no purpose So His greatest and best worke had effected no good to us but a perpetuall ill unto Himselfe But all these things were impossible Therefore Christ our Lord did rise againe 4. It is impossible but that where the greatest union is there should be the greatest love and consent The greatest union that may be is in our Mediator seeing the humane nature is sustained in the Person of the Deity But the soule of Christ being separate did naturally desire to bee united to the body for otherwayes should it not have desired the perfection of it selfe that is to give life and sence and to be one with that body which was peculiar to it selfe as the desire of all humane soules is and therefore depart so unwillingly from the body But if this were the naturall desire of the soule no way sinfull the Deity infinite in power and in regard of the unity consenting thereto it must follow of necessity that our Lord was raised againe from the dead 5. Contrary causes must have contrary effects The devill by the sinne which he wrought in Adam had caused death to prevaile over life in all mankind Therefore Christ who came to destroy the workes of the deuill must cause life to prevaile over death But this could not be done in the members before it was perfected in the head Therefore Christ being dead must of necessity bee the first fruits of them that are raised from the dead And if it were necessary that Christ should first rise Ergo it was impossible that He should not rise See Log. chap. 26.11.1 6. If Christ our Lord had not beene raised from death a then had it beene impossible that any of His beleevers should bee raised againe by the power and merit of His resurrection 1. And so the naturall desire of the soule to dwell with the body should be created in vaine 2. So the debt being paid the prisoner should ever be detained 3. So the afflictions of the Saints which they have suffered in body should be in vaine as cold hunger nakednesse reproach and shame imprisonment stripes yea and death it selfe willingly sustained for the love of God should be without reward But it were against the justice of God to cause the body and soule to suffer together and not to glorifie them both together 4. So also the death of Christ should not be meritorious and effectuall for the procuring of all that good which might and ought to come thereby both to Himselfe and all His beleevers For although the soules of the faithfull for the merit and full satisfactions sake of His death being separate might enjoy an eternall though not a full happinesse without the body yet the body should be left eternally to the power of death and so the workes of the devill should not be destroyed by Christ 5. So also the body should be created in vaine if to sorrow onely without the hope of happinesse 6. So God should lose His right in His creature if Hee were not Lord both of the living and of the dead both of the soule and of the body 7. So the one sinne and disobedience of Adam should be more powerfull to condemne mankind then the everlasting and most perfect obedience of the Sonne of God should be to save it But all these things are impossible And therefore Saint Paul saith Rom. 4.25 That Christ was delivered to death for our sinne and raised againe for our Iustification For if Christ be not raised againe then are we yet in our sinnes 1. Cor. 15.17 not that any addition was made by His resurrection to that satisfaction which He made by His death but because the resurrection of Christ is a sure and manifest proofe of His conquest over sinne death hell and all the power of the devill and that His suffering and death was a full and sufficient sacrifice whereby the wrath of God against sinne was fully satisfied so that we are now justified in His sight whereas if in the conflict of our Redeemer with death and hell He had been overcome then could we have had no faith nor hope that our sinne by His death had beene done away But now knowing that He hath overcome death and is returned to life againe in all the troubles and sorrowes of this life and in the agonies of death wee may be secure as the feet or toes that are lowest under the water may hope at last to come to land because they know that their head being above the water the body cannot be drowned 7. Now concerning that impossibility of Saint Peter it stands thus It is impossible that the Scripture being the declaration of Gods trueth made by Himselfe 2. Pet. 1.21 2. Tim. 3.16 should faile But it hath beene declared by the Scripture that Christ should be raised againe from the dead Therefore it was impossible that He should still be held under the power of death The text cited by Saint Peter is found Psal 16.10 to which you may adde the types of the old Testament whereby the death and resurrection of our Lord was signified as that of Noah Gen. 9. ver 20. c. When our Saviour being as it were drunken with the love of His Church and desire of mans salvation tooke our state upon Him and for us became subject to the death of the Crosse when being seene by the Iewes those Chumits in the nakednesse or infirmity of our estate He was set at nought by them that thought that their Messiah could not die Iohn 14.34 But when Noah our Rest and Comforter awaked out of His grave He brought on them that destruction which was foretold as the punishment of their hardnesse of heart and unbeliefe See Psalm 41.10 Dan. 9.26 So the Ram taken by his hornes in the bush Gen. 22. was the type of His death and Isaac taken alive from the Altar the figure of His resurrection Ioseph also taken out of the dungeon to be ruler over all the land of Egypt To the same purpose was the law of the two goates Levit. 6. the one slaine for a sinne offering the other sent alive into a land of separation to make an atonement for all iniquity transgressions and sinne of the people So by the two Sparrowes Levit. 14. He that was like to the solitary sparrow on the house top Psalm 102.7 shed His blood for the cleansing of our leprosie yet by the other that was sent alive into the open ayre His resurrection was figured Sampson the Nazarite asleepe in Gaza signified our Lord in the sleepe of death for the love of His Church yet waking and having opened the gates of death He carryed them away and ascended in triumph to the top of the mount Iudg. 16.3 And because the strong gates of death are carryed away we are assured that all they that sleepe in the dust of death shall rise to give an account of their workes Beside these types you have also the prophecies of the old Testament as Psalm
XXIII That the Second Person of the Trinitie the Son of God only tooke on Himselfe our flesh IS it true that God will dwell with man Behold the heavens and the heavens of heavens cannot containe Him how much lesse a house of clay whose foundation was in the dust yet doth wisdome take her solace in the compasse of His earth and her delight is with the Sonnes of Men Prou. 8.31 So the Word was made flesh and dwelt in us Ioh. 1.14 And though he were in the forme of God and thought it no robbery to be equall to God yet as man had beene made in his likenesse and lost it so would hee bee made in the likenesse of man and to restore that first image unto man became obedient unto death even the death of the crosse Phil. 2.6.7.8 O Holy and most blessed teacher of our most glorious faith what high doctrine what holy mysteries what pretious promises doth the Christian faith containe That which is infinite dwels in in that which is finite the circumference in the centre The greatest of beings and the least are one Two births eternall and temporary and but one Sonne And because the essentiall proprieties of both natures doe still remaine he that is the Father of eternity is become a childe Esay 9.6 And hee that is the wisdome of the Father increases in knowledge Luk. 2.52 hee that no place can containe doth grow in stature and the Sonne of an eternall love doth grow in favour with God and Man In briefe hee that hath all things with God the Father save this that he is begotten hath all things with man except his sinne But although there be two generations and that of divers kindes eternall and in time in which respect almost all things are double in him yet is not hee two sonnes because Sonneship respects not the diversity of the natures divine and humane but onely the unity of the Person so that if there be but one Person of both natures there can be but one Son Wherefore seeing the Sonne of God took on Him not the Person but the nature of man yet the whole nature body and soule of the substance of his Mother And seeing that whole nature subsists in the Person of the eternall Son He in both respects both of his divine and humane generation is still the onely begotten Sonne of the Father onely begotten I say that he may be discerned from us that are adopted only sonne because we are not hereafter to looke for any other Saviour His onely Sonne not of Ioseph or any man according to the flesh For