard and written the newes which those three good fellowes that were raised by S. Hierome after his death did relate concerning Heaven Hell and Purgatory Yet is it nothing so strange to me I confesse that such idle dreames as these should be devised in the times of darknesse to delude the world withall as that now in the broad day light Binsfeldius and Suarez and other Romish merchants should adventure to bring forth such rotten stuffe as this with hope to gaine anie credite of antiquitie thereby unto the new erected staple of Popish Purgatory The Dominican Friars in a certaine treatise written by them at Constantinople in the yeare 1252. assigne somewhat a lower beginning unto this error of the Grecians affirming that they followed therein a certain inventer of this heresie named Andrew Archbishop sometime of Caesarea in Cappadocia who said that the soules did wayt for their bodies that together with them with which they had committed good or evill they might likewise receave the recompense of their deeds But that which Andrew saith herein he saith not out of his own head and therefore is wrongfully charged to be the first inventer of it but out of the judgement of many godly fathers that went before him It hath been said saith he by many of the Saincts that all vertuous men after this life do receive places fit for them whence they may certainly make conjecture of the glory that shall befall unto them Where Peltanus bestoweth such another marginall note upon him as Gretser his fellow-Iesuite did upon Anastasius This opinion is now expressely condemned and rejected by the Church And yet doth Alphonsus de Castro aknowledge that the Patrons thereof vvere famous men renowned as well for holinesse as for knowledge but telleth us withall that no man ought to marvaile that such great men should fall into so pestilent an error because as the Apostle S. Iames saith he that offendeth not in word is a perfect man Another particular opinion which wee must sever from the generall intention of the Church in her oblations and prayers for the dead is that which is noted by Theophylact upon the speech of our Saviour Luk. 12.5 in which he wisheth us to observe that hee did not say Feare him who after hee hath killed casteth into hell but hath power to cast into hell For the sinners which dye saith he are not alwayes cast into hell but it remaineth in the power of God to pardon them also And this I say for the oblations and doales which are made for the dead which do not a little avayle even them that dye in grievous sinnes He doth not therefore generally after he hath killed cast into hell but hath power to cast Wherfore let us not cease by almes and intercession to appease him who hath power to cast but doth not alwayes use this power but is able to pardon also Thus farre Theophylact whom our Adversaries doe blindely bring in for the countenancing of their use of praying and offering for the dead not considering that the prayers and oblations which he would uphold doe reach even unto such as dye in grievous sinnes which the Romanists acknowledge to receive no reliefe at all by anie thing that they can doe and are intended for the keeping of soules from being cast into Hell and not for fetching them out when they have been cast into Purgatorie a place that never came within the compasse of Theophylacts beleefe His testimonie will fit a great deale better the prayer of S. Dunstan who as the tale goeth having understood that the soule of King Edwin was to be carried into Hell never gave over praying untill hee had gotten him ridd of that danger and transferred unto the coast of penitent soules where hee well deserved doubtlesse to
that Infidels and wicked men departed out of this life were no more to be prayed for then the Divell and his angells which were appointed unto everlasting punishment should in his practise be found to be so much different from his judgement The second tale toucheth upon the verie times of the Apostles wherein the Apostolesse Thecla is said to have prayed for Falconilla the daughter of Tryphaena whom S. Paul saluteth Rom. 16.12 a gentile and an Idolatresse altogether profane and a servitour of another God to this effect O God Sonne of the true God grant unto Tryphaena according to thy will that her daughter may live with thee time without end or as Basil Bishop of Seleucia doth expresse it Grant unto thy servant Tryphaena that her desire may be fulfilled concerning her daughter her desire therein being this that her soule may be numbred among the soules of those that have already beleeved in thee and may enjoy the life and pleasure that is in Paradise The third tale he produceth out of Palladius his historicall book written unto Lausus although neither in the Greek set out by Meursius nor in the three severall Latin editions of that historie published before theâ—e bee any such thing to be found touching a dead mans skull that should have uttered this speech unto Macarius the great Aegyptian anchorer When thou dost offer up thy prayers for the dead then doe wee feele some little consâ—lation A brainlesse answer you may well conceive it to be that must be thought to have proceeded from a dry skull lying by the highway side but as brainlâ—sse as it is it hath not a little troubled the quick heads of our Romish Divines and put mâ—ny an odd cratchet into their nimble braines Renatus Laurentius telleth us that without all doubt it was an Angell that did speake in this skull And I say quoth Alphonsus Mendoza that this head which lay in the way was not the head of one that was damned but of a just man remayning in Purgatory for Damascen doth not say in that sermon that iâ— was the head of a Gentile as it may there be seene And true it is indeed he neither saith that it was so neither yet that it was not so but the Grecians generally relate the matter thus that Macarius did heare this from the skull of one that had been a Priest of Idoles which he found lying in the wildernesse that by his prayers such as were with him in punishment received a little ease of their torment whensoever it fell out that he made the same for them and among the Latins Thomas Aquinas and other of the Schoolemen take this for granted because they found in the Lives of the Fathers that the speech which the dead skull used was this I was a Priest of the Gentiles so Iohn the Roman subdeacoâ— translateth it or as Rufinus is supposed to have rendred it I was the chiefe of the Priests of the Idoles which dwelt in this place and thou art abbot Macarius that art filled with the spirit of God At whatsoever houre therefore thou takest pitie of them that are in torments and prayest for them they then feele som consolation Well saith Mendoza then if S. Thomas relating this history out of the Lives of the Fathers doth say that this vvas the head of a Gentile he himselfe is bound to untye this knot And so hee doth resolving the matter thus that the damned get no true ease by the prayers made for them but such a phantasticall kinde of joy only as the Divels are said to have when they have seduced and deceived any man But peradventure saith Cardinall Bellarmine for the upshott the things which are brought touching that skull might better be rejected as false and apocryphall and Stephen Durant more peremptorily The things vvhich are told of Trajan and Falconilla delivered out of hell by the prayers of S Gregory and Thecla and of the dry skull spoken too by Macarius be fayned and commentitious Which last answere though it be the truest of all the rest yet is it not to be doubted for all that but that the generall credite which these fables obtained together with the countenance which the opinion of the Origenists did receive from Didymus Euagrius Gregory Nyssen if he be not corrupted and other Doctors inclined the minds of men verie much to apply the common use of praying for the dead unto this wrong end of hoping to relieve the damned thereby S. Augustine doth shew that in his time not onely some but exceeding many also did out of an humane affection take compassion of the eternall paines of the damned and would not beleeve that they should never have an end And notwithstanding this error was publickly condemned afterwards in the Origenists by the fifth generall Councell held at Constantinople yet by idle and voluptuous persons was it still greedily embraced as Climacus complaineth and even now also saith S. Gregory there be some who therefore neglect to put an end unto their sinnes because they imagine that the judgements which are to come upon them shall sometimes have an end Yea of late dayes this opinion was maintayned by the Porretanians as Thomas calleth them and some of the Canonists the one following therein Gilbert Porreta Bishop of Poictiers in his booke of Theological Questions the other Iohn Semeca in his Glosse upon Gratian that by the prayers and suffrages of the living the paines of some of the damned were continually diminished in such maner as infinite proportionable parts may be taken from a line without ever comming unto an end of the division which was in effect to take from them at the last all paine of sense or sense of paine For as Thomas observeth it rightly and Durand after him in the division of a Line at last we must come unto that which is not sensible considering that a sensible bodie cannot be divided infinitely and so it would folloâ— that after many suffrages that paine remayning should not be sensible and consequently should be no paine at all Neither is it to be forgotten that the invention of All Soules day of which you may reade if you please Polydore Vergil in his sixth booke of the Inventers of things and the ninth chapter that solemne day I say wherein our Romanists most devoutly perform all their superstitious observances for the dead was occasioned at the first by the apprehension of this same erroneous conceit that the soules of the damned might not onely be eased but fully also delivered by the almes prayers of the living The whole narration of the businesse is thus laid down by Sigebertus Gemblacensis in his Chronicâ—e at the yeare of our Lord 998. This time saith he a certaine religious man returning from Ierusalem being intertained for a while in Sicile by the courtesie of a certaine anchoret learned from him among
particular error which seemeth to have gotten head in his time as being most plausible to the multitude and very pleasing unto the looser sort of Christians therein he did well but that thereupon he condemned the generall practise of the Church which had no dependance upon that erroneous conceipt therein he did like unto himselfe headily and perversely For the Church in her Commemorations and prayers for the dead had no relation at all unto those that had ledd their lives lewdly and dissolutely as appeareth plainly both by the author of the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy and by diverse other evidences before alledged but unto those that did end their lives in such a godly maner as gave pregnant hope unto the living that their soules were at rest with God and to such as these alone did it wish the accomplishment of that which remained of their redemption to wit their publick justification and solemne acquitall at the last day and their perfect consummation of blisse both in body and soule in the kingdome of heaven for ever after not that the event of these things was conceived to be anie wayes doubtfull for wee have beene told that things may be prayed for the event whereof is knowne to be most certaine but because the commemoration thereof was thought to serve for speciall use not onely in regard of the manifestation of the affection of the living toward the dead he that prayed as Dionysius noteth desiring other mens gifts as if they were his owne graces but also in respect of the consolation and instruction which the living might receive thereby as Epiphanius in his answer to Aërius doth more particularly declare The obiection of Aërius was this The Commemorations and prayers used in the Church bring no profit to the dead therefore as an unprofitable thing they are to be reiected To this doth Epiphanius thus frame his answer As for the reciting of the names of those that are deceased what can be better then this what more commodious and more admirable that such as are present do beleeve that they who are departed do live and are not extinguished but are still being and living with the Lord and that this most pious preaching might be declared that they who pray for their brethren have hope of them as being in a peregrination Which is as much in effect as if he had denied Aërius his consequence and answered him that although the dead were not profited by this action yet it did not therefore follow that it should be condemned as altogether unprofitable because it had a singular use otherwise namely to testifie the faith and the hope of the living concerning the dead the faith in declaring them to be alive for so doth Dionysius also expound the Churches intention in her publick nomination of the dead and as Divinitie teacheth not mortified but translated from death unto a most divine life the hope in that they signified hereby that they accounted their brethren to have departed from them no otherwise than as if they had beene in a journey with expectation to meet them afterward and by this meanes made a difference betwixt themselves and others which had no hope Then doth Epiphanius proceed further in answering the same objection after this maner The prayer also which is made for them doth profite although it do not cut off all their sinnes yet forasmuch as whilest we are in the world we oftentimes slip both unwillingly and with our will it serveth to signifie that which is more perfect For we make a memoriall both for the just and for sinners for sinners intreating the mercy of God for the just both the Fathers and Patriarches the Prophets and Apostles and Euangelists and Martyrs and Confessors Bishâ—ps also and Anchorites and the whole order that vve may sever our Lord Iesus Christ from the ranke of all other men by the honour that we doe unto him and that we may yeeld worship unto him Which as farre as I apprehend him is no more then if he had thus replyed unto Aërius Although the prayer that is made for the dead doe not cut off all their sinnes which is the onely thing that thou goest about to prove yet doth it profite notwithstanding for another purpose namely to signifie the supereminent perfection of our Saviour Christ above the rest of the sonnes of men who are subiect to manifold slipps and falls as long as they live in this world For aswell the righteous with their involuntarie slipps as sinners with their voluntarie falls doe come within the compasse of these Commemorations wherein prayers are made both for sinners that repent and for righteous persons that have no such need of repentance For sinners that being by their repentance recovered out of the snare of the Divell they may finde mercy of the Lord at the last day and bee freed from the fire prepared for the Divell and his angells For the righteous that they may be recompensed in the resurrection of the iust and received into the kingdome prepared for them from the foundation of the world Which kinde of prayer being made for the best men that ever lived even the Patriarches Prophets Apostles Euangelists and Martyrs themselves Christ onely excepted sheweth that the profite which the Church intended should be reaped therefrom was not the taking away of the sinnes of the parties that were prayed for but the honouring of their Lord above them it being hereby declared that our Lord is not to be compared unto any man though a man live in righteousnesse a thousand times and more for how should that be possible considering that the one is God the other man as the praying to the one and for the other doth discover and the one is in heaven the other in earth by reason of the remaines of the body yet resting in the earth untill the day of the Resurrection unto which all these prayers had speciall reference This do I conceive to be the right meaning of Epiphanius his answer as suting best both with the generall intention of the Church which he taketh upon him to vindicate from the misconstruction of Aërius with the application therof unto his obiection with the known doctrine of Epiphanius delivered by him elsewhere in these terms After death there is no helpe to be gotten eyther by godlinesse or by repentance For Lazarus doth not goe there unto the rich man nor the rich man unto Lazarus neyther doth Abraham send any of his spoyles that the poore may be afterward made rich thereby neyther doth the rich man obtaine that which he asketh although hee intreat mercifull Abraham â—ith instant supplication For the Garners are sealed up and the time is fulfilled and the combat is finished and the lists are voyded and the Garlands are given and such as have fought are at rest and such as have not obtained are gone forth and such as have not fought cannot now be present in time
righteousnes and the blessednesse arising therefrom as well as we and the mediation of our Saviour being of that present efficacie that it tooke away sinne and brought in righteousnesse from the very beginning of the world it had vertue sufficient to free men from the penaltie of losse as well as from the penalty of sense and to bring them unto him in whose presence is fulnesse of joy as to deliver them from the place of torment where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth The first that ever assigned a resting place in Hell to the Fathers of the old Testament was as farre as wee can finde Marcion the heretick who determined that both kinde of rewards whether of torment or of refreshing was appointed in Hell for them that did obey the Law and the Prophets Wherein he was gainsayd by such as wrote against him not only for making that the place of their eternal rest but also for lodging them there at all and imagining that Abrahams bosome was any part of Hell This appeareth plainly by the disputation set out among the workes of Origen betwixt Marcus the Marcionite Adamantius the defender of the Catholicke cause who touching the parabolicall historie of the rich man Lazarus in the sixteenth of S. Luke are brought in reasoning after this maner MARCUS He saith that Aâ—raham is in hell and not in the kingdome of heaven ADAMANTIUS Reade whether he saytâ— that Abraham was in Hell MARC In that the rich man and he talked one to the other it appeareth that they were together ADAMANT That they talked one with another thou hearest but the great gulfe spoken of that thou hearest not For the middle space betwixt heaven and earth he calleth a gulfe MARC Can a man therefore see from earth unto heaven it is impossible Can any man lifting up his eyes behold from the earth or from hell rather see into heaven If not it is plain that a vally only was set betwixt them ADAMANT Bodily eyes use to see those things only that are neere but spirituall eyes reach farre and it is manifest that they who have here put off their body doe see one another with the eyes of their soule For marke how the Gospell doth say that he lifted up his eyes toward heaven one useth to lift them up and not toward the earth In like maner doth Tertullian also retort the same place of Scripture against Marcion and prove that it maketh a plaine difference betweene Hell and the bosome of Abraham For it affirmeth saith he both that a great deepe is interposed betwixt those regions and that it suffereth no passage from eyther side Neyther could the rich man have lifted up his eyes and that afarre off unlesse it had beene unto places above him and very farre above him by reason of the mightie distance betwixt that height and that depth Thus farre Tertullian who though he come short of Adamantius in making Abrahams bosome not to be any part of Heaven although no member at all of Hell yet doth he concurre with him in this that it is a place of blisse and a common receptacle wherein the soules of all the faithfull as well of the new as of the old Testament doe still remaine in expectation of the generall resurrection which quite marteth the Limbus Patrum of our Romanists and the journey which they fancie our Saviour to have taken for the fetching of the Fathers from thence With these two doth