how to comfort them with the joyfull news of his recovery Sorrow and grief and anguish and disconsolation our Saviour did begin to feel there 's no doubt of that though not in such a high degree as to make him fall into those extremities of passion as neither to know what he did nor for what he prayed He that could come to his Disciples in the middest of his anguish and reprove them for their sloth and sleepiness had neither lost the use of his speech nor senses And if his prayers were full of faith as no doubt they were for the Scriptures say that he was heard in that he prayed for which could not be without a perfect measure of faith assuredly however he was heavily oppressed under the burden of afflictions he knew full well both what he prayed for and to whom But this was only the beginning of his sorrowes as before was said It followeth in the text both in Matthew and Marke My soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto the death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my soul is compassed round with sorrowes such as doe seem to threaten me with no lesse then death and yet no way to scape them as in both Evangelists And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For as an eminent Prelate of our own doth observe right well The whole work and weight of our Redemption was now before Christs eyes and apprehension in a more exact and lively manner he now appearing before the judgment seat of God then we in this body can discern For as all things needfull shall be present and patent to us when we are brought to Gods tribunall so Christ presenting himself before the judgement of God to the end that man might be redeemed by the ransome which he was to pay for him and Satan ejected from prevailing against his members by his mediation did fully and perfectly behold the detestation which God had conceived against our sins and the power of his wrath provoked by our defection and rebellion as also the dreadfull vengeance prepared and ordained for sin and our dull and carelesse contempt of our own misery together with the watchfulnesse and eagernesse of the common adversary the brunt and burden of all which he was to bear and to avert them from us by by that satis â—action which the justice of God should then require at his hands as a just price and full recompence for the sins of men The due consideration and intuition whereof being in Christ more clear then we can conceive might worthily make the manhood of Christ both to fear and tremble and in his prayers to God to stir and inflame all the powers and parts both of soul and body as far as mans nature and spirit were able with all submission and deprecation possible to powre forth themselves before his God Here was full cause undoubtedly to make him sorrowful and sorrowful unto the death How could it otherwise be conceived when the just and full reward of our iniquities was thus presented to his sight when he beheld the greatnesse and the justnesse of Gods wrath against it and therewithall considered within himself how dear the price must be and how sharpe the pain which should free us of it And on the other side considered how precious his own person was how infinite his obedience how pure his life and yet how that most precious life must be taken from him that by one death and that death only of the body he might deliver us from the death both of body and soul. So then his soul was â—ull of sorrow there was good cause for it but not oppressed with any pains much lesse tormented and inflanted with the pains of hell as some would fain gather from the text for neither tristitia in Latine nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek either amongst divine or humane writers signifie any such impression of pain and torment but an affection only which afflicts the minde rising upon the apprehension of some evill either past or instant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek amongst the choycest humanitians is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Cicero translates opinio recens mali praesentis a fresh opinion of present or impendent evill And Austin telleth us for the Latines that grief and anguish when it is in the soul is called tristitia that is sorrow but when 't is in the body then 't is molestia pain or trouble Thus is the word taken also in the holy Scripture where St. Paul saith I would not come again unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sorrow or heaviness for fear he should have sorrow of them of whom he did expect to be received with joy and where it is affirmed of the rest of the servants when they perceived how cruelly their fellow-servant which was pardoned so great a sum dealt with one of his debters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were very sorry And certainly they might be very sorry on so sad an accident out of a fellow-feeling of their Brothers miserie we have no reason to conceive them to be full of pain Hitherto we have met with such griefs and sorrows in our Saviour as never man endured before but yet they prove not to be such as either did confound all the powers of his soul or astonish all the senses of his body or brought him into such amazement that he considered neither what he said or did Some have endevoured to infer this as before was noted out of the texts and words foregoing but with ill successe and therefore they are fallen at last on an other Scripture which they think makes for them How is my soul troubled saith our Saviour and what shall I say Father save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this houre Here they observe a contrariety or contradiction in our Saviours words which could not possibly proceed but from a soul distracted and a minde confounded and what could work so strange and sensible a confusion in him but the pains of hell which were within him But whatsoever they observe the most eminent men for parts and learning in the times before them could see no such matter Erasmus in his Paraphrases gives this glosse upon them which Bullinger a learned Protestant writer doth extol most highly and calleth an excellent explication I finde my soul troubled for the day of my death approaching and what shall I say For the love of mine own life shall I neglect the life of the world By no means I will apply my self to the will of my Father Mans weaknesse troubled with the fear of death may say unto him Father if it be possible save me from this hour from this danger of death which is now so near me But love desirous of mans salvation shall presently add Nay rather if it be expedient let death which is desired come for as much as wittingly and willingly by the
at the best be they what they will neither the Fathers nor Apostles no nor Christ himself for ought I can see to be excepted Which error being thus sprung up did in an Age so apt to novelties and innovations meet with many followers and some too many indeed in this Church of England some of them teaching as it is affirmed by their learned Adversary that Christ redeemed our souls by the death of his soul as our bodies by the death of his body Now whereas the soul is subject to a twofold death the one by sin prevailing on it in this life which is the natural depriving or voluntary renouncing of all grace the other by damnation in the world to come which is the just rejecting of all the wicked from any fellowship with God in his glory and fastning them to everlasting torments in hell fire I would fain know which of these deaths it was the first or second which our Saviour suffered in his soul. I think they do not mean the last and am sure they cannot prove the first for to talk as some of them have done that there may be a death of the soul a curse and separation from God which of it self is neither sin nor conjoyned with sin is such a Monster in Divinity as was never heard of till this Age. Certain I am the Scripture only speaks of two kindes of death the first and the second both which we finde expressed in the Revelation where it is said the fearful and the unbeleeving and the abominable and murtherers and sorcerers and whoremongers and Idolaters and all lyers all which no doubt are under the arrest of the first death whereof he speaketh chap. 2. vers 11. shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death And sure I am the Fathers if they may be credited are contrary in tearms express to this new device not only acknowledging no death in Christ but the death of the body but also utterly disclaiming this pretended death of the soul. In quo nisi in corpore expiavit populi peccata in quo passus est nisi in corpore Wherein saith Ambrose did he expiate the sins of the people but in his body wherein did he suffer death but in his body St. Austin to this purpose also Sacerdos propter victimam quam pro nobis offerret a nobis acceptam that Christ was made or called a Priest by reason of that sacrifice which he took of us that he might offer it for us which could be nothing but our body More plainly and exclusively Fulgentius thus Moriente carne non solum deitas sed nec anima Christi potest ostendi commâ—rtua that when Christ dyed in the flesh neither his Deity nor his soul can be demonstrated to have dyed also with it The greatest Doctors of the Greek Churches do affirm the same Christ saith Theodoret was called an high Priest in his humane nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and offered none other sacrifice but his body only And thus Theophylact A Priest may by no means be without a sacrifice It was necessary then that Christ should have somewhat to offer Quod autem offerretur praeter ejus corpus nihil quippiam erat and there was nothing which he had to offer but his body only Athanasius in his third Oration against the Ariâ—ns and Nazianzen on that text When Iesus had finished all those sayings do affirme the same but not so clearly and exclusively as the others did Now as here is no death of the soul which possibly may be imagined to have happened to Christ if we will be judged by the Scriptures and as the Fathers Greek and Latine do so significantly and expresly disclaime the same so is it such an horrid speech such a pang of blasphemy as should not come within the heart nor issue from the mouth of any Christian. But this I only touch at now We shall hear more of it in the next Article touching the descent into hell where it shall be presented to us in another colour I end this point at this time with that of Augustine There is a first death and there is a second The first death hath two parts one whereby the sinfull soul by transgressing departeth from her Creator the other whereby she is excluded from her body as a punishment inflicted on her by the judgment of God The second death is the everlasting torment of the body and soul. Either of these deaths had laid hold upon every man but that the righteous and immortall Son of God came to die for us in whose flesh because there could be no sin he suffered the punishment of sin without the guilt of it And to that end admitted or endured for us the second part of the first death that is to say the death of the body only by which he ransomed us from the dominion of sin and the pain of eternal punishment which was due unto it But yet there is another argument which concludes more fully against this new device of theirs then any testimonies of the Fathers before produced mamely the institution of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by the Lord himself in which there is a commemoration to be held for ever both of the breaking of his body and of the effusion of his bloud by which his bodily death is represented and set forth till his coming again but no remembrance instituted or commanded for the death of his soul. Which if it were of such an unquestionable truth as these men conceive and of such special use and efficacie to the worlds redemption as they gave it out would doubtlesse have been honoured with some special place in that commemoration of his Sacrifice which himself ordained Who in the same night he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thankes he brake it and said Take eate this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me and likewise after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying this cup is the new Testament sealed in my bloud which is shed for you this do as oft as ye drink in remembrance of me In which and more then this we finde not in the book there is not one word which doth reflect on the death of his soul or any commemoration or remembrance to be held of that Only we find that as our Saviour by his death which was then at hand did put an end to all the legal rites and sacrifices of the old Testament which were but the shadows of things to come as St. Paul cals them Coloss. 2.17 So having fulfilled in the flesh all that had been fore-signifyed and spoken of him in the Law and Prophets he did of all ordain and institute one only Eucharistical sacrifice for a perpetuall remembrance of his death and passion to his second coming And thus St.
of them in their severall Commentaries on the text saying the same thing though in divers words And finally it is so interpreted by St. Augustine also Nec frustra fortasse non satis fuit ut diceret mors aut infernus sed utrumque dictum est c. that is to say Nor happily without cause did he not think it enough to say that death or hell divisively had cast up their dead but he nameth both death for the just who might only suffer death and not also hell hell for the wicked and unrighteous who were there to be punished Thus have we looked over all those places where the word Hades doth occurre in the new Testament except that one which is in question whereof more anon and finde it constantly both englished and interpreted by that of hell according as we commonly understand the word for the place of torments T is true the word admits of other notions amongst some Greek Authors But that makes nothing to us Christians who are to use it in that sense in which it is presented to us in the book of God interpreted and expounded by the Antient Fathers and the tradition of the Church For though the sacred Penmen of the new Testament writing in Greek were of necessity to use such words as they found ready to their hands yet they restrained them many times to some certain and particular meaning which they retain unto this day as words of Ecclesiastical use and signification Of this kinde are Ecclesia Evangelium Episcopus Presbyter Diaconus Martyr and the like which being words of a more general signification in their first original are now restrained to such particular notions as the first Preachers of the Gospel thought most fit to reserve them for Of this kind also is Diabolus which properly and originally did signifie no more then an Accuser but is now used by all writers both in Greek and Latine to denote the Devil And of this kind is Hades also which whatsoever it might signifie in some old Greek writers more then the Place or Region of hell or the Prince thereof is now restrained in general speech to signifie only hell it self or the house of torments the habitation of the Devill and his Angels But this we shall the better see by taking a short view of the use and signification of the word amongst the best and most approved of the old Greek Ecclesiastical writers And first Iosephus though no Christian yet one that very well understood the difference between heaven and hell telleth us of those whose souls were cleansed and favoured of God that they inhabit in the holiest places of heaven but that they whose hands wax mad against themselves or who laid hands upon themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their soules were to be received in the dark vaults of hell or Hades Theophilus the sixt B. of Antioch about 170. years after Christ citeth this verse out of the works of the Sibyls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they sacrificed to the Devils in hell or Hades In the same times lived Iustin Martyr who doth thus informe us After the soul saith he is departed from the body straightwayes there is a separation of the unjust from the just both being carryed by the Angels into places meet for them that is to say the souls of the just into Paradise where is the fellowship and sight of Angels and Arch-angels with a kind of beholding of Christ our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the souls of the unjust to places in hell or Hades of which it was said in Scripture unto Nebuchadnezzar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Hades below was stirred to meet him Isa. 14. And to this purpose he both citeth and alloweth those words of Plato where he affirmes that when death draweth near to any man then tales are told 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the things in Hades how he that here doth deal unjustly shall there be punished c. Next him Eusebius speaks thus in the person of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I see my descent to hell or Hades approach and the rebellion against me of the contrary powers which are enemies to God And that we may be sure to know what he means by Hades he tels us out of Plato in another place that the souls of wicked men departing hence immediately after death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 endured the punishments of hell or Hades of their doings here After man was fallen saith Athanasius and by his fall death had prevailed from Adam to Christ the earth was accursed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hell or Hades opened Paradise shut up and heaven offended but after all things were delivered by Christ the earth received a blessing Paradise was opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hades or hell did shrink for fear and heaven set open to all believers And in another place he speaketh of two severall mansions provided by Almighty God for the wicked man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grave and Hades whereof one is to receive his body and the other his soul. St. Basil thus Death is not altogether evill except you speak of the death of a sinner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because that their departure hence is the beginning of their punishments in hell or Hades and besides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the evils which are in hell or Hades have not God for their cause but our selves c. And after shewing that Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up of the earth he addes that they were never a whit the better for this kind of punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for how could they be so that went down to Hades or hell but they made the rest wiser by their example Infinite more might be alleaged from the Fathers of the Eastern Church to shew that when they spake of Hades they meant nothing but hell and should be here produced were not these sufficient Only I shall make bold to add the evidence of two or three of the most eminent of the latter writers to shew that in all times and ages the word retained that notion only which had been given it in the Scriptures and the old Greek Fathers Thus then Cydonius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that there is in Hades hell vengeance for all sinnes committed not only the consent of all wise men but the equity of the divine justice doth most fully prove Aeneas Gazaeus he comes next and he tels us this that he who in a private life committeth smal sins and laments them escapeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the punishments that are in Hades And finally Gregentius thus Christ took a rod out of the earth viz. his precious Crosse and stretching forth his hand struck all his enemies therewith and conquered them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is to say Hades or hell death sin and that subtile serpent So
to the woman And the third was in reference to the Elect that Satan might see he had now no right no not so much as to their bodies which Christ hereafter would be pleased to restore to life Mr. Nowel as before we saw gives three other reasons that is to say First that the souls of the faithlesse might perceive the condemnation of their unbelief to be just and righteous Secondly that Satan the chief Prince of hell might see all the power of his tyranny to be weakned and broken nay utterly ruined And thirdly that the dead who in their life time believed in Christ might perceive the work of their Redemption to be now finished and finde the force and fruit thereof with most certain comfort But against this it is objected that Christ obtained this victory against hell and Satan and all the benefits redounding to the godly by it by his death and passion on the Crosse and therefore it was needlesse that on those occasions which seem most considerable in this businesse he should make a journey unto hell To which it is replyed two wayes First that it belongeth not to us to know the depth of Gods counsels and the reasons of Christs doings in every thing as if we were to call him to a strict account of all his actions and that considering how the Scriptures do so clearly testifie that his soul was not left in hell we are not to reject this clause either as superfluous or impertinent although we cannot tell precisely the main end and purpose why he was pleased to descend thither And secondly that though the victory against Hell and Satan was perfected upon the Crosse yet the manifestation of the same to the souls of the damned and the triumph which was due upon it over Satan and all the powers of darknesse was not and could not be performed but in hell alone We shewed you this before from Zanchius a moderate and learned man where he affirmeth according to the mind of the best interpreters that though those enemies were vanquished on the Crosse by Christ yet the triumph for the same was not performed untill he forced and entred the kingdome of hell as a glorious Conquerour Nay more then so Christs victory over death and hell if Athanasius may be credited as I think he may was of too great moment and importance to be dispatched in one place and by one act only Therefore saith he As Christ performed the condemnation of sin on the Earth the abolition of the curse on the Crosse and the redemption of corruption in the grave so he accomplished the dissolution of death in hell omnia loca permeans that going unto every place he might in every place work mans salvation So that Christs victory not being compleat as this Father thinketh and the triumph due upon the victory not to be celebrated any where so properly as in hell it self the antients did not hold his descent into hell to be very necessary for the godly but much unto the honour and glory of our blessed Saviour and to that end joyned it together with the Article of his resurrection as being the first part of his exaltation For as George Mylius a learned Lutheran very well observeth there are two things to be considered in the Article of Christs descent into hell First that it was no metaphorical but a true and real descent whereby our Saviour did descend to the lower parts of the earth Eph. 4. ipsasque damnatorum sedes even to the mansions of the damned and secondly that this Article is no part of his passion and humiliation but of his victory and triumph So then the Article standing as it did in all antient Copies notwithstanding all these vain assaults and the doctrine in the same contained being neither impossible or impertinent as it was pretended the next attempt made by the Adversaries of the same was to put such a sense or senses on it as might make it either useless to the Church of Christ or inconsistent with that meaning in which it had been taken generally by the Catholick Church And though the Cardinal would very fain impose this project on the Protestant Doctors and make them the first Authors of those devises by which the true meaning of this Article hath been impugned and the Article it self as good as cast out of the Creed yet by his leave he must ascribe this practise if it were a practise to his great Masters and Dictators in the Schools of Rome For sure it is Durandus one of their great School men before Luthers time denied expressely that the soul of Christ descended into hell secundum substantiam suam really and according to the substance of it but doth restrain the same ad effectus quosdam according to some certain effects and influences as the illuminating and beatifying of the Saints in Limbo Thus much the Cardinal himself doth confess ingenuously and against that opinion of Durandus doth put up this Thesis viz. Animam Christi proprie reipsa descendisse ad inferos that is to say that the soul of Christ really and in very deed did descend into hell which he confirmes by many strong and weighty reasons And sure it is that before him Aquinas himself the great Master of the Roman Schooles did put such a sense upon the Article as utterly disagreeth with that of the Antient Fathers whose doctrines they would make us weak men believe they do so tenaciously if not pertinaciously imbrace and defend For whereas the Fathers do maintain a descent into hell and do expound themselves that they mean by hell the place and mansions of the damned Aquinas states the question thus that Christ descended only unto Limbus patrum according to a real presence secundum realem praesentiam as his words there are and to all other places of the infernal pit secundum effectus tantum only according to the influence and effects thereof And in this point he hath been so close followed by the most part of the Schoolmen that Bellarmine conceived it neither fit nor safe to run directly and expresly against the stream and therefore goeth no further then probabile est that in most likelihood our Saviours soul descended really to all parts of hell So that although the current of Antiquity run an other way and that the Fathers do deliver it for a Catholick verity that the soul of Christ did really and locally descend to all parts of hell even to the mansions of the damned as before was said yet if Aquinas and the Schoolmen like their own way better 't is but probable at the most a matter of probability only and no more then so Such is the great respect they bear after all their brags to the traditions of the Fathers Which being so the Cardinal had but little reason to impose it on the leading men of the reformed Churches that they perverted the true meaning of the
for all that to call God his own It was still Deus meus Deus meus to the very last gasp And he that hath the confidence as to say my God to appropriate God unto himself as his own God is far enough off from being in despair there 's no question of it Nothing can then be left but the fires of hell and they could work no further then upon his body or the outside only of his soul if I may so call it the inward man being senseless of the heats thereof since it was neither subject to rejection or remorse at all though to say truth he suffered not the fires of hell neither in body nor in soul nor in both united Not in his Person in this life nor his soul singly by it self whilest he lived amongst us For hell fire is not to be found but in hell it self and neither soul nor body were in hell when he was alive Not in his body after his death and burial for that lay quiet in the Grave neither touched nor troubled Nor in his soul neither when he went to hell for none do suffer hell torments in the place of torments but they which are sentenced to DAMNATION and I have so much confidence of their Christianity as to believe they dare not say and as yet they do not that Christ was damned No Christian could endure such an horrid blasphemy especially if it were delivered in tearms express Yet I must tell you by the way that some come very neer it to a tantamont whose doctrine it is and 't is a doctrine built upon Calvins principles that Christ did locally descend to the place of torments ibi quoque poenas nostris peccatis debitas luisse and did there suffer the very pains which are due to us for our sins For otherwise say they which is Calvins reason non plena fuisset ipsius pro nobis satisfactio his satisfaction for our sins had not been sufficient Which were it true as Beza very well observeth Ne corpori quidem parcendum erat he was not to have spared his body but was to have descended into hell both in body and soul in regard that death eternal is the wages of sin and that not of the soul only but the body also Such horrible absurdities doe men fall into if once they stray aside from the paths of truth If then he neither suffered remorse in conscience nor rejection from the fight and favour of God nor had any reason to despair of Gods love to him which are properly the punishments or torments which do belong unto the damned if he suffered not so much as for a moment the very fire of hell in the place of torments assuredly he tasted no more of hell pains in his soul then his body in the grave did of grief and sorrow But then they say that he did struggle hard with the powers of darkness and trembled at the horrour of Gods dreadful judgements This we acknowledge to be true but this is short I trow of the pains of hell He struggled hard no doubt with the Prince of darkness both in his Temptation in the Wilderness and all those conflicts which he had with the powers of hell both in the Garden and on the Cross. He trembled also it is probable upon the apprehension of Gods anger against sinful man whose person he had taken on him and on the fight and knowledge of those dreadful punishments even eternal death which God in his just judgement did denounce against wilful and impenitent sinners If Calvin mean no more then this by his Oportuit eum cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore quasi consertis manibus luctari we assent unto him But who knows not that hath but common sense and reason how much the greatest conflict with the powers of Satan the greatest apprehension that a man can have of Gods wrath and anger against sin the greatest trembling that can possibly invade him on that apprehension fals short of all the least of those infinite torments which are prepared in hell for the damned souls But then the question will be asked whether Christ did not suffer all those punishments for the redemption of man which man himself must needs have suffered had not Christ come to redeem him if yea he must then suffer also the pains of hell which can be understood in no other sense then in that they take it if not there wanted somewhat to make up the scale for satisfaction of Gods justice To this I answer first in the way of negation in plain tearms he did not for he neither was nor could be damned and what else but damnation is the final punishment belonging to impenitent sinners I answer secondly with a limitation that he did suffer all those things which either were beseeming him or behooful for us all kinde of punishments whatsoever which did neitherâ— prejudice that plenitude of sanctity or science which was vested in him For further clearing of which point we must distinguish with the Schoolmen of three sorts of punishments whereof the first is called culpa which is plainly sin as when God punisheth one sin with another as the proud with envy the covetous man sometimes with miserable parsimony sometimes with ambition the second is ex culpa ad culpam something proceeding from sin and inducing to it as natural concupiscence an inclination to do evill a contrariety in the faculties of the soul c. The third is ex culpa sed nec culpa nec ad culpam as they phrase it that is to say that which proceeds from sin but neither is sin in it self nor doth incline him unto sin in whom it is As hunger thirst weakness and death it self which are the consequents of sin since the sin of Adam Of this sort only are the punishments which our Saviour suffered and they are likewise of two sorts for they are either suffered for sin imputed or for sin inherent a man being sometimes punished for his own offences and sometimes for anothers fault imputed to him He that is punished for his own faults hath remorse of conscience condemning himself of drawing such guilt upon his soul and with that guilt such miseries both on soul and body but he that suffereth for the fault of another man of which he is no cause at all either by perswasion help consent or example hath no such remorse Now our Redeemer suffered for the sins of other men and not for any of his own and consequently was not touched with remorse of conscience though it be generally found in all men at one time or another and be neither sin nor inducement to sin Lastly these punishments which are punishments only and not sin such as are common to the whole nature of man and suffered for the faults of another man are of two sorts also either the punishments of sin eternally remaining in stain or guilt or ceasing at the least broken off
of the Article but shall take it in the literal and Grammatical sense With which expression I conclude this long dissertation ARTICVLI 6. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis i. e. The third day he rose again from the dead CHAP. X. Of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour with a consideration of the circumstances and other points incident to that Article IT was the observation of the Antient Father that the incredulity of St. Thomas did much conduce unto the confirmation of the Christian faith in this great Article of the Resurrection Quam felix incredulitas quae omnium seculorum fidei militavit as St. Augustine hath it The rest of the Apostles who had seen the Lord had made this their Colleague acquainted with so great a miracle too great indeed for one of so weak faith to assent unto And therefore he requires a more â—ull and perfect demonstration of it then any of his fellows had before exacted Vnless saith he I put my finger into the print of his wounds and thrust my hands into his side I will not believe See here the stubbornness of incredulity The same man who had seen Christ raise up Lazarus after three days resting in the grave will not believe he had ability to work the like miracle upon himself Our gracious Saviour thereupon permits his body to be handled by this unbeliever And Thomas sensibly convicted of his infidelity breaks out into this divine ejaculation MY GOD AND MY LORD Prae caeteris dubitavit prae caeteris confessus est said the Father rightly Here was a miraculous generation of belief indeed Faith came not here by hearing but by believing only And by this way of generation of belief in him the Christian Church became the more confirmed and setled in this present Article this trial and experiment of St. Thomas having clearly manifested that Christ assumed not a body in appearance only neither one of a spiritual essence or a new created one but that he rose again in the same numerical body in which he suffered on the Cross and paid the price of our Redemption So that of all that glorious company there was none more fit to testifie the truth of this point then he and to deliver it to the world for his part of this Common Symbol as it was antiently conceived he did And unto this St. Gregory may possibly relate where he tels us saying Dum in Magistro suo palpat vulnera carnis in nobis sanat vulnera incredulitatis whilest Thomas feels the wounds in his masters body he healed the wounds of incredulity in his followers souls And certainly some such experiment as this was exceeding necessary to satisfie the wavering and doubtful soul in so high an Article which by reason of the seeming impossibility and unexampled strangenesse of the matter hath been more called in question and opposed both by Iew and Gentile then any other of the Creed It was indeed a work both of weight and wonder not to be wrought by any which was simply man To man meer natural man it was no lesse impossible to give a resurrection to the dead then to grant a dispensation or indulgence not to die at all How could it be expected that one meerly moral should be of strength sufficient to destroy death and to bury the grave to raise himself first from the jawes of death and receptacles of the grave and by the power thereof to restore poor man to his lost hopes of immortality Most justly may it be presumed that had so great a work been possible to mortal man man being proud enough to attempt great matters would first have took the benefit of his own abilities and so more easily have possessed the incredulous world with the truth and reall being of a resurrection by the powerfull Rhetorick of example In cases where the issue may be doubtfull and the triall dangerous we commonly make tryall and experiment as ignorant Empericks do their potions upon other men But where the issue or event is known and certain likely to yeeld honour to our selves in the undertaking we use not willingly to let others rob us of the glory of it or be beholding unto others for that which we conceive we can do our selves He then which was to be the first-fruits of the resurrection must have something in him more then ordinary something to raise a doubt in his greatest adversaries as in Iosephus a Iew but a very modest one whether it were lawfull or not to call him man to reckon him amongst the natural sons of Adam Tantae ejus res gestae quantas audere vix hominis perficere nullius nisi Dei was spoken in the way of flattery by the Court Historian but may be truly verifyed of the acts of Christ. Those Miracles of his upon true record as they could hardly be attempted by a mortal man so could they be performed by none but a powerfull God For who but he who both in name and power was the God of nature had power not only to suspend some acts of nature but absolutely to over-rule the whole course thereof Of which great works above the ordinary reach of man and nature if we accompt the resurrection as the principall we shall rightly state it It is within the power of Art and the rules of Physick to repaire the ruines of decayed nature and perhaps prolong the number of a few miserable days He only could restore life to the dead who first gave it to the living He only can restore our bodies to our souls in the last day who did at first infuse our souls into our bodies Which miracle before it could be wrought on us he must first work it on himself and thereby raise an hope and be belief in us to expect our own The head being raised gives good assurance to the body that though it do not rise at the same time with it it shall in due time be raised by it What other uses may be made of Christs resurrection we shall see anon This is enough to shew the reasons or necessity thereof by way of preamble to let us see that all the hopes we have of our own resurrection depends upon the certainty and truth of this Which though it be a principle of the Christian faith by consequence of common course to be confessed and not disputed Oportet enim discentem credere as the old rule is yet sithence that the truth thereof hath been much suspected by the Iews and the possibility debated by the Gentiles it will be necessary for the setling of a right beliefe to satisfie the one and refell the other Which done it will be easily seen that there is reason and authority enough to confirm this truth were it not left us for a principle And first beginning with the Iews who first and most maliciously opposed this part of holy Gospel we purpose
for ostentation of our Savious power in regard that every man receives his judgement either life or death as soon as he is freed from his earthly tabernacle For which there is sufficient proof in the book of God This day said Christ our Saviour to the penitent theef shalt thou be with me in paradise As plain is that of the Apostle It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgement The same we finde exemplifyed in the rich man and Lazarus the soul of the one as soon as dead being carried into Abrahams bosome the other being plunged in unquenchable flames If so as so it is most certain what use can be conceived of a general judgement when all particular persons have already received their sentence what further punishments or glory can be added to them then Paradise to Gods Saints and servants and the unquenchable flames of hell for impenitent sinners Which difficulty though removed in some part before as to the vindicating of the justice of Almighty God and the participation of the body in that blisse or misery which the soul presently is adjudged to on the separation and finally the manifesting of Christs power and glory in the sight of his enemies shall now be also cleared as to that part thereof which seems to place the soul in the height of happinesse as soon as separate from the body or in the depth of anguish and disconsolation And first that the souls of just and righteous persons are in the hands of God in Paradise in Abrahams bosome yea in the very heavens themselves I shall easily grant But that they are in the same place or in the same estate and degree of glory to which they shall be preferred by Christ in the day of judgement I neither have seen text nor reason which could yet perswade me Certain I am the Scripture seems to me to be quite against it the current of antiquity and not a few Moderns of good note and eminencie to incline very strongly to the other side For Scriptures first St. Paul doth speak indeed of a Crown of righteousnesse to be given to him and to all those that love the appearing of Christ but not to be given them till that day i. e. the day of his appearing St. Peter next informeth of an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in the heavens and more then so prepared already but not to be shewed till the last time In the last place we have St. Iohn acquainting us with the condition of the Saints as in matter of fact where he telleth us that the souls of the Martyrs under the Altar where they were willed to rest themselves till the number of their fellow servants was accomplished And though we grant the souls of righteous men departed are in heaven it self yet doth it not follow by any good consequence that therefore they are in the highest Heaven where God himselfe refideth in most perfect majesty The name of Heaven is variously used in holy Scriptures First for the Aire as where we finde mention of the birds of heaven Mat. 26. and the cloudes of heaven Mark 14. Next for the Firmament above in which the Lord hath placed those most glorious lights which frequently are called the Stars of heaven as Gen. 20. Then for that place which St. Paul calleth in one text by the name of the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 and in another place shortly after by the name of Paradise vers 4. which is conceived to be the habitations of the Angels their proper habitation as St. Iude calleth it vers 6. Into this place the soul of Lazarus was carried as to Abrahams bosom to this our Saviour promised to bring the soul of the penitent theef Hitherto Enoch and Eliah were translated by God and St. Paul taken up in an heavenly rapture And to this place or to some one or many of those heavenly mansion for in my Fathers house there are many mansions said our Lord and Saviour the souls of righteous men are carryed on the wings of Angels there to abide till they are called upon to meet their bodies in day of day of judgement And last of all it â—ignifyeth the highest heaven to which Christ our Saviour is ascended and sitteth at the right hand of God in most perfect glory Of which St. Paul telleth us that he was made higher then the heavens Heb. 7. and that he did ascend above all the heavens Ephes. 4. This is the seate or Palace of Almighty God called as by way of excellency the heaven of heavens where his divine glory and majesty is most plainly manifested and therefore called by the Prophet the habitation of his holinesse and of his glory So then the souls of righteous men deceased may be in Paradise in the third heaven in Abrahams bosome and yet not be admitted to the highest heaven wherein God reigns in perfect glory till Christ shall come again to judgment and take them for ever to himself into possession and participation of his heavenly Kingdome That in this sense the Fathers understand the Scriptures which mention the estate of the Saints departed will best be seen by looking over their own words according as they lived in the severall Churches First for the Eastern Cherches Iustin Marter telleth us that the the souls of the righteous are carryed to Paradise where they enjoy the company of Angels Archangels and the vision of Christ our Saviour and are kept in places fit for them till the day of the resurrection and compensation Next Origen The Saints saith he departing hence do not presently obtain the full reward of their labours but they expect us though staying and slacking For they have not perfect joy so long as they grieve at our Errours and lament our sins Then Chrysostome more then once or twice Though the soul were a thousand times immortall as it is yet shall she not enjoy those admirable good things without the body And if the body rise not again the soul remaineth uncrowned without heavenly blisse Theodoret lived in the same times and was of the same opinion also saying The Saints have not yet received their Crowns for the God of all expecteth the conflict of others that the race being ended he may at once pronounce all that overcome to be Conquerers and reward them together Finally not to look so low as Oecumenius and Theophylact who say almost as much as Theoderet did we have at once the judgement of many of the Fathers delivered by Andreas Caesariensis in a very few words It is saith he the judgement of many godly Fathers that every good man after this life hath a place fit for him by which he may conjecture at the glory which is prepared Look we now on the Western Churches and first we have Irenaeus B. of Lyons in France affirming positively thus Manifestum est c. It is manifest that the souls
this blessed Spirit on the particular Members of his Congregation that is to say the joyning of the Saints together in an holy Communion the free remission of our sins in this present life resurrection of the body after death and the uniting again of Soul and Body unto life eternal This is the sum and method of the following Articles and these we shall pursue in their order beginning first with that of the Holy Ghost Whose gracious assistance I implore to guide me in the waies of Truth that so the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart may be alwayes acceptable in the sight of God the Lord my strength and my Redeemer But because the word or notion of the Holy Ghost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various signification in the Book of God we will first look upon it in those significations and then conclude on that which is chiefly pertinent to the intent and purpose of the present Article For certainly the Orators Rule is both good and useful viz. Prius dividenda antequam definienda sit oratio That we must first distinguish of the Termes in all Propositions before we come unto a positive definition of them According to which Rule if we search the Scripture we shall there find that the Holy Ghost is first taken personaliter or essentialiter for the third person in the Oeconomie of the glorious Trinity We find him in this sense in the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour as the principal Agent in that Work The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee Luk. 1.35 And in his Baptism descending on him like a Dove to fit him and prepare him for the Prophetical Office he was then to exercise And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luk. 3.22 From which descent St. Peter telleth us that he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power and that from thenceforth he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the Devil In the next place the Holy Ghost is used in Scripture to signifie the Gifts and Graces of the holy Spirit as in Act. 2. where it is said of the Apostles that they were all filled with the holy Ghost ver 4. not with his essence or his person but with the impressions of the Spirit the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost such as the Gift of Tongues mentioned in the following words The Gift of the Holy Ghost as it is called expresly Ver. 38. Thus read we also that the holy Ghost was given by the hands of Peter Act. 8.17 18. And by the hands of Paul Act. 19.6 In which we read that when Paul had laid his hands upon them the Holy Ghost came on them and they spoke with tongues and Prophesied which last words are a commentary upon those before and shew that by the holy Ghost which did come upon them is meant the Gift of Tongues and the power of Prophecying both which the holy Ghost then conferred upon them And lastly it is taken not onely for the ability of doing Miracles as speaking with strange Tongues Prophecying curing of Diseases and the like to these but for the Authority and Power which in the Church is given to some certain men to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people As when Christ breathed on his Apostles and said unto them Receive the holy Ghost that is to say Receive ye an holy and spiritual power over the soules of men a part whereof consisteth in the remitting and retaining of sins mentioned in the words next following and serving as a Comment to explaine the former In which respect the Holy Ghost said unto certain of the Elders in the Church of Antioch Segregate mihi Barnabam Saulum Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them Act. 13.2 It is the Holy Ghost which cals it is his work to which they were called and therefore separate mihi separate to me may not unfitly be expounded to my Work and Ministery and consequently to the authority and power which belongs unto it Which being premised the meaning of the Article will in briefe be this That we beleeve not onely that there is such a person as the Holy Ghost in the Oeconomy of the blessed Trinity though that be principally intended but that he doth so distribute and dispose of his Gifts and Graces as most conduceth to the edification of the Church of Christ. But this I cannot couch in a clearer way as to the sense and doctrine of the Church of England than in the words of Bishop Iewel who doth thus expresse it Credimus spiritum sanctum qui est tertia persona in sacra Triadi illum verum esse Deum c. i. e. we beleeve that the Holy Ghost who is the Third Person in the holy Trinity is very God not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding both from the Father and the Son by an unspeakable means and unknowne to man and that it is his property to mollifie and soften mans heart when he is once received thereinto either by the wholesome Preaching of the Gospel or by any other way that he doth give men light and guide them to the knowledge of God to the wayes of truth to newnesse of life and to everlasting hope of salvation This being the sum of that which is to be beleeved of the Holy Ghost both for his Person and his Office we will first look upon his Person on his Property or Office afterwards And yet before we come unto his Person I mean his Nature and his Essence We will first look a little on the quid Nominis the name by which he is expressed in the Book of God In the Original he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a double Article as Luk. 3.22 in Latine Spiritus sanctus or the Holy Spirit but generally in our English Idiom the Holy Ghost The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to breath and is the same with the Latine Spiro from whence comes Spiritus or the Spirit a name not given as I suppose because he doth proceed from the Father or the Son or both in the way of breathing though Christ be said to breath upon his Apostles when he said receive the Holy Ghost but because the breath being in it selfe an incorporeal substance and that which is the great preservative of all living creatures it got the name first of Spiritus vitae we read it in our English the breath of life Gen. 11.7 and afterwards came to be the name of all unbodyed incorporeal essences For thus is God said to be a Spirit God is a Spirit Ioh. 4.24 The Angels are called Ministring Spirits Heb. 1.14 the Soule of man is called his Spirit let us cleanse our selves saith the Apostle from all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit that is of the body and
in the Pharisees For Christ who knew their hearts found their cunning also And therefore did so shape his answer as by declaring the true nature of the Resurrection against the Pharisees to justifie the Immortality of the Soul against the Sadduces 1. Then he tells them how much they were mistaken in the nature of the Resurrection for want of a right understanding of the holy Scriptures Erratis nescientes Scripturas as the Vulgar reads it The Scriptures which do speak of a Resurrection not being to be understood in such an Animal and Carnal sense as the Pharisees did understand them Those bodies which were sown in corruption were to be raised again incorruptible and therefore not to live by the food which perisheth Those bodies which were sown in their mortality by reuniting with the Soul should become immortal and therefore not to stand in need of any Seminal or Carnal way of Propagation For in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die any more but are as the Angels of God in Heaven in the condition of their being as to those particulars This said and so much of their doubt resolved as concerned the error of the Pharisees he lets them see the weakness of their own opinion touching the annihilation or extinguishment of the Immortal soul of man And that too from the works of Moses which themselves embraced without consulting any other of the holy Pen-men For when God said to Moses in the present tence I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob it must needs be that Abraham Isaac and Iacob must be accounted of as living at that present time and living otherwise they were not at that present time but as their blessed Souls did live in the sight of God their Bodies being long before consumed and perished though even those bodies by the infinity of comprehension which is in God might be looked upon as living also in reference to that eternal life which was prepared for them in the day of the Resurrection And this I take to be the meaning of St. Luke who doth not onely say in the present tence That the dead are raised but addes these following words to the other Evangelist viz. For all live in him that is to say All men though buried in their dust are living in the sight of Almighty God who sees at once all things that have been are and shall be unto all eternity as if present with him and consequently beholds the Souls of his righteous servants Abraham and Isaac and the rest in the bliss of Paradise as if apparrelled with those bodies which before they had So then the Immortality of the Soul being so fully proved by our Saviours Argument The Resurrection of the dead being the thing which seemed to be scrupled by the Sadduces was concluded also and yet not such a Resurrection the Pharisees dreamed of in which there should be marrying and giving in marriage that is to say In which things should be ordered by the rules of this present life but such a one wherein the Saints of God should be like the Angels discharged from all relations incident to flesh and blood exempt from all humane affections of what sort soever For certainly had not the Argument concluded strongly and convincingly to the point proposed neither the Scribes men better studied in the Scriptures than any of the rest of the Iewish Nation had given this testimony to it Magister dixisti benè as we see they did nor had the mouths of such curious and captious Sophisters been muzzled as we see they were from asking him the like Questions for the time to come both which the story tells us in the close of all But I have staid too long on this Text of Scripture it is now time I should proceed to the rest that follows ARTICLE XII Of the Twelfth Article OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. MATTHIAS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Et Vitam Aeternam Amen i. e. And the Life Everlasting Amen CHAP. VIII Of the Immortality of the Soul and the glories of Eternal Life prepared for it As also of the place and torment of Hell Hell-fire not metaphorical but real The conclusion of all MOrs non extinguit hominem sed ad praemium virtutis admittit Death saith Lactantius doth not put an end to the life of man but rather openeth him a way to receive the recompence of his wel deservings For though the body be returned unto the earth out of which it was taken and that there were no Resurrection to be looked for for it yet in the better part the soul he is incorruptible and immortal not subject to the stroke of death nor to be made a prey unto worms and rotâ—enness In this respect it is to be disposed of in some suitable place and to be punished or rewarded in a suitable manner none but an Everlasting Life or eternal punishments being the doom thereof in the world to come according to the good or evil which in this world it hath projected or accomplished Now that the Soul of man is not onely a spiritual essence which actuates the body in the which it is but an immortal essence too which shall over-live it we have good proof in holy Scripture and that both from the Old Testament and from the New The souls of the righteous saith the wise man are in the hands of the Lord And though the Body go down into the Earth yet the Soul returneth unto him that gave it saith a wiser than he But behold a greater than Solomon or the wisdom of Solomon even CHRIST the wisdom of the Father hath affirmed the same not onely commending his own Soul to Almighty God but teaching St. Stephen and all the rest of the Saints in him how to do the like This day saith he to the good Theef thou shalt be with me in Paradise And more than so he doth convincingly conclude the immortality of the Soul from those words in Exod. I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob which sufficiently doth prove that point This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise Not in their bodies either of them for the body of the one was on the cross and the other in the Grave till the resurrection It must be therefore in their Souls which neither the Cross could crucifie nor the Grave bury St. Iohn affirmeth the same as a matter of fact which in the former Texts except that of Exodus we finde but in hope or promise For speaking of the estate of the Saints departed which he beheld as clearly in an heavenly Rapture as if it had been a thing done before his eyes he telleth us that he saw under the Altar the soules of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they had And they cryed with