as according to the law of the eternall life which is in God He is begotten of the substance of the Father not without but in the Person of the Fathâ—r yet distinct therefrom so according to that generation whi h was in time was He begotten by the power of the Father without the Person of the Father being conceived in the wombe of the virâ—in For as a thing conceived in the minde of a man is the first wâ—rd or expression of his understanding which being spoken or written becomes sensible and to bee understood of others So the Sonne is in the Fathâ—r that eternall word understood conceived or begotten before the worlds and in the fullnesse of time not ceasing to be eternally begotten as before He was made manifest in the flesh even that word or life which was eternally with the Father was seene with eyes was looked upon and was handled with hands 1 Ioh. 1.1 2. So that as there is but one Father both in the eternall and timely generation so is there but one Sonne by a most holy most true and substantiall generation God and Man the Sonne of God and the blessed virgin Mary Now this one Sonne one Christ one Immanuel one Mediator one Person is such not by mixture not by confusion not by composition of the two natures nor yet by change of one into another but one by assumption or taking of the humane nature into the divine wherein the deity is to dwell eternally without separation but not without distinction And these two natures so dwell together in the Person of our Saviour as that for the unity of the Person the attributes which belong to one nature are given to the other as Ioh. 3.13 No man hath ascended up to heaven but hee that came downe from heaven even the Sonne of man which is in heaven And againe Acts 20.28 Feed the church of God which He hath purchased with his owne bloud And although I said before chap. 11. that relation properly so called was not in the divine generation but supereminent because all things here are coessentiall a the subjects no other beings than the termes that is the Father and the Sonne the foundation also coessential that is the divine and unconceiveable generation for the termes sake in the Father active in the Sonne passive And although in the second generation neither the subjects nor the termes are coessentiall the subjects are the Person of the eternall word and the Virgin Mary the foundation is the generation whereby the manly being passively was taken of the Virgin unto the person of the word yet in respect of this hypostaticall union or ioyning of the humanity unto the Person of the Eternall Sonne Mary the mother of Iesus is truely said the mother of God not that the Godhead tooke beginning from her but because she brought out that manly being which from the time of its first union was never separated from the Godhead And because the supposition or person wherein both natures are is one Christ of which Person she is truely called the mother though she be mother onely according to the flesh as is said Math. 1.23 A virgin shall bring forth a Sonne and they shall call his name God with us And againe Rom. 9.5 of the Israelites as concerning the flesh came Christ who is God blessed above all for evermore Amen But although there be one only Sonne yet in respect of the two nativities Hee is truely called the Sonne of God and the Sonne of the virgin though with this difference that by the eternall generation he tooke of the Father both his eternall nature and his Person by which he is the sonne of his Father by a supereminent reall relation but of his mother he tooke in time the humane nature but not any humane Person And therefore this Sonship is only rationall except it bee understood with the divine person in which the humanity subsists and so hee is truly said this man and the son of the virgin For as b he tooke on him the humanity soule and body to dwell therein for ever as the Evangelist speaks Ioh. 1.14 The word became flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and made his tabernacle in us So did hee give unto the humane nature to bee one Person in him So that God is now truely one with us that wee hereafter may bee one with him according
de Carâ—â— Christi Epiphan haeres 28. 30. And especially in Tertul. de Trinit if that booke be his Thus we have seene the falshood of the Monophysites now it remaines that we also take a view of their opinions that hold more natures than one in Christ and among them to see the heresies of Nestorius 1. and Arius 2. and then the late opinion of Postellus 3. § 8. Concerning the position of Nestorius it may seeme that all authors agreed not what it was For hee that made that addition of the Timothean Nestorian and Eutychian heresie unto Saint Augustine makes the heresie of Nestorius nothing else but a mingle-mangle of the Photinian and Timothean heresie That Christ was man onely not conceived of the Holy Ghost but that afterward God was mixt with that man Againe Socrates Hist Eccles lib. 7. cap. 32. writes that many supposed that Nestorius sought to bring in the Heresie of Photinus whereas saith hee it is plaine by the writings of Nestorius that he onely avoided this that the virgin should be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mother of God But Tho. Aquin. contra gent. lib. 4. cap. 38. cites Damascen to this purpose We affirme that there is a perfect union of the two natures not according to the Person as the enemy of God Nestorius affirmed but also according to the Hypostasis From whence Tho. concludes that this was the position of Nestorius to confesse one person in Christ and two Hypostases If by Hypostases he meant the Divine and humane natures united in the one Person of our Mediator neither Damascen nor Thomas can blame him for it But if by the manly Hypostasis consisting of body and soule he must meane a humane person as Thomas in the same place out of Boâ—tius determines you may see how they made a quarrell more than needed For though Nestorius had beene madd yet would he never have held one Person of both natures and also two persons But it is cleare by the later Historians of the Church that this among other was the heresie of Nestorius that as in Christ there were two natures so there were also two persons which opinion might easily take the originall from Cerinthus Phoâ—iâ—us and such as stunk of that Pumpe For if God the Word came to dwell in Jesus the sonne of Mary being a perfect humane person of body and soule whether at his Baptisme as Cerinthus taught or from the very instant of his conception as the Nestorians of this time affirme the position of Nestorius must follow of necessitie that there be in him as two natures so two persons For the Godhead destroyed nothing of the humane perfection which it found So that if it came not to the humane nature but in the subsistence of a manly person then that humane nature must remaine in the perfection of a person as it was before Whence that followes also not unfitly which hee further affirmed that the things of infirmity which were in Christ as to eate to drinke to sleepe to gâ—ow in wisedome c. belonged to the sonne of Mary without the Sonne of God and all the glorious miracles which Christ did worke were done by the Sonne of God without the sonne of Mary But the supposition of Nestorius that the deitie came into the humanity when the humanitie had perfect subsistence in soule and body that is in the perfection of a personall beeing is most false For the Word taking flesh of the Virgin caused it to become one person with himselfe so that the body assumed was the proper and peculiar body of God and the humane soule the soule of God not of any other Person but the body and soule of the Sonne of God and this not onely while the soule dwelt in the body according to the naturall life but also while he was yet under the burden of our sinnes his body in the grave his soule in Hell as the Apostle cites the Scripture Act. 2.27 Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell neither wilt thou give thy Holy one to see corruption So then the body in the grave was the Holy One of God for nothing else of him was subject to corruption and though it were for a time forsaken of the soule yet not of the Godhead which thing the words of the Angel doe confirme Matth. 