S. Augustin also ioyne in his 99. epistle to Euodius concerning whose iudgement herein I will not say the deceitfull but the exceeding partiall dealing of Cardinall Bellarmine can verie hardly be excused Although Augustin saith he in his 99. epistle do seeme to doubt whether the bosome of Abraham where the soules of the Fathers were in times past should be in Hell or somewhere else yet in the 20. booke of the Citie of God the 15. chapter he affirmeth that it was in Hell as all the rest of the Fathers have alwayes taught If S. Augustin in that epistle were of the minde as hee was indeed that Abrahams bosome was no part of Hell he was not the first inventer of that doctrine others taught it before him and opposed Marcion for teaching otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone he went not two there were at least as we have seen that walked along with him in the same way But for that which he is said to have doubted off in one place and to have affirmed in another if the indifferent Reader will be pleased but to view both the places he shall easily discerne that the Cardinall looked not into these things with a single eye In his 99. epistle from that speech of Abraham Betweene you and us there is a great gulfe fixed he maketh this inference In these words it appeareth sufficiently as I thinke that the bosome of so great happinesse is not any part and member of Hell These seem unto the Cardinall to be the words of a doubtfull man with what words then when he is better resolved doth he affirme the matter With these forsooth If it do seem no absurditie to beleeve that the old Saincts which held the faith of Christ to come were in places most remote from the torments of the wicked but yet in Hell untill the blood of Christ and his descent into those places did deliver them truely from henceforth the good and faithfull who are redeemed with that price already shed know not Hell at all If satis ut opinor apparet it appeareth sufficiently as I thinke must import doubting and si non absurdé credi videtur if it doe seeme no absurditie to beleeve affirming I know not I must confesse what to make of mens speeches The truth is S. Augustin in handling this question discovereth himselfe to be neyther of the Iesuits temper nor beleefe He esteemed not this to be such an article of faith that they who agreed not therein must needs be held to be of different religions as he doth modestly propound the reasons which induced him to think that Abrahams bosome was no member of Hell so doth he not lightly reiect the opinion of those that thought otherwise but leaveth it still as a disputable point Whether that bosome of Abraham where the wicked rich man when he was in the torments of Hell did behold the poore man resting were eyther to be accounted by the name of Paradise or esteemed to appertaine unto Hell I cannot readily affirme saith he in one place and in another Whether Abraham were then at any certaine place in Hell we cannot certainly define and in his 12. book de Genesi ad literam I have not hitherto found and I doe yet inquire neyther doe I remember that the canonicall Scripture doth any where put Hell in the good part Now that the bosome of Abraham and that rest unto which the godly poore man was carried by the
of the godly where is the inheritance of the mercifull where is the blisse of the undefiled where is the joy and consolation of such as love the truth Thither will I goe where is light and life where is glory jocundnesse where is joy and exultation whence griefe and heavinesse and groning flie away where they forgett the former tribulations that they sustayned in their body upon the earth Thither will I goe where there is a laying aside of tribulations where there this a recompense of labors where is the bosome of Abraham where the proprietie of Isaac where the familiarity of Israel where be the soules of the Saints vvhere the quire of Angels where the voyces of Archangels where the illumination of the holy Ghost where the kingdome of Christ where the endlesse glory and blessed sight of the eternall God the father What difference I pray you now is there betwixt this Limbus Patrum and Heaven it selfe Of Abrahams bosome Gregory Nyssen writeth after this maner As by a certaine abuse of speech we call a baye of the sea an arme or bosome so it seemeth to me that the word doth signifie the exhibitioÌ„ of those unmeasurable good things by the name of a bosome into which good bosome or baye all men that sayle by a vertuous course through this present life when they loose from hence put in their soules as it were into a haven free from danger of waves and tempests and in another place If one hearing of a bosome as it were a certaine large baye of the sea should conceive the fulnesse of good things to be meant thereby where the Patriarch is named and that Lazarus is therein he should not thinke amisse True it is indeed that diverse of the Doctors who make Abrahams bosome to be a place of glorie do yet distinguish it from Heaven but it is to be considered withall that they hold the same opinion indifferently of the place whereunto the soules of all godly men are received aswell under the state of the New as of the Old Testament For they did not hold as our Romanistes doe now that Christ by his descension emptyed Limbus removed the bosome of Abraham from Hell into Heaven their Limbus is now as full of Fathers as ever it was and is the common receptacle wherein they suppose all good soules to remaine untill the generall resurrection before which time they admit neyther the Fathers nor us unto the possession of the kingdome of Heaven For Abraham saith Gregory Nyssen and the other Patriarches although they had a desire to see those good things and never left seeking that heavenly countrey as the Apostle saith yet are they notwithstanding that even yet in expectancie of this favour God having provided some better thing for us according to the saying of S. Paul that they without us should not be made perfect So Tertullian It appeareth to every wise man that hath ever heard of the Elysian fields that there is some locall determination which is called Abâ—ahams bosome to receive the soules of his sonnes even of the Gentiles he being the Father of many nations that were to bee accounted of Abrahams family and of the same faith wherewith Abraham beleeved God under no yoke of the law nor in tâ—e signe of Circumcision That region tâ—erefore doe I call the bosome of Abraham although not heavenly yet higher than hell which shall give rest in the meane season to the soules of the righteous untill the consummation of thinâ—s doe finish the resurrection of all with the fulnesse of reward And we have heard S. Hilary say before that all the faithfull when they are gone out of the body shall be reserved by the Lords custody for that entrie into the heavenly kingdome being in the meane time placed in the bosome of Abraham whither the wicked are hindred from comming by the gulfe interposed betwixt them untill the time of entring into the kingdome of heaven doe come and againe The rich and the poore man in the Gospell do serve us for witnesses one of whom the Angels did place in the seates of the Blessed and in Abrahams bosome the other the region of punishment did presently receive For the day of judgement is the everlasting retribution eyther of blisse or paine but the time of death hath every one under his lawes while eyther Abraham or punishment reserveth every one unto judgement The difference betwixt the Doctors in their iudgement concerning the bosome of Abraham and the resting of the ancient Fathers therein wee finde noted in part in those expositions upon the Gospell which goe under the name of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch and Eucherius Bishop of Lyons In that the rich man say they did in Hell behold Abraham this by some is thought to be the reason because all the Saints before the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ are said to have descended into Hell although into a place of refreshment Others thinke that the place wherein Abraham was did lye apart from those places of Hell situated in places above for which the Lord should say of that rich man that lifting up his eyes when he was in torments he saw Abraham a far off The former of these opinions is delivered by some of the Doctors doubtfully by others more resolutely Primasius setteth it downe with S. Augustins qualification It sâ—emâ—th that without absurditie it may be beleeved The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew saith that peradventure the just did ascend into heaveâ— before the comming of Christ yet that he doth thinke â—hat no soule before Christ did ascend into heaven since Adam sinned and the heavens were shut against him but all were detayned in Hell and as I doe thinke saith the Greeke expositor of Zacharies Hymne likewise even our fathers Abraham Isaac and Iacob and the whole queere of the holy Prophets and just men did enjoy the comming of Christ. Of which comming to visite the Fathers in Hell S. Hierome Ruffinus Venantius Fortunatus Gregory Iulianus Toletanus and Eusebius Emissenus as he is commonly called interpret that question propounded by the Baptist unto our Saviour Art thou he that should come or looke we for another which exposition is by S. Chrysostome iustly reiected as utterly impertinent and ridiculous Anastasius Sinaita affirmeth very boldly that all the soules aswell of the just as the unjust were under the hand of the Divell untill Christ descending into Hell said unto those that vvere in bonds Come forth and to those that were indurance Be at libertie For he did not only saith he in another place dissolve the corruption of the bodies in the grave but also delivered the captive soules out of Hell vvherein they were by tyrannie detained and peradventure not by tyrannie neyther but for many debts which being payed he that descended for their deliverie brought backe with him a great
torments which by Arator is thus more amply expressed in verse pavidis resplenduit umbris Pallida regna petens propriâ quem luce corruscum Non potuit fuscare chaeos fugere dolores Infernus tunc esse timet nullumque coërcens In se poena redit nova tortor ad otia languet Tartara moesta gemunt quia vincula cuncta quiescunt Mors ibi quid faceret quò vitae portitor ibat S. Augustine doth thus deliver his opinion touching this matter That Christs soule came unto those places wherein sinners are punished that hee might loose them from torments whom by his hidden justice he judged fit to be loosed is not without cause beleeved Neyther did our Saviour being dead for us scorne to visite those parts that hee might loose from thence such as hee could not bee ignorant according to his divine and secret justice were not to bee loosed But whether hee loosed all that hee found in those paines or some whom hee thought worthy of that benefit I yet enquire For that he was in hell and bestowed this benefit upon some that did lye in the paines thereof I doe not doubt Thus did S. Augustine write unto Euodias who inquired of him whether our Saviour loosed all from thence and emptied Hell which was in those dayes a great question and gave occasion to that speech of Gregory Nazianzen If hee descend into Hell goe thou downe with him namely in contemplation and meditation learne the mysteries of Christs doings there what the dispensation and what the reason was of his double descent to wit from heaven unto earth from earth unto hell whether at his appearing he simply saved all or there also such only as did beleeve What ClemeÌ„s Alexandrinus his opinion was herein every one knoweth that our Lord descended for no other cause into Hell but to preach the Gospell and that such as lived a good life before the time of the Gospell whether Iewes or Grecians although they were in hell and in durance yet hearing the voyce of our Lord eyther from himselfe immediatly or by the working of his Apostles were presently converted and did beleeve in a word that in Hell things were so ordred that eveÌ„ there all the soules having heard this preaching might eyther shew their repentance or acknowledge their punishment to be just because they did not beleeve Hereupon when Celsus the Philosopher made this objection concerning our Saviour Surely you will not say of him that when hee could not perswade those that were heere hee went unto Hell to perswade those that were there Origen the scholler of Clemens sticketh not to returne unto him this answere Whether he will or no wee say this that both being in the bodie hee did perswade not a few but so many that for the multitude of those that were perswaded by him he was layd in wayt for and after his soule was separated from his body hee had conference with soules separated from their bodies converting of them unto himselfe such as would or such as he discerned to bee more fit for reasons best knowne unto himselfe The like effect of Christs preaching in Hell is delivered by Anastasius Sinaita Iobius or Iovius Damascen Oecumenius Michael Glycas and his transcriber Theodorus Metochites Procopius saith that hee preached to the spirits that were in Hell restrayned in the prison house releasing them all from the bonds of necessity wherein he followeth S. Cyrill of Alexandria writing upon the same place that Christ went to preach to the spirits in Hell and appeared to them that were detayned in the prison house and freed them all fâ—om bonds and necessitie and paine and punishment The same S. Cyrill in his Paschall homilies affirmeth more directly that our Saviour entring into the lowermost dennes of Hell and preaching to the spirits that were there emptied that unsatiable denne of death spoyled Hell of spirits and having thus spoyled all Hell left the Divell there solitarie and alone For when Christ descended into Hell sayth Andronicus not onely the soules of the Saints were delivered from thence but all those that before did serve in the error of the Divell and the worship of idols being enriched with the knowledge of God obtayned salvation for which also they gave thankes praysing God Whereupon the author of one of the sermons upon the Ascension fathered upon S. Chrysostom bringeth in the Divell complayning that the sonne of Mary having taken away from him all those that were with him from the verie beginning had left him desolate whereas the true Chrysostom doth at large confute this fond opinion censuring the maintayners thereof as the bringers in of old wives conceytes and Iewish fables Yea Philastrius S. Augustin out of him doth brand such for hereticks whose testimonie also is urged by S. Gregory against George and Theodore two of the clergie of Constantinople who held in his time as many others did before and after them that our omnipotent Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ descending into Hell did save all those vvho there confessed him to be God and did deliver them from the paines that were due unto them and when Clement our countryman about 150. years after did renue that old error in Germanie that the sonne of God descending into Hell delivered from thence all such as that infernall prison did detayne beleevers and unbeleevers praysers of God and worshippers of idols the Romane Synod held by Pope Zacharie condemned him and his followers for it But to leave Clemens Scotus and to returne unto Clemens Alexandrinus at whom Philastrius may seeme to have aymed specially it is confessed by our Adversaries that he fell into this error partly being deceived with the superficiall consideration of the wordes of S. Petâ—r touching Christs preaching to the spirits in prison 1. Pet. 3.19 partly being deluded with the authority of Hermes the supposed scholler of S. Paul by whose dreames he was perswaded to beleeve that not onely Christ himselfe but his Apostles also did descend into Hell to preach there unto the dead to baptize them But touching the wordes of S. Peter is the maine doubt whether they are to bee referred unto Christs preaching by the ministerie of Noë unto the world of the ungodly or unto his owne immediate preaching to the spirits in Hell after his death upon the Crosse. For seeing it was the spirit of Christ which spake in the Prophets as S. Peter sheweth in this same Epistle and among them was Noë a preacher of righteousnesse as hee declareth in the next even as in S. Paul Christ is sayd to have come and preached to the Ephesians namely by his spirit in the mouth of his Apostles so likewise in S. Peter may he be sayd to have gone and preached to the old world by
he brought unto those just men that were in the bosome of Abraham when he did descend into Hell I have not yet found Thus farre S. Augustin For the better understanding of this wee are to call unto minde that saying of the Philosophers that they who do not learne rightly to understand words use to be deceived in the things themselves It wil not be amisse therefore to consider somewhat of the name of Hell that the nature of the word being rightly understood wee may the better conceive the truth of the thing that is signified thereby Wee are to know then first of our English word Hell that the originall thereof is by diverse men delivered diversly Some derive it from the Hebrew word Sheol eyther subtracting the first letter or including it in the aspiration For this letter S saith Priscian hath such an affinitie with the aspiration that the Boeotians in some words were wont to write H for S saying Muha for Musa Others bring it from the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a lake others from the English hole as signifying a pit-hole others from hale as noting the place that haleth or draweth men unto it Some say that in the old Saxon or German Hel signifieth deepe whether it bee high or low But the derivation given by Verstegan is the most probable from being helled over that is to say hidden or covered For in the old German tongue from whence our English was extracted Hil signifieth to hide and Hiluh in Otfridus Wissenburgensis is hidden And in this countrey with them that retayne the ancient language which their forefathers brought with them out of England to hell the head is as much as to cover the head and hee that covereth the house with tile or slate is from thence commonly called a hellier So that in the originall propriety of the word our Hell doth exactly answere the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denoteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place which is unseene or removed from the sight of man Wee are in the second place therefore to observe that the tearme of Hell beside the vulgar acception wherein it signifieth that which Luke 16.28 is called the place of torment is in the Ecclesiasticall use of the word extended more largely to expresse the Greeke word Hádes and the Latin Inferi whatsoever is contayned under them Concerning which S. Augustine giveth this note The name of Hell is variously put in Scriptures and in many meanings according as the sense of the things which are entreated of doth require and Master Casaubon who understood the propertie of Greeke and Latin wordes as well as any this other They who thinke that HADES is properly the seate of the damned be no lesse deceaved then they who when they read INFEROS in Latin writers doe interpret it of the same place The lesse cause have wee to wonder that Hell in the Scripture should bee made the place of all the dead in common and not of the wicked onely as in Psalm 89.47 48. Remember how short my time is wherefore hast thou made all men in vaine What man is hee that liveth and shall not see death shall hee deliver his soule from the hand of HELL and Esai 38.18 19. HELL cannot prayse thee death cannot celebrate thee they that goe downe into the pit cannot hope for thy truth The LIVING the LIVING hee shall prayse thee as I doe this day Where the opposition betwixt Hell and the state of life in this world is to be observed Now as the common condition of the dead is considerable three maner of wayes eyther in respect of the body separated from the soule or of the soule separated from the bodie or of the whole man indefinitely considered in this state of separation so do we finde the word Hádes which by the Latins is rendred Infernus or Inferi and by the English Hell to be applied by the ancient Greek interpreters of the old Testament to the common state and place of the bodie severed from the soule by the heathen Greekes to the common state and place of the soule severed from the bodie and by both of them to the common state of the dead and the place proportionably correspondent to that state of dissolution And so the Doctors of the Church speaking in the same language which they learned both from the sacred and the forraine writers are accordingly found to take the word in these three severall significations Touching the first we are to note that both the Septuagint in the Old Testament and the Apostles in the New doe use the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HADES and answerably thereunto the Latin Interpreters the word Infernus or Inferi and the English the word Hell for that which in the Hebrew text is named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SHEÓL on the other side where in the New Testament the word HADES is used there the ancient Syriack translator doth put 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shejul in steed thereof Now the Hebrew Sheol and so the Chaldy Syriack and Aethiopian words which draw their originall from thence doth properly denote the interior parts of the earth that lye hidden from our sight namely whatsoever tendeth downeward from the surface of the earth unto the center thereof In which respect we see that the Scripture describeth Sheol to be a deepe place and opposeth the depth thereof unto the heighth of Heaven Iob. 11.8 Psalm 139.8 Amos 9.2 Againe because the bodies that live upon the surface of the earth are corrupted within the bowells thereof the dust returning to the earth as it was therefore is this word commonly put for the state and the place wherein dead bodies do rest and are disposed for corruption And in this respect wee finde that the Scripture doth oppose Sheol not only unto Heaven but also unto this land of the living wherein we now breathe Esai 38.10 11. Ezech. 32.27 the surface of the earth being the place appointed for the habitation of the living the other parts ordayned to be the chambers of death Thus they that are in the graves Ioh. 5.28 are said to sleepe in the dust of the earth Dan. 12.2 The Psalmist in his prophesie of our Saviours humiliation tearmeth it the dust of death Psal. 22.15 which the Chaldee Paraphrast expoundeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave interpreting Sheol after the selfe same maner in Psa. 31.18 89.49 R. Mardochai Nathan in his Hebrew Concordance giveth no other interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sheol but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the grave R. Abraham Aben-Ezra in his commentary upon those words Genes 37.35 I will goe downe into Sheól unto my sonne mourning writeth thus Here the Translator of the erring persons he meaneth the Vulgar Latin translation used by the Christians erreth in translating Sheól Hell or Gehenna for behold the signification of the word
