proved-first from the opposition that is between the life of a beast and a man A beasts life perisheth because it ends in the sensitive facultie whose organs being destroied their life is at an end for they cannot work beyond the sensitive faculty because they want reason and understanding Psal 32.9 Be not like the horse that hath no understanding or reason and you may see they have none because all creatures of the same kind work alike in all they do as the swallowes build all alike and the spiders weave all alike and beyond it they cannot proceed but mans operation is divers one from another Beside the desires of the creature is not to any eternity but to the present preservation of it selfe and it kind but mans desires reach higher So the delight of a beast is meerly in things sensuall and therefore it acteth only by the body because life is setled only in the blood Levit. 17.11 but man can delight in things beyond all sense naturall 1 Pet. 1.8 as to beleeve in Christ whom they have not yet seen And indeed if mans soule were not immortall then it might desire things beyond it selfe and so all its desires should be frustrate which is contrary to the end of natures operation who hath made nothing in vain and therefore whatsoever the soul doth naturally desire without sin is to be had either here or hereafter and therefore if the soule have a defire to be happy and free from misery or to have a being when the body is dissolved certainly it floweth from the immortality of its nature A shadowe whereof appears in mans desire to live in memory or in posterity in buildings or purchases Psal 49.12 and 2 Sam. 18.18 2. We find the soule to be incorporeall for it can comprehend things not only singular but universall and the kinds of all things 3. It is immortall that it may receive the justice of God which it hath not here for here the wicked flourish Ier. 12. as Dives did Luke 15. thou hadst thy pleasures and Lazarus pains 4. Beside it appears also by Gods covenant with his people it being everlasting they must also be so or else the covenant ceaseth to be but they never cease to exist as Mat. 22.32 all live to God he is God of the living of those soules that are bound up in the bundle of life 2 Sam. 25.29 with the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 Mathe. How is the soul united to the body Phila. By Gods divine concurrence in generation which being mans form doth by its two faculties of sense and vegetation in forty daies prepare the matter to receive its quickning power and so body and soule make one person the soule being so united to it as that the body can neither live nor be called man without it And her being in the body is wonderfull not as a man in his house which will stand though the man go out nor as a spider in the web who setting in the center of it feeleth the touch of every cord But as the light diffuseth it selfe through the whole aire and is neither corrupted nor divided so is the soule whole in the whole body and whole in every part of it and as the Sun hath divers operations in divers parts of the world making spring in one place and harvest in another so doth the soule work diversly in our body by attraction decoction quickning and making us to grow And by this union doth only animate that body in which it is nor can it any other as some learned have thought Pythag. and the Jewes as John 1.21 For every body of the same kind is determined to his own soul nor can receive any other nor can the soul animat any other body but its own to which it is determined therefore when separated they long for their own bodies Rev. 6.10 Mathe. What is the Image of God in man Phila. Some qualities that have analogy and bear some likeness with God and that was holy knowledge righteousnesse and dominion For you must know that this image was not Gods personall image for that is Christ as Heb. 1.1 2. but his essentiall Image and therefore saith he let us make man after our image not my image i. the image of God in Trinity but by regeneration he shall be conformed to his personall image that is unto Christ as Rom. 8. those whom he foreknew them he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son 2. That this image consisted not in bodily shape for God hath none nor to his perfect image but that he was made according to Gods image formally that is to the example that God purposed in his mind nor was he obsignated and sealed with the holy spirit by the grace of perseverance for then he could not have fallen But he was created in holinesse negatively as being no way guilty of vain knowledge nor injustice nor to slavery subjected Therefore St Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. that he was made but a living soule i. possible to live ever and to get children to the same image but could not convey to them any quickning grace to make them certain of ever standing but the second Adam was made a quickning spirit to perform that Mathe. To what end did God make man thus Phila. Surely that he might glorifie him by having respect to him that made him like a circle which is a most perfect figure because it returns to the point from whence it was first deduced All good men are like this but those that run strait on from and return not are in the way to hell God crieth to us to return O Shulamite return because he being a most wise spirit thought fit among all the creatures to have one kind of understanding creature that might return to him by praise and honour of him not passively as the common creature sets forth his praise occasionally but actively and directly to give him the honour due unto his name with our heart tongue and life Mathe. If the soule hath no existence till by generation and by Gods concurrence it be united to the body what existence hath it after death when it is separated from the body I conceive not Phila. God having an immediate act in the souls production though by propagation it cannot be dissolved but by that power who gave it first a beginning Now though he for sin dissolveth the body which consisteth of naturall principles for a while till he reunites it again to the soule at the resurrection in a greater perfection yet we read not that he doth so to the souls but they live to him who is not the God of the dead but of the living souls which cannot die though congenerated with the body through Gods powerfull efficacy the parents mediating the union And therefore as it is a spirituall being it may very well exist after separation from the body and live and understand though not as it did
no eternall happinesse God had made man in vain with so vast a mind which no finite thing can satisfie and then there must be a way to this happinesse or else that happinesse is ordained in vain also for man Mathe. Some think it is not necessary to know any more happiness then nature sheweth and dictates to us Phila. Nature sheweth in part that felicity which is necessary for man to know but not fully but as in the wrong end of an optick glass which makes things appear farther off or lesse then they are or else sheweth us a false felicity as in a magnifying or multiplying glasse wherein it appeareth bigger or more then it is all which sheweth there is an happinesse though nature mistakes it or cannot perfectly shew it though it be necessary for us to know it Mathe. How prove you it is necessary for us to know it Phila. 1. Because I have a soule capable of such a knowledge nor is an industrious soule quiet till it find either it or something like it wherein it may find a rest and content Therefore the spirit of a man is the candle of God to search hidden secrets Pro. 20.27 yea even the things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 and by desire a man having separated himselfe seeks and intermedleth with all wisedome Pro. 18.1 2. Because man is made for it God intended him for happinesse For as the world was made that God might be revealed so God was revealed that man might know him which is felicity God sought to bring man to it first by obedience wherein he failing thereby shewing the mutability of created nature God next set before him the object of beleeving viz. his promise of Christ to know whom in God is life eternall John 17.3 and felicity 3. Because man is a future not only a present creature for he hath a soul which will be existent after death in joy or sorrow and therefore necessary for him to know felicity and to avoid misery Mathe. How prove you that he hath such a soule Phila. From our immortall desires to live either in memory or posterity for ever which argueth the immortall nature of the soule though it be deceived in the choise of it by placing immortality where it is not So Absalom set up his monumentall pillar 2 Sam. 18.18 and some call their lands after their own names Psa 49.12 and men desire tombs which argueth a desire of perpetuall life No creature hath this desire but man for things without life desire to preserve themselves in their particular being Secundum numerum pronunc Vid. Scor. Dist 94. and beasts desire the continuance of their kind only for the present time but man desires a perpetuall being included in no bounds 2. Because it hath a kind of infinit apprehension comprehending singular things and universall things and the kinds of all things which argueth an immortall nature 3. Because God hath made a perpetuall covenant with man Numb 18.19 and therefore the soul hath a continuall being in or out of the body else is the Covenant ended But God is not the God of the dead Mat. 22.32.33 but of the living for all do live to him therefore he cals himselfe the God of the Patriarchs after their death Exod. 3.6 so some in scripture are said to be gathered to their fathers in peace though slaine as 2 Chron. 35. as good Josiah But it is meant to the spirit of the Fathers which were at rest and peace with God bound up in the bundle of life 2 Sam. 25.29 among the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 4. Because men undergo losse and crosse and death without cause joifully which were madnesse if the soule were not immortall and expected after death some felicity to enjoy 1 Cor. 15.19 But many love not their lives that they may find them hereafter Mar. 8.35 5. Because God in the last judgement may shew himselfe just as Gen. 18.23 for in this world good men suffer and evill men flourish Psal 37. Psal 71.2 3. so Jer. 12.1 yet it is but to fat them for the slaughter Jer. 12.3 Therefore the soule is immortall that every man may find the justice of God at last 6. The learned heathen did acknowledge this Arist Cic. Tusc 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling the soul the first motion as if it were the beginning of motion so by their letting an Eagle flie aloft when the bodies of their Heroes were put into the funerall fires It is true that the Scripture saith the soul that sinneth that shall die but the meaning is not that the soul shall be dissolved in his essentiall life but in the relative life to God-ward by whose goodness and mercy it obtaineth an eternall felicity Mathe. But how can I prove that it hath any existence after the death of the body Phila. Because it is distinguished in this by all wise men from the souls or life of bruits for the spirit of a man goeth upward and the spirit of a beast goeth downward Eccles 3.21 And again Eccles 12.7 the dust shall return to the earth and the spirit to God that gave it which returning to God signifies the souls immortality Psallus that is as God alwaies is so the soule is subsisting with God for if the soule be immortall it cannot wax old Phocylid but must live ever so that you must denie the soule to be immortall or else grant that it never dieth But the old Chaldeans and Egyptians shall rise against such Christians whose precept was that a man should make haste to the light and splendors of the Father and to seek Paradise which is the splendid and cleer region of the soule Trismegistus confirms the perpetuall being of the soul Cic. Tusc Pythagoras saith as much and Tully from him Epictetus saith we are the kinsmen of God and return from whence we came Plat. in Phaed. Comment Mor. Zill Hisp in Plat. Plato is more clear then any And St Paul himselfe makes use of Aratus in the Acts saying We are Gods off-spring Acts 17.28 But beside Christ gives us greater light in the point John 3.36 saying He that beleeveth in me hath life eternall and to the thief he said This day thou shalt be with me when as that day both their bodies were dead 2 Cor. 5.1 So St Paul saith We know when this earthly house is dissolved we have a building of God in the heavens He doth not say when this house shall be repaired as at the resurrection but so soon as it is dissolved So in the fifth verse saith he When we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord and therefore are willing to be absent from the body to be present with the Lord therefore he desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ And St Stephen praieth God to receive his spirit But beside all this if we beleeve that any who were raised from death in Scripture
were truly dead then their soule upon departure from the body had a subsisting or else were dissolved into nothing and if dissolved into nothing then they were newly created rather then reunited and so cannot properly be said to be raised but the soule was re-created and re-infused and so being a new something brought out of nothing into which it was dissolved we shall doubt whether they had their own souls again And again if the soul were dissolved at death in vain did Christ warn us not to feare them that kill the body or him that can damn the soul For what damnum or damage can there be to him that after death hath no soul to feel either sorrow of losse or pain of sense Mathe. I pray Sir what think you of the soul and how come we by it and then let me know what principles are left to lead it to felicity Phila. You propound too fast one of these three is enough at once and especially the first to know what the soul is since Christ saith it hath been with us ever since we were born and yet we know not what it is But I suppose he meaneth that we know it not by any perfect knowledge we have of the essence thereof for it is hard to know that by which we know any thing yet we may know it by its operation for no doubt it is an immateriall or spiritual substance which gives man next to God life sense motion and understanding How we came by this soule at first in our first parents must be understood from God who gives beginning to all things but how we have them since may be a question for though he made our first parents by creation yet he makes us mediately by generation of our parents but whether soule and body is a question too and yet we say one man begets another and if the whole man then body and soule but if the body only then is but halfe the man begotten by the parents Some think all souls were at first created Plato and are reserved as in a treasury I know not where and infused at mans generation or when the body is apt to receive them but then it is not the form of man nor doth work in the forming of mans body from his conception if it be not infused till the body be apt for it which they count forty daies after the conception Others Hilary that God creates it of nothing ex tempore upon every occasion of the females conception but then say others God is put to a new creation every day Zanchius Some say that God gives it essence and substance but the parents give it a beginning of being and existence Many or most of the Fathers did judge that it was created of God immediatly and infused yet Saint Augustine makes a stand at it Aug. in epist act Hieron 28. de orig peccato because he finds not how originall sin can be conveied if the soul come not by the parents to the child by propagation for if the body come only from them meer matter is not capable of sin neither is the body alone a person and so no person of man is tainted with originall sin in conception as Psal 51. In sin my mother conceived not my body only but me and if God make the soule of nothing and then infuseth it then it being of it selfe pure by his creation how can it stand with Gods justice to pour it into a tainted body and if the body as meer matter cannot be sinfull nor the soule neither being newly set out of Gods hand then meer uniting cannot make them so and then we shall find no originall sin at all These opinions being not plainly concluded by the Scripture nor the * Yet in Saint Hieromes time the Western Church was much inclined this way Church therefore as we are to hold that which Scripture reason or experience holdeth forth to us most evidently so where such evidence is not we are to hold that which is most probable which if we will not do I see no reason but we must be content without reason Now the Scriptures do not plainly evidence that the soule is immediately created of God and so infused but rather offers it as a thing not altogether from God nor altogether from man as you may see by divers phrases in Scripture as in Gen. 1.27 Be fruitfull and multiply and fill the earth viz. that is with mankind and persons of men as other creatures were to do ver 22. of that Chapter or else Gods word is not so effectuall in man the more excellent creature as it is in the beasts all which he intended by his resting from creating that they should ever persist of themselves and multiply their kinds Of which God gave the first instance when he framed Eve the first woman out of the first man and yet is not said to breath into her as into Adam a breath of life silently arguing that by his power concurring her whole substance was taken from Adam upon whom he had first and originally breathed * Spiraculum animarum the breath of souls as the originall text reads it yet other texts shew us also that God hath an especiall hand in it as Job 10.8 10. and Psal 139.13 15. Thy hands have made me Thou hast covered me in my mothers womb And Jeremy brings in God asserting that he formed him in the womb and Zach. 12.1 It is said God formeth the spirit of a man within him he doth not say creates it of nothing but he brings that into act which was there in the seed Arist but potentially as Aristotle held not much amisse though he leaves it doubtfull whether it be mortall or immortall so that we see both God and man hath an hand in the generation of the whole man together Mathe. I pray make that a little more plain Phila. The Philosophers say that the Sun and man begets man so we may say God and man do propagate mans soule God so far as to make it immortall and man so far as to make it sinfull not that there is any separation in their generation as if the body of the body and the soule of the soule but the whole of the whole through the special and meer immediat act of Gods providence then any in other creatures generation for generation in man sure is of persons not of parts Of which persons God in regard of the soule is the outward efficient and makes parents the procreating cause the materiall cause is spirituall matter of the parents souls which God blowing upon by his power lighteth one flame by another without any division or diminution of that spirituall lamp which is fed with the oile of animall spirits And thus it may be as well propagated as united God concurring in his spirituall power upon the soule to which at first he gave being and making man the instrument to produce it in the