28.6 Come see the place where the Lord lay So that our Saviour on the Crosse yea even in the bands of death as concerning his body was still the Lord and God of glory 1 Cor. 2.8 Aâ—d if it be most true that God is more inward and more neare unto every thing than can be expressed by any words of beeing of essence of nature substance moities forme proprietie or the like because he is the foundation unto all these and in him all things consist How much more shall hee bee inward and fundamentall unto that body soule and Spirit of Iesus which hee was pleased to make his own that by that body and blood of his he might redeeme his Church as it is said Acts 20.28 That God purchased his Church with his owne blood that is with the life and blood of that body which was proper and peculiar unto himselfe Thus then the word was made flesh not by any transmutation or change of the one or the other from their true and naturall being but because that by a secret and unspeakable conjunction the Word was made one with the flesh and the flesh with the Word So then the Sonne of GOD tooke the humanitie not that it might be another person beside himselfe but being in himselfe perfect God he would also in himselfe be perfect man taking flesh of the Virgin The differences of union you may see if you will in the principles of N. Byfield Chap. 16. This union of the Godhead and Manhood is manifest by divers Texts of the holy Scripture For evidence of which we will first put this infallible axiome That of two different persons one cannot possibly bee affirmed of the other as to say that Peter is Iohn or Iohn is Peter neither yet that the proprieties of the one can belong to the other as to say that the Gospell of Saint Iohn is the Epistle of Saint Peter Now it is said Ioh. 16.28 I came forth from the Father and am come into the world which belongs to Him as to the Sonne of God as Iohn expounds it 1 Epist 4.9 and then it followes Againe I leave the world and goe to the Father which is peculiar to him as man as it is said Act. 3.21 Therefore Iesus the Sonne of God and the Sonne of the virgin is one and the same person so Col. 1.16 that same He by whom all things were made v. 18. is the head of the Church and the first borne from the dead and Rom. 9.5 Hee who is of the Fathers concerning the flesh is God blessed above all This our Lord affirmed of himselfe Math. 26.63.64 to be the Sonne
wash't his hands Matth. 27.24 And was He innocent and just most vnjust and wicked Iudge ought not a Iudge aswell to defend and deliver the innocent as to punish the wicked If He be innocent Why doest thou most unrighteous Iudge betray the innocent to the power of His accusers Take yee Him and iudge Him after your owne Law Iohn 18.31 If He be innocent Why doest thou torture Him with scourges and thornes and the mockery of a purple robe Iohn 19.1 2 c. Why doest thou deliver Him to the will of His enemies Luke 23.35 Thus the wicked play in the credit and welfare of the righteous and account it no sinne if they can have any pretext to say they are innocent Thus our Lord was denyed His right to His Kingdome Luke 19.14 betrayed by His rebellious Subjects His life was set at nought to save a murderer vnjustly accused stript of His clothing And beside all this of losse which He endured He suffered all that paine and punishment which they could bring upon Him As first His base and scornefull apprehension as of a thiefe in the night 2. His being hurried from place to place from Iudge to Iudge 3. The most unjust sentences of Blasphemy of Treason of Death 4. His Buffeting Mocking Whipping Crowning with all kind of contempt and scorne and 5. That by a most unjust Iudge who still profest Him innocent He was betrayed to the will of His adversaries to be Crucified 6. And yet because nothing could glut the gorges of those bloody Priests in the agonyes of death behold a fresh onset of Scorne and Reviling Matth. 27 41. 7. Neither will the abjects be left out with their Gall and Vinegar 8. No nor yet the theeves in the same condemnation with their upbraidings O man of sorrowes and contradiction Behold and see all you that passe by if there were ever any sorrow like unto that which was done unto Him wherewith the Lord afflicted Him in the day of His fierce anger Yet were all these things but small afflictions in comparison of this that God had withdrawne the light of His comforts from Him For this cause alone were His roarings powred out My God my God why hast thou fo saken mee Yet may it not be thought but that He was still one with the Person of the God-head and that not onely in His agony on the Crosse but in death also when His soule was parted from the body So that although there was a dissolution in nature of the Soule and the Body yet the unity of the Man-hood with the God-head was still saved in the Person of the God-head See Acts 2.27 But although this acte of Pilate in himselfe was most unjust yet in God the Father whose Person Pilate in that iudgement did represent the act was most righteous and just That Pilate in his Iudgement represented God the Father it is manifest not onely by this That all power is of God Rom. 13.1 but even in this very case by that which our Saviour answered unto Pilate Thou couldest have no power at all against mee except it were given thee from above Iohn 19.11 In this act therefore of Pilate God did summon and judge the whole world to answere for their sinnes And because euery mouth was stopped and the whole world was found subject to the judgement and wrath of God for their sinne therefore was it necessary that the condemnation and punishment should fall on Him to the full that had set Himselfe to answere for us lest no flesh should be saved So through His sufferings as we were condemned in Him by Him are we also saved But it comes now to be enquired Why our Sauiour should be condemned to a death so infamous as to be 2 Crucified THere were foure kinds of death appointed for Malefactors by the Law of God Stoning Burning the Sword Hanging by the necke The particular offences you may finde gathered from the Hebrew Doctors by Henry Ainsw on Exod. 21.12 And although Hanging amongst all those was accounted the most easie death yet on that kind of death was the curse pronounced as you see Deut. 21.22 But if they that committed the least sinnes and therefore suffred the most easie death were accursed as the adulterer c. how much more they which sinned in higher degrees and were judged worthy of greater punishment This kind of death by nailing to a Crosse more cruell then any appointed by the Law of God was in common use among the Romanes after their first Kings especially for their slaves See M. T. Cic orat pro Rab perduell and Lips de Cruce lib. 1. cap. 12. over whom every Lord had power and vsed to crucifie them for theft and especially for running away After it grew in use for the baser sort of malefactors though free-men as theeues and such like and for their provincialls And when the lawlesse power of the Emperours had made all slaues then they that called themselues Free-men and Citizens of Rome were also crucified at the will of the Emperours as you may see Lips de Cruce lib. cap. 15. et lib. 2. cap. 7. But although this kinde of nayling on the tree by which our Lord did dye was not in use among the Iewes as Lip de Cruce lib. 1. cap. 11. supposes unduly confounding the staking strangling on a Gibbet or bough and nayling on a Crosse yet by the interpretation of S. Paul Gal. 3 13. did the curse directly belong to this suffering of Christ wherein He was made a Curse for vs. Now among those reasons why our Saviour should dye by this most vile and infamous death of the Crosse The first shall bee even from thence because it was most base and shamefull For seeing man-kind by his sinne had forsaken God his just and lawfull Lord and made himselfe a slaue to the Divell what manner of death but the most vile and shamefull could He be judged worthy of that had so falsly and basely transgressed And therefore was it necessary that He who had made Himselfe mans surety and put Himselfe in his stead to beare his punishment should also die by the most infamous death of the Crosse the punishment of slaves that had run away from their Lords 2. It is fit and necessary that the Sonne of God should be exalted to the highest degree of glory The greatest glory is not due but to the greatest humility The lowest degree of humility that can be is to be subject to the most shamefull death Therefore that our Lord the Sonne of God might be exalted to the highest degree of glory it was necessary that He should first be abased to the death of the Crosse Neither is this an argument of amplification but founded in the rules of the infinite Iustice and therefore urged by Saint Paul Philip. 2. verse 8 9 10. He humbled Himselfe and became obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse Therefore God hath exalted Him and given Him the Name which is