raised up upon which place Origen writeth thus In this place and in many others likewise the graves of the dead are to be understood according to the more certaine meaning of the Scripture not such onely as wee see are builded for the receiving of mens bodies eyther cut out in stones or digged downe in the earth but every place wherein a mans bodie lyeth eyther entire or in any part albeit it fell out that one body should be dispersed through many places it being no absurditie at all that all those places in which any part of the body lyeth should bee called the sepulchres of that bodie For if wee do not thus understand the dead to bee raysed by the power of God out of their graves they which are not committed to buriall nor layd in graves but have ended their life either in shipwrackes or in some desart places so as they could not be committed to buriall should not seeme to bee recokoned among them who are said should bee raysed up out of their graves which would bee a very great absurditie Thus Origen Now you shall heare if you please what our Romish Doctors doe deliver touching this point There be two opinions saith Pererius upon Genes 37.35 concerning this question The one of the Hebrewes and of many of the Christians in this our age but especially of the Heretickes affirming that the word Sheol signifieth nothing else in the Scripture but the pit or the grave and from thence reasoning falsly that our Lord did not descend into Hell The other opinion is of undoubted and certaine truth that the Hebrew word Sheol and the Latin Infernus answering to it both in this place of Scripture and elsewhere oftentimes doth signifie not the pit or the grave but the place of Hell and the places under the earth wherein the soules are after death Wheresoever Hiâ—rome saith Augustinus Steuchus upon the same place and the Sâ—ptuagint have translated Hell it is in the Hebrewe Sheol that is the pit or the grave For it doth not signifie that place wherein Antiquitie hath thought that the soules of the wicked are received The Hebrew word properly signifieth the grave saith Iansenius upon Proverb 15.12 the Grave properly and Hell onely metaphorically saith Arias Montanus in his answere unto Leo á Castro and in the old Testament the name of Hell doth alwayes almost import the Grave saith Alphonsus Mendoza The Iesuite Pineda commendeth one Cyprian a Cistercian monke as a man famous for learning and pietie yet holdeth him worthie to be censured for affirming that Sheol or Hell is in all the old Testament taken for the Grave Another croaking monke Crocquet they call him crieth out on the other side that we shall never be able to prove by the producing of as much as one place of Scripture that Sheol doth signifie the Grave Cardinall Bellarmine is a little and but a verie little more modest heerein The Hebrewe Sheol hee saith is ordinarily taken for the place of soules under the earth and eyther rarely or never for the grave but the Greeke word Hades alwayes signifieth Hell never the grave But Stapleton will stand to it stoutly that neyther Hades nor Sheol is in the Scriptures ever taken for the grave but alwayes for Hell The word Infernus Hades Sheol saith hee is never taken for the grave The grave is called in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hebrewe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore all the Paraphrastes of the Hebrewes also doe expound that word Sheol by the word Gehenna as Genebrard doth shew at large in his third Booke of the Trinity Where yet hee might have learned some more moderation from Genebrard himselfe unto whom hee referreth us who thus layeth downe his judgement of the matter in the place by him alledged As they be in an error who contend that Sheol doth never designe the grave so have they a shamelesse forehead who denie that it doth any where signifie the region of the damned or Gehenna It is an error therefore in Stapleton by his owne authors confession to maintayne that Sheol is never taken for the grave and in so doing hee doth but bewray his old wrangling disposition But least any other should take the shamelesse forehead from him hee faceth it downe that all the paraphrastes of the Hebrewes do interpret Sheol by the word Gehenna Whereas it is well knowne that the two Paraphrastes that are of greatest antiquitie and credit with the Hebrewes Onkelos the interpreter of Moses and Ionathan ben Vzziel of the Prophets never translate it so Beside that of Onkelos wee have two other Chaldee Paraphrases which expound the harder places of Moses the one called the Targum of Ierusalem the other attributed unto Ionathan in neyther of of these can wee finde that Sheol is expounded by Gehenna but in the latter of them we see it twise expounded by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave In the Arabicke interpretations of Moses where the translator out of the Greek hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 al-gehim Hell there the translator out of the Hebrew putteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 al-tharai which signifieth earth or clay Iacobus Tawosius in his Persian translation of the Pentateuch for Sheol doth alwaies put Gor that is the grave The Chaldee Paraphrase upon the Proverbs keepeth still the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deflected a little from the Hebrew the Paraphrast upon Iob useth that word thrise but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie the grave in steed thereof five severall times In Ecclesiastes the word commeth but once there the Chaldee Paraphrast rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the house of the grave R. Ioseph Coecus doth the like in his paraphrase upon Psalm 31.17 and 89.48 In Psalm 141.7 he rendreth it by the simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grave but in the 15. and 16. verses of the 49. Psalme by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gehenna And only there and in Cantic 8.6 is Sheol in the Chaldee paraphrases expounded by Gehenna whereby if we shall understand the place not of dead bodies as in that place of the Psalme the Paraphrast maketh expresse mention of the bodies waxing old or consuming in Gehenna but of tormented soules as the Rabbines more commonly doe take it yet doe our Romanists get little advantage thereby who would faine have the Sheól into which our Saviour went be conceived to have beene a place of rest and not of torment the bosome of Abraham and not Gehenna the seat of the damned As for the Greek word Hádes it is used by Hippocrates to expresse the first matter of things from which they have their beginning and into which afterwards being dissolved they make their ending For having said that in nature nothing properly may be held to be newly made or to perish he addeth this
But men do thinke that what doth grow from Hades into light is newly made and what is diminished from the light into Hades is perished by light understanding nothing else but the visible structure and existence of things and by Hádes that invisible and insensible thing which other Philosophers commonly call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chalcidius the Platonick translateth Sylvam the Aristotelians more fitly Materiam primam whence also it is supposed by Master Casaubon that those passages were borrowed which we meet withall in the bookes that beare the name of Hermes Trismegistus In the dissolution of a materiall bodie the body it selfe is brought to alteration and the forme which it had is made invisible and so there is a privation of the sense made not a destruction of the bodies I say then that the world is changed in as much as every day a part thereof is made invisible but never utterly dissolved wherewith wee may compare likewise that place of Plutarch in his booke of living privately Generation doth not make any of the things that be but manifesteth them neyther is corruption a translation of a thing from being to not being but rather a bringing of the thing that is dissolved unto that vvhich is unseene Whereupon men according to the ancient traditions of their fathers thinking the sunne to be Apollo called him Delius and Pythius namely from manifesting of things and the ruler of the contrary destinie whether he be a God or an Angel they named Hádes by reason that we when we are dissolved doe goe unto an unseene and invisible place By the Latins this Hádes is termed Dispiter or Diespiter which name they gave unto this lower ayre that is joyned to the earth vvhere all things have their beginning and ending quorum quòd finis ortus Orcus dictus saith Varro All this earthly power and nature saith Iulius Firmicus they named Ditem patrem because this is the nature of the earth that all things doe both fall into it and taking their originall from thence doe againe proceed out of it Whence the Earth is brought in using this speech unto God in Hermes I do receive the nature of all things For I according as thou hast commanded doe both beare all things and receive such as are deprived of life The use which we make of the testimony of Hippocrates those other authorities of the heathen is to shew that the Greek Interpreters of the old TestameÌ„t did most aptly assume the word Hádes to expresse that coÌ„mon state place of corruption which was signified by the Hebrew Sheol therfore in the last verse of the 17. of Iob where the Greeke maketh mention of descending into Hádes Comitolus the Iesuite noteth that S. Ambrose rendreth it in sepulchrum into the grave which agreeth well with the paraphrase that the Greeke Scholiasts make upon that place Is it not a thing common unto all mortall men to die is not Hell or Hádes the house of all doe not all finde there an end of their labours Yea some doe thinke that Homer himselfe doth take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either for the earth or the grave in those verses of the eighth of his Iliads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'le cast him downe as deepe As Tartarus the brood of night where Barathrum doth sleepe Torment in his profoundest sinks where is the floore of brasse And gates of iron the place for depth as far doth Hell surpasse As heaven for height exceeds the earth For Tartarus being coÌ„monly acknowledged to be a part of Hádes and to be the very Hell where the wicked spirits are tormented they thinke the Hell from whence Homer maketh it to be as farre distant as the heaven is from the earth can be referred to nothing so fitly as to the Earth or the Grave It is taken also for a tombe in that place of Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Other sacred Kings have gotten a tombe apart by themselves before the houses or before the gates of the Citie And therefore we see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Suidas in his Lexicon expressely interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tombe or a grave and in the Greeke Dictionary set out by the Romanists themselves for the better understanding of the Bible it is noted that Hádes doth not onely signifie that which we commonly call Hell but the sepulchre or grave also Of which because Stapleton and Bellarmine doe denie that any proofe can be brought these instances following may be considered In the booke of Tobi chap. 3.10 I shall bring my fathers old age with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Hell what can it import else but that which is in other wordes expressed chap. 6.14 I shall bring my fathers life with sorrow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the grave In the 93. and 113. Psalm according to the Greeke division or the 94. and 115. according to the Hebrew where the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of silence meaning the grave as our adversaries themselves do grant there the Greeke hath Hades or Hell In Esai 14.19 where the vulgar â—atin translateth out of the Hebrew Descenderunt ad fundamenta laci quasi cadaver putridum They descended unto the foundations of the lake or pit as a rotten carkeis in steed of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth the lake or pit the Greeke both there and in Esai 38.18 putteth in Hades or Hell and on the other side Ezech. 32.21 where the Hebrew saith The strong among the mightie shall speake to him out of the middest of Sheol or Hell there the Greeke readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the depth of the lake or pit by Hell lake and pit nothing but the grave being understood as appeareth by comparing this verse with the five that come after it So in these places following where in the Hebrew is Sheol in the Greeke Hades in the Latin Infernus or Inferi in the English Hell the place of dead bodies not of soules is to be understood Gen. 44.31 We shall bring downe the gray haires of our father with sorrow unto Hell where no lower Hell can be conceited into which gray haires may be brought then the Grave So 1. King 2.6 David giveth this charge unto Salomon concerning Ioab Let not his hoare head goe downe to Hell in peace and in the ninth verse concerning Shimei His hoare head bring thou downe to Hell with bloud Psalm 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Hell Esai 14.11 Thy pompe is brought downe to Hell the worme is spread under thee and the wormes cover thee Psal. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee
in Hell who shall give thee thankes of which there can bee no better paraphrase then that which is given in Psalm 88.11 12. Shall thy loving kindnesse bee declared in the grave or thy faithfulnesse in destruction Shall thy wonders bee knowne in the darke and thy righteousnesse in the land of forgetfulnesse Andradius in his defence of the faith of the Councell of Trent speaking of the difference of reading which is found in the sermon of S. Peter Act. 2.24 where God is sayd to have raysed up our Saviour loosing the sorrowes of death as the Greeke bookes commonly reade or the sorrowes of Hell as the Latin saith for reconciliation thereof that there will be no disagreement betwixt the Latin and Greeke copies if we do marke that Hell in this place is used for Death and the Grave according to the Hebrews maner of speaking as in the 15 th Psalme which Peter presently after citeth Because thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell and Esai 38. For Hell cannot confesse unto thee For when he disputeth saith hee of the resurrection of Christ he confirmeth by many and most evident testimonies of David that Christ did suffer death for mankinde in such sort that he could not be overwhelmed with death nor long lye hidden among the dead And it seemeth to me that by the sorrowes of Hell or Death a death full of sorrow and miseries is signified according to the Hebrewes maner of speaking as in Matthew 24. the abomination of desolation is taken for an abominable desolation Thus farre Andradius clearely forsaking herein his fellow-defenders of the Tridentine faith who by the one text of loosing the sorrowes of death would faine prove Christs descending to free the soules that were tormented in Purgatory and by the other of not leaving his soule in Hell his descending into Limbus to deliver the soules of the fathers that were at rest in Abrahams bosome The former of these texts Act. 2.24 is thus expounded by Ribera the Iesuite God raysed him up loosing and making voyde the sorrowes of death that is to say that which death by so many sorrowes had effected namely that the soule should bee separated from the bodie His fellow Sà interpreteth the loosing of the sorrowes of death to be the delivering of him from the troubles of death although sorrow saith hee may be the epithet of death because it useth to bee joyned with death The Apostles speech hath manifest reference to the wordes of David 2. Sam. 22.5 6. and Psalm 18. al. 17. 4 5. where in the former verse mention is made of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of death in the latter of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by the Septuagint is in the place of the Psalmes translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of Hell in 2. Sam 22.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrowes of Death according to the explication following in the end of the selfe same verse The sorrowes of Hell compassed me about the snares of Death prevented me and in Psalm 116.3 The sorrowes of Death compassed me the paines of Hell found me or gate hold upon me where Lyranus hath this note In the Hebrew for Hell is put Sheol which doth not signifie onely Hell but signifieth also the pit or the grave and so it is taken heere by reason it followeth upon Death The like explicatorie repetition is noted also by the interpreters to have beene used by the Prophet in that other text alledged out of Psalm 16.10 as in Psalm 30. al. 29. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast brought up my soule from Hell thou hast kept me safe or alive from those that goe downe to the pit and Iob. 33.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His soule drew neere unto death and his life unto Hell whence that in the prayer of Iesus the sonne of Sirach is taken Ecclesiastic 51. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soule drew neere unto death my life was neere to Hell beneath And therefore for Hell doth Pagnin in his translation of the sixteenth Psalme put the Grave being therein also followed in the Interlineary Bible approved by the Censure of the Universitie of Lovaine in the notes upon the same that goe under the name of Vatablus the word Soule is by comparing of this with Levitic 21.1 expounded to be the Bodie So doth Arias Montanus directly interpret this text of the Psalme Thou shalt not leave my soule in the grave that is to say my body and Isidorus Clarius in his annotations upon the second of the Acts saith that My soule in hell in that place is according to the maner of speech used by the Hebrewes put for My bodie in the grave or tombe least any man should thinke that Master Beza was the first deviser or principall author of this interpretation Yet him alone doth Cardinall Bellarmine single out here to try his manhood upon but doth so miserably acquite himselfe in the encounter that it may well bee doubted whether he laboured therein more to crosse Beza then to strive with himselfe in the wilfull suppressing of the light of his owne knowledge For whereas Beza in his notes upon Act. 2.27 had shewed out of the 1. and 11. verses of the 21. Chapter of Leviticus and other places of Scripture that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which wee translate Soule is put for a dead bodie the Cardinall to rid himselfe handsomely of this which pinched him very shrewdly telleth us in sober sadnesse that there is a very great difference betwixt the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he is a most generall word and signifieth without any trope as well the soule as the living creature it selfe yea and the body it selfe also as by very many places of Scripture it doth appeare And therefore in Leviticus where that name is given unto dead bodies one part is not put for another to wit the soule for the body but a word which doth usually signifie the bodie it selfe or the whole at leastwise is put for the part namely the living creature for the body thereof But in the second of the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put which signifieth the soule alone Now did not the Cardinall know thinke you in his own conscience that as in the second of the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put where the originall text of the Psalme there alledged hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so on the other side in those places of Leviticus which he would faine make to be so different from this where the originall text readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there the Greeke also putteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doe we not there reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Levit. 21.1 and in the 11. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall not goe in to any dead soule that is to anie dead bodie The