seed Mathe. I pray give some places of Scripture to prove the production and some reasons drawn from thence for many places seem against it Phila. Some seem against it but are not so as Exod. 21.22 c. that a man if he hurt a woman with child and her fruit depart from her and yet mischief or death follow not i. upon the mother then the punishment shal be but a fine or mulct but if mischiefe or death follow then he shall pay life for life Now if this mischiefe or death be understood of the woman this place argueth nothing to the souls production by propagation If it be meant of the child then it must have life and how a reasonable creature can have life without the form of it viz. a reasonable soule I know not therefore the judgement surely was to be made upon the child quickning and so life was to answer for life but whether the soule be not infused before even at the conception is still questionable So Numb 27.16 he is called the God of spirits yet is he not also the God of our bodies yes sure as 1 Cor. 6.20 Glorifie God in your bodies for they are Gods But Eccles 12.7 seemeth to make a greater difference for the body is said there to return to the dust but the spirit to God that gave it yet this proves only the soules immortall estate after death not any immediate creation of it except he relates to Adam whose creation was immediate of dust and his soule immediate from God but our bodies are not so and the question still remains whether the soule be not conveied by Gods speciall concurrence in propagation So Isa 57.16 it is said of God I will not alwaies contend lest the soules that I have made faile before me but that is meant by the generall life of all creatures Beside who knoweth not that God makes us we teach our children so to answer us in their Catechisme because God did it originally and doth it still by his benediction of parentall seed yet we know also that the parents beget the children So Ezek. 18. it is said all souls are mine but that is all persons So Zach. 12.1 It is said God formeth the spirit of man within him which no man will deny but the question is still of what whether of nothing or of the parents substance corporall and spirituall Indeed that place of Zachary intends the first mans forming as we see by his alledging Gods stretching forth of the heavens and laying the foundation of the earth which was at the creation or if he meaneth the souls of men since the creation then by forming cannot â—e understood creating of nothing But you will say that God is called the Father of Spirits in opposition to the fathers of our flesh but the opposition is not made there between God and man or soule and body but between naturall life and casuall correction and spirituall but be it meant of God and naturall parents yet it proves nothing to the souls production for he is the God of our body as well as of our spirits Mathe. But if the soule be of a spirituall substance and nature how can it be propagated in generation Phila. Because it is not propagated after a bodily manner though the whole man begets the whole man for the soule consisting rather of power then parts the propagation of it is by promotion rather than decision nor is the soule so spirituall as to be simply simple for only God is so but hath a spirituall composition though not elementary which the God of spirits can blow up to a flame which kindles presently upon fit matter by vertue of his first word given to the nature of man saying increase and multiply and by his continuall assistance to mans generation Mathe. But generation of souls argueth a corruption of souls and so it is not immortall Phila. It followeth not for the corruption of the soule in propagation is only a mutation from power to act and so is not corrupted by putrefaction but advanced by perfection it is the same as it was but not in the same manner as it was and so the soul propagated is not corrupted nor is the soule propagating corrupted for it is neither divided nor diminished no more then the flame of a lamp is by lighting another Mathe. But if it passe in propagation then if conception faile a soule is lost in the emission of seed for want of conception Phila. Not so for the soule is never procreated but in conception namely when the seed of male and female meet in one together with the efficient power of God concurring with all naturall causes for the production thereof therefore when conceptions faile the soule continueth as it was so in unlawfull copulations with other creatures God not conferring his power no rationall creature is brought forth but the soule remains without communication of it selfe Mathe. But if the soule be so traduced from the parents then from one of them or both and I see not how one soul can be divided nor yet how one soule can be made out of two Phila. It cannot be from one for the seed of neither male nor female alone conteins the matter and form of the creature to be produced but two do make one two in number and sex being united make a third and this is Gods ordinance in nature that mankind should be distinguished into two sexes and by their uniting again the whole kind should be preserved neither is the soule divided because it consists not of parts but powers and therefore the propagation of the soule is not done by decision Zanch. de tribus Elohim p. 2. l. 3. cap. 7. but by operation whereby the same power is effected in another which the soule hath in it selfe yet it is neither annihilated nor diminished because it is a spirituall nature as we understand God to beget his Son and communicates to him his whole essence and yet the Father retains his whole essence And this need not trouble us since we see the forms of other creatures are indivisible as well as mans soule and yet they beget their like without any division of their essentiall forms And for the making of one soule out of two you are to conceive how two in act may make one for man and wife is not only one flesh carnally but their very soules do so cleave together like Jonathan and David that they would become one which because they cannot do they by the assistance of God conspire with the fitnesse of other causes to produce another creature like themselves Athanas de var. p. 16. as flint and steel smote together begets fire which is the next creature that a fervent motion can beget Mathe. When do you judge the soule to be thus traduced Phila. At the first conception no doubt and uniting of the male and female seed the corporall parts whereof although they must have a time to ferment
can there be no ground for imputation and so it cannot passe but by propagation Mathe. But how prove you Christs soule not immediatly created Phila. Because he was to take mans nature body and soule that both by him might be redeemed Therefore he took whole humane nature of the blessed virgin as was promised The seed of the woman shal break the serpents head and Rom. 1.3 He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh Beside if soules and so his soule were immediately created of God then Adams sin must be imputed to him as he was man as well as to us and so he should be a sinner but sin was not imputed to him but only reputed his And then if it came not by immediate creation then it came by formation in the womans seed as ours by propagation And if we understand it not thus that it was immediately formed in the first conception i. when the holy Ghost separated that part of the blessed Virgins seed for his Manhood to the soule whereof the divinity was immediatly united to the body This dilemma will trouble us namely that either his divine nature was united to a bruit body or else the body subsisted by it selfe our of the Divine nature Mathe. But if Christs humane nature were thus formed or propagated I see not yet how he can ever the more escape the taint of originall sin Phila. I suppose you beleeve that he was conceived by the holy Ghost and so the matter of his humane nature was sanctified and purged from that stain Mathe. I beleeve he was conceived by the holy Ghost yet I know not how to beleeve that that conception was sanctifying or purging away of sin from his humane nature nor his humane nature from sin but only a separation and consecration of that part of the blessed Virgins substance to that holy work and endowment of it with all graces fit thereunto For there can be no sanctification without a Mediatour and there is but one Mediator 1 Tim. 2.5 by whose blood all are cleansed from sin yea the holy Ghost cleanseth none but by his blood so that if Christs nature did need sanctification then it also needed a Mediatour and then he must be a Mediatour for himselfe which he could not be for a Mediatour is not a Mediatour of one Phila. You say true and have almost wound your selfe out of this labyrinth For indeed the holy Ghost in this conception did not cleanse Christs nature from sin but did separate that substance which was not sinfull from a sinfull person for a person only is sinfull substance is not Now Christ did not take her person but substance only leaving the accident of sin which adhereth only to a person and so though Christs nature were in Adam and so in the Virgin who was of that sinfull line yet his person was in neither for he was the eternall son of God who in that instant that the humane nature was conceived or separated by the holy Ghost from the blessed Virgin Mary did assume it into himselfe to be one person and thus his nature could never be tainted with originall sin for his humane nature before that was never a person and when it was a person it was propagated not after the ordinary and naturall way and so without sin Nay more the substance of his humane nature though it were sinfull subsisting in the blessed Virgins person yet so it could not be Christs because personality cannot be imparted but it was made his by separation from her by the holy Ghost and his own immediate assumption and so great is the mystery of Godlinesse 1 Tim. 1.16 The not conceiving this rightly made the Marcionites and Manicheans say Christ had no true body and Apollinaris to say he had no humane soule Mathe. I thank you for these solutions but yet one thing stichs namely how the soule can be said to be immortall if it be propagated Phila. Consider that mortality proceeds not from generation so much as malediction of God for Adams sin who if he had not sinned his body might have been as immortall as the soule so that the propagation of the soule doth not make it meerly mortall but the act of Gods immediate power in the production of it makes it immortall because whatsoever is so produced cannot be dissolv'd but by the same power by which it first took life though the body may because it is bred only by the power of nature beside the soule is not made of any corporall matter and therefore is not corruptible though congenerate with the body Mathe. Now being somewhat satisfied about the soule I pray tell what principles are there to lead it to felicity Phila. Some principles there be which God hath given to nature and left in nature to seek felicity but as some know what happinesse is so others make no use of those principles Mathe. I pray what is felicity Phila. Mans soveraign and chiefest good consisteth in the enjoiment of God which confers to man concurrence of all good without any contrarieties which is opposed to that misery into which he is fallen by the first mans sin namely blindnesse of mind fondnesse of affection stubbornnesse of will inclineablenesse to all evill way wardnesse from all good for which cause we are subjected to vanity corruptibilitie all miseries of body and soul temporal and eternall death and damnation Now mans felicity is an estate contrary to all these After this many learned Philosophers searched but could not find it and why Because they knew not God from whom it proceeds and is the giver of it by redeeming man from all misery and from death to life by his free grace in Christ which is life eternall and true felicity to know aright John 17.3 Mathe. What principles lead thereunto Phila. Not the principles of nature only for they teach no further than there is a felicity but not what it is which made the Philosophers in such a labyrinth about it some placing it in pleasure some in poverty Vid. Varro some in knowledge some in riches some in honours as many people doe now For as some aim at no end or mark at all but like foolish children shoot their arrowes up in the aire some aim at a bad end in which can be no happinesse some at a seeming good which is not good in it selfe some at felicity in generall but go blindly and lamely about it wanting right leading principles The principles are such therefore as God hath revealed who is in himselfe the chiefest good and therefore can best ordaine the way whereby man may enjoy him This way is set down in the holy Scriptures for which Scriptures sake the world was made that so in time that might be revealed Polanus which in God was hidden at the beginning namely that Christ should come and redeem mankind from the wrath of God the slavery of Satan and the dominion of sin and death which
the people but thrice in the name of the Lord Deut. 6.24 The Lord bless thee and keep thee intimating the protection and providence of the Father 2. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee i. in pardoning thy sin by the gracious redemption and favour of the Son well expressed by St Paul 2 Cor. 4.6 calling it the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 3. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon thee and give thee peace i. the joy of the Holy Ghost and peace of conscience in gods promise which the Holy Ghost sealeth to us Eph. 1.13 So the Seraphins pronounced God thrice Holy Holy Holy Esa 6.3 So we see in Christs baptisme 1. The Father speaking from heaven 2. The spirit descending and 3. The Son suscepting baptisme Mat. 3.16 And our Savivour affirms but three persons John 16.36 saying when the Comforter is come i. the Holy Ghost whom I will send i I the Son who proceedeth from the Father i. the first person Mathe. Is there any reason to prove this Phila. As much as any reasonable man can desire and that is the impressions of it upon his works and his gifts and in the minds of men 1. He hath given three principles of all bodies airie watry Chymists say Salt Sulphur and Mercury and earthy matter and three kind of lives or souls the vegetative or growing life or soule to plants The sensitive with vegetation to bruits the rationall with both the former to men but especially the Image of God in the first man argued the three persons immortality wisedome and freedome So to the rationall soule three principall faculties the Understanding the Will and the power of acting So Arts which are Gods gifts some of them sheweth his unity as Geometry draweth all lines from one point and Arithmetick from a unite draweth all numbers so Astronomy all motions from the first mover so Musick a rare gift of God ariseth from unison and three concords and discords arguing a unity in Trinity 2. But above all these three Arts by which we expresse our souls which have an impresse of the Deity sets forth the Trinity as they proceed one from the other For Grammer is the fountain of them by letters which makes words Logick of words frameth sence and Rhetorick by help of both maketh an oration So the Son is the word of the Father and the Holy Ghost proceeds from them both and therefore the Cabalists said that before God revealed himselfe in his operations he was like a dark solitary letter Aleph tenebroâ— sum of which we could make nothing But now we know by his word and his works not only that he is but what he is 3. He hath imprinted this Trinity in the minds of men as well as the unity of the Godhead Which made some learned men say Pythago Trismegist in Pimand Dial. 4 that all things are terminated in THREE Others that one begat one and by reflecting on each other begat a third Not that these men did apprehend the Trinity as we do by Scripture but this argued them to have a confused knowledge of it as Caiaphas had of Christs death when he said It was necessary one man die for the people Aquin. Non è â—â—titia sed ex officie so prophecying as he was high Priest that year so these spake by naturall instinct Another that may be urged to prove the three persons in the Godhead is Bonum diffusivum Because God being the chiefe good is of a diffusive nature and so must communicate himselfe by some subsistency that is capable of the whole divine essence communicated everlastingly from one to the other John 10.30 therefore Christ saith I and my Father are one that is in the essence communicated not the personality So he saith I am in the Father John 14.10 and the Father in me that is by mutuall immanency in the same essence So he saith I came forth from the Father that is first By his divine and eternall generation and by his temporall mission into the world John 16.28 So he saith all that the Father hath is mine therefore I said he shall take of mine and give it to you i. the holy Ghost John 16.15 By which is understood the communication of the divine essence one to another and the communication of gifts of men A similitude of this divine reflection and procession God gave in the first marriage He made Adam one then he joined him to another made out of himselfe of these two he produced a third i. children Beside he makes all things but by a threefold vertue his Power Wisedome and Love a representative of the three persons Nor is there any more then three principall efficient causes from whom by whom and through whom a thing is Rom. 11. And so all things are from the Father by the Son through the Holy Ghost who receiveth and giveth a procession to things so that there is but one God the Father 1 Cor. 8.6 and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ and we by him and one Holy Spirit and we through him Mathe. But this is hard to conceive right and dangerous to conceive wrong I desire a rule or two to direct me aright in the conceiving hereof Phila. 1. That you are to beleeve the divine essence to be one yet the persons to be three and every person to be God and Lord and yet but one God because but one essence as there is but one humane nature though divers persons therein 2. That these persons are not before one another in time but in order nor greater then another but coequall 3. That these three persons communicate the divine essence one to another but not their personality for the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet Esa 9.6 the Son is called the everlasting Father but not in regard of his person but his essence which is all one with the Father 4. That in those works of the Trinity which are wrought towards us though one person be entitled to it more then others yet all of them hath an hand therein though one more especially As the Father creates yet so as by the Son through the Spirit The Son redeemeth yet so as sent from the Father and conceived by the holy Spirit The holy Spirit sanctifieth yet so as through the Father by the Son breathing his holy graces into us 5. That the Father is the fountain of the personality but not of the essence for therein they be coeternall 6. They all flowe from one and the same essence as the light of the Moon and that of the air is from one Sun and as three rivers from one fountain 7. That they have a mutual emanency one in the other and an eternall emanency one from the other for they be