because the honour which was done to God herein is valued according to the worthinesse of the Person which worthinesse in Christ is essentiall unto him not accidentall as that of Aaron therfore the satisfaction also is essentially infinite and therefore abundantly sufficient in respect of the Person that did fulfill it For the satisfaction to an infinite Iustice was as fully made by the Person of the Sonne an infinite being than if the creature being finite even all Angels and men had suffered the torments of hell eternally Secondly the infinite value of the satisfaction appeares in the worthinesse of the thing that was offered For our Mediator having no greater nor better sacrifice to offer unto God as nothing could be better then that which was equall to God offered Himselfe God and man for the saving of His people as it is said Ier. 3.23 Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel Thirdly the value was increased by the manner of the offering wherein was the perfection of the obedience of the eternall Son to His Father and the perfect submission of the humane will of Christ unto the will of God that this sacrifice might by all meanes be meritorious in Him for us See Note g on Chap. 24. § 11. No. 4. The second meanes whereby the satisfaction of Christ according to the rigour of Iustice was perfect is the greatnesse of that punishment which He endured for us which in proportion was answerable to that death which in Iustice was due to the sinne of man having the same degrees and parts which punishment Christ so farre foorth as it was possible for the Sonne of God did endure First the bodily death with all the circumstances as I remembred before Then the losse of that Ioy and Comfort of His soule wherewith the fruition of God and the fulnesse of His graces did euer replenish Him And this Ioy Hee lost not finally or fundamentally as the damned for that was impossible both in respect of His innocencie and of His union with God but onely according to the present act and feeling Thirdly he was subjected to the powers of hell not enthralled thereto as a vassall but yet subject for the present vexation and temptation so that His soule and understanding was affrighted in sorrow and horrour knowing Himselfe to be made a curse for us which brought with it a full sence of the Iustice and wrath of God against sinne Fourthly and although it bee most true that God cannot suffer either paine or losse as was shewed even now yet it is as true that God having taken to Himselfe the living Tabernacle of a soule and body offered this soule and body of His to death for us as it is said Act. 20.28 That God purchased His Church with His owne blood and not so onely but for a time left that body under the absolute power of Death and Buriall And thus the Iustice why Christ should die for our sinnes and the plenary satisfaction which Hee hath made unto God thereby doeth plainely appeare Now a reason or two why and how the benefit hereof doth belong unto us 1. First seeing the person of our Redeemer is infinite and therefore His merit also infinite â—n infinite reward is due thereunto which if God would not give O pardon that we sâ—eake in the voyce of reason Thy gift in us then Hee were unjust if He could not then were He unable to requite But both these things are impossible And seeing hee that makes a recompense for any desert either gives to the deserver that which he hath not or forgives that which hee might require and yet our Lord to whom the reward of His obedience and death is due neither needs any thing nor can receive any thing more then He hath having in Himselfe the fulnesse of all perfection and all things which the Father hath Iohn 17.10 Neither yet needs forgivenesse having never offended neither yet can so great obedience and such an infinite merit bee all in vaine therefore doth this infinite reward redound to us so that we which claime by His Title may draw neere unto the Throne of Grace in the full assurance of faith that God doth not nor will not refuse them that come unto Him in the name of His Sonne seeing unto all them that seeke salvation and eternall life by Him all His infinite merit doeth assuredly belong For that which is infinite can no way become divisible for so should it cease to bee infinite So His infinite merit belongs to every one of His according to the infinity thereof See the doore of our hope set open wider then the walles of heaven See how God with Christ hath given us all things See also if the infinite merit of Christ can any way be compatible of any mans merit or the mediation of Saints 2. Seeing our Lord Iesus being God could not become man but by the power of God Chap. 25. 26. who of the whole nature and substance of the Virgin made Him perfect man both soule and body And that He being thus also the Sonne of God and man did perfectly fulfill the law of a Sonâ—e to doe alwayes those things which were pleasing to His Father Iohn 8.29 whereas all other men had revolted from their obedience and so forfeited their state of Son-ship and interest in their Fathers inheritance by the sinne of the first Father Adam which was created the sonne of God Luke 3.38 therefore the whoâ—e right in that inheritance of glory and happinesse which should have come unto all man-kind is due to Christ onely So that by the right of inheritan e no man beside H mselfe can be capeable of heavenly Ioyes But because the possession of eternall hapâ—inesse is due to Him by a double right not onely that of Sonne-ship or inheritance but also by purâ—hase through the infinite merit of His most precious death whereto according to the will of His Father He became obedient for the sinne of man-kind therefore by this right hath He given an infinite right in the heavenly Inheritanâ—e to all them that come unto Him by a lâ—vely faith their hearts being â—lensed from dead workes to serve the living God In which right If He had not fully stâ—ted man-kind then had the benefit oâ— His pâ—rchaâ—e beene utterly lost So His Incarnatâ—on His sufferings and al. His promiâ—es made to vs had beene in vaine But all these things are impossible 3. Moreover it is to bee considered that the sinne of man in respect of the siâ—ner must â—eeds bee sinne because a finite creature can no way doe an infinite actioâ— but the inâ—â—nitie of the sinne is onely in resâ—ect of Him agâ—inst whom the sinne is beca se of His infiniâ—e Iuâ—tice that is offended thereby But the satisfaction and the meâ—it of Christ death was infinite not onely in respect of the inâ—initie of H s Person who perâ—oâ—med it but of Him also that did so accept it of Him that was
myst cap. 1. call the touch of the deity and affirme truely that it is more powerfull over the minde than that discursive knowledge of which I spake before But because this knowledge is ever with affrighting and addressed onely as the two former to the last it beseemes every man that would know God truely as hee may bee knowne for his owne comfort to cleanse his owne heart with all his diligence in prayer in meditation in reading of the holy Scripture in denying of himselfe in all his ungodlie and sinnefull lusts that he may become a holy and a meet Temple for God to dwell in And so hee may assure himselfe that God will give him experience of himselfe as hee hath promised Ioh. 14.23 That hee will come and make his abode with him This is that wise merchant who for this pretious pearle sels all that hee hath to buy it This is hee that eates of the hidden Manna Ioh. 6.50.51 Rev. 2.17 that receives that white stone and a new name written which none knowes saving hee that receiveth it This is hee that in the face of Iesus Christ as in a mirrour beholds the glory of the Lord so that hee is changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the spirit of the Lord. Notes a GOd is not matier Anaximenes said the aire was God that he was therfore unmeasureable but had a beginning was always in motion Diagoras of Apollonia for he of Melos was the Atheist consented unto him as concerning the matier The opinion of Cleanthes I told you before which one while held God to bee matier in this sensible world in the uppermost ayre and in the Starres Parmenides imagined a mighty wide circle which encompast the world like a Crowne or garland therefore called by him Stephane to be God Xenophon and with him Plato where hee speakes in iest saith the world was God which we call Mammon and yeelds there were moe such but where he speakes in earnest as in his Epistles hee speakes of one God the Author of all things as we doe Aristotle could not tell how to gaine-say his master with his owne credit and so followed his judgement Heraclides of Pontus somewhiles said the Starres were Gods then heaven and earth So Theophrastus and sometime Zeno was for the Starres Chrisippus that was accounted most subtile amongst the schollers of Zeno was most wavering in his opinions sometime he thought the world was God sometime the uttermost or burning aire then water now earth after this ayre below and by and by the Sunne and the Moone and the Starres at last all together was but one God yet men canonized for their vertues must needs bee Gods apart and then much more the vertues for which they were immortall And thus they that would seeme wise while they cared to know more than the truth of God became idle in their imaginations and there foolish heart was full of darkenesse The parts which were before separate 2.1 b All parts are understood apart as things differing And therefore although divers formes are brought out of the power of the matier or propagate with the matier yet that affords no objection to weaken this argument But is destinate unto