Cardinall himselfe bringeth in Num. 23.10 31.35 Gen. 37.21 and Num. 19.13 to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie eyther the whole man or his verie bodie and must not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greek Bible useth in all those places of necessitie also be expounded after the same maner Take for example that last place which is most pertinent to the purpose Numb 19.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the vulgar Latin rendreth Omnis qui tetigerit humanae animae morticinum and compare it with the 11. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hee that toucheth any soule of a dead man that is as the vulgar Latin rightly expoundeth the meaning of it Qui tetigerit cadaver hominis He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be uncleane seven dayes and wee shall need no other proofe that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put for the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the dead body of a man even as the Latin Anima also doth in that place of the heathen Poët animamque sepulchro Condimus We buried his soule in the grave The argument therefore drawne from the nature of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth no way hinder that in Act 2.27 Thou wilt not leave my soule should be interpreted eyther Thou wilt not leave me as in the 31. verse following where the Greek text saith that his soule was not left the old Latin hath He was not left or Thou wilt not leave my body as the Interpreters writing upon that place Genes 46.26 All the soules that came with Iacob into Egypt which came out of his loynes do generally expound it eyther by a Synecdoche whereby the one part of the man is put for the whole person as we may see in the commentaries upon Genesis attributed to Eucherius lib. 3. cap. 31. Alcuinus in Genes interrog 269. Anselmus Laudunensis in the interlineary Glosse Lyranus and others or by a Metonymie whereby that which is contayned is put for that which doth containe it for illustration whereof S. Augustine very aptly bringeth in this example As we give the name of a Church unto the materiall building wherein the people are contayned unto whom the name of the Church doth properly appertaine by the name of the Church that is of of the people vvhich are contained signifying the place which doth contayne them so because the soules are contayned in the bodies by the soules here named the bodies of the sonnes of Iacob may be understood For so may that also be taken where the Law saith that he is defiled who shall goe in to a dead soule Levit. 21.11 that is to the carkase of a dead man that by the name of a dead soule the dead body may be understood which did containe the soule even as vvhen the people are absent vvhich be the Church yet the place neverthelesse is still tearmed the Church Yea but the word Hades saith Bellarmine as vvee have shewed doth alwayes signifie Hell and never the Grave But the boâ—y of Christ was not in Hell therefore his soule was there If he had said that the word Hades did either rarely or never signifie the Grave although he had not therein spoken truely yet it might have argued a little more modestie in him and that he had taken some care also that his latter conceits should hold some better correspondencie with his former For he mâ—ght have remembred how in the place unto which hee doth referre us he had said that the LXXII Seniors did every where in their translation put Hades in stead of Sheol which as he theâ—e hath told us is ordinarily taken for the place of soules under the earth and eyther rarely or never for the grave But wee have shewed not only out of those Dictionaries unto which the Cardinall doth referre us having forgotten first to looke into them himselfe but by allegation of diverse particular instances likewise unto none of which he hath made any answere that Hades in the translation of tâ—e LXXII Seniors is not rarely but verie usuâ—lly taken for the place of dead bodies So for the use of the word Infernus in the Latin translation Lyranus noteth that it is taken in the Scripture not for the place of the damned only but also for the pit wherein dead â—ens carkases were layd And among the Iesuites Gaspar Sanctius yeeldeth for the generall that Infernus or Hell is frequently in the Scripture taken for buriall and in particular Emmanuel Sà confesseth it to be so taken in Gen. 42.38 1. Sam. 2.6 Iob. 7.9 and 21.13 Psalm 29.4 and 87.4 and 93.17 and 113.17 and 114.3 and 140.7 according to the Greek division Prov. 1.12 and 23.14 Ecclesiast 9.10 Cantic 8.6 Ecclesiastic 51.7 Esai 28.15 and 38.10 Baruch 2.17 Dan. 3.88 in the Hymne of the three children and 2. Maccab. 6.23 in all which places Hádes being used in the Greek and Inferi or Infernus in the Latin it is acknowledged by the Iesuite that the Grave is meant which by Bede also is termed Infernus exterior the exterior Hell So Alcuinus moving the question how that speech of Iacob should be understood Genes 37.35 I will goe downe to my sonne mourning into Hell maketh answer that these be the words of a troubled and grieving man amplifying his evills even from hence Or else saith hee by the name of Hell he signified the Grave as if he should have said I remaine in sorrow untill the earth doe receive me as the grave hath done him So Primasius expounding the place Hebr. 13.20 God the father saith hee brought his sonne from the dead that is to say from Hell or from the Grave according to that which the Psalmiste had foretolde Thou wilt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption And Maximus Taurinensis saith that Mary Magdalene received a reproofe because after the resurrection she sought our Lord in the grave and not remembring his words whereby hee had said that the third day he would returne from hell shee thought him still to be detayned by the lawes of hell And therefore saith he while shee did seeke the Lord in the grave among the rest of the dead shee is reprehended and it is said umto her Why seekest thou him that liveth among the dead that is to say Why seekest thou him among them that are in the infernall parts who is now knowne to have returned unto the supernall For he that seeketh for him eyther in the infernall places or in the graves to him it is sayd Why seekest thou him that liveth among the dead and to the same purpose he applieth those other wordes of our Saviour unto Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto my Father as if hee had sayd Why dost thou desire to touch me who while thou seekest me among the graves dost not as yet beleeve that I am ascended
fit time and he who granted unto him that his flesh should not see corruption will grant also unto us that our flesh shall not see corruption but that in fit time it shall bee freed from corruption Neyther is it any whit strange unto them that are conversant in the writings of the ancient Doctors to heare that our Saviour by his buriall descended into Hell spoyled Hell and brought away both his owne body and the bodies of the Saints from Hell Wee finde the question moved by Gregory Nyssen in his sermon upon the Resurrection of Christ how our Lord did dispose himselfe at the same time three maner of wayes both in the heart of the earth Matth. 12.40 and in Paradise with the thiefe Luk. 23.43 and in the hands of his Father Luk. 23.46 For neither will any man say quoth he that Paradise is in the places under the earth or the places under the earth in Paradise that at the same time he might be in both or that those infernall places are called the hand of the Father Now for the last of these hee saith the case is plaine that being in Paradise he must needs be in his Fathers hands also but the greatest doubt hee maketh to be how he should at the same time be both in Hades and in Paradise for with him the heart of the earth the places under the earth and Hades or Hell are in this question one and the same thing And his finall resolution is that in this Hell Christ remained with his dead body when with his soule hee brought the thiefe into the possession of Paradise For by his body saith he wherein he sustayned not the corruption that followeth upon death hee destroyed him that had the power of death but by his soule he ledd the thiefe into the entrance of Paradise And these two did worke at the selfe same time the Godhead accomplishing the good by them both namely by the incorruption of the body the dissolution of death and by the placing of the soule in his proper seat the bringing backe of men unto Paradise againe The like sentence doe wee meet withall in the same Fathers epistle unto Eustathia Ambrosia and Basilissa His body he caused by dispensation to be separated from his soule but the indivisible deitie being once knit with that subject was neyther dis-joyned from the body nor the soule but was with the soule in Paradise making way by the thiefe for an entrance unto mankinde thither and with the body in the heart of the earth destroying him that had the power of death Wherewith wee may compare that place which we meet withall in the workes of S. Gregory Bishop of Neocaesarea wherein our Saviour is brought in speaking after this maner I must descend into the very bottome of Hell for the dead that are detay-there I must by the three dayes death of my flesh overthrow the power of long continuing death I must light the lamp of my BODY unto them vvhich sit in darkenesse and in the shadow of death and that of S. Chrysostom who is accounted also to be the author of that other sermon attributed unto S. Gregory How vvere the brasen gates broken and the iron barres burst By his BODY For then appeared first a body immortall and dissolving the tyrannie of death it selfe whereby was shewed that the force of death was taken away not that the sinnes of those who dyed before his comming were dissolved and that which we reade in another place of his workes He spoyled Hell descending into Hell hee made it bitter when it tasted of his flesh Which Esay understanding before hand cryed out saying Hell was made bitter meeting thee below so the Septuagint render the words Esai 14.19 It was made bitter for it was destroyed It was made bitter for it was mocked It received a BODY and light upon God it received Earth and met with Heaven it received that vvhich it saw and fell from that which it did not see Thus Caesarius expounding the parable Luk. 13.21 wherein the kingdome of God is likened unto leaven vvhich a woman tooke and hid in three pecks of floure till all was leavened saith that the three pecks of floure are first the whole nature of mankind then death and lastly Hell wherein the divine BODY being hidden by BURIALL did leaven all unto resurrection and life Whereupon he bringeth in our Saviour in another place speaking thus I will therefore be buried for their sakes that be in Hell I will therefore as it were a stone strike the gates thereof bringing forth the prisoners in strength as my servant David hath said So S. Basil asketh How we do accomplish the descent into Hell and answereth that we doe it in imitating the BURIALL of Christ in Baptisme For the bodies of those that be baptized are as it were buried in the water saith he S. Hilary maketh mention of Christs flesh quickened out of Hell by himselfe and Arator in like maner Infernum Dominus cùm destructurus adiret Detulit inde suam spoliato funere carnem When the Lord went to Hell to destroy it He brought from THENCE his owne flesh spâ—yling the grave Philo Carpathius addeth that in his grave he spoyled Hell Whereupon the Emperour Leo in his oration upon the buriall of our Saviour wisheth us to honour it by adorning our selves with vertues and not by putting him in the grave againe For it behoved saith he that this should be once done to the end that Hell might be spoyled and it was done And the Grecians retaine the commemoration hereof in their Liturgies unto this day as their Octoëchon Anastasimon and Pentecostarion do testifie wherein such hymnes and prayers as these are frequent Thou didst receive death in thy flesh working thereby immortalitie for us O Saviour and didst dwell in the grave that thou mightest free us from Hell raysing us up together with thy selfe When thou vvast put in the tombe as a mortall man the keepers of Hell gates shooke for feare for having overthrowne the strength of Death thou diddest exhibite incorruption to all the dead by thy Resurrection Although thou didst descend into the grave as a mortall man ô giver of life yet didst thou dissolve the strength of hell ô Christ raysing up the dead together with thy selfe whom it had also swallowed and didst exhibit the resurrection as God unto all that in faith and desire doe magnifie thee Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Death and by thy life-bringing resurrectioÌ„ didst raise up corrupted man ô Christ our God as a lover of mankinde to thee be glory Thou who by thy three-dayes buriall didst spoyle Hell and by thy resurrection didst save man have mercy upon me By thy three-dayes buriall the enemy was spoyled the dead loosed from the bands of Hell death deaded the palaces of hell voyded Therefore in hymnes doe we
honour and magnifie thee ô giver of life Thou wast put in the tombe being voluntarily made dead and didst emptie all the palaces of hell ô immortall King raysing up the dead with thy ResurrectioÌ„ Thou who spoyledst hell by thy buriall be mindfull of me Hitherto also belongeth that of Prudentius in his Apotheosis tumuloque inferna refringens Regna resurgentes secum jubet ire sepultos Coelum habitat terris intervenit abdita rumpit Tartara vera fides Deus est qui totus ubique est where in saying that our Saviour by his grave did break up the infernall kingdomes and commanded those that were buried to rise up with him he hath reference unto that part of the history of the Gospell wherein it is recorded that The graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy citie and appeared unto many Matth. 27.52 53. upon which place S. Hilary writeth thus Inlightning the darkenesse of death and shining in the obscure places of Hell by the resurrection of the Saints that were seene at the present he tooke away the spoyles of death it selfe To the same effect writeth S. Ambrose also Neither did his sepulchre want a miracle For when he was anoynted by Ioseph and buried in his tombe by a new kinde of worke he that was dead himselfe did open the sepulchres of the dead His body indeed did lye in the grave but he himselfe being free among the dead did give libertie unto them that were placed in Hell dissolving the law of death For his flesh was in the tombe but his power did worke from heaven which may be a sufficient commentary upon that sentence which we reade in the Exposition of the Creed attributed unto S. Chrysostom He descended into Hell that there also he might not want a miracle For many bodies of the Saints arose with Christ. namely HELL rendring up the BODIES of the Saints alive againe as eyther the same or another author that goeth under the like name of Chrysostom doth elsewhere directly affirme which is a further confirmation of that which we have heard delivered by Ruffinus touching the exposition of the article of the Descent into Hell that the substance thereof seemeth to be the same with that of the Buriall for what other Hell can we imagin it to be but the Grave that thus receiveth and giveth up the bodies of men departed this life And hitherto also may bee referâ—ed that famous saying of Christs descending alone ascending with a multitude which we meet withall in foure severall places of antiquitie First in the hâ—ads of the sermon of Thaddaeus as they are reported by Eusebius out of the Syriack records of the citie of Edessa He was crucified and descended into Hades or Hell and brake the rampiere never broken before since the beginning and rose againe and raysed up with him those dead that had slept from the beginning and descended alone but ascended to his Father with a great multitude Secondly in the epistle of Ignatius unto the Trallians He was truly and not in opinion crucified and died those that were in heaven and in earth and under the earth beholding him those in heaven as the incorporeall natures those in earth to wit the Iewes and the Romanes and such men as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified those under the earth as the multitude that rose up together with the Lord for many bodies saith he of the Saints which slept arose the graves being opened And hee descended into Hades or Hell alone but returned with a multitude and brake the rampiere that had stood from the beginning and overthrew the partition thereof Thirdly in the disputation of Macarius Bishop of Ierusalem in the first generall Councell of Nice After death wee were carried into Hades or Hell Christ tooke upon him this also and descended voluntarily into it he was not detayned as wee but descended onely For hee was not subjected unto death but was the Lord of death And descending alone he returned with a multitude For he was that spirituall graine of wheat falling for us into the earth and dying in the flesh who by the power of his godhead raysed up the temple of his body according to the Scriptures which brought forth for fruite the Resurrection of all mankinde Fourthly in the Catechises of Cyrill Bishop of Ierusalem whose wordes are these I beleeve that Christ was raysed from the dead For of this I have many witnesses both out of the divine scriptures from the witnesse and operation even unto this day of him that rose againe of him I say that descended into Hades or Hell alone but asceÌ„ded with many For he did descend unto death many bodies of the Saints that slept were raised by him which resurrection he seemeth afterward to make common unto all the Saints that dyed before our Saviour All the righteous men saith he were delivered whom death had devoured For it became the proclaymed King to be the deliverer of those good proclaymers of him Then did every one of the righteous say O death where is thy victory ô Hell where is thy sting for the conqueror hath delivered us wherewith we may compare that saying of S. Chrysostom If it were a great matter that Lazarus being foure dayes dead should come forth much more that all they who were dead of old should appeare together alive which was a signe of the future resurrection For many bodies of the Saints which slept arose saith the text and these articles of the Confession of the Armenians According to his body which was dead he descended into the grave but according to his divinitie which did live he over came Hell in the meane time The third day he rose againe but withall raysâ—d up the soules or persons of the faithfull together with him and gave hope thereby that our bodies also should rise againe like unto him at his second comming Of those who arose with our Saviour from the Grave or as anciently they used to speake from Hell two there be whom the Fathers nominate in particular Adam and Iob. Of Iob S. Ambrose writeth in this maner Having heard what God had spoken in him and having understood by the holy Ghost that the Sonne of God was not onely to come into the earth but that he was also to descend into Hell to that he might rayse up the dead which was then done for a testimony of the present and an example of the future he turned himselfe unto the Lord and said O that thou wouldest keepe me in Hell that thou vvouldest hide me untill thy wrath be past and that thou wouldest appoint me a time in which thou wouldest remember me Iob. 14.13 in which wordes he affirmeth that Iob did prophecie that he should be raysed up at the passion of