the reformed religion from superstition prophecied Rev. 14.6 which hath been set on foot by the Protestant religion in these latter times The next sign will be the fall of spirituall Babylon which in all likelihood is Rome by the martiall power of Princes Rev. 17.16 17. The other signs will be a generall corruption of manners Then the calling of the Jewes great alterations in heaven and earth but how is not set down But at last shall be seen the sign of the Son of man comming in the clouds Mat. 24.30 but what kind of sign this will be is uncertain Some say it will be the appearance of the Crosse and instruments of Christs passion Lyranus as the spear and nailes that pierced him and the other altogether Others say that a sword shall suddenly fall from heaven to signifie to all true beleevers Lactant. l. 7. c. 1 that the Captain of the Lords host is comming Others think that Christ shall appear with his Crosse carried before him Damianus de moribus Aethiop and a sword in his hand as ready to be revenged on the ungodly that have crucified him and of the enemies to his Crosse Others think the sign of the Crosse shall be carried before him in the clouds Chrysost in Mat. Muscul in Mat. as a testimony that it was he that was crucified or that it shall be the fignall of his triumph against the devill and the world whom by it he hath conquered Col. 2.15 Others say that this signe shall be the body of Christ appearing with all the marks of his wounds about him Dr wilket Calv. Pet. Mart. but whether they shall appear in his glorified body I know not Others say that this sign of the Son of Man shall be his celestiall power and glory with all the eies of the world to him and this is likely to be the sign even himselfe in glorious appearance as Luke 21.27 and Mark 13.19 who names no sign but himselfe Mathe. But how shall men be tried Phila. No doubt but by sufficient law and evidence They that have sinned without law shall perish without law Aug. in Rom. i. those that have sinned by nature without the law moral shall be judged by the law of nature with the law morall and those that sinned in the law shall be judged by the law Beside there shall be sufficient evidence to judge them by for we read of books that shall be opened Rev. 20.12 As first the book of nature and herein the creatures that we have abused shall testifie against us Jer. 17.1 Next the book of Scripture which we have disobeied Luke 12.48 Thirdly the book of Conscience which as a thousand witnesses shall convince us when it shall be awakened which is now asleep Then the book of Gods remembrance for the comsort of good men Mal. 3.16 and the terror of the wicked when God himselfe shall be a swift witnesse against them Lastly the book of life full of the names of Gods children Phil. 4.3 and also Rev. 20.12 yea rather then faile the heavens and the earth shall declare our iniquity and stand up against us Job 20.27 Mathe. What shall be the last issue of this day of judgment Phila. The godly shall have the possession of 1 Thes 4.17 where they shall have First the vision of God which is the very life of the sonle as the Sun is of plants Secondly their own natures perfected 1 Cor. 13.12 2 Cor. 3.18 their faces shall shine like the Sun their bodies active like spirits and shall have health without the least weaknesse their souls full of knowledge and their heart of perfect holinesse their company Angels and the spirits of just men Heb. 12.23 among whom shall be perfect love and amity Secondly the wicked shall be thrust into hell among the devils where they shall be deprived of the comfortable sight of God and heavenly glory excepting so much as Dives saw to the increase of his own griefe Also a worm of conscience shall ever be gnawing upon them by a remembrance of their sins with the unspeakable torments of fire unquenchable and the horrid presence of devils of which horrid troubles they shall never find ease nor end so that they shall loath the life they have and shall never find that death they desire And then shall follow the creation of new heavens and earth not in substance but in quality for as the old world was not annihilated by the deluge no more shall this by fire but they shall be melted and cast into a new mold as St Peter doth well expresse that though the inferiour heavens shall passe away with a noise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10. and the elements shall melt with fervent heat and the earth with the works there in shall be burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 Yet though all these things shall be dissolved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 12. ver 11. and 12. and melted neverthelesse we look according to Gods promise for new heavens and earth wherein shall dwell righteousnesse In which also the creature shall have a restitution as appeareth Acts 3.21 and 8.23 from bondage to liberty i. from the bondage of corruption and mutation and the service of wicked mens humors not that all that ever was shall be so but every sort of creature that are then alive at the last day which God made in their severall kinds at the creation shall be restored and for ought I know reserved at the pleasure of God as the examples of his wisedome and power in the creation And last of all then shall Christ deliver up his Kingdome to God the Father 1 Cor. 15.24 not his glorious and eternall estate which he ever did and must enjoy with the Father but his temporall government which was delivered to him with all power by the Father Luke 10.22 to rule in the Kingdome of grace by holy means and ordinances by which he having now subdued all enemies fulfilled all truth and delivered his elect from all sin and punishment and brought them to eternall happinesse he gives up this Kingdome to the Father to rule them in glory not excluding him lse but as the Father ruled by him in the Kingdome of grace so he now in and by the Father in the Kingdome of glory for ever Amen The end of the first Part. A CHRISTIAN DIALOGVE between PHILALETHES and MATHEIES Part 2. Mathetes CHrist being thus plainly set forth in the Old Testament how came the Jewes not to beleeve upon him Phila. 1. By their own hardnesse of heart not beleeving the Prophets but also persecuting of them and refusing to hear them Jer. 6.17 2. By the just judgement of God who therefore laid a stumbling block before upon which the father and the sons fell together ver 21. And Christ became to them a stumbling and a rock of offence for though Isaiah had foretold them that he should be as a root out of a
or concoct before they can mix to make a perfect conception yet no doubt the spirituall parts being more quick and active do move in a lesse time and are conceived at the first meeting of the parents seed and so become the form of man from his very beginning which if the seed should want the generation comes to nothing because it wants a form to inform and dispose the matter towards quickning But then you will say Obj. the soule must needs be weak at first but it groweth and increaseth with the body and then it must decrease and die with the body To this it is answered Ans That the soul of man is at first what it will ever be but wanting organs and fit means to exercise her power she lyeth still as seed in the ground for a season till the means to expresse it selfe be administred yet the vegetative soule of the seed is as perfect in it at first as at last and so is the soule in man for it being the essentiall form of the creature and the prime act it must be perfect at first as well as in the processe or else it cannot give perfection to the other parts of the creature because it is not perfected in it selfe Mathe. But all this that you say doth but yet probably set forth that it is so but doth not directly prove it Phila. You say true for indeed the generation of mankind is more wonderfull then any other creature as in Psal 139.6 14. David confesseth the knowledge too wonderfull for him But when I conceive how that some main points of Christian Religion depends upon this opinion I had rather speak something against reason then any thing against Religion Mathe. Make that forth namely that the production of humane souls by propagation hath ground in Christian Religion Phila. If it be found in Scripture or by just consequence drawn therefrom then it may be founded on true Religion And that it is so I find 1. By Gods institution Increase multiply and fill the earth Gen. 1.27 i. not with bodies only but with persons of men consisting of soule and body or else other creatures had power to preserve their own kind and not he who is the best of all 2. We find that God so ordered nature in the creation that every thing in nature should persist by themselves and multiply their kinds that he might make no new creatures after that he ceased from all his work which he had made 3. So we read that God took Eve out of Adam yet no mention is made of a new soule infused into her Nor can I understand lesse in Gods promise That the seed of the woman should break the serpents head but that a person should come of the womans seed who should do it which person must consist of a soule as well as a body or else Christ redeemed mankind by a body without a soule Mathe. Was not Christs soule created immediately of God Phila. No otherwise then ours is and that ours is not we have proved in part and will prove it farther and next that Christs soule was not First that ours is not is plaine from the description of Adams begetting Seth after his own likenesse Gen. 5.3 if by likenesse and image we understand the spirituall form rather then the bodily frame as it is said When God made man after his image Gen. 1.27 So when God said to Abraham I will be the God of thy seed it must be understood of an informed seed not a seed inanimate for God is not said to be the God of a senslesse no more then of a livelesse or dead substance Mat. 22.32 To this purpose also I conceive that the Scriptures say so many souls came of Jacobs loins which if some say it is figuratively spoken yet I know not how a man may be said to be a father of that to which he contributeth the least and more base part of substance Nor is that of Zachary the Prophet to be neglected which saith Zach. 12.1 The Lord formeth the spirit of a man within him for it sheweth first the Lord to be the externall efficient without whose immediate act of providence the soule cannot be traduced and the word forming which is not creating sheweth the manner of it as done by his power yet not created only as not propagated only but formed within man of the spirituall matter of the parents informing their seed in this regard it is said of David Psal 51.5 Ps 51. in sin my mother conceived me not my body sure but my whole nature So when our Saviour saith that which is born of the flesh is flesh John 3.6 he meaneth the whole man and if so then the soule which if immediately created of God cannot possibly be called flesh nor properly fleshly that is sinfull beside if the soule be not propagated how may originall sin be possibly conveied for by one man sin entred and by him therefore it must be conveied to his off-spring for the doing whereof propagation is the most apt and likeliest way because every like begets his like so sinfull man begetting man propagates with him a potentiality of sinning from the first mans privation of originall righteousnesse and inclination to evill but this cannot be unlesse the soule be derived from the parents for the body is not the subject of sin but the whole man for if the soule be immediately created of God it must be good and pure and if so then he cannot justly cast it into an evill condition without a first guiltinesse Gen. 18.25 nor can the soule but unwillingly unite with the body to become sinfull But surely I understand not if the soule be immediatly created how it can be corrupted or made sinfull for from whence should the corruption arise from the soule it cannot being created good from the body it cannot being meer matter neither capable of vertue or vice because it wants intellect will and affection If you say it ariseth from union how can that be if the soul be created good and the body be uncapable of evill If you say it comes by imputation you make God to do and undo to give good and take it away again without cause and so an unjust at least a vain work to give goodnesse to the soule and presently to take it away again by infusing it or uniting it to the body by which it should become sinfull I know some will say God may impute it to man for Adam's fall as well as righteousnesse to us for Christs merits but friend the case is much unlike for imputation of righteousnesse is a work of mercy which is to be done without cause but the imputation of sin is a work of justice which canot be done without some cause but if the soule be created pure and the body untainted with sin both because it is meer matter and sin of a spirituall nature which cannot taint meer passive matter then
himselfe to man by raising persecutions against those that professe it but especially against Christ and the Gospel which declares the manhood with God by Christs birth and mans redemption by Christs death And this argueth his first sin to be rebellion against the truth determined to be in due time manifested to the world Indeed Christ saith he did not abide in the truth nor indeed could abide it He did not abide in God who is truth it selfe nor in true obedience in which he was created nor in the truth determined concerning Christ to be mans Redeemer And indeed this seems to be truth from which he fell especially 1. Because Christ cals this Truth by way of eminence before Pilate saying I am come to witnesse the truth i. of Gods purpose and promise And he cals the Jewes the children of the Devill because they went about to destroy him and Judas a devill because he fell from him who was the Truth And because both refused to stand by his grace and favour as the Devill also did who hath ever been an opposer of this truth from the beginning as by preventing Adam of the sacramentall shadow of the tree of life and Cain of the comfort of true sacrifice both which were types of Christ And since that he made the Jewes to despise the figures of him Num. 21.56 in the Manna and Rock-water 1 Cor. 10.9 so he hath raised up many since Christs comming in the flesh to deny his Divinity or the truth of his Humanity Saviourship or justification power wisdome or holinesse And thus like the devill they love not that truth which was the actuall fulfilling of all the types law prophecies and promises in which regard it is said John 1. that Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ And I think the rather this was the main sin because neither he nor Judas never repented of it whom Christ called a devill for it is a sin cannot be repented of because committed directly against the method of God Christ and the Spirit of grace which is the only cause and means to true repentance So that he still setting himselfe like the Highest by designing to himselfe mans obedience and worship Mat. 4. sheweth his naturall pride 2. In seeking to destroy mans body and soule by tempting him to misbeleeve or disbeleeve his own redemption by Christ he sheweth his innate spight and envy 3. In striving to crosse Gods proceedings in nature or grace sheweth his rebellion from the beginning Mathe. But doth one devill do all this mischiefe in all men and all parts of the world at once this would argue a kind of infiniteness Phila. No sure for men are led aside by their own corruption and tempted of concupiscence to which the devill joins himselfe not only the Prince of Devils but some of his crew who are most fit to improve that temptation of a mans concupiscence Drusius quotations in lib. munus novum as we see one undertakes to seduce Ahab by becoming a lying spirit in the mouths of his Prophets Which was one of Pythons train whose way is by lies to delude people And the Scripture seems to intend some such thing by giving certain names to them as to some principall heads as Beelzebub whom the Jewes thought to be the Prince of Devils his name signifieth a master flie Jupiter Muscanius vide Clem. Alex. in protrept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Lord of flies Some say from his buzzing temptations which like flies swarm about us Others say because he drove away flies when the people sacrificed to him He is called the god of Ekron because they worshipped him So we find that God forbids consulting with familiar spirits Deut. 18.11 which in Hebrew is Schoel Aug. in 2. lib. de doct Christia cap. 23. and translated Python whom some writers take to be the head of that rank and order So we read of Belial a spirit of rebellion a vessell of wrath and ruine So of one Asmodeus a convincer and punisher Tobit 3.8 that strangled Sarahs seven husbands So of Satan who works deceits with Witches and Magitians and inflicts many miseries on mankind Revel as on Job c. 1. We read of another called Abaddon the master of misrule and confusion So of one Astaroth the chiefe head of all devilish accusations and so is all one with Diabolus the devill So we read of Mammon who tempteth to rapine and covetousnesse not that these only use such temptations for no doubt they officiate one for another and each faculty is imploied by each to mans ruine as the good Angels in their offices to mans good And it may be questioned whether these names signifie rather their persons or their faculties as Belemoh their beastly nature and Leviathan their vast increase in evill and Serpent their crafty folds windings and subtilties which Angels as they are dispersed in the world so they disperse their venome through the world Mathe. Doe they retain nothing of their created nature but evill Phila. Yes but they turn it all into evill They have their first knowledge and power but yet no farther then God permits them to use it for they are reserved like prisoners in chains by which they are confined For 1. They know not God with any comfort nor know his intentions nor his determinations whom he means to save or condemn for then it were in vain to tempt the one and needlesse to tempt the other Nor 2. Have they any certain knowledge of future events but make collections either from the stars or prophecies of Scripture or from mens temper or their actions and endeavors and therefore their answers in Oracles were dark and doubtfull as when he told the Pope he should die at Bethelem Sylvester it proved at a Monastery so called He told a King of England that he should not die till he had been at Jerusalem it proved that he died in a chamber so called Yet they beleeve and tremble because they fear justly they shall never enjoy the mercy they beleeve and because they do already feel partly the judgement ordained for them Againe they are stinted in their power they cannot do what they would Job was hedged in and till God opened a gap the devill could not invade him and when they are suffered to invade man yet are they subjected to the power of Christ and his Ministers Mathe. Are not these Angels in hell as yet Phila. No for had they been fixed to that sphere of punishment upon the fall they could neither have tempted Adam Aug. lib. 8. de civ dei c. 22. Jude 6. v. 17 nor us upon earth but they carry their hell about with them viz. the seat of damnation and the sense of Gods eternall displeasure Mathe. Where do you think Hell to be Phila. It is hard to say because the Scriptures do not plainly declare it only it saith such a place there is prepared for the devill and his