and beams of our Heavenly Father who hath bestowed our souls upon us indued with such a perfect measure of understanding and who not onely doth direct our mindes in the ways of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in due time also will save our Bodies The Divine Plato and his followers borrowed a great deal of their light from this Zoroaster and the like Dictates of the rest of the Chaldean Sages which grounded him in his opinion of the Souls immortality and the account it was to give to the dreadful Iudge in the world to come whereof he speaketh in his second Epistle and eleventh Book De Legibus Pythagoras though sometimes he held the transmigration of the soul into other Bodies yet in his better thoughts he disposed it otherwise and placed the souls of vertuous men in the Heavens above where they should be immortal and like the gods saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Leaving the Body they to Heaven shall flie Where they shall be immortal never die And to this purpose also that of Epicharmus may be here alleged assuring us That if we live a life conform to the rules of vertue death shall not be able to do us hurt because our souls shall live in a blessed life in the highest Heavens Upon these grounds but specially upon the reading of some Books of Plato Cleombrotus is said to have been so ravished with the contemplation of the glories of that other life that for the more speedy attaining of them he cast himself down from the top of a Mountain with greater zeal by far than wisdom And therefore much more commendable was the death and dying speech of one Chalcedius another of those old Platonicks Revertar in patriam ubi meliores Progenitores Parentes I am saith he returning into my own Country where I shall finde the bettet sort of my Progenitors and deceased Parents Nor was this such a point of divine knowledge as was attainable onely by the wise men of Greece the sober men amongst the Romans had attained it also For Cicero affirms expresly Certum esse ac definitum in coelo locum ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur That there is a certain and determinate place in Heaven where the blessed souls of those who deserve well of the publick shall injoy everlasting rest and happiness And Seneca speaks thus of death intermittit vitam non eripit that it onely interrupteth the course of life but destroyeth it not because there will come a day at last qui nos iterum in lucem reponat which will restore us again to the light of Heaven Finally Not to add more testimonies in so clear a case Homer makes Hercules a companion of the gods above with whom he lives in endless solace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ennius saith the like of Romulus Romulus in Coelo longum cum diis agit aevum If we would know what their opinion was of the place it self in which eternal life was to be enjoyed we have a glimpse or shadow of it in the fiction of the Elysian fields so memorized and chanted by the antient Poets Locos laetos amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas A place conceived to be replenished with all variety of pleasures and divine contentments which possibly the soul of man could aspire unto the ground continually covered with the choycest Tapistry of Nature the Trees perpetually furnished with the richest fruits excellent both for taste and colour the Rivers running Nectar and most heavenly Wines fit for the Palat of the gods And which did add to all these beauties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sweets thereof not blasted by untimely dewes or interrupted by the inclemency of a bitter winter A place by them designed for the soules of those who had been careful of Religion or lost their lives in the defence and preservation of their natural Country or otherwise deserved nobly of the publick Nay even the rude Americans and savage Indians whom we may justly call jumenta rationalia a kind of reasonable beasts retain amongst them a Tradition thar beyond some certain hils but they know not where there is a glorious place reserved for the soules of those who had lived vertuously and justly in this present life or sacrificed their lives to defend their Country or were the Authors of any notable and signal benefit which tended to the good of mankind If then not onely the Philosophers and learned Gentiles but even the Barbarians and rude Americans have spooken so divinely of the place and state of good men departed there is no question to be made but that the Patriarchs Prophets and other holy men of God were very well assured of the truth hereof although they lived before or under the Law as well assured as we that have the happiness to live under the Gospel For St. Paul telleth us of the Fathers which were under the cloud that they all passed thorow the red Sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them and that Rock was Christ Not that they had the same Sacraments in specie which we Cristians have but others which conduced to the same effect and did produce the same fruits both of Faith and Piety The Mysteries of salvation the hopes and promises of eternal life are frequently expressed in the Old Testament quamvis obscuriores longè though more obscure by far than in the forms of speech in which they are presented to us in the New Testament as Peter Martyr well observes And he notes too that many were the temporal promises or the promises concerning temporal blessings but so as to conduct and train them up in the hopes of happines eternal The temporal blessings which they had were but the types and figures of those endless comforts which were reserved for them in the Heavens above the land of Promise but a shadow of that promised land of which they were to be heirs in the Kingdom of God Hierusalem but a Map of that glorious City whose Author and founder is the Lord. Enoch had neither been translated before the Law nor Elias under it had not both of them stedfastly beleeved this truth that they should see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living And yet some men there were and I doubt still are who teach that the holy men of God which lived before Christ our Saviours time did fix their hopes only upon temporal blessings and not at all upon spiritual or if upon spiritual as the peace of conscience yet not upon eternal happiness which is the crown and glory of that peace The Anabaptists and the Familists were of this opinion against whom the Church of England hath declared her self in the Seventh Article of her Confession saying That they are not to be
also of the creation and fall of man OF the name and nature of the Angels Why the creatioon of the Angels not expressed in Scripture Probable conjectures that the Angels were created before the beginning of the world and those conjectures backed by authority of the Antients both Greeks and Latines The several orders and degrees of the holy Angels The Angels ministring to Almighty God not only in inflicting punishments upon the wicked but in protection of the godly Many things said in Scripture to be done by God which were effected by the Ministry of the blessed Angels That every one of Gods people and they alone hath his Angel-guardian proved not only by the authority of the Antients but by the testimony of the Scripture Of the Daemons of the antient Gentiles That the worshipping of Angels mentioned in Coloss. 2. did arise from thence Angel worship not alone forbidden by Scriptures and Fathers but by the very Angels themselves The evil Angels first created in a state of integrity Of their confederacy and fall That the sin of ambition was the cause of the fall proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers and by several reasons Several differences between the sin and fall of man and the sin and fall of the evil Angels The reason why CHRIST took not on himself the Angelical nature The Devils diligence and design in seducing mankinde The Devil why and how called the Tempter Of the Mali Genii Of the Gentiles and that the Daemonium Socratis so often mentioned by the Antients was not of that nature Several Artifices of the Daemons in gaining Divine honours to themselves The Devil not without much difficulty dispossessed of the Soveraignty he had gotten in the souls of men The goodly structure of mans body and some contemplations thence arising That the soul of man is not ex traduce proved by the Scriptures and the Fathers The Image of God imprinted on mankinde in what it doth consist especially and of the several degrees and perfections of it The voluntary fall of man and how it came to be imputed to his whole posterity the remedy of God provided to restore lost man The fall of Adam not decreed and in what sense permitted by Almighty God CHAP. VI. What Faith it was which was required for Justification before and under the Law of Moses Of the knowledge which the Patriarchs and Prophets had touching Christ to come Touching the Sacrifices of the Jews the salvation of the Gentiles and the justifying power of Faith THe general project of this Chapter No faith in Christ required of Adam till his fall nor after that explicitely affirmed of our Father Abraham The error and mistake of Eve touching the Messias Whether the Prophets fully understood their own predictions touching Christ to come In what Gods Prophets differed from the Heathen Soothsayers The Heathen Soothsayers why called extatici and arreptitii and furiosi No explicite faith in Christ required of the Patriarchs before the law nor of the people of the Iews who lived under the Law What faith it was which was imputed for righteousness to our Father Abraham The Sacrifices of the Iews not counted expiatory in reference unto Christ to come but by the Ordinance and Institution of Almighty God Why CHRIST is said in Scripture to be the end of the Law Or the advantages which the Iews had above other Nations The Gentiles not left destitute of means and helps to bring them to the knowledge and Worship of God No point of Reverence performed by Gods people antiently in the act of Worship which was not practised by the Gentiles The Sacrifices of the Gentiles what they aimed at chiefly before perverted by the Devil The Sacrificing of men and women among the Gentiles by whom first introduced and upon what grounds The eminence of some Gentiles in all moral vertues The union of mans soul with Almighty God proposed as the chiefend of liâ—e by the old Philosophers The salvation of the nobler souls amongst the Gentiles defended by some late Divines denyed by St. Augustine formerly and upon what grounds the grounds on which he built examined The vertues of the Gentiles not to be counted sins or vices for any circumstantial imperfections which are noted in them The special help wherewith God might supply amongst the Gentiles the want of Scripture The charitable opinion of Franciscus Iunius touching the Infants of the Gentiles The case of the Gentiles altered since our Saviours passion and so St. Peter Act. 2. and the 17. Article of the Church of England to be understood What it is that makes Faith instrumental unto Iustification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the act of faith imputed to a man for righteousness proved by the testimony of the Scriptures and the Antient Writers The Homilies of the Church explicated and applyed to the present point LIBER II. CHAP. I. Nothing revealed to the Gentiles touching Christ to come The Name of JESUS what it signifies and of bowing at it Of the name CHRIST and the Offices therein included The name of Christians how given unto his Disciples SAlvation of the world by Christ kept as a Mysterie from the Gentiles generally before the Preaching of the Gospel The Sibâ—lline Oracles what they say of Christ not to be counted pie fraudes and with what care preserved from the common view The tearm or â—â—tion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the WORD frequently found in Plato and his followers The summe of our belief touching Christ our Saviour The name of IESVS whence derived and what it signifieth A parallel between IESVS the Son of God and Ioshua or Iesus the son of Nun. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rendred Salvator by the Writers in the Christian Church till the alteration made by Beza and of the full meaning of those words The dignity of the name of Iesus That bowing at the Name of IESVS was antiently used in the Church of Christ and from the first beginning of the Reformation in the Church of England The name CHRIST whence derived and what it signifieth and of the several Offices it relates unto That the name of Christian was not given unto the followers of Christs Doctrine without some solemnities Chrestos and Chrectiani mistakingly used for Christus and Christiani by some Heathen Writers CHAP. II. That JESUS CHRIST is the Son of God Why called his only or his only begotten Son Proofs for the Godhead of our Saviour Of the title of LORD THe name of the Son or Sons of God ascribed in several respects to men and Angels and also to the Saints departed given in a more peculiar manner to Kings and Prophets then unto any other of the sons of men in all of these respects communicable unto CHRIST our Saviour but after a more excellent manner then to all the rest CHRIST not the Son of God only but his only Son properly to be called the natural and begotten Son of Almighty God in reference to his birth
from the Virgin Mary The only Son and the best beloved Son equivalent in holy Scripture Christ why entituled the first born of every creature The rights of Primogeniture what they were and how vested in him CHRIST so to be accounted the Son of God as to be also God the Son That the Messiah was to come in the form of man The testimony given by Christ to his own Divinity cleared from all exceptions The story of Theodosius the Iew in Suidas touching Christ our Saviour justified The testimony given to Christs Divinity by the Heathen Oracles The falling of the Egyptian Idols the Poet Virgil and the Roman Centurion The Heresies of Ebion Artemon and Samosatenus in making Christ our Saviour a meer natural man briefly recited and condemned The perplexed niceties of the School avoided purposely by the Author The name of LORD appropriated in the Old Testament unto God the Father but more peculiar since the time of the Gospel to God the Son The title of LORD disclaimed by the first Roman Emperours and upon what reasons CHRIST made our LORD not only in the right of purchase but also by the law of Arms. CHAP. III. Of Gods free mercy in the Redemption of man the WORD why fitted to effect it The Incarnation of the Word why attributed to the holy Ghost the Miracle thereof made credible both to Jews and Gentiles THe controversie between Mercy Peace Truth and Iustice on the fall of man made up and reconciled by the oblation of Christ then designed and promised That God could have saved mankinde by some other means then by the Incarnation and death of Christ had he been so minded The Oblation of Christ rather a voluntary act of his own meer goodness then necessitated by imposition or decree Some reasons why the work of the Incarnation was to be acted chiefly by the holy Ghost The manner of the Incarnation with a more genuine explication of the Virgins answer The miraculous obumbration of the holy Ghost made more intelligible by two parallel cases The impure fancies of some Romish Votaries touching this Obumbration and the blessed Virgin The large faculties of Frier Tekell Sleidan corrupted by the Papists The strange conceit of Estius in making Christ the principal if not only Agent in the Incarnation The miracle of the Incarnation made perceptible to the natural man to the Iews and Gentiles The Virgins Faith a great facilitating to the Incarnation The Antiquity of the feasts of Annuntiation Christ why not called the Son of the holy Ghost The body of Christ not formed all at once as some Popishs writers doe affirm and the reasons why CHAP. IV. Of the birth of CHRIST the Feast of his Nativity Why born of a Virgin The Prophesie of Esaiah the Parentage and priviledges of the blessed Virgin NO cause for the WORD to be made flesh but mans Redemption Our Saviour Christ not only born but made of the Virgin Mary and the manner how That several Heresies in the Primitive times touching this particular The time and place made happy by our Saviours birth That Christ was born upon the five and twentyeth day of December proved by the general consent of all Christian Churches The high opinion of that day in the Primitive times The miracle of Christ being born of a Virgin Mother made perceptible by some like cases in the Book of God A parallel between Eve and the Virgin Mary The promise made by God to Eve The clearest Prophesie in Scripture that Christ our Saviour should be born of a Virgin-Mother That so much celebrated Prophesie Behold a Virgin shall conceive c. not meant originally and literally of the birth of Christ. The genuine meaning of the Text and how it was fulfilled in our Saviours birth Whether Christ were the direct heir of the house of David The Genealogie of Christ why laid down in such different wayes by the two Evangelists The perpetual Virginity of Christs Mother asserted against the Hereticks of former times defended on wrong grounds by the Pontificians The Virgin freed from Original sin by some zealous Papists and of the controversie raised about it in the Church of Rome What may be warrantably thought touching that particular The extreme errours of Helvidius and the Antidicomaritani in giving too little and of the Collyridians and the Papists on the other side in giving too great honour to the blessed Virgin Some strange extraâ—vigancies of the learned and vulgar Papists The moderation in that kinde of the Church of England The body of Christ a real not an imaginary substance and subject to the passions and infirmities of a natural body CHAP. V. Of the sufferings of our Saviour under Pontius Pilate and first of those temptations which he suffered at the hands of the Devil ANnas and Caiaphas why said to be High Priests at the self same time Of Pontius Pilate his barbarous and rigid nature and of the slaughter which he made of the Galileans By what SPIRIT for what reasons and into what part of the Wilderness Christ was led to be tempted A parallel between Christ and the Scape-goat Reasons for our Redeemers fast why neither more nor less then just forty days Of the Ember weeks The institution and antiquity of the Lenten fast and why first ordained St. Luke and St. Matthew reconciled A short view of the three temptations with a removal of some difficulties which concern the same How Satan could shew Christ our Saviour from the top of a mountain and in so short a space of time the Kingdomes of the earth and the glories of them In what respects it is said of Christ that he was or could be tempted of the Devil CHAP. VI. Of the afflictions which our Saviour suffered both in his soul and body under Pontius Pilate in the great work of MANS REDEMPTION THe heaviness which fel on Christ not so great and terrible as to deprive him of his senses In what respect it is said of Christ in his holy Gospel that his soul was sorrowful to the death The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifieth in the holy Penmen The meaning of our Saviours words Ioh. 12.27 No contrariety in Christs Prayer to the will of God Why death appeared so terrible in our Saviours eye The judgement of the Antients on that Prayer of Christ. The doctrine of the Schools touching the natural fear of death Why Christ desired not to receive that Cup from the hands of the Iews Of the comfort which the Angel brought unto our Saviour in the time of his heaviness A passage of St. Paul expounded Heb. 57. The meaning of the word Agony in the best Greek Writers and in the usual style of Scripture Christs Agony and bloudy sweat rather to be imputed unto a fervency of zeal then an extremity of pain The sentence put upon our Saviour in the High Priests Hall and at the Iudgement Seat of Pilate A brief survey of Christs sufferings both in soul and
first Article I believe in God the Father Almighty that is to say I believe that there is one Immoratal and Eternal Spirit of great both Majesty and Power which we call God and that this God is the Father Almighty the Father both of Iesus Christ and of all mankinde who as a Father hath not only brought us into the world but hath provided us of all things necessary both for body and soul protecting us by his mighty power and governing us and our affairs by his infinite wisdom This is the sum of that which is to be conceived of this present Article of our belief in God the Father Almighty I know the Schoolmen do distinguish very frequently between Credere Deum Credere Deo Credere in Deum the first whereof they make to be a general belief of the beeing of God that is to say that God is that there is a God the second an affiance or relying on the veracity or truth of that which he hath pleased to impart to us in the holy Scriptures the last which is the phrase here used a confidence which we have in his grace and goodness a casting of our selves entirely into his mercy and protection For thus the Master of the Sentences lib. 3. distinct 23. cap. illud est Thomas Aquinas 2.2 qu. 2. Ant. 2. ad 1. 4. the Author of the Ordinary Gloss. Rom. 4.5 Durandus in Rationale divin cap. de Symbol and indeed who not And I know also that this nicety is generally fathered on Augustine who indeed makes a signal difference between credere Deo credere in Deum Credere in Deumutique plus est quam credere Deo to believe in God is more saith he then to believe that which the Lord hath spoken Of which he gives this instance in another place Nam daemones credebant ei at non credebant in eum for the Devils do believe what God saith unto them who cannot for all that be said to believe in God And finally he concludeth or the Schoolmen from him that when we say I believe in God we do not only say I believe God is or I give credit to his words but me ipsum amare credendo in eum ire membris ejus incorporari by believing to love him by believing as it were to grow into him and be incorporate with his members The Protestant Doctors many of them go the same way also making the Credo of this place to be the same with Fiduciam in Deo colloco the placing of our whole trust and confidence in God Almighty which are Zuinglius words with whom agree as to the meaning of the phrase P. Ramus de Relig. l. 1. c. 2. Zanch. de tribus Elohim part 1. lib. 4. cap. 7. lib. 5. c. 2. Amesius in Medull Theol. lib. 1. cap. 3. num 15. besides diverse others whose names it were impertinent to remember here By these in Deum credere to believe in God is made the highest and most excellent act or degree of faith the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full assurance of the understanding which St. Paul speaks of Coloss. 2.2 higher then which a Christian cannot go in this present life Tertia fidei pars vel gradus as we read in Musculus non modo de Deo Deo sed in Deum credere And this he doth define to be Spem omnen in Deum dirigere firmaque fiducia ab illius bonitate pendere making it so peculiar unto God alone ut nec Moysi nec Prophetis nec Apostolis imo ne Angelis quidem debeat accommodari that it is neither to be used when we speak of Moses or of the Prophets or Apostles no nor of any of the Angels Finally for the phrase it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Apostles have made use of in this place of the Creed and in other parts of Divine Writ they make it an expression or form of speech so proper to the holy Ghost that neither the Septuagint in their Translation nor any learned Author amongst the Graecians ever used the same Which notwithstanding I am yet unsatisfied in the solidity and truth of the said distinction and also of the explication of the phrase here used And therefore with the leave of the learned Reader and with all due respect to those Reverend men who have transmitted them unto us I shall endevour to evince these two conclusions first that the phrase in Deum or in Christum â—redere the explication of the phrase in Deum credere and the distinction thereon founded is not so generally and universally true as it is pretended And 2. that howsoever it may be admitted in some texts of Scripture in which that phrase is used by the holy Ghost it can by no means be admitted in this place of the Creed First for the phrase in Deum or in Christum credere they make it signifie as before I said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full assurance which a Christian hath of the love of God the confidence which we have in his love and goodness the casting of our selves entirely into his goodness and protection which I conceive is more then the phrase importeth or was intended by it in the holy Ghost The only place in which we finde this form of speech in St. Matthews Gospel is in the 18. chap. vers 6. where it is said Whosoever offendeth any of these little ones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui credunt in me which believe in me it were better that a mil-stone were hung about his neck c. In which place by those little ones or pusilli which our Saviour speaks of he neither meaneth little children nor men small in stature they must needs wrest the words too far who do so expound them but men weak in faith such as he elsewhere calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of little faith And certainly a weak faith or a little faith cannot consist with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that full assurance and perswasion which is by them intended in the phrase in question Or if they mean it literally of little children because they finde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 parvulum a little childe to be a great part of the argument of that discourse either they must mean somewhat else by in Christum credere then their explication of the phrase admits of or else confess that little children are endued with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that confidence in the love and goodness of Almighty God in Iesus Christ which is the highest pitch and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the strongest faith which I think no wife man will affirm Thus is it said of the Disciples in the second chapter of St. Iohn that when they had seen the miracle which Iesus did in Cana of Galilee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crediderunt in eum they believed on him ver 11. Assuredly the faith of the Disciples at this time
also as before was shown Which if it may not be admitted in the Articles of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints with the rest that follow I see no cause why it should be admitted in the front of all which was to be the leading Case unto all the rest But other men of higher mark have seen this before me who give no other sense theâ—eof in this place of the Creed then to believe that there is one only eternal God the Maker of all things For thus the Book entituled Pastor and commonly ascribed to Hermes St. Pauls scholar Ante omnia unum credere Deum esse qui condidit omnia i. e. Before all other things believe that there is one God who made all things Origen thus Primum credendus est Deus qui omnia creavit i. e. In the first place we must believe that there is a God by whom all things were created S. Hilary of Poyctiers thus In absoluto nobis facilis est aeternitas Iesum Christum a mortuis suscitatum credere i.e. Eternity is prepared for us and made easie to us if we believe that Christ is risen from the dead And finally thus Charles the Great in the Creed published in his name but made by the most learned men which those times afforded Praedicandum est omnibus ut credant Patrem Filium Spiritum sanctum unum esse Deum omnipotentem i. e. the Gospel must be preached to all men that they may know that the Father Son and holy Ghost is one God Almighty Which resolution and authority of the antient Fathers is built no doubt upon the dictate and determination of S Paul himself who did thus lead the way unto them viz. He that câ—meth to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Where the first Article of the Creed I believe in God is thus expounded and no otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I believe that God is that there is a God According to which Exposition of the blessed Apostle our Reverend Iewell publishing the Apology and Confession of the Church of England did declare it thus We believe that there is one certain Nature and Divine power which we call GOD c. and that the same one God hath created Heaven and Earth and all things contained under Heaven We believe that Iesus Christ the only Son of the Eternal Father when the fulness of time was come did take of that blessed and pure Virgin both flesh and all the nature of man c. that for our sakes he died and was buried descended into Hell c. We believe that the holy Ghost is very God c. and that it is his property to mollifie and soften the hardness of mens hearts when he is once received thereunto c. We believe that there is one Church of God and that the same is not shut up as in times past amongst the Iews into some one corner or Kingdom but that it is Catholick and Universal and dispersed throughout the whole world c. and that this Church is the Kingdom the Body and the Spouse of CHRIST c. To conclude we believe that this our self same flesh wherein we live although it dye and come to dust yet at the last shall return again to life by the means of Christs Spirit which dwelleth in us c. and that we through him shall enjoy everlasting life and shall for ever be with him in glory Which consonancy of expression being so agreeable to that observed before by the antient Fathers and that observed before by the antient Fathers so consonant unto the expression of S. Paul the Apostle is the last reason which I have for this resolution that the so much applauded explication of the phrase in Deum credere is not to be admitted in this place of the Creâ—d And this shall also serve for a justification of that gloss or Commentary which I have given on this first Article viz. that to believe in God the Father Almighty is only to believe that there is one Immortal and Eternal Spirit of great both Majesty and Power which we call GOD and that this God is the Father Almighty the Father both of IESVS CHRIST and of all mankinde who as a Father hath not only brought us into the world but hath provided us of all things necessary both for body and soul protecting us by his mighty power and governing us and our affairs by his infinite wisdome But against this there may be some objections made which must first be answered before we come unto the further explication of this Article For if Faith be no other then a firm assent to supernatural truths revealed the Reprobate as they call them may be said to have faith which yet is reckoned in the Scripture as a peculiar gift of God unto his Elect which is therefore called Fides electorum or the Faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 2. If to believe in God the Father Almighty and in IESVS CHRIST his only Son c. be only to believe that there is a God and that all those things are most undoubtedly true and certain which be affirmed of IESVS CHRIST in the holy Scripture the Devil may be reckoned for a true believer S. Iames assuring us of this that the Devils do believe and tremble Iam. 2.19 And 3. if the definition and the explication before delivered be allowed for currant it will quite overthrow the received distinction of Faith into Historical temporary saving or justifying faith and the faith of Miracles so generally embraced in the Protestant Schools This is the sum of those objections which I conceive most likely to be made against me but such as may be answered without very great difficulty For that the Reprobate as they call them may have Faith in CHRIST is evident by many instances and texts of Scripture Of Simon Magus it is written in the Book of the Acts that he believed and was baptized and continued with Philip the Evangelist Adhaerebat Philippo saith the Vulgar he stuck so fast unto him that he would not leave him Ask Calvin what he thinks of this faith of Simons and he will tell you Majestate Evangelii victum vitae salutis authorem Christum agnovisse ita ut libenter illi nomen daret that being vanquished by the power and Majesty of the Gospel of Christ he did acknowledge him to be the Author of salvation and eternal life and gladly was inrolled amongst his Disciples And whereas some had taught and published amongst other things that Simon never did believe but counterfeited a belief for his private ends Calvin doth readily declare his dislike thereof acknowledging this faith of Simons to be true and real though but only temporarie Non tamen multis assentior qui simulasse duntaxat fidem putant quum minime credâ—ret I cannot yeild to them saith he which think
thing in property they could call their own but were indeed a people of so extreme a poverty that they no more needed the helps of God or man then the Beasts of the field Fennis mira feritas foeda paupertas non arma non equi non penates as he tels us there And more then so they had attained saith he to the hardest point Vt ne voto quidem opus sit that they had no need nor use of prayers to the gods on high For what need they make supplication to the gods and goddesses for blessings on their Corn and their Wine or Oyl who neither sowed nor planted nor used any husbandry What should they do with houshold gods who had no houses but the Earth only for their bed and the Heavens for the Canopy And yet perhaps these Fenni were not altogether without the knowledge of GOD or to be counted absolute Atheists more then the barbarous people of other new discovered Countries but that they had this Character bestowed upon them because they shewed less signs of any Religion then those Nations did with whom the Romanes had had longer acquaintance and so were more experienced in their rites and customes And of all men that flourished before Tullies time there were none stigmatized with the brand of Atheism but only Diagoras Melius and Protagoras the Cyrenaean to whom some added Enhemerus the Tegaean also Of the two first indeed it is said by Lactantius Protagoras deos in dubium vocavit Diagoras exclusit that Protagoras first called the beeing of the gods in question and that Diagoras was the first who denyed it absolutely who therefore was surnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Atheist as Minutius hath it And yet perhaps it will be found upon further search that neither of the three did doubt or deny this truth that there was a God but that they got this ill repute amongst the Gentiles for scoffing and deriding those Idol-gods whom their neighbors worshipped For of Diagoras it is said that when he cast the Statua of Hercules into the fire he did it with this scoffe or jeere In hoc decimo tertio agone mihi inservias that he should serve him now in that thirteenth labor as he had done Eurystheus in the other twelve And as well known is that of Protagoras also who is said to have thus mocked at the Idolatries of the old Egyptians Si dii sunt cur plangitis si mortui cur adoratis i. e. If they be gods why do you lament them for in the rites and sacrifices of the goddess Isis they used to make great lamentations if dead why do you then adore them As for the third man Euhemerus for these were all of note who stand thus accused he was accounted guilty of Atheism for no other reason but because he had composed an history of the birth lives and actions of the Heathen gods proving that they had been no other then some famous men whose Statua's had been turned to Idols and themselves worshipped by the people in tract of time for some powers Divine Which book of his Lactantius and some others of the Primitive Writers do make very good use of in their discourses with and against the Gentiles 'T is true that on those grounds and on those occasions which are spoken of by Enhemerus the greatest part of the old Heroes as Saturn Iupiter Apollo Neptune Mars Hercules and the rest of that infinite rabble became by degrees to have divine honours conferred upon them And 't is as true that the Egyptians worshipped Apis in the form of an Oxe or the Oxe rather under the name of Apis as being of greatest use to them in the course of their tillage and so they did also Leekes and Onions and divers other of the fruits of the Earth also by which they lived and some strange creatures also which they dreaded most quis nescit qualia demens Aegyptus portenta colat as the Poet hath it As true it is that other Nations worshipped the Sun and Moon and all the rest on the heavenly bodies unto whose glorious light and influences they thought themselves so much heholding Which may be used as a further and most invincible argument to prove that the knowledge of this truth that there was a God was naturally ingraffed in the souls of all men and that this natural inclination was so powerful in them that they rather would have any gods then none at all and therefore made themselves such gods as came next to hand worshipping STOCKS and Stones and Leekes and Onyons and whatsoever else their blinde fancies dictated And this I take it gave the hint to Democritus first and after him to Epicurus and the whole Sect of the Stoicks to set up FATE and Fortune in the place of the Gods or otherwise to invest dame Nature with the powers of a Deity For finding that the biass of all sorts of people inclined them strongly to believe that there was a God they were content to let the gods hold their place in Heaven but then they robbed them of their power or supreme providence in governing the World and ordering the affairs thereof And this was the disease of Davids fool in the Book of Psalms who used to say in his heart that there was no God Not that he was so very a fool as to think there was no God at all but that he thought the God of Heaven was so far above him and so imployed in matters of an higher nature as neither to take care or notice of the things beneath Which therefore he◠as Democritus and the Epicureans after did ascribed to Chance and Fortune or to Fate and Nature And as it seems this errour in the time of the Poet Iuvenal found such a general entertainment amongst the Romanes that he thought fit to tax it in his Satyres thus Sunt qui Fortunae jam casibus omnia ponunt Et Mundum nullo credunt Rectore moveri Natura volvente vices lucis anni Atque ideo intrepide quaecunque Altaria jurant That is to say Some think the World by slippery chance doth slide That days and years run round without more guide Then Natures Rule From whence without all fear Of Gods or men they by all Altars swear But howsoever this opinion carrying a less shew of impiety then that of Diagoras and Protagoras had done before became more generally to be received among the Gentiles yet in effect in rather changed then bettered the state of the question And though it did not strike down all the gods at a blow yet by degrees it lessened their authority amongst the people and brought them to depend wholly upon chance and fortune or on fate and destiny that in the end there might be no other God thought of none of the Heavenly Powers be sued to or adored at all Which plainly was their aim as St. Austin telleth us where notwithstanding their pretences he
the Spirit of prophesie as Minutius Felix well observeth Nay being spirits as they are of an excellent knowledge and either by a foresight which they have of some things in future or by conjecturing at events out of natural causes or coming by some other means to be made acquainted with the will of God they took upon them to effect what they knew would follow and to be the Authors of those publick blessings which were hard at hand so that indeed it was no wonder Si sibi Templa si honores si sacrificia tribuuntur if thereupon the people would erect them Temples and offer sacrifice unto them and yeild them other Divine honours fit for none but Gods By means whereof they did not only raise themselves into the Throne and Majesty of Almighty God and captivated almost all the world in a blinde obedience to their will and commands Sed veri ac singularis Dei notitiam apud omnes gentes inveteraverunt as the same Lactantius rightly noteth but in a manner had defaced the knowledge of the true one and only God over all the earth And in this blindeness and Idolatry did the world continue till the birth of CHRIST the Idols of Egypt falling down flat before him when he was carryed into that countrey in his Mothers arms as Palladius telleth us and all the Oracles of the Gentiles failing at the time of his death as is collected out of that work of Plutarchs inscribed De defectu Oraculorum Which preparation notwithstanding these Devils or Daemons call them which you will had gotten such possession of the mindes of men that the Apostles and Evangelists found it a far easier matter to cast the Devils out of their bodies then out of their souls and long it was before the rising of the Sun of righteousness was able to dispel those thick clowds of darkness wherewith they had thus overspread the whole face of the Earth Which with their power and influence in the acts of sin occasioned the Apostle to make this expression that he wrestled not against flesh and bloud but against Principalities and Powers against the Rulers not of this world but of the darknesse of this world and against spiritual wickednesses in high places By which words as he means the Devils and infernal spirits against which the man of God is to combate daily so by those words he gives me a just ground to think that the Angels which did fall from the primitive purity and have since laboured noithing more then the ruine of man were chiefly of those Orders of Aâ—gels which are called Principalities and Powers in the holy Scriptures And this I am the rather induced to think because I finde them called by those names in another place where the Apostle speaking of Christs victory over Hell and Satan describes it thus that having spoiled Principalities and Powers he made a shew of them openly and triumphed over them But of this argument enough It is now time that we proceed to the Creation and fall of man as that which more immediately conduceth to the following Articles of the Incarnation death and passion of our Lord and Saviour And first for mans Creation it was last in order though first in Gods intention of the six days work it being thought unfit in Gods heavenly wisdome to create man into the world before he was provided of a decent house and whatsoever else was necessary both for life and comfort For it we look unto the end for which God made many of the inferiour creatures reperâ—â—mus eum non necessitati modo sed oblectamento voluisse consulere as Calvin rightly hath observed we shall finde that he not only intended them for the necessities of mans life but also for the convenience and delight in living And whereas all the rest of the six days work were the acts only of his power the creating of man doth seem to be an act both of power and wisdome In all the rest there was nothing but a Dixit Deus he spake the word and they were made saith the Royal Psalmist But in the making of man there was somewhat more a Faciamus hominem a consultation called about it each Person of the Trinity did deliberate on it and every one contributed somewhat to his composition For God the Father as the chief workman or the principal agent gave him form and feature in which he did imprint his own heavenly Image The Son who is the living and eternal Word gave him voyce or speech that so he might be able to set forth Gods praises and the holy Ghost the Lord and giver of life as the Nicene Fathers truly call him did breath into his nosthrils the breath of life Or if we look upon it as one act of all we shall finde man agreeing with many of the creatures in the matter out of which he was made but very different from them all both in form and figure For though God pleased to make him of the dust of Earth to humble him and keep him from aspiring thoughts as oft as he reflected on his first Original yet did he make him of a straight and erected structure advanced his head up towards the Firmament and therein gave him the preheminence over all creatures else which had been made before of the same materials And this is that which Ovid the Poet thus expresseth Pronaque cum spectant animalia caetera terram Os homini sublime dedit coelumque videre Iussit erectos ad sydera tollere vultus That is to say And where all Creatures else with down cast eye Look towards th' Earth he rais'd mans Head on high And with a lofty look did him indue That so he might with ease Heavens glories view A thing of principal moment if considered rightly not only to the beeing but well being of man who is hereby instructed by the Lord his God that in the setling of his desires and affections he should take counsell of his making so to advance his meditations as God doth his head and not by fastning both his looks and thoughts on the things below him to disgrace as much as in him is the dignity of his creation and consequently merit to have had the countenance even of those very beasts whose minde he carryeth For I am verily perswaded that if the worldly minded man and such as are not well instructed in the things of God did but consider of the figure of his body only that very contemplation would promote him in the way of godliness and rectifie such errours and misperswasion wherewith his soul hath been misguided in the way of truth Certain I am that Lactantius whom I have so often cited in this present work examining the Original and growth of Atheism with which the world had been infected in the former times makes this amongst some other causes to be one of the principal that men had formerly neglected to look up
towards heaven Desierunt homines vultus suos in coelum tollere And thereupon it followed as perhaps it did that being once besotted with earthly pleasures they came in time to be infected with gross and earthly superstitions And no less sure I am that on this Contemplation Anaxagoras a wise man amongst the Gentiles being demanded for what cause he thought he was born made an answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to behold the Firmament So right a use did the Philosopher make of his bodily structure as to conceive the World and the pleasures of it to be so unfit an Object for his minde that it was not worthy of his eye Next for the form or soul of man it differeth more from that of all living Creatures then he doth differ from them in his bodily figure For whereas the soul of all other living creatures did rise out of the matter out of which they were made the soul of man had a more excellent sublime and divine original and was not either made with the bodie or out of the same dust whereof the body was made but infused immediately by God after the body was first framed and organized in every part to receive the same Of other animals it is said that God made the beast after his kind and the cattel after their kind that is to say matter and form at once without any distinction But when he cometh to the creation of man it is first said that God formed man of the dust of the ground and after that he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life whereby he became a living soul. And though I will not enter here upon that dispute whether the rational soul of man be a thing ex traduce whether begotten by his Parents or infused by God yet I confesse that the very order which God used in mans creation is of it self sufficient to make clear that point and to evince thus much that the soul of man is of a more noble extraction then the souls of beasts and not as theirs potentially in the seed of their generation Or if this be not sufficient to evince it then I conceive that he that was the best Divine and the greatest Philosopher of any of the sons of men even Solomon and all his wisdome hath so determined of the point as to make all sure affirming that the bodies of men being generated of grosse and earthly matter are in the end dissolved into that dust out of which they were primitively made but that the soul returneth into the hands of God by whom at first it was inspired Then saith he i. e. at the time of our death the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to him that gave it A Text so clear and evident to the point in hand that he who writ the Pamphlet called Mans mortality printed 1643. did very well and wisely to passe it over and not to put it in the number of those Objections which might be made against him from the word of God as being utterly destructive of that monstrous Paradox which he takes upon him to defend for true Catholick doctrine And if the Fathers may be suffered to come in for seconds where the authority of Scripture is so plain and pregnant we have a cloud of witnesses of unquestionable credit to confirme the same For the Greek writers first it is said by Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the principal faculties of the soul by which we have rational discourse is not engendred by projection of humane seed Theodoret doth not only say as much as he but brings good proof for it from the word of God The Church saith he believing the divine Scriptures teacheth us that the soul was and is created as well as the body not having any cause of its creation from natural seed but from the will of the Creatour after the body of man had been perfectly made For the divine Moses writeth that Adams body was first made and afterwards his soul was inspired into him and also telleth us in the Law that the body was first made then the soul infused The same he also proveth from a text in Iob and so concludeth that this confession touching the soul and body of man the Church had learnt from holy Scripture Next for the Latine Fathers it is said by Hilarie Animam nunquam ab homine gignentium originibus praeberi that the soul never cometh from the generation of men by Ambrose Ex nullo homine generantur Animae that the souls are not generated by the seed of man by Leo that the Catholick Church doth truly teach that the souls of men were not or had not any being at all before they were inspired into their bodies Nec ab alio incorporentur nisi ab opifice Deo neither are incorporated with the body but by God alone St. Hierome glossing on those words of Solomon before produced thus declareth himself Ex quo satis ridâ—ndi sunt qui putant animas a corporibus seri et non a Deo sed a Corporum parentibus generari Cum enim caro revertatur in terram et Spiritus redeat ad Deum qui dedit illum manifâ—stum est Deum patrem Animarum esse non homines I have laid down his words at large because they are a full and perfect exposition of that Text of Solomons on which I principally ground my self for Catholick doctrine though there be diverse other places one might build upon But for S. Hieromes words they are thus in English How worthily saith he are they to be derided who think the soul to be sown together with the body in the Mothers wombe and to be generated by our Parents not to come from God For being it is said by Solomon that the flesh returneth to the earth and the Spirit unto him that gave it it is most manifest that God is the Father of our souls not man T is true Ruffinus made some scruple whether the soul did come by propagation from Man or infusion from God by which as he gave very great scandall to all Christian people so was he very sufficiently scorned and confuted by S. Hierome for it T is true Tertullian sometime thought as this Pamphetler doth that the soul either was a kind of body or was ex traduce that is to say derived and propagated by traduction of humane seed but then it is as true withall that for this and other of his Heterodox tenets he is put into the Catalogue of Hereticks composed by Augustine And for S. Augustine himself though to avoid the difficulty which lay hard upon him touching the manner how the soul cometh to be infected with original sin made question whether the soul were infused by God or derived he knew not how from the soul of the Parent yet he rejected the opinion as absurd and grosse that is should be