another totall 2.2 c If you looke on the question you shall finde it onely to be about such formes as these For it is not said that God is utterly no forme For forme is the most simple or pure being which wee can conceive but he is none of those formes which are allyed to matier The Angels are accounted formes but separate But I runne not with that opinion The Ideas are conceived to bee formes altogether separate not destinate unto matier much lesse is that most simple forme of formes the originall of all formes God is not the forme of any other Being 2.2 d The opinion of Democritus is contrary to this conclusion in that he makes mans soule to be God Straton thought that God was only a certaine divine power in Nature so said Chrisippus otherwhile and so Cleanthes where hee affirmed that God was the life of the world His opinion that reason was God was an errour against this conclusion also if by reason hee meant that reasonable soule the forme of mans bâ—dy Heraclides supposed God to change his shape at his pleasure Zeno said that reason in every thing was God or that he was that living law that gave life to every thing Wavering Chrisippus sometime held the life of the world to be God somewhile he cal'd him destinie Therefore God is no compound 3.1 c Among the matiers reckoned up before note a. some you see are compounded and they belong properly to this place as earth water and our ayre below of which none are simple elements but mixt one with another for generation sake and fitted to the inhabitants that dwell therein of which none could live in elements that are pure being themselves compounded Therefore God is not a body 4.1 f The schoole of Epicurus taught that God was in shape like a man and that he was also bodily For they thought that if hee were without a body as Plato taught he could neither have sence nor wisdome and so could no way be partaker of any pleasure or happines But concerning the pleasure which God enjoyes Plato teaches Epist ad Dionys that it is not in outward or bodily things which hinder the happinesse of the minde The weaknes of Epicurus argument is shewed by Cotta a follower of Plato Cic. de Nat. D. l. 1. the opinion it selfe confuted by the arguments here brought especially against the Audean hereticks that were called Anthropomorphites who upheld the opinion of the Epicurean Philosophers because the holy Scripture teaching men by their senses speakes of Gods powerfull right hand and treading down his enemies that hee was sorry in heart and specially where it is said Gen. 1. Let us make man in our owne likenesse They here understood the likenesse of the body not of the minde in holinesse and knowledge which we have lost must endeavour our selves to recover as we are exhorted Eph. 4.24 Put on the new man which is created according to God in righteousnesse and holinesse of the truth and againe Put on the new man which is renued in you unto knowledge according to the Image of Him that created him Therefore in God is no accident 5.1 Zeno g sometime affirmed that the yeare and the seasons thereof the spring the harvest the moneths also were God Chrisippus said the truth of things was God And if you account truth an accident you may referre his opinion hither You have now heard the difference of opinions among the Philosophers But how much wiser was Simonides that learned Poet who being demanded by Hiero king of Siracuse what God was He desired a day to thinke of his answer being the next day asked againe he desired two dayes And thus being often asked still doubled his time Being demaunded the reason he answered
But if wee looke diligently unto the text of the Holy Scripture we shall finde how necessary it was that the Mediator should satisfie for the sinne of the creature because the whole creature was made by Him For so wee may reade Ioh. 1.2.3 All things were made by that word which in the beginning was with God And without it was nothing made which was made And vers 10. He was in the world and the world was made by him And vers 14. And that word was made flesh that is tooke on him the whole nature of man body and soule and dwelt among us and we saw on the holy mount Mat. 17.2 c. 2 Pet. 1.18 the glory thereof that is of that flesh or man as the glory of the only begotten Sonne of the Father And againe Col. 1.16 By him that is the Sonne were all things created which are in heaven and which are in earth things visible and invisible all things were created by him and for him and in him all things consist 1 Cor. 8.6 There is one God the Father of whom were all things and we by him Eph. 3.9 God hath created all things by Iesus Christ And Heb. 1. v. 1.2 God hath spoken unto us in these last dayes by his Sonne whom He hath made heire of all things by whom also he made the worlds By all which texts it is cleere which S. Paul hath Rom. 11.36 of him through him and for Him are all things That is that God the deliverer which should come out of Sion vers 26. And thus have these Apostles explained that which is written Gen. 1.1 In the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth which word in the whole body of the old Testament as wisemen have observed is almost never spoken but of the Person of the Mediator onely I suppose then that it is plaine enough which is spoken by our Lord Ioh. 5. v. 19. The Sonne can doe nothing of Himselfe save what he seeth the Father doe for whatsoever things He doth the same things doth the Sonne in like manner That is whatsoever the eternall Godhead ordeined in his everlasting Counsell and decree to bee done that same doth the Sonne execute and performe in the creature answerably and brings forth every thing in time according to the possibilities and opportunities of the creature For as the wiseman saith Ecclus. 18.1 He that liveth for ever made all things together or at once So the Psalmist as also the other Scriptures tels us by whom and in whom Psal 104.24 In wisdome hast thou made them all that is in our Creator and Saviour So then it being cleered by the text of the holy Scripture that the creation of the world was of God the Father in Christ by Christ and for Christ it will easily follow how necessary it was that He our creator by His eternall Spirit should offer himselfe to God for the sin of his creature as it will further appeare when I come to that article Notes a EVery tenne thousand yeares You may reade the position in Aug. de Haer. cap. 43. and the refutation thereof in his 20. 21. 22. bookes de civit Dei But the Cabalists for the renewing of this lower world put seven thousand yeares and no more for the restoring of the whole creature both heavenly and earthly they put fifty thousand yeares You may read the opinion and partly see their reasons in Leo Hebr. de Amore. pag. 500. c. b The world is not eternall The most famoused opinions that have beene concerning the worlds eternity are these One that which the Christian faith doth hold according to the truth of the holy oracles of God and the voice of Reason as you have heard and to this truth the Stoicks are said to haue consented The second opinion is that of Plato and his followers who held that the world had a beginning in time but of an eternall matier and that the continuance thereof should bee eternall For seeing generation and corruption is onely by the change of formes the matier still remaining one therefore they thought that as that forme which is purely without matier was incorruptible and eternall So likewise must matier bee which of it owne nature is utterly without forme And because matier is greedy of all formes how differing or contrary soever Therefore it is ever subject to change Neither is the heaven it selfe utterly freed from all power of Change because of that matier whereof it is in which the power of Change is ever hidde Therefore the world is not eternall in respect of any power in it selfe either to the production of formes or the continuance of it selfe under the same formes but first in respect of the vnformed matier and most of all in respect of that Spirit or life whereby it is guided and ordered as by the internall causes and in respect of the divine will and goodnesse as the outward principle and the end which will as it cannot repent to have done good in giving being unto the world and the things therein contained so can it not will contrary to it selfe and cease to doe good in the continuance of the creature in that being which it hath You may reade more to this purpose in Plot. Ennead 2. lib. 1. and his commentator Marsilius Ficinus The third opinion is that of Aristotle that the world was eternall and from God as an eternall effect of an eternall cause For because it seemed to him impossible and if you looke no higher than nature alone it is indeed impossible that any thing being can come out of nothing therefore matier must needs be eternall and therewith generation and corruption without which nothing is brought forth And because these two could not be