Mercury and then worshipped them for gods and called the daies of the week after their names and so made their superstitions more permanent Mathe. Why do we still retain these superstitious names to our daies and months Phila. By custome that ancient Tyrant which loveth no alteration although for the best otherwise we might find out twelve Apostles to name the months by and the first six Deacons if Nicholas be not liked to name the daies and as many noble martyrs to name the daies by and as many images of notable men actions and things named in Scripture Duhartas to configure with the celestiall constellations on the sphere better then Icarius Dog or Europa's Bull Hercules Hydra or Theseus Trull Since the whole world was made for the Scriptures I conceive it would conduce much to the honour of Christian Religion as it did to Rome to cal some months by the name of their Emperors as July and August But how much more if some parts of Scripture were turned into the text Latin and Greek of Poets and Orators and read in schools instead of the more vain prophane authors surely it would be a means to state verity in the place of vanity and so season tender years that so they might read those prophane books in riper years and not be infected Thus heaven and earth might meet together in one symphony without discord And to add one thing by the way Certainly as this being done would make Religion more setled in mens minds so if the memorable Feast of Christs Nativity had been fastned to the Lords day which by the account of some Chronologers hapned that year to be the 25. of December on which Christ was born the celebration would have been more certainly continued and yet this change could have altered no more the calculation then the difference of Astronomers among themselves about the Epoche of Christs birth some of them differing from others * Mercator Christianus Jos Scalig. Sethus Calvisius against the Quarte decemani 1 2 3 4 5. years Or then the alteration of Easter hath from the time of Constantine the Great who in the great Councill of Nice caused that Easter should be generally kept upon the Lords day and not on the 14. of the month Nisan and therefore made a new Decem novall or Golden number differing from the Roman This constitution continued not above seven years But the contention between the Latin and Greek Churches about it lasted 200. years Then about the time of Justinian the Emperor one Dionysius Abbas drew the Paschall tables which were confirmed by the Councill of Chalcedon that none should keep Easter but according to the Roman account and statute but should be accounted an Heretick and this held till the year 1582. yet they finding that the Equinoctium went back from the 21 of March to the eleventh the Romans corrected their Calender and so there is sometimes 28 daies difference between them and us as 1557. and sometimes 25. daies as in the year 1565. So they reformed their Paschall tables and appointed the Feast of Easter according to the Councill of Nice in Pontus 322. to be celebrated the Sunday after the first full moon that should happen after the Sun entred Aries we see still difference between us and them but yet all conclude it on the Lords day And indeed the very just day of either the Nativity or Resurrection is not much to be stood upon so the Feast be kept 1 Cor. 5.8 Mathe. God having made the world what did he next Phila. He made man of the earth and woman of man and then made them Lords of all he had made as Isa 45.12 I have made the earth and created man upon it And this we know by Scriptures the ground of that most excellent science called Divinity which leads us to the knowledge of God that made us Plutarch in the life of Theseus speaks of some such people called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 least we should imagine our selves sprung up of our selves though many will give more for a Parrat then a Preacher and to a Painter for the picture of their face then to one that can delineate their souls I suppose the reason is because Divinity is no flattering science it shewes our moules and spots where they are As Alexanders Limner did who drew his finger upon his face which he laied there to hide a skar It is the corruption of man that will make more of him that shapes his body in cloths though he deform it than of him that shewes him the God that made his soule and body Like Crates Laertius who gave in his Testament ten talents to his Parasite to his Harlot one 2 Talent is 375. l. to his Cook ten pound to his Physitian a groat and to his Philosopher but three halfe pence And why so little to the best science but because rich men know not the want of philosophy Diogenes though Philosophers know the want of monie They think with Laodicea they be happy enough but consider not that science which shewes them how to live when they are dead Mathe. Doth God immediately make all men Phila. He made the first man immediatly by himselfe and the first woman of the man but all other mediately by them two 1 Cor. 11.12 as the woman is of the man by creation so the man is of the woman by generation by the speciall concurrence of Gods providence It was impossible he should make himselfe any more then the world could For if it were nothing before it was something how could something come out of nothing Nor could any creature make him Pythag. ex nihilo nil fit he being above them both in eminence and excellence consisting of an heavenly and earthly nature his form is a reasonable soule his body upright beholding the heavens Ovid. Metam lib. 1. this body is more curiously made then any other creatures Psal 139.14 15. like unto rich Arras work The anatomy of it convinced Galen of a Godhead It was made in number weight and measure in weight that the earthy body might balast the light and nimble soule in number by the four qualities or temperaments of hot cold moist and dry in measure because at first each of them kept their several proportions though since the fall one invading the other breeds severall diseases A rare body it was being composed of so mean a matter as earth shewing thereby the most excellent skill of the workman Lecham is Lechem But now our flesh is become the bread of worms as Herod Agrippa's body proved not giving glory to God Acts 12.23 Mathe. Wherein doth it appear more excellent then other creatures Phila. Surely as Adams body was more excellent then other mens being Gods immediate worke so no doubt our bodies are more excellent then the common creature Adams body was so because it had in it potentially all the rare qualities which are dispersed now among
many as the beauty of Absalom the swiftnesse of Asahel the proportion of Eliab the son of Jesse So that his body exceeded others no doubt as much as Gods tables exceeded Moses workmanship and as Christs miraculous wine exceeded the naturall at the wedding But yet mens are exceeding the creatures in posture shape and compact and in being an epitome of the whole world Also because many of the better sort of creatures and parts of the Fabrick are set forth by the parts of man as the finest gold likened to his head cant 5.11 the purest wheat to his kidnies Deut. 32.14 and the center of the world in which all the lines of the circumference meets is called by the name of his heart Mat. 12.40 Again all manner of measures are taken from the dimensions of his body as the inch foot palm cubit Beside God hath expressed his attributes by the parts of mans body as head hand heart ear eie mouth foot Lastly because it pleaseth God to make it his Temple and also Christ to take it into the divine Nature an honour not vouchsafed to Angels This was Gods love to him that he made last as if when he had made man he had left nothing more to do but to make himselfe man O Lord what is man that thou shouldst so honour him Mathe. What are the most considerable parts of his body Phila. Every part is considerable but Gods wisdome is admirable in all as in making some members radicall and some officiall in great variety and yet in sympathy one with another The radicall is the Liver for the naturall spirits the Heart for the vitall and the Brain for the animall The officiall members are inward or outward the inward as the Veins to convey the naturall spirits the Arteries to convey the vitall and the Sinews to convey the animall spirits The outward are the eie ear hand and foot all which work for the body as well as the mouth eats and stomack digests for the good of the body And for all they be divers yet are they sympatheticall and helpers one of another For as one feels the other grievs or joies so do they one assist and supply in the defect of another as the blind mans eies are in his fingers and the deafe mans eares are in his eies yet none can say to the other I have no need of thee This teacheth both sympathy and unity in the body politick and mysticall and order too not to intrude one upon anothers office but to supply and help as need requireth Mathe. What usefull contemplation may one make of the other particular members that I may the more glorifie God and esteem more preciously of every part Phila. When I consider the head I look upon it as a most excellent part because God hath placed all the sences there and but one sence all the body over beside and that is feeling 2. That it is super-eminent in office as place and directeth the whole body and is the most honourable part and therefore we uncover it when we give honour and worship to any as our reason doth lead us and therefore the name Head is given to that which is eminent and chiefe as Deut. 28.24 thou shalt be the head and Psal I will make thee that is Christ the head of the heathen Eph. 5.23 1 Cor. 11.23 So Christ is the head of the Church the man is the head of the wife and the head of Christ is God So the eies though two for ornament and for the help of each other in case one should be deficient yet they look both but upon one object at once because both the optick nerves meet in one to teach us when we lift up our eies to God to be intentive upon him only and not give him a squint-eied devotion It hath a guard of five tunicles beside the brow and so sets forth the care of God to his children whom he keepeth as carefully as one would the apple of his eie Before the fall it let in no evill but now it is sins broker an evill eie by envy an adulterous eie by lust a covetous eie by desiring yet it is not the cause of sin but the occasion and so contracts to the inward eie many diseases as the murderer may be said to have a bloodshot eie and the lustfull a pearl in his The ear is the sense of discipline and the gate of faith which comes by hearing Before the fall it was the gate of life 1 Cor. 15. now the portall of death by letting in evill words to corrupt good manners The tongue is called mans glory Psa 16.9 because by the good use of it we bring honour to our selves and glory to God It is made single to teach us that we should not be double-tongu'd It was once like the pen of a ready scribe Jam. 3.6 to set forth the praise of God but now a world of iniquity James 3.6 It is like a dung-fork casts abroad mire and dirt It is forked in a tripple manner like serpents tongues when they be angry and kils three at once the slanderer the hearer and the reporter So the hand is a most rare instrument that guideth all others The tongue of the dumb who speaks by signs It is the counting table of the ancients and is yet in use in many Countries Of old they used to account on the left till they were 100. years old and then on the right because they were in the years of wisdome in whose right hand are length of daies Prov. 3. It hath been the instrument of divine worship in oaths or vowes Gen. 14.22 I have lift up my hand to the high God So the heathens worship of the stars was when they kissed their hand which Job renounceth Ose 13.2 Job 31.27 Lastly it is the instrument that feedeth the mouth or else we should feed like beasts yet the sloathfull man will not bring his hand to his mouth i. not use this excellent instrument to get his living So the foot is an instrument of supportation to uphold and carry the body and answereth to the affections which are as feet to the soul my foot standeth right saith David Psal And Solomon bids us to look to the foot when we enter into Gods house that is to the mind and affections It also puts us in mind of our morall and spirituall going in the conversing with God and man So Solomon saith the wise man considereth his steps Pro. for the way of the wise is above to keep him from hell beneath because as Psal 116. he walketh before God in the light of the living that every part of a man may be a document as well as an usefull ornament if it be well considered of But the breasts of a woman are more considerable then mans because it is the vessel of nourishment to a child placed neer the Liver for the better concoction of the milk and neer the heart to excite
the mothers affection the more to the child and childs affection the more to the mother whom she may justly adjure upon just occasion by the paps which they have sucked when she so lovingly embraced them which no bruit can do Mathe. What contemplation yieldeth the inward parts Phila. The Lungs by which we breath and speak being placed neer the heart sheweth that speech is the interpreter of the heart and therefore we should not breath out one thing and think another but every man speak truth to his neighbour and not practise equivocations and mentall reservations So the ribs shew the care of God to defend the vitall parts comprized in the heart and the liver well expressed in Scripture by Abner his smiting Asahel under the fifth rib and Ioabs smiting him and also Amasa in the same place and by the souldiers piercing Christ there about that rib where hangs the Pericardia out of which issued water and blood to all which pectorals John 19.34 Vid. Syria-Paraphra if we add the breast-plate of righteousnesse the spirituall heart will be the safer So the bowels may mind us of the bowels of compassion which Christ had Mark 6.34 when his bowels did yearn at the peoples want of provision so the word signifieth for he was a merciful High-Priest Heb. 4.15 So the hungry gut should put us in mind of fasting till we feel that part complain and remember us what affliction of soule we should suffer for offending God But as one is called a blind gut so the belly is said to want ears to hear this doctrin such like the Cyclops know no God but their belly So our kidnies which are the most secretly enclosed should teach us to walk sincerely with God who searcheth the reins Psal 139. lest we like hypocrites have God neer in our mouths but put him far from our reins Ier. 12.1 For want of this we see what man is come to as appears in Psal 5.9 and Rom. â— 13 His throat is an open sepulchre seet swift to shed blood his right hand is a hand of falshood a womans beauty is like a jewell of gold in a swines snout We find the proverb too true the properest man at the gallowes and the fairest woman in the stewes So that we may cry out O most excellent soul what a vile lodging hast thou gotten The five senses that have their beginning from common sense which can judge of all objects absent as the five do of the object present are all worthy our consideration as to behold how every organ of sense hath his proper object the Eie colors the Ear sounds the Tongue meats pleasant or not pleasant the Nose odours or evill savours the Nerves are especially the seat of feeling as well as the means of motion and therefore they being in every part the sense of feeling is in every part and the other four are in the head only and though they be so neer in seat to each other yet one invadeth not another nor can do as the other These since mans fall are become brokers to set our hearts to sale to the devill and the world for the price of a few momentany delights and so the precious soul would be ravished out of Christs hands but the spirit of God interposeth and by the word of God insureth us of the interpellation of the Son of God by which he hath promised to marry our souls to himselfe in righteousness and everlasting glory So the heart of man is the seat of passions a choice vessell that is first formed in generation and first reformed in spirituall regeneration And as it first lives so it dieth last So the life of grace first begins there and is last left there This is that which God strives for against the devill the world and the flesh as Michael did with the devill for Moses body Iude 9. But when we answer Gods request who crieth to us Myson give me thy heart then the battell ceaseth This heart before the fall was like the holy land upon which God set his eies day and night or like the Ark from which God gave his Oracles for the answer of the heart is from the Lord or like a throne where God ruleth by his scepter of righteousnesse or like Moses Tables wherein God writes his Law But since the fal that man set up Idols in his heart God hath turned it as Iehu did the house of Baal into a draught house so that now as it is full of all uncleannesse so out of it proceeds by nature nothing else Mat. 15. It was once wise now a foolish heart and ful of darkness Rom. 1. It was once more inclinable to the right but now the left hand Eccles 10.2 which makes us do all things sinisterly Mathe. Whether was mans body immortall before the fall Phila. Not essentially for so only God is immortall nor by the gift of creation as the Angels and the souls of men are but potentially only and upon condition if he had continued in obedience which he not doing his body cannot be made immortall now but by the gift of a new creation which will be at the resurrection So that his body was immortall naturally so long as he kept the condition of immortality It is true his body might have died before the fall for it was as possible to die as he was possible to fall But this possibility would never have been reduced into act if he had not fallen For as the Angels could not die neither was it necessary they should die so Adam might have died but it was not necessary that without sin he should have died so being corrupted by sin it was necessary he should die but not before he fell For we see by the reliques of immortality left in Adam that the Fathers before the flood lived a mighty great age as Adam to 930 years and Methuselah lived 969. which was not so many moons as some think for then they had hardly reached the age of man and so the world would have been a long time peopling and though Adam might well beget Sheth about twelve years after his creation because he was made at first a perfect man yet if Adam begat not his third son till he was 130. moons old surely then Sheth began too young who at 105. years from his birth begate Enos which by the moons account was but eight years and five months But sure their age was measured by the years of the Sun i. twelve months to a year And it is no more wonderfull then that Israels cloths should last forty years in the wildernesse Deut. 29.5 And the manna in the golden pot many hundreds of years Joseph's bones 215. years Joshua 24.32 And the mummies of Egypt are kept by art so many 1000. years in full proportions as when alive What could not God have done to the body of Adam if he had not sinned Mathe. Whether is mans soule immortall Phila. Yea and it may be
in the body by conversion of it selfe to the phantasie which then it hath not nor by any formerly received species kept in memory for then the souls of children departed should understand nothing but the soule separated understandeth as Angels do know a new thing presented to them By which we may see plainly that souls separated know not what is done here on earth Aquin. p. 1. q. 89. art 8. further then God pleaseth to reveal to them and who can prove God doth any such thing continually by way of reflection upon them Mathe. How fell men from God being made so righteous Phila. Solomon saith they found out inventions i. Adam and all his successors did yea and Eve first who was called Adam of God as well as he Ishab Virago Gen. 5.2 But her husband Adam called her woman Gen. 2.23 and afterward Havah Evah the mother of all living Gen. 3.20 Her first invention was to open her eare too wide to the Devils subtile counsell who had fallen himselfe first from God and from heaven the place of blessednesse and cast down into these lower regions where finding man to be Gods favourite he was very industrious to bring him to destruction with himselfe And for this purpose makes the serpents body the organ of his speech and tempts the woman supposing her to be inferiour to the man in understanding but far more inclinable to curiosity His temptation of her was to eat of the tree God forbad Aug. de civ dei lib. 13. c. 20. and set apart as a token of his prerogative and their obedience she consented and gave to her husband upon which St Paul saith 1 Tim. 2. the man was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression That is the man was not deceived immediately by the serpent but the woman was nor did the woman deceive him but gave it him for she had no mind to make him transgre sse for she was so perswaded by the serpent as if she had not transgressed in eating thereof her selfe so he was tempted by her but not deceived by her nor the serpent For the serpent left that work to the woman knowing how prevalent she might be with him being his only companion This tree whose fruit was forbidden them was called the tree of knowledge of good and evill Moses Barcephas translated by Masius not that it had any such vertue to increase knowledge for the tree was naturall not metaphysicall but it is called so from that unhappy effect which they should find after the eating of it Junius For as Adam in his innocence knew good and might have obtained it and knew evill and might have avoided it so after his fall he knew the good he had lost and the evill he found the good of obedience the evill of disobedience not but he knew good before by prudence but not evill by experience till now Their sin therefore was not a precacious carnall knowledge one of another as some think for we find a command for it increase and multiply but no time set of abstinence or continence by breach whereof they might offend God Gen. 4.1 And we find also in Scripture that they had no carnall knowledge of each other till they had sinned for had Eve conceived in the state of innocency no doubt but the children had been innocent also which had been so conceived Mathe. What was it that most prevailed with Adam to do this Phila. 1. Perswasion of the woman filled with unquiet vanity 2. It may be the false understanding of Gods threatning who had said the day on which thou eatest thereof thou shalt die and perceiving Eve had eaten and yet was not dead he was the more easily perswaded to eat But God meant they should become mortall not die presently 3. A loathnesse to displease her or sad her spirit that was his only comfort 4. His own ambition of a farther knowledge in himselfe did betray and over-power his understanding so that he did not look seriously into the evils incident and the sorrowes emerging from that act but affecting the supposed glory to be obtained by tasting he was driven on and transported by the gentle gale of perswasion and so turned from the Creator to the creature and so fell under Gods infinite wrath to be poured eternally upon body and soule Mathe. How did he escape it Phila. Naturall death he could not for justice must have its course he having brought himselfe under the power of death yea his soule too but that God himselfe provided a plaister so soon as he was wounded by the serpent For since he could not stand by the Law he propounds to him a promised seed of the woman who should loose the bands of Satan in which they were tied purposed of God upon the foresight of their fall that so they might live by faith since they could not by works Not that God did hereby abolish mans duty but shewed that his duty was insufficient to justifie him in his sight whose infinite justice he had offended So that now all he did in pious practices was only a fruit of his faith not a cause of his justice Rom. 5.18 to shew his gratification not justification therefore did God shew forth his intent of this way of worship and religion from the beginning And therefore as he forbad them the tree of knowledge to shew that none could come to felicity by seeking curious and unnecessary knowledge so he barred them of the tree of life lest the carnall knowledge they had got should lead them into farther presumptuous error as to eat of the tree of life in hope that might bring them to eternity as they hoped the other tree should have made them wise and so abuse that for nutriment which God set rather for a Sacrament Mathe. How was the hope of Gods promise continued Phila. By Covenant Types Promises Prophecies till the fulnesse of time came 1. By Covenant This covenant did not appear plainly at first saving to Adam in the promise of Christ Gen. 3.15 called the seed of the woman For we find no covenant made by God with any of the Patriarchs about Religious worship till Abraham though they that were of the line of Sheth were called the sons of God because they professed that true Religion constantly which they had received from Adam by tradition But these mixing themselves with the daughters of men i. the linage of Cain God was displeased so that he drowned all the world save Noah and his family which were but eight persons in all This time was called an obscure or dark time Scaliger in Proleg in Euseb Varro de re rustica and it continued even after the flood till the time of Moses who first gave the true light of Gods proceeding with man It is true that there were many good men before and after the flood But as the flood obliterated the memory of some so the confounding of