derived from the natural seed of the body Quo quid perversius dici potest then which there could not any thing be said which is more perverse He that would see the judgment of the Protestant writers and how they do accord with the holy Scriptures expounded and applyed by consent of Fathers let him consult Calvin in his Comment on the Hebrewes cap. 12. Bullinger Decad. 4. Serm. 10. Beza in lib. quaestion et Respons Zanchius de operib dei part 3. l. 2. cap. 4. and Vrsin Tract Theolog. de peccato And for the opinion in this point of the old Philosophers that received maxime of theirs Creando infunditur infundendo creatur sufficiently declares it without further search But see how I am carried into this dispute ere I was aware besides my first meaning I am sure though not impertinently to the business of mans creation which is the work I have in hand For the accomplishing of which work being indeed the Master-peece of the whole Creation God did not only form the body and infuse the soul but he imprinted in him the impresse or character of his Heavenly image For it is said of man that God created him in his own image and that again repeated for our more assurance in the image of God created he him Gen. 1.27 About this Image of God thus imprinted in him there hath been much debate amongst learned men some placing it in Man himself others in somewhat adventitious and extrinsecal to him Of this last sort are they who place this Image of God in that dominion which God gave him over all the Creatures For so it followes in the Text Let us make Man in our image after our likenesse and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowles of the aire and over the Cattel and over all the earth And unto this the Poet doth allude in his Metamorphosis saying Sanctius his et quod dominari in caetera posset natus homo est that man who was to have dominion over all the rest of the Creatures was not made till the last But this if I conceive it rightly is rather a communication of some part of his Power then an impression of his Image unlesse perhaps their meaning be that God imprinted so much of his Heavenly Image in the face of man as to make all other Creatures stand in awe to him And if their meaning be no more then they come up to those of the other opinion who place this image of God in Man himself in something which is natural and essential to him which must either be in his body or his soul or both In one of those it must be there 's no doubt of that and little doubt in which of the two to finde it For certainly they look for it in a very wrong place who expect to finde it in mans body though of a gallant composition and erected structure The Heathen Oratour was able to inform some erroneous Christians one of whose many divine dictates this is said to be Ad divinam imaginem propius accedit humana virtus quam figura that man approched more near to the image of God in the virtues of his minde then the figure of his body I know a great dispute hath been also raised about this image of God in the soul of man that is to say in what it specially did conâ—ist and whether it were lost or not in the fall of Adam For stating of this controversie we will take some hints from the decisions of Aquinas who first declares that the image of God consisteth in that eminent perfection which is found in men expressing the nature of God in an higher degree then the chief excellencies found in all other creatures and secondly that this perfection is principally to be had in the soul of man Then he distinguisheth this perfection into these three conditions Creationis Recreationis et Similitudinis that is to say of nature grace and endlesse glory of which the first is to be found in all men and can never be lost the second is the portion of the man regenerated and the third is the reward of a soul in blisse The first consisteth in the largeness of the natural faculties of understanding and will not limited to the apprehension or desire of some certain things only but extended to all the conditions of being and goodness whose principall object is God so that they never rest satisfyed with any other thing but the seeing and enjoying of his blessed vision And this is that which is more briefly couched in those words of Augustines Fecisti nos ad te et irrequietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te O Lord saith he thou madest us only for thy self and our hearts are restlesse and unquiet till they rest in thee The second kind of this perfection in which the image of God is said to consist is supernatural when the soul actually or at lest habitually knoweth and loveth God aright though not so perfectly as he may and shall be known and loved hereafter And such was that perfection of the great Apostle who reckoned all but as dung so he might gain CHRIST who was so far inflamed with a strong desire of being united unto God that he desired to be dissolved without longer stay and such was the perfection of the holy Father who thought himself dead when he was alive out of a zeal of seeing the most blessed face of Almighty God Moriar ne moriar ut faciem tuam videam he dyed because he could not die to behold that vision The third and last degree of the said perfection is when the soul both knowes and loves the Lord her God in the fulnesse of happinesse And this is that whereof St. Paul hath told us saying that now we see darkly as thorow a glasse but then we shall see face to face Now know I but in part saith he but then shall I know even as I also am known These are the several perfections or degrees thereof in which Gods image printed in the soul of man doth consist especially according to the doctrine of the Roman Schooles and most pure antiquity and of these three the second is that only which was lost in Adam but partly though imperfectly renewed in the state of grace there being no man since the fall who either doth so perfectly know or so sincerely cherish the love of God in his soul as Adam did before it in his first integrity For when the Lord made Man in his first Creation he gave him such a clearness of understanding as was not darkened either with the cloudes of errour or the mists of ignorance and such a rectitude in his will as was not biassed unto evill by corrupt affections Perfectly good God made him but not good unchangeably for he was left in the counsel of his own hands as the wiseman
hath it that if he would he might continue in Gods grace and favour and attain all the blessedness which he could desire or otherwise might fall from both and so deprive himself of that sweet contentment which is not any where to be found but in God alone A greater liberty then this he had not given unto the Angels a more glorious creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Iustin Martyr And he as some of them before abused this liberty so given to his own destruction For being placed by God in the garden of Eden in Paradiso voluptatis as the vulgar reades it he had free power to eat of every tree but one in that glorious place and that tree only interdicted that God might have some tryall of his free obedience the interdiction being seconded with this commination that whensoever he did eat of it he should surely die What lesse could God have laid upon him unlesse he had discharged him of all obedience to his will and pleasure and left him independent of his supreme Power Father said the wise servant unto Naaman if the Prophet had commanded thee a great thing wouldst thou not have done it how much more then when all he saith unto thee is no more then this that thou shouldest wash and be clean Had God commanded Adam some impossible matter he might have been excused from the undertaking because it was a matter of impossibility Or had God bound him to the fruit of one tree alone and debarred him from the tast of all the rest he might have had some more excusable pretence for his flying out and giving satisfaction to a straitned appetite But the commandement being small makes his fault the greater the easiness of the one much aggravating the offence of the other For so it was that either out of unbelief as if God did not mean to sue him for so small a trespasse or that he had a proud ambition to be like to God or yeelded to the lusts of intemperate appetite or that he was not willing to offend his wife by whom he was invited to that deadly banquet he took the forbidden fruit into his mouth and greedily devoured his own destruction and so destroyed himself and his race for ever Not himselfe only but his race even his whole posterity For being the root and stock of mankinde in general which is descended from the loynes of this wretched man what he received of God in his first creation he received both for himself and them who descended from him and what he lost he lost like an unthrifty Father for the childe unborn And as the Scriptures say of Levi that he payed tithes in Abraham to Melchisedech because he was in the loynes of his father Abraham when Melchisedech met him so may we say of the posterity of this prodigal father that they were all undone by his great unthriftiness because they were all of them in his loynes when he lost Gods favour when he drew sin upon them all and consequently death the just wages of it And so saith Gregory Nazianzen surnamed the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We were so made saith he that we might be happy and such we were being made when first placed in Paradise in which we might have had the fruition of all kinds of happiness but forfeited the same by our own transgression If any aske St. Augustine makes the question and the answer too what death God threatned unto man on his disobedience whether the death of the body or of the soul or of the wholeman which is called the second death we must answer All For if saith he we understand that death only by which the soul is forsaken of God surely in that all other kinde of deaths were meant which without question were to follow For in that a disobedient motion rose in the flesh for which they covered their privy parts one death was perceived in which God did forsake the soul. And when the soul forsook the body now corrupted with time and wasted by the decaies of age another death was found by experience to ensue upon it that by these two deaths that first death of the whole man might be accomplished which the second death at last doth follow except Man be delivered by the grace of God And by the grace of God was poor man delivered from this body of death For as there is no deep valley but near so me high hill so near this vale of misery this valley of the shadow of death as the Psalmist calleth it was an hill of mercy a remedy proposed in the promised seed to Adam and the sons of Adam if with unfained faith they lay hold upon it God looketh upon them all at once in that wofull plight and when he saw them in their bloud had compassion on them and out of his meer love and mercy without other motives offered them all deliverance in a Mediator in the man CHRIST IESVS and that too on conditions far more easie then that of workes the condition and reward being this in brief that whosoever did believe in him should not perish but have life everlasting And this I take to be the method of Election unto life eternal through CHRIST IESVS our Lord. For although there be neither Prius or Posterius in the will of God who sees all things at once together and willeth at the first sight without more delay yet to apply his acts unto our capacities as were the acts of God in their right production so were they primitively in his intention But Creation without peradventure did foregoe the fall and the disease or death which ensued upon it was of necessity to be before there could a course be taken to prescribe the cure and the prescribing of the cure must first be finished before it could be fitted to particular persons And for the Fall which was the medium as it were between life and death the great occasion of mans misery and Gods infinite mercy God neither did decree it as a meanes or method of which he might make use to set forth his power in the immortal misery of a mortal creature nor did he so much as permit it in the strict sense of the word in which it differeth little from a plain command Quam longe quaeso est a jubente permittens How little differeth permitting from commanding saith devout Salvian considering he that which doth permit having power to hinder is guilty of the evill which doth follow on it God did not then permit the fall of unwary man as Moses did permit the Israelites a bill of divorce which manner of permission carryeth an allowance with it or a toleration at the least but so permit it only as the father in our Saviours parable permitted his younger Son to see strange Countries and having furnished him with a stock on which to traffick suffered him to depart and make up his fortunes whether good
by him suffered the generality of them at the least to walke in their own wayes and fulfill those lusts to which they naturally were addicted And some there were who by conforming of their lives to the Law of nature and cherishing those good motions which they felt within them attained unto so clear a knowledge of the nature of God and such an eminent height in all moral vertue that greater was not be found amongst those of Israel For what could any Iew say more of the nature of God his divine Attributes his Power and Providence the making of all things out of nothing by Gods mighty hand and the sustaining of the same by his infinite wisdome then we have formerly declared to have been believed by the most knowing men amongst the Heathens whom they called Philosophers Insomuch as we may justly think as Octavius did Aut nunc Christianos Philosophos esse aut Philosophos jam tunc fuisse Christianos that in this point Philosopher and Christian had been termes convertible Nor did they rest themselves contented with that general knowledge of his eternal Power and Godhead which they had studied and found out in the book of nature but they knew also very well that God was to be worshipped by them in their best devotions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place to worship God is one of the first counsels in the Grecian Oratour And it was Catos first rule which we learnt at School that God being as he is a Spirit is to be worshipped by us with spiritual purity Si Deus est animus nobis ut carmina dicunt Hic tibi praecipue sit pura mente eolendus Which may be Englished in these words If God as Poets say a Spirit be Then with pure minde let him be serv'd by thee Which principle of natural piety being planted in them there is no point of reverence whatsoever it be either required of or practised by the people of God in his outward worship which was not punctually performed by the antient Gentiles Of Solomon it is said in the book of Kings that when he had made an end of praying all his prayers and supplication to the Lord he rose from before the Altar of the Lorld from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up unto the heavens Where we finde kâ—eeling on the knees and lifting up of the hands to be the usuall as indeed the fittest posture in the act of prayer Finde we not that the Gentiles did observe the same and went as far as Solomon if not beyond him First for the lifting up of hands we finde in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgil Duplices tendens ad sydera palmas in Ovid Vtraque Coelo brachia porrexit and finally Tendere palmas ad delubra deum in an old Latine Poet cited by Lactantius And as for kneeling on their knees they so little scrupled it that they conceived themselves not to do enough in the adoring of their Gods unlesse they flung themselves prostrate on the ground before them Of which Ovid thus speaking of Deucalion and Pyrrha Vt Templi tetigere gradus procumbit uterque Pronus humi gelidoque pavens dedit oscula saxo Which is thus Englished by G. Sandys Then humbly on their faces prostrate laid And kissing the cold stones with fear thus prai'd The like may be affirmed of lifting up the eye to the throne of grace when we petition God for his mercies towards us Which as it is exemplifyed in that of David Early in the morning will I direct my prayer to thee and will look up so do we finde it parralleled in that of Virgil Illi ad surgentis conversi limina solis which if it rather seem to speak of turning to the East in the act of prayer then of lifting up the eyes to heaven let us take that of Ovid which is plain enough where speaking of poor Io and her prayers to Iupiter he saith that she looked up to Heaven tendens ad sydera vultus when she made her prayers And lest it should be thought as perhaps some will be apt to think that they stood more upon the outward reverence of the body then the inward purity of the soul in the act of worship remember Catos pura mente which before we had And add to that the memorable saying of the wiseman Socrates that God regardeth not so much the perfumes which were used in sacrifices as the souls and virtues of mortal men or that of Persius one of the Latine Poets who doth require that in all their addresses to the Gods they should be sure to take along with them Compositum jus fasque animi sanctosque recessus Mentis i. e. a soul replenished with righteousness and religious thoughts Upon which words Lactantius who doth cite them giveth this glosse or descant Sentiebat non carne opus esse ad placandam coelestem Majestatem sed mente sancta that he conceived the sanctity of the minde to be more necessary for the appeasing of the Gods then any service of the body But being that these applications and addresses howsoever qualifyed were made to those that were no Gods they cannot scape the censure which St. Paul gives of them that knowing God they worshipped him not as God but became vain in their imaginations changing the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things The like may also be affirmed of those frequent sacrifices wherewith they sought to expiate their offences and appease the anger of their Gods The rites and reason of the which they received from Noah and not from any diabolicall suggestion as some men conceive as Noah had them by tradition from the elder Patriarchs For being well enough perswaded that the Gods were much offended at the sins of men and finding many terrible effects of divine vengeance to pursue them they could not better study their own indemnity then to have recourse unto those sacrifices which had been found effectual in the former times for the appeasing of Gods anger and expiating those offences which they had committed Examples of this kinde in all antient Authors Greek and Latine are obvious to the eye of every reader T is true the Devil did maliciously pervert this Institution and caused it in tract of time to be so altered in the object that in stead of being offered to the God of Heaven they sacrificed to Idols made of silver and gold even the work of mens hands worshipping and serving the creature more then the Creatour as St. Paul saith of them whereby the truth of God was changed into a lie and that which first was instituted for a Propitiation became to them a manifest occasion of falling into greater and more hainous sin And it is also true that the Devil not content with this first imposture in drawing to himself
and his wretched Idols the honour which was due to GOD did in short time possesse them with this opinion that if they did desire to make even with God and offer him such compensation as might indeed absolve them from all their crimes they should no longer think to satisfie by the bloud of beasts who in the dignity of their creation sell far short of men and therefore could not be a sufficient sacrifice to make atonement for their sins As man had sinned and by his sins deserved the punishment of death so was it requisite that by the bloud of men they should make atonement and turne away the anger of the heavenly powers This was the ground they went upon for those humane sacrifices Pro vita hominum nisi vita hominum reddatur non posse deorum immortalium numen placari as Caesar telleth us of the Gauls But the Gauls were not the first authors of this wretched custome The Canaanites the progeny of accursed Cham did first give way to those suggestions of the Devil offering their children unto Moloch which whether it were Saturn as the learned think or some Idol more peculiar to that people we dispute not now that by the fruit of their bodies they might satisfie for the sins of their souls Of these oblations unto Moloch we finde much mention in the Scripture as Levit. 18.20 20.2 3 4. 1 King 11.7 and in other places the Israelites being too apt to adore the Idols of the nations whom they had subdued and more inclined to this then to any other From the Phoenicians or the Canaanites for Canaan was accounted for a part of Phoenicia did the Carthaginians bring this barbarous and inhumane ceremony into Africk with them the Carthaginians being a Phoenician or Tyrian Colonie Of whom the Historian doth informe us Homines ut victimas immolabant et impuberes Aris admovebant pacem Deorum sanguine eorum exposcentes that they offered men in sacrifice and brought young youths unto the Altars that by their bloud they might appease and satisfie the offended Gods Which as it was their generall practise so at one time on a particular occasion which Lactantius speaks of it they sacrificed no fewer then two hundred children of their chief nobility The suddain growth and spreading of this damnable custome he that lists to see let him consult Lactantius de falsa Rel. l. 1. c. 21. Arnobius adv Gentes Tertullian and Minutius Felix in their Apologeticks I will no more defile my pen with these Barbarities Nor had I said so much on this horrid Argument but only to declare the ground it was built upon which was not as we see in reference to that blessed Sacrifice which Christ was afterwards to make for the sins of mankind whereof the Canaanites as they had no notice so had they took but little consideration but only thrust upon them by the Devil himself who thought he could not binde them surer by his own commands or alienate them more from God then by such Oblations But this was only in some Countries and to some of their Gods who were it seems more hard to please then the gentler Deities not to be charged on all particular men whatever though possibly some of all sorts of men had been guilty of it For certainly there were some amongst them as before was said who by conforming of their lives to the Law of nature and cherishing those heavenly motions which they felt within them not only came unto the knowledge of the nature of God and did abominate as much as any those inhumane sacrifices but did attain to such an eminent height of all moral vertues that greater was not to be found amongst those of Israel The Justice of Aristides the magnanimity of Alexander the temperance of Cato the fortitude of Iulius and the prudence of Augustus Caesar are not easily paralleled whether we look into the times before them or the ages following not to insist on all particular instances of a vertuous life which the Heroes of those times have given us in their lives and actions And this they did not at a venture or by special chance as a blind man may hit the marke which he doth not aime at but on such Principles of knowledge and grounds of wisdome as brought them to a perfect habit of most vertuous actions For knowing as they did that God was infinitely good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-goodness as they sometimes called him they could not but conceive withall as indeed they did that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only profitable good the most desirable felicity and therefore that they were not capable of a greater happiness quam conjungi et assimilari Deo then to be united with and made like to GOD which is as Plato saith the height and full accomplishment of all Beatitude Iamblichus one of Platos Schoole gives it for a rule Quicquid faciendum aut non faciendum tibi proponis ad Divinitatem referri debet that whatsoever we propose unto our selves either to be done or left undone is to have reference to the Godhead our life saith he being given us for no other end quam ut Deum sequamur then to conform our selves unto the wisdome and vertue of God Plotinus another of Platos scholars saith as much as he first making God to be the supreme end of the life of man and then inferring thereupon that he who is possessed of that infinite good Non tantum conjungitur Deo sed fit quasi Deus not only is united to God but in some sort a God himself Nor was this opinion of the Platonists only but also of the Peripateticks of the school of Aristotle For Aristotle himself rejecting all conceits of mans summum bonum which some had placed in honours and some in pleasures others more probably on spiritual and divine Contemplations doth for his part affix it wholly to an active life directed by the rules of vertue And Syrianus writing upon Aristotles Ethicks where this point is handled saith that the end proposed by men in a vertuous life is to be reconciled to and conjoyned with God Vt Deo conjungamur et conciliemur rursus as my Author hath it In this the Stoicks did agree also with those other Philosophers as appears by this of Epictetus Non pudet nos vitam inhonestam ducere et cedere adversis Is it not a great shame saith he for men to lead a lewd and dishonest life and to give way to adverse fortune Why so Dei agnati sumus c. because we are of kin unto God himself from him we came and therefore let us do our best to return to him again Galen for the Physitians goes as far as any who telleth us that our soul coming down from Heaven and being capable of knowledge doth evermore aspire unto Heaven again et ad substantiam similem et congenerem sibi to joyne it self with
by which in the beginning of time all things were created By consequence when the Word was pleased to be incarnate or to be made flesh in St. Iohns own language the person thus made Christ of the Word and flesh though he was incorporated into this flesh by the powerful influence and operation of the holy Ghost was properly to be called the Son of God in whom and of whom only he before existed the holy Ghost not being the Author of any new Person but only betroathing to the Word the humane nature of CHRIST which had no actual existence before those Espousals I know I cannot speak too reverently of so great a mysterie or think too worthily of that wonderful and miraculous Act of the Incarnation or Conception of our blessed Saviour And yet I doubt that some by thinking that he was not formed and fashioned in his Mothers womb by those gradations to perfection which are necessary to all natural births but make his body to be perfected all at once in the very moment of his Conception and at that instant the reasonable soul to be actually infused into it do unawares deprive him of a great deal of honour which his humiliation to our nature did confer upon him Of this minde is Maldonate for one whose words take here together for our more assurance Alios paulatim sensimque in utero formari antequam Corpusculâ—m animetur Christi vero corpus eodem momento quo conceptum est formari animatum fuisse Which were it so our Saviour CHRIST had not in all things been made like unto us contrary to the express words of holy Scripture nor needed to have lien so long time in his Mothers womb his body being compleatly formed and animated in the first conception But I believe the Iesuite had a further aim in it then he pleased to discover And possibly it might be an ingenuous fear of arrogating or ascribing more to a common Priest then had been granted to be done by the holy Ghost For needs it must seem harsh to most Popish ears that the Body of CHRIST should be nine moneths in forming in his mothers womb though supernaturally conceived by the Divine power and influence of the holy Ghost and yet upon the Priests saying Hoc est Corpus meum the self same body and soul with his Divinity and all into the bargain should instantly be made of a piece of bread without expecting nine minutes for so great a miracle Most happy men who come so nere the power and Majesty of Almighty God and the prerogatives of CHRIST that as the one could have raised children out of stones to Abraham and the other command stones to be made bread so they can out of bread raise a Son to God and not a son to God only but even God the Son which is more then was I dare not say or could be done by the holy Ghost whose part in this great work we have spoke of hitherto ARTICVLI 4. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Natus ex Virgine Maria. i. e. Born of the Virgin Mary CHAP. IV. Of the birth of CHRIST The feast of his Nativity Why born of a Virgin The Prophecie of Isaiah The Parentage and priviledge of the Blessed Virgin PRoceed we to the second branch of this present Article from the Conception to the Birth of our Lord and Saviour the most materiall part to us of the whole mysterie It had been little to our comfort though much unto the honour of our humane nature had the WORD been only made flesh and with that flesh ascended presently into heaven and had not dwelt amongst us and shewn forth his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth It was not Gods being in the flesh but his being manifested in the flesh which St. Paul cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great mysterie of Godlinesse For without that although he might have been seen of Angels yet had he not been preached unto the Gentiles nor been believed on in the world as the Saviour of it The end of his taking on himself our flesh was to save poor man For this is an acceptable saying as St. Paul hath told us that JESUS CHRIST came into the world to save sinners and come into the world he could not in the sense he speaks of but by being born I know some thinke that though ADAM had never sinned yet it had been necessary for the exaltation of humane nature that the WORD should have been made man and Bonaventure doth approve it as a Catholick opinion and consonant to natural reason But howsoever it may seem in his judgment to agree with reason assuredly it is more agreeable to the piety and analogie of faith that the Son of God had never appeared in our flesh but for the delivery of mankinde from sin and misery neither the Scripture nor the Fathers speaking of the incarnation but with reference to mans redemption To this effect St. Augustine speaketh most divinely Si homo non periisset filius hominis non venisset nulla causa fuit Christi veniendi nisi peccatores salvos facere Tolle morbos tolle vulnera et nulla est medicinae causa That is to say If man had not perished the son of man had not come for therefore came the son of man to save that which was lost there being no other cause of Christs coming but the salvation of sinners Take away diseases and wounds from man and what need is there of a Physitian So that resolving with the Scriptures and Fathers that there was no cause for the incarnation of the WORD but that he should be born for our redemption let us proceed therein with that fear and reverence which justly doth belong to so great a mysterie as the manifestation of God in the flesh is said to be by the Apostle A mysterie in which there is not any thing beneath a miracle Nor can it easily be resolved whether of the two be more full of wonder either that God the WORD should be born of Woman or born of such a woman as was a Virgin The first and greatest of the two that which indeed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a miracle of miracles as man is somewhere called by Plato was that the word was made flesh and did receive that flesh from a mortall womb A wonder it seemed to Nicodemus that a man should be born when he was old or enter a second time into his mothers womb and be born again A greater wonder must it be for him to enter into the womb and thence to finde a passage into the world who was far older then all time and had his being when the world but began to be A greater wonder must it seem for him to take a being from a mortal creature by whom all creatures had their being and did himself create the same womb which bare him
But such was his unspeakable love to the sons of men that he disdained not to submit himself for their sakes to those low conditions as to be made man and to have a Mother a Mother which beyond example did bring forth her God and became the Parent of her Saviour Et mater sine exemplo genuit autorem suum as Lactantius hath it Born then our Saviour was of a mortall womb But the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the present Article tels us more then so and telleth us that he was not only born of the Virgin Mary but so born of her as to be made of her also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the word was made flesh Ioh. 1.14 God sent his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made of a woman saith St. Paul Gal. 4.4 where the same word is used as here Made then he was as well as born of the Virgin Mary And made not convertendo not by converting the Word into flesh as Cerinthus nor converting flesh into the WORD as Velentinus was of opinion for the deity cannot be changed into any thing nor any thing into it Nor was it made conciliando as friends are made one or reconciled so as they continue two persons still and while the flesh suffered the WORD stood still and looked on only as Nestorius taught for that were not to be made flesh but made with the flesh not caro sed cum carne saith my reverend Author Nor finally was he made componendo by compounding two persons together and so a third thing produced of both as Eutyches for so he should be neither of both neither the word nor flesh neither God nor man But made he was as St. Paul tels us assumendo by taking the seed of Abraham Heb. 2.16 His generation before time as verbum Deus is as the enditing the word within the heart His generation in time as verbum caro is as the uttering it forth with the voice The inward motion of the minde taketh unto it a naturall body of Aire and so becometh vocal It is not changed into it the word remaineth still as it was yet they two became one voice Take a similitude from our selves Our soul is not turned into nor compounded with the body yet they two though distinct in natures grow into one man So Athanasius in his Creed For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man so God and man is one Christ. So into the Godhead was the manhood taken the natures preserved without confusion the person entire without division The fourth General Councell so determineth also Sic factum est caro ut maneret verbum non immutando quod erat sed suscipiendo quod not erat Nostra auxit sua non minuit nec Sacramentum pietatis detrimentum est Deitatis i. e. He was so made flesh that he ceased not to be the Word never changing what he was but taking that he was not We were the better he was never the worse The mysterie of Godlinesse was was no detriment to the Godhead nor the honour of the creature wrong to the Creator No wrong indeed it was no detriment to the divine nature of the Word to be made flesh and take upon him the infirmities of our humane nature but much to the advancement of our humane nature which he took upon him as many Kings and soveraign Princes have been made free of some particular Corporations under their commands without diminution or impeachment of their Royal Power and highly to the honour of those Companies or Corporations Mortalis factus est non infirmata verbi divinitate sed carnis suscepta infirmitate as divinely Angustine in his De Civit. dei l. 9. c. 15. And herein miserable man hath a great advantage of the Angels though made lower then they in his creation in that the WORD God for ever blessed vouchsafed to be made in such manner of our rank and order as he is not of theirs From the manner passe we to the time when this work was wrought which St. Paul cals plenitudinem temporis or the fulnesse of time that is to say when the time was come and fully accomplished which God in his eternall wisdome had fore-determined which he had also signifyed to the house of Israel by the mouth of his Prophets In reference to the civil Account it was at the time when Herod a stranger to the bloud-royal of David was King of Iewry and Augustus Caesar the sole Monarch of the Roman Empire The first having translated the Scepter from Judah and the Law-giver from between his feet made an apparent way for the coming of Shiloh to whom the gathering of the people was now to be The latter having the third time closed the Temple of Ianus and setled an universal peace over all the Empire made it the most agreeable time for the birth of him who being called the Prince of peace by the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed peace unto all the earth at the hour of his birth and left it to his Disciples as his last Legacie at the time of his death And it was also in the time of a general taxing as our English or rather of a general enrolment cum universus orbis describeretur saith the vulgar very answerably to the Greek Originals as the Rhemists read it A time when every subject of the Roman Empire was to repaire to the head City of his family there to list his name and to professe ut profiterentur saith the Vulgar or make acknowledgment of his fealty and true allegeance to the Prince in being A thing not done at random or by humane providence that by this means the Emperour might come to know quot civium sociorumque in Armis the strength and number of his Subjects as the Statists tell us but by the speciall dispensation and appointment of Almighty God Though Christ had been conceived in Nazareth a City of Galilee yet was he to be born in Bethlehem the City of David And thither was Ioseph to repair to be taxed or enrolled rather with Mary his wife that she being there delivered of her blessed burden the word of God fore-signifyed by the Prophet Micah might be fulfilled viz. that out of Bethlehem-Judah there should come a Governour which should rule over the house of Israel The shutting of the Temple of Ianus and this general taxing or enrolment under the President-ship of Cyrenius point us directly to the 35. year of Augustus his Empire in which CHRIST was born And if it were esteemed as it seems to be so great an honour unto Cicero that this Augustus was born when he was Consul Consulatui Ciceronis non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno D. Augustus saith the Court Historian how great an honour may we count it unto this Augustus that CHRIST the Son of God the very brightnesse of his Father was born when he was Emperour And as the year so is the
very month and day of our Saviours birth transmitted to us from the best and purest times of the Christian Church though not recorded in the Scriptures Theophilus Caesariensis who lived about the latter end of the second Century doth place it on the eight of the Calends of Ianuary which is the 25. of December as we now observe it and reckoneth it as a festival of the Christian Church long before his time Natalem Domini quocunque die VIII Calend. Januar. venerit celebrare debemus as his own words are And Nyssen though he name not the day precisely yet cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the famous day of Christian solemnity and placeth it in that point of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he telleth us there in which the dayes wax longer and the nights grow shorter which is we know about the time of the Winter Solstice In an old Arabick copy of Apostolick Canons it is especially appointed that the Anniversary feast of the Lords Nativity be kept upon the 25. day of the first Canun which is the same with our December on which day he was born A Persian Calender or Ephemeris doth place it on the same day also The Syriack Churches do the like and so do the Aegyptian or Coptick Churches as Mr. Gregory hath observed out of their Records not to say any thing of Iohannes Antiochenus the Author of an old MS. Cosmography who doth affirme as much for the East parts of the Roman Empire A day so highly esteemed in the former times that the Greeks called it generally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the feast of Gods manifestation in the flesh Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother or Metropolis of all other festivals another of the Eastern Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the festival of the worlds salvation A day of such a solemn concourse in the Christian Church that the Tyrants in the 10. Persecution made choise thereof as an especial opportunity for committing the greater slaughter of poor innocent souls and therefore on that day in ipso natalis Dominici die as my Author hath it burnt down the Church of Nicomedia the then Regal City of the East with all that were assembled in it for Gods publick service I know great pains have been unprofitably took to no other purpose but to prove that Christ was born at some other time of the year at least not on the day which is now pretended But the Arguments on which the disproof is founded are so slight and trivial that it were losse of labour to insist upon them Suffice it that the Church had far better reason to celebrate the birth-day of the Son of God then any of the sons of men to suppresse the same And this I call the birth-day of the Son of God because from this day forwards he was so indeed though not publickly proclaimed or avowed for such till the day of his Baptisme when it was solemnly made known by a voice from heaven The Word before In the beginning was the Word Ioh. 1.1 The Word made flesh and born of the Virgin Mary and by that birth the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth said the same Evangelist v. 14. For though we did not look upon him as the word made flesh his being born in such a miraculous manner of an untouched Virgin would of it self assert him for the Son of God So said the Angel Gabriel the first Evangelist Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God The Son of God as soon as born of the Virgin Mary because conceived and born in so strange a manner so far above the course of nature that none but God the God of nature could lay claim unto him For here the great miracle of the incarnation doth receive improvement in that the WORD was not only made flesh and born of a woman but born of such a woman as was a Virgin That so it was we have the warrant of the Scripture In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a City of Galilee named Nazareth to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the Virgins name was MARY So far the Text informes us in the present business giving her in one verse twice the name of Virgin the better to imprint the same in our hearts and memories And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For although Miracles in themselves are above our reason because beyond the reach of all natural causes yet doth it stand with very good reason that since the WORD vouchsafed to descend so low as to be born of a woman he should receive that birth from the purest Virgin and be fashioned in a womb which was unpolluted The pious care of his Disciples did conceive it fitting that his dead body should be laid in a Tomb or Sepulchre where never man was laid before And was it not as fit or fitter that his living body great with Divinity and a soul for in him dwelt the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily should be conceived in such a womb which had not been defiled with the seed of man in whose most chast embraces and unblamable dalliances there is a mixture of Concupiscence and carnal lusts Most fit it was his Mother should be like his Spouse of whom we finde it written in the Song of Solomon that she is as a Garden inclosed a spring shut up a fountain â—ealed Besides the meanes and method of mans redemption was to hold some proportion with the meanes of his fall that so that Sex might have the honour of our restauration which had been the unhappy Author of our first calamity that as by woman the Devil took his opportunity to introduce death into the world for the woman being deceived was in the transgression saith St. Paul to Timothy so by a woman and a Virgin such as Eve was then did Gods foreknowing will determine that life even life eternall should be born into it Eve the first woman out of an ambitious desire to be like to God coveted after the forbidden tree of good and evill The second Eve if I may so call her as Christ is called the second Adam 1 Cor. 15.45 out of an obedient desire that God might be as one of us did gladly bear in her womb the tree of life of which whosoever eateth he shall live for ever Eve as her name importeth was the Mother of all living of all that live this temporal and mortal life the life of nature and MARY in due time became the mother of that living Spirit by whom we are begotten to the life of grace So true is that of Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that from the same Sex came our weal and wo. To drive this Parallel further yet Eve at the time of the
before Finally during the whole time of his earthly pilgrimage of his conversing in our flesh the Devill never failed in his endevours sometimes himself and sometimes by the means of others either by flatteries or by contumelies to prevail upon him though alwayes to his own losse and to the greater ruine of that Kingdome of darknesse which he had founded on this earth And these we reckon for the first part of those inward sufferings which our Redeemer did endure under Pontius Pilate not by exciting in his heart any evill motions in which respect we men are said most commonly to be tempted inwardly but by presenting to his senses such continuall objects as he conceived most like to work on the inward Man For otherwise it cannot be affirmed of CHRIST that he was tempted inwardly that is to say by any motions rising from within without manifest Blasphemy And to this all sound Orthodox Christians have agreed unanimously Thus Gregory amongst the Latines Omnis illa tentatio Diabolica foris non intus all that temptation of the Devill was not inward but outward And thus Theophylact for the Greeks The Devill said he appeared to Christ in some visible shape 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for thoughts that is to say any thoughts of sin Christ admitted not The Lord forbid we should conceive such a wicked fancie Thus Calvin finally for the latter writers It is saith he no errour or absurdity to thinke that CHRIST should be tempted of the Devill modo ne intus hoc est in mente et anima quicquam putemus passum fuisse so that we do not hold that he suffered any thing in his minde or soul. So to make the thoughts and cogitations of the heart of Christ to be inwardly moved with pride presumption infidelity and Idolatry as some men have done the better to find out the paines of hell in our Saviours soul were to be guilty of their sin who to that end have vented most blasphemous figments and pernicious impostures to the seducing of the simple the hurt of their own souls and the dishonour of Christ. But of this we shall speak more at large in the following Article of Christs descending into hell for the misconstruing of which Article or rather for the totall expurgation of it it was first invented We now proceed to those afflictions which assalted inwardly which wrought upon his soul only on the inward man and then to those which were inflicted also upon his Body so far forth as they did precede his Crucifixion which shall come after by it self CHAP. VI. Of the afflictions which our Saviour suffered both in his soul and body under Pontius Pilate in the great work of mans Redemption THat CHRIST our Saviour was tempted in all things as we are yet without sin that is to say without the least internal motion and provocation of the heart to sin as we are not hath been abundantly discovered in the former Chapter We now proceed to those affictions which he suffered for us in his minde or soul those griefes of heart and anguish of the Spirit which did fall upon him in reference to the great work of mans redemption for as for those which seized upon him out of particular affections as his groaning in the Spirit over the grave of his dead friend Lazarus or the lamenting those calamities which he foresaw would shortly fall on his native Country they do not come within the compasse of this disquisition And these we purpose to examine with the greater industry because there is a sort of men as before I said that to elude the true and genuine meaning of Christs descent into hell have fancied to themselves and proclaimed to others that they have found the pains of hell in our Saviours soul and that there was no other descent of Christ into hell then the extremity of those hellish and most dismal pains which he suffered in his humane soul here upon the earth And first to take those texts in order in which those sorrowes and afflictions are most plainly met with in the first place we finde him in the garden of Gethsemane the place designed for the great combat betwixt him and Satan where taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee it is said that he began to be sorrowfull and very heavie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek text hath it St. Mark with the alteration of one word only doth deliver it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he began to be sore amazed and very heavy coepit contristrari verementer angi saith the translatour of the Syriack This was it seemeth with him the beginning of sorrowes for it is said that he began to be sorrowful and sore amazed which though it was a sad beginning yet it was mastered in the end For though he began to be affraid and sore amazed upon the apprehension of those bitter pangs of death which he was to struggle with yet he no further did submit to this passion of fear and this discomfiture of amazement then to expresse the naturall horror which he had of that deadly cup whereof he was presently to drink not suffering it to possesse him wholly or to bear dominion over him or to work in him any such corruptions as we frail men are subject to in the like extremities And this is that and only that which is meant by Origen where he affirmeth Coepit pavere vel tristari nihil amplius tristitiae vel pavoris patiens nisi principium tantum No such amazement no such sorrow as might make him lose either speech or sense or memory as some men imagine much lesse to pray he knew not what but least of all to pray expresly against the known will of his heavenly Father Nor will the words in the Original admit any such meanning For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture â—ignifies no such amazement as takes away mens senses from them which appeares evidently in this that when he descended from the mountain where he was transfigured the people which saw him were amazed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the text and yet they came unto him and saluted him as the Gospell tels us So when they saw him cast out Devils by his word alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were all amazed and yet they asked of one another what strange thing that was and when the two Apostles had healed the poor old criple at Solomons porch the people were amazed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet flocked all unto the place to behold the miracle And for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it signifyeth no such heaviness in the book of God as draweth with it all or any of those distractions above remembred St. Paul affirming of Epaphroditus that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding pensive because the Philipians who most dearly loved him had heard he was sick and that he knew not
it were together to behold the combate And then what marvail can it be saith our learned Prelate if the glory of Gods judgement and the power of his wrath the number of our sins and neglect of our own state the sharp and eager malice of Satan whom he had to do with made Christ with all possible fear of the great might and Majesty of the Judge all passionate sorrow for the crimes and contempts of the Prisoners all earnest and zealous intention of prayer against the impugner and impediment of mans deliverance to agonize himself into a bloudy sweat But if this sweat of our Redeemer proceeded not from natural causes but was rather supernatural and miraculous as Hilarie Rupertus Beda and others do conceive it was neither the fear of Hell pains nor the sense of sorrow could be the cause thereof as some think it was for being supernatural and miraculous it could not have a natural and proper cause Rather it might be wrought by Gods mighty power as a preparative to that Priesthood which he was to execute and to that all-sufficient Sacrifice which he was to make For in the oblations of the law which prefigured the death of Christ it was ordained that not only the sacrifice was to be slain by the shedding of bloud but that the person of the Priest was sanctified as well as the sinner presented by the Priest to God with earnest and humble prayer to make atonement for the trespass And since the Truth must have some resemblance with the Figure CHRIST in the Garden might perform some points required to the Priesthood as the sanctifying of himself with his own bloud and the presenting of himself to be the redemption and remission of our sins with instant and intensive prayer for the Transgressors Either of these may be admitted as agreeable to the rules of piety though for my part I incline rather to the former as having such a firm foundation in the Text it self Thus have we taken a full view of those templations and afflictions which our Saviour suffered in his soul without any participation which the body had in them under Pontius Pilate In which though there were nothing like to the pains of Hell which shall be specified hereafter in a place more proper yet there was in him such an accumulation of fears and sorrows and disconsolations as might entitle him most properly to be Vir dolorum a man compounded as it were of nothing but griefs and sorrows Next let us take a brief survey of those afflictions which he indured in his body and suffered nor in soul at all but by the means and apprehension of the outward senses as it participates with the body in all weal and woe And first no sooner had he ended his devotions and gathered together his Disciples but behold a great multitude armâ—d with swords and staves came to apprehend him and carry him before the high Priests and Elders amongst whom he was sure to find no mercy and but little justice Iudas Iscariot one of the twelve had sold his Master to them for a piece of money a most contemptible piece of money too no more then thirty pieces of silver which in our money reckoning each 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or piece of silver at 2 s. 6 d comes but to 3 l. 15 s. And though they had obtained their purpose at so cheap a rate yet they resolved that now they had him in their hands nothing should save him but a miracle To this end they suborned false witnesses to come in against him and if he did but offer to defend himself and refell their calumnies they have their servants in a readiness to smite him on the face and deride him saying Answerest thou the high Priest so Whether he speak or hold his peace it comes all to one his silence being counted a contempt and his speech a scandall If he passe only for a man how durst he say that he was able to destroy the Temple and in three days to build it again If he declare himself for the Son of God he is presently condemned of Blasphemie and contrary to the Laws both of God and man which would have no man punished more then once for the same offence he is first made a scorn and laughing stock to the standers by and after hurryed to the Iudge to receive his sentence No sooner had the Priests and Elders who had bargained for him pronounced him to be guilty of death but presently they cause him to be blind-folded that he might not see the insolencies which they meant to practise next with a joynt consent they spit on his most sacred face and buffet him and smite him with the palmes of their hands and then say to him in derision that if he were the Christ of God he should prophecie unto them who is was that stroke him Having thus pleased themselves with their own wickedness they blinde him like a common Malefactor and lead him away bound unto Pontius Pilate to have him formally condemned and executed The land of Iewry at that time was a province of the Roman Empire and none had power of life and death but the Roman Presidents or such to whom they delegated part of their authority for the ease of the subject This made them say it was not lawfull for them to put any man to death as indeed it was not not that they did forbear it or do it in regard of the Passeover or that it was unlawfull only in respect of the time Assuredly that bloudy people who made no scruple of transgressing the whole morall law in such an execrable murther would very easily have dispensed with the ceremonial had that stood only in the way to their main designe But there was in it a divine providence which had so disposed it to make him every way conform to those antient types which were given of him by the Lord in the Law and Prophets Had they proceeded with him by their own old Laws as questionâ—esse they would have done had it been in their power they must have stoned him to death that being the punishment ordained for blasphemers by the Law of Moses But he had signified before what kind of death he should die in the alluding of himself to the brazen Serpent which was not in the power of any to inflict upon him but those who did proceed upon him according the Laws of the Roman Empire Well then to Pilate he is carryed and that too early in the morning by the break of day So swift their feet were to shed innocent bloud that the Governour must be wakened before his hour to hearken to their clamorous accusations and more then so he must be won with fair words if not bought with money to come forth unto them for fear good souls lest if they came themselves into the judgment-hall they should be defiled and consequently debarred for that