thought to be without the moving of the heavens as the cause thereof therefore both the heavenly bodies and motion especially circular must be also eternall and herewith time which is measured by the motion of the heavens But what this eternall matier should bee the Philosophers went into divers opinions Heraclitus thought it to be fire Archelans ayre Empedocles all the elements and among the rest one one thing and another another as you may reade in Aristotle where hee refutes them in Tull. Acad. q. lib. 4. and especially in Plutarch de placitis Philosophorum and from him in many other Aristotle himselfe from Hesiod and they that had beene before him cals it Chaos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In theogonia First was the Chaos then the earth which word if they borrowed not of Moses his Tohu which signifies empty of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that sometimes meanes to bring to nought nor of that which seemâ—s to come from thence Chohus whereby as Festus saith the old Latines called the world yet of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they meant by it confusion and no way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a countrie or an appointed place Sometime this matier is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mud For so the conclusion of earth and water is best understood and fittest for generation of earthly things as Ovid delivers the opinion and cleeres it by comparison of the overflowing Nilus Metam lib. 1. All other Creatures tooke their different birth And figures from the voluntary Earth When her cold moisture with the Sunne did sweat And Slimy Marishes grew big with heat So when seven mouthed Nyle forsakes the plaine Anantient channel doth his streames containe And late left slime the heavenly warmth doth feele Men sundry shapes beneath the sod reveile Some new begun and some to halfe doe grow That halfe alive the rest but earth below But Moses Gen. 1. delivers it unto us in the parts active and passive heaven and earth which yet before their division were both of water as it is manifest in that place and 2. Pet. 3.5 According hereunto Homer Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and after him Thales affirmes the first matier of all things to be water But the opinions of the lesse reckoning are those that are found amongst the heretickes of the Christians For all the Philosophers and Poets of the heathen which held not the eternity of the world acknowledged God the authour of the world under one name or other but Simon Magus and with him Menander said that the Angels were the makers of the world Saturnius gives the honour unto seven Angels alone whom he makes the Creators of the world without the consent or knowledge of God Carpocrates and the Priscillianists affirmed that the world was made by certaine inferiour Angels among whom the devill was chiefe workemaster Valentinus gave it out that a devil which was begotten of the thirtieth Aiâ—â—n begot other devils and these Sonnes of Avengles made the world and mischiefe and sinne are in the world not through the wickednâ—sse and free will of man but even by the very creation of the world it selfe The Nicholaitanes tel us of Angels the makers of the world and that Barbelo who was ruler of the eight Sphere was overseer of the works His mothers name was Yaldaboth But I have not read so farre in heraldry as to tell you who was his Dad nor of what house his mother came nor yet whether his fellow workemen were good or bad Angels The Gnosticks of the two Gods which they make as you have heard before make the ill God the creator of the world which though it appeare not either by Irenaeus Clement Tertullian Epiphanius or by S. Augustine yet it is plaine by Plotinus Aenead 2. lib. 9 who writes against their opinions and this in particular Marcion made three creators one good another bad and another betweene them whom they called Iust So you see how all these hereticks had madded themselves and their followers in their opinions concerning the Creator of all things Others erred concerning some parts of the creature onely as the Seleucians and Hermians or Hermâ—genians beside their errour of the worlds matier coeternall with God denyed that God created the soules of men but would have them created by the Angels of fyer and Spirit contrary to that which is in Gen. 2.7 Esay 57.16 1 Pet. 4.9 That God is the faithfull Creator of the soule The Priscillianists said that the soules of men were of the same substance and nature with God and being by him sent downe from heaven the devill met with them by the way and sowed them as seed in the flesh whereupon it must follow either that the being of God is divisible into infinite partes or that there is but one onely soule of all men and both wayes unavoydably that God at least in part of Himselfe must be subject to Sinne and so that either He must need a Saviour or by His owne law bee subject to eternall death This is the fruite of heresie The Patricians denyed God to be the Creator of the body of man and gave that honour to the devill contrary to that which is in Gen. 2. v. 7. and v. 21.22 yea and so detested the flesh as that to be out of the body some of them killed themselves The Paternians said that the lower parts of the body it seemes onely those that are affixed thereto for generations sake that flesh which the law so often commands to be washed were made by the devil and thereupon tooke occasion to live in filthinesse and lust contrary to the Commandement of God The Marcionites and Manichees said that wickednesse and ill was partly from God and partly from the matier of the world Florinus and his followers said that things were created ill according to their substances contrary to the Scripture Gen. 1.31 But contrarily the Coluthians would not have God the Author of ill no not that of punishment which neverthelesse the Scripture teaches Esay 45.7 and 54.16 Amos. 3.6 Some also of the heretickes followed the opinions of the ancient Philosophers as they that were called Aquei that of Thales and said that water was the matier of the would but yet eternall and not created The Audian and Manichean hereticks instead of Aristotles eternals brought in darkenesse fire and water you might bring hither their foolish thoughts concerning the transplantation of soules and such like questions but there will bee fitter place thereto in the article of everlasting life And because these upstart weenings are so witlesse as they are false I will not vouchsafe to inquire into their reasons the onely authority of the holy Scripture is sufficient to grinde them all to dust and to bring that dust to nought at all But least any man contrary to the truth of God be overswayed with the reasons of the Philosophers it will not be unfit to examine and answer them 1. And first concerning the reasons of the Platonicks that the matier of the world should therefore be eternall because it is simple and uncompounded I answer That it is but petitio principii or a taking of that which is not granted for it is utterlie denied that there was ever such matier as they suppose utterly informed I say according to the Sacred Philosophie that when water the first matier of all things was created darknesse or confusion was upon the face of the deepe but yet with that water under that confusion was concreated all manner of formes which afterward were all brought forth out of the possibilitie of the matier so that matier was impregnate or great with all kinde of formes which afterward were made to appeare for otherwise could not the effect bee answerable to the cause if hee being in himselfe the Jdeas or formes of all beings had not brought forth the first matier full fraught with all materiall formes by which afterwards according to the disposition of their naturall causes the different kindes of things were informed And therefore here also are all things said by him to have beene made at once And although in the workes of the fifth day the