paschal Feast without acknowledging Christ to be their spirituall Paschal Lamb the oblation for sin by his innocency Bed in Exo. 12. nor the He-Goat by taking our sinfull nature upon him This time both in regard of the month and houre had a speciall relation to Christ For the name of this month Abib signifieth an ear of corn not only because in this month the green ears of corn appeared but also because in this month they were to offer the first fruits of corn to God Lev. 23.14 the green corn relating to Christ who in this month was to spring up fresh and green out of the earth by his resurrection and to become the first fruits of the dead which by that resurrection of his should be all raised This was prophecied of Psal 72.16 There shall be an handfull of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains whose fruit shall bud like Lebanon and shall flourish from the City as grasse John 12.24 This was effected by Christs death upon mount Calvary after which he was sowed like corn in the ground by his buriall and after he was thus mortified then by his resurrection he multiplied in the hearts of men who beleeved upon him to be the fruitfull seed of eternall life and the Sun of excellency both which the word Bar in that Psalm signifieth as well as in Psal 2.12 Their celebration of this feast also was typicall Lact. de vera sapien l. 4. c. 8. 1. In slaying the Lamb to shew that there was no deliverance from infernall Pharaoh the Devill but by the blood of Christ the immaculate Lamb. 2. In dashing the blood of it on their door-posts it signified the sprinkling of Christs blood upon the conscience Heb. 9.14 cap. 10.22 to purifie it from dead Egyptian works and to guard our souls from the destroying Angel The rosting of this Lamb typed forth the wrath of God which Christ was to undergo which made him in the garden sweat blood like rosted flesh and to cry out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me So their eating of it in one family typed out the one true Church united to Christ So the calling of another family to them Rabanus if one were too little shewed the calling in the Gentiles to partake of Christ because they without us should not be made perfect Heb. 11.40 In that they were to eat all of it the inward appurtenances as well as the outward parts it shewed that the divinity and humanity of Christ must both by faith be fed upon and that the meanest things of Christ must not be rejected because every part and parcell of him in his rudiments principles as well as in substance is profitable to salvation Again if any thing remained of it they were to burn it that shewed that if there were any thing in Christ which we could not as yet digest Rabanus as in the great mystery of his Incarnation Resurrection or Ascension we should with all submissive reverence commit it to the Holy Ghost who in his time and by his divine light shall reveale it unto us This Sacramentall service no doubt did also foretype how we in after-times should receive Christ in the Sacrament As they with unleavened bread so we should keep that feast not with the leaven of malice and wickedness 1 Cor. but with sincerity and truth So they with bitter herbs we with remembrance of our bitter bondage under sin They with their loins girded staves in their hands shooes on their feet so we with all readinesse to passe from the state of sin to the state of grace as God shall call us Mathe. What was the next exhibitive Type of Christ Phila. Manna with which God fed Israel forty years lack a month in the wildernesse Exod. 15.12 c. of which every one might take an omer full for a day and on the sixt day two omers because on the Sabbath day none of it fell from heaven This Moses called bread from heaven and Psal 78.24 the wheat of heaven and bread of Angels by the Septuagint but in the Hebrew bread of the strong ones as if given from Elohim the strong God in Trinity But the people gave it the name Mannah or man Exod. 16.15 by saying Manha Is it a gift or this is a gift for Man or Mannah signifieth a portion or a gift and so it was indeed to be acknowledged the free gift of God as Christ is upon which we are to feed by faith in our travell in this wildernesse of sin till we come to the land of everlasting rest Therefore Christ cals himselfe the bread of life that came down from heaven John 6.33 35. and S. Paul cals this manna spiritual bread 1 Cor. 10.3 For indeed that sensible bread did signifie spiritual bread Aug. de utilit paenit and whosoever did in manna understand Christ did eat the same spirituall bread with us which is better then their manna so far as substance is beyond a shadow And therefore though called heavenly food because it came down from heaven yet it must give way to him that came from an higher heaven than that did Ambrose de sacrif l. 5. c. j. Bern. de coen dom For the sign considered severally from the thing signified is but earthly but with it is heavenly So in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the bread sacramentall is not that which goeth into the body but the eternall bread which sustaineth the substance of our soule for the naturall nutriment perisheth but the Sacrament is bread not for the belly but the blessed soule They were to gather it every day to shew that we must gather alwaies something of heaven It began first to fall on the first day of the week but none on their seventh to type forth to them that the true manna would appear on the first day of the week as indeed he did as Chronologers do account in his birth and resurrection and ever since the heavenly manna of his word falleth upon that day whereon if men neglect to gather it God may justly famish them and deny to them the bread of life The measure for each to gather was an omer for a day the tenth part of an ephah which was the quantity of forty three hens eggs a competent portion Therefore God so ordered it by his divine providence that he that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack Exod. 16.17 Rom. 12.3 Now as manna represents Christ so doth the omer the capacity of every beleever to whom God hath given a measure of faith For the filling of which measure or capacity every beleever must be stirring betimes as the Israelites did before the sun of persecution arise which dissolves the sacred custome of Gods ordinances which if men would do the little they get should be enough because God accepts their will for the deed 2. This manna may signifie our temporall
was produced from the blessed Virgin by his power and united to the divine but assumed by the Son the second person upon the Holy Ghosts preparation of the Virgins seed and carrying it to the place of conception which Luke 1.42 is called the fruit of her womb that is the whole man or humane substance without the accident of sin which followeth only generation not this wonderfull conception Therefore our sin was to him imputed not by nature imparted and death therefore seized not upon him by necessity but he gave his life voluntarily and it was taken away violently by others sin not his own Mathe. What necessity was there that Christ should be conceived in so holy manner and what are the effects of it Phila. He must be conceived on his mothers part that he might be a man and so fit for a surety for us yet by the Holy Ghost that so the substance might be separated from the accident of originall sin by his power who in the moment of conception united it to the second person with whom it made but one person which was no person before though it consisted of a soule and body and so though it came from Adam and was originally in Adam yet it never sinned in Adam because it took not personality from Adam though it did nature which nature was made so holy by this union that it needed no other sanctification as other men do who are to be sanctified by the blood of the Covenant through the operation of the Holy Ghost which not being warily observed hath made many heresies For the Marcionites and Manicheans not well understanding the conception of his manhood supposed that Christ had an incorporeall body and only passed through the blessed Virgins body And Apollinaris thought Christ had no soule because he understood not how he could take sinfull flesh as Rom. 8.2 3. and not be sinfull and so he determined him to be but halfe a man and that his divinity supplied the place of the soule Others stumbling at the conception of the Holy Ghost say that in this Christs nature was sanctified by the Holy Ghost which cannot be but his humane nature by the Holy Ghost was separated in respect of the substance of it from the blessed Virgin Mary and in the same moment of conception was united to the second person and was holy in it selfe for if it needed sanctification it needed justification Now the effects of this conception and personall union are many As 1. A communication of those properties to Christs person which are in themselves only proper to either nature Mat. 9.6 as to say the Son of man can forgive sins which is proper to the divine nature so to aseend where he was before so to say when he was on earth that the Son of man is in heaven Iohn 6.62 and his blood is called the blood of God though proper only to man 2. Effect of this union was a reception of gifts in his body and soule for his body received the highest degree of perfection that any body could attain unto though it was not much revealed till his resurrection save in his transfiguration after which it became impassible and now shineth in heaven far brighter then any other creature doth or can do So upon his soule was poured knowledge and love beyond the measure in any creature by vertue of this union For his knowledge was such by the light of nature that he knew thereby all things that could be known by it not only by experience of some things but by reasoning he could tell all those things he had no experience of for his own sufferings he could tell all that we suffer Heb. 2.18 And in this wisedome he did grow and increase Luk. 2.52 and by this knowledge he knew more then any man Beside this Christ had a knowledge of infusion or revelation by which heavenly are understood by the light of grace By this he discerned spirituall things more clearly then any man Isa 11.2 for the spirit of wisedome and counsell understanding and knowledge did rest upon him Again he had the knowledge of vision to see God as the blessed do in heaven yet exceeding them all he being the cause of bringing men to this blessednesse and also because his soule is more neer to God by this union then any others are And as knowledge was poured out on him by this union so was divine charity more then upon all men either just or good Rom. 5.6 7. As for faith or hope he had them not farther then as to depend on God and expected those things he saw by the knowledge of vision for he both saw God and enjoied him But faith is an evidence of things not seen and hope argueth no present possession of things hoped for Next he had the grace of office by this union of both natures for hereby he was made a fit mediator between God and man to reconcile us to God yet so as that the actions of the divine and humane nature were not confounded but each nature performed what was proper to it selfe by the assistance of the other As the humane nature was given as a sacrifice for us but the divine nature made it acceptable being offered up by the eternal spirit which therefore might be rightly called the Altar which sanctified the gift rather then the crosse which only bore his body crucified Lastly he had the grace of honour and worship due to his humane nature as it was united to the divine in one person for alone and separated it cannot lawfully have divine worship given to it but so far as it is directed to him that is God and Man Mathe. What doth the knowledge hereof profit to a Christians life Phila. A Christians life consisting in the meditation comfort and practice of what Christ hath done This union may move us first to admire the work it selfe And secondly to consider the glory of God therein And thirdly what comfort redounds to us thereby 1. To admire this work in which both mortality and immortality meet in one person That the same person is uncreated and created without beginning and yet takes a beginning a man in nature and yet God manifested in flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 In his divine nature he makes man in the humane nature he delivers man Aug. The Son of God becomes the son of man not by changing what he was but assuming what he once was not taking what was ours yet not diminishing what was his for in this union the divine majesty did not consume the humane nor the humane diminish the divine This high mystery is rather to be beleeved then argued namely that it was then how it was Next we are to consider the glory of goodnesse and wisedome in this work 1. His goodnesse who not only gave nature to us in creation and grace to us by participation of his Image but gives himself both to us and for us in nature to us in
death for us Then consider Gods wisdome in contriving a way to save mankind who by sin against God was lost and coming so in debt to God none ought to pay it but man that had offended and yet none could pay such an infinite debt but God Upon this the attributes of God seem at variance His wisedome would save him his mercy would damn him His wisedome moderates and finds a way whereby what man could not pay in nature he might in person For God assumes manhood in the unity of the person and so satisfieth himselfe upon which the attributes are reconciled Psal 85.10 mercy and truth met righteousness and peace kissed each other For the offence which was infinite in regard of the object God was satisfied by the infinitenesse of the subjected surety Christ Again this union teacheth us in practice to be like him in our selves and to one another In our selves to partake of him that hath stooped so low to partake of us If he of our properties then we should desire much more to partake of his graces So we should desire to be like him one towards another not pleasing our selves but rather our neighbours for their good to edification Rom. 15.1 2. that the same mind may be in us which was also in Christ Phil. 2.4 5. From this union we may receive also much comfort As that our nature is taken into the society of God in Trinity by which our nature is not only highly honoured but comforted in all distresses because he took our whole nature with all our infirmities sin only excepted and therefore as he can help us because he is God so he will because he is man and so one of us So it will encourage us to pray and to made our wants known unto God who certainly will deny us nothing fit for us because Christ in our nature pleads for us yea how can we despair of glory since he became the Son of man that we may be the sons of God Mathe. I conceive then that this Conception of Christ by the holy Ghost was a production of humane nature from the blessed Virgin Mary and uniting of it to the second person assuming it But had she no part in this conception Phila. Yes but her part was more spirituall then naturall For she first received the blessed message by the ear from the good Angell Gabriel as a counterpoison to the first temptation that Eve received from the devill 2. She conceived it in her heart to be the blessed will of God by faith 3. She resolved to be obedient to it though she knew not how it could be 4. She contributed of her naturall substance to that divine and effectuall operation of the holy Ghost by whose power she was overshadowed and that part of her substance conveyed to the vessell of conception in regard whereof Christ was called the fruit of her womb Luke 1.42 So that as Adam was asleep while Eve was formed so blessed Mary was as it were overclouded while the humane nature of Christ was by the Holy Ghost united to and assumed by the Son of God Mathe. It is hard to conceive this point 1. In regard of the manner how he was conceived by the Holy Ghost 2. In regard of what she conceived 3. In regard of Christ conceived whether according to the divine essence Phila. Therefore you are to understand and beleeve that in regard of the matter conceived it was Christ man but in regard of the person conceived it was the second person in Trinity the Son of God Luke 1.35 whom Isa calleth Immanuel not that the blessed Virgin gave the divine nature to Christ though she was a mean of uniting the two natures but the Son of God received the humane nature in her womb 2. In regard of the manner how by the holy Ghost it is not utterable farther then the production of the substance of humane nature from her and uniting of both natures in one person i. Christ which he did not as a father though as a divine agent For he did it not materially by giving any thing out of himselfe but effectually according to divine appointment 3. In regard of Christ conceived Bern. whether according to the divine essence It is true that every person in the Trinity hath the whole divine essence but in a severall manner of subsisting For the first person hath it as the Father the second as the Son Now Christ is said to take the humane not according to the essentiality of the Godhead but the personality and subsistence of the Son or second person or else he could not be a mediator between two because the essence of God is but one Gal. 3.20 Mathe. Whether did not sin cleave to this conception for it is said he was made sin for us Phila. He was made sin for us 1. By imputation because our sins were charged upon him 2. Because he was made a sacrifice for sin so some sacrifices were called sin offerings Lev. 4.34 but he had no sin in his nature for he was not in Adam in respect of propagation by which originall sin is conveyed but in respect only of humane substance so that though he was from him as others are yet not by him as others are for he came into the world by this wonderfull conception by the Holy Ghost and a woman without man Which woman though a sinner in her personall subsistence as comming by generation from Adam yet her meer naturall substance simply considered out of that subsistence cannot be called sinfull which substance was only taken of Christ into his person and the accident of sin left cleaving to her own person of which Christ cleareth her as being her Redeemer And this appears more plain if we consider that neither actions nor affections though called sinfull as they proceed from the person of man yet are not sinfull in themselves much lesse is meer substance so neither can a part of mans substance be sinfull if not the totall but his person only And thus Christs nature stands cleer of being infected with originall sin in it self though separated and consecrated by the Holy Ghost for Christs assumption thereof So that the old Hereticks the Manicheans and Marcionites had they rightly apprehended this conception might have avoided the error of thinking that Christ had only an incorporeall body from which only passed through the blessed Virgins body thereby to avoid the stain of originall sin Nor Apollinaris need not have denied Christ an humane soule and feign the Deity to supply that place to avoid the same taint Nor the Papists need not say to avoid Christs sinfull conception that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin for then her parents must be so too and theirs also and so up to Adam which is absurd to think Nor need some think that Christs humane nature by this conception was sanctified or cleansed from originall sin for if it had ever been sinfull it could not have been