our Lord as in the end of this booke saith he he doth testifie meaning the apocryphall Appendix which is annexed to the end of the Greeke edition of Iob wherein we reade thus It is written that he should rise againe with those whom the Lord was to raise which although it be accounted to have proceeded from the Septuagint yet the thing it selfe sheweth that it was added by some that lived after the comming of our Saviour Christ. Touching Adam S. Augustine affirmeth that the whole Church almost did consent that Christ loosed him in Hell which we are to beleeve saith he that shee did not vainely beleeve whencesoever this tradition came although no expresse authoritie of the Canonicall Scriptures be produced for it The onely place which he could thinke off that seemed to look this way was that in the beginning of the tenth Chapter of the booke of Wisedome Shee kept him who was the first formed father of the world when hee was created alone and brought him out of his sinne which would be much more pertinent to the purpose if that were added which presently followeth in the Latin text I meane in the old edition for the new corrected ones have left it out Et eduxit illum de limo terrae and brought him out of the claye of the earth which being placed after the bringing of him out of his sinne may seeme to have reference unto some deliverance like that of Davids Psalm 40 2. He brought me up out of the horrible pit out of the mirye claye rather then unto his first creation out of the dust of the earth So limus terrae may here answere well unto the Arabians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 al-tharai which properly signifying moyst earth or slime or claye is by the Arabick interpreter of Moses used to expresse the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Hell or Grave And as this place in the booke of Wisedome may be thus applied unto the raysing of Adams body out of the earâ—h whâ—rein hee lay buried so may that other tradition also which was so currant in the Church be referred unto the selfe same thing even to the bringing of Adam out of the Hell of the Grave The verie Liturgies of the Church doe lead us unto this interpretation of the tradition of the Church beside the testimony of the Fathers which discover unto us the first ground and foundation of this tradition In the Liturgie of the Church of Alexandria ascribed to S. Marke our Saviour Christ is thus called upon O most great King and coëternall to the Father who by thy might didst spoyle Hell and tread downe death and binde the strong one and raise Adam out of the grave by thy divine power and the bright splendour of thine unspeakeable Godhead In the Liturgie of the Church of Constantinople translated into Latin by Leo Thusâ—us the like speech is used of him He did voluntarily undergoe the Crosse for us by which he raysed up the first formed man and saved our soules from death And in the Octoëchon Anastasimon and Pentecostarion of the Grecians at this day such sayings as these are very usuall Thou didst undergoe buriall and rise in glory and rayse up Adam together with thee by thy almighty hand Rising out of thy tombe thou didst rayse up the dead and break the poâ—er of death and rayse up Adam Having slept in the flesh as a mortall man ô King and Lord the third day thou didst arise againe raysing Adam from corruption and abolishing death Iesus the deliverer who raysed up Adam of his compassion c. Therefore doth Theodorus Prodromus begin his Tetrastich upon our Saviors Resurrection with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rise up thou first formed old man rise up from thy grave S. Ambrose pointeth to the ground of the tradition when he intimateth that Christ suffered in Golgotha where Adams sepulchre was that by his Crosse he might rayse him that was dead that where in Adam the death of all men lay therein Christ might be the resurrection of all Which he receaved as he did many other things besides from Origen who writeth thus of the matter There came unto me some such tradition as this that the body of Adam the first man mas buried there where Christ was crucified that as in Adam all doe die so in Christ all might be made alive that in the place which is called the place of Calvarie that is the place of the head the head of mankinde might finde resurrection with all the rest of the people by the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour who suffered there and rose againe For it was unfit that when many which were borne of him did receive forgivenesse of their sinnes and obtayne the benefit of Resurrection he who was the father of all men should not much more obtaine the like grace Athanasius or who ever else was author of the Discourse upon the Passion of our Lord which beareth his name referreth this tradition of Adams buriall place unto the report of the Doctors of the Hebrewes from whom belike hee thought that Origen had received it and addeth withall that it was very fit that where it was said to Adam Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt returne our Saviour finding him there should say unto him again Arise thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Epiphanius goeth a little furthet and findeth out a mysterie in the water and bloud that fell from the Crosse upon the relicks of our first father lying buried under it applying thereunto both that in the Gospell of the arising of many of the Saints Matth. 27.52 and that other place in S. Paule Arise thou that sleepest c. Ephes. 5.14 which strange speculation with what great applause it was received by the multitude at the first delivery of it and for how little reason he that list may reade in the fourth book of S. Hieroms coÌ„mentaries upon the 27. of S. Matthew in his third upon the fifth to the Ephesians for upon this first point of Christs descent into the Hell of the grave and the bringing of Adam and his children with him from thence we have dwelt too long already In the second place therefore we are now to consider that as Hádes and Inferi which we call Hell are applied by rhe Interpreters of the holy Scripture to denote the place of bodies separated from their soules so with forraine authors in whose language as being that wherewith the common people was acquainted the Church also did use to speake the same tearmes do signifie ordinarily the common lodge of soules separated from their bodies whether the particular place assigned unto each of them be conceived to be an habitation of blisse or of miserie For as when the Grave is said to be the common receptacle of dead bodies it is not meant thereby that all dead
carkasses are heaped together promiscuously in one certaine pit so when the Heathen write that all the soules of the dead goe to Hades their meaning is not that they are all shut up together in one and the selfe same roome but in generall onely they understand thereby the translation of them into the other world the extreame parts whereof the Poëts place as farre asunder as wee doe Heaven and Hell And this opinion of theirs S. Ambrose doth well like off wishing that they had not mingled other superfluous and unprofitable conceits therewith that soules departed from their bodies did goe to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to a place which is not seene which place saith he wee in Latin call Infernus So likewise saith S. Chrysostom The Grecians and Barbarians and Poëts and Philosophers and all mankinde doe herein consent with us although not all alike and say that there be certaine seats of judgement in Hádes so manifest and so confessed a thing is this and againe The Grecians were foolish in many things yet did they not resist the truth of this doctrine If therefore thou vvilt follow them they have granted that there is a certaine life after this accounts and seats of judgement in Hádes and punishments and honors and sentences judgements And if thou shalt aske the Iewes or heretickes or any man he will reverence the truth of this doctrine although they differ in other things yet in this doe they all agree and say that there are accounts to be made there of the things that be done here Only amoÌ„g the Iwes the Sadducees w ch say that there is no resurrection neyther Angel nor Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take away the punishments and honours that are in Hádes as is noted by Iosephus For which wicked doctrine they were condemned by the other sectes of the Iewes who generally acknowledged that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olam hanneshamoth for so doe they in their language untill this day call that which Iosephus in Greeke tearmeth Hades that is to say the world of spirits into which they held that the soules were translated presently after death and there received their seuerall judgements The same thing doth Theodoret suppose to be signified by that phrase of being gathered to ones people which is so usuall in the word of God For it being said of Iacob before he was buried that he gave up the ghost and was gathered unto his people Genes 49.33 Theodoret observeth that Moses by these words did closely intimate the hope of the resurrection For if men saith he had beene wholy extinguished and did not passe unto another life he would not have sayd Hee was gathered to his people So likewise where it is distinctly noted of Abraham Genes 25.8 9. first that hee gave up the ghost and died then that hee was gathered to his people and lastly that his sonnes buried him Cardinall Cajetan and the Iesuite Lorinus interpret the first de compositi totius dissolutione of the dissolution of the parts of the whole-man consisting of body and soule the second of the state of the soule separated from the body and the third of the disposing of the body parted from the soule Thus the Scriptures speech of being gathered to our people should be answerable in meaning to the phrase used by the heathen of descending into Hell or going to Hades which as Synesius noteth out of Homer was by them opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a most absolute extinguishment as well of the soule as of the body And forasmuch as by that tearme the immortalitie of the soule was commonly signified therefore doth Plato in his Phaedo disputing of that argument make this the state of his question Whether the soules of men deceased be in Hades or no and our Eccâ—esiasticall writers also doe from thence sometimes fetch a difference betwixt Death and Hades You shall finde saith Theophylact that there is some difference betwixt Hades and Death namely that Hades contayneth the soules but Death the bodies For the soules are immoâ—tall The same we reade in Nicetas Serronius his exposition of Gregory Nazianzens second Paschall oration Andreas Caesareensis doth thus expresse the difference Death is the separation of the soule and the body But Hades is a place to us invisible or vnseene and unknowne which receiveth our soules when they departe from hence The ordinary Glosse following S. Hierome upon the thirteenth of Hosea thus Death is that whereby the soule is separated from the body Hell is that place wherein the soules are included eyther for comfort or for paine The soule goeth to Hádes saith Nicetas Choniates in the Prooeme of his Historie but the bodie returneth againe into those things of which it was composed Caius or whoe ever else was the author of that auncient fragment which wee formerly signified to have been falsely fathered upon Iosephus holdeth that in Hades the soules both of the righteous and unrighteous are contayned but that the righteous are led to the right hand by the Angels that awayte them there and brought unto a lightsome region wherein the righteous men that have beene from the beginning doe dwell and this wee call Abrahams bâ—some saith he whereas the wicked are drawen toward the left hand by the punishing Angels not going willingly but drawen as prisoners by violence Where you may observe how he frameth his description of Hades according to that modell wherewith the Poets had before possessed mens mindes Dextera quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit Hâc iter Elysium nobis at laeva malorum Exercet poenas ad impia tartara mittit The right hand path goth underneath the walls of Pluto deepe That way we must if paths to Paradise we thinke to keepe The left hand leads to paine and men to Tartarus doth send For as Wee doe allot unto good men a resting place in Paradise so the Greekes doe assigne unto their Heroës the Fortunate Ilandes and the Elysian fields saith Tzetzes And as the Scripture borroweth the terme of Tartarus from the Heathen so is it thought by Tertullian and Gregory Nazianzen that the Heathen tooke the ground of their Elysian fields from the Scriptures Paradise To heape up many testimonies out of the Heathen authors to prove that in their understanding all soules went to Hades and received there eyther punishment or reward according to the life that they led in this world would be but a needlesse worke seeing none that hath reade any thing in their writings can be ignorant therof If any man desire to informe himselfe herein he may repayre to Plutarches consolatory discourse written to Apollonius where he shall finde the testimonies of Pindarus and many others alledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touching the state of the godly in Hades Their common opinion is sufficiently expressed in that
from no other ground but the vulgar opinion that the southerne hemisphere of the earth was not inhabited by living men as our northâ—rne is insomuch that some of the heathen atheists finding the contrary to be true by the discourse of right reason endevoured to perswade themselves from thence that there was no such place as Hades at all Lucretius for the greater part saith Servius and others fully teach thaâ— the kingdomes of Hell cannot as much as have a being For what place can we say they have when under the earth our Antipodes are sayd to be and that they should be in the midst of the earth neyther will the solidity permit nor the center of the earth which earth if it be in the middle of the world the profundity thereof can not be so great that it may have those Inferos within it in which is Tartarus whereof we reade Bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras Quantus ad aethereum coeli suspectus Olympum But Chrstiian men being better instructed out of the word of God were taught to answere otherwise If thou dost aske me saith S. Chrysostom of the situation and place of Gehenna I will answere and say that it is seated somewhere out of this world and that it is not to be inquired in what place it is situated but by what meanes rather it may be avoyded In the Dialogue betwixt Gregory Nyssen and that admirable woman Macrina S. Basils sister touching the Soule and the Resurrection this point is stood upon at large the question being first proposed by Gregory in this maner Where is that name of Hádes somuch spoken of which is so much treated of in our common conversation so much in the writings both of the heathen and our owne into which all men thinke that the soules are translated from hence as into a certaine receptacle For you will not say that the elements arâ— this Hades whereunto Macrina thus replyeth It appeareth that thou didst not give much heed to my speech for when I spake of the translation of the soule from that which is seen unto that which is invisible I thought I had left nothing behinde to be inquired of Hadâ—s Neyther doth that name wherein soules are said to be seeme to me to signifie any other thing eyther in profane writers or in the holy scripture save onely a removing unto that which is invisible and unseene Thereupon it being further demanded how then doe some thinke that a certaine subterraneall place should be so called and that the soules doe lodge therein for answere thereunto it is said that there is no maner of difference betwixt the lower hemisphere of the earth and that wherein we live that as long as the principall doctrine of the immortalitie of the soule is yeelded unto no controversie should be moved touching the place therof that locall position is proper to bodies and the soule being incorporeall hath no need to be detained in certaine places then the place objected from Philip. 2.10 of those under the earth that should bow at the name of Iesus being largely skanned this in the end is laid downe for the conclusion These things being thus no man can constraine us by the name of things under the earth to understand any subterraneall place forasmuch as the ayre doâ—h so equally compasse the earth round about that there is no part thereof found naked from the covering of the ayre Both these opinions are thus propounded by Theophylact and by Hugò Etherianus after him What is Hades or Hell Some say that it is a darke place under the earth Others say that it is the translation of the soule from that which is visible unto that which is unseene and invisible For while the soule is in the body it is seene by the proper operations thereof but being translated out of the body it is invisible and this did they say was Hádes So where the author of the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy defineth death to be a separation of the united parts and the bringing to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto that which is invisible to us his scholiast Maximus noteth thereupon that this invisible thing some doe affirme to be Hádes that is to say an unseene and invisible departure of the soule unto places not to be seene by the sense of man Hitherto also may be referred the place cited before out of Origen in his fourth book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by S. Hierome is thus delivered They who dye in this world by the separation of the flesh and the soule according to the difference of their workes obtaine diverse places in Hell Where by Hádes Inferi or Hell he meaneth indefinitely the other world in which how the soules of the godly were disposed hee thus declareth in another place The soule leaveth the darkenesse of this world and the blindnesse of this bodily nature and is translated unto another world which is eyther the bosome of Abraham as it is shewed in Lazarus or Paradise as in the thiefe that beleeved upon the crosse or yet if God know that there be any other places or other mansions by which the soule that beleeveth in God passing and comming unto that river which maketh glad the citie of God may receive within it the lott of the inheritance promised unto the Fathers For touching the determinate state of the faithfull soules departed this life the ancient Doctors as we have shewed were not so thoroughly resolved Now all the question betwixt us and the Romanistes is whether the faithfull be received into their everlasting tabernacles presently upon their removeall out of the body or after they have beene first purified to the point as Allen speaketh in the furnace of Purgatorie but in the time of the Fathers as S. Augustin noteth the great question was vvhether the receiving of them into those everlasting tabernacles were performed presently after this life or in the end of the world at the resurrection of the dead and the last retribution of judgement And so concerning Hell the question was as great among them whether all good and bad went thither or no whereof the same S. Augustin is a witnesse also who upon that speech of Iacob Gen. 37.35 I will goe downe to my sonne mourning into Hell writeth thus It useth to be a great question in what maner Hell should be understood vvhether evill men onely or good men also when they are dead doe use to goe downe thither And if evill men only doe how doth he say that he would goe downe unto his sonne mourning for he did not beleeve that he was in the paines of Hell Or be these the words of a troubled grieving man amplifying his evils froÌ„ hence and upon that other speech of his Genes 42.38 You shal bring down mine old age with sorrow unto Hell Whether therefore unto Hell because with sorrow Or although sorrow were