this present life And Lyra also saith the same though of later date Dixit Christus se derelictum a Deo Patre quia dimittebat eum in manibus occidentium i. e. Christ saith he was forsaken of God his Father because he was left in the hands of them that slew him And so Theodoret for the Greeks CHRIST saith he calleth that a dereliction or forsaking of God which was a permission of the Godhead that the humanity might suffer With these agree some Doctors of the Protestant Churches of great name and credit as Bucer and Bullinger in their Comments on the 27. of S. Matthew and Munster in his observations on the 21. Psalm Other forsaking other dereliction more then the leaving of him in the hands of his enemies they acknowledg none sure I am no withdrawing from him of the divine presence and assistance of God For so Tertullian doth affirm that God was said to have forsaken him in a sort dum hominem ejus tradidit in mortem whilest he delivered him in his humane nature to the hands of death but that he did not leave him altogether in that it was into the hands of his Father that he commended his Spirit Fulgentius saith as much or more saying that though in the death of Christ his soul was to forsake his dying body Divinitas tamen Christi nec ab anima nec a earne potest separari suscepta yet the Divinity could not be separated from his soul nor from the body neither which it had assumed And how far Christ was then from thinking that he had either lost the favour of Almighty God or his own interest in disposing of the heavenly glories doth evidently appear by that of Hilariâ— derelinqui se ad mortem questus est sed tunc Confessorem suum secum in regno Paradisi suscepit CHRIST saith he doth complain of his being forsaken or left unto the powers of death and yet even then he received the Theef that did confess him into the assured hopes of Paradise Where by the way all the forsaking which this Father doth take notice of was derelictio ad mortem a leaving of our Saviour to the hands of death The Schoolmen also say the same who make six kindes of dereliction or forsaking according as I finde them in our Reverend Field 1. By disunion of person 2. by loss of grace 3. by diminution or weakness of grace 4. by want of the assurance of future deliverance and present support 5. by denial of protection and 6. by withdrawing all solace and destituting the forsaken of all present comfort Then they declare that it is an impious thing to think that Christ was forsaken any of the four first ways in that the unity of his Person was never dissolved his graces neither taken away nor diminished no possibility that he should want assurance either of present support or future deliverance But for the two last ways he may be rightly said say they to have been forsaken in that his Father had denyed to protect and keep him out of the hands of his cruel bloudy and merciless enemies no way restraining them but suffering them to do the uttermost of that which their wicked malice could invent and that nothing might be wanting to make his sorrows beyond measure sorrowful had withdrawn from him also that accustomed solace which he was wont to find in God and removed from him all those things which might any way asswage the extremity of his pain and misery The Master of the Sentences gives it thus more briefly Separavit se divinitas quia substraxit protectionem separavit se foris ut non esset ad defensionem sed non intus defuit ad unionem All the forsaking then that the Lord complained of on the Cross was that he had been left to the hands of his enemies and that his heavenly Father had forborn all this while to shew any open sign of love or favour towards him in the sight of the Iews by whom he had been so afflicted and reproached and indeed blasphemed This is the most that can be said of this bitter and compassionte cemplaint which our Saviour made whether in reference to himself or to all mankinde or perhaps to both unless it may be further added that he desired in these words as some think he did that God would please to manifest by some publick sign what an esteem he had of that sacred Person whom both the Iews and Gentiles had so much oppressed and despised and of whom he had seemed all this while to make little reckoning And this is that which Athanasius hath observed in his fourth Oration or Discourse against the Arians who stood much upon it Loe saith he upon Christs speech why hast thou forsaken me the Father shewed himself to be even then in Christ as ever before For the earth knowing her Lord to speak did straightway tremble and the vail rent in twain and the Sun did hide himself and the rocks clave in sunder and the graves were opened and the dead men rose And that which was no less marvellous indeed the standers by which before denyed him confessed him to be the Son of God To proceed then this exclamation being made and gaining no more from the standers by but addition of scorn to misery and contempt to scorn the people mocking him as if he had called upon Elias to come and help him he cryed out I thirst and even the matter of that cry gives them another opportunity to put a scorn upon him and increase his griefs One of them saith the Scripture ran and took a spunge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave it him to drink Matth. 27.48 Where mark the malice of the man if he may so be called which had no humanity Our Saviour called for drink to asswage his thirst the wicked fellow gives him vinegar not to accelerate his death or send him out of hand to the other world for fear Elias indeed should come to help him as Theophylact thinks but rather to continue him the longer in those terrible pains It is the quality of vinegar as we read in Pliny that it stancheth the effusion of bloud Sanguinis profluvium sistunt ex aceto as that Author hath it And therefore I concurre with them who think this vinegar was given him to no other end but out of a most barbarous purpose to prolong his torments for fear least otherwise he might bleed to death and put too speedy an end to their sports and triumphs But contrary to the expectation of this wicked man no sooner had our Saviour took a tast thereof but the work was finished He cryed out with a loud voice Matth. 27.50 It is finished Joh. 19.30 and presently he bowed his head and said Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit and having thus said he gave up the ghost In which it
is to be observed that Christ now seeing all was finished which God required at his hands to the satisfaction of his justice for the sins of man and having fulfilled all those things which were spoken of him by the Prophets did voluntarily of his own accord deliver up his soul into the hands of his Father He had before told us of himself that he was the good Shepheard which giveth his life for the sheep Ioh. 10.11 that no man had power to take it from him Si nemo utique nec mors and if none then not death as we read in Chrysostom but that he laid it down of himself vers 18. and that he gave his life as a ransome for many Matth. 20.28 And the event shewed that he was no braggard or had said more then he was able to perform For the Evangelists declare that he had sense and speech and voluntary motion to the last gasp of his breath all which do evidently fail in the sons of men before the soul parteth from the body Which breathing out of his soul so presently upon so strong a cry and so lowd a prayer seemed so miraculous to the Centurion who observed the same that without expecting any further Miracle he acknowledged presently that truly this was the Son of God And this St. Hierom noted rightly The Centurion hearing Christ say to his Father Into thy hands I commend my Spirit statim sponte dimisisse spiritum and presently of his own accord to give up the ghost moved with the greatness of the wonder said Truly this man was the Son of God The Fathers generally do affirm the same ascribing this last act of our Saviours Tragedy not to extremity of pain or loss of bloud to any outward violence or decay of spirits but as his own voluntary deed and that though God the Father had decreed he should die yet he did give him leave and power to lay down his life of his own accord that his obedience to the will and pleasure of his heavenly Father might appear more evidently and the oblation of himself be the more acceptable And to this purpose saith St. Ambrose Quasi arbiter exuendi suscipiendique corporis emisit spiritum non amisit i. e. he did not lose his soul though he breathed it forth as one that had it in his own power both to assume his body and to put it off Eusebius to the same purpose also When no man had power over Christs soul he himself of his own accord laid it down for man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so being free at his own disposing and not over-ruled by outward force he himself of himself made his departure from the body The judgement of the rest of the Fathers touching this particular he that list to see let him consult St. Augustine lib. 4 de Trinit c. 13. Victor Antiochen in Marc. c. 15. Leo de Passione Dom. serm 16. Fulgentius lib. 3. ad Thrasimundum Sedulius in Opere Paschali lib. 5. c. 17. Beda in Matth. c. 27. Bernard in Feria 4. Hebdom poenosae And for the Greeks Athanasius Orat. 4. contra Arianos Origen in Ioh. Hom. 19. Gregorie Nyssen in Orat. 1. de Christi Resurrectione Nazianzen in his Tragedy called Christus patiens Chrysostom in Matth. 27. Homil. 89. Theophylact on the 27. of Matth. and the 23. of Mark. and the 23. of Luke And for late Writers Erasmus on Luk. 23. and Mark 15. Musculus on the 27. of Matthew and Gualter Hom. 169. on Iohn all which attest most punctually to the truth of this that the death of Christ was not meerly natural proceeding either from any outward or inward causes but only from his own great power and his holy will And to what purpose note they this but first to shew the conquest which he had of death whom he thus swallowed up in victory as the Apostle doth express it and secondly to shew that whereas natural death was the wages of sin which could not be inflicted on him in whom no sin was he therefore did breath out his soul in another manner then is incident to the sons of men to make himself a free-will offering to the Lord his God and make himself a sacrifice for the sins of mankinde by yeelding willingly to that death which their sins deserved And to this death this voluntary but bodily death of the Lord CHRIST IESVS and to that alone the Scriptures do ascribe that great work of the worlds redemption For thus St. Paul unto the Romans When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.11 to the Hebrews thus For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance Heb. 9.15 if by Christs death it must be by his bodily death by effusion of his bloud and by no other death or kinde of death of what sort soever And to this truth the Scriptures witness very frequently For thus St. Paul we have redemption through his bloud Ephes. 1.7 By his own bloud hath he entred into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.12 St. Peter thus Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as with silver and gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Finally thus the Elders say unto the Lamb in the Revelation Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy bloud Apocal. 5 9. Which being so it is most certain that Christ abolished sin and Satan by suffering his body to be slain his bloud to be shed unto the death or the sins of the world and not by any other way or means co-ordinate with it as some lately fable Yet so it is that some men not content with that way of Redemption which is delivered in the Scriptures have fancyed to themselves another and more likely means for perfecting that great work of the death of Christ and teach us that the shedding of his bloud to the death of his body had not been sufficient for the remission of our sins if he had not also suffered the death of the soul and thereby wholly ransomed us from the wrath of God Calvin first led the dance in this affirming very desperately that I say no worse Nihil actum esse si corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset that Christ had done nothing to the purpose if he had dyed no other then a bodâ—ly death He must then die the death of the soul seeing that his bodily death would not serve the turn and they who pretermit this part of our Redemption never known before and do insist so much externo carnis supplicio in the outward sacrifice of his flesh are insulsi nimis but silly fellows
Augustine doth informe us saying Id enim sacrificium est quod successit omnibus sacrificiis quae immolabantur in umbra futuri that this one sacrifice succeedeth in the place of all those which were offered in relation unto Christ to come But before him St. Ireneus did more plainly affirme that same who living in the next age to the Apostles is able to instruct us better in the mysteries of the Christian faith then any other more remote and of lesse antiquity And he tels us this viz. that as God caused his Gospel to be preached over all the world in stead of the innumerable ordinances of the Law of Moses so he ordained that for those several sorts of sacrifices which are there prescribed simplex oblatio panis et vini sufficiat the offering of bread and wine only should be held sufficient More plainly yet as plainly as he could expresse himself by words and writing he doth thus deliver it Sed suis Discipulis dans consilium c. Christ saith he giving his Disciples charge to offer the first fruits of every creature to the Lord their God not that God standeth in need of their oblations but that they might not be esteemed to be either unfruitfull or ungratefull tooke ordinary bread eum qui ex natura panis est and having given thanks said This is my body and taking the cup into his hands such as we use to drink of the fruit of the vine acknowledged it to be his bloud What then for this we know already It followeth Et novi testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in universo mundo offert Deo By doing which saith that old Father he taught us the new sacrifice of oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles doth offer unto God over all the world So that the holy Eucharist was ordained by Christ not only as a Sacrament but a sacrifice also and so esteemed and called by the most antient writers though many times by reason of several relations it hath either severall names or severall adjuncts that is to say a sacrifice a commemorative sacrifice an eucharisticall sacrifice a spiritual sacrifice the Supper of the Lord a Sacrament A sacrifice it is and so called commonly in reference unto the oblation or offering of the bread and wine made unto God in testimony and due acknowledgment that all which we possesse is received from him and that we tender these his creatures to him as no longer ours but to be his and to be spent in such employments and for such holy uses as he shall please to put it to In this respect it is entituled Oblatio panis et vini the offering or oblation of bread and wine as before we saw from Irenaeus the sacrifice offered by us Gentiles hostia quae ipsi a nobis Gentibus offertur of the bread and wine presented in the holy Eucharist as in Iustin Martyr Sacrificium panis vini the sacrifice in plain terms of bread and wine as Fulgentius hath it For clearing of which point we may please to know that antiently it was the custome of the Primitive Christians to bring their bread and wine to the Church of God and offer them to the Lord by the hands of the Priest or Minister part of the which was consecrated for the use of the Sacrament the rest being usually given to the poor and needy as having a letter of attorney from the Lord of heaven to receive our bounties For thus we read in Iustin Martyr who lived the next dore also to the Apostles Prayers being done saith he we salute one another with an holy kisse Then do we offer to the Bishop for such is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he speaks of there bread and wine mixt with water as the use then was which he receiving offered to God the sacrifice of praise and glory c. And thus St. Cyprian speaking of a rich but covetous Widow who came not with her offering to the Church as her poor neigbours did charged her that she came into Gods house without her sacrifice and eat of that which had been offered or sacrificed unto God by far poorer folke Locuples et dives Dominicum celebrare te dicis but there dominicum signifyeth the Lords day plainly qui corbonam omnino non respicis qui in dominicum there it is the Church sine sacrificio venis qui partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis are his words at large Where sacrificium in both places signifyeth the bread and wine which they used to offer to the Lord to be consecrated and employed in celebrating the memorial of our Saviours passion It is called next a commemorative sacrifice a Sacrifice commemorative and representative by Dr. Morton Ld. B. of Durham in his book of the Sacrament in regard that it was instituted by our Saviour Christ for a perpetual memory of that one perfect and al-sufficient sacrifice which he offered of himself upon the Crosse. And to this end it was that Chrysostome having called the Sacrament of the Lords supper by the name of a Sacrifice addes presently not by way of correction or retractation as I know some think but by way of explanation only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was the remembrance rather of a sacrifiâ—e or a commemorative sacrifice as some others call it Which word commemorative as I take it detracts not from the nature of a sacrifice as if it were the lesse a sacrifice because commemorative but only signifyeth the end to which it is specially directed For as the sacrifices of the old law were true and proper sacrifices in respect of the beasts or â—owles or other things which were offered although prefigurative of that sacrifice made upon the Crosse which was then to come so are the sacrifices of the Gospel true and real sacrifices in reference to the oblation made of bread and wine for the service of God although commemorative of the same great sacrifice now already past It was called thirdly a spiritual and Eucharistical sacrifice by reason that Gods servants therein make profession of their due acknowledgements for all the blessings which he hath vouchsafed to bestow on their souls and bodies especially for the redemption of themselves and of all mankinde by the death of Christ and therewith offering up themselves their souls and bodies as a pleasing and most acceptable sacrifice to the Lord their God For thus we finde in Iustin Martyr that the Bishop or President of the Congregation having received the bread and wine from the hands of the faithful offered by them the sacrifice of praise and thanks to God the Father of all things in the name of the Son and the holy Ghost for all those blessings which he hath graciously from time to time bestowed upon them And thus Irenaeus Oportet nos
cup of salvation and â—all upon the name of the Lord Psalm 116.13 But I crave pardon for this digression if at least it be one and passe from the commemoration to the thing remembred To return back therefore unto Christ our Saviour whom we left hanging on the Crosse and who by yielding up his soul into the hands of his Father had put a finall period unto all his sufferings it could not be but that his death being of so great consequence to the sons of men though most unjustly brought about by these sons of Belial must be accompanyed with some great and signal testimonies from the God of heaven And so accordingly it was For the text telleth us that the sun was darkned from the sixth hour to the nineth that the vail of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottome and the earth did quake and the rocks were rent It could not otherwise be supposed but that the whole fabrick of the world would be out of joynt and the course of nature suffer interruption when he by whom the world was made and nature put into an ordinary course did suffer such a dissolution of his body and soul and took his farewell of the world in so strange a manner Which wondrous accidents together with the circumstances of the time and place being so necessary to the knowledge of our Saviours passion and to the clearing of some difficulties which occurre therein shall be a little further enquired into for the readers satisfaction and mine one And first beginning with those signes and wonders which did accompany his death some of them were so generall as to be observed in parts far remote and by men that had no reference unto Christs affaires and other being of more private and particular nature not taking notice of but by those of Iewry whom it most principally concerned Of this last sort was the renting of the vail of the Temple in twain from the top to the bottome Concerning which we may please to know that the Temple of Hierusalem consisted of two parts besides the Courts that is to say the body of the Church which they called the holy and the quire or châ—ncell of the same which they called the Sanctum sanctorum or the holy of holies or the holiest of all Heb. 9.3 into which none might enter but the high Priest only and that but once a year neither when he made offerings for himself and for the errours of the people This parted from the other by a very high wall reaching to the top and glittering with gold and curiously engraved with the work of the carver having one only dore which opened inwardly into it before which hung the vail here mentioned being made of silk and artificially embroidered with most curious works to hinder the people from looking into the inmost Sanctuary of the Temple Now for the renting of this vail it either signifyed the discovery and laying open of the Iewish rites which before were hidden and concealed from the eyes of the Gentiles as Theophylact is of opinion or the abrogation of the Iewish ceremonies by the death of Christ as Calvin thinks or rather the breaking down of the partition-wall by which the Iews and Gentiles had before been separated and bringing both into one Church or Mystical body And unto this most probably alludeth the Apostle saying of Christ that he hath made of both one and hath broken down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that middle wall of partition which was between us that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Crosse. As for the earth-quake and that darknesse which the speaks of it was so general and remarkable over all the world that other writers of those times have observed the same and left their observations on record to confirme those truths left the Evangelists might have been suspected to have been partiall in relating the affaires of Christ. For Origen proves it out of Phlegon an old Greek writer of those times that in the reign of Tiberius Caesar under whom Christ suffered universum orbem tenebris offusum the whole world was covered with a prodigious darknesse and that many fatall earthquakes hapned in the same times also Eusebius doth observe the same out of Phlegon also adding withall that the sun never suffered such a notable defect of light as was then observed and that many Cities of Bithynia but specially the City of Nice were miserably shaken with those earthquakes Tertullian also speaking of this present Eclipse builds not alone on the Evangelists whose credit he conceived the Gentiles would not much relie on but doth appeal to the Records and Archives of the Roman Empire A darknesse or eclipse the more remarkable because so plainly contrary to the course of nature and therefore by St. Augustine called mirabilis et prodigtosus as being at the full of the Moone for at that time the Iewes did keep the feast of the Passeover whereas all Eclipses of the sun do naturally happen in the wane of the old moone or the first quarter of the new Touching the time of our Redeemers being fastned to the fatall Crosse there seems to be some difference between the Evangelists St. Marke saith It was the third hour and they crucifyed him Mark 15.25 St. Iohn that it was about the sixt hour when Palate delivered him unto them to be crucifyed cap. 16. v. 14 16. This hath occasioned some to think that the text in one of the Evangelists hath received a change and that the Copies differ from the first originall The Commentaries on the 77. Psal. ascribed to Hierome is of opinion that the text in Marke hath been corrupted by the carelesnesse of the Transcribers and the third hour put down in stead of the sixt and hereunto Cajetan on the place Sixtus Senensis Biblioth l. 6. Annotat. 131. and Canus in the second of â—is Common places cap. 18. do conform their judgments And on the other side Theophylact is of opinion that the corruption lyeth in the text of Iohn which antiently had spoken of the third houre in numeral figures not at length and that by the like fault of the transcribers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are the numeral figures were mistaken the sixt being there put down in stead of the third And though it cannot be denyed but that some very antient Copies do read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there as it is in Marke yet Beza who observes and approveth the same thinks it very unsafe to alter any thing in the text or depart only upon that authority from the usuall readings with great both piety and prudence So that the readings in both places as they stand now in our Bibles being very antient and extant in all the Fathers who have written on them or otherwise discoursed occasionally of our Saviours passion it hath exceedingly exercised the wits of judicious men
Saviour going to his Passion gave her the print of his face in a linnen cloth for the death of Christ but the Greek Legends do ascribe this prosecution unto Mary Magdalen as being of more credit in those parts and both true alike Certain it is that in his hasty proceedings against CHRIST our Saviour he had most wilfully broke an Edict of Tiberius the then Roman Emperour by whom it was decreed Vt supplicia damnatorum in decimum usque diem differrentur as Suetonius hath it that the execution of the sentence upon men condemned should be deferred till the tenth day But I finde not this laid unto his charge He had guilt enough besides of more publick nature then the murder of one innocent person Iosephus telling of a great slaughter which he made of the Samaritans a little before his calling home and Philo accusing him to Caius of rapine bribery oppression many cruel murders of men uncondemned which were the things most likely to procure his banishment Nor could he live long quiet at Vienna neither the vengeance of the Lord still following after him his guilty conscience still condemning and Caius Caligula the Roman Emperour putting so many indignities upon him that he thought best to rid himself at once out of all his troubles and so slew himself as both Eusebius and Orosius do report the story For Caiaphas next Iosephus telleth us that he was deprived of the high Priesthood by the same Vitellius who removed Pilate from his Government the infamy and disgrace of which deprivation did so work upon him that he grew weary of his life and at last laid violent hands on himself also to save the Executioner a labour as we read in Clemens The like foul ends befell Annas together with the rest of the Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees who had an hand in the conspiracy against our Saviour of whom Nicephorus tels us but in generall only Quod ipsi dignas variasque dederunt poenas that they all came to just but miserable deaths as the wickedness of the fact deserved As for the whole Nation of the Iews who were so bent upon the death of their Messiah that they cryed aloud his bloud be upon us and our children what a miserable destruction fell upon them very shortly after and how they have been hunted since from one place to another is a thing so well known that I need not tell it All I shall note is this particular passage of the Divine justice that they who bought their Saviour for thirty peeces of silver were themselves sold at thirty for one peece of silver in the open Market A true but a most wonderful character of the finger of God And so I leave them to Gods mercy and proceed unto the following Article ARTICLE VI. Of the Sixt ARTICLE OF THE CREED Ascribed to St. THOMAS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Descendit ad inferos tertia die resurrexit a mortuis i. e. He descended into Hell the third day he rose again from the dead CHAP. VIII Of the locall descent of Christ into hell Hades and inferi what they signifie in the best Greek and Latine Authors and in the text of holy Scripture An examination and confutation of the contrary opinions WE made an end of the Humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the former Chapter for to a lower condition then that of the ignominie of the grave we could not possibly expect that he should be brought We must next look upon his exaltation the first degree or step to which was his descent into hell But this perhaps may seem to some to be a very strange kind of preferment a point so far from being any part of his exaltation that it may worthily be accounted his very lowest degree of humiliation a fall farre lower then the Grave And so it had been out of doubt had he descended down to hell to have felt the paines of it or to have been tormented though but for a moment in the flames thereof T is not the place but the intent not the descending but the businesse which he went about which makes the difference in this case and the intent and purpose of his going thither was to begin his triumph over Satan and all his Angels to beat the Devill in his own strongest hold and fortresse and take possession of that part of his kingdome whereof God had given the keyes unto him And to descend on such a businesse is I presume no matter of humiliation Doth not the Scripture tell us in another place that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Arch-angel and with the trumpet of God when he comes to judge the quick and the dead yet that descent of his upon that occasion will be the highest step of his exaltation there 's no doubt of that To descend then is no humiliation of and in it self but in relation to the businesse we descend about And the intent or purpose of his descent was to spoyle principalities and powers that is to say the Prince of the world and the powers of darknesse and having spoyled them to make a shew of them openly and triumph over them to shew himself unto the Devils and infernall spirits and to receive the homage of the knee from them as his slaves and vassals that being reckoned as a part of his exaltation that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow as well of things under the earth as either of things upon the earth or the things in heaven To this the Fathers do attest and some Councels also some of which shall be here produced Our Saviour Christ had power saith Athanasius to shew incorruption in the grave and in his descent to hell to dissolve death and proclaime resurrection unto all St. Cyprian thus When by the presence of Christ hell was broken open and the captivity made captive his conquering soul being presented to the sight of his Father returned again unto his body without delay St. Augustine more plainly yet Reddunt inferna victorem c. Hell returned back again her Conquerour and whiles his body lay in the grave his soul triumphed over hell And finally thus the fourth Councell of Toledo CHRIST say the Fathers there assembled descended to hell devicto mortis imperio and having subdued the kingdome of death rose again the third day More testimonies to this purpose might be here produced but that they are reserved to another place when we shall come to speak of those particular motives which did induce our Saviour to make this descent and of the benefits redounding to the Church thereby These are enough to let us see that his descending into hell is to be reckoned as a part of his exaltation which was the matter to be proved To which we shall make â—old to add this one reason more that is
that we see that not alone the sacred penmen of the new Testament written first in Greek but also all the Ecclesiasticall writers of the Greek Church when they speak of Hades intend not any thing thereby but hell the place prepared for the Devils and the damned souls Let us next see whether the Fathers of the Latine or Western Church have any other meaning when they speak of inferi or infernum for they use both words by which they do expound Hades or translate it rather as often as they chance to meet it And first for the Quid nominis take it thus from Augustine Inferi eo quod infra sunt the inferi are so called saith he because they are below in the parts beneath And somewhat to this purpose saith Lactantius also Nihil terra inferius humilius nisi mors inferi that there is nothing lower then the earth but death and inferi From infra the root or theme the Fathers do derive infernus of which thus St. Hierome Inferiora terrarum infernus accipitur the lower parts of the earth are called infernus to which our Saviour did descend Which as it sheweth that infernus was derived from inferius and so by consequence from infra as the word inferi was before so it directs us also where to finde the place And this he doth elsewhere also saying Simul discimus quod infernus sub terra sit and in another place quod autem infernus in inferiore parte terrae sit in both that it is under the earth and in the lowermost parts thereof Tertullian also saith the same as to the situation of it Habes regionem inferûm subterraneam credere we are to believe that the region of inferi is under the earth affirming also that it is in visceribus terrae abstrusa profunditas a bottomlesse pit in the very bowels of the earth In this there is no difference amongst the Antients in the nature or meaning of the word there is For by Tertullian the word inferi is taken for a place under the earth whither the souls of good and bad descend after death the good to a kind of refreshing the bad to punishments affirming for a certain truth or rather pronouncing so ex tripode for so the word Constituimus imports omnem animam apud inferos sequestrari in diem domini that the soul of every man is kept in Inferi till the day of the Lord. Which as it was a fancy private to himself after his lapse into the heresie of Montanus so he received no countenance in it from the rest of the Fathers by whom it is unanimously agreed upon that the souls of all good Christians are received into Paradise 'T is true indeed that Hierome seemeth to incline to the same opinion where speaking of the difference between death and inferi he saith that death is that whereby the soul is separated from the body infernus in quo animae includuntur sive in refrigerio sive in poenis and that infernus is the place wherein the souls of men are kept either in some refreshments or else in punishments Which seems to be the same with that which Tertullian had affirmed before but it doth but seem so For when he speaketh of inferi or infernus in this extension of the word he relates only to the times before the coming of our Saviour and his victory over death and hell and not at all unto the times of the Gospell For thus he doth explain himself in another place Solomon speaketh thus saith he because before the coming of our Saviour omnia pariter ad inferos ducerentur all were alike carryed to the inferi or the places below and that thereupon it was that Job complained how both the godly and the wicked were detained in inferno whereunto this expression tendeth we shall see hereafter The same he saith in his notes or Comment upon another Chapter of the same book of Solomons affirming plainly ante adventum Domini omnes quamvis sanctos inferni lege detentos that before the coming of the Lord all men how just and holy soever were detained under the Law of infernus But then immedately he addeth that since the resurrection of Christ the case is otherwise and that the souls of righteous men nequaquam inferno teneantur are by no means to be supposed to be detained in infernus and this he proveth from that of the Apostle saying I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and he that is with Christ saith he is not held in infernus So that whatsoever he conceived of infernus before Christs coming the truth of which opinion we dispute not here t is plain that since the resurrection he leaves it for a place appointed to the wicked only there to be held in everlasting pains and torments And so elsewhere he doth define it Infernus locus suppliciorum cruciatuum est in quo videter dives purpuratus that is to say infernus is the place of punishments and torments where the richman clothed in purple was seen by Lazarus Nay even Tertullian though he had made himself an inferi of his own devising acknowledgeth the prison which the Gospel speaketh of Mat. 5.24 25. to be no other then this inferi and therefore certainly not the receptacle both for good and bad the just and unjust But none of all the Antients states this point more clearly then divine St. Augustine who looking more judiciously into the businesse doth affirme expresly Frist Of the inferi or place it self nusquam scripturarum in bono appellatos potui invenire that he could never find any place of Scripture in which the word inferi was taken in any good sense Secondly that he could never finde that the place was called inferi y ubi justorum animae requiescunt where the souls of the righteous were at rest Thirdly that past all peradventure since the descent of Christ into hell boni fideles prorsus inferos nesciunt the godly believers are acquainted with no such place And last of all Non nisi poenalia recte intelligi per inferna that infernus can be taken for nothing rightly but the place of punishments And in this sense according unto these restrictions and explanations have the words inferi and infernus been since used in most Orthodox writers and in that sense still used by the old translatour of the new Testament into Latine as often as he meeteth with the Greek Hades And so St. Ambrose also doth interpret or expound the same where saying that according to the Theologie of the old Philosophers the souls of men severed from their bodies went unto Hades he gives this glosse upon the word id est locum qui non videtur quem locum latine infernum dicimus that is to say a place unseen which in Latine we do call infernus But as there is no
said he addes this of the Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thus in fine they saw Hell spoyled Epiphanius in this order marshalleth the acts of Christ He was crucified buried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he descended to places under the earth he took captivity captive and rose again the third day By which we see that the taking of captivity captive was one of the effects of his descent into Hell and that both his descent and victory over Hell and Satan are placed between his burial and Resurrection In the Homiliâ—s which Leo the Emperour made for the exercise of his style and the Confession of his Faith wherein no doubt he had the judgement and advice of the ablest men that were about him he doth thus deliver it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Christ is risen saith he bringing Hades or the Devil prisoner with him and proclaiming liberty to the Captives He that held others bound is now bound himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is now come from Hell or Hades with his ensign of triumph as appeareth by the sowre and heavy looks of those which were overthrown that is to say of Hades meaning there as first the old Satan himself together with Death also and the hateful Devils Dorotheus in his Book de Paschate very plainly thus What means this that he led captivity captive It means saith he that by Adams transgression the Enemy had made us all captives and had us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the Enemies hand and conquered him who made us captive And then concludes Erepti igitur sumus ab Inferis ob Christi humanitatem that we were then delivered from the power of Hell by the manhood or humanity of Christ our Saviour St. Cyprian though more antient and not so clear as he in this particular doth yet touch it thus Descendens ad inferos captivam ab antiquo duxit captivitatem that Christ descended into Hell brought back those captives which had before been captivated And in another place which we saw before When in the presence of Christ Hell was broken open and thereby captivity made captive his conquering soul being first presented to his Father returned unto his body without delay But to look back again to the old Greek Fathers who are far more positive and express in this then the Latines are we are thus told by Athanasius in another place that the Lord rose the third day from the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having spoyled hell trodden the enemy under foot dissolved death broken the chains of sin with which we were tyed and freed us which were bound from the chains thereof St. Cyril of Alexandria thus Our Lord saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. having spoyled death and loosed the number of souls which were detained in the dens of the earth rose again the third day from the dead Which words of Cyril are repeated and approved in the Councel of Ephesus and afterwards confirmed in the fifth General Councel holden at Constantinople St. Hierom finally on the parable of the strong man which was bound and spoiled Mat. 12. gives this observation which I had almost pretermitted viz. that this strong man was tyed and bound in Hell and trodden under the Lords feet and the Tyrants house being spoyled captivity also was led captive In which quotations from the Fathers we must take this with us that when they speaking of spoyling Hell and vanquishing the powers thereof they do allude as evidently to the spoyling of principalities and powers mentioned in that to the Colossians as they insist upon the taking of captivity captive expressed in that to the Ephesians In a word take the sum of all which by the Antients is delivered upon those two Texts in these words of Zanchius a very learned Writer of the Reformed Churches The Fathers saith he for the most part are of this opinion that Christ in his soul came to the place of the damned to signifie not in words but with his presence that the justice of God was satisfied by his death and bloudshed and that Satan had no longer power over his Elect whom he held captive c. As also that he might carry all the Devils with him in a triumph as it is Coloss. 2. He spoyled powers and principalities and made an open shew of them leading them as captives in a triumph by the vertue of his Cross by which he had purged away sins and appeased the justice of God So Zanchius But the most clear and pregnant place of holy Scripture for proof of Christâ— descent into Hell is that of the 2. of the Acts where the Apostle citing those words of David Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy One to see corruption applyeth it thus unto our Saviour that David seeing this before spake of the Resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in Hell neither did his flesh see corruption In which particular words those before recited it is clear and manifest that the soul and body of Christ were by God appointed to be superiour to all contrary powers that is the soul to Hell and the flesh to the grave and that from both Christ was to rise an absolute conquerour that he might sit on his heavenly Throne as Lord over all not by promise only as before but in fact and proof But for the whole Sermon of St. Peter made on this occasion it may be summed up briefly to this effect that is to say that the Prophesie of David neither was nor could be fulfilled in any no not in David himself but only in the promised Messiah for that his soul should not be left in Hell or Hades nor his flesh see corruption but was fulfilled in that Christ whom ye cruelly crucified He it is that is risen Lord of all in his own person the sorrows of death being loosed before him he is ascended up to Heaven as David likewise foretold of him and there sitteth on the right hand of God untill all that be his enemies in the rest of his Members be made his foot-stool and thence hath he shed forth this which you now see and hear even the promise of the holy Ghost received of the Father for all his And therefore know ye for a surety that God hath made him both Lord and Christ i. e. Lord over all in Heaven Earth Hell and Christ even the Anointed Saviour of all his Elect. And to this purpose saith St. Augustine Quamobrem teneamus firmissime c. Wherefore let us most firmly hold that which is comprehended in our Faith or the heads thereof confirmed by most sound authority namely that Christ dyed according to the Scriptures and was buried and according to the Scriptures also rose again the third day with the rest of those things which are most clearly testified of him in the written Word
In quibus etiam hoc est quod apud Inferos fuit c. Amongst which this is one point also that he was in Hell and loosed the sorrows of the same of which it was impossible that he should be holden In which last words the Father plainly doth relate to the 24. verse being the beginning almost of St. Peters Sermon Where though the Copies of the Testaments which are extant now read not as Augustine doth Solutis doloribus inferni having loosed the pains of Hell but the pains of death yet many of the antient Copies were as St. Augustine readeth it For Athanasius sometimes useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he loosed the pains of Hell and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sorrows of death Epiphanius in two places reads it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was impossible for Christ to be holden or detained in Hell And the same Copies as it seemes were followed also by Irenaeus l. 3. c. 12. by Cyprian in his tract de Passione Christi by Fulgentius l 3. ad Thrasimundum and by Bede also in his Retractations on the Acts. Which strong agreement of the Antients with the sight perhaps of some of the antient Copies did prevail so far on Robert Stephans the famous Printer of Paris that in the New Testament in Greek of the larger volume of the year 1550. he caused this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be put in the margin as a different reading remaining still in divers copies But this is only by the way not out of it as that which did afford another argument unto the Antients for proof of Christs descent into hell and his short stay in it by the pains or sorrows whereof it was impossible that he should be holden Nor did it only serve as a good argument for them in their several times and is to be of no use since the Text went otherwise I believe not so For since both readings have been found in the antient Writers and neither can be rejected as false the word death must be so expounded where it is retained as that it may not contradict that of Hell or Hades For being that death hath a double power place and subject upon the body here on earth and on the soul in Hell hereafter the Text may not unfitly be understood of the later death the pains and sorrows whereof were loosed by Christ because it was impossible they should fasten on him But to return unto the not leaving of Christs soul in Hell the tricks and shifts for the eluding of which Text we shall see hereafter it could not be intended of the grave only as some men would have it or to relate only to the Resurrection as they give it out For to rise simply from the grave was not sufficient to shew the soveraignty of Christ as the Lord of all Heaven Earth and Hell being made subject to his Throne nor to express and signifie the eternity of it which was to last till all his Enemies were made his footstool Some had been raised from death to life by the two famous Prophets in the Old Testament some by our Saviour in the New none of which could lay claim under that pretence to the Throne of David or to be Lord of all things as our Saviour was Besides this passage being recorded by St. Luke who in his Gospel useth the same word Hades for the place of torments as before was shewn it is not probable that he should use it here in another sense or if he did that none of all the Latine Fathers and Interpreters should ever observe it who render it by Infernus Hell as often as they have occasion to speak thereof I close this point with that of Augustine who speaking of this Prophesie of David concerning Christ he saith it is not to be contradicted nor otherwise to be expounded then it is there interpreted by St. Peter himself and then addes this for a conclusion of the whole Who but an Infidel will deny Christs descent into Hell So far the light of holy Scripture interpreted according to the general consent and Exposition of the Antient Fathers hath directed us in this enquiry and we have found such good assurance in the cause that the addition of more evidence would but seem unnecessary yet that the Catholick Tradition of the Church of Christ may be found to incline the same way also we will draw down the line thereof from the very times of the Apostles to those days of darkness in which all good learning was devoured and swallowed up in the night of ignorance For first Thaddaeus whom St. Thomas sent to preach the Gospel to Abgarus the King or Prince of Edessa taught him and his amongst other Catechetical points contained in the Apostles Creed that they must believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is to say that Christ descended into Hell and broke the wall which had been never broke before since the world began and rose again and raised the dead some of the which had slept from the first creation I know this story of Thaddaeus hath been called in question in these later dayes nor have I time and leisure to assert it now All I shall say is that Eusebius who relates it refers himself unto the monuments and Records of the City of Edessa out of which he had it and 't is well known Eusebius never was reputed either to be a fabulous or too credulous Author Next to Thaddaeus comes Ignatius the Apostles scholar who speaks of Christs descent into Hades in the same tearms as before adding withall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went down alone to Hades but ascended with a great multitude unto his Father And this he saith after he had made mention of his death and burial in a former passage of the same Epistle St. Irenaeus he comes next and he tels us this that David prophecyed thus of CHRIST thou shalt not leave my soul in the neathermost Hell After him Origen Christ saith he having bound the strong man and conquered him by his Cross went even unto his house to the house of death and unto Hell and thence took his goods that is the souls which he possessed Then cometh Eusebius next in order To him only saith he speaking of Christ were the gates of death opened and him only the keepers of Hell-gates seeing shrunk for fear and the chief Ruler of death the Devil knowing him alone to be his Lord rose out of his Throne and spake unto him fearfully with supplications and intreaty Next him another Eusebius surnamed Emisenus The Lord saith he descending darkness trembled at the sudden coming of an unknown light and the deepness of the dark mists of Hell saw the bright star of Heaven Deposito corpore imas atque abditas Tartari sedes filius hominis penetravit and the Son of man laying by his body penetrated to the lowest and
most secret seats of Tartarus or the dungeons of Hell Then comes the Renowned Athanasius There are saith he no other places but the grave and Hell out of which man was perfectly freed by Christ. And this appeareth not only in us but in the death of Christ also the body going to the grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and the soul descending unto Hell being places severed with a very great distance the grave receiving his body for there it was present and Hell or Hades his soul. Else how did Christ present his own soul to the souls in bands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might break in sunder the bands or chains of the souls detained in Hell St. Basil next When David said God will deliver my soul from the power of Hell he doth plainly prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the descent of the Lord to Hell or Hades to redeem the Prophets souls with others that they should not be detained there So Nazianzen Christ dyed but he restored to life and by his death abolished death he was buryed but he rose again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He descended into Hell but he brought back souls and ascended into Heaven Macarius to the same purpose also When thou hearest that Christ delivered souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of hell and darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Lord descended to Hell and performed an admirable work think that these things are not far from thine own soul. St. Chrysostom then being one of the Presbyters of the Church of Antioch composed two Homilies upon the Creed in one of which after he had spoken of the death and burial of our Saviour he addes this descendit ad infernum that he descended unto Hell that this also might not want a wonder Epiphanius though in other points his Enemie doth agree with him in this particular touching the descent of Christ into Hell though he differ both from him and others in making the Deity of Christ to be united with his soul in the performance of that action to the end that Hades so he calls the Devil the chief Ruler thereof thinking to lay hands on a man and not knowing that his Deity was united to his sacred soul Hades himself might be surprized and death dissolved and that fulfilled which was spoken Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell To this agrees St. Cyril of Alexandria thus The soul which was coupled and united to the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 descended into hell or Hades and using the power and the force of the Godhead shewed it self to the spirits there For we must not say that the Godhead of the only begotten which is a nature uncapable of death and no way conquerable by it was brought back from the dark caverns of the earth To the same also saith Iohn Damascene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. The deified soul of Christ descended to Hades that as to those upon the earth the Sun of righteousness was risen so to those who sate under the earth and in shades and darkness light might also shine Next look we on the Fathers of the Western Church and we shall finde as general consent amongst them for proof of Christs descent into hell as before we had amongst the Fathers of the Eastern And first beginning with Tertullian the most antient of the Latine Writers he doth not onely tell us in plain tearms Christum inferos adiisse that Christ went into hell but addes this reason of it also ne nos adiremus that we might not go thither St. Cyprians judgment in the point we have seen before where he declareth that Hell had been broken open in the presence of Christ when he led captivity captive c. Spolians inferos captivos praemittens ad superos first spoyling hell and then sending the captives before towards Heaven Arnobius thus Postea vidit inferos c. in Abyssi profunda descendens After his Passion he visited hell and not only became far off from heaven but even from the earth it self descending into the depth of the bottomeless pit Lactantius if the verse be his shewing how the darkness of hell vanished at the brightness of Christ then addes Hinc tumulum repetens post Tartara carne resumpta c. that after his being in hell he returned to his grave and resuming his body went to heaven like a noble Conquerer St. Hilarie of Poictiers next The powers of heaven saith he do incessantly glorifie the Name of God for conquering death and breaking the gates of hell for in hell he conquered death Christ saith St. Hierom destroyed and brake open the inclosed places of hell and put the Devil which had power over death out of his Kingdom and Dominion And in another place more plainly Hell saith he is the place of punishments and torments ad quem descendit Dominus ut vinctos de carcere dimitteret to which the Lord descneded to release those from prison who were therein bound St. Ambrose to the same effect Expers peccati Christus cum ad Tartari ima descenderet c. Christ saith he being void of sin when he descended to the lowest pit of hell destroying the Dominion of death recalled out of the Devils jaws to eternal life the souls of those who there lay bounden for their sins St. Austin living in those times though he assert as much as any the descent into hell yet gives a more unquestionable reason for it Quaeri solet si non nisi poenalia intelligantur inferna c. It is demanded if Infernus Hell be taken for no other then the place of punishment how we may safely believe that the Soul of our Lord Christ descended thither But it is answered ideo descendisse ut quibus oportuit subveniret that he descended into hell to succour those that were to be succoured And in another place more clearly as unto the reason There is saith he a lower hell whither the deceased use to go from whence God would deliver our souls by sending his Son thither Ideo enim ille usque ad infernum pervenit ne nos in inferno maneremus for therfore went Christ even unto hell that we should not remain in hell Vigilius shewing how our Saviour could be both in Hell and in the grave doth resolve it thus Dicimus ergo Dominum jacuisse in sepulchro sed in solo corpore descendisse ad infernum sed in sola anima viz. that the Lord lay in the grave as to his body alone but descended down to Hell in his soul only Ruffinus commenting on this Article of the Creed gives it briefly thus Quod in Infernum descendit audenter pronunciatur in Psalmis that Christs descent into hell is evidently foretold in the Psalmes and then eo usque ille miserando descendit usque quo tu