everlasting Heb. 7.24 A Sacrifice he was in his manhood not Eucharisticall but expiatory offered up whole like the Holocaust for sin which was burned up to ashes by the fire of Gods wrath And his Godhead was the spirituall Altar called the eternall spirit by which he offered up himselfe Heb. 9.14 yet the Crosse might be taken as a materiall Altar upon which his body was laid for though the Altar sanctifieth the gift as it is the utensill of Gods instistution yet he that sanctifieth himselfe may sanctifie the Altar too by his own oblation the fruit whereof made a blessed attonement by the sweet savour thereof Eph. 5.2 for all those that are crucified with him by crossing their own corrupt natures and that look upon Christ by faith as on the brazen Serpent that cured the people Iohn 3.14 and also to consecrate themselves to God as a living sacrifice to his service Rom. 12.1 Mathe. I pray shew me the reasons why he was erucified in such a manner Phila. He was crucified naked to satisfie for Adams losing the garment of innocence and might uncloath us of mortality of which the skins given to Adam for cloathing was an Emblem and cloath us with his merits also that he and we might enter into heaven naked as Adam did into earthly paradise so to comfort us that when the world and death strips us naked of all we have to suffer it joyfully for we shall find a cloathing from heaven 2 Cor. 5.4 when mortality shall be swallowed up of life and therefore to be content in the mean time Lignum mortis Lignum vitae that the world be crucified to us and we to the world Again he was fastned to the wood that death might be driven out of the world by a tree as it came in by a tree and life brought back to us again He was laied on the crosse as Isaac on the wood and nailed as foretold Psal 22.17 they digged my hands and my feet also that all bils and bonds of law against us might be nailed with him to his Crosse 1 Pet. 2.14 Then he was lifted up that he might carry our sins from the earth and conquer the spirits that rule in the aire Col. 2.15 He was crucified with his hands spread as reaching them out to embrace both Jewes and Gentiles that are not a gainsaying people His blood was shed on the Crosse to answer all the sacrifices of the Law without which there had been no remission Heb. 9.18 whereas it is now an universall medicine for all our soules languishing 1 John 17. and obtaineth for us eternall redemption Heb. 9.12 Beside he was crucified between two theeves 1. Because it was foretold that he should be reckoned among the transgressors 2. Esa 53.12 That he might sanctifie the death of repenting malefactors for his death in effect was to be divided among sinners of whom at last he would be Judge while some stand on his right hand and some on his left as the bad and repenting Theefe hung Now while he hung on the Crosse alive he suffered beside the paine 1. The division of his garments and casting lots on his vesture as was prophecied Psal 22.19 2. To shew that his very enemies should partake of his graces 3. Into four parts to shew that his good grace should edifie the four parts of the world So the not dividing his other coat shewed that his righteousnesse should be applied whole to every beleever And the casting lots for it argued that no man had his merits by their deserving but by the meer gift of God Col. 1.12 who disposeth of the Lot To all which misery they added derision Mat. 27.39 wagging their heads and upbraiding him with his words of destroying and building the Temple in three daies Yet it was truth in his sense of his resurrection ut praedixit sit revixit and mocking at his miracles saying he saved others but himselfe he cannot save Others mocked at his trust in God Others at his praiers as if he called upon Elias to save him which he suffered that we might know the abominableness of our sins that heaped such contempt upon the Son of God Also that we might be delivered from the scorn of this world and enjoy the comfort of our repute from God and a good conscience Heb. 12.3 without reviling the world again Nay more they blasphemed God as if he could not deliver him as the wicked said Psal 22. with whom they join issue and so condemn themselves to be of the wicked crew even like theeves who also did the same But beside all this he suffered great torments both in body and mind In body by hanging on the Crosse by his nailed hands and feet so that his heart might be rightly said to be melted like wax Psal 22.15 This was undergone to satisfie for our despising the threatning and the power of God in punishing those sins we had committed in the body also to free us from eternall torments and to sanctifie whatsoever pains we suffer in the body by diseases or from persecutors So he suffered anguish in soule when he cried out my God my God why hast thou forsaken me which some writers take to be meant of his descending into hell for now God seemed to desert him by deferring his deliverance and by withdrawing from his humane nature the divine support of comfort that he being sensible of them we might be delivered from them by his meritorious suffering them Yet we are not to conceive that the divine nature of the Sonne did forsake the humane but that the union was obscured or eclipsed nor that God the Father forsook him quite but permitted his humane nature as surety to feele what was due to the principall And this first confutes those that think he suffered not in soule though the Prophet say he made his soule an offering for sin And if not in soule his bitter cry argued more impatience then the Martyrs had It also may comfort men in their distresse of mind since Christ was forsaken for a time and surely it should work in us a feare of sin that made God thus to deale with his only Son whom he spared not being only the principall how terrible will he be against unrepenting sinners whom he will forforsake for ever and to make us consider with commiseration those that are troubled in mind a wounded spirit who can bear No wonder if many of them cry out they be damn'd of whom we are to judge charitably since Christ complains of Gods forsaking him through fear whom yet he calleth his God by faith Lastly he through paine suffereth thirst and they to adde to his misery gave him vinegar and so they fulfilled the Scripture Psalm 69.22 and he compleated our redemption saying it is finished Mathe. But did he only suffer on the crosse without any glorious testimony of his roialty and Deity Phila. No God left him not without witnesse For Pilats
infernall sorrowes as the innocent surety of our salvation was capable of which no mention was made in the Creed but only by this Article or that by the efficacy of his death he did pierce into hell i. wheresoever the cursed spirits have their residence despoiling them of their power and confirm their damnation and to signifie the deliverance of his people from their captivity Ephes 4.8 And it seems to me that David intended this sense Psal 16.10 thou wilt not leave my soule in hell i. in sorrow and anguish nor suffer my body to know corruption All which should work in us sorrow for sin which put Christ to so much and make us to descend in all humility under the hand of God as he did that with him we be exalted in due time Also to shun despair since God can bring us from the sorrow of hell it selfe as he did our blessed Saviour Mathe. But I pray tell me the benefits obtained by his resurrection Phila. It is said Phil. 2.9 that for his sufferings God hath highly exalted him so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confesse that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father Now this exaltation consisteth 1. In his Resurrection 2. In his ascension 3. In his session at the right hand of God 4. In the outward and inward adoration of the intellectuall and rationall creature 5. In his comming to judge the world Mathe. Foure of these I agree to but the bowing at his name I doubt of as I doe also of many other gestures which have been used in the Church assemblies Phila. I know this outward gesture hath been much controverted But when I consider that God alloweth of outward visible as well as of the invisible worship and that St Paul saith we must glorifie God in our bodies as well as in our spirits and that this posture of bowing the knee is founded upon the glory of God in Christ Phil. 2.10 It may be practised by Christians yea Chrysost ad popu Antioch hom 61. and ought to be at certain times of devotion as a token of the same and to testifie our submission to Jesus Christ whom God hath so highly exalted and assigned him this worship as a part of his reward for suffering Theodo in Phil. 2. that by our humility he may be exalted who was exalted for his humility even to have him honoured in his name when absent in reference to his person I know that many objections are made against it As first that all things that are here spoken of have not knees as Angels below and above I answer nor have they tongues therefore shall not they confesse him The meaning then is that all in their severall manner shall willingly or unwillingly be subject to Christ whom God hath exalted by manifesting him to be the eternall son of God So that as we that have knees are to bowe them to the person that owns that name Jesus so shall all others do first or last willingly or forcibly to the same person and his power For the bowing to the name as a word or at the naming thereof alwaies I do not understand the text intends it but that Christians in old time did use to uncover their heads at divine service when this name was pronounced in signe that they did acknowledge his deity Zanc. in Phil. c. 2. against the blasphemy of the Jewes and Arrians who would not acknowledg his Godhead is plainly to be found Hiero. in Isa 45.23 and that they bowed the knee also which the Jew in pride would not doe which in time did degenerate to superstition Yet sure as it may be superstitiously used so it may be irreligiously neglected since that Christ hath said he that honoreth the Son honoreth the Father and that he will have all men worship the Son as they worship the Father and that God hath included his own name in Jesus I am Isa 43.11 and beside me there is no Saviour and therefore being Jesus the Savior he must be Jehovah too our righteousnesse Jer. 23.6 Upon this ground I beleeve our Church hath injoined this gesture as may be seen in the 52. injunction of Queen Elizabeth and in the eighteenth Canon But antiquity is antiquated and the Church authority disalowed and so Gods worship disanulled Mathe. Now I pray declare the manner and the benefits we have by his Resurrection and Ascension and his session in heaven and his comming to judgement Phila. First ye are to know that only Christs body can properly be said to rise because that only died although the soule and it were never disunited from the person of the Son of God though the soule was divided in death from the body of which rising there was testimony enough both of Angels and men The time of his rising was the third day neither sooner nor later And that first to fulfill both his type of Isaac who was taken alive from the altar the third day after he was destined for death Gen. 22.4 which receiving was in a figure Heb. 11.19 i. of Christs resurrection and also of that prophecie Hos 6.2 the third day he will raise us for by him we shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.22 Againe he rose this day as it were to give a new beginning to the world He died the day of the week that Adam was created and rose the first day of the week on which God began the world by which he enlightned Heaven and Earth with the grace and joy of his resurrection Also he rose with the sun to shew that he was the true Sun of righteousnesse that was to rise with healing in his wings Mal. 4.2 to enlighten the new Christian world after so long a night of dark legall shadowes spoken of Cant. 2.17 and Rom. 13.12 bringing life and immortality to light through the Gospell 2 Tim. 1.10 2 Tim. 1.10 The manner of his rising was admirable As first by his owne power John 2.19 dissolve this temple meaning the temple of his body and I will raise it up again the third day So John 10.18 I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up againe this he did as he was God He did it by himselfe from the Father through the eternall spirit Again he rose by such a way as never any man did before namely as the Prince of life as the first born of the dead as the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. He never saw corruption nor ever was to die any more as Lazarus and others He rose in the same body that was buried Luke 24.39 and in despight of his keeper as the Church shall do in despight of all opposers and with an earthquake to shew how he will shake the world first by the power of his word preached and next by the power of his last
his companion Helena Next to him was Menander Menander Epiph. cont haeres a Samaritan and a conjurer some think one of Simons disciples who taught that the world was made by Angels and that he was sent to save the world and to baptize The Apostle speaks contrary to him about Angels Col. 2.18 and also about baptisme Eph. 4.5 that there is but one Lord one faith one baptisme Next was one Ebion Ebion See Acts 15.6 First Council of Apost abolished circumcision who said Christ was only a man begotten of Joseph and Mary and that the observation of Moses Law was needfull to salvation This man and his followers condemned Paul as an Apostate from the Law who by his doctrine did establish the Law Rom. 3.21 They also rejected all the New Testament save the Gospell of St Matthew and yet that proves Christ not begotten by Joseph Mat. 1.18 23 25. So one Cerinthus pretended he received a revelation from Angels that after the resurrection Christ should have a Kingdome upon earth Cerinthus and that his subjects should eat drink marry contrary to Christs doctrine Matthew 22.30 In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the Angels Next sprung up the Nicolaitans Nicolaitans Acts 6. who by a mistake of Nicolas one of the seven Deacons to assoile himselfe from jealousie of his faire wife said that for his part he could be content any other should marry her upon which they held wives in common Clém. Alex. strom 3. which thing Christ saith he hated Rev. 2.6 15. these arose in the first hundred yeers after Christ There was also about the next hundred year after Christ In the second hundred yeers Carpocrates Epiph. cont haeres 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. Eus l. 4. c. 7. divers others As 1. Carpocrates of whom came Gnosticks that professed strange hidden mysteries They worshipped gold and silver Images as they said of Jesus So of divers Philosophers these also forbad marriages and allowed fornication as the Pope doth also and by their unclean lives brought a great scandall upon Christians Valentinus set up a plurality of Gods masculine and feminine Valentinus which it is very like he borrowed from Poetry as Hesiod Hesi in theogon that writes of such a subject So one Marcus one of his schollers brings in a new form of baptisme Marcionites In the name of the unknown Father and in the name of the verity the mother of all things and in the name of him that descended on Christ These and all the Gnosticks followers of Carpocrates denied the resurrection of the body and said that salvation belonged only to the soul contrary to St Paul 1 Cor. 15. Cerdon and Marcion denied the same also Cerdon and Cerdon said there were two Gods one the author of good the other of evill They denied also the verity of Christs humane nature Aug. index and the truth of his sufferings Polycarpus called this Marcion the first born of the Devill He held a man might be baptized often It may be he thought himselfe to need it by reason of his whoredomes in which he lived for which his Father excommunicated him out of his Church at Pontus Apelles and Lucianus his schollers follow him but not in all his opinions but they said Christs body was not made of the substance Apelles or seed of the woman as God said Gen. 3.15 but of elements and after his resurrection was resolved into them again yet the Scripture saith he had flesh and bones when he appeared to his disciples and so was taken up Acts 1.9 Tatianus the author of Encratitae Tatianus who abstained from wine and flesh and all sensitives came next and condemned marriage Col. 2.1 Tim. 3.1 and St Pauls Epistles also for they confute their errors Montanus that perswaded women to leave their husbands Montanus Synods of Asia condemned him Eus l. 5. c. 3.14 17. to become Prophetesses He called himselfe the Holy Ghost as did also Macedonius after him and forbad second marriage contrary to Paul Rom. 7.3 Many other there were I only shall reck on the chiefe Some added cheese to their bread in the holy Supper as the Artotiritae In the third hundred yeers more weeds appeared Some denied the writings of St John as the Alogi Some met in stoves naked men and women called Adamiani Some denied Christs divinity as the Theodotiani Some magnified Melchisedeck above Christ Some would have no possessions but approved voluntary poverty and accounted marriage an unclean estate of life these were called Apostolici Some would not procreate children yet fornicate like Onan Gen. 38.9 10. these were Origeniani Some said Euseb l. 6. c. 33. if one denied Christ for fear of persecution and yet held the faith in their heart sinned nor yet Christ approveth it nor Luke 12.9 nor St Paul 2 Tim. 2.12 Novatus following Novatus con demned in the Councils at Rome Eus lib. 6. c. 41. So at Antioch So at Ancyra tom 1. Concil Sozom. l. 7. c. 12. was clean contrary for he held that a man doing so was never to be admitted into the Church upon what repentance soever contrary to Gods word Isa 1.18 He was excommunicated by Cornelius Bishop of Rome and Cyprian Bishop of Carthage but his heresie continued longer then any before Arrius coming in under a shew of zeale and holinesse and because they held as well as the true Catholicks the divinity of Christ and suffered for it under the Arrian persecution which ensued His followers were called Catharoi or Puritans Sabellius confessed one God Sabellius but denied three Persons So doth the Socinians in a manner also if they think that the Trinity is nothing but a distinct manner of apprehending the Godhead without personality This Heretick Sabellius was the disciple of one Noetus in the daies of the Emperour Gallus and in the year of Christ 257. and before him affirmed by Hermogenes and Prazeas but nursed up by Sabellius Ruffi l. 1. c. 29. which opinion confounds substance and subsistence together and so they understood that the Father suffered when the Son suffered for us because all the three terms of Father Son and Holy Ghost are by them given to one person and not only to one God and therefore they were called Patrispassiani father-sufferers In the year Nepotians 264. an Aegyptian Bishop Nepos in Galienus reigne raised the opinion which the Millenaries or Chiliasts hold now that the godly should rise from the dead before the wicked and should live with Christ So held Papias Bishop of Hierapolis in the first century of yeers on earth in all earthly pleasures as Cerinthus held before in the first hundred yeers after Christ Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria confuted Coracion who held this opinion in three daies disputations at Arsenotis in Aegypt before many witnesses Eus l. 7. c. 24. so that Coracion promised for ever