away speaketh he these things as if he were tâ— goe down into hell by dying For of Hell there is a great question and what the Scripture delivereth thereof in all the places where it hath occasion to make mention of it is to be observed Hitherto S. Augustin who had reference to this great question when he said as hath beene before alledged Of Hell neyther have I had any experience as yet nor you and peradventure there shal be another way and by Hell it shall not be For these things are uncertaine Neyther is there greater question among the Doctors of the Church concerning the Hell of the Fathers of the Old Testament then there is of the Hell of the faithfull now in the time of the New neyther are there greater differences betwixt them touching the Hell into which our Saviour went whether it were under the earth or above whether a darkesome place or a lightsome whether a prison or a paradise then there are of the mansions wherein the soules of the blessed do now continue S. Hierome interpreting those words of King Ezechias Esai 38.10 I shall goe to the gates of Hell saith that this is meant eyther of the common law of nature or else of those gates from which that he was delivered the Psalmist singeth Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death that I may shew forth all thy prayses in the gates of the daughter of Sion Psalm 9.13 14. Now as some of the Fathers doe expound our Saviours going to Hell of his descending into Gehenna so others expound it of his going to Hell according to the common law of nature the common law of nature I say which extendeth it selfe indifferently unto all the dead whether they belong to the state of the New Testament or of the Old For as Christs soule was in all points made like unto ours sinne onely excepted while it was joyned with his body here in the land of the living so when he had humbled himselfe unto the death it became him in all things to be made like unto his brethren even in that state of dissolution And so indeed the soule of Iesus had experience of both For it was in the place of humaine soules and being out of the flesh did live and subsist It was a reasonable soule therefore and of the same substance with the soules of men even as his flesh is of the same substance with the flesh of men proceeding from Mary saith Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch in his exposition of that text of the Psalme Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell Where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell you see he understandeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of humaine soules which is the Hebrewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or world of spirits and by the disposing of Christs soule there after the maner of other soules concludeth it to be of the same nature with other mens soules So S Hilary in his exposition of the 138. Psalme This is the law of humaine necessitie saith he that the bodies being buried the soules should goe to Hell Which descent the Lord did not refuse for the accomplishment of a true man and a little after he repeateth it that de supernis ad inferos mortis lege descendit he descended from the supernall to the infernall parts by the law of death and upon the 53. Psalme more fully To fulfill the nature of man he subjected himselfe to death that is to a departure as it were of the soule and body and pierced into the infernall seates which was a thing that seemed to be duâ— unto man So Leo in one of his Sermons upon our Lords passion Hee did undergoe the lawes of Hell by dying but did dissolve them by rising againe and so did cut off the perpetuitie of death that of eternall hee might make it temporall So Irenaeus having said that our Lord conversed three dayes where the dead were addeth that therein he observed the law of the dead that hee might be made the first begotten from the dead staying untill the third day in the lower parts of the earth and afterward rising in his flesh Then he draweth from thence this generall conclusion Seeing our Lord went in the midst of the shadow of death vvhere the soules of the dead were then afterward rose againe corporally and after his resurrection was assumed it is manifest that the soules of his disciples also for whose sake the Lord wrought these things shall goe to an invisible place appointed unto them by God and there shall abide untill the resurrection wayting for the resurrection and afterwards receaving their bodies and rising againe perfectly that is to say corporally even as our Lord did rise againe they shall so come unto the presence of God For there is no disciple above his master but every one shall be perfect if he be as his master The like collection doth Tertullian make in his booke of the Soule If Christ being God because he was also man dying according to the Scriptures and being buried according to the same did heere also satisfie the law by performing the course of an humane death in Hell neyther did ascend into the higher parts of the heavens before he descended into the lower parts of the earth that he might there make the Patriarches and Prophets partakers of himselfe thou hast both to beleeve that there is a region of Hell under the earth and to push them with the elbowe who proudly enough doe not thinke the soules of the faithfull to be fit for Hell servants above their Lord and disciples above their Master scorning perhaps to take the comfort of expecting the resurrection in Abrahams bosome And in the same booke speaking of the soule What is that saith he which is translated unto the infernall parts or Hell after the separation of the body which is detayned there which is reserved unto the day of judgement unto which Christ by dying did descend to the soules of the Patriarches I thinke Where he maketh the Hell unto which our Saviour did descend to be the common receptacle not of the soules of the Patriarches alone but also of the soules that are now still separated from their bodies as being the place quò universa humanitas trahitur as he speaketh elsewhere in that booke unto which all mankinde is drawne So Novatianus after him affirmeth that the very places which lye under the earth be not voyde of distinguished and ordered powers For that is the place saith he whither the soules both of the godly and ungodly are led receiving the fore-judgements of their future dâ—ome Lactantius saith that our Saviour rose againe ab inferis from Hell but so he saith also that the dead Saints shall be raised up ab inferis at the time of the Resurrection S. Cyrill of Alexandria saith that the Iewes killed Christ and cast him into the deepe
and darke dungeon of death that is into Hades adding afterward that Hades may rightly be esteemed to be the house and mansion of such as are deprived of life Nicephorus Gregoras in his funerall Oration upon Theodorus Metochites putteth in this for one strayne of his lamentation Who hath brought downe that heavenly man unto the bottome of Hades and Andrew archbishop of Crete touching the descent both of Christ and all Christians after him even unto the darke and comfortlesse Hades writeth in this maner If hee who was the Lord and master of all and the light of them that are in darknesse and the life of all men would taste death and undergoe the descent into Hell that he might be made like unto us in all things sinne excepted and for three dayes went thorough the sad obscure and darke region of Hell what strange thing is it that wee who are sinners and dead in trespasses according to the great Apostle who are subject to generation and corruption should meete with death and goe with our soule into the darke chambers of Hell where we cannot see light nor behold the life of mortall men For are wee above our Master or better then the Saints who underwent these things of ours after the like maner that we must doe Iuvencus intimateth that our Saviour giving up the ghost sent his soule unto heaven in those verses of his Tunc clamor Domini magno conamine missus Aethereis animam comitem commiscuit auris Eusebius Emesenus collecteth so much from the last words which our Lord uttered at the same time Father into thine hands I commend my spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His spirit was above and his body remayned upon the crosse for us In the Greeke exposition of the Canticles collected out of Eusebius Philo Carpathius and others that sentence in the beginning of the sixt chapter My beloved is gone down into his garden is interpreted of Christs going to the soules of the Saints in Hádes which in the Latin collections that beare the name of Philo Carpathius is thus more largely expressed By this descending of the Bridegrome we may understand the descending of our Lord Iesus Christ into Hell as I suppose for that which followeth proveth this when he sayeth To the beds of spices For those ancient holy men are not unfiâ—ly signified by the beds of spices such as were Noë Abraham Isaac Iacob Moses Iob David Samuel Elisaeus Daniel and very many others before the Law in the Law who all of them like unto beds of spices gave a most sweete smell of the odours and fruits of holy righteousnesse For then as a triumpher did he enter into PARADISE when he pierced into Hell God himselfe is present with us for a witnesse in this matter when he answered most graciously to the Thiefe upon the Crosse commending himselfe unto him most religiously To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Lastly touching this Paradise the various opinions of the ancient are thus layd downe by Olympiodorus to seeke no farther It is a thing worthy of enquirie in what place under the Sunne the righteous are placed which have left this life Certaine it is that in Paradise forasmuch as Christ said unto the Thiefe This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And it is to be knowne that the literall Tradition teacheth Paradise to be in earth But some have said that Paradise also is in Hell that is in a place under the earth unto which opinion of theirs they apply that of the Gospell where the rich man saw Lazarus being yet himselfe sunke downe in a lower place when Lazarus was in a place more eminent where Abraham was But howsoever the matter goeth this without doubt is manifest aswell out of Ecclesiastes as out of all the sacred Scripture that the godly shall be in prosperity and peace and the ungodly in punishments and torments And others are of the minde that Paradise is in the Heavens c. Hitherto Olympiodorus That Christs soule went into Paradise Doctor Bishop saith being well understood is true For his soule in hell had the joyes of Paradise but to make that an exposition of Christs descending into hell is to expound a thing by the flat contrary of it Yet this ridiculous exposition he affirmeth to be received of most Protestants Which is even as true as that which he avoucheth in the same place that this article of the descent into Hell is to be found in the old Roman Creed expounded by Ruffinus where Ruffinus as we have heard expounding that article delivereth the flat contrarie that it is not found added in the Creed of the Church of Rome It is true indeed that more than most Protestants do interprete the words of Christ uttered unto the Thiefe upon the Crosse Luk. 23.43 of the going of his soule into Paradise where our Saviour meaning simply and plainly that hee would be that day in Heaven M. Bishop would have him so to be understood as if he had meant that that day he would be in Hell And must it be now held more ridiculous in Protestants to take Hell for Paradise then in M. Bishop to take Paradise for Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the wordes of the Apostles Creed in the Greeke and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Symbol of Athanasius Some learned Protestants do observe that in these words there is no determinate mention made eyther of ascending or descending either of Heaven or Hell taking Hell according to the vulgar acception but of the generall only under which these contraries are indifferently comprehended and that the words literally interpreted import no more but this HEE WENT UNTO THE OTHER WORLD Which is not to expound a thing by the flat contrary of it as M. Bishop fancieth who may quickly make himselfe ridiculous in taking upon him thus to censure the interpretations of our learned linguistes unlesse his owne skill in the languages were greater then as yet he hath given proofe of Master Broughton with whose authoritie hee elsewhere presseth us as of a man esteemed to be singularly seene in the Hebrew and Greeke tongue hath beene but too forward in maintayning that exposition which by D. Bishop is accounted so ridiculous In one place touching the terme Hell as it doth answer the Hebrew Sheol and the Greeke Hádes he writeth thus He that thinketh it ever used for Tartaro or Gehenna otherwise then the terme Death may by Synecdoche import so hath not skill in Ebrew or that Greeke vvhich breathing and live Graecia spake if God hath lent me any judgement that way In another place he alledgeth out of Portus his Dictionary that the Macedonians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven And one of his acquaintance beyond the Sea reporteth that he should deliver that in many most ancient Manuscript copies the Lords prayer is found with this
beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Fatâ—er which art in Hádes which I for my part will then beleeve to be true when I shall see one of those old copies with mine owne eyes But in the meane time for Hádes it hath beene sufficiently declared before out of good authors that it signifieth the place of soules departed in generall and so is of extent large enough to comprehend under it as well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascius speaketh that part of Hádes or the unseene vvorld which is in heaven as that which by Iosephus is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the darker Hades and in the Gospell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 outer darknesse And as for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other word in the Acts of the Apostles it is used ten times and in none of all those places signifieth anie descending from a higher place unto a lower but a removing simply from one place unto another Whereupon the Vulgar Latin edition which none of the Romanists upon any pretense may presume to reject doth render it there by the generall termes of abeo venio devenio supervenio and where it retayneth the word descendo it intendeth nothing lesse then to signifie thereby the lower situation of the place unto which the removeall is noted to be made If descending therfore in the Acts of the Apostles imply no such kind of thing what necessitie is there that thus of force it must be interpreted in the Creed of the Apostles Menelaus declared unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith King Antiochus in his epistle unto the Iewes 2. Maccab. 11.29 Velle vos descendere ad vestros it is in the Latin edition whereby what else is meant but that they had a desire to goe unto their owne I omitt the phrases of descending in praelium in forum in campum in amicitiam in caussam c. which are so usuall in good Latin authors yea and of descending into heaven it selfe if that be not a jeast which the Poet breaketh upon Claudius Ille senis tremulumque caput descendere jussit In coelum Others adde unto this that the phrase of descending ad inferos is a popular kinde of speech which sprung from the opinion that was vulgarly conceived of the situation of the receptâ—cle of the soules under the earth and that according to the rule of Aristoâ—le in his Topâ—cks we must speake as the vulgar but thinke as wise men doe Even as wee use to say commonly that the Sunne is under a cloude because it is a vulgar forme of speech and yet it is farre enough from our meaning for all that to imagine the cloude to bee indeede higher then the Sunne So Cicero they say where ever hee hath occasion to mention any thing that concerneth the dead speaketh still of Inferi according to the vulgar phrase although hee misliked the vulgar opinion which bred that maner of speaking and professed it to bee his judgement that the soules when they depart out of the body are carried up on high not downward unto any habitations under the earth So Chrysostom and Theophylact thinke that the Apostle tearmed the Death and Hell unto which our Saviour did descend the lower parts of the earth Ephes. 4.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the common opinion of men So in the translation of the holy Scripture S. Hierome sheweth that wee use the names of Arcturus and Orion not approving thereby the ridiculous and monstrous figments of the Poets in this matter but expressing the Hebrew names of these constellations by the vvords of heathenish fables because we cannot understand that which is sayd but by those words which we have learned by use and drunke in by error And just so standeth the case with this word Hades which with the Gâ—eeke Poets is the name of Pluto whom they fayned to be the God of the dead under the earth gave a denomination unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from riches because that all things comming to their dissolution there is nothing which is not at last brought unto him and made his possession Thus Homer and Hesiod with Plato and others after them say that Rhea brought forth three sonnes to Saturne Iupiter Neptune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and mightie Hades who inhabiteth the houses under the earth having a mercilesse heart for that attribute doth Hesiod give unto him because Death spareth no man So Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is also the description that Hesiod maketh of him in that verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades was afraid who raigneth over them that lye dead in the earth Now that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Creed is a phrase taken from the heathen and applied to expresse a Christian truth the very Grammaticaâ—l construction may seeme to intimate where the nowne is not put in the accusative case as otherwise it should but after the maner of the Greekes in the genitive case implying the defect of another word necessarily to be understood as if it had beene said He went unto the place or house of Hades as the Poets use to expresse it sometimes defectively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes more fully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the house or chambers of Hádes Thus then they that take Hádes for the common receptacle of soules doe interpret the context of the Creed as Cardinall Cajetan before did the narration of Moses touching Abrahams giving up the ghost being gathered to his people and being buried Genes 25.8 9. that the article of the death is to be râ—ferred to the whole manhood and the dissolution of the parts thereof that of the buriall to the body sâ—parated from the soule and this of the descending into Hádes to the soule separated fâ—om the body as if he had said He suffered death truely by a reall separation of his soule from his bodie and after this dissolution the same did befall him that useth to betide all other dead men his livelesse bodie was sent unto the place which is appointed to receive dead bodies and his immortall soule went unto the other world as the soules of other men use to doe Having now declared how the Greek Hádes and so the Latine Inferi and our English Hell is taken for the place of the bodies and of the soules of dead men severally it followeth that we shew how the common state of the dead is signified thereby and the place in generall which is answerable unto the parts of the whole man thus indefinitely considered in the state of separation Concerning which that place of Dionysius wherein he setteth forth the signification of our being dead and buried with Christ by Baptisme is to be considered Forasmuch as death is in us not an utter extinguishment of our being as others have thought but a separation of the united parts