peccando dejectus es that is to say Christ out of his mercy descended to that very place unto which man was fallen by sin Petrus Chrysologus in the next Age thus To suffer death and to conquer it intraffe inferos rediisse to enter into hell and return back again to come within the jaws of the dungeon of hell and to dissolve the laws thereof is not of weakness but of power Fulgentius states the point more fully It remained saith he to the full accomplishment of our Redemption that the man whom God took unto himself without sin should descend even thither whither man separated from God fell by desert of sin that is to hell where the soul of a sinner useth to be tormented and to the Grave where the body of the sinner useth to be corrupted yet so that neither Christs flesh might rot in the grave nor his soul be tormented with the sorrows of hell To omit Arator and Prudentius who affirm as much as those before but may be thought to have spoken out of Poetical liberty we will next look upon the Fathers of the fourth Councel of Toledo An. 630. after the birth of our Saviour by whom it was declared that Christ descended to hell to deliver the Saints which there were held captive and subduing the kingdome of death rose again Which after was repeated and confirmed in the Councel of Orleance holden in the 46. year of Charles the Great Finally to descend no lower Venantius Fortunatus once Bishop of Poictiers doth resolve it thus first that Christ did descend to hell and secondly that his descent into hell was no disparagement unto him for that he did it with relation to his infinite mercies as if a King should enter into a Prison not to be there detained himself but to release and loose all such as were guilty Thus have we seen the suffrages of the antient Writers in their times and ages touching the descent of Christ into hell with such a general consent and unanimity that a greater is not to be found in all or any of the Articles of the Christian faith And we have also seen the reasons which as they thought induced our Saviour unto that descent the benefits which did accrew to the Church thereby Now these being principally three that is to say the vanquishing of the powers of hell Secondly the securing of his faithful servants from coming under the dominion thereof And thirdly the deliverie of the souls of those righteous men which lived under the law and were held captive for a time by the powers of darkness till he released them by his coming two of the three I hold to be undoubtedly true and the other I consider as a matter questionable And first I take it for a truth an undoubted truth that our Saviour Christ by his descent into hell did utterly suddue and overthrow the Kingdom of Satan and gave him his last blow in his own Dominions and that thereby he took this captivity captive and having spoyled those principalities and powers which do there inhabit did make a shew of them openly and triumph over them The Scriptures explicated by the Fathers do most abundantly confirm me in the truth of that To which adde here which was before omitted in its proper place those words of Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria saying The powers principalities and rulers of the world which the Apostle speaks of there none other could conquer and carry into the Deserts of hell but only he who said Be of good hope for I have overcome the world Therefore it was necessary that our Lord and Saviour should not only be born a man amongst men but also should descend to hell that he might carry into the Wilderness of hell the Goat which was to be led away and returning thence that work performed might ascend to his Father And I do also hold for a truth undoubted that Christ by his descent into hell hath secured all his faithful servants since that time from coming under the power and dominion of it Which as it was the doctrine of the eldest times of Christianity as appeareth by the objection of Tertullian At inquiunt Christus inferos adiit ne nos adiremus that they i. e. the Orthodox Professors against whom he writ affirmed that Christ went into hell to hinder us from going thither so was it constantly maintained in the times succeeding by all the sound members of the Church This appears yet more evidently by that of Athanasius saying Christ descending to hell or Hades 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brought us back so loosing our detention there In which it is to be observed that he speaks this of himself and others which were then alive and not them in hell but yet both might and must have come there if he had not freed them from it by his descent And so we must interpret that of Hierom also Liberavit omnes Dominus quando anima ejus descendit in infernum the Lord delivered all his servants both dead and living when his soul descended into hell and that of Hilarie Christ descending into hell nostra salus est is our salvation and that of Ambrose descendens ad ' inferos genus humanum liberavit that Christ descending into hell delivered mankinde i. e. aswell from coming thither as from tarrying there Fulgentius goes to work more clearly then any of the rest before recited and doth not only tell us this that descendentem ad infernum animum justi c. the sorrows of hell were loosed by the descending thither of Christs righteous soul but addeth that having so loosed the sorrows or pains of hell omnes fideles ab iisdem liberavit he delivered all the faithful from them But above all St. Augustine is most clear and positive in this particular as may appear in part by that which was said before in the last Section but far more fully in the passages which are yet to come In all those miseries saith he though we were not then yet because our deserts were such that we should have been in them if we had not been delivered from them it may be rightly said we were thence delivered Quo per liberatores nostros non permissi sunt perduci whither we were not suffered to come by our deliverers And who these were whom he delivered in this manner that is to say by not permitting them to come thither at all he tels us in another place where we finde it thus that it is believed not without good cause that Christs soul came into that place in which sinners are miserably tormented Vt eos solveret a tormentis quos solvendos esse occulta nobis sua justitia judicabat that he might deliver them from torments whom in his secret justice unknown to us he thought fit to deliver In a word thus most fully saith that Reverend Prelate Si enim non
nought else but the Port of Salvation which whether it were formerly in the heavens above an apud Inferos or in the places under the earth I determine not Yea I had rather be still ignorant of it then rashly to pronounce of that which I finde not expressed in the Scripture In these things as I will not be too curious so neither will I define any thing therein nor will I contend with any man about this matter It shall suffice me to understand and confess that the godly of the Old Testament were in a certain place of rest and not in torments before the Ascension of Christ although I know not what nor where it was So he with great both piety and Christian modesty and with him I shut up this dispute CHAP. IX The Doctrine of the Church of England touching Christs descent into Hell asserted from all contrary opinions which are here examined and disproved THus have we seen the doctrine of the Primitive Church touching the Article of Christs descent into hell so much disputed or indeed rather quarrelled in these later times Let us next look upon the Doctrine of of this Church of England which in this point as in all the rest which are in controversie doth tread exactly in the steps of most pure Antiquity And if we search into the publick monuments and records thereof we shall finde this doctrine of Christs local descent into hell to have been retained and established amongst many other Catholick verities ever since the first beginning of her Reformation For in the Synod of the year 1552. being the fourth year of King Edward the sixt it was declared and averred for the publick doctrine of this Church to be embraced by all the members of the same that the body of Christ until his Resurrection lay in the grave but that his soul being breathed out was with the spirits in prison or hell and preached to them as the place of Peter doth witness saying For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison c. 1 Pet. 3.18 19. But being the Articles of that year were set out in Latine take them according as they stand in the Original Nam corpus usque ad Resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit Spiritus ab illo emissus cum spiritibus qui in Carcere sive in Inferno detinebantur fuit illisque praedicavit ut testatur Petri locus c. So also in the year 1562. When Q. Elizabeth was somewhat setled in her state she caused her Clergy to be called together in a Synodical way to the intent they might agree upon a Body or Book of Articles for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion Who being met and having agreed upon the two first Articles touching Faith in the holy Trinity and the Word or Son of God which was made very man and having declared in this second that Christ who is very God and very man did truly suffer and was crucified dead and buryed to reconcile us to his Father addes for the title of the third of the going down of Christ into hell Which being an entire Article of it self runs thus in terminis viz. As Christ dyed for us and was buried so also it is to be believed that he went down into hell Which Article with the rest being publickly agreed upon and passed in the Convocations of both Provinces and confirmed under the broad Seal as the law required became the publick authorized Doctrine of this Church of England and afterwards received such countenance in the high Court of Parliament that there was a statute made unto this purpose that all who were to be admitted unto any Benefice with cure of souls or unto any holy Orders should publickly subscribe the same in the presence of the Bishop or Ordinary The like care was also taken after for subscribing to it by all such who were matriculated in either of the Universities or admitted into any Colledge or Hall or to any Academical degree whatsoever and so it stands unto this day confirmed and countenanced by as high and great authority aâ— the power of the Prince the Canons of the Church and the Sanctions of the Civil State can give it Nor stands it only on Record in the Book of Articles but is thus touched in the Book of Homilies specified and approved of for godly and wholesome Doctrine by those Articles and ratified and confirmed together with them Thus hath his Resurrection saith the Homilie wrought for us life and and righteousness He passed through death and hell to the intent to put us in good hope that by his strength we shall do the same He paid the ransome of sin that it should not be laid to our charge He destroyed the Devil and all his tyranny and openly triumphed over him and took away from him all his captives and hath raised and set them with himself among the heavenly Citizens above So far the Homily There was also published in the beginning of the said Queens Reign a Catechisme writ in Latine by Mr. Alexander Nowel Dean of Pauls and publickly authorized to be taught in all the Grammar Schooles of this kingdome though not by such a sacred and supreme authority as the books of Articles and Homilies had been before in which the doctrine of Christs descent into hell is thus delivered viz. That as Christs body was laid in the Bowels of the earth so his soul separated from his body descended ad inferos to hell and with all the force and efficacie of his death so pierced unto the dead atque inferos adeo ipsos and even to the spirits in hell that the souls of the unfaithful perceived the condemnation of their infidelity to be most sharp and just ipseque inferorum Princeps Satan and Satan himself the Prince of hell saw all the power of his tyranny and of darknesse to be weakned broken and destroyed and contrariwise the dead who whilest they lived believed in Christ understood the work of their Redemption to be performed and felt the fruit and force thereof with a most sweet and certain comfort So that the doctrine of Christs descent into hell being thus positively delivered in the Articles and Homilies and Catechisme publickly authorized to be taught in Schools and being thus solemnly confirmed and countenanced both by Laws and Canons and by the subscriptions of all the Clergie and other learned men of this Realm of England how great must we conceive the impudence to be of the Romish Gagger who charged this upon this Church that we denie the descent of Christ into hell Nor do I wonder lesse at the improvidence of those who were then in authority in licensing Mr. Rogers comment on this Book
of Articles and suffering him to put it forth with the glorious title of being published by authority considering that he permits all people in this Church and State to put what sense they will upon the Article so they keep the words Which as it gives a great advantage to the Papists in making them report with the greater confidence that this Church alloweth not of a local descent into hell contrary to the doctrine of the primitive times so have they charged it on us in some solemne conferences more then once or twice Nor doth the Church of England stand alone in this interpretation of the Article according to the literal and Grammatical sense but is therein countenanced and backed by the most eminent Doctors of the Protestant and reformed Churchs And first we will begin with Luther who speaking of those words of the royal Psalmist Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell and of those foolish glosses which were made upon them in those times adviseth thus that despising all such frivolous and impious trifles we simply understand the words of the Prophet of the being of Christs soul in hell as they were simply and plainly spoken and if we cannot understand them that howsoever we do faithfully believe the same Pomeranus commenting on the same words of the Prophet thus infers thereon Here hast thou that Article of our faith Christs descent into hell If thou aske what he did there I answer that he delivered thence not the Fathers only but all the faithful from the beginning of the world to the end thereof nor out of Limbus only but out of the lowest and neathermost hell to which all were condemned David Chytreus to this purpose that we are to understand this Article of the Creed plainly and simply as the words do seem to import and to resolve that the Son of God truly descended into hell to deliver us thence to which place we were condemned for sin in Adam as also from the power and tyranny of the Devill which held us captive in the same and for the proof hereof he referreth himself to Hierome Augustine and Fulgentius whose words he quoteth Vrbanus Regius saith the same The Church saith he delivereth out of holy Scripture that Christ after he was dead on the Crosse descended also into hell to suppresse Satan and hell to which we were condemned by the just judgment of God and to spoyle and destroy the kingdome of death More plainly Henricus Mollerus thus The descent of Christ to hell being one of the Articles of the Creed we understand simply without any allegory and believe that Christ truly descended to the lower parts of the earth as St. Paul speaketh Ephes. 4. It is enough for us to believe which Austin affirmeth in his Epistle to Dardanus that Christ therefore descended that he might help those which were to be holpen Of the same mind as touching the true and real descent into hell are Westhmerus in Psal. 16. Hemingius in Coloss. c. 2. Wolfgangus Musculus in Psal. 16. and the whole body of the Lutheran Divines in their book of Concord Artic. 9. But none more positively and significantly then Zacharias Scilterus though perhaps of lesse eminent note then those before who informes us thus The descent of Christ to hell whereof mention is made in the Apostles Creed after the death and burial of Christ is to be understood simply and without Allegory according to the literal sense of the manifestation and declaration of Christs victory no lesse glorious then terrible made to the Devils in hell or in the place of the damned and of Christs expugning spoyling disarming captivating the power of Satan and of his destroying hell and everting the whole kingdome of darkness and of his delivering us from the pains of death and eternal damnation and out of the pains of hell Nor is this only the opinion of the Lutheran Doctors but of those also which in matter of the Sacrament and some other points adhere rather to the Doctrine of Zuinglius Calvin and those other Churches who commonly do call themselves the reformed Churches And first we will begin with Peter Martyr not only because first in time but because purposely sent for hither by Arch-bishop Cranmer to travel in the great work of reformation which was then in hand As touching Christs soul saith he as soon as it departed from the body it rested not idle but descended ad inferos unto hell and certainly both the one and the other company as well of the godly as the damned found the presence of it For the souls of the faithful were much comforted and gave God thanks for delivering them by the hands of this Mediator and performing that which had so long before been promised and those which were adjudged to everlasting damnation animae Christi adventum praesenseruâ—t perceived the coming of Christs soul with as much discomfort Aretius next declaring that the Article of Christs descent into hell is delivered in plain termes in holy Scriptures and then repeating many other senses which had been obtruded on the Article he rejects them all and thus produceth Quare mea sententia est c. It is therefore mine opinion that Christ descended into hell after he had yeilded his soul on the Crosse into the hand of God his Father and hell in this place we affirme to be the very place appointed for the souls of the damned even for Satan and all his members Finally Zanchius doth not only hold for his own particular that though the powers and principalities spoken of Coloss. 2. were vanquished and conquered on the Crosse by Christ yet that the triumph there also mentioned was not performed till Christ in his soul entred the kingdome of hell as a glorious Victor bringing them out of their infernal Kingdome and carrying them along in the air in the sight of all the Angels and blessed souls but doth affirme that the Fathers for the most part were of that opinion Et ex nostris non pauci neque vulgares and of their own Expositers not a few and those no mean persons So that in him we have not only his own judgment opinion but the agreement and consent of almost al the rest of the considerable Divines of the reformed Churches Yet notwithstanding this agreement and consent both of the Antient Fathers and the Later writers this Article of Christs descent hath not wanted those who have endevoured with all care diligence either to make it of no authority by expunging it out of the old received Creeds or to dispute as well the possibility as the use and pertinencie of the said descent by pressing it with many studied Objections to that end and purpose or finally to put such a sense upon it as is utterly inconsistent with the meaning of it and as destructive in a manner as the first attempt of making it no part of the antient Creeds And
ambiguities But this he doth declare more plainly in another place saying that he who said unto the Theef hanging on the Crosse This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise according to his manhood or humane nature had his soul that day in hell and his flesh in the grave but according to his Godhead was most undoubtedly in Paradise Titus Bostrenus saith the same an Author not of such authority but of more antiquity then St. Augustine How saith he did our Saviour performe this promise made unto the Theef Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso And thereunto he answereth thus Christ taken down from his Crosse was in hell according to his soul and neverthelesse by the power of his divinity he brought the theef into Paradise Thus Damascen also for the Greek Fathers The same Christ is adored in Heaven as God together with the Father and the holy Ghost And he as man lay in the Sepulchre with his body and abode in hell with his soul and gave entrance to the Theef into Paradise by his divinity which cannot be comprehended in any place Or if we think the journey from the Crosse to Paradise and from thence to hell to be too great for our Redeemer to dispatch in a day which by the way were a fine peece of infidelity what hinders it but that having for a day refreshed his wearyed soul in the joyes of Paradise he might afterwards goe down to hell to pursue his Conquest For though the great Cardinal affirme Animam Christi triduo esse in corde terrae that the soul of Christ continued as long in hell as his body lay in the grave yet herein he deserts those worthies of the former times whose dictates he would fain be thought to adhere unto For Anselm once Arch-bishop of Canterbury though a Post-natus in regard of the Antient Fathers yet far more antient and of no lesse abilities then Bellarmine was perswaded otherwise Who asking in the way of discourse or dialogue Whither Christs soul went after his death he answereth to the heavenly Paradise as he said to the Theef This day c. When then to hell He answereth at midnight before his resurrection at which hour as the Angel destroyed Egypt so at the same Christ spoyled hell and made their darknesse as bright as day But lest the Cardinall should think it a disparagement unto him to be counterballanced by a writer of so late a date let him take this of Augustine for a farewell and so much good do it him Si igitur mortuo corpore ad Paradisum anima mox vocatur quemquamne adhuc tam impium credimus qui dicere audeat quod Anima Servatoris nostri triduo illo corporeae mortis custodiae mancipetur If then the body of the Theef dying saith that reverend Father his soul was presently taken into Paradise shall we think any man so wicked ware that Sr. Cardinal as to dare say that the soul of our Saviour during the three days that his body was dead was restrained in the custody of hell So that we see there is no such impossibility as hath been objected but that our Lord and Saviour might descend into hell though he was the same day with the theef in Paradise As little doth it follow from their other argument that Christ commended his soul into the hands of his Father and therefore it could not be in hell For certainly these men must think the hands of God to be very short and the power of the Devil over great if any part of hell should be out of Gods reach or that he could command nothing there but by Satans leave Christs soul wheresoever it was was in Gods protection and so by necessary consequence in the hands of God there being no place in heaven or hell exempted from the power of the Lord Almighty David had else deceived both himself and us in saying that if he went down to hell he should finde God there And therefore we need say no more unto this Objection but that which Gregory Nyssen said in former times as by way of prevention viz. that the soul of Christ commended into his Fathers hands went down to hell quum ita illi bonum commodum visum esset when it seemed convenient to himself that it should so do that he might publish salvation to the souls in hell and be Lord over quick and dead and spoil hell and might prepare a way for man to return to life after he himself had been the first fruits the first born from the dead And this saith he may be perceived and proved by many places of Scripture And I the rather have made use of those words of Nyssen in answer unto that Objection if it may be called one because it satisfyeth in part another of their doughty Arguments touching the use and pertinency of Christs descent For if say they there be no certain benefit redounding to the godly by Christs going to hell then out of doubt he went not thither so far they say exceeding well But then they take without proof as a matter granted that no such benefit redounded to the godly by it and therefore they conclude what they list themselves This is the summe of what they say as toâ—ching the impertinency of Christs descent into hell and this is as easie to be answered as that of the impossibility which we had before Three speciall motives which induced our Saviour unto this descent we shewed you from the Fathers in the former Chapter that is to say the full and finall overthrow of the powers of Satan the bringing thence the Antient Patriarchs and others which dyed before the preaching of our Saviours Gospel and finally the delivering us from the holds thereof that we goe not thither And do they think that none of these are any matter of certain benefit to the godly man Or do they think the publishing of salvation to the souls in hell the making of our Saviour to be Lord over quick and dead the spoyling of hell and the preparing of a way for man to return to life which we finde in Nyssen administreth no use of consolation to the godly minde Besides there were some other ends of Christs descent into hell then the procuring of some certain benefits to the godly only which if they should deny as perhaps they may they will condemn therein the best Protestant writers Aretius one of name and credit in the reformed Churches gives us three reasons of the Lords descent into hell whereof there is but one which concerns the godly The first saith he is for the Reprobates that they might know he was now come of whose coming they had so often heard but neglected it with great contempt The second is that Satan might assuredly know that this Christ whom he had tempted in the desert and delivered unto death by the hand of the Iews was the very Messiah and the seed promised
present Article that is to say that by Christs descending into hell is meant nothing else but his going down into the Chambers of death and his continuance in the state of separation from his body for the space of three days under the power and dominion of death Which though it came after the conceit of Calvin who maketh the descent of Christ into hell to be the sufferings of hell paines in his soul in his Agony and upon the Crosse yet we have joyned it to the former as being at the furthest cousin german to it if not the same device clothed in other words For what else is it to be dead and buried but to descend down into the chambers of death and what else to goe down to the chambers of death but to be dead and buried as our Saviour was What need was there that when the Creed had specifyed his death and burial and his lying in the grave three days in as plain termes as possibly the wit of man could devise to put it in there should a clause be added in the next words following to signifie his going down to the Chambers of death a three dayes separation of his soul and body and that in words so figurative and Metaphorical that all the Lexicons and Grammars of both the languages must be searched and studied before we can finde out what we are to trust to Assuredly it was not the Apostles purpose to set mens wits upon the rack to finde out their meaning or to make the Creed which they intended for the use of the simplest sort tormentum ingeniorum a torture to the brain of the ablest Scholar or to expresse themselves in such difficult termes that men must go to Schoole to the old Greek Poets and the late Iewish Rabbins before they can attain to the meaning of them As if there were no way to become a Christian but to be first an exact Critick a professed Philologer Yet this hath been the Helena of our greatest Clerks of none more preciously beloved then by the Bishop of Meuth who in his Answer to the Iesuites challenge hath spent a great deal of unfortunate pains to no other purpose but to crosse the current of Antiquity together with the authorized doctrine of the Church of England Concerning which I shall not need to say more now then what was touched upon before touching the unliklyhood of improbability of using such obscure and figurative expressions in so plain a forme in the which all things else must be understood in the literal sense and the repeating of the same thing twice in so short an Abstract not capable of a Tautologie though in divers words And as for the far fetching of Theological and Ecclesiastical notions out of the works and writings of old obsolete Authors it is a devise not known nor heard of in the Christian Church till these Critical times nor very well approved in this neither by judicious men And therefore for a full and finall answer to this last conceit I shall use this caution of Aquinas viz. Aliud est etymologia nominis aliud significatio nominis c. that is to say that in words we must not so much look upon their original exact and precise signification or derivation as that whereto they are by ordinary use applyed And unto this shall add the counsell and advise of a grave Divine a late learned member of the Church viz. That he who hopeth to attain the true knowledge of the principles of the Christian faith must either use the help of some Lexicon peculiar to Divinity or make one of his own it being an easier thing saith he to learn the termes of Law or Physick out of Thomasius or Riders Dictionaries then to know the true Theological use and meaning of many principal termes in the old or new Testament out of Stephanus or Pagninus his Thesaurus though both of them most excellent writers in their kinde Which I conceive to be as fit and full an answer unto this second exposition of the descent into hell drawn from the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol as the merit of it doth require Only take here the substance of my former answer in these words of Calvin Quantae oscitantiae fuisset rem minime difficilem verbis expeditis claris demonstratam obscuriore deinde verborum complexu indicare magis quam declarare How great a folly must we think it in the compilers of the Creed whosoever they were to lay down that in difficult and intricate phrases which had been formerly delivered in most clear and significant termes especially considering that when two several formes of speech are joyned together to expresse one thing the latter commonly doth use to explain the former We now proceed to that interpretation of this part of the Creed which hath found most followers and hath been most insisted on by some late Divines as the undoubted sense and meaning of the present words though to attain unto this meaning they must allow themselves both Metaphors and other figures which as before was shewn this short forme admits not And this interpretation found the better welcome not because any way more probable then the rest of the new devices but in regard it came from Calvin whose reputation was so high and his authority so great amongst them that as one very well observeth they were esteemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his writings which were almost grown the very Canon by which both Discipline and Doctrine were to be judged Now Calvin seeing how absurd and inconvenient it must needs be thought to make the descent of Christ into hell to be nothing else but his burial and that of his descent into the chambers of death and his continuance of separation from his body being then found out fell on a fancie which might seem to have more affinity to his descent unto the very place of torments the habitations of the damned though to say truth it was not so much properly a descending of his soul to the torments of hell as an ascending of the torments of hell to finde a place in his soul. To bring this in he first declareth that Christ had done nothing for us in the way of redemption if he had died no other then a bodily death and therefore that it was necessary he should undergoe divinae ultionis severitatem the severity of the divine vengeance Then he inferres that to this end he was to struggle cum inferorum copiis aeternaeque mortis horrore with the infernall powers of hell and the horrors that attend on eternal death and to submit himself unto all those punishments which the most wicked souls are condemned to suffer the eternity thereof excepted only that in this sense he may be truely said to descend into hell in regard he suffered all those torments nay that death it self which are by God inflicted upon wicked men dirosque
in anima cruciatus damnati perditi hominis pertulerit and felt most sensibly in his soul those miserable torments of a man utterly forlorne and damned to the pit of hell that being thus forsaken and estranged from the sight of God he was so cast down as in the anguish of his spirit to cry out afflictively My God my God why hast thou forsaken me as finding in himself omnia irati punientis Dei signa all the sure tokens of an angrie and avenging God finally that the fear and sorrow which did overwhelme him in the Garden his fervent prayer his Agonie and bloudy sweat were nothing but the signes and evidences of those horrid and unspeakable torments those diros horribiles cruciatus as he cals them there which he then suffered in his soul. And what could all this be but the pains of hell This he resolves to be the meaning of the Article condemning all exceptions which are or may be made against it either as frivolous and ridiculous Sect. 10. or to proceed ex malitia magis quam imscitia rather from malice then from ignorance and all that hath been said unto the contrary to be nothing but meer slander and calumniations and being most extremely pleased to see how those who did oppose him knew not where to fasten but were compelled to flie from one thing to another This is the summe of his dispute the substance of that dangerous innovation in the Christian faith which was by him first published for a truth undoubted and after taken up upon his Authority without further questioning or debate Which as it generally prevailed in most places else so did it no where finde more fast friends and followers then in this unhappy Church of England where it became in fine to be accounted the sole Orthodox Doctrine vented in Pulpits and in Catechisms that the death of Christ upon the Cross and his bloud shed for the remission of our sins were the least cause and means of our Redemption but that he did and ought to suffer the death of the sâ—ul and those very pains which the damned souls in hell do suffer before we could be ransomed from the wrath of God and that this was that descent into hell which in our Creed we are taught to believe A doctrine so directly contrary unto that of the Church of England delivered in her Articles and Books of Homilies solemnly authorized and ratified as before was said that Dr. Bilson the Reverend and learned Bishop of Winton then being thought himself obliged as well to undeceive the people as to assert the antient doctrine of the Church And to that end delivered in a Sermon at St. Pauls Cross London what he conceived to be the tenet of the Scriptures in this particular according to the Exposition of the holy Fathers Which as it first occasioned some unsavory Pamphlets and afterwards some set discourses to be writ against him so it necessitated him in his own defence to set out that laborious work entituled The survey of Christs sufferings for mans Redemption and of his descent to Hades or Hell for our deliverance I must confess my self indebted for the most part of those helps which I have had in the true stating both of this and the former Article Thus having shewn who was the Author what the progress of this so much applauded Exposition of Christs descent into hell we next proceed to the examining and confutation of the same And first the Reader may take notice that all the out-works to this Citadel esteemed so invincible and inexpugnable have by us been taken in already in the two former chapters where we have proved that neither the extreme fear or sorrow which did seize upon him in the Garden of Gethsemane nor any of his fervent prayers either there or on the Cross it self no nor the Agony it self nor the bloudy sweat were any signs or arguments of those hellish pains which they have fancied to themselves in our Saviours soul. And we have also proved in the last chapter of all not only that our Saviour did not die the death of the soul as these men blasphemously pretend but that the work of our Redemption was compleated fully by that bodily and bloudy sacrifice which he made of himself upon the Cross. So that there now remains no more but to prove this point which is indeed the main of all namely that Christ neither did nor ought to suffer the pains belonging to the damned or endured so much as for a moment the torments of hell And for the proof of this it is fit we know both what those pains and torments are which the damned do suffer and of what nature are those fires which the Scriptures declare to be in hell what punishments belong to the soul alone and what unto the soul and body being joyned together And first of all the torments which the damned suffer in their souls only though infinite and unexpressible in themselves may be reduced to these three heads 1 remorse of conscience 2 a sense of their rejection from the favour of God and 3 a despair of ever being eased of that consuming misery which is fallen upon them Remorse of conscience that 's the first and one of the most heavy torments suffered by those wretched souls who in their life time wholly renounced the Lord their God to enjoy their pleasures by which they are kept in a continual remembrance of that madness and folly wherewith they rebelled against the Lord and of the contumacy wherewithall they refused his mercies God punishing the souls of such wicked men with the evidence and conscience of their own uncleanness and with the sight and most infallible assurance of their now everlasting wretchedness Whether or not this be the Worm our Saviour speaks of and of which he telleth us in his Gospel that it never dyeth we shall speak more at large hereafter In the mean time observe we what the Fathers say touching this particular Quae poena gravior quam interioris vulnus conscientiae what pain more grievous saith St. Ambrose then the wounds of a convicted conscience Magna poena impiorum est conscientia the conscience of the wicked saith St. Augustine is one of their greatest pains or punishments And more then so amongst all the afflictions of mans soul saith he there is none greater then the conscience of sin How thinkest thou saith St. Chrysostom shall our conscience be bitten alluding to the Worm spoken of before and is not this worse then any torment whatsoever With whom agreeth Eusebius also in his Apologie for Origen published under the name of Pamphilus saying tunc ipsa conscientia propriis stimulis agitatur that then the conscience of a wicked man shall be pricked and pierced with the stings of their own proper sins The second torment which the damned suffer in the soul alone is the sense of their rejection from the
favour of God pronounced against them in that day by the dreadful Judge in the word Discedite depart ye cursed by which they are not only excluded from the Kingdome of God but utterly confounded with the grief and shame of that rejection which they shall suffer at his hands before men and Angels This is that curse our Saviour speaks of in his holy Gospel where he affirmed unto the Iews that there should be weeping and gnashing of Teeth when they should see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and themselves thrust out Of this it is St. Augustine telleth us that to be banished for ever from the Kingdome of God to want that plentiful aboundance of the sweetness of God which he hath aboundantly laid up in store for those that fear him tam grandis poena est ut ei nulla quae novimus tormenta possint comparari is such a grievous pain or punishment that no torments which we know can compare unto it St. Chrysostom is more express where he speaks of those who seem to make it their only desire to scape the miseries of hell whereas I saith he am of opinion that to fall or be rejected from the glories of heaven multo durius est tormentum quam gehena ipsa is a far more insupportable torment then hell it self Nor do I think saith he that we ought so much to grieve at the evill of hell as at the loss of heaven and the glories of it Qui nimirum cruciatus est omnium durissimus the sense whereof will be more grievous then of all the rest And so much saith St. Basil briefly affirming that the estranging or rejecting from God is a more intolerable evil then any that is to be feared or expected in hell And yet these torments might be borne with the greater courage if there were any hope of release in time if their damnation were not so confirmed in the Court of Heaven that they are utterly deprived of all expectation of having any favour from God in the times to come if there were any end to be expected of those unsufferable torments which are laid upon them Hope makes an heavy burden light whereas despair of being eased makes a light burden insupportable And this despair is that which doth most afflict them when they are once condemned to the pit of torments Omni tormento atrocius desperatio condemnatos affliget No torment saith the same St. Basil afflicts the damned like despair So much the more by reason that to hope that Gods irrevocable judgment shall be altered or his counsel changed were to hope that God would be false in his word or wavering in his will so publickly and solemnly pronounced which were a sin that would deserve an heavier punishment then they suffer yet The punishment of the damned shal be everlasting no hope that ever it will end And it shall be an everlasting fire as the scriptures tell us a fire which shall prey upon the body and torment the soul and yet neither devour the one nor consume the other I know some late Divines do perswade themselves that the fire of hell is allegorical that there is no such real fire to be found therein as the world hath hitherto been made beleive But when I hear our Saviour Christ pronounce this sentence sitting in his most dreadful Court of Iudgement when there shall be but little use of tropes and figures Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels I must crave leave to tie my faith to express words of Scripture rather then to the quaint conceits of deceitful men Of this I shall speak more at large in another place but whether in the Article of Christs coming to judgement or in that of everlasting life is not yet resolved In the mean time I take it for a good rule which we finde in Augustine that in expounding of the Scriptures we flie not unto Tropes or Figures unless the proper signification of the words in any place be either against the truth of faith or against the honestly of manners as in these it is not Which grounds thus laid I would fain know of Calvin or any of his followers whether that all or any of these punishments which belong properly to the damned and may be truly and directly called the pains of hell were suffered by our Saviour in his soul and body or his soul alone It could not be remorse of conscience for where there is no sin there is no Compunction Christ might be sorrowful and afflicted for the sins of man upon a knowledge of those miseries which attended on them Remorse there could be none where there was no guilt and guilt there could be none where there was no sin And he alone it was who could do no sin and in whose mouth was found no guile as St. Peter tels us Rejected he was never from the favour of God it were indeed an hellish blasphemy to conceive so of him The sentence of rejection is denounced against those alone who have provoked God unto anger by their sins and wickednesses and made him of a friend and Father to become an Adversary But God was neither angry with nor adversary to his Son CHRIST IESVS his well beloved Son at first in whom he was well pleased to the very end And so much Calvin doth confess Nec tamen innuimus unquam Deum fuisse adversarium illi vel iratum And yet saith he we do not intimate hereby that God was either set against him or offended with him Nor doth he say it only but gives reason for it For how saith he could God be angry with his beloved Son in whom only he was well pleased or with what confidence could Christ intercede for us with Almighty God si infensum haberet ipse sibi with whom he stood in need of a Mediator to reconcile him to himself As for despair if he were neither touched for remorse of conscience nor fallen from the love and favour of his heavenly Father there was nothing that he could despair of but a release in time from the fires of hell which though they might afflict his body could not hurt his soul. And Calvin takes it for a grievous calumny which was charged upon him Me desperationem ascribere filio Dei quae fidei contraria sit that he ascribed to Christ any such despair which was not consistent with true faith For wiping off such stain he declares expresly that though our Saviour did complain of his being forsaken ne tantillum quidem deflexit a bonitatis ejus fiducia yet he did never start nor waver in that confidence which he had in the goodness of the Lord and useth this for an especial argument to confirm the same as indeed it is that whilest he did complain that he was forsaken Non desinit vocare Deum suum he ceased not
resurrection of our Lord and Saviour there came a signall benefit unto all the world which else had been fast bound for ever in the bonds of death without any hope of rising to a better life For being risen in our nature then our nature is riâ—en and if our nature be then our persons may be especially considering that he and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul hath told us so graffed into one another that he is part of us and we part of him And therefore very well said Bernard Resurrexit solus sed non totus Though he be only risen by his own proper power yet as yet he is not risen wholly nor will be untill we be raised together with him He is but risen in part by this resurrection and that he may rise all of him he must raise t is also In this respect our Saviour is entituled Primogenitus omnis Creaturae the first born or first begotten of every creature viz. first in the order of time he being the first that was ever raised from death unto life immortall and first also in the order of causality all others which have been or shall be raised or begotten to immortall life being so raised and begotten by vertue of his resurrection And in the same respect he is called Primitiae dormientium or the first fruits of them that sleep because his rising is not only the pledge and earnest of our rising also but that we shall be raised to the same state of happinesse and eternall glory which he hath attained since his rising The offering of the first fruits drew a blessing upon all the rest For if the first fruits be holy the lumpe saith the Apostle is also holy If then the first fruits of the dead be offered to Almighty God in Christ our Saviour no question but the after-fruits or the whole increase will be very acceptable and laid up in the barn of that heavenly husbandman according to the scope of our Saviours Parable And yet perhaps St. Paul might have a further aime in calling our Saviour the first-fruits of them that sleep then hath yet been spoke of it hapning so by the sweet disposition of Gods special providence that the day of his glorious resurrection did fall that year upon the second day of the feast of unleavened bread or the morrow after the Sabbath of that great solemnity upon which day the first-fruits were to be offered unto God by his own appointment Of which see Levit. 23.10 11. Here then we have the principall effect and fruit of Christs resurrection the resurrection of our own bodies from the power of death the resurrection both of soul and body to eternall life And yet there are some other intermediate benefits which redound to us some other motives and inducements which relate to him For his part first had he not risen from the dead he had still lain under the guilt of that imposture wherewith the Priests and Elders charged him when he was interred And who would then have preached his Gospel or embraced his doctrine or yeelded belief to any thing he had said before For if Christ be not risen from the dead again as St. Paul reasoneth very strongly then were our faith in vain and their preaching vain Had he not risen from the dead and manifested it by such signes and wonders he never had attained to the reputation of being generally accounted and believed in for the Son of God or such a God at best who doth die like men and fall like others of the Princes some earthly Magistrate at the most and no great one neither Nor was it necessary to his glory only but to our justification For how could we assure our selves of salvation by him or of redemption in his bloud had he been swallowed up in death and not appeared alive again for our consolation Manens in morte peccata non expiasset mortem non vicisset as the Father hath it and then how could we hope to be saved by him qui se ipsum servare non potuit who was not of ability to save himself How could we Christians of all men most miserable be possibly assured of this saving truth that Christ was delivered for our sins if he had not risen again for our justification that is to say if by his rising from the dead he had not setled and confirmed us in that assurance The reason is because the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour was as it were his actual absolution from those sins of ours for the which he dyed and his deliverance from that death which as the wages of sin we had all deserved Calvin hath very Orthodoxly resolved it so Resuscitatio Christi a mortuis ejus est actualis absolutio a peccatis nostris pro quibus mortuus est as he there determineth And he determineth it according unto that of the great Apostle saying if Christ be not risen your faith is vain yee are yet in your sins that is to say still under the command and the guilt of sin from which you have no other assurance to be absolved and quitted in the day of judgment then only by the vertue of his resurrection How wretched then is the condition of the Iews and those other Hereticks who either utterly denie the resurrection as did Simon Magus and the Maniches or post it off as not yet past till some further time which was one of the heresies of Cerinthus or make it but an allegory no true reall action as do the Family of love Assuredly the least we can affirme of them and the like vile miscreans is that they have no inheritance in the house of Iesse nor any portion at all in the son of David that they who wilfully deny his resurrection shall never finde other resurrection but to shame and torment But on the contrary the Orthodox Professors in the Chrrstian Church not only have believed this Article and stood up in defence thereof to the last drop of their bloud as often as the Princes of the earth have conspired together against the Lord and his anointed but for the better imprinting of it in the souls of simple and unlearned people and for perpetuall commemoration of so great a mercy did institute the feast of Easter A festival of all others the most antient in the Christian Church ordained and celebrated in the purest ages of the same while some of the Apostles were yet living A feast received with so unanimous affection throughout the world that though some difference happened about the time when it should be celebrated yet there was never any question made of the feast it self All of them kept an Easter though not all at a time some of the Eastern Churches in compliance with the Iews amongst whom they lived keeping it on the 14. day of the Moon as the Iews did the Passeover â—ll other
Heaven or taken up on high as our English reads it it was Gods act there And so it was indeed it was Gods and his the Persons having such an interest in one another that what was done by the one is ascribed to the other without wrong or prejudice to either as it is also in the case of the Resurrection in which although we find it to be his own act his Resurrexit only in the holy Gospels yet is it quem Deus suscitavit a mortuis him hath God raised from the dead in St. Peters Sermon Or else it may be answered thus that though our Saviour did ascend by his own power and vertue yet he may properly be said to be assumptus taken or carried up into Heaven in three regards that is to say either as taken up on the wings of Angels whereof we shall say more anon as Lazarus was carryed into Abrahams bosom or because he seemed to be wrapt up in a cloud and so taken up out of their sight or finally that the man CHRIST IESVS was taken up into Heaven by the power and vertue of the Godhead in separably united to him Either of these constructions will atone the difference and reconcile the Creed with the words of the Text though we may further add and ex abundanti that St. Luke doth not only say ferebatur in Coelum or he was carryed up into Heaven as if he were passive in it only but that Recessit ab iis first he left them of his own accord gave the first rise to his Ascension and after ferebatur for so it followeth suffered himself to be assumpted taken or carryed up into Heaven either by the Cloud or by the Angels or how else he pleased Lastly it is to be observed that he ascended into Heaven videntibus illis saith the Text whilest his Apostles looked on to signifie that he did ascend by little and little that he might feed their eyes and refresh their souls and by his leisurely ascent make them more able to attest it as occasion served For had he been caught up into Heaven as Elias was who had but one witness to affirm it or rapt up into Heaven as St. Paul was afterwards without any witness but himself and scarce that neither for whether it were in the body or out of the body he could hardly tell the truth thereof had wanted much of that estimation which the mouths of so many witnesses as beheld the mirâ—â—le were able to afford unto it And yet it was strange that many witnesses should need to confirm that truth which had so clearly been fore-signified both by Types and Prophecies that none who did believe the Scriptures could make question of it For if we look upon the Substance or the quod â—it of it or on the circumstances of the time the place the cloud the pomp and manner of the same or finally on the consequent or effect thereof as to Christ himself we finde all signified before-hand in the Book of God and that so fully and expressely as must needs convince the Iews of the greatest obstinacy that ever had been entertained in the hearts of men first in the way of Type or Figure we have that of Enoch before the Law and that of Elias under the Law Of Enoch it is said in the holy Scripture that he walked with God that is to say as the text doth expound it self in the case of Noah he was a just man and perfect in his generation for the times he lived in So righteous was he as it seems in the sight of God that we finde no mention of his death Only the Scriptures say that he was not found because God took him i. e. because God took him to himself translating him both body and soul to his heavenly Kingdome And so St. Paul expounds it saying By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death neither was he found because God had taken him And of Elijah it is said that being talking with Elisha one of his Disciples there appeared a Charet of fire and horses of fire and parted them asunder and that Elijah went up in a whirlwinde into Heaven Here then we have two Types or figures of the Lords Ascension the one delivered in the person of a righteous man who was unblameable in his conversation walking in the commandements of God without reproof the other of a Prophet mighty both in WORD AND WORK who did not only reprove sin and foretel of things which were to come but did confirm his Doctrine with signs and miracles And being that the Iews cannot but confess as Iosephus did that Christ was not only a wise man a Teacher of the people in the ways of truth one that wrought miracles and had gained many both of the Iews and Gentiles to adhere unto him being they cannot but acknowledge of our Saviour Christ as the good Theif did ille autem nil mali fecit that he had done nothing amiss or as Pilate that there was no fault to be found in him they have no reason but to think that Enoch and Elijah were the Types of the Lords Ascension aswell as of his life and doctrine But here perhaps it will be objected that either Enoch and Elijah were not taken up into Heaven and so no Types and figures of the Lords Ascension or if they were then was not Christ the first which opened the gates of Heaven and ascended thither in his body to make a way for others in due time to follow as all Antiquity in a manner do affirm he was grounding their judgement on the evident and plain texts of Scripture For doth not the Apostle expressely say that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet manifest while the first Tabernacle was yet standing Heb. 9.8 And doth not Christ our Saviour as expressely say that no man had ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man Ioh. 3.13 How then were Enoch and Elijah Types of Christs Ascension if they were not taken up into Heaven or how was Christ the first if they there before him Our Saviour Christ himself makes answer unto this objection where he saith that in his Fathers house there were many mansions that is to say several degrees of happiness and estates in glory though all most glorious in themselves To some of which degrees of happiness and estates in glory unto some one or other of those heavenly Mansions both Enoch and Elijah were by God translated there 's no doubt of that the Scripture is expressely for it But that they were in Coelosummo in the highest Heaven that unto which the Lord ascended and where he now sitteth at the right hand of God the Father that as the Scriptures doe not say so there is no necessity why we should believe it Our Saviour was the first who ascended thither that place of supreme glory