man consisted in praiers not hearing by which St Paul tels us that faith is begotten by which praier must be offered up They were also called Enthusiasts because when they were transported they thought the spirit was infused into them Theo. l. 4. c. 7. so that they needed neither holy discipline for the body as fasting nor doctrine for the soule Apollinaris followed who denied Christ to have any humane soule but that his divinity supplied the place of it But then Christ was not perfect man Donatus Bishop of Numidia held that the Catholick was bounded among those of his society in Africa and that no baptisme was rightly administred but by them The wildest branch of this heresie was the Circumcilionists who would cast themselves down from clifts and rocks and into fire and water out of assurance that it was martyrdome and fruits of their faith Our Quakers are like them Aug. con Donat. Collyridiani worshipped the Virgin Mary and offered cakes to her Epiph. cont haeres as the Jewes did to the Queen of heaven and as the Papists do adore her as a mediatrix There were some also after these that said Joseph knew Mary after she had borne Christ because of the word in Mat. 1.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till which word signifieth never oftentimes As 1 Sam. 15.25 So Mat. 28.20 Samuel saw Saul no more till the day his death i. never So 1 Sam. 6.23 Michal had no child till the day of her death and all the Fathers generally hold she was a perpetual virgin and so have taken those words of the Apostles Creed born of the Virgin Mary as if of one that ever was a virgin Yea some of them have argued it from Ezek. 44.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of allegory that as the East gate of the Temple was to be shut up that no man might enter in nor go out there but the Prince So was the blessed Virgins body made the Temple of the Holy Ghost and her womb only for the ingresse and egresse of Messiah the Prince And though that some of the disciples were called Christs brethren as James and Joses Simon and Iude we know that those were so called in Scripture that were but Cozen germans and so these might be the sons of Iosephs brother or sisters or of Maries sister as Iames is said to be the son of Mary Cleophas Danaeus de heres fo 224. Epiph. de heres fol. 166. Or some might be the sons of Ioseph by a former wife if he were eighty yeers of age before he was contracted to Mary and so the more unlikely to know her after the flesh These hereticks were of the same mind with Nestorius and Helvidius who succeeded them But these were called from their opinion Antidicomarianitae After them sprang up the Seleucians that said that the Chaos of which God made the world was coeternall with God and that Angels created the souls of men Aug. and that Christ did not carry our nature up to heaven as it is said Acts 2.34 and cap. 3.23 Rom. 8.34 Ephes 1.20 but that he left his body in the body of the Sun These received not baptisme by water They denied the resurrection of the body and said only that was performed by succession of generation which it may be they borrowed partly from Plato and Pythagoras Himeneus and Philetus 2 Tim. 2.18 Pelagius affirmed that men by nature were able to fulfill the law of God contrary to Rom. 8.7 And denied originall sin contrary to Psal 51.5 and that it came not by propagation but imitation of Adams sin and that children need not be baptized for remission of sin Aug. con Pela and that the holy men that confessed sin did it rather for example of humility then for any necessity or guiltinesse Nestorius followed who denied the personall union of the divine and humane nature of which the blessed Virgin was the medium or mean and in that respect only called the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mother of God because she brought forth him that was by union both God and man inseparably and Nestorius would have her called only the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mother of Christ and therefore condemned by the first Councill of Ephesus and banished by Theodosius the Emperour and his tongue rotted in his mouth Eutyches confounded two natures in Christ humane and divine by saying that the divine swallowed up the humane and so Christ had only the divine nature He was condemned by the generall Councill of Chalcedon where sate 630. Fathers and the Emperour Martianus and it was decreed That the natures of Christ though united yet were not confounded Next followed those that worshipped the crosse and divers images which filth the Church of Rome hath licked up together with the worship of reliques One Godescalcus a Dutch man said that by predestination men were forced both to do good and evill About 1100. yeers after Christ a kind of monomachy arose between the Greek and Latine Churches about the bread in the Sacrament whether it should be leavened or unleavened The Greek Church was called Fermentarii the Latine Azymitae the first did leven it the other did not After this one Petrus Abolandus a French man said the Holy Ghost was the soul of the world and not of the substance of God the Father Almericus also of France said that God was the essence of all creatures and that they all should be converted into God again The Paleneni about Tholouze in France affirmed that a man might attain to such perfection in this world that he might be void of all sin and that such were not subject to any Civill or Ecclesiastick power that they had no need of praier and fasting or any exercise whereby grace may be increased These laid some grounds upon which the Anabaptists build now Others under a colour of Religion and charity made all things common and women also These surely began the Family of Love About 1600. years after Christ sprang up the Anabaprists but before I come to speak of them and others following from their time I must tell you according to your question how and when the Protestants came in and how persecuted by Papists and opposed by hereticks and schismaticks Mathe. I thank you for your remembrance and entreat you so to do Phila. You must take notice that the Protestant Religion hath been maintained in her doctrine from the beginning of the Primitive times First by the Bishops of Rome themselves for the first 300. years after Christ and many of them were Confessors and Martyrs though their pride began to appear 100. years before in Zepherinus and other Bishops following him as hath been declared before But after that they were grown rich and potent by the favour of Emperours and got themselves chosen without the Emperours consent by the votes of the Clergy and people of Rome and that
society then murther for that destroieth but some men but Heresie and Schisme destroieth or endeavoureth to destroy the Church 2. Murther can but destroy the body but this the soule Murther destroies only naturall life but this destroieth life spirituall and eternall Beside Heresie rents a man from the truth and Schisme from the communion of the Church and so breaks the bond of unity and charity by which God is forsaken as well as the Church and if they think to maintain these rents they have made from the Church of England to be lawfull let them tell you what Church hath lesse error or lesse evill manners and yet maintains none either by her doctrine or authority I beleeve they will find even the Church of Corinth and many of the Churches of lesser Asia to be guilty of greater error and worse manners then the Church of England was when they separated from it and yet Paul cals one the Church of God and Christ in the Revelation doth call the other Churches yet these men while they condemn the Church of England of tyranny they have been more cruell to themselves by separation then the Church could be or was by excommunication Mathe. I pray before you tell me of their punishments let me know what other kind of Sectaries have vexed the Church Phila. Papists when they were in authority they persecuted the Church when they were supprest Papists then secretly they corrupt the Church By Papists I mean not the old before the Trent Councill or rather Conventicle begun in the year 1546. in the time of Pope Paulus the third though they were bad enough but the Papists that sprung up since because they have brought in new errors as other new Sectaries have done As 1. Concerning free will that it works by it selfe with grace in our conversion though the Apostle saith that the naturall man receiveth not the things of God 2. 1 Cor. 2.14 They say originall sin is quite taken away in baptisme so that it ceaseth to be sin yet St. Paul saith that when he doth that which is evill it is by sin that dwelleth in him Rom. 7.17 So they hold that the certainty of salvation depends only upon hope not on faith contrary to John 1.12 saying Christ gave them power to be made the sons of God that beleeved on his name They say the merit of Christs death and obedience is our satisfaction not our righteousnesse but Paul saith he was made to us righteousnesse and made sin for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him So they say we are justified by a generall faith of apprehension by which we beleeve the Scriptures to be true but Paul saith by a particular faith of application of Christ and all his merits to our selves as Gal. 2.20 who died for me and gave himselfe for me So they say a man is not justified by faith alone but by other vertues but Paul saith we are justified by faith without the deeds of the Law for indeed good works do but justifie our faith not us nor do they justifie us as a cause but are signs and fruits of our justification So they say a man may merit at Gods hands because God hath promised to reward us and Christ hath deserved that out works should merit but Paul refuseth all for Christs merits and desireth only to be found in him Phil. 3.9 and not in his own righteousnesse So they say that Christ hath satisfied for our sins and eternall punishment belonging to them but the temporall we must satisfie in this world or in purgatory It is true we must satisfie men for wrongs done this is but a civill satisfaction So we must fatisfie the Church by some testimony of repentance if we have offended the Church but we know of none we can make to God but only in Christ and for purgatory after life we find none in Scripture but beleeve as death leaves us so judgement finds us So they talk much of traditions to be beleeved as necessary to salvation because the Apostle bids the Thessalonians to hold fast the traditions which they had been taught 2 Thes 2.14 whether by word or by our Epistle But then they ought to prove to us that the traditions which they would have us receive are such as were delivered of Christ to his Apostles or from the Apostles to the Church 2 Tim. 3.16 or else give us leave only to hold that the Scriptures alone hold forth to us all things necessary to salvation So they hold vowes of things not commanded are a part of Gods worship such as is a vowed single life wilfull poverty and blind regular obedience which destroy Christian Liberty and therefore till they prove such things commanded in Scripture they must give us leave to hold only our vow in baptisme and to reject the other as humane inventions of seducing spirits spoken against 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. So they hold the worshipping of images to be a religious work but that is forbidden in the second Commandement which they have taken away and divided the tenth into two Pascha Raubertus first sets it forth in lib de Corp. Christi sang cap 14. Ioannes Diaconus in vita Grego 1. Legend of Simeon Metaphrastes in vit Arsenii the better to bring the people to image-worshipping So they hold Christ to be bodily present in the Communion Bread and Wine a strange opinion which was at first but at School-Question afterward maintained by tales and fictions of Christ appearing in the Sacrament like a little child A shamefull opinion to subject Christ to orall eating and gutturall swallo wing True it is that Christ is really there present in a spirituall and mysticall manner in a Sacramentall relation to the signs and by faith to the beleeving receivers yet I know the Church of Rome hath peremptorily condemned them for hereticks that would not hold the bodily presence For Pope Leo the ninth and Victor the second and Nicolaus the second called Councils against Berengarius who had disproved it by Aug. and Scotus Yet Pope Innocent the third in his Conventicle of Lateran gave it the name of Transubstantiation and ratified the doctrine thereof and hath been the destruction of many a godly Martyrs life in the time of Queen Mary So they call the Lords Supper a sacrifice which they call the Masse and it serves for the quick and dead with them But it is not properly so called but only as it is a memoriall of Christs offering up himselfe or because then we do in Christ offer up our selves a living sacrifice or because we make an offering at that time for the Minister and the poor So they make fasting it selfe a part of Gods worship Rom. 14.17 whereas the Kingdome of God consisteth not in meat or drink nor in fasting from it though temperance is a good vertue in a Christian but to set up a necessity of formall fasting as a piece of
rich mens estates and marking them out for destruction by fire and sword God keep his people from becomming their prey Mathe. What are our Antisabbatarians Phila. Such as are against the keeping of any Sabbath whether the Jewish Sabbath or the Christians Lords day Of which opinion was one Hetherington a Box-maker who said not only the Jewes Sabbath day was of no force since Christs time and the Apostles but also taught that every day was a Sabbath as much as the Lords day But he recanted his error at Pauls Crosse God be praised And good reason for though the Jewish Sabbath being but a shadow of Christ be now abolished and we are not to be judged by the keeping of it Col. 2.16 yet the morality of that Commandement is observed in keeping still one day in seven holy to the Lord for delivering us from the bondage of sin by Christs resurrection as the Jewes kept theirs in remembrance of their freedome from the bondage of Egypt Deut. 5.15 And thus the Law by the Christians observing the first day of the week Rom. 3.31 is not made void but established It is true that there is no precept for the changing of it because there was no need for the morall intent of the Law commanded only that one day in seven be kept so that if the Patriarchs before the Law was given by Moses kept a seventh day in respect to the creation and the Jewes kept a seventh in respect of their liberation from Egypt and the Christians keep their seventh day in relation to Christs redemption that Commandement is fulfilled so far as it requireth an holy seventh day And though we have no precept for changing yet we have their practice and examples who had the mind of Christ For the first day of the week called since Christs time the Lords day was first kept at Jerusalem Acts 2.1 upon which the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles Then again at Troas Acts 20.7 in which verse is declared that it was their usuall meeting day And the holy Fathers have alwaies observed it Epist ad Magnes and urged the keeping of it as Ignatius scholler to St Iohn the Apostle his auditor about thirty years the second Bishop of Antioch and a Martyr but 107 years after Christ in the raign of the Emperour Trajan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith let every one that loveth Christ instead of the Sabbath celebrate the Lords day And Basil saith that when all daies prescribed by the Law are abolished yet there remains one great day of the Lord which shall never be abolished Of this opinion for the seventh day Jewish Sabbath and against the celebration of the Lords day Traskilus was one Iohn Trask and Theophilus Brabourn but both recanted their errors for which glory be to God Trask preached against eating of blood and unclean creatures upon mistake of the injunction of the first Councill of the Apostles to the Gentiles Acts 15.2 where blood and things strangled do not relate to such things prepared for meat but to the barbarous or canibal eating of things halfe alive and halfe dead in their blood or eating any thing that was torn from a living creature therefore Paul saith that every creature of God is good Mathe. What are your Soule-sleepers Phila. Those that revive that Sect in the time of Origen Soul-sleepers in the third centurie of years after Christ who held the soule did sleep in the dust with the body after death because God said to Adam Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return not perceiving this was spoken of the body only not of the soule which came not from thence Gen. 2.7 And also because Solomon saith Eccle. 3.10 that man and beast all return to one place yet they might have considered that he saith also the spirit of a beast goeth downward and the spirit of a man goeth upward even to God that gave it Eccles 12. and that the soules of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord Wisd 3. In the sight of the unwise they seem to die but they are in peace Mathe. What are your seekers Phila. Surely people that have so long contended about truth and the Church Seekers that they have quite lost it and therefore they say there is no true Church nor Minister nor Ordinances yet they expect and seek with Loe here it is and then there it is and catch at every thing but hold nothing like one that leaps out of a boat into the water and then catches at every rush and flag to save himself Mathe. What are your Divorcers Phila. Another sprout of the Anabaptists Divorcers who like the Jewes would put away their wives for a small cause under pretence that he finds her not an help meet for him But this is contrary to Christs rule Mat. 5.31 and c. 19.9 that no man should put away his wife but for whoredome lest he cause her to commit adulterie or another man to marry her and so he commit adultery Mathe. Is there any more such weeds in the Churches field Phila. Yes surely for I hear of some that account the Scriptures a thing of nought both the holy books of the Old and New Testament such were put to death under Moses Law Heb. 5.28 But we live in greater times of liberty I may say Libertinisme The Lord hold the reine which Magistrates let too slack lest these unruly creatures hurry both the Church chariot and the horsemen of Israel to destruction Mathe. I pray what are the Shakers Phila. A kind of people that pretend to have the spirit by fits But what spirit it is that casts them into these seeming or swooning extasies I know not but I doubt much whether it be the spirit of God or of Satan or of dissembling I have read of the spirit of Apollo that used such feats upon the bodies of those whom he had possessed namely of shaking and quaking which being past they have spoken some words which have been received for his Oracles So I have read and heard of Nuns pretended to be possessed by evill spirits beyond the seas which the Friers can expell at their pleasure But I never knew nor ever read in any credible author that the spirit of God doth or hath entred the body of men in any such manner but hath enlightned the mind with sober knowledge and sound repentance and comfortable faith and well grounded speeches that are unreprovable and lead them in a life unblameable But these Quakers their speeches are confused and yet perverse and peremptorie Their lives erroneous not knowing or refusing to use the creature of God as lawfully they may I find them people of no sound knowledge yet despising learning and rejecting Gods Ministers and Ordinances by which they may be better instructed They dare not use their own native language as the word you either because the Scripture useth the word thou or else because they think