whales with other things which had a life with the power of moving are said to bee created yet is that spoken onely in regard of that more manifest life than the vegetable had in the workes of the third day but that life neverthelesse was brought out of the power of the matier by more powerfull causes his blessing comming thereto even as it was afterward upon them to bring forth after their kinde Onely in the sixth day because it was not in the power of all nature to bring forth a reasonable and an immortall soule hee breathed into man a Spirit of new life and man became a living soule the epitome or modell of all the creature earthly and heavenly bodily and spirituall This truth is so plaine that Ovid the prince of all the heathen Poets for wit judgement and manifold learning read it in the booke of nature Metam lib. 1. Before the Sea the earth and heaven all hiding There was one face on all the world abiding Which men name Chaos an unordered load Wherein the seeds of things contrarie aboade But though it be granted that the first matier was meerely and purely simple yet can it not follow that therefore it was eternall except it may withall appeare that it had power to bee of it selfe without the power of the Creator But that would utterlie take away the infinite power of God if beside his power any power could bee supposed to another thing which could uphold an eternall being And seeing in all corruption everie thing returnes to those principles of which it was as in man his body to the earth and his Spirit unto God that gave it and that nothing materiall returnes to a simple and pure being but that it is still found under some forme or other it is manifest first that that first matier was not created simple but by his decree ever subject to composition and therefore secondly impossible to be eternall Concerning that eternall Spirit or life of the world in respect of which they thought it should bee eternall both before and after you shall understand more in the 24. Chap. note g § 10. yet in the meane time I answer that if that Spirit whereby the world both is and is ordered worke according to that paterne which hee sees in another it cannot follow that the world shall thereby bee for ever except it appeare to stand with that will according to which hee workes Now what that will is we understand better by his owne Revelation in his owne word than Plato and all his followers could see in all the subtilty of their understanding By which word also wee know that the last end and hope of the creature is more excellent and glorious by the change than by the continuance of the world for ever in that state wherein it is And thus the speciall reasons of that Sect are answered See more to this question if you will in Tertullian against Hermogenes 2. But it is further objected that whatsoever begins to worke which did not worke before must be moved thereto either by it selfe or by another But God is not moved that is changed from that which he was before either by himselfe nor by any other for neither can his action bee new or begun seeing his action is his being neither can hee be affected otherwise than hee was before And therefore is hee an eternall cause of the world an eternall effect as Aristotle affirmed I answer That no new motion or purpose can come unto God concerning the creature for all his workes are knowne to him from eternitie Acts 15.18 But seeing that these workes of which we speake are of his will alone they must be according to the limitation or appointment of that will so that although hee had eternally willed to create the world yet had he eternally willed when by whom and after what fashion the world and all the things therein should be created And this by one onely will and one onely action of the same will eternally The newnesse then of the world is in the actuall being of the world not in the will or power whereby it was wrought But for the better understanding of this thing you may observe a difference of actions of which some are immanent or in-dwelling in the doer and are accompted among the perfections of the thing such are the workes of the will or understanding some againe are transeunt or passing from the doer upon that which is done as the worke of the Smith upon the steele in making a sword The workes of God in himselfe are immanent neither doe these of necessitie put the outward object into actuall being as a man may conceive of a house which is not yet built or the Smith by his art or skill hath power to make a locke which hee hath not yet made So God though hee foresaw and willed eternally that the world should bee yet the effect followed not but according to the determination of that will when by whom and how the world should receive an actuall being 3. But it may againe bee said that God is an Eternall and an Almighty agent and that not in possibilitie onely but in act also for whatsoever is brought from the possibilitie of doing unto the act of doing must bee enforced thereto by a former and more powerfull agent and that actually which in God is utterlie impossible and if hee be an eternall and a powerfull agent and that actually the effect must necessarily follow and that actually for otherwise neither could the effect be answerable to the cause nor yet the cause bee said to bee sufficient and Almightie if the cause were in act and the effect in possibilitie onely therefore it seemes the world must of necessitie be eternall Answer Although God bee actually and eternally whatsoever hee may bee in himselfe yet seeing hee workes in outward things not according to any necessitie but onely according to the pleasure of his owne will the outward effect of his power must bee limited according to the circumstances of his will which I declared before Therefore this reason doth no more enforce the eternitie of the world than it doth that all the possibilities of the creature should be actually at once and that every thing created should bee eternall because the cause is eternall actuall and all sufficient But these things as they can no way stand with the possibilitie of the creature so would they utterly take away the working of all naturall causes by which the glory of his manifold wisdome is declared neither doth the all-sufficiencie of the cause bring any sufficiencie to the reason to prove the world eternall For although the creature bee an effect of the infinite power of God yet because it is not an adequate or proportionable object thereto that is wherein that power may bee wholly and onely exercised therefore is it but a forrein effect wherein that power workes onely according to the will of the worker
imputed because there was yet no law whereby shee was subjected to her husband was that shee gave not firme credit to the word of her husband delivering the commandement of God but that shee suffered her selfe to bee withdrawne by the craft of the devill speaking in the serpent but that his sinne was in this that hee did unaduisedly eat that which the woman gave him not minding what it was as he pleads for himselfe before Him with whom he could not lye The woman gave me of the tree and I did eate And thus was there mercy reserved for man both in regard of that weake estate wherein hee was created in comparison of the Angels and in respect of the quality and measure of his sinne and of the meanes whereby he was drawne thereto whereas the Angels that kept not their first estate but wilfully sinned against God for their three sinnes and for foure could never finde any place of repentance But it is said Iob. 31.33 If I have covered my sinne as Adam By which it seemes his sinne was more than he confessed I answer The word Adam there used and so the word Enoch in divers places of Scripture doe signifie man in his sinnefull and wretched estate indefinitely as Psal 8.4 144.3 Iehovah what is Adam that thou knowest him the Sonne of Enoch that thou makest any account of him And therefore divers good translations reade that text of Iob If I have covered my sinne as Man who doth commonly excuse his sinne and lessen his offence But of what sort soever the sin of man was it is most certaine that he did sinne 1. For as the effect is manifest by the cause so the cause appeares by the effect Now death is the wages of sinne Rom. 6.23 so then sinne is the cause of that punishment And every punishment is for some offence But it is manifest that Adam was punished even unto death it selfe For otherwise hee had lived untill now and hereafter Therefore it is manifest Adam sinned 2. It is proved before that all the creature was good and upright in every kinde and that man was the prime and chiefe of all the visible creature and therefore that hee was created for the most excellent end which is to bee happy in Him who is the chiefest good of which happinesse hee could not have fayled if he had continued in the state of his creation For every thing ordained for an end by a cause that is powerfull thereto must bee furnished with meanes sufficient for the attainement of that end But it is manifest that Adam hath failed of that happinesse by the utter losse of life and present being Therefore hee continued hee continued not in the state of his creation but sinned against his Creator 3. Death is the punishment of some great offence in the reasonable creature who is able to make a difference betweene good ill But it is manifest that Adam was not created sinfull and therefore not subjâ—ct to death And againe it is manifest that that state of Adâ—m was changed because he is dead But that change was not made by God because it was contrary to his ordinance neither could it bee made by enforcement of any outward meanes For then Adam had not beene made sinfull thereby Therefore it was made by the willing act of Adam himselfe and hee thereby subjected to Sinne. 