incorporeae naturae convenienter ista absque assumptione carnis aptantur nec sedis coelestis perfectio Divinae naturae sed humanae conquiritur It was then in his natural body that Christ ascended into heaven in it he hath acquired and for it all those high preheminences which have been formerly expressed not altering thereby the nature which before it had but adding a perfection of that glory which before it had not and making it though a natural body still yet a body glorifyed And this is generally agreed upon by all the fathers affirming with a joynt consent this most Catholick truth that notwithstanding the accessions of immortality and glory to the body of Christ yet it reserved still all the properties of a natural body Christ saith St. Hierome ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father manente ea natura carnis the very same nature of his body remaining still in which he was born suffered and did rise again And then Non enim exinanita est humanitatis substantia sed glorificata The substance of his body was not done away but only glorifyed St. Augustine as fully but in fewer words Christum corpori suo majestatem dedisse naturam tamen corporis non ademisse that Christ by giving majesty to his body did not destroy the nature of it As plainly but more fully in another place Huic corpori immortalitatem dedit naturam non abstulit Christ saith the Father hath apparelled his flesh with immortality but he hath not taken from it the nature of flesh And therefore it concerneth us to take good heed ne ita divinitatem astruamus hominis ut veritatem corporis auferamus not to maintain his divinity on such faulty grounds as utterly ruine his humanity or so advance the man as to spoyle his body Pope Leo to this purpose also Caro Christi ipsa est per essentiam non ipsa per gloriam The flesh or body of Christ in substance is the same it was in glory it is not the same Others might be produced to the same effect were not these three sufficient to confirme a point so little subject to dispute amongst men of reason And to say truth the quarrell is not of the Thesis or the point it self that the body of Christ retained still the properties of a natural body which before it had but in the Hypothesis or supposition which is built upon it For if our Saviours body still retain the properties of a natural body it must be circumscribed in a certain place and have a local being as all bodies have Otherwise by St. Augustines rule it will be no body For tolle ipsa corpora qualitatibus corporum c. Take away from bodies the properties of bodies and there will be no place or ubi for them to be in et ideo necesse est ut non sint and then the same bodies must needs be no bodies It followeth then upon this rule of that learned Father that the body of Christ though glorifyed is a natural body and consequently circumscribed in some place of heaven and yet because a glorifyed body though a body naturall is so restrained to heaven and the glories of it that no place else is capable of him St. Augustine shall make good the first proposition and St. Cyril the second and then let Gratian make the Syllogisme by adding a conclusion to the former premises St. Augustine telleth us for the first Ne dubites Christum esse in aliquo loco coeli doubt not saith he but that the body of Christ is in some place of heaven Not doubt it Why Propter veri corporis modum because it is agreeable unto the nature of a true body that it should be so St. Cyril for the second thus Non poterat Christus cum Apostolis versari in carne c. Christ could not converse with his Apostles in his body or flesh after he had ascended to his heavenly Father The inference shall be made by Gratian though in Augustines words Corpus in quo resurrexit in uno loco esse oportet The body in which Christ rose must needs be in one place like to other bodies Nor is this more although it seem too much to the Pontificians then what St. Peter said before in a Sermon of his Oportet illum coelos capere viz. that the heavens must contain him till his coming again till all things be restored and perfected in the day of the Lord. Which being so it was unseasonably done of Pope Nicolas to labour the introducing of the new article of Transubstantiation into the Creed before he had expounded that of Christs ascension being so plainly contrary to that new devise that they cannot both stand together in the same belief And when Pope Pius the fourth did publish a new Creed of his own and therein did requre this amongst other Articles that we believe that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into Christs body and of the wine into his bloud which conversion the Catholick Church calleth Transubstantiation he considered neither how repugnant his new Creed would be to that which the Apostles had before delivered nor how destructive to the works of Gods Creation For first if Christ our Saviour be ascended in his naturall body and that the heavens are to contain him till his coming to judgment as both the Scriptures and the Creed do expressely say how can we have his body here upon the earth as often as the Priest is pleased to offer Hoc est corpus meum without confuting both the Creed and the text together Secondly if the bread be transubstantiated into our Saviours body so that it becometh forthwith to be whole Christ both body and soul and his divinity too into the bargain as they say it doth marke what most monstrous paradoxes and absurdities will ensue upon it For first we have a new Divinity of a Creatures making and secondly our Saviour Christ must have as many natural bodies as all the Priests in Christendome say several Masses which is to make him far more monstrous then the Giant Geryon and not to have three bodies only but three hundred thousand Or else this naturall body of Christ must be entire and whole both in heaven and earth and on the earth in as many several places at the self same time as there are dayly Masses said in the Church of Rome which is to take away the Properties of a body natural For tolle spatia locorum corporibus nusquam erunt si nusquam erunt nec erunt ipsa as St. Augustine hath it Take away from a body limitation of place and it will be no where and if no where then it is no body And next we shall have bodies made of flesh and bloud and bones and sinews and all things requisite to the being of a natural
body which yet is neither high nor low nor thick nor thin nor broad nor narrow not visible unto the eye nor perceptible unto any other of the senses which is to faign a body without all dimensions which never any body was supposed to be and make it neither subject unto sight nor touch though Christ was subject unto both and evidenced to be so in St. Thomas his case Add next that this most glorious body made of flesh and bloud endued with a reasonable soul and having a Divinity superadded to it must be devoured and eaten and perhaps worse used which is to make all Christians to be Anthropophagi yea and worse then so not to be man-eaters only but God-eaters too And last of all for this conversion of the bread into the very body of Christ the same which was once born of the Virgin Mary they know not what to call it nor on what to ground it A totall conversion they would have it and yet the tast and colour of the bread doth remain as formerly a substantial conversion it must also be and yet it is sine sui mutatione without a change at all saith Bonaventure Such a conversion t is that they know no name for it for it is neither productiva nor conservativa as Bellarmine himselfe confesseth And therefore he is fain to devise a name and call it conversio adductiva a notion which neither Divinity nor Philosophy ever knew before and hath been quarrelled since by the Pontificians as himself confesseth in the book of his Recognitions And as they knew not how to call it so neither can they tell upon what to ground it Suares affirmeth as before that it depends ex Mathematicis Philosophicis Principiis on Philosophical and Mathematical principles and then as the Archb. of Spalato said in defence thereof it may be an errour in Philosophy but not in Divinity The most part ground it only on the Churches authority by which it was determined in the Councell of Lateran and yet both Scotus and Durandus two learned Papists condemn the Church of unadvisednesse for so defining it by reason of those inextricable plunges and perplexities which it puts them to Some would fain â—ound it in the Scriptures and have tugged hard for it but after all their pains they are told by Cajetan that there is nothing in the Gospell to make good the matter Their best way were to let our Saviour be in heaven at the right hand of God and not to bring him down by their new devices Of which his sitting at the right hand of God I am next to speak having thus cleared my way unto it by this Dissertation ARTICVLI 7. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sedet ad dextram Dei Patris Omnipotentis i. e. And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty CHAP. XII Of sitting at the right hand of God the proper meaning of the phrase and of the Priviledges which accrew thereby to our Lord and Saviour THey which consider our Redeemer in his several Offices do look upon him as a King a Priest and a Prophet A Priest to offer prayers and sacrifices for the sins of his people a Prophet to instruct them in the ways of righteousness a King to govern and direct them by the rules of justice And unto every one of these they do design some branch or Article of the Creed in which it either is expressed or else may easily be fitted and reduced unto it That of his Priesthood they refer wholly to this last branch of the present Article the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of God where he maketh intercession for us which is the most proper duty of the Priestly function That of the Kingly Office they refer partly unto this but chiefly to the Article following where he is represented as the Judge both of quick and dead But first before we come to that we must enquire into the meaning of the phrase or form of speech Sedere ad dextram Dei this sitting at the right hand of God then shew how this is verified in Christ our Saviour Which done we will consider the effects and benefits which do redound unto us men by that great advancement which Christ hath merited or acquired in our humane nature And first this phrase or form of speech viz. the sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty is borrowed from the guise of great Kings and Potentates amongst whom it is an usual thing to place the man whom they intend to honour in the sight of the people at their own right hand So did King Solomon with his Mother in the Book of the Kings when she came to him as a suiter in behalf of Adonijah Whom when the King saw he rose up to meet her saith the Text and bowed himself unto her sate down on his Throne and caused a seat to be set for the Kings Mother and she sate at his right hand A greater honour to a subject for a Queen Mother is no more by the law of Nations the King could not do her and he made known by this unto all his people that he would have his Mother honoured in the next place to himself So read we in the Book of Psalms upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold of Ophir Which whether it were meant of Davids own or Solomons wiâ—e shews plainly that she was to be accounted of as the second person in the Kingdome next in degree and honour to the King himself Of which St. Hierom giveth this reason Est enim Regina regnatque cum eo because she was the Queen and in her conjugal right reigned together with him And this appears yet further by the suit or motion which the mother of Zebedees children made in behalf of her sons when she came unto him saying Grant me that these my two sons might sit the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy Kingdome The good woman as it seems conceived as generally the Apostles and Disciples did that Christ should be invested one day with the Crown of Israel and she desired to have her sons advanced to the highest places of trust and reputation about their Master She did not doubt but they should be of good esteem with him upon all occasions Our Saviour Christ had as it were assured them of that before when he took them and Peter out of all the rest to be present at the miracle of his Transfiguration and the raysing of the Rulers daughter That which she aimed at was of an higher nature ut ipsi primi essent caeteros omnes praeirent in regno ipsius to have them made the chief above all the rest the one to hold the first and the other the second place about him That was her meaning in the placing of them the one at his right hand and the
themselves an hodie aeternitatis something which may be called this day before all eternity Which exposition of the words as it is very justly disliked by Calvin so is he very unjustly quarrelled for by some latter writers who look no further on the words then the words of David and not upon the application which St. Paul makes of them Clearly St. Paul who spake by the same Spirit that David did and therefore could not erre in expounding the words of David intends them neither to CHRISTS natural birth as the son of the blessed Virgin Mary nor his eternall generation as the Son of God but to his birth day or begetting to the Crown of the heavenly Canaan the day of their advancement to the regal throne being esteemed as their birth day by most Kings and Princes For who so ignorant in the affaires of the world so little conversant in the monuments of former times as not to know that it is usuall in most States and Kingdomes not only to celebrate with great feasts and triumphs the naturall birth-day of their Kings which they call Diem natalem imperatoris but the inauguration day the day wherein he was exalted to the Crown imperial which they call Diem natalem imperii Certain I am that the day whereon Augustus did assume the imperial power was solemnized in Rome every tenth year with a great deal of joy and that Caligula did decree that the day whereon he began his Empire Dies quo cepisset imperium as my Authour hath it should be called Palilia and celebrated as that was by the antient Romans in memory that their City was on that day founded And thus it hath continued in most States of Christendome but most unprosperously of late as if it were an Omen of the present troubles laid aside in ours And this interpretation of the Psalmists words receiveth good countenance from another place of the same Apostle in which those words of David are again recited The place is this Christ saith he glorifyed not himself to be made high Priest but he that said unto him thou art my Son to day have I begotten thee as he saith also in another place Thou art a Priert for ever after the order of Melchisedech The meaning of this passage we have shewn before and is this in brief that Christ being called by God to the two great offices those of the Priesthood and the Kingdome was not exalted unto either though designed to both till God had glorifyed him in the sight of the people by his resurrection And to my seeming Davids words had not St. Paul conducted us to this exposition could have no other meaning then is here made of them For if we marke the composition of the same and the place in which these words are ranked we shall finde that God had first advanced his King and set him on his holy hill of Sion on the royall throne before and but immediately before these words Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But what need one Apostle be called to witnesse in this point when we have all that glorious company the Apostolical College and the rest of their company apply the whole Psalme to the person of Christ of Christ anointed to the Kingdome by the hands of God but not till Herod Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and the people of Israel had conspired against him to do whatsoever the hand and counsell of God had before determined Having thus brought our Saviour to the Regall throne and set him on the right hand of God in the heavenly places let us next look upon him in his forme of Government according to the arts of Empire These by the Stalists are reduced unto two heads the one consisting in protecting and defending the people committed to them which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other in prescribing laws and executing justice on the transgressours which they terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Both these most perfectly discharged by our Prince and Saviour And first the Enemies against which he protects his people are these three the Devil sin and persecution The two first he discomfited in that painfull combat in which he paid the price of our redemption and made his passage open to the new Hierusalem Since that time there is nothing left in Satan but a powerlesse malice and though he roare against the Church he shall never devour it The gates of hell shall not prevail against it said the glorious Conqueror Sin at the same time lost his strength which was the curse of the Law and not his strength only but his Empire too And though he may sojourn for a time in our mortal bodies yet shall he never reigne over us and have us in subjection as before he had unlesse we willingly betray our selves and captivate our souls to those conquered powers which God hath given us grace to master Nor deales otherwise with the Persecutors of his Church and people then he hath done with sin and Satan whom he doth crush at last with a rod of iron and break them into pieces like a potters vessell as David telleth of him in the second Psalme And though sometimes to manifest his own glory in his peoples sufferings and to make tryall of their faith and Christian patience he doth permit their enemies to prevail against them yet was he never wanting in his own due time to make their deliverance more remarkable then all their afflictions Witnesse the persecutions of the primitive times in which the Princes of the earth and the powers of hell banded themselves against the Lord and against his anointed times in the which it were a difficulty to determine whether the gallantry of the Martyrs or the tyranny of the persecutors gave juster cause of admiration to the sad spectators With such a chearfull countenance did they beare their sufferings that they even wearied their tormenters and did not lose their lives but give them With what a noble confidence did they mount the scaffold on which they were to suffer the most cruel death which the wit of man and malice of the Devil could inflict upon them so bravely and without amazement as if they had been mounted rather to behold a triumph then to be brought to execution Never was tragedy of death more bravely acted nor actor honoured with a richer and more glorious crown And for his enemies and theirs the vengeance of the Lord found them out at last and laid them in the dust with disgrace and ignominy For which was there of all the persecutors who made themselves drunk with the bloud of the Saints and Prophets or that have raged against the Church since those furious times to whom he gave not bloud to drinke whom either in their gray haires or in the pride and flourish of all their glories he brought not to the grave with reproach and sorrow or left their dead bodies to be meat to
the fowles of the Aire Next for the Nomothetical arts of Empire let us look on those and we shall finde that as he came not to destroy the Law of God but to fulfil it so hath he added more weight to it either by way of application or of explication then before it had They who consult our Saviours Sermon on the mount and look upon his Commentaries on the law of Moses which the chief Priests and Pharisees had perverted by adulterate glosses will quickly finde that he discharged us not from the Obligation which the moral law had laid upon us but only did become our surety and bound himself to see it faithfully performed by us in our severall places The burden was not made lesse heavy then it was before I speak still of the Moral Law not the Ceremonial but that he hath given more strength to bear it more grace to regulate our lives by Gods Commandements And somewhat he did adde of his own auhority which tended to a greater measure of perfection then possibly we could attain to by the Law of Moses and that not only in the way of Evangelical Counsels and that there are such Counsels I can easily grant but of positive precept For so far certainly we may joyn issue with the Council of Trent that IESVS CHRIST is to be honoured and observed Non tantum ut Redemptor cui omnâ—s fidant sedut Legislator cui obediant not only as a Saviour unto whom we may trust but as a Law-maker also whom we are to obey The same position is maintained also by the Arminian party but not the more unsound for either Veritas a quocunq est est a Spiritu sancto as St. Ambrose hath it And this is so agreeable to the Word of God that either we must deny the Scripture or else confess that it proceeded from the Spirit of God Nor are his laws indeered only to us and sugred over as it were by the promise of a great reward but enjoyned also under pain of grievous punishments punishment and reward being the square or measure of the heavenly government no otherwise then of the earthly Tribulation and anguish saith St. Paul shall come upon the soul of every man that doth evil but glory and honour and peace to every man that doth good to the Iew first and also to the Gentile for God is no respecter of persons By which two general motives set before our eyes and the co-operation of the holy Spirit working with his Word he doth illuminate our mindes and mollifie our hearts and quench our lusts instruct us in the faith confirm us in our hopes and strengthen us in Christian charity till in the end he bring us to the knowledge of his holy will then to obedience to his Laws and finally to a resemblance of his vertues also If after all this care and teaching either by frailty or infirmity we do break his laws or violate his sacred Statutes as we do too often he doth not presently take the forfeiture which the Law doth give him for then O Lord should no flesh living in thy sight be justified but in the midst of judgement he remembreth mercy We may affirm of him most truly as Lactantius did Vt erga pios indulgentissimus Pater ita adversus impios justissimus Iudex as terrible a Iudge he is to impenitent sinners as an indulgent Father to his towardly children as before was said Such is the nature and condition of our Saviours Kingdome which sitting at the right hand of Almighty God he doth direct and govern as seems best to his heavenly wisdome and so shall do untill his coming again to judge both the quick and the dead Although he hath withdrawn himself and his bodily presence yet is he present with it in his mighty power and by the influences and graces of his holy Spirit And in this sense it was that he said unto them Behold I am with you alwayes to the end of the world And that not only with you my Apostles unto whom he spake but cum vobis successoribus vestris with all you my Disciples and with your successors also in your several places till time be no more Though he be placed above in the heavenly glories and is not joyned unto his Church by any bodily connexion yet he is knit unto it in the bonds of love and out of that affection doth so guide and order it as the Head doth the members of the Body natural Habet ecclesia Caput positum in Coelestibus quod gubernat Corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed annectitur Charitate as St. Austin hath it Vice-roy there needeth none to supply his absence who is always with us Nor we the assistance of a Vicar General to supply his place whose Spirit bloweth where him listeth and who is linked unto us in so strong affections But for all this our Masters in the Church of Rome have determined positively that in regard our Saviour hath withdrawn himself from the Church in his Body secundum visibilem praesentiam for as much as doth concern his visible presence he needs must have some Deputy or Lieutenant General qui visibilem hanc Ecclesiam in unitate contineat to govern and direct the same in peace and unity It seemes they think our Saviour Christ to be reduced unto the same straights as Augustus was of whom it is reported in the Roman stories that he did therefore institute a Provost in the City of Rome because he could not always be there in person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and durst not leave it absolutely without a Governor And sure however others may complain of our Saviours absence and for that reason think it necessary to have some general Deputy to supply his place yet of all others those of Rome have least cause to do it who can command his presence at all times and on all occasions For as Cornelius a Lapide affirms expressely by saying only these words Hoc est Corpus meum the Bread is not only transubstiated into our Saviours Body but Christ anew begotten and born again upon the Altar And not his Body only that 's not half enough but as the Canon of Trent tels us there is totus Christus una cum anima Divinitate whole Christ both body and soul and the Godhead also personally and substantially on the blessed Sacrament That he is present every where in his power and Spirit there is none of us which denyeth If they can have his bodily presence also in so short a warning what use can they pretend for a Vicar General Adeo Argumenta ex falso petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius rightly Besides it is a Maxime in Ecclesiastical Polity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that the external Regiment of the Church of Christ is to be fitted to the frame and order of the
before the blessed Angels coming out to meet him the Saints incompassing him about to wait upon him the Devil and his Angels led in chaines behind After this comes his inthronizing at the right hand of God the Angelâ— and Archangels all the hosts of heaven falling down before him the Saints and Martyrs joyning to make up the consort and saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and strength and wisdome and honour and glory and blessing Blessing and honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for evermore The last and greatest as I said is his coming to judgment solemnized in the sight both of men and Angels of the unjust and righteous person yea and the Devill and his Ministers all which shall be attendant at that grand Assize some to receive their severall and particular sentences and some to put the same into execution In my discourse upon this Article I shall take for granted that there shall be a day of judgment He ill deserves the name of Christian that makes question of it And to say truth it is a point of so clear an evidence that the wiser and more sober men amongst the Gentiles though guided by no other light then that of natural reason did subscribe unto it For as Lactantius one much versed in their books and writings hath told us of them not only the Sibyls who may seem to have been inspired with the Spirit of Prophecie but Hydaspes and Mercurius surnamed Trismegistus were of that opinion delivering as with one assent this most certain truth that in the last age the godly being severed from the wicked men with tears and groans shall lift up their hands to Jupiter and implore his aide for their deliverance and that Jupiter shall hear their prayers and destroy the wicked And all these things saith he are true and shall accordingly come to passe as they have delivered nisi quod Iovem illa facturum dicunt quae deus faciet but that they do ascribe to Iupiter what belongs to God Nor want there pregnant reasons which may induce a natural man if wilfully he do not quench that light of reason which is planted in him to be perswaded strongly of a future judgment For granting that there is a God and that God is just and seeing that in this present world such men as were indued with most moral virtues were subject to disgrace and scorn and many times brought to calamitous ends and on the other side voluptuous persons who made their belly their God and their glory their shame to live in peace and plentie much reverenced and respected by all sorts of people right reason could not but conlude that certainly there must be some rewards and punishments after this life ended which God in his eternall justice would proportion to them according as they had deserved And this was Davids contemplation in the book of Psalmes He had observed of wicked and ungodly men that they came unto no misfortune like other folks neither were they plagued like other men that they did prosper in the world had riches in possession and left the rest of their substance to their babes but that he himself and other children of God who cleansed their hearts and washed their hands in innocencie were not only chastened every morning but punished also all day long Which though at first it made him stagger in the way of Godlinesse so that his feet had welnigh slipped yet upon further consideration he resolved it thus that God did set them up in slippery places but it was only to destroy them and cast them down and that at last for all their glories they should perish and be brought to a fearfull end The Parable of Dives and Lazarus serves for confirmation of this Upon whose different fortunes Abraham gave this censure Son remember that thou in thy life time enjoyedst thy good things and Lazarus received evili But now he is comforted and thou art tormented Some sins the Lord is pleased to punish in this present world left else the wicked man should grow too secure and think Gods justice were asleep and observed him not and some he leaves unpunished till the world to come to keep the righteous soul in hope of a better day in which he shall obtain the Crown of his well deserving And to this purpose the good Father reasoneth very strongly Should every sinner be punished in this present life nihil ultimo judicio reservari putaretur c. It would be thought that there was nothing for Christ to do at the day of judgment And on the other side if none the providence and justice of Almighty God would be called in question by each sensual man Qui numina sensu Ambiguo vel nulla putat vel nescia nostri And therefore it is necessary also in respect of God that there should be a day of judgement both of quick and dead at least as to vindicating of his Divine justice which else would suffer much in the eye of men when they observe what we have noted from the Psalmist with what prosperity and peace the ungodly flourish but go not as he did into the Sanctuary to understand of God what their end should be Add yet the Poets contemplation on this point was both good and pious and such as might become a right honest Christian had he intended that of eternal punishments which he speaks of temporal But howsoever thus he hath it Saepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem Curarent Superi terras an nullus inesset Rector incerto fluerent mortalia casu c. Abstulit hunc tandem Ruffini poena tumultum Absolvitque Deos jam non ad culmina rerum Injustos crevisse queror tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu gravore ruant Oft had I been perplex'd in minde to know Whether the Gods took charge of things below Or that uncertain chance the world did sway Finding no higher ruler to obey Ruffino's fall at last to this distraction Gave a full end and ample satisfaction To the wrong'd Gods I shall no more complain That wicked men to great power attain For now I see they are advanc'd on high To make their ruine look more wretchedly Something there also is which may make us Christians not only to believe but expect this day considering that we are told in the holy Scriptures that we shall all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ that every man may receive according to that which he hath done in his body whether good or evill The strength and efficacie of the Argument in brief is this The bodies of us men being the servants of the soul to righteousnesse or else the instruments to sin in justice ought to be partakers of that weal and woe which is adjudged unto the soul and therefore to be raised at the day of judgment
that as they sinned together or served God together so they may share together of reward or punishment But because many times the soul sins without the body and many times without it doth some works of piety which God is pleased to accept of therefore as requisite it is that the soul separated from the body should either suffer torment or enjoy felicity according as it hath deserved in the sight of God whilest yet the body sleepeth in the grave of death And on these grounds next to the dictates and authority of the book of God the doctrine of the general judgement hath been built so strongly that only some few Atheists amongst the Gentiles and none but the wicked Sect of Manichees amongst the Christians had ever the impudence to denie it That which concernes us most as Christians and doth especially relate to the present Article is that this judgement shall be executed by our Saviour Christ sitting with power at the right hand of God the Father but in the nature and capacity of the Son of man Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of the Aire Mat. 26.64 See the same also Mark 14.62 and Luk. 22.69 The like we have also in St. Iohns Gospell The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son Chap. 5 22. What to the Son according to his eternal generation as the Word of God Not so but to the Son of man For so it followeth in that Chapter viz. And hath given him power also to judge because he is the Son of man V. 27. And this we have directly from the Lords one mouth The Apostles also say the same St. Peter first God raised him up the third day and shewed him openly And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he which is ordained of God to be judge both of quick and dead St. Paul next Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all those that love his appearing So for St. Iude Behold the Lord shall come with thousands of his Saints to give judgment against all men and to rebuke all that are ungodly amongst them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed and of all the cruel speakings which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And this he citeth out of the Prophecies of Enoch the seventh from Adam which sheweth that even the Patriarchs before the flood were thoroughly possessed with this sacred truth and therefore not concealed from the holy Prophets which have been since the world began That it was manifested also to the antient Gentiles I have no reason to believe For though they might collect upon grounds of reason that there should be a day of judgement in the world to come yet that this judgement should be executed by the man CHRIST IESVS could not in possibility be discovered to them by the light of reason nor indeed by any other sight then by his alone who was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles as well as to be the glory of his people Israel And therefore in my minde Lactantius might have spared that part of his censure upon the judgment of Hydaspes before remembred in which he approves of his opinion concerning the last day or the day of doom but addeth that his not ascribing this great work to the Son of God was omitted non sine daemonum fraude by the fraud and suggestion of the Devill If Hermes or Mercurius surnamed Trismegistus understood so much quod tamen non dissimulavit Hermes as it followeth after and that the verses by him cited from the antient Sibyls were by them spoken and intended as he saith they were of CHRIST our Saviour and of his coming unto judgement in that dreadfull day we must needs say they had a clearer Revelation of it then any of the Prophets of the most high God which for my part I have not confidence enough to say For in which of all the Prophets finde we such a description of Christs coming to judgement as this which he ascribeth to one of the Sibyls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Rolling up heaven earths depths I shall disclose Then raise the dead the bonds of fate unloose And deaths sharpe sting and next to judgment call Both quick and dead judging the lives of all Letting this therfore passe as a thing improbable that any of the Heathen Prophetesses should know more of Christs coming to judgement then was revealed to any of the holy Prophets or else deliver it in more clear expressions then do occurre in any of the Prophetical writers we shall proceed unto the execution of this judgement by our Lord and Saviour according to the scope of this present Article For which although no reason was or could be given by those antient sages as those which lived before the coming of CHRIST and consequently were not made acquainted with his life and actions yet there is reason to induce a Christian unto this belief were we not biassed to it by the text of Scripture For what could be more just in Almighty God then to advance his Son to the seat of judgment to the end that having been dishonoured publickly both in life and death scorned and contemned and brought unto a shamefull end in the eye of men he might have opportunity to shew his great power and majesty in the sight of all but specially of his barbarous and ungodly enemies And unto this the Prophet Zachariah alludeth saying They shall look on me whom they have pierced Which words although St. Iohn applyeth in his holy Gospel unto the piercing of Christs side Chap. 19.37 yet in the Revelation he applyeth it to his sitting in judgement Behold saith he he cometh in the clouds and all eyes shall see him and they also that pierced him Chap. 1.17 And from these words it is conceived I think not improbably that the wounds in our Saviours body shall then be visible to the eyes of all spectatours to the great comfort of the faithfull who do acknowledge their redemption to the bloud of the Lamb and to the astonishment and confusion of all his enemies but most especially of them qui vulnera ista inflixerunt by whose ungodly hands he was so tormented Here then we have good grounds to proceed upon both in the way of faith and reason for the asserting of the day of general judgement And yet somewhat further must be said to remove a difficultie which may else disturbe us in our way before we look into the particulars of it For possibly it may be said that there will be but little use of a general judgement except it be
of Christs disciples shall goe to an invisible place appointed them by God and there shall remain unto the resurrection and after receiving their bodies and rising perfectly that is corporally as Christ did rise shall so come to the Vision or sight of God Tertullian next It is saith he apparent to any wise man that there is a place determined which is Abrahams bosome for the receiving of the souls of his sons which region I mean Abrahams bosome though it be not heavenly but Tertullian was out in that sublimior tamen inferis yet being higher then the inferi or places below shall give comfort to the souls of the righteous untill the resurrection and the end of all things bring the full reward So Hilarie B. of Poyctiers The day of judgment is the day of everlasting happinesse or punishment till which time death hath every one under his dominion whilest either Abrahams bosome or the house of torments reserveth every man to judgement St. Ambrose to the same effect till the fullnesse of time come the souls expect their due reward for some of which pain for others glory is provided Next him St. Augustine his convert After this short life thou shalt not as yet be where the Saints shall be to whom it shall be said in the day of judgement Come ye blessed of my father c. Thou shalt not be there as yet who knoweth not that but there thou shalt be where poor Lazarus was seen a far off by the proud richman In that rest shalt thou securely expect the day of judgment in which thou shalt receive thy body and be changed and be made equall with the Angels St. Bernard thus you perceive that there be three states of the soul the first in this corruptible body the second without the body the third in perfect blessednesse The first in the Tabernacles the second in the Courts the third in the house of God into which most blessed house of God the souls of the Saints shall not enter without us nor without their own bodies I had not named St. Bernard amongst those Antients but only to the end that it might be seen that this was generally the doctrine of the Western Church as to this particular untill the invocation of the Saints departed became first to be put in practise and afterwards to be defended and imposed as good Catholick Doctrine For they saw well that unlesse it were received for an Orthodox truth that the Saints departed were admitted presently into the beatificall vision of Almighty God and in him see as in a Mirrour what things soever could be done or said on the earth beneath it were in vain to make unto them either prayers or vows not being yet estated in their own full glories and consequently not admitted to the presence of God And on the very same reasons for which the Church of Rome doth admit the Saints to enjoy the blessed vision of Almighty God in the heaven of glories did Calvin labour to decrie the received opinion in that point though by long tract of time engendering prejudice and prepossession in the hearts of men against any contrary position it was become the generall tenet of the Protestant Schools For well he knew that if that doctrine could be rooted out of the minds of men by which the Saints were brought though before their time into an habitation in the highest heavens that of the invocation of the Saints departed which depends upon it must of necessity perish with it But whatsoever moved him to opine so of it for I am confident it was not any love to the antient Fathers certain it is that he hath freely declared his opinion in it in several places of his writings In that entituled Psychopannychia he doth thus expresse it The souls of the Saints after death be in peace saith he because they are escaped from the power of the enemie but shall not raign with Christ their King untill the heavenly Hierusalem shall be advanced to her glory and the true Solomon the King of peace shall sit on high on his tribunal And this he doth not only say and leave the proof thereof to his ipse dixit as if that were enough to carry it over all the world but cites Tertullian Chrysostome Augustine Bernard some of whose words we saw before to confirme the point But seeing that tract of his hath been called in question as if it did incline too much towards the Anabaptists we will next look upon his book of Institutions where we finde him saying That since the Scripture every where biddeth us to depend upon the expectation of Christs coming and deferreth the Crown of glory till that time we are to be content with the bounds that God hath appointed us viz. that the souls of the godly having ended their warfare depart unto an happy rest where with a blessed joy they look for the fruition of the promised glory and that so all things shall stand suspended untill Christ appeare The same he also intimateth in another place where he resolveth That not only the Fathers under the Law but even the holy men of God since the death of Christ are but in profectu in progresse as it were to that perfect happinesse which is to be conferred upon them in the day of doom that in the mean time they abide in atriis in the out-courts of Heaven and there expect the consummation of their beatitude And finally none but our Saviour Christ saith he hath entred into the heavenly Sanctuary where to the end of all the world Solus populi eminus in atrio residentis vota ad deum defert he alone represents to God the desires of his people sitting a far off in the outward Courts I know that Bellarmine doth quarrell at these passages of Calvins and I cannot blame him He and the common interesse of the Church of Rome were so ingaged in the defence of the other opinion without which that of the invocation of Saints must needs fall to the ground that it concerned them all to calumniate Calvin as the broacher of new Doctrines in the Church of Christ though in this point they finde him countenanced by most antient writers Neither doth Calvin stand alone in this opinion being seconded though not in so expresse terms as himself delivereth it by Bucer Bullinger Martyr Musculus and some others also And wonder t is not that he was followed by so many but by so few prime men of the reformation to whom his name and authority were exceeding dear And if the case stand so with the Saints above no question but it standeth so too with the souls below For contrariorum par est ratio as the old rule is And to the truth we have not only the testimonie of the holy Scriptures saying expressely that God reserveth the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished 2 Pet. 2. but of so many of the
Fathers as do touch upon it as may appear by that of Hilarie and Ambrose before delivered By which the other passages of holy writ as Iude v. 6. Mat. 8.29 and Rom. 2.5 it is plain and manifest that the torments of the damned and the Devils too which are inflicted on them for the present time are far lesse then the vengeance of eternal and external fire reserved untill the day of judgement and then augmented upon all the reprobate both men and Angels For grant the most which had been said by any of the Antients as to this particular and we shall finde that it amounteth to no more then this that the souls of wicked men departed are presently made to understand by the righteous judge the sentence due unto their sins and what they are to look for at the day of doome Postquam anima de corpore est egressa subito judicium Christi de salute cognoscit as St. Augustine hath it Which being once made known to the sinfull soul standing before the throne of Christ in the sight of heaven she is forthwith hurried by the evill angels to the mansions of hell where she is kept as in a Prison under chaines and darknesse untill the judgement of the great and terrible day Iude v. 6. And so we are to understand those words of St. Cyril saying Anima damnata continuo invaditur a daemonibus qui eam crudelissime rapiunt ad infernum deducunt unlesse we rather choose to refer the same unto the executing of the sentence of their condemnation at the day of doome as perhaps some may But howsoever they be hurryed by the Devils into the darknesse of hell as to the place wherein they are to be secured till the day of judgement yet that they feel that misery and extremity of torments which after the last day shall be laid upon them neither they nor any of the Antients have delivered to us For of that day it is not the day of their death of which Scriptures doe report such terrible things saying that the heavens shall vanish away and be rolled up like a scroule that all the mountaines and the hils shall be moved out of their places and that the Kings of the earth and the mighty men c. that is to say the wicked of what sort soever shall say unto the hils and rocks Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come and who is able to endure it And certainly the terrors of that day must needs be great incomprehensible not only to the guilty conscience but even unto the righteous souls who joyfully expect the coming of their Lord and Saviour For in that day the Sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her light the Stars shall fall from heaven and all the powers thereof shall be shaken And the signe of the Son of man shall appear in heaven and then shall all the kindred of the earth mourne and they shall see the son of man coming in the cloudes of heaven with great power and glory And he shall send his Angels with the great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together the Elect from the four windes from one end of the heaven to the other So far we have described the fashion of that dreadfull day from the Lords one mouth St. Luke unto these former terrors doth add the roaring of the Sea and the waters also St. Peter that the elements shall melt with fervent heat and that the earth also and the works thereof shall be utterly burned In this confusion of the world and general dissolution of the works of nature the Lord himself shall descend from heaven in a shout and in the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpe and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which live and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds for though we shall not all die we shall all be changed 1 Cor. 15.51 and all together shall meet the Lord Jesus in the Aire The meaning is that at the sounding of this last trump the very same bodies which the Elect had before though mangled by tyrants devoured by wild beasts or burnt to ashes shall be raised again and being united to their souls shall be made alive and rise out of the bed of sleep like so many Iosephs out of prison or Daniels from the den of the roaring Lyons But as for such of the Elect who at that sudden coming of our Lord shall be found alive the fire which burneth up the corruptions of the world and the works thereof shall in a moment in the twinkling of an eye as St. Paul telleth us overtake them as it findeth them at their several businesses and burning up the drosse and corruption of their natural bodies of mortall shall make them to be immortall which change shall be to them in the stead of death In this sort shall they meet the Lord coming in the cloudes of the Aire where the Tribunall or judgement-seat of Christ shall be erected that the ungodly man the impenitent sinner who is not capable of coming into heaven for so much as a moment for no unclean thing or any one that worketh abomination shal finde entrance there Apocal. 21.27 may stand before his throne to receive his sentence So witnesseth St. Iohn in the Revelation And I saw a great white throne and him that sate on it from whose face fled away both the earth and the heaven And I saw the dead both small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books according to their deeds And the Sea gave up the dead which were in her and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to his works And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire To the same purpose and effect doth Christ himself describe this day and the manner of his coming unto judgement in St. Matthews Gospell that which St. Iohn calleth the white throne being by Christ our Saviour called the throne of his majestie Mat. 25.31 At which time all the nations of the world being gathered together before him the good being separated from the bad and a brief repetition of their works being made unto them the righteous shall be called into the Kingdome prepared for them from the foundations of the world the wicked man be doomed to fire everlasting prepared for the Devil and his Angels For though Lactantius seem to think that the wicked shall not rise in the day of judgement and doth it as he sayeth himself literis sacris contestantibus