things indifferent as she finds those things expedient and convenient to be done which she finds neither commanded nor forbidden in Gods Word Mathe. Methinks it seems reasonable that Church-ceremonies should have speciall warrant from Gods Word Phila. If there be a generall warrant it is as good as 1 Cor. 14.23 40. let all things be done to edification decently and in order This is ground sufficient for the Church to impose what she thinks to be so Calvin And upon this ground it is that the Church hath appointed times ceremonial to be observed as well as things as the Feasts of Christs Nativity Resurrection and Ascension and Whitsontide Zane in tract de sacra Script p. 279. as well as habits and gestures which Mr Calvin saith are divine altogether as founded on Scripture As kneeling at praier is a divine ceremony as it is a part of that decency commended to us by St Paul Let all things be done with decency yet it is a humane ceremony Calv. instit l. 4. c. 10. S. 30. as it is appointed by men to persons times or places And Vrsinus a reformed judicious Divine saith that ecclesiasticall constitutions are good Ursin Catecb so far as they do assign that which is generally intimated though not expressed in the word of God Mathe. But if ceremonies be made parts of Gods worship they are unlawfull Phila. To make them any part of Gods essentiall worship is unlawfull but not to use them in the accidentall parts of it for the more decent and convenient discharge of Gods service For as God made a man perfect and no man can add to him but yet to cloath this man is no presumption but rather an argument of our estimation of him So to Gods essential worship the Church may not add any thing but to apply ceremonies to the outward part of it for decency or edification is no derogation to Gods service And for places of Scripture alledged against ceremonies they make nothing against them as that of Deut. 12.32 there is meant an adding to Gods word by way of corruption as fraudulent coiners that adulterates mony So in that of Esa 29.13 is intended those humane constitutions that is contrary to Gods word So that of Col. 2.23 is meant that will worship which was set up by the Essens a branch of the Pharisees as necessary to religion and was a negative superstition ver 21. touch not tast not handle not of which the non Conformist is guilty saying wear not crosse not Danâ—us de doct Christianae cap. 25. Zane in Colos â— 27 kneel not and these they obtruded upon men as parts of doctrine and a rule of Gods worship which is to accuse Gods word of imperfectnesse But so our Church doth not nor addeth nothing to what God hath commanded but she appointeth something to be done which may serve to the performance of what he hath commanded Mathe. But ceremonies made significant or to teach us any spirituall duty by their mysticall signification are by religious men thought unlawfull Phila. Those significant ceremonies which are mixed with false doctrins are unlawfull as the Pharisees attributed to their washing cups pots and tables as great a legall purification of their bodies as to those washings which God had appointed to that purpose yea they imputed a spirituall vertue to them of cleansing the soule from sin which Christ reproved Mark 7.8 saying that which is from without defileth not a man and therefore that which is a meer outward washing being not of Gods institution cannot purifie a man so that he condemned not the washing but the false opinion joined with it Beside ceremonies are not sacramentall but morall signs of duty which are not unlawful being neither significant by any special representation nor obsignant by ratifying to man Gods covenant and grace but only puts us in mind of some duty we owe to God provided alwaies that they be not such significant ceremonies as God hath taken away by the comming of Christ Zanch Epi. ad Hoop p. 1087. or used with any Jewish opinion or popish superstition as they do their ceremonies Abraham used a ceremony in giving his servant an oath by putting his hand under his thigh which was a humane ceremony for Abraham had no command from God so to do and it was significant for it taught a considence in Christ who was to come after the flesh out of Abrahams loins for the oath intended that as he hoped to have any happinesse by Christ who was to come of Abrahams seed that he would be faithfull to his master in taking a wife for his son So Mordecai's Feast of Purim was a significant sign to them to be thankfull for their deliverance from Human's bloody plot So the yearly Feast of Dedication set up by Machaheus 1 Mach. 4.59 in remembrance of their deliverance from the cyranny of Antiochus who had forced Idolatry upon them by setting up the image of Jupiter in the Temple of God and Machabeus his renewing true Religion and consecrating a new Altar to God John 10.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore called the Feast of Renewing And in the New Testaments Church were the Feasts of charity both to signifie and preserve love and these were continued till almost 500 years after Christ And those were condemned that would not communicate in such Feasts by the Councill of Gargna a Town in Paphlagonia a modest and godly Councill which condemned Eustatius Conc. Garg who inclined to the heresie of Lalianus the patron of Encratites or strict livers who thought that only an honest life without faith was religion good enough and could not abide the publick congregation of Gods people in Temples So the holy kisse in those Feasts commended by St Paul 1 Thes 5.26 was of humane institution not of Christs and the property of it was significant viz. of Christian love and it was done in the holy and publike worship of God to shew that it did not only signifie the love that Christians had one to another but that love which they enjoied by the attonement of Christ who had kissed the Church with the kisse of peace Psal 2. and they him by the kisse of faith and obedience So the covering of the womans head in the Church and the mans head uncovered was a mysticall significant signe first of the mans subjection immediatly to Christ 1 Cor. 11. Cal. in 1 Cor. 11 P. Martyr on the same p. 151 and of the womans subjection to the man in Christ Yea further it signified the morall duty which one owed to the other the man to rule rightly by his dominion and the woman of her subjection to her husbands government Zanch. desac script p. 273. and therefore we ought not to be contentious 1 Cor. 11.16 but rather wait till they be changed since they are not of perpetuity Chem. Exam. part 1. p. 25. but have been alwaies changeable as we know at first
he died not for them Not for the good for they needed no sanctification by redemption though a preservation in their standing by the vertue of him in whom they were first called to immutability of estate who was the first born of every creature because he was eternally born of God before any creature was made Col. 1.15 and by him they were made and therefore must hold their estates but yet they cannot be of the redeemed Church in regard they were never captived nor did ever fall from nor fall out with God and so need him that was only a Mediator between God and man of whom this Church consisteth which is one holy Catholike Church built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ being the head corner stone This is the subject of all the benefits which God hath afforded us in Christ through his spirit and is called one because it is the one only mysticall body of Christ and hath but one faith to knit it to Christ and one spirit to agitate it one God by whom it is called to worship him and to be glorified of him one love by which all the members are gathered among themselves and one salvation the felicity thereof and one bond of divine love in Christ toward her in which respect she is called his friend his beloved and his Spouse So it is called Catholike in regard of the universall largnesse of it being tied to neither persons time nor place Therefore it is either ignorantly or arrogantly assumed by the Papists who call their Roman Church Catholike whereas it wants the Catholike extension of it as well as the Catholike truths of it So it is called holy because it hath a most holy and sanctifying head by which sin is not imputed and her corruptions by the Holy Ghost by degrees taken away that she may be presented to God without spot or wrinkle Eph. 1.27 So it is called Propheticall and Apostolicall because she is founded upon their doctrine Eph. 2.20 Now the parts of this Church are triumphant or militant The triumphant is that part which now triumpheth with Christ the head of the Church over all enemies and enjoieth with him all gladnesse and felicity of soule and after the resurrection shall enjoy the fulness of it in soule and body united That the soules of the just after death do enjoy heavenly felicity is plaine because it is said Rev. 7.15 that the soules of the dead were before Gods throne in white robes serving God day and night and because Christ promised the theefe that time he died that his soule should be with him in Paradise Luke 23.43 which Paradise St Paul calleth the third heavens 2 Cor. 12.2 4. And it is said Heb. 12.23 that the spirits of just men are in the heavenly Jerusalem and therefore when this tabernacle is dissolved i. our bodies we have an house in heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 or else St Paul had little reason to desire dissolution if not to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 But yet all this proveth nothing for the Popes canonization of Saints whose memoriall is esteemed of all good men and their examples imitated but we find no Scripture for their canonization nor for those honors the Pope gives them As 1. To be written in a Catalogue thereby commanding them to be called Saints 2. By calling on them in the praiers of the Church 3. By dedicating to their memory Temples and Altars 4. By offering any sacrifice in their honor And 5. Celebrating daies festivall to their memory 6. By setting up their pictures 7. By reserving their reliques to worship And all this must be done by the Pope and none else Bel. de heatitud sanct lib. 1. cap. 7. and 8. say his flatterers and he cannot err therein yet St Paul saith that only God knoweth who are his not the Pope for he canonizeth hypocrites whom he by his indulgence hath flattered to hell in their life time and then placeth them in heaven when they are dead though their souls be in the place of torment This kind of canonization came up by Pope Leo the third Bel. ut supra about eight hundred years since and then Antichrist was detected and so canonization is Antichristian So is their giving to them religious worship which in Scripture is neither commanded nor given by any good man farther then by esteeming them of blessed memory Luke 1.44 or by praising God for them Gal. 1.5 or by imitation of their faith and vertue yea Angels have refused it at the hands of men and Apostles also as Acts 10.26 and 14.15 and Rev. 19.10 and 22.8 And as bad is their doctrine of Saints interceeding for us for there is but one Mediator who maketh intercession in whose name only we expect salvation Acts 4.10 and receive remission Acts 17.31 He is a perfect Mediator and needeth nor requireth any copartners 1 Cor. 1.13 and Heb. 12.2 Beside Aug. lib. 10. conf cap. 42. Amb. de Isaac cap. 8. Aug. in Psal 118. who can insure us that the dead departed have any cognizance of our state or praiers Isa 63.16 surely Christ is our mouth to speak to God and our eie to see him and our hand to offer to him and that praier that is not offered by him is so far from blotting out sin that it becomes sin it selfe therefore the worshipping of Angels forbidden by St Paul Col. 2.18 is unlawfull and the invocation of Saints as bad Aug. lib. de cura pro mortuis agenda since the dead know not what the living do and that true Christians beleeve not on Peter himselfe but in him upon whom Peter beleeved as Aug. saith well in his book of the City of God lib. 18. cap. 58. But worse is the religious worship of their images though there may be a civill use of them for adorning of houses or keeping of them in memory Aug. de civit dei cap. 14 in Psal 36. in Psal 113. or painting of them historically But to set up their images or pictures in Temples and holy places under pretence of instructing the ignorant as did Pope Gregory the first they have degenerated to superstition and idolatry as Serenus Bishop of Massilus forewarned that Pope nor would suffer any to be in his Churches however those logs of which the images were made have better fortune then their fellowes who being as good as they yet are laied behind the fire There was none in Churches in the time of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea about the year 330. But the first painting of Church wass was done by Pontius Paulinus Bishop of Nola who painted the Churches with the story of the Israelites Sunfet in the wildernesse to deter the people from gluttony that came to the annuall Feast of St Faelix But surely he hath no religion that worshippeth an image though the image of Christ Lactant. de errore Orig. lib. 2. cap. 16. anno 300. for we are not to make images of things
of base mettall are made valuable by the power of Kings and a small piece of parchment by law enabled to convey an inheritance The elements are mean and poor the better to resemble him that had neither form nor beauty in his passion and also to set forth his power who can do wonders and miracles by weak means yet they be doubled to confirm our comfort and they be the elements of our sustentation to present to us his vertue by which the soule is nourished to everlasting life Next we are to consider what relation the actions of Christ in the consecration hath to himselfe and of the receiver to Christ namely in that he eateth and drinketh the Sacrament The actions of Christ in his consecration of the elements to a sacramentall use are First his taking and blessing of the elements Luke 22.19 20. There is another cup named in the 17 verse which was only the cup of thanksgiving used by the Jewes in all their solemn feasts But this was the cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10.16 the cup of the New Testament in his blood which blessing caused it to cease from being a common drink and to become sacramentall signifying that he took our nature and sanctified it to undertake the work of redemption and yet altered not the elements in their nature but use not in their substance but efficacy no more then he altered the nature of man by taking it into the deity though he advanced it in quality above the common capacity of humane nature So he brake it Aug. tom 8. in Psal tom 9. tract 7. in Ep. Johannis to shew what violence should be used to his body and poured out the wine to set forth the effusion of his blood So he gave it to his disciples to shew that he freely bestowed himselfe upon the Church with all his merits Secondly we are to consider in the actions of the receiver what relation they have to Christ Their action is taking eating drinking Taking shewes the beleevers hand of faith apprehending Christ Then he eats and drinks the Sacrament to signifie the benefit we get by Christ whose precious death is exhibited to us in the Sacrament and proves to us either like physick to prevent evill or to purge us of it 1 John 1.7 or else is like ordinary food to sustain us or like dainty meat to refresh and restore us Again it is eaten and drunk to shew that he is like meat without which we cannot live and after which we should most earnestly long and eagerly desire as hungry men do after victuals as also to shew what conformity our spirituall stomack hath with Christ for as that which we eat is retained if it agree with our stomack else it is repelled so if our stomacks spirituall do agree with Christ we retaine him because he agreeth with it and pleaseth it and contents it which the world doth not Beside it is eaten and drunk to shew that Christ must incorporate with us not that we turn him into our nature as we do other meat but by our receiving him he turneth our nature to his likenesse as leaven doth turn the bread into its own likenesse the bread doth not turn it and in this respect the Kingdome of God is like a leven Mat. 13. By this is also set forth that rare union that we have with Christ he concorporating himselfe with us by faith in a wonderfull manner Aug. Ep. 23. Aug. in tract 26. in Joh. for though we eat him not with our mouth yet we do by our mind Therefore Christ said take eat this is my body which indeed is not his body till it be eaten nor then his naturall but his sacramentall body which men feed on by faith and not by sense by which faith Christ is there present to every beleever and that not only by his infinite and unlimited presence by which he filleth all places nor by that reall presence which the Lutherans imagine as if Christs body did partake of the incommunicable properties of the deity such as ubiquity by which they beleeve Christ to be in or under the elements nor is Christ present in the Sacrament by the change of the elements into his body as the papists hold A strange opinion to make Christ subject to orall eating and gutterall swallowing and to make God do things not only contrary to nature which all men grant he can but things contrary in nature which he cannot do because that implieth a contradiction As we read that God made the Sun and Moon stand still it was contrary to nature But he never did nor never will make the Sun to stand and go at one and the same instant so neither make Christs body infinite like the deity to be every where at one time Nor certainly will he so far debase the body of Christ as to make it a generall food for all in the Sacrament which was intended only for the spirituall nourishment of the faithfull And farther Christ is present energetically i. by vertue and power so he is among those that are gathered together in his name by the working of his holy spirit but in the Sacrament he is relatively present as being represented thereby as Kings are in their officers of State whose act is counted as the Kings own though he be personally present in his Court only Amb. de Incar cap. 5. So when his body was in the grave his vertue wrought from heaven to quicken it so now his body though in heaven yet his power worketh in every faithfull receiver as the Sun enlightneth the eie though the body of the Sun be in heaven Again our eating and drinking the Sacrament must intimate to us that as food makes a uniting continue between soule and body so doth the Sacrament between Christ and us by faith and as food doth more strongly unite one member to another so doth the Sacrament one member mysticall of Christ to another by love because we being many are one bread and one body being all partakers of that one bread and as by one spirit we are all baptized into one body so we all have been made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 that so we having all one food of life so we be of one mind and souse and one affection which is the spirit of life Moreover by partaking of this Sacrament by eating and drinking is sealed to us our right to the covenant of grace as sure as that which we eat is our own and concorporated with us Therefore it is the duty of a communicant to consider how he understands the end of the Sacrament and the effects of it that so he may not receive only but perceive the Lords body and so do it in remembrance of him In which duty it is required that we remember his death and the benefits thereof which not being done the Sacrament is slighted and profaned because that to which it relates hath no impression in us