the places of the Fathers wherein our Lords rising againe from the Dead is termed his rising againe from Hádes Inferi or Hell would be a needlesse labour for this we need go no further then to the Canon of the Masse it selfe where in the prayer that followeth next after the Consecration there being a Commemoration made of Christs passion resurrection and ascension the second is set out by the title ab inferis resurrectionis of the resurrection from Hell For as the Liturgies of the Easterne Churches doe here make mention 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the resurrection from the dead so those of the West retayne that other title of the resurrection ab inferis that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Liturgie that goeth under the name of S. Peter or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Gregorian Office translated into Greek by Codinus If then the resurrection frō the dead be the same with the resurrection from Hades Inferi or Hell why may not the going unto Hades Inferi or Hell be interpreted by the same reason to be the going unto the dead whereby no more is understood than what is intimated in that phrase w ch the Latins use of one that hath left this world Abijt ad plures or in that of the Hebrewes so frequent in the word of God He went or was gathered unto his people he went or was gathered unto his fathers which being applied unto a whole generation Iudg. 2.10 as well as in other places unto particular persons must of necessitie denote the common condition of men departed out of this life Now although Death and Hades dying and going to the dead be of neere affinitie one with the other yet be they not the same thing properly but the one a consequent of the other as it appeareth plainely by the vision Revelat. 6.8 where Hades is directly brought in as a follower of Death Death it selfe as wise men doe define it is nothing else but the separation of the soule from the body which is done in an instant but Hades is the continuation of the body and soule in this state of separation which lasteth all that space of time which is betwixt the day of death and the day of the resurrection For as the state of life is comprehended betwixt two extreames to wit the beginning thereof and the ending and there be two motions in nature answerable thereunto the one whereby the soule concurreth to the body which we call Generation the other whereby the body is severed from the soule which we call Death so the state of death in like maner is contained betwixt two bounds the beginning which is the very same with the ending of the other and the last end the motion whereunto is called the Resurrection whereby the body and soule formerly separated are joyned together againe Thus there be three tearmes here as it were in a kinde of a continued proportion the middlemost whereof hath relation to eyther of the extremes and by the motion to the first a man may be said to be natus to the second denatus to the third renatus The first the third have a like oppositiō unto the middle and therefore are like betwixt themselves the one being a generation the other a regeneration For that our Lord doth call the last Resurrection the Regeneration Matth. 19.28 S. Augustine supposeth that no man doubteth Neyther would our Lord himselfe have beene styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first borne from the dead unlesse the Resurrection were accounted to be a kinde of a new nativitie whereof he himselfe was in the first place to be made partaker that among all or in all things he might have the preeminence the rest of the sonnes of God being to be children of the Resurrection also but in their due time and in the order of Post-nati The middle distance betwixt the first and second terme that is to say the space of life which we lead in this world betwixt the time of our birth and the time of our death is opposite to the distance that is betwixt the second and third terme that is to say the state of death under which man lyeth from the time of his departure out of this life unto the time of his resurrection and see what difference there is betwixt our birth and the life which we spend here after wee are borne the same difference is there betwixt Death and Hades in that other state of our dissolution That which properly we call Death which is the parting a sunder of the soule and the body standeth as a middle terme betwixt the state of life and the state of death being nothing else but the ending of the one and the beginning of the other and as it were a common meare between lands or a communis terminus in a Geometricall magnitude dividing part from part but being it selfe a part of neyther and yet belonging equally unto eyther Which gave occasion to the question moved by Taurus the philosopher When a dying man might be said to die when he was now dead or while hee was yet living whereunto Gellius returneth an answere out of Plato that his dying was to be attributed neyther to the time of his life nor of his death because repugnances would arise eyther of those wayes but to the time which was in the confine betwixt both which Plato calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a moment or an instant and denieth to be properly any part of time at all Therefore Death doth his part in an instant as hath beene said but Hádes continueth that worke of his and holdeth the dead as it were under conquest untill the time of the resurrection wherein shall be brought to passe the saying that is written O Death where is thy sting O Hades where is thy victorie For these things shall rightly be spoken then saith Irenaeus when this mortall and corruptible flesh about which Death is and which is holden downe by a certaine dominion of Death rising up unto life shall put on incorruption and immortalitie for then shall death be truly overcome when the flesh that is holden by it shall come forth out of the Dominion thereof Death then as it importeth the separation of the soule from the body which is the proper acception of it is a thing distinguishable from Hades as an antecedent from his consequent but as it is taken for the whole state of death and the domination which it hath over the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basilius Seleuciensis calleth it in his oration upon Elias it is the selfe same thing that Hades is and in that respect as we have seene the words are sometimes indifferently put the one for the other As therefore our Sauiour that we may apply this now unto him after he was fastned and lifted up on the Crosse if he had come downe from
thence as the standers by in mocking wise did wish him to doe might be truly said to have beene crucified but not to have dyed so when he gave up the ghost and layde downe his life if he had presently taken it up againe he might truly be said to have dyed but not to have gone to the dead or to have beene in Hádes His remayning under the power of Death untill the third day made this good Whom God did rayse up loosing the sorrowes of death forasmuch as it was not possible that he should be holden of it saith S. Peter and Christ being raysed from the dead dyeth now no more Death hath no more dominion over him saith S. Paul implying thereby that during the space of time that passed betwixt his death and his resurrection he was holden by death and death had some kinde of domination over him And therefore Athanasius or who ever else was author of that writing to Liberius the Roman Bishop having reference unto the former text affirmeth that he raysed up that buried body of his and presented it to his Father having freed it from Death of which it was holden and Maximus or he that collected the Dialogues against the Marcionites under the name of Origen out of him expounding the other text Over whom then had Death dominion saith he For the saying that it hath no more dominion sheweth that before it had dominion over him Not that Death could have any dominion over the Lord of Life further than he himselfe was pleased to give way unto it but as when Death did at the first sease upon him his life indeed vvas taken from the earth yet none could take it from him but he layd it downe of himselfe so his continuing to be Deaths prisoner for a time was a voluntarie commitment only unto which he freely yeelded himselfe for our sakes not anie yoake of miserable necessitie that Death was able to impose upon him For he had power to lay downe his life and he had power to take it again yet would he not take it againe before he had first not layd himselfe downe only upon Deaths bed but slept also upon it that arising afterward from thence he might become the first fruits of them that slept In which respect the Fathers apply unto him that text of the Psalme I layd me down and slept I awaked for the Lord sustained mee Psalm 3.5 and Lactantius that verse of Sibyll 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The tearme of death he shall finish when he hath slept unto the third day His dying or his burying at the farthest is that which here is answerable unto his lying downe but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius calleth it his his three-dayes buriall and his continuing for that time in the state of death is that which answereth unto his sleeping or being in Hádes And therefore the Fathers of the fourth Councell of Toledo declaring how in Baptisme the death and resurrection of Christ is signified do both affirme that the dipping in the water is as it were a descension into Hell and the rising out of the water againe a resurrection and adde likewise out of Gregory with whom many other Doctors doe herein agree that the three-fold dipping is used to signifie the three-dayes buriall which differeth as much from the simple buriall or putting into the earth as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transportation or leading into captivitie from the detayning in bondage the committing of one to prison from the holding of him there and the sowing of the seed from the remayning of it in ground And thus have I unfolded at large the generall acceptions of the word Hádes and Inferi and so the Ecclesiasticall use of the word Hell answering thereunto which being severally applyed to the point of our Saviours descent make up these three propositions that by the universall consent of Christians are acknowledged to be of undoubted verity His dead body though free from corruption yet did descend into the place of corruption as other bodies doe His soule being separated from his body departed hence into the other world as all other mens soules in that case use to doe He went unto the dead and remayned for a time in the state of death as other dead men doe There remayneth now the vulgar acception of the word Hell whereby it is taken for the place of torment prepared for the Divell and his Angells and touching this also all Christians do agree thus farre that Christ did descend thither at leastwise in a virtuall maner as God is said to descend when he doth any thing upon earth which being wonderfully done beyond the usuall course of nature may in some sort shew his presence or when he otherwise vouchsafeth to have care of humaine frailtie Thus when Christs flesh was in the tombe his power did worke from Heaven saith S. Ambrose which agreeth with that which was before cyted out of the Armenians Confession According to his body which was dead he descended into the grave but according to his DIVINITIE which did live he overcame Hell in the meane time and with that which was cyted out of Philo Carpathius upon Cantic 5.2 I sleepe but my heart waketh in the grave spoyling Hell for which in the Latin Collections that goe under his name we reade thus I sleepe to wit on the Crosse and my heart waketh vvhen my DIVINITIE spoyled Hell and brought rich spoyles from the triumph of everlasting death overcome and the Divells power overthrowne The author of the imperfect worke upon Matthew attributeth this to the Divinitie not cloathed with any part of the Humanitie but naked as he speaketh Seeing the Divels feared him saith he while he was in the body saying What have we to doe with thee Iesus the sonne of the high God art thou come to torment us before our time how shall they be able to endure his NAKED DIVINITIE descending against them Behold after three dayes of his death he shall returne from Hell as a conqueror from the warre This conquest others do attribute to his Crosse others to his Death others to his Buriall others to the reall descent of his soule into the place of the damned others to his Resurrection and extend the effect therof not only to the deliverie of the Fathers of the old Testament but also to the freeing of our soules from Hell from whence how men may be said to have been delivered who never were there S. Augustin declareth by these similitudes Thou sayest rightly to the physician Thou hast freed me from this sicknesse not in vvhich thou wast but in which thou wast like to be Some bodie else having a troublesome businesse was to be cast into prison there commeth another and defendeth him vvhat saith he when he giveth thankes Thou
hast delivered me from prison A debtor was in danger to be hanged the debt is payd for him he is said to be freed from hanging In all these things they were not but because such were their deserts that unlesse they had beene holpen there they would have beene they say rightly that they were freed thence vvhither by those that freed them they vvere not suffered to be brought That Christ destroyed the power of Hell spoyled principalities and powers and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them is acknowledged by all Christians Neyther is there anie who will refuse to subscribe unto that which Proclus delivered in his Sermon before Nestorius then Bishop of Constantinople inserted into the Acts of the Councell of Ephesus He was shut up in the grave who stretched out the heavens like a skinne he was reckoned among the dead and spoyled Hell and that which S. Cyrill and the Synod of Alexandria wrote unto the same Nestorius concerning the Confession of their faith approved not only by the third generall Councell held at Ephesus but also by the fourth at Chalcedon and the fifth at Constantinople To the end that by his unspeakable power treading down death in his own as the first and principall flesh he might become the first borne from the dead and the first fruits of those that slept and that he might make a way to mans nature for the turning back againe unto incorruption by the grace of God he tasted death for all men and revived the third day spoyling Hell All I say do agree that Christ spoyled or as they were wont to speake harrowed Hell whether you take Hell for that which keepeth the soule separated from the body or that which separateth soule and body bothe from the blessed presence of him who is our true life the one whereof our Saviour hath conquered by bringing in the Resurrection of the body the other he hath abolished by procuring for us Life everlasting Touching the maner and the meanes whereby Hell was thus spoyled is all the disagreement The maner whether our Lord did deliver his people from Hell by way of prevention in saving them from comming thither or by way of subvention in helping those out whom at the time of his death he found there The meanes whether this were done by his Divinity or his Humanitie or both whether by the vertue of his sufferings death buriall and resurrection or by the reall descending of his soule into the place wherein mens soules were kept imprisoned That hee descended not into the Hell of the damned by the essence of his soule or locally but virtually onely by extending the effect of his power thither is the common doctrine of Thomas Aquinas and the rest of the Schoole Cardinall Bellarmine at first held it to be probable that Christs soule did descend thither not only by his effects but by his reall presence also but afterwards having considered better of the matter he resolved that the opinion of Thomas and the other Schoolemen was to be followed The same is the judgement of Suarez who concerning this whole article of Christs descent into Hell doth thus deliver his minde If by an Article of faith we understand a truth which all the faithfull are bound explicitly to know and beleeve so I doe not thinke it necessarie to reckon this among the Articles of faith Because it is not a matter altogether so necessary for all men and because that for this reason peradventure it is omitted in the Nicene Creed the knowledge of which Creed seemeth to be sufficient for fulfilling the precept of faith Lastly for this cause peradventure Augustin and other of the Fathers expounding the Creed doe not unfold this mysterie unto the people And to speake the truth it is a matter above the reach of the common people to enter into the discussion of the full meaning of this point of the descension into Hell the determination whereof dependeth upon the knowledge of the learned tongues and other sciences that come not within the compasse of their understanding some experiment whereof they may finde in this that whereas in the other questions here handled they might finde themselves able in some reasonable forre to follow me here they leave me I doubt and let me walke without their company It having here likewise beene further manifested what different opinions have beene entertayned by the ancient Doctors of the Church concerning the determinate place wherein our Saviours soule did remaine during the time of the separation of it from his body I leave it to be considered by the learned whether any such controverted matter may fitly be brought in to expound the Rule of faith by which being common both to the great and the small ones in the Church must contayn such verities only as are generally agreed upon by the common consent of all true Christians and if the words of the article of Christs going to Hades or Hell may well beare such a generall meaning as this that he went to the dead and continued in the state of death untill the time of his Resurrection it would be thought upon whether such a truth as this which findeth universall acceptance among all Christians may not safely passe for an article of our Creed and the particular limitation of the place unto which our Saviours soule went whither to the place of blisse or to the place of torment or to both be left as a number of other Theologicall points are unto further disputation In the articles of our faith common agreement must bee required which wee are sure is more likely to be found in the generall than in the particular And this is the onely reason which moved me to enlarge my selfe so much in the declaration of the generall acceptions of the word Hades and the application of them to our Saviours descent spoken of in the Creed wherein if the zeale which I beare to the peace of the Church and the settlement of unitie among brethren hath carried me too farre as it hath made me indeede quite to forget my intended brevity I intreate the Reader to pardon me and ceasing to be further troublesome unto him in the prosecution of this intricate argument I passe to the next question OF PRAYER TO SAINTS THat one question of S. Paul Rom. 10.14 How shall they call upon him in whom they have not beleeved among such as lust not to be contentious will quickly put an end unto this question For if none can be invocated but such as must be beleeved in and none must be beleeved in but God alone everie one may easily discerne what conclusion will follow thereupon Againe all Christians have beene taught that no part of divine worship is to be communicated unto any creature for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve But prayer is such a principall part of