the soule and by a metaphor the motions of the minde whether good or evill are called spirits also as the spirit of giddiness Isa. 19.14 the spirit of error 1 Tim. 4.1 the spirit of envie Iam. 4.5 which come all from the unclean spirit mentioned Luk. 11.24 And thus in general the pious motions in the mind are called Spirits too Quench not the spirit saith St. Paul i. e. those godly motions to the works of Faith and Piety which the Holy Spirit of God doth secretly kindle in thee For the word Ghost it is originally Saxon and signifieth properly the soul of a man as when we read of Christ that he gave up the Ghost Mark 15.37 and in the rest of the Evangelists also the meaning is that his soule departed from his body he yeelded up his soule to the hands of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Original Expiravit as the Latine reads it that is to say he breathed out his soul or he breathed his last Nor doth it signifie the soule onely though that most properly but generally also any spiritual substance as doth the word spiritus in the Latine a touch whereof we have still remaining in the Adjective Ghostly by which we mean that which is spiritual as our Ghostly Father Ghostly Counsel i. e. our Father in the spiritual matters counsel that savoreth of the spirit So then the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit are the same Person here though in different words and the word Holy which is added doth clearly difference him from all other spirits Not that God being a spirit is not holy also or that the Angelical spirits are not replenished with as much holinesse as a created nature can be capable of but because it is his Office to sanctifie or make holy all the elect Children of God therefore hath he the title or attribute of holy annexed unto him And yet the title of holy is not always added to denote this person though when we find mention of the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit it is meant and spoken of him onely For sometimes he is called the Spirit without any adjunct the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by way of eminency but still with reference to those gifts which he doth bestow The manifestation of the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Article demonstrative is given to every man to profit withall For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdome to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit Sometimes he is called the Spirit of the Father as Matth. 10.20 It is not yee that speak but the Spirit of the Father which speaketh in you sometimes the Spirit of the Son as Gal. 4.6 where it is said that God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father Most generally he is called the Spirit of God as Gen 1.2 and Matth. 3.16 and infinite other places of the holy Scripture and more particularly the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 in which place he is also called the Spirit of God Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if that the Spirit of God dwel in you there the Spirit of God if any have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his So the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit both of God and Christ and in one verse both So far we are onwards on our way for discoverie of the nature of this blessâ—d Spirit as to have found him out to be the Spirit of God the Father from whom he doth proceed by an unspeakable way of emanation and unknown to man for he proceedeth from the Father as our Saviour telleth us and to be also the Spirit of Christ the Son of God by whom he was breathed on the Apostles and so proceeding from the Son doth proceed from both Sent from the Father at the desire and prayer of the Son I will pray the Father and he shall send you another Comforter Iohn 14.16 Sent by the Son with the consent and approbation of the Father whom I will send unto you from the Father Iohn 15.26 and so sent of both And yet not therefore the less God because sent by either than IESUS CHRIST is God God for ever blessed as St. Paul calls him Rom. 9.5 because he was sent by God the Father He sent his Son made of a woman Gal. 4.4 saith the same Apostle If any doubt hereof as I know some do he may be sent for resolution of his doubt to the beginning of Genesis where he shall finde the Spirit of God moving on the waters Gen. 1.2 And to the Law where he shall read how the same Spirit came down on the Seventy Elders Numb 11.26 And to the Psalms Thou sendest forth thy Spirit and they are created Psal. 104.30 And to the Prophets The Spirit of God is upon me saith the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 61.1 which was Christs first Text And I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh saith the Prophet Ioel Chap. 1.28 which was Peters first Text The Spirit of God is God no question for in Deo non est nisi Deus say the Schoolmen rightly Not a created Spirit as the Angels were For in the beginning when God created the Heaven and the Earth and all things visible and invisible then the Spirit was and was not onely actually in a way of existence but was of such a powerful influence in the Creation of the World that on the moving of this Spirit on the face of the Waters the darkness was removed from the face of the deep and the Chaos of undigested matter made capable of Form and Beauty In the New Testament the evidence is far more clear than that of the Old by how much the Sun of Light did shine more brightly in the times of the Gospel than in those of the Law Saith not St. Peter in the Acts Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost and then addes presently Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God What saith St. Austin on this Text The Holy Ghost saith he is God Unde Petrus cum dixisset ausus eâ— mentiri Spiritui Sancto continuo secutus adjunxit quid esset Spiritus Sanctus ait non mentitus es hominibus sed Deo i. e. Therefore when Peter said unto Ananias thou hast dared to lie to the Holy Ghost he added presently to shew what was the Holy Ghost Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God Saith not St. Paul Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God How so Because the Spirit of God dwelleth in you What saith the Father unto this Ostendit Paulus deum esse Spiritum Sanctum ideo non esse Creaturam that is to say St. Paul by this sheweth That the Holy Ghost is God and so no Creature Doth not the same Apostle say in another place Know ye not that your bodies are the Temple of the Holy Ghost
be Saints in the Church Triumphant But whether it be there or here a mutual communion there is always to be held between us between the Saints upon the Earth though Saints by outward calling onely united in the joynt participation of the Word and Sacraments and the external Profession of the Faith and Gospel but more conspicuously between those which are Saints indeed not onely nominally but really and truly such in that harmony of affections and reciprocal offices of love which makes them truly one Body of Christ though different Members And a communion there is too of this later kinde between the Saints upon the Earth and those which have their consummation in the Heaven of Glories who though they have in some part received the promise yet being fellow-members of the same one Body they pray for and await our ransom from this prison of flesh without which God hath so disposed it they should not be made perfect Which said we may now clearly see in what particulars the Communion of Saints intended in this Article doth consist especially which may be easily reduced unto three heads 1. A Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation by which they are made members of one another and of Christ their Head 2. A Communion of Affections expressed in all the acts of love and charity even to the very communicating of their lives and fortunes And 3. A communion of entercourse between the Saints in Heaven and those here on Earth according to the different states in which God hath placed them All other kindes of Christian Communion are either contained in and under these or may be very easily reduced unto them And first for the Communion in the Mysteries of our Salvation and the benefits which redound thereby to the Church of Christ St. Paul hath told us That the Cup of blessing which is blessed in the holy Eucharist and the Bread there broken is the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and that being made partakers of that one Bread we are thereby made though many to be one Bread also and one Body even the Body of Christ one Bread though made of many grains and one Body though composed of many members A better Paraphrase upon which place of the Apostle we can hardly finde in all the writings of the Fathers than that of Cyril Ut igitur inter nos Deum singulos uniret quamvis corpore simul anima distemus modum tamen adinvenit consilio patris sapientiae suae convenientem Suo enim corpore credentes per Communionem mysticam benedicens secum inter nos unum nos corpus efficit c That Christ might unite every one of us both with our selves and with God though we be distant from each other both in body and soul he hath devised a way agreeable to his own Wisdom and the Counsel of his Heavenly Father For in that he blesseth them that believe with his own Body by means of that Mystical Communion of it he maketh us one body with himself and with one another For who will think them not to be of this Natural union which be united in one Christ by the Union or Communion of that one holy Body For if we eat all of one Bread we are all made one Body in regard Christ may not be dis-joyned nor divided In which full passage of the Father we finde an union of the faithful with Christ their Head as well as a conjunction with one another effected by the Mystical communion of his Body and Blood A double union first with Christ and with each others next as the members of Christ. The union which we have with Christ is often times expressed in Scripture under the figure and resemblance of the Head and Members which as they make but one Natural Body so neither do they make but one Body Mystical Know you not saith the Apostle that your bodies are the members of Christ 1 Cor. 6.15 That ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 12.27 That we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones Ephes. 5.30 And doth not the same Apostle tell us That God hath given Christ to be head over all things unto his Church Eph. 1.22 That Christ is the head of the Church Vers. 23. And that from this head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God Col. 2.19 Occumenius hereupon inferreth That neither Christ without the Church much less the Church without her Christ but both together so united make a perfect body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that Author hath it Others of more antiquity do affirm the same For thus St. Chrysostom Quidnaem significat panis Corpus Christi quid fiunt qui accipiunt Corpus Christi What signifieth the Bread The Body of Christ What are they made that do receive it The Body of Christ. St. Augustine thus Hunc cibum potum societatem vult intelligi corporis membrorum suorum i. e. He would have us understand that this meat and drink is the fellowship of his body and of his members What of the members onely with one another Not onely so but of the fellowship or communion which they have with him that is their head who though he be above in the heavenly places and is not fastned to his body with any corporal connexion yet he is joyned unto it by the bonds of love as the same Father hath it in another place Habet ecclesia caput positum in coelestibus quod gubernat corpus suum separatum quidem visione sed charitate annexum St. Cyprian speaks more home than either both to the matter and the manner of the union which we have with Christ. Nos ipsi corpus Christi effecti Sacramento re Sacramenti capiti nostro conjungineur unimur We are then made the Body of Christ both by the Sacrament and the grace represented by it when we are joyned or united unto Christ our Head Not that we are not made the members of Christs Mystical Body but onely by a participation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood but that this Mystical union and communion which we have with Christ is most fitly represented by it For otherwise St. Paul hath told us That by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body and consequently made the members of Christ. According unto that of Divine St. Augustine Ad hoc baptisma valet ut baptizati Christo incorporentur membra ejus efficiantur To this saith he availeth Baptism that men being baptized may be incorporated unto Christ and made his Members But this supposeth a relation to the other Sacrament of which although they may not actually participate before they die yet they have either a desire to it if they be of age and a right or interess in it
them from the miseries of this sinful world as also for those manifold and admirable gifts and graces which he hath manifested in them and those examples of good living which he hath pleased to leave us in their lives and actions Finally calling upon God That we by following their good examples in all vertuous and godly living may come to those unspeakable joyes which are prepared for them who unfeignedly love him that we with them and they with us may have one perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his everlasting and eternal Kingdom And more than this we still preserve an honorable remembrance of them as men that having fought a good fight against Sin and Satan have glorified their Saviour in his earthly members and to the memory of the principal and most chief amongst them have set apart some particuliar days that so the piety of their lives and conversations might redound more unto Gods glory and to the better stirring up of the sons of men to serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness as they did before all the days of their lives This was the judgment and the practise of the best times of the Church when superstitious vanities had not yet prevailed according as I finde it registred in the works of Augustine Honoramus sane memorias eorum tanquam sanctorum hominum Dei qui usque ad mortem corporum pro veritate certarunt And this they did unto the ends before remembred Vt sc. ea celebritate Deo vero gratias de eorum victoriis agamus nos ad imitationem talium coronarum eorum memoriae renovatione adhortemur Of this I know no sober man can make any question nor do I finde it scrupled at by any of the Reformation who have not wholly studied Innovations in the things of God For my part I shall venture a little further and think it no error in divinity to allow the Saints a little more particular intercession for us than possibly hath been granted in the Protestant Schools That those Celestial Spirits which are now with God do constantly recommend unto him the flourishing estate and safety of the Church in general I suppose as granted The current of Antiquity runs most clearly for it That some of them at some times and on some occasions do also pray for some of us in particular I think I have sufficient reasons to perswade me to so far forth as by revelation from the Lord their God or by remembrance of the state that they left us in or any other means whatever they can be made acquainted with our several wants If it should please God to take away a man that is ripe for Heaven whose bosom-friend is guilty of some known infirmities I little doubt but that the spirit of him departed will pray for the amendment of his friend in the Heavens above for whose wel-doing on the Earth he was so solicitous To think that any of the Saints in the state of bliss were utterly unmindful of such friends as they left behinde were to deprive them of a quality inseparable from the soul the memory And to suppose them negligent of such pious duties as the commending of a sinner to the throne of grace were to deprive them of a vertue inseparable from the Saints their charity Potaemiana a Virgin-Martyr in Eusebius promised the Executioner at the time of her death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That she would pray unto the Lord for his conversion The story doth not onely say that she kept her promise but prevailed also in her sute her Executioner his name was Basilides becoming thereupon a Christian and dying in defence of the Faith and Gospel Thus doth Ignatius write unto the Trallenses nor is the credit of the Epistle questioned by our nicer Criticks that he did daily pray for them to the Lord his God and that he would not onely do it whiles he was alive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that he would continue in the same good office even in the estate of immortality Origen for his part was of this opinion That the Saints helped us by their Prayers Ego sic abitror saith he quod nos adjuvant orationibus suis So was St. Cyprian too that most godly Martyr Sanctos defunctos jam de suâ immortalitate securos de nostro adhuc esse sollicitos The Saints saith he though sure of their own salvation are yet sollicitous for ours Which if it be too general to be brought in evidence he telleth us a solemn covenant made betwixt him and other Bishops to this effect Si quis nostrum prior hinc praecesserit c i. e. That he who first departed to the state of bliss should recommend to God the estate of those whom he left behinde him And so far we are right enough in my poor opinion and if our adversaries in the Church of Rome would proceed no further the difference between us would be soon made up The error is not in the Doctrine but the Application For as it hapneth many times that an ill use may be made of a very good doctrine so in the darker and declining times of the Church of Christ it was conceived to be a solecism in the way of piety not to commend our prayers and desires to them who had so carefully commended our estate to God And so at last as there is seldom any medium inter summa praecipitia in the words of Tacitus no stop in tumbling down an hill till we come to the bottom The Saints in Heaven against their wills and besides their knowledge became the ordinary Mediators between God and Man And this I finde to be the very process of the Council of Trent in drawing up the Article for the Invocation of Saints First That the Saints do pray for us Sanctos una cum Christo regnantes orationes suas pro hominibus Deo offerre And so far Orthodox enough had they gone no further but then comes in the Inference or Application which is all as dangerous That therefore we must pray to them Proinde bonum atque utile esse simpliciter eos invocare ob beneficia à Deo impetranda c. ad eorum orationes opem auxiliumque confugore And here we have the point in issue We grant because indeed we must unless we absolutely mean to renounce our Creed That the Saints pray for us in the general as being some part of that Communion which belongs to them as fellow-members with us of that Mystical Body whereof Christ is the Head But yet we do not think it lawful to pray to them but to praise God for them which is that part of the Communion which belongs to us And we grant this because we may that some of them at sometimes and on some occasions do pray for some of us particularly as before was noted but yet we do not think as the Papists do That in
from the work of his Ministery should neither be named in the Offertory nor any prayer be made for him at the holy Altar Ne deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur as his words there are To this effect we have this clause or prayer in St. Chrysostoms Liturgy Offerimus tibi rationalem hunc cultum pro iis qui in fide requiescunt majoribus scilicet Patribus Patriarchis Prophetis Apostolis Praeconibus Evangelistis Martyribus Confessoribus c We offer this reasonable sacrifice unto thee O Lord for all that rest in the Faith of Christ even for our Ancestors and Predecessors the Patriarcks Prophets and Apostles Evangelists Preachers Martyrs Confessors c. And finally to this end served the antient Diptychs being Tables of two leaves apeece in the one of which were the names of such famous Popes Princes and Prelates men renowned for piety as were still alive and in the other a like Catalogue of such famous men as were departed in the Faith as is observed by Iosephus Vice Comes in his Observat. Eccles. de Missae apparatu Tom. 4. l. 7. c. 17. and by Sir H. Spelman in his learned Glossary Out of these Diptychs did they use to repeat the names both of the living and the dead at the time of the Eucharist as appears plainly by that passage of the Fift Council of Constantinople In which we finde first That the people came together about the Altar to hear the Diptychs Tempore Diptychorum cucurrit omnis multitudo circumcirca Altare and then that recital being made of the four General Councils as also of the Arch-Bishops of blessed memory Leo Euphemius Macedonius and other persons of chief note who had departed in the Faith of our Saviour Christ the people with a loud voice made this acclamation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory be to thee O Lord. Not that it was the meaning of the antient Church to pray for the deliverance of their souls from Purgatory since they never thought them to be there but partly to preserve their memory in the mindes of the living and partly to pray for their deliverance from the power of death which doth yet tyrannize over the bodies of the faithful the hastning of their Resurrection and the joyful publick acquitting of them in that great day wherein they shall stand to be judged at the Tribunal of Christ. These were the ends for which the Offerings and Prayers for the dead were made Which being very consonant to the rules of piety found such a general entertainment in the Primitive times that none but Aërius and his followers disallowed the same Of him indeed it is reported by St. Augustine Illo cum suis Asseclis Sacrificium quod pro defunctis offertur respuebat that he and his followers admitted not of Sacrifices in behalf of the dead the Sacrifices he meaneth are of praise and prayer for which and others of his Heterodox and unsound opinions he was condemned for an Heretick by the antient Father and so remains upon record Concerning which take here along the judgment of Dr. Field once Dean of Glocester who speaking of Aërius and his Heterodox doctrines resolves it thus For this his rash and inconsiderate boldness and presumption in condemning the Vniversal Church of Christ he was justly condemned For howsoever we dislike the Popish manner of praying for the dead which is to deliver them out of their feigned Purgatory yet do we not reprehend the Primitive Church nor the Pastors and Guides of it for naming them in their publick prayers thereby to nourish their hope of the Resurrection and to express their longing desires of the consummation of their own and their happiness which are gone before them in the Faith of Christ What Bishop Andrews and Bishop Montague have affirmed herein we have seen before and seen by that and by the judgment of this Reverend and Learned Doctor That the Church of England is no enemy to the antient practise of praying for the dead in the time of the celebration of the holy Eucharist though on the apprehension of some inconveniences as her case then stood it was omitted in the second Liturgy of King Edward the sixt which is still in force But howsoever it was so omitted in the course of the Eucharist yet doth it still retain a place in our publick Liturgy and that in as significant terms as in any of the formulas of the Primitive times For in the Form of Burial Having given hearty thanks to Almighty God in that it hath pleased him to deliver that our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world We pray That it would please him of his infinite goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his Elect and to hasten his Kingdom that we with that our Brother and all others departed in the true Faith of Gods holy name may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory But Prayers and Offerings for the dead as before was said are no proofs for Purgatory The Church of England which alloweth of prayer for the dead in her Publick Liturgy hath in her Publick Articles rejected Purgatory as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the same The like do Montague of Norwich and the Dean of Glocester whose words we have before repeated and so doth Bishop Iewel the greatest ornament in his time of our Reformation And as for prayer for the dead saith he which you Dr. Harding say ye have received by tradition from the Apostles themselves notwithstanding it were granted to be true yet doth it not evermore import Purgatory Nor doth he onely say it but he proves it too For bringing in a prayer of St. Chrysostoms Liturgy in which there is not onely mention of the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors but of the blessed Virgin her self he addes I trow ye will not conclude hereof that the Patriarcks Prophets Apostles c. and the blessed Virgin Mary were all in Purgatory Of the same judgment is the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who telleth us That it is most certain that the antients had and gave other Reasons of prayer for the dead than freeing them out of Purgatory And this saith he is very learnedly and largely set down by the now learned Primate of Armagh Where we have the Primate of Armagh in the bargain too But what need such a search be made after the judgment and opinion of particular persons of the Church of England when it is manifest that the Greek Church at this day and almost all the Fathers of the Greek Church antiently though they admit of prayers for the dead yet believe no Purgatory Of which Alphonsus à Castro doth very ingenuously give this note De Purgatorio in antiquis Scriptoribus potissimum Graecis ferè nulla mentio est Qua de
us and his ear still open to our prayers which he hath both the will and the power to grant so far forth as he seeth it fitting and expedient for us He suffered for our sins as he is our Priest forgives them as he is our God and mediates as our Head with his Heavenly Father for the remission of those sins which he suffered for The medicine for our sins was tempered in his precious blood and therein we behold him in his Priestly Office the application of this medicine was committed to the sons of men whom he by his Prophetical Office authorized unto it The dispensation of the mercy thereof still remains in God as an inseparable flower of the Regal Diadem for who can forgive sins but God alone said the Pharisees truly And this forgiveness of our sins as it is the greatest blessing God ca◠give us in this present life because it openeth us a door to eternal glory so is it placed here as the first in order of those signal benefits which do descend upon the Church from her Head Christ Iesus For we may hopefully conclude that since Christ was not onely pleased to die for our sins but doth intercede also with his Heavenly Father that we may have the benefit of his death and passion those prayers of his will make that death and passion efficacious to us in the forgiveness of those sins under which we languish With the like hope we may conclude from the self-same Topick That if we have our part in the first Resurrection that namely from the death of sin to the life of righteousness we shall be made partakers of the second also that namely from the death of nature to the life of glory For Chrysostom hath truly noted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That where the Head is will the members be If therefore Christ our Head be risen from the grave of death the members shall be sure of a Resurrection If Christ our Head be glorified in his Fathers Kingdom the members in due time shall be glorified also So that as well the Article of the Forgiveness of sins as those of the Resurrection of the body and The life everlasting depend upon Christs being Head of this Mystical Body and that too in the method which is here proposed The forgiveness of sins being given us as a pledge or assurance that we shall have a joyful Resurrection in the day of judgment as that is but a way or passage to eternal life First then we are to speak of the Forgiveness of sins and therein we will first behold the whole body of sin in its own foul nature that so we may the better estimate the great mercies of God in the forgiveness of the same And for beholding the whole body of sin in its own foul nature we must first take notice That it pleased God in the beginning to exhibite to the world then but newly made a lively copy of himself a Creature fashioned ad similitudinem suam after his own Image saith the Text. In the creating of the which as he collected all the excellencies of inferior Creatures so did he also crown him with those heavenly graces with which he had before endued the most holy Angels that is to say a rectitude or clearness in his understanding whereby he was enabled to distinguish betwixt truth and error and with a freedom in his will in the choice of his own ways and counsels Ut suae faber esse possit fortunae That if he should forsake that station wherein God had placed him he might impute it unto none but his wretched-self It is true God said unto him in the way of Caution That in what day soever he did eat of the fruit forbidden he should die the death But he had neither undertaken to preserve him that he should not eat and so by consequence not sin much less had he ordained him to that end and purpose that he should eat thereof and so die for ever And true it is that God fore-knew from before all eternity unto what end this Liberty of man would come and therefore had provided a most excellent remedy for the restoring of lapsed man to his grace and favor Yet was not this foreknowledge in Almighty God that so it would be either a cause or a necessity or so much as an occasion that so it should be And it is therefore a good rule of Iustin Martyr seconded by Origen and divers others of the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Prescience of God say they is not cause or reason why things come to pass but because these and these things shall so come to pass therefore God fore-knows them So that God dealt no otherwise in this case with our Father Adam than did the Father in the Parable with his younger son gave him that portion of his goods which fell to his share and after left him to himself And as the Prodigal childe being an ill husband on the stock which his Father gave him did quickly waste the same by his riotous living suffered the extremities of cold and hunger and was fain to cast himself again on his Fathers goodness so man not using well that stock which the Lord had given him gave himself over to the Epicurism of his eye and appetite By means whereof he lost those excellent endowments of his first Creation was shamefully thrust out of Paradise without hope of return and in conclusion fain to cast himself on the mercies of God as well for his subsistence here as his salvation hereafter The story of mans fall makes this plain enough and wholly frees Almighty God from having any hand or counsel in so sad a ruine For there we finde how God created him after his own Image placed him in Paradise commanded him not to meddle with the Tree of good and evil threatned that in case he did eat thereof he should surely die and lastly with what grievous punishments he did chastise him for violating that Commandment All which had been too like a Pageant if God had laid upon him a necessity of sin and death and made him to no other end as some teach us now but by his fall to set the greater estimate on his own rich mercies So excellently true is that of Ecclesiasticus though the Author of it be Apocryphal That God made man in the begining and left him in the hands of his own counsels And this is the unanimous doctrine of the New Testament also where it is said That by man came death and that not onely of the body but of the soul 1 Cor. 15.21 That by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin Rom. 5.12 That by one mans disobedience many were made sinners Vers. 19. That all die in Adam Vers. 22. And in a word That no man ought to say when he is tempted that he is tempred of God for God tempteth no man but every
Monuments of the Catholick Church to signifie the death and not the birth-day of the Saints departed And more particularly we are thus informed by St. Augustine Solius Domini Beati Iohannis dies nativitatis in universo mundo celebratur i. e. That onely the day of the nativity of our Lord and Saviour and of St. Iohn Baptist were celebrated in his time in the Church of Christ Of Christ because there is no doubt but that he was conceived and born without sin original and of the Baptist because sanctified in his Mothers womb as St. Luke saith of him And for particular men it is said by Origen Nemo ex sanctis invenitur hunc diem festum celebrasse c. That never any of the Saints did celebrate the day of their own nativity or of any of their sons and daughters with a Solemn Feast The reason was the same for both because they knew that even the best of them were conceived in sin and brought forth in wickedness and therefore with no comfort could observe that day which the sense of their original corruptions had made so unpleasing But on the other side those men who either knew not or regarded not their own natural sinfulness esteemed that day above all others in their lives as that which gave them their first-being to enjoy their pleasures and they as Pharaoh in the Old Testament and Herod in the New failed not to keep the same as a Publick Festival Soli peccatores super hujusmodi diem laetantur as it is in Origen And hereupon we may infer without doubt or scruple that having the authority of the Scripture and the Churches practise and that practise countenanced by Authors of unquestioned credit not to say any thing further in so clear a case from the concurrent Testimonies of the Antient Fathers That there is such a sin as Birth-sin or Original sin a Natural corruption radicated in the Seed of Adam which makes us subject to the wrath and indignation of God Thus have we seen the Introduction of sin the first act of the Tragedy let us next look upon the second on the Propagation the manner how it is derived from Adam unto our Fore-fathers and from them to us And this we finde to be a matter of greater difficulty St. Augustine in whose time these controversies were first raised by the Pelagians did very abundantly satisfie them in the quod sit of it but when they pressed him with the quo modo how it was propagated from Adam and from one man to another he was then fain to have recourse to Gods secret justice and his unsearchable dispensation Et hoc quidem libentius disco quam doceo ne audeam docere quod nescio as with great modesty and caution he declined the business For whereas sin is the contagion of the soul and the soul oweth its being unto God alone and is not begotten by our parents the Pelagians either would not or could not be answered in their Quere How Children should receive corruption from their Parents not could the good Father give them satisfaction unto their demand But as a Dwarf standing on the shoulders of a Giant may see many things far off not visible to the Giant himself so those of the ensuing times building on the foundations which were laid by Augustine have added to him the solution of such doubts and difficulties as in his time were not discovered Of these some have delivered That the soul contracts contagion from the flesh even in the very act of its first infusion the union of the soul and body nor is it any thing improbable that it should so be We see that the most excellent Wines retain their natural sweetness both of taste and colour as long as they are kept in some curious Vessel but if you put them into foul and musty bottles they lose forthwith their former sweetness participating of the uncleanness of the Vessel in which they are Besides it is a Maxim amongst Philosophers Quod mores animae sequuntur temperamentum corporis That the soul is much byassed and inclined in the actions of it unto the temper of the body and if the equal or unequal temper of the body of man can as it seems incline the minde unto the actual embracing of good or evil then may it also be believed that the corruptions of the flesh may dispose the soul even in the first infusion of it to some habitual inclinations unto sin and wickedness Than which though there may be a more solid there cannot be a more conceiveable Answer But others walking in a more Philosophical way conceive that the accomplishment of the great work of Generation consists not in the introduction of the form onely or in preparing of the matter but in the constituting the whole compositum the whole man as he doth consist both of soul and body And that a man is and may properly be said to beget a man notwithstanding the Creation of his soul by God because that the materials of the Birth do proceed from man and those materials so disposed and actuated by the emplastick vertue of the Seed that they are fitted for the soul and as it were produced unto Animation Which resolution though it be more obscure unto vulgar wits is more insisted on by the learned than the former is and possibly may have more countenance from holy Scripture When God made man it is said of him That he was created after Gods own Image that is to say Invested with an habit of Original Righteousness his understanding clear and his will naturally disposed to the love of God But Adam having by his fall lost all those excellent endowments both of grace and nature begot a Son like to himself And therefore it is said in the fifth of Genesis That he begot a son in his own likeness after his own image and he called his name Seth Though Adam was created after the Image of God and might have still preserved that Image in his whole posterity had he continued in that state wherein God created him yet being faln he could imprint no other Image in the fruit of his Body than that which now remained in him his own Image onely the understanding darkned and the will corrupted and the affections of the soul depraved and vitiated Qualis post lapsum Adam fuit tales etiam filios genuit such as himself was after his Apostasie such and no other were the Children which descended of him â—s Paraeus very well observeth And if it fall out commonly as we see it doth that a crooked Father doth beget a crook-backed Son that if the Father look a squint the Children seldom are right-sighted and that the childe doth not onely inherit the natural deformities but even the bodily diseases of his Parents too It is the less to be admired that they should be the heirs also of those sinful lusts with which their
all them that are sanctified Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and nailed it to his cross for ever to the end that being mindful of the price wherewith we were bought and of the enemies from whom we were delivered by him We might glorifie God both in our bodies and our souls and serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh in the time of the Mosaical Ordinances How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God in the time of the Gospel This is the constant tenor of the Word of God touching remission of our sins by the Blood of Christ. And unto this we might here adde the consonant suffrages and consent of the antient Fathers If the addition of their Testimonies where the authority of the Scripture is so clear and evident might not be thought a thing unnecessary Suffice it that all of them from the first to the last ascribe the forgiveness of our sins to the death of Christ as to the meritorious cause thereof though unto God the Father as the principal Agent who challengeth to himself the power of forgiving sins as his own peculiar and prerogative Isai. 43.25 Peculiar to himself as his own prerogative in direct power essential and connatural to him but yet communicated by him to his Son CHRIST IESUS whilest he was conversant here on Earth who took upon himself the power of forgiving sins as part of that power which was given him both in Heaven and Earth Which as he exercised himself when he lived amongst us so at his going hence he left it as a standing Treasury to his holy Church to be distributed and dispensed by the Ministers of it according to the exigencies and necessities of particular persons For this we finde done by him as a matter of fact and after challenged by the Apostles as a matter of right belonging to them and to their successors in the Ministration First For the matter of fact it is plain and evident not onely by giving to St. Peter for himself and them the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven annexing thereunto this promise That whatsoever he did binde on Earth should be bound in Heaven and whatsoever he did loose on Earth should be loosed in Heaven But saying to them all expresly Receive the Holy Ghost Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained And as it was thus given them in the way of fact so was it after challenged by them in the way of right St. Paul affirming in plain terms That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself by not imputing their trespasses unto them but that the Ministery of this reconciliation was committed unto him and others whom Christ had honored with the title of his Ambassadors and Legates here upon the Earth Now as the state of man is twofold in regard of sin so is the Ministery of reconciliation twofold also in regard of man As he is tainted with the guilt of original sinfulness the Sacrament of Baptism is to be applied the Laver of Regeneration by which a man is born again of water and the Holy Ghost Iohn 3.5 As he lies under the burden of his actual sins the Preaching of the Word is the proper Physick to work him to repentance and newness of life that on confession of his sins he may receive the benefit of absolution Be it known unto you saith St. Paul that through this man CHRIST IESUS is preached unto you remission of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses And first for Baptism It is not onely a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from others which be not Christned as some Anabaptists falsly taught but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth whereby as by an instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the promises of the forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by vertue of Prayer unto God This is the publick Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the authorised Book of Articles Anno 1562. In which lest any should object as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Iewel That we make Baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration and that we dare not say as the Catholick Church teacheth according to the holy Scriptures That in and by Baptism sins are fully and truly remitted and put away We will reply with the said most Reverend and Learned Prelate a man who very well understood the Churches meaning That we confess and have ever taught that in the Sacrament of Baptism by the death and Blood of Christ is given remission of all manner of sins and that not in half or in part or by way of imagination and fancy but full whole and perfect of all together and that if any man affirm that Baptism giveth not full remission of sins it is no part nor portion of our Doctrine To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end That they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness and also that infused divine vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispositions towards future newness of life But because these were private men neither of which for ought appears had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth though Bishop Iewel had in the second Edition when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeths time let us consult the Book of Homilies made and set out by those who composed the Articles And there we finde that by Gods mercy and the vertue of that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour CHRIST IESUS the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross we do obtain Gods grace and remission as well of our original sin in Baptism as of all actual sin committed by us after Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto him again Which doctrine of the Church of England as it is consonant to the Word of God in holy Scripture so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure Antiquity For in the Scripture it is said
Resurrection of the Body also And to this purpose that of Gregory Quam in se oftendit in me facturus est exemplo hic monstravit quod promisit in proemio That saith the Father which he exemplified in himself he will make good upon me what we finde proved in his person shall be further manifested in our own Besides we know that Christ is often called in St. Pauls Epistles the head of the Church which is his Body and we with joy and gladness do acknowledge it for a certain truth Now Chrysostom hath truly noted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that where the head is there also will the body be and if the Head be glorified the Body will be also glorified If therefore CHRIST our Head be risen then shall we also be raised in due time who are his Body or at least the Members of that Body for ye are the body of Christ and members in particular saith the same Apostle But this must be expected in its own due time as before I said I◠being not to be supposed that so great a work as this shall be wrought upon us either unseasonably or out of order Every one in his own order saith the Text first CHRIST the first fruits of the resurrection afterwards such as are Christs at his coming Where still observe how Christs resurrection and our own are tyed by the Apostle in a string together Eadem catena revincta est Christi resurrectio nostra as my Author hath it we cannot stir one end of the chain but the other moveth with it This habitude or connexion between Christ and us will help us to another Argument to confirm this Doctrine For if we be the members of the body of Christ we must be crucified in our members as Christs body was Mortifie therefore your earthly members saith St. Paul And certainly we may conclude That if we be crucified with Christ we shall rise with Christ if we do suffer with him we shall also reign with him and be glorified with him There is another rational way of Argumentation used by the Apostle the sum whereof in brief is this That if there were no Resurrection of the Body whereby we might receive the comfort of those good acts which we have done in our flesh then should we have but small encouragement in the works of piety especially to hazard our estates nay our very lives in maintenance and defence of the Holy Gospel Why stand we then saith he in jeopardy all the day long And why have I my self encountred Beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men or suffered in my flesh that full variety of torments that I may justly say of my self that I die daily And not so onely but certainly we rob our selves of too much pleasure by the severity of our Religion and foolishly deny to our lives those comforts which make life valued for a blessing For to what purpose should we weary out our souls with fasting and our skins with sack-cloath or to what purpose do we make our knees even hard and callous by kneeling in his holy Temple were there no Resurrection of the Body or no life to come If in this life onely we have hope in Christ we were of all men the most miserable Rather than so let us give way to our desires and eat and drink enjoy the pleasures of the world whiles they are before us for ought we know we may die to morrow and with that death to morrow there is an end of all things Thus might a man reason for a Resurrection in behalf of himself and he may reason for it also on the behalf of God whose justice cannot be declared in the sight of men if there were no Resurrection of the flesh to express it by To this end we are told by the same Apostle That we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that every man may receive according to that which he hath done in his body whether good or evil The strength and efficacy of which Argument as is elswhere noted is briefly this The Bodies of us men being the servants of the soul to righteousness or else the instruments to sin in justice ought to be partakers of that weal or wo which is adjudged unto the soul and therefore to be raised at the day of judgment that as they sinned together or served God together so they may share together of reward or punishment Which Argument as it strongly proves the Resurrection of the Body so it as strongly doth conclude for a Resurrection of the same Body the same numerical body which before we had not of a new created body as some idly dream For certainly it were no justice in Almighty God if one flesh should fast and pray and kneel and watch and weary out it self in the service of God and another flesh reap that which it never labored for No comfort to the poor body at all to abridge it self of so much pleasure and be exposed to so much danger and affliction and another strange body shall step up and receive the reward Iobs confidence was That he should see God with the same eyes and none other for them If they restrained themselves as it were by Covenant with the Lord from straying after objects of lust and not intice him to a maid as he saith he did It is but justice that they the same eyes and none other should be rewarded with the view of a better object If they have been poured out like water and dropped many a tear in the sight of God Reason and Justice both will agree to this That the tears should be wiped from those eyes not from a pair of new ones which did never shed any And unto this St. Paul comes home not speaking of the Resurrection of a Body in general but of this body in particular It is these eyes of Iob none other which shall see the Lord and hoc corruptibile in St. Paul this corruptible and none other which must then put on corruption And thus far we have gone upon positive proofs and sought them also in the Law and the Prophets onely Another kinde of evidence may be found in Scripture which for distinctions sake shall be called Practical common alike to Law and Gospel both to Iews and Christians Of this sort was the solemn form of burial amongst the Iews the charges they were at in Spices and sweet Ointments to embalm the Bodies of their dead and the command given both by Ioseph and Iacob to their children for the transporting of their bones to the Land of Canaan the type and shadow of Gods Kingdom in the Heavens above All special testimonies that they did expect in the Lords good time a Resurrection of those Bodies so carefully so choicely tendred laid up in the Repository of the Grave with such cost and decency When Mary Magdalen poured forth
Translation it is called a washing yet in the Greek and Latine both it is a baptization Next to these positive and practical Proofs we will add some natural and experimental Evidences which conclude the same and are more within the compass of the observation of the meanest capacities We see the Sun withdraweth from us every evening the comfort both of light and heat and yet we doubt not of his rising on the morrow morning We go to bed as to our grave yeelding our selves to sleep-which is the image of death with prayers and supplications to Almighty God in hope to be restored unto sense and action on the day insuing We note it in the common course of the works of Nature that Herbs and Plants and all the Flowers of the field do in the time of Winter seem to lose that life which made them flourish with more lustre than the Court of Solomon but we observe withall as a thing of course that the next Spring returns them to their perfect beauties Expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est we have a Spring to come said the Christian Advocate The Husbandman commits his seed unto the ground in expectation of a plentiful and joyful Harvest his hope deceiveth him not at last though that which he buried in the womb of the Earth must die before it quicken unto life again This is another of St. Pauls Arguments to our present purpose Thou fool saith he that which thou sowest is not quicked except it die upon which words of the Apostle take this gloss or descant out of an old Greek M. S. in Bodleys Liberarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Earth laboureth not after the ordinarie manner of a woman in travel Her Infant Corn is not quickned except it die Should it live still it could not be formed in that womb The earth receiveth the bare corn onely and by corrupting it restoreth it in a better fashion than she took it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And can we have saith he a more forcible impression or representation of our own restitution than by this example Observing these things as we do in the works of Nature how can we think so poorly of the Lord our God as if it were not in his power with the like facility to re-give to us our former beauties as either to the Plants or Planets Should we make search into the secret and more wonderful works of prudent nature we may be told by Plinie That dead Bees are restored both to life and motion onely by sprinkling them with Nepenthe young Pellicans by the blood of the old ones and Eels with vinegar and blood The raising of the new Phenix out of the ashes of the old one hath been a thing so generally received over all the world that for my part I dare not question it though I know some do And of the Swallows it is said that at the beginning of Winter they use to fall down together in heaps into the dust or water and there sleep in their Chaos till hearing the voyce of returning Nature at the Spring they awaken out of this dead sleep and live amongst the fowls of the Air again And more than so it is affirmed by George Maior a German writer that he found a company of Swallows lying dead under an old Table in the Church of Witteberge which by an artificial heat he restored to life the ordinary time of nature being then not come in which they should revive of course This makes it plain that nature is no Enemy to a Resurrection by consequent our Faith in this agreeable to the course of Nature and not to be denyed by a natural man though no one Point or Article of the Christian Faith hath been more eagerly opposed by the ancient Gentiles nor more pertinaciously decried by Heretical Christians And howsoever men of inferior parts might make scruple of it yet can I not but wonder at those great Philosophers that they should plead so earnestly against a Tenet so consonant to the waies and works of Nature and otherwise not much a stranger to their own opinions Themselves both Platonists and Pythagoreans acknowledge an eternal being of the soul and though the man did dye and his corps was buried yet the Soul lived again in another Body And so the antient Druides were perswaded also Regit idem spiritus artus Orbe aâ—io as the Poet hath informed us of them The truth of this opinion I dispute not here I know it to be vain and foolish Onely I shall conclude from their own Position and think the Argument will be good ad homines That the same Soul may be as easily beleeved to live again in its own body as in the body of another made of purpose for it And this Tertullian doth retort against those Philosophers who did admit of this Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this transmigration of the soul from body to body and yet deny the Resurrection of that body to which the Soul more naturally ought to be united Si quaecunque ratio praeest animarum humanarum reciprocandarum in corpora cur non in eandem substantiam redeant cum hoc sit restitui id esse quod fuerat as his words there are That which most stumbled both these Philosophical and our Christian Hereticks was That the faithful of the Primitive times did not onely stand for the Assumption of a new Body which perhaps the others would have granted with no great difficulty but the Resurrection of the old The restitution of a body which had either been consumed to ashes eaten by Worms devoured by Fishes and wilde Beasts and finally incorporated into the substance of those Beasts and Fishes which had so devoured it Which being thought impossible by some old Philosophers and not well understood by some poor weak Christians occasioned it on both sides to be called in question and by some Christian Hereticks to be more decried than ever it had been by the Gentiles formerly The Marcionites of old denied it so did Marcus too and so did Basilides Cerdo and the rest of that wicked brood The Anabaptists and Socinians of these times do deny it also although not on the same grounds as the former Hereticks by those it was denied because thought impossible in which they and the Gentiles did agree together by these because they do not think it consonant to the Word of God That flesh and blood should inherit the Kingdom of Heaven as if there were no difference between the substance of flesh and the infirmities and frailties which attend upon it between a natural body and a body glorified Of which more anon In the mean time to satisfie the doubts of those of what sort soever which charge this Article of our Faith with impossibilities we may demand of them these particulars besides what hath been said to the point already viz. Whether it be not equally as possible to Almighty
God if not more possible to recreat a man from something than to creat him first of nothing Whether the natural substance of a man corrupted be not more apt to be recollected unto it self than the dust of the Earth was in it self to be first framed to such a substance Credamus ergo abeodem restitui posse veterem hominem qui novum fecit as it is excellently well prest upon them by Lactantius If for the manner of it they would know by what arts and agents so great a miracle as the raising of the same numerical body shall be wrought upon them we must refer them to themselves and in themselves they have an Answer They all know so much of themselves that they live move and have a being that they are all engendred by their natural Fathers and fashioned in the secret Closets of their Mothers womb yet certainly it is a matter if considered rightly not very capable of credit that so small a quantity of seed should either be improved into a substance of such different parts as flesh and blood and bones and sinews or else divided into so many parts of such different substance When at the last the body is made fit to receive the soul they cannot tell either by what means the soul is given or the whole birth nourished Lord I am fearfully and wonderfully made said the Royal Psalmist If then they know not by what means they were made at first but shut up their enquirie in an admiration of the unsearchable power and wisdom of the most high God why should they look to be resolved of all doubts and difficulties touching the Resurrection of the self-same bodies and not refer that also to Gods power and wisdom Which was the answer of Tertullian to the Roman Sophisters Redde si potes rationem qua factus es tunc require qua fies First render an account saith he how thou first wert made and afterwards enquire how thou shalt be raised But not to answer them with Questions after the manner of the old Socratical way of disputing to illustrate our belief more fully in this Article and gain theirs unto it I will lay before them two such instances as will clearly carry it except they think more meanly of the power of God than of subservient nature and the force of art It is the nature of the Loadstone to draw steel to it that is a thing well known And it is found of late by a strange experiment that if a massie body of steel be ground to powder and all the Atomes of it buried in a lump of Clay yet will the powerful vertue of the Stone or Adamant being gently moved upon the superficies of the Cake attract into a lump all those dusts of steel so strangely scattered and dispersed Which though it be a wondrous power and effect of nature yet comes it short of that which is done by art The substance of the steel not being altered though the parts attenuated For it is found by those who do trade in Chymistry that the forms of things are kept invisibly in store though the materials of the same be altered from what first they were and that by vertue of those forms the things themselves will be restored to their former being which they make good by this experiment They take a Flower or Plant of what kinde soever in the Spring time when it is in its fullest and most vigorous growth and beat it in a Morter Root Stalks Flowers and Leaves until it be reduced to a confused Mass. Then after Maceration Fermentation Separation and other workings of that art there is extracted a kinde of Ashes or Salt including those formes and tinctures under their power and Chaos which they put up in Glasses very close made up the mouth of the Glass being heated in the fire and the neck thereof wrung close together to keep in the Spirits Which done applying to it a soft fire or candle you shall presently perceive the Flowers or Plants to rise up by little and little out of those Ashes and to appear again in their proper forms as when they grew upon the ground But take away the fire or candle and they remove immediately to their Chaos again A wonderful effect of art and nature such as not onely doth resemble the Resurrection but so far confirm it that he who shall deny it for the time to come will make the God of Heaven less powerful than the Sons of Art The ingenuous Author of the Book called Religio Medici doth also touch upon this rarity but I have not now the Book by me to put down his words or to make use of any other of his observations to the point in hand And to say truth there need but little more be added as to the Quod sit of the Resurrection to the point it self That which remains relates unto the manner onely to some points of circumstance and to such Christian uses as are raised hereon And first Perhaps it may be demanded of us as once of the Apostle in former times Quali corpore venient How with what Bodies they shall rise Not whether in the very same Numerical Body for that hath been made good before but whether in the same shape and fashion which before it had We know that man returns again into his Earth at several ages the tender Infant and the Man of ripest years being alike subject to the stroke of impartial death In which respect it hath been questioned by the Antients whether they shall arise in the same age and disproportions of Age and Stature which they had whilest they lived St. Augustine doth resolve it Negatively and determineth thus That we shall all of us be raised in that proportion both of strength and beauty which men attain to commonly at the time of their best perfection Restat ergo saith he ut suam quisque habeat mensuram vel quam habuit in inventute vel quam habiturus esset si vixisset And this he groundeth on that passage to those of Ephesus where the Apostle speaks of that special care which CHRIST hath taken of his Church and our edification till we all come to a perfect man unto the measure of the fulness of the age or stature of CHRIST Ad mensuram plenitudinis aetatis Christi that is to say as he expounds it Ad juvenilem formam to that degree of age or stature which our Redeemer had attained to at the time of his passion which was about the four and thirtieth year of his life as may be gathered from the Scriptures A second Quere hath been made concerning them which are diffigured and deformed and mulcted as it were by nature how in what bodies they shall come in the Resurrection Not with their imperfections I conceive not so for in the Heavens there shall be nothing not compleat and of full accomplishment And on the other side were they freed
of those imperfections it may be said that then they are not raised in the self-same bodies To this we have the resolution of St. Augustine also affirming That in that glorious day the substance of their bodies shall continue as before it was but the deformities and imperfections shall be taken away Corporibus ergo istis naturae servabitur vitia autem detrahentur as the Father hath it A resolution which St. Paul doth seem to favor saying That the body shall be raised in glory though it be sown in dishonor as do his following words the former viz. Though it be sown in weakness in the weakness of old age or infancy shall be raised in power For neither is it likely that infancy being imperfection and old age corruption can stand with the estate of a glorified body or that our Lord which made the blinde to see and the lame to go which came to seek his grace on Earth will not much rather heal them of their imperfections whom he vouchsafeth to admit to the glories of Heaven A glorious place is fit for none but glorified bodies And so far glorified shall the bodies of Gods servants be as to be raised in power whereby they shall be freed from all wants and weaknesses in incorruption which shall make them free both from death and sickness in glory which shall make them shine with a greater splendor than any of the Stars of Heaven as did the face of Moses in the Book of Exodus and that of Stephen the Proto-martyr in the Book of the Acts and lastly in agility by which they shall be like the Angels mounting as on the wings of an Eagle to meet the Lord JESUS at his coming In reference unto these spiritual qualities St. Paul affirms That it was sown a natural body but shall be raised a spiritual body Natural for the substance still spiritual for the qualities and endowments of it Spiritualia post Resurrectionem erunt corpora non quia corpora esse desistunt sed quia spiritu vivificante subsistunt as St. Augustine hath it Another Quere yet remaineth which had been moved it seems in St. Augustines time by some whose curiosity did exceed their judgments The Question was Whether the woman should be raised to eternal glory in her own sex or the more noble sex of man Alas poor Souls what monstrous crime had they committed that they should be excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven Of what strange errors and mistakes must guilty-nature be accused when she framed that sex or rather God when he created it at first out of Adams side by which it is supposed uncapable of immortality Yes certainly say they for it seemeth to us that Christ hath so adjudged it saying That in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage And if no marriage then no woman the woman being therefore made that she might be married Vain men why do they talk so idly in the things of God! Nuptias negavit dominus in resurrectione futuras non foeminas as St. Augustine noteth The Lord hath not excluded women from the Resurrection onely in answer to a captious Question which the Saduces made he returned them this That in that day there should be neither care nor notice taken of those worldly matters This is the sum and substance of our Saviours Answer and this is nothing to the prejudice of the Sex or Persons Nor need we doubt but as that Sex have done most acceptable service to the Lord their God either in keeping constantly the faith of wedlock or in preserving carefully an unspotted chastity or suffering resolutely for the testimony of the Faith and Gospel so shall they also in those bodies receive the crown reserved for so great obedience But what need more be said of this needless Quere which Christ our Saviour hath prevented and resolved already Who therefore first appeared to those of the Female Sex that making them the publishers of his Resurrection he might assure them of their own Qui ergo utrumque sexum instituit utrumque restituet God saith St. Augustine as he made both Sexes will restore both Sexes and raise up both in their own proper and original being unto Life eternal Other particulars of the manner of this Resurrection as the dreadful terror of the day the sounding of the Trump the conflagration of the world and the like to these have either been already handled or else will fall within the compass of the following Article That which remains to be considered at the present will be matters practical first in relation to our friends and then in reference to our selves and our own affairs First in relation to our Friends That we bemoan not their departure with too great extremity or sorrow for them without hope as if lost for ever Were it indeed so irrecoverable a losâ— that either their bodies were for ever banished from their souls or that their souls did die and perish with their bodies it were a misery to which no sorrow could be equal But being so assured of a Resurrection it is not to be supposed of them which die in the Lord that they are either lost to themselves or us They onely have withdrawn themselves for a certain season from the vanity and troubles of this present world and shall return at last unto life again both to our comfort and their glory In this respect it was the antient custom of the Church of Greece and is not yet worn out of use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To set boyled Corn before the Singers of the holy Hymns which are accustomed to be sung at the commemoration of the dead who sleep in Christ. And this they do to manifest their hopes in the Resurrection of which the Corn is so significant an embleme as before was shewn And to say truth Death if considered rightly is the gate of life and of a life not to be shaken with adversities or subject unto change of fortune Hanc Deus fidei praestat gratiam ut mors quam vitae constat esse contrariam instrumentum foret per quod in vitam transiretur it is St. Augustines note But what need Augustine be alleged when we may hear the same of the antient Druides of whom the Poet tells us that they held this Paradox Longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est That death was but the middle way to a longer life If then our Ancestors in those dark times of ignorance when they knew not Christ conceived no otherwise of death and the terrors of it than as the way unto a life of more excellent nature then certainly a nobler and moâ—e chearful constancy must â—eeds be looked for at our hands who are not onely more assured of the immortality of the soul which they blindly guessed at but of the Resurrection of the Body also which they never heard of The next consideration doth concern
our selves and lessoneth us not to set so high a price upon our lives but that we may be willing to lay them down as often as the preservation of Religion the safety of our Country or the necessary service of the State do require it of us A duty which we should not doubt to discharge most gladly did we consider as we ought that loss of life on such occasions is but like the putting off of our garments over night to be worn again upon the morrow For certainly those men acquit themselves with the bravest spirit who least regard the terrible approach of death Nor can there be a stronger Motive to induce us to it than that the Bodies so abandoned to the Sword of the Enemies or to the Persecutors of the Church of God shall be revived and reunited to the Soul again It is reported of the Druides whom before I spoke of that they taught amongst these Northern Nations not onely an immortality of the Soul but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or transmigration of it into other bodies And it was thought an happy error to be so perswaded for being throughly possessed with this opinion they never feared to run upon the greatest dangers to brave them with undanted courage and to encounter with the violentest and most terrible engigns which were then invented So poor a matter was it thought to be coy and sparing of those lives which they were sure to finde again in another body Felices errore suo quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris animaeque capaces Mortis ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae Which may thus be Englished Thrice happy they whom the extreamest fear Of death afflicts not who upon the spear Dare boldly run and in their hearts disdain To spare that life which shall return again How brave a courage then ought we to carry with us in our Christian Warfare who have such excellent advantages above those Antients To us it is ascertained by the Word of God not that our souls shall be transmitted into other bodies but be conveyed immediately to a place of rest there to expect a Resurrection of those bodies which before they lived in To us it is ascertained by the Word of God that each several Atom of the body shall be recollected and married to the soul for ever that the bones which were broken may rejoyce and that the body and soul being thus united shall pass immediately into the glories of eternal life prepared for them before the beginnings of the world A brave encouragement to gallant and heroical resolutions Preciumque causa laboris in the Poets language The cause and recompence of all our labors But some I know have otherwise provided for themselves than so and found out a Terrestrial Paradise wherein they shall enjoy for a thousand years all the pleasures of Earth before they be admitted to the joys of Heaven A fancy if I may so call it of no mean antiquity defended by some principal men of the first times of the Church who took it upon trust without more enquiry and having made it better than at first they found it commended it unto the Church for good Catholick doctrine For some there were even in the infancy of the Gospel who being too much in love with this present world conceited to themselves such a sensual and voluptuous kinde of life after the Resurrection from the dust of the Earth wherein they should have use of women and wallow in all carnal and libidinous pleasures which the most Epicurean soul could affect or covet A fancy meerly Iewish in its first original afterwards entertained by some Heretical Iudaizing Christians and finally rather rectified than refelled by many of the Fathers in the Primitive times And first beginning with the Iews we shewed in our discourse of the Kingdom of Christ how much they were besotted with the expectation of a Temporal Monarchy looking for such a Messiah as should come with power restore again the Crown of Iudah to the house of David and make that Commonwealth more formidable to the Neighboring Princes than ever it had been in the times before And to befool themselves the more in this fond conceit there was no promise nor no prophecy in the Old Testament intended to the building up of the Spiritual Temple or to the raising of Christs Kingdom in the souls of men which they applied not to the founding of a Temporal Monarchy the repairing of Ierusalem the new erecting of the Temple and to the re-establishment of Circumcision and other of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Law of Moses Concerning which consult St. Ierom in his Comment on Isai. 31. and on Ezek. 36. and on Micah 4. Tertullian in his third Book against Marcion cap. ult and divers others of the Antients not to say any thing in this place of the Iewish Rabbins who run all that way In which it will appear that they both did and do expect a restitution of their temporal power and all the pleasures of a rich and flourishing Empire which are most correspondent to a carnal minde Which fancy being taken up and so strongly fixed that there was no removing of it out the hearts of the Iews was forthwith entertained by some nominal Christians who out of a compliance with that obstinate people embraced not onely many of their Rites and Ceremonies but of their dreams and fancies also Whom therefore Ierom calleth Christianos Iudaizantes Iudaizing Christians in many places of his works in which Iudaei Christiani Iudaizantes or Iudaei eorum erroris haeredes the Iews and those that do inherit their Superstitions march along together Of these the first was that Arch-heretick Cerinthus who did not onely set on foot in the Church of Christ the Festivals and Sacrifices of the Law of Moses but also taught Regnum Christi post Resurrectionem terrenum fuisse carnem nostram Hierosolymis cupiscentiis voluptatibus carni servituram That after the Resurrection Christ should have an Earthly Kingdom in which his followers should enjoy in their New Ierusalem all the delights and pleasures of the flesh of what kinde soever And this not onely to endure for a little while the ordinary life a man or so but for a thousand years compleat as Nicephorus addeth Marcus another leading Heretick was of this opinion and so was Nepos also an Egyptian Bishop who teaching first That all the promises made by God in holy Scripture Iudaico more reddendas esse were to be understood according to the Iewish Glosses did thereon build this following Tenet That the Saints should for a thousand years injoy all manner of corporal delights and pleasures in the Kingdom of Christ which after the resurrection should be founded here upon this earth Against this Nepos and his doctrine in this particular Dionysius that great and learned Bishop of Alexandria wrote
a full discourse which he entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Discourse of Promises and finding that he grounded his erroneous Tenets on the Revelation he wrote another on that Book which he inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The confutation and reproof of the Allegorists Nor did he labour by his pen onely but by conference too making a journey or Episcopal Visitation into Arsenois a Province of Egypt where this opinion was most cherished of purpose to dispute down this erroneous Doctrin◠In which he sped so answerably unto his desires that many of the chief Sticklers in it did recant their error et veritatem una nobiscum confite bantur and chearfully imbrace that truth which he brought unto them This Doctrine being set on foot though by such vile Hereticks and seeming to have ground and countenance from the Revelation was by the Fathers and other Writers of the first times of the Church thought fitter to be rectified and reformed than abandoned wholly And thereupon a new conceit was taken up and dispersed abroad unto this effect That after the Resurrection Christ should have an Earthly Kingdom the principal Seat whereof should be Hierusalem Hierusalem new built of gold and most precious stones Hierusalem aurea gemmata as St. Hierom calleth it in which the Saints should reign with him for a Thousand years in all manner of happiness and after that accompany him to the Heaven of Heavens and there live for ever This was the sum of the Opinion thus refined and rectified But for the Readers satisfaction and my own together I shall describe it more at large that we may see the better what we are to think of it and therein I shall follow Lactantius chiefly who hath more copionsly presented the true state thereof than any other of the Antients By him we are informed that after the destruction of the Roman Empire which must be utterly subverted before any of these things shall come to pass there shall follow great plagues unseasonable weather a general mortality of all living Creatures many strange Prodigies in the Air the Stars fall down from Heaven and the whole course of nature shall be out of order Things being in this dreadful state the Lord shall send into the world the great Prophet Elias who shall convert many unto God with great signs and wonders but in the midle of his work Antichrist shall arise out of Syria encounter with that great Prophet kill him in the Fight leaving him for three daies unburied after which time he shall revive and be taken up into Heaven After this shall presently ensue a terrible persecution of those righteous persons who will not worship this proud Tyrant calling himself the Son of God and practicing to seduce the people after the working of Satan by power and signs and lying wonders insomuch that all the Saints shall be compelled to retire themselves into the Wilderness and there abide in great distress calling continually for help to the Lord their God For their relief Christ shall descend at last with the Hosts of Heaven fight with this dreadful Tyrant overthrow him often and finally take him and his Confederates Prisoners whom he shall presently condemn to their merited torments Then shall the graves be opened and the bodies of the Saints shall arise and stand before the Iudgement seat of Christ the Conqueror and being united to their souls shall be incorporated with those righteous persons which are found alive and both together constitute an earthly Kingdom to our Lord and Saviour who shall reign over them or with them rather for a Thousand years triumphing over the remainder of their mortal Enemies who shall not be extinguished but preserved to perpetual slavery During this time the Devil shall be bound in chains that he do not hurt the Saints inhabiting the holy City in all peace and happiness the Sun shall shew more glorious than ever formerly the Earth become more fruitful than it was before producing most delicious fruits of its own accord the Rocks shall yeeld the sweetest hony and all the Rivers flow with Milk and Wine After which Thousand years expired the Devil that old Murderer shall get loose again stir up the Nations of the Earth to destroy the Saints and not onely lay siege unto the holy City But fire and hail and tempests from the Heavens above shall make so general and terrible a destruction of them that for Seven years there shall no other wood be burat but their Spears and Targets Then shall the Saints be brought into the presence of Almighty God whom they shall serve for evermore and at the same time shall be the Second and most general Resurrection in which the wicked shall be raised to eternal torments and damned for ever to the lake of fire and brimstone This is the substance of the Story as Lactantius telleth it which whether it have more of the Iew or of the Poet in it it is hard to say That of the great defeat of Antichrist and the burning of the Spears and Shields for Seven years together is branded by St. Hierom for a peece of an old Talmudical Tale the Iewish Rabbins making the like endless fables interminabiles fabulas as the Father calleth them of Gog and Magog who for a while shall tyrannize so cruelly over those of Israel but be at last subdued and slain with as great an overthrow as he affirmeth of Antichrist and his Confederates That of the flourishing estate of Christs earthly Kingdom was reckoned in those times when it was most countenanced to be but a Poetical fiction Figmenta haec esse Poetarum quidam putant as Lactantius doth himself acknowledge And more than so he seemeth to refer his Reader for a further description of this Kingdom to the works of the Poets affirming positively that all those characters shall be verified of this Kingdom of Christ I mean this Millenarian Kingdom Quae Poetae aureis temporibus facta esse dixerunt which by the Poets are affabulated of the golden age for proof whereof for fear we should not take his word he puts down a description of it out of Virgils works But in my minde his own description of it comes more near to Ovids who thus concludes his Map or Character of that blessed time Mox etiam fruges Tellus inarata ferebat Nec renovatus Ager gravidis canebat aristis Flumina tum Lactis tum flumina Nectaris ibant Flavaque de viridi stillabant Ilice Mella Which is thus Englished by Geo. Sandys The fruitful Earth Corn un-manured bears And every year renews her golden Ears With Milk and Nectar were the Rivers fill'd And yellow Honey from green Elmes distill'd But whether it were Iewish or Poetical or compounded of both the fancy being once taken up proved very acceptable as it seems in those elder times to most sorts of people both in the East and Western Churches who did
did eat drink and sit down together at the self-same Table And therefore unto these and such Texts as these which speak of eating and drinking or sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Heaven there cannot be given a better answer than that which Christ returned to the captious Saduces viz. That in the Kingdom of Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God And if they are as the Angels of God there shall be neither eating nor drinking then we are sure of that Nor is it like that glorified and immortal Bodies alimoniis terrenis sustentanda sint can be sustained with corruptible and earthly food For as Ierom very well inferreth Vbi cibus sequuntur morbi c. Where there is meat there will be sickness where there is sickness death will follow and after that another Resurrection is to be expected and then another thousand years to be added to that Et sic de coeteris As for those passages alleged from the Revelation if they be literally understood they seem to be expresly for the Millenarians but then withal it draweth after it such inconsequences as plainly overthrow their whole foundation For I hope they will provide themselves of a better Supper Than to eat the flesh of Kings and the flesh of Captains and the flesh of Mighty-men and the flesh of Horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both bond and free and small and great Such chear and such an earthly paradise as they seem to dream of will agree but ill I must desire to be excused for calling it a Dream of an earthly paradise for I am verily perswaded that it is no other It hangs upon such doubtful proofs and is so differently reported by the Patrons of it that never sick-mans dream was more incoherent Which that we may the better see and see withal how every one added somewhat of his own unto it according as the strength or weakness of his fancy led him I shall put down a memorable passage of Gennadius which most fully speaks it In divinis repromissionibus nihil terrenum vel transitorium expectamus sicut Melitani sperant Non nuptiarum copulam sicut Cerinthus Marcus delirant Non quod ad cibum vel ad potum pertinet sicut Papiae Autori Irenaeus Tertullianus Lactantius acquiescunt Neque per mille Annos Resurrectionem regnum Christi in terra futurum Sanctos cum illo in deliciis regnaturos speramus sicut Nepos docuit qui primam justorum Resurrectionem secundam impiorum confinxit By which we see that Melito did fancy onely a transitory and earthly Kingdom Cerinthus and Marcus introduced the use of the marriage-bed Papias seemed to be content with eating and drinking and Nepos found out the distinction to make all compleat between the first and second Resurrection making the first to be onely of the just and righteous the second of the wicked and impenitent sinner after the end or expiration of the thousand years This is the Genealogie or Pedigree of this Opinion which hath of late begun to revive among us and findes not onely many followers but some Champions also Whom I desire more seriously to consider in their better thoughts whether this their supposed Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour commended to the world by some Antient Writers gave not the first hint unto Mahomets Paradise In which he promiseth to those who observe his Law most delicious dwellings adorned with flowery Fields watered with Chrystalline Rivers and beautified with Trees of Gold under whose comfortable shade they shall spend their time with amorous Virgins and be possessed of all voluptuous delights which to a sensual minded-man are the greatest happiness I know that some of late times and of eminent note have given us this opinion in a better dress delivering upon probable grounds That before the end of the world there shall be a time in which the Church of Christ shall flourish for a thousand years in greater purity and power both for faith and manners and in more outward lustre and external glory than hitherto it hath done in all former ages Coelius Secundus Curio in his Book De Amplitudine Regni Dei P. Cunaeus in that De Repub. Iudaeorum Du Moulin in his Christian Combat Piscator in his Comment on the Revelation Alstedius in a Tract of his called Diatribe de mille Annis Apocalypticis and divers others not inferior unto them for parts and learning have declared for it And for my part I see no danger in assenting to it If this will satisfie the Millenarians they shall take me with them but if they stand too stifly to their former tendries and look not for this flourishing time of the Gospel till the Resurrection of the just be first accomplished and then expect to have their part and portion in the pleasures of it I must then leave them to themselves The method of my Creed doth perswade me otherwise which from the Resurrection of the Body leads me on immediately unto the joys and glories of eternal everlasting life to which now I hasten I know it doth much trouble many pious and sober men to finde the force and efficacy of our Saviours Argument in the place foregoing which seems more plainly to assert the Immortality of the Soul than the Resurrection of the Body the bodies of Abraham Isaac and Iacob being dissolved into dust in the time of Moses though their souls were living with their God Concerning which we are to know 1. That the Sadduces by whom this Question was propounded did not alone deny the Resurrection of the dead but so as to affirm withal Animas cum corporibus extingui That the Soul it self did also perish with the body as Iosephus tells us They said that there was neither Angel nor Spirit as St. Luke says of them 2. That though the Pharisees who were their opposite faction in the latter end of the Iewish state did grant a Resurrection or Reviviscency from the dead yet was it after such an Animal and Carnal sense in eating drinking and conversing with women In qua cibo potu opus esset conjugia rursum jungerentur c. saith my Author of them as the Mahometans now dream of in their sensual paradise And against this absurd opinion as indeed it was the Sadduces had found out that Argument about a woman which had or might have had seven Husbands by the Law of Moses whose writings onely they received as Canonical Scripture desiring to be satisfied in their curiosity to which of the seven she should be wife at the Resurrection Which when the Pharisees could not answer as keeping to those principles indeed they could not they thought to put our Saviour to it at the self-same weapon But they found there another manner of Spirit than what had spoken to them by and
a loud voyce saying How long O Lord holy and true delayest thou to judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell on the earth And of this nature is that passage in St. Lukes Gospel though perhaps it be but Parabolical in which the Soul of Lazarus is carryed into Abrahams bosome as soon as it had left his body So that the wonder is the greater if the tale be true that Paul the third a Christian and a Christian Prelate one of the Popes of Rome in these later Ages should make doubt hereof as they say he did Of whom it is reported that lying on his death-bed he should say to the standers by That he should shortly be assured of three particulars of which he had not been resolved all the time of his life that is to say Whether there were a God Such a place as Hell or That the souls of men were immortal or not A speech which hath so much of the Atheist in it that Christian charity forbids me to give credit to it though possibly his course of life as to say truth he was a man that sought his own ends more than the glory of God might give occasion to the world to report so of him And yet I must confesse my charity is not so perfect as not to beleeve the like report of Pope Iohn the three and twentieth who lived in safer times than this Paul the third and might take liberty to speak whatsoever he thought without fear of giving any advantage to an opposite party For he indeed as it is charged against him in the Council of Constance was of opinion that the Soul of man did die with his body like that of beasts And did not onely hold it as his own opinion but pertinaciously maintained it Quin imo dixit pertinaciter credidit Animam hominis cum corpore humano mori extingui ad instar animalium brutorum as the Council hath it Some who were called Arabici in the former times held the self same error as Eusebius telleth us for which they were accounted for no better than Hereticks and put into the Catalogue of Hereticks of St. Augustines making And yet upon a Disputation which they had with Origen they did desert their error and recant it too the story of which Nicephorus reports at large A Pope may hold the same opinion and pertinaciously maintain it against all Opponents and yet we must not say that he is an Heretick no take heed of that That were to trench too deep upon the privileges of St. Peters Chair But what need any proof be brought from the Word of God to prove the immortality of the Soul of man which was a truth confessed by the very Gentiles who saw no more than what was represented to them by the light of Nature and the dull spectacles of Philosophy By Plato one of the sagest of them it was affirmed expresly and in positive terms who useth also many Arguments in defence thereof Which Arguments though they seem too short to some Christian writers to come up close unto the point yet they approve his judgment in it confessing that De immortalitate animae verum sentiret he held the very truth in that particular But before him Pythagoras and Pherecides did affirm the same although Pythagoras for his part went a way by himself touching the passing of the Soul into other Bodies Transire animas in nova corpora as mine Author hath it It is true that Aristotle seemed to be doubtful of it and problematically sometimes to dispute against it though other-whiles the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternal and immortal do escape his pen. Nor was it positively denied by any in the Heroick times of learning save onely by Dicearchus Democritus and the Sect of Epicures who placing the chief happiness or summum bonum in corporal pleasures were as it were ingaged to cry down the Soul And yet Lucretius an old Poet and a principal stickler of that Sect doth now and then let fall some unluckly passages which utterly overthrow his cause As this for one Cedit item â—etro de terra quod fuit ante In terras quod missum est ex aetheris oris Id rursum Coeli fulgentia templa receptant Which may be briefly Englished in these two lines To Earth that goes which from the Earth was given And to Joves house that part which came from Heaven In this Lucretius did agree with that of Hermes or Mercurius sirnamed Trismegistus who makes man to consist of two principal parts as indeed he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one mortal which is the body and the other immortal which is the soul And of the same opinion was Apollo Milesius and the Sibylline Oracles both which are cited by Lactantius l. 7. c. 13. and Cap. 18.20 But what need more be said in so clear a case when Tacitus reporteth it for the general opinion of all knowing men Cum corpore non extingui magnas animas That the Souls of great and gallant persons were not extinguished with their Bodies Were it not so the Body were in better case than the Soul by far and of more continuance which doth not onely remain a Body for a while as before it was entire and uncorrupted after the Soul is taken from it but by embowelling imbalming and such helps of Art may be preserved from putrifaction many ages together Which Reasons and Authorities of so many Writers and the general consent of all learned men in the times before him prevailed so far at last on one Aristoxemus that finding no way to decry the Souls immortality he fell into a grosser error Negando ullam omnino esse animam denying that there was any Soul at all Quo nihil dici delirius potest than which a greater dotage could not be imagined as it is very justly censured by Lactantius And yet as great a dotage as it seemed to him though coming from the mouth or pen of an Heathen-man hath been revived again in these times of Liberty and a Book printed with the title of Mans Mortality wherein the Author whosoever he was doth endeavor to prove That the whole man as a rational Creature is wholly mortal contrary to that common distinction of Soul and Body Which if it be not the dotage of that Aristoxemus is questionless the Heresie of the old Arabici This Author teaching that our immortality beginneth at the Resurrection at the general judgment and they that the Soul of man dying with the Body de coetero ad immortalitatem transituram was from thenceforth to pass into immortality Such is the infelicity of the times we live in that the more gross the heresie and the more condemned by those great lights of learning in the former times the better entertainment it is sure to finde with unknowing men I purpose not to make an exact discourse
doth exclude a Metaphor Nor do there want good Reasons to confirm this truth against the cavils and exceptions of unquiet men For first considering that the fire of Hell is so often threatned in the Scriptures to ungodly men unless we hold fast to this good old Rule in expounding Scripture to take it in the literal sense according as the native meaning of the words import but where the same may be against the truth of faith and honesty of manners it is St. Augustines Rule we shall leave nothing safe nor sound in the Book of God And then it is to be considered That Christ our Saviour shall pronounce this sentence in the day judgment Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Which if it be not spoken in the literal sense according to the plain meaning of the words neither the guilty can perceive what they are to suffer nor the Ministers what they are to execute nor the Saints what belongs to them to approve and applaud but all things will be left in most strange perplexities Besides it was the custom of our Lord and Saviour when he had spoken to the Iews in Tropes and Parables to make an exposition of them to his own Disciples and in that exposition to speak so plainly that every one might be able to understand him As in the Parables of the Tares and the Casting Net delivered in the thirteenth of St. Matthews Gospel the Disciples understood not what he meant by either but were as ignorant of his scope and purpose as the rest of the Iews But when he did expound himself unto them in private touching the sending of his Angels in the day of judgment to sever the wicked from the just and to cast them being severed so into the furnace of fire and then demanded if they understood what was said unto them they made answer yea It must not therefore be a Metaphor but a proper Speech by which our Saviour Christ did expound his meaning and open the obscurity of the said two Parables for to expound a Parable by a Trope or Metaphor had neither been agreeable to our Saviours goodness nor any way conducing to their Edification So then the fire of Hell shall be true and real not Figurative and Metaphorical and as it is a real fire a devouring fire so is it ignis inextinguibilis an unquenchable fire in the third and ignis aeternus an everlasting fire in the five and twentieth of Matthew The smoke whereof goeth up for ever saith the Prophet Isaiah A fire which feedeth both on the body and the soul yet shall never consume them and such a fire as breeds a kinde of worm within it which shall never die but always gnaw upon the conscience of the man condemned and create far more anguish to him than all bodily torments And of this worm it is which St. Basil speaketh where reckoning up the terrors which shall be presented to the wicked in the day of judgment amongst them he recounteth a darkish fire which though it hath lost his light shall retain its burning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a most venemous kinde of worm feeding on flesh and raising intolerable torments with continual biting See to this purpose also that of Gregory Nyssen in his Homily De Resurrectione Christi nor is it thus delivered in the writings of the Christians onely Iosephus also hath the like a Iew but a learned and a modest Iew in an Oration of his which he made to the Grecians not extant in his works indeed but mentioned by Damascene and preserved by Zonaras For speaking also his opinion of the final judgment to be executed by the Messiah in the last day he saith That there remaineth for the lovers of wickedness an unquenchable and never ending fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And a fiery worm not dying nor destroying the body but breaking forth of the body with unceasing anguish And to this truth as to the miserable state of those in Hell all the old Catholick Doctors do attest unanimously whether Greeks or Latines Tatianus one of the most antientest of the Grecian Doctors calleth the estate of the damned in Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a death which never dieth an immortal misery Tertullian the most antient Latin Cruciatum non diuturnum sed sempiternum Not onely a long and lingring torrant but an everlasting one St. Augustine answerably unto that of Tatianus doth call it Mortem sine morte adding more over of those sires Punire non finire corpora that they torment the body but destroy it not Tertullian he goeth further yet saith That it burns the body but repairs it also and calls it poenam nutrientem A fire which so devoureth that it also nourisheth With him Lactantius doth consent so also doth Minutius Felix Prudentius Cassiodorus and indeed who not And why should this be thought a wonder so far beyond the reason and belief of a meer natural man or such who taking on themselves the names of Christians will yet believe no more than will stand with reason Doth not the Scripture tell us of a burning bush a bush that burned with the fire and was not consumed And the Historians of the Hills of Aetna and Vesuvius which do almost continually send out dreadful flames and yet never waste And the Philosophers of a Worm or Beast which they call the Salamander whose natural habitation is in the midst of the fire and the Poets of Prometheus and Titius Vultures which having fed so many hundred years upon their Bowels had not yet devoured them Doth not experience tell us daily That the lightning glanceth on our Bodies often but doth seldom hurt us And doth not Ovid say expresly Nec mortis poenas mors altera finiet hujus That there is a second death which shall never end yet I confess that the prevailing Heresie which pretends to such wit and piety hath no small reason to declare Interire posse animas aut ab exitio liberari That the souls of wicked and impenitent men shall either be annihilated or in fine released For we may safely say of these new Pretenders as once Minutius did of the old Philosophers Malunt penitus extingui quam ad supplicia reparari Considering how they have subverted all the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith it is all the reason in the world that they should rather wish to be annihilated than survive to torments such torments as shall know neither end nor measure BUt blessed JESUS why do we waste our time in such nice disputes in proving and disproving points of so clear an evidence which were much better spent in pursutes of those ways and courses by which we might have hope to flie from the wrath to come Thou Lord hast set before us both Heaven and Hell commandest us to choose the one and avoid the other and tracedst
antient Romans when any of their Generals did return victorious against a powerful and considerable enemy to honour him with a Triumphant reception into the City of Rome The pomp and manner of which was that the General apparelled in a garment of state called Trabea or Vestis Triumphalis and having on his head a garland of lawrel and sometimes a Crown of gold which the Senate had bestowed upon him was carried in a rich and open Chariot the Senators and others of the principal Citizens going forth to meet him and conduct him in the spoyls and treasures gotten in the war passing on before the souldiers with their Coronets their bracelets and other militarie rewards following next the General and in the Rere of all those miserable men whether Kings or others whom the unlucky chance of war had now made Captives Examples of this kinde in the Roman stories are obvious to the eye of every Reader And such as this if I may safely venture upon such comparisons is the Ascension of the Lord described to be by the Royal Psalmist He made a chariot of the clouds and so ascended up on the wings of the winde apparelled in the Robe of his own righteousness more glorious then a Rayment of needlework wrought about with divers colours and having on his head that Crown of eternal Majesty which the Lord God his Heavenly Father had conferred upon him in testimony of that Soveraign power over Heaven and Earth which he since hath exercised But of this we shall speak more anone To make his entrance into Heaven the more magnificent the Blessed Angels those great Citizens of the new Hierusalem did attend upon him conducting him into the place of endless glories as erst they had done Lazarus into Abrahams bosome St. Austin so affirmed it saying Sublatus est Christus in manibus Angelorum c. The Lord was carryed up by the hands of Angels when he ascended into Heaven not that he would have fallen had not they supported but that they might serve him in that work so saith St. Athanasius for the Greek Church also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that being carryed up by Angels he ascended thither as man and took our flesh upon him into Heaven St. Cyprian saith that though he did not need the Angels to support or carry him yet that they did attend him in that glorious triumph and praecedentes subsequentes applaudebant victori And thereto Nazianzen agrees also if Christ ascend saith he to Heaven ascend thou with him and joyn thy self unto the Angels which did accompany him or receive him Take which of these you will and we finde the Angles to have no small part in our Saviours Triumph And certainly it stood with reason that they who had ministred unto him in the whole course of life when he did seem to be in disgrace and poverty should have the honour to attend him in the time of his glories and if we do observe it well we shall finde no special passage of our Saviours life in which the blessed Angels did not do him service An Angel served to usher in his incarnation to proclaim his birth unto the Shepheards to join in consort with the rest of the Quire of Heaven and sing the Anthem of Gloria in excelsis Deo No sooner was he born but all the Angels of the Lord did adore and worship him saith St. Paul to the Hebrews when he had overcome the Devil in the Wilderness the Angels came and ministred unto him as St. Matthew hath it and being at his last conflict with him in the garden of Gethsamene an Angel of the Lord did come down to comfort him To testifie unto the truth of his resurrection we have two Angels cloathed in white proclaiming this glad news that the Lord was risen and here we have two men in white which were Angels doubtlesse assuring the Apostles of their Lords ascension Not that there were no more then two because no more spoke of but that two only staid behinde to testifie unto the truth of so great a miracle Who as they also certifyed them in the way of prediction that in the same manner as he went from thence into heaven he should return again in the day of judgment so in that day they shall not only wait upon him but have their speciall place and ministry as we shall see hereafter in the following Article But in our Saviours train there were more then Angels To make this triumph answerable to the former Platforme there must be Souldiers also to attend his Chariot which must receive their severall rewards and crowns for their well deservings and captives there must be to be led in triumph and to be made a spectacle unto men and Angels And so there was Ignatius telleth us in plain termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went down to hell alone but he ascended to his father with a great train after him And before him Thaddeus whom St. Thomas the Apostle sent to the Prince of Edessa used the self same words More company there was then than the holy Angels of more sorts at least for those of whom Thaddeus and Ignatius spake were such as did ascend from the parts below but who these were hath been a matter much disputed in these latter times Shall we affirme as generally the Papists do that they were the souls of the Fathers who died under the Law whom our redeemer brought from Limbo when he went down into hell I thinke we need not be reduced into that straight neither And as for my opinion in that point it hath been shewn already in another place All I shall add now in brief is this that they which did ascend in our Saviours train and made up a great part of his glorious triumph were either his Souldiers or his Captives His Souldiers I call those of the Saints departed whose graves were opened at the time of his resurrection who being united to their bodies rose and came out of the their graves and went into the holy City and appeared unto many It was not probable that they were raised from the dead to die again much lesse to be left wandering up and down the earth as if they had no certain ubi to repair unto Nor could they ascend into the heavens before our Saviour who as in all things so in that also was to have the preeminence They must then ascend with him as a part of his train and go in with the Bridegroome as the wise Virgins did when the doors were open For my part I can see no reason why being made partakers of his resurrection they should be rejected or cast off at his ascension That they were Saints whose bodies had been raised by so great a miracle is affirmed expressely in the text and therfore were in some possession of the heavenly glories And that their bodies had been putrefyed
and some of them perhaps reduced to their primitive dust is more then probable for the text speaks of them as of men which had long been dead Now why a glorifyed soul should be re-united to a corrupt and putrefyed although new raised body unlesse it were to raise that body also to a share of glory I plainly must confesse I can see no reason Some of the Saints then as his Souldiers did attend this Pomp I take that for granted And I conceive it probable for I goe no further that every Saint or Souldier had his Crown or Coronet bestowed upon them by their Generall in testimony that they had fought a good fight against sinne and Satan For though in common course the Saints and servants of the Lord shall not have their Crowns untill the generall day of judgment yet here in this particular case it might be otherwise by speciall priviledge and extraordinary dispensation Next to the Saints and Souldiers look we on the Captives of whom the Psalmist and St. Paul both do expressely speak Duxit captivam captivitatem He led captivity captive saith the holy Scripture But who these captives were and what this captivity will aske a little more paines to declare aright though somewhat hath been said in this point before We shewed you in our Commentaries on the former Articles that by the unanimous consent of all the Fathers our Saviour spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell when he went down thither and there took captive both the Devill and his evill Angels The shewing of them openly and triumphing over them the leading of them captive when they were so taken that doubtlesse was the work of another day that was the work of the Ascension When he ascended up on high then not before he led them captive and when he led them captive then he triumphed over them The victory he obtained before now he made his triumph The great Battel which Paulus Aemilius won of Perseus the Macedonian did shrewdly shake the main foundations of his power and Empire the victory was not perfected nor the Realme subdued and made a Tributary Province of the state of Rome untill the King himself was taken in the Isle of Samothrace to which he had retired as his strongest hold immediately on his defeat near the City of Pidna The triumph followed not till after when he made his entrie into Rome the imperiall City the miserable King and all the flower of his Nobility being led like Captives in their chaines and doomed unto perpetuall prison And this saith the Historian was interpulcherrimos the happiest and most stately triumph that the Roman people ever saw the victory having also been of the greatest consequence So in this case The first main Battell after some previous skirmishes and velitations which our Redeemer sought with Satan was upon the Crosse in which he seemed for a time to have had the worse But it was only for a time For by his death saith the Apostle he overcame him which had power of death which was the Devill That was the first great blow which the Devill had But the victory was not perfected nor the Empire of the Prince of darknesse broke in pieces and brought under the command of the Son of man till he mastred hell it self and forced the Devill and his Angels in their strongest hold Then came he to demand his triumph at the hands of God who received him into heaven with the greatest glory that ever had been seen by the heavenly Citizens the Devill and rest of the powers of hell being led bound in chaines in triumphant wise whom he flung off as soon as he approached near the gates of Heaven and hath ever since reserved in chains under darknesse to the judgment of the great and terrible day If you will see this triumph set down more at large we have it in the 13. of the Prophet Hosea and out of him in St. Pauls first to the Corinthians death led captive without his sting Hell broken and defaced like the picture of a conquered City the strength of sinne the Law rent and fastned to his Crosse ensigne-wise the Serpents head broken and so born before him as was Goliahs head by David when he came from the victory Never so great a victory such a glorious triumph as that of Christ in his Ascension when having spoyled the Principalities and powers of hell he led this captivity captive in his march to Heaven making a shew of them openly unto men and Angels and triumphing over them in semet ipso in his own person saith the vulgar Reddunt inferna victorem superna suscipiunt triumphantem Hell restored him back a Conquerour and Heaven received him a Triumpher as faith St. Angustine happily if the work be his But there were other Captives which adorned this triumph besides the Devill and his Angels even the sons of men The Devill first began the war with our Father Adam foyled him in Paradise and made him of a Prince to become a Prisoner a slave to his own lusts and and loose affections And he prevailed so far upon his posterity that he brought all mankinde in a manner under his dominion their sins and wickednesses being grown unto such an height that God repented him at last of mans creation It angred him saith the text at the very heart David complained in his time that there was none that did good no not one and when the son of David came upon the Theatre he found the seed of Abraham so degenerated that they were become the slaves of Satan at best the children of the Devill as himself affirmed In this estate we were the whole race of man when with a mighty hand and an outstretched arme our Saviour Christ encountred with the powers of darknesse and subdued them all By this great victory of Christ over sin and Satan the Devill was not only taken and made a Captive but all mankinde even that captivity which was captive under him became his Prisoners jure belli even by the common law of war as being before part of the Devils goods of his train and vassalage So true is that of Aristotle in his book of Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those which are taken in the warres are in the power and at the pleasure of the Conquerour The Fathers many of them look this way directly but none more plainly to this purpose then Dorotheus an old Orthodox writer and he states it thus What means saith he the leading of captivitie captive And then he answereth It meaneth that by Adams transgression the enemie had made us all captives and held us in subjection and that Christ took us again out of the enemies hands and conquered him who kept us captive So that the case of mankinde in this double captivitie was like that of Lot whom the five Kings when they took Sodom carried Prisoner with them Lot was then Captive to those Kings