this service that it is usually put for the whole and the publick place of Gods worship hath from hence given it the denomination of the house of prayer Furthermore hee that heareth our prayers must be able to search the secrets of our hearts and discerne the inward disposition of our soules For the pouring out of good words and the offering up of externall sighes and teares are but the carkase only of a true prayer the life thereof consisteth in the pouring out of the very soule it selfe and the sending up of those secret groanes of the spirit which cannot be uttered But he that searcheth the hearts and onely he knoweth vvhat is the minde of the spirit he heareth in heaven his dwelling place and giveth to every man according to his wayes whose heart he knoweth for he even he ONELY knoweth the hearts of all the children of men as Salomon teacheth us in the praier which he made at the dedication of the Temple wherunto we may add that golden sentence of his father David for a conclusion O thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come If it be further here obâ—ected by us that we finde neyther precept nor example of any of the Fathers of the old Testament whereby this kinde of pâ—aying to the soules of the Saints departed may be warranted Cardinall Bellarmine will give us a reason for it for therefore saith he the spirits of the Patriarches and the Prophets before the comming of Christ were neyther so worshipped nor invocated as we doe now worship and invocate the Apostles and Martyrs because that they were detayned as yet shut up in the prisons of Hell But if this reason of his be grounded upon a false foundation as we have alreadie shewed it to be and the contrary supposition be most true that the spirits of the Patriarchs and Prophets were not thus shut up in the prisons of Hell then have we foure thousand yeares prescription left unto us to oppose against this innovation We go further yet and urge against them that in the New Testament it selfe we can descry no footsteps of this new kinde of Invocation more then we did in the Scriptures of the old Testament For this Salmeron doth tell us that the Scriptures vvhich were made and published in the primitive Church ought to found and explaine Christ who by the tacite suggestion of the Spirit did bring the Saints with him and that it would have beene a hard matter to enjoyne this to the Iewes and to the Gentiles an occasion would be given thereby to thinke that many Gods were put upon them in steed of the multitude of the Gods whom they had forsaken So this new worship you see fetcheth his originall neyther from the Scriptures of the Old nor of the New Testament but from I know not what tacite suggestion which smelt so strongly of Idolatry that at first it was not safe to acquaint eyther the Iewes or the Gentiles therewith But if any such sweet tradition as this were at first delivered unto the Church by Christ and his Apostles we demand further how it should come to passe that for the space of 360. yeares together after the birth of our Saviour we can finde mention no where of any such thing For howsoever our Challenger giveth it out that prayer to Saints was of great account amongst the Fathers of the primitive Church for the first 400. years after Christ yet for nine parts of that time I dare be bold to say that he is not able to produce as much as one true testimonie out of any Father whereby it may appeare that any account at all was made of it and for the tithe too he shall finde perhaps before we have done that he is not like to carry it away so cleerly as he weeneth Whether those blessed spirits pray for us is not the question here but whether we are to pray unto them That God onely is to be prayed unto is the doctrine that was once delivered unto the Saints for which we so earnestly contend the Saints praying for us doth no way crosse this for to whom should the Saints pray but to the King of Saints their being prayed unto is the onely stumbling block that lyeth in this way And therefore in those first times the former of these was admitted by some as a matter of probabilitie but the latter no way yeelded unto as being derogatorie to the priviledge of the Deitie Origen may be a witnesse of both who touching the former writeth in this sort I doe thinke thus that all those fathers who are departed this life before us doe fight with us and assist us with their prayers for so have I heard one of the elder Masters saying and in another place Moreover if the Saints that have left the body and be with Christ doe any thing and labour for us in like maner as the Angels do vvho are imployed in the ministery of our salvation let this also remaine among the hidden things of God and the mysteries that are not to be committed unto writing But because he thought that the Angels and Saints prayed for us did he therefore hold it needfull that we should direct our prayers unto them Heare I pray you his owne answer in his eighth booke against Celsus the philosopher We must endevour to please God alone who is above all things and labour to have him propitious unto us procuring his good will with godlinesse and all kinde of vertue And if Celsus will yet have us to procure the good will of any others after him that is God over all let him consider that as when the body is moved the motion of the shadow thereof doth follow it so in like maner having God favourable unto us who is over all it followeth that we shall have all his friends both Angels and soules and spirits loving unto us For they have a fellow-feeling with them that are thought worthy to finde favour from God Neyther are they only favourable unto such as be thus worthy but they worke with them also that are willing to doe service unto him who is God over all are friendly to them and pray with them and intreate with them So as wee may be bold to say that when men which with resolution propose unto them selves the best things doe pray unto God many thousands of the sacred powers pray together vvith them UNSPOKEN to Celsus had said of the Angels that they belong to God and in that respect we are to put our trust in them and make oblations to them according to the lawes and pray unto them that they may be favourable to us To this Origen answereth in this maner Away with Celsus his counsell saying that we must pray to Angels and let us not so much as afford any little audience to it For we must pray to him alone who is God over all
and vve must pray to the Word of God his onely begotten and the first bornè of all creatures and we must intreat him that he as high Priest would present our prayer when it is come to him unto his God and our God unto his Father and the father of them that frame their life according to the word of God And whereas Celsus had further sayd that we must offer first fruits unto Angels and prayers as long as we live that we may finde them propitious unto us answere is returned by Origen in the name of the Christians that they held it rather fit to offer first fruits unto him which sayd Let the earth bring forth grasse the herbe yeelding seed and the fruite tree yeelding fruite after his kinde And to whom wee give the first fruites saith he to him also doe wee send our prayers having a great high Priest that is entred into the Heavens Iesus the Sonne of God and we hold fast this confession whiles we live having God favourable unto us and his onely begotten Sonne Iesus being manifested amongst us But if we have a desire unto a multitude whom we would willingly have to be favourable unto us we learne that thousand thousands stand by him and millions of millions minister unto him who beholding them that imitate their pietie towards God as if they were their kinsfolkes and friends helpe forward their salvation who call upon God and pray sincerely appearing also and thinking that they ought to doe service to them and as it were upon one watchword to set forth for the â—enefit and salvation of them that pray to God unto whom they themselves also pray For they are all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heires of salvation Thus farre Origen in his eight booke against Celsus to which for a conclusion we wil adde that place of the fift booke All prayers and supplications and intercessions and thankesgivings are to be sent up unto God the Lord of all by the high Priest who is above all Angels being the living Word and God For to call upon Angels we not comprehending the knowledge of them which is above the reach of man is not agreeable to reason And if by supposition it were granted that the knowledge of them which is wonderfull and secret might be comprehended this very knowledge declaring their nature unto us and the charge over which every one of them is set would not permit us to presume to pray unto any other but unto God the Lord over all who is aboundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Sonne of God Tertullian and Cyprian in the bookes which they purposely wrote concerning Prayer deliver no other doctrine but teach us to regulate all our prayers according unto that perfect patterne prescribed by our great Master wherein we are required to direct our petitions unto Our Father which is in heaven Matth. 6.9 Luk. 11.2 These things saith Tertullian in his Apologie for the Christians of his time I may not pray for from any other but from him of whom I know I shall obtayne them because both it is he who is alone able to give and I am he unto whom it appertayneth to obtayne that which is requested being 〈◊〉 servant who observe him alone who for his religion am killed who offer unto him a rich and great sacrifice which he himselfe hath commanded Prayer proceeding from a chaste body from an innocent soule from a holy spirit where he accounteth Prayer to be the chiefe sacrifice wherewith God is worshipped agreeably to that which Clemens Alexandrinus wrote at the same time We doe not without cause honour God by prayer and with righteousnesse send up this best and holyest sacrifice The direction given by Ignatius unto Virgins in this case is short and sweete Yee Virgins have Christ alone before your eyes and his Father in your prayers being inlightened by the Spirit for explication whereof that may be taken which we reade in the exposition of the Faith attributed unto S. Gregory of Neocaesarea Whosoever rightly prayeth unto God prayeth by the Sonne and whosoever commeth as he ought to doe commeth by Christ and to the Sonne he can not come without the holy Ghost Neyther is it to be passed over that one of the speciall arguments whereby the writers of this time do prove our Saviour Christ to bee truely God is taken from our praying unto him and his accepting of our petitions If Christ be onely man saith Novatianus how is he present being called upon every where seeing this is not the nature of man but of God that he can be present at every place If Christ be onely man why is a man called upon in our prayers as a mediatour seeing the invocation of a man is judged of no force to yeeld salvation If Christ be onely man why is there hope reposed in him seeing hope in man 〈◊〉 sayd to be cursed So is it noted by Origen that S. Paul in the beginning of the former epistle to the Corinthians where he saith With all that in every place call upon the Name of Iesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours 1. Corinth 1.2 doth thereby pronounce Iesus Christ whose Name is called upon to be God And if to call upon the Name of the Lord saith he and to adore God bee one and the selfe same thing as Christ is called upon so is he to be adored and as we do offer to God the Father first of all prayers 1. Tim. 2.1 so must we also to the Lord Iesus Christ and â—s wee doe offer supplications to the Father so doe we offer supplications also to the Sonne and as wee doe offer thankesgivings to God so doe we offer thankesgivings to our Saviour In like maner Athanasius disputing against the Arrians by that prayer which the Apostle maketh 1. Thessal 3.11 God himselfe and our Father and our Lord Iesus Christ direct our way unto you doth prove the unitie of the Father and the Sonne For no man saith he would pray to receive any thing from the Father and the Angels or from any of the other creatures neyther would any man say God and the Angell give thee this And whereas it might be objected that Iacob in the blessing that he gave unto Ephraim and Manasseh Genes 48.15 16. did use this forme of prayer The God which fed me from my youth unto this day The Angel which delivered me from all evills blesse those children which Cardinall Bellarmine placeth in the forefront of the forces he bringeth forth to establish the Invocation of Saints Athanasius answereth that he did not couple one of the created and naturall Angels with God that did create them nor omitting God that fed him did desire a blessing for his nephews from an Angel but saying Which delivered me from all evills hee did shew that it was not any of the created Angels but
inlighten the whole celestiall world Rejoyce because the whole hoaste of heaven obeyeth me reverenceth and honoureth me Rejoyce because my Sonne is alwayes obedient unto me and my will and all my prayers he alwaies heareth or as others doe relate it The will of the blessed Trinitie and mine is one and the same and whatsoever doth please me the whole Trinitie with unspeakeable favour doth give consent unto Rejoyce because God doth alwayes at my pleasure reward my servitors in this world and in the world to come Rejoyce because I fit next to the holy Trinitie and am cloathed with my bodie glorified Rejoyce because I am certaine and sure that these my joyes shall alwayes stand and never be finished or â—ayle And whosoever by rejoycing with these spirituall joyes shall woâ—ship me in this world at the time of the depâ—rture of his soule out of the bodie he shall obtaine my presence and I will deliver his soule from the malignant enemies and present it in the sight of my Sonne that it may possesse joyes with me They tell us that manie many whoores for example that would not sinne on Saturday for the reverence of the Virgin whatsoever they did on the Lords day seeme to have the blessed Virgin in greater veneration than Christ her sonne moved thereunto out of simplicitie more than out of knowledge Yet that the Sonne of God doth beare with the simplicitie of these men and women because he is not ignorant that the honour of the mother doth redound to the childe Prov. 17.6 They argue further that if a Cardinall have this priviledge that if he put his cap upon the head of one that is ledd unto justice he is freed therby then by an argument drawn from the stronger the cloake of the blessed Virgin is able to deliver us froÌ„ all evil her mercy being so large that if she should see any man who did devoutly make her Crowne that is to say repeate the Rosarie or Chaplet of prayers made for her worship to be drawn unto punishmeÌ„t in the midst of a thousand Divels she would presently rescue him not permit that any one should have an evil end who did study revereÌ„tly to make her Crown They add moreover that for every of these Crownes a man shal obtaine 273758. dayes of Indulgence and that Pope Sixtus the fourth granted an indulgence of twelve thousand years for every time that a man in the state of grace should repeat this short orizon or salutation of the Virgin which by manie is inserted into her Crowne Hayle most holy Mary the mother of God the Queene of heaven the gate of Paradise the Ladie of the world Thou art a singular and pure virgin thou didst conceive Christ without sinne thou didst beare the creator and saviour of the world in whom I doe not doubt Deliver me from all evill and pray for my sinnes Amen In the Crowne composed by Bonaventure this is one of the orizons that is prescribed to be sayd O. Empresse and our most kinde Ladie by the authoritie of a mother command thy most beloved Sonne our Lord Iesus Christ that he would vouchsafe to lift up our mindes from the love of earthly things unto heavenly desires which is sutable unto that versicle which wee reade in the 35. Psalme of his Ladies Psalter Incline the countenance of God upon us compell him to have mercie upon sinners the harshenesse whereof our Romanists have a little qualified in some of their editions reading thus Incline the countenance of thy Sonne upon us compell him by thy praiers to have mercie upon us sinners The psalmes of this Psalter doe all of them begin as Davids doe but with this maine difference that where the Prophet in the one aymeth at the advancement of the honour of our Lord the Fryar in the other applieth all to the magnifying of the power and goodnesse of our Lady So in the first Psalme Blessed is the man quoth Bonaventure that loveth thy name O Virgin Marie thy grace shall comfort his soule in the others following Lady how are they multiplied that trouble me with thy tempest shalt thou persecute and scatter them Ladie suffer me not to be rebuked in the furie of God nor to bee judged in his wrath My Ladie in thee have I put my trust deliver me from mine enemies O Ladie In our Ladie put I my trust for the sweetenesse of the mercie of her name How long wilt thou forget me O Ladie and not deliver me in the day of tribulation Preserve me O Ladie for in thee have I put my trust and imparte unto me the droppes of thy grace I will love thee O Ladie of heaven and earth and I will call upon thy name among the nations The heavens declare thy glorie and the fragrance of thine oyntments is spread among the nations Heare us Ladie in the day of trouble and turne thy mercifull face unto our prayers Vnto thee O Lady have I lifted up my soule in the judgement of God by thy prayers I shall not be ashamed Iudge me Lady for I have departed from mine innocencie but because I will trust in thee I shall not be weakned In thee O Ladie have I put my trust let me never be confounded in thy favour receive me Blessed are they whose hearts doe love thee ô virgin Marie their sinnes by thee shall mercifully be washed away Lady judge those that hurt me and rise up against them and plead my cause Waiting have I waited for thy grace and thou hast done unto me according to the multitude of the mercie of thy name Lady thou art our refuge in all our necessities and the powerfull strength treading downe the enemie Have mercie upon me O Ladie who art called the mother of mercie and according to the bowels of thy mercies cleanse me from all mine iniquities Save me Ladie by thy name and deliver me from mine unrighteousnesse Have mercie upon me O Ladie have mercie upon me because my heart is prepared to search out thy will and in the shadow of thy wings will I rest Let Marie arise and let her enemies be scattered let them all be troaden downe under her feete In thee O Lady have I put my trust let me never be put to confusion deliver me in thy mercie and cause mee to escape Give the King thy judgement O God and thy mercie to the Queene his mother Lady the gentiles are come into the inheritance of God whom thou by thy merits hast confederated unto Christ. Thy mercies O Lady will I sing for ever God is the Lord of revenges but thou the mother of mercie dost bowe him to take pitie O come let us sing unto our Ladie let us make a joyfull noise to Mary our Queene that brings salvation O sing unto our Lady a new song for shee