4. Nothing can be so inseparably in the whole off-spring which is not first in the originall as the fruit cannot be wholly poysonous if the root or stem bee not first infected But it is learned by lamentable experience that the whole masse of mankinde is wholly sinfull and corrupted and that no man can say his heart is cleane therefore it must needs bee that the root or originall from whence they are descended which wee have already proved to have beene one wis sinnefull and corrupt 5. Man with much care and government in his youth with much heed and warinesse in his owne carriage is hardly at last brought unto a course of a vertuous life and that not without many wicked desires and sinfull deedes But if the first man had not corrupted his nature all vertue and that alone had been naturall to all men But experience shewes the contrary Therefore Adam sinned and therby corrupted his whole nature But you will say If that sinne of Adam were onely a sinne of ignorance and that in so small a thing as the eating of an apple the punishment of death and that both of body and soule can no way seeme to be proportionable For shall not the judge of all the world doe right And if the least sinne deserve the greatest punishment what punishment can be left for the greatest sinne or shall wee say as the Stoiâ—ks taught that all sinnes are equall I answer That sinnes compared one with another are truly said to be lesser or greater one than another For it is a lesse sinne to thinke ill of a man undeservedly than to hate him And that than to maime him and that than to murder him and that than to defame him For most of these degrees hold in them all those sinnes that are under it So that as the Stoickes truely said every later exceeds by the multitude of sinnes that are therein Yet is there no sinne in it selfe how little soever it seeme but in the rigor of Gods Iustice deserves more punishment than al that which the sinner can beare because of his greatnesse who is dishonoured thereby For the greater any person is the greater is the offence whereby he is dishonoured As for a word of scorne spoken by a meane man against his equall a small acknowledgment may make amends for which offence against a Peere a Scandalum Magnatum may be brought and if it had beene spoken to the dishonour of the king it might iustly bee accounted high treason in the speaker How great then may wee hold that offence to be which is against the Majesty of God before whom all the nations of the earth are not so much as the drop from a bucket falling into a mighty river Es. c. 40.15.2 Moreover every commandement of his being a rule of infinite Iustice an infinite Iustice is offended by the breach therof And what satisfaction can a finite creature make to an infinite Iustice that is offended but because it cannot beare a punishment intensivè infinite or infinite in quantity therefore it is iust that it should beare it extensivè in the infinity of Continuance Now as it was necessary that God should givâ— a law unto man that he might evermore acknowledge that duty and obedience which he ought to his Creator so having enabled him both in body and soule to performe his law which was also so easie a burthen as that it stood not in doing any thing but onely in the forbearance of one fruit among a million it was most necessary that God in His iustice should require that breach of His law Which law the
to dwell in a creature that was finite and therefore I say hee thought that God should rather dwell in the being of the Angels and in their nature gather all things unto himself then dwelling in the tabernacle of the manly being in which hope seeing himselfe frustrate he became an unreconcileable enemy to mankinde whereas the holy Angels esteeming duely of the benefit and being well content with that meanes whereby God would bee seene of them 1. Tim. 3.16 expect with patience and desire the fulfilling of the number of the elect And thus our Lord hauing made mans peace through the bloud of his crosse hath reconciled all things both in heaven and earth unto God Col. 1.20 For certainely if the Angels be for man as it is said Heb. 1.14 then can they not possibly have the perfection of their blessednesse but by man Let us therefore with reverence and thankfulnesse come unto that great mysterie of our Religion That God was manifest in the flesh The incarnation of God is the dwelling of the Godhead in the manhood in one person wherein the being of the Godhead and manhood remaine together everlastingly without separation yet in cleere distinction of their severall beings and so without commixtion to cause a third being but that each continuing truly that which it is in it selfe the Godhead according to his eternall decree without any change of it selfe in time tooke to it selfe the manhood that by himselfe hee might reconcile all things to himselfe and bring them to that estate of happinesse and glorie to which they could never have come if God had not so manifested himselfe in the flesh The internall actions of the eternall Deity are all infinite eternall and necessary to be that which they are But whatsoever God doth worke without himselfe in the creature it is onely according to his owne holy pleasure and will But yet seeing his actions upon the creature are the expressions of those perfections which are in himselfe of goodnesse of wisdome of power of glorie c. and that to this end that the creature may bee blessed in him and by him according to that measure of happinesse which he of his goodnesse hath appointed thereto therefore those reasons which are drawne from the dignities of God are of no lesse force for the truth of God in the creature then they were for the manifestation of the truth in himselfe And therefore as by those dignities which by the authority of his word are due to him wee have approved that truth which the holy Scripture teacheth us to beleeve of him both concerning the unitie of his being and the Trinitie of the Persons so let us endeavour in the proofe of this great question And although the great masters in the schoole have given ouer these questions as utterly beyond all proofe or testimony of humane understanding See Thom. Aquin. praef in lib. 4. cont Gent. yet seeing this is that maine point in our most holy faith whereby it differs most from all infidelity and false worships seeing it is that one thing wherein the ground of all our future hope and comfort doth consist if ever the understanding of a Christian held it selfe bound to doe service unto his faith most of all it is bound to give attendance herein I may somtimes use the word of necessity in the conclusions following yet understand me not as if I laid any necessitie or constraint upon God to doe or to suffer but the necessitie that I meane is in the consequence of the reason when the conclusion doth follow necessarily upon the grounds that are laid downe before 1. For although happines be only in the enjoying of that which is good and the greater the good is the greater is the happines but if the good be not enjoyed and possessed it causes no happines at all yet an infinite good is no way to bee come unto or possessed by that which is finite except by the voluntarie motion and inclination of it selfe it doe apply and give it selfe unto that which is finite And because every good spreads it selfe acccording to the power of it selfe upon that which is capable of it the greatest goodnesse is ever with the greatest communication of it selfe therefâ—re the infinite goodnes doth also extend it selfe according to the possibilitie of the creature to be possessed and enioyed thereby which cannot be till it have applied it selfe to something in the creature of which the rest of the creatures being partakers may also thereby be partakers of the infinite goodnesse Now if God who onely is infinite goodnesse had dwelt in the being of the Angels though that had beene made knowne to man yet because man doth not communicate with the Angels in nature or by any merit or service towards them he had had no benefit thereby whereas the Angels by the appointment of their ministerie to mankinde in their continuall presence and succour and that helpe which the soule hath by them in the delivery thereof out of this prison of the body and in the conducting of it unto the Divine presence have in iustice a reward for their service sake and a kinde of interest in all that good whereof man by their ministerie is made partaker 2. Moreover when man had sinned the law of justice required that the satisfaction should be made in that nature that had sinned so that if the Mediatour had taken on him the nature of Angels the satisfaction therein had not beene avayleable for the sinne of man 3. Thirdly the whole creature hath interest in man and man in the whole creature so that God by taking on him the nature of man hath blessed therby the whole creature as you may understand by the answer which is made Cha. 17. to the 5 Object § 4. But if he had the nature of Angels neither man nor the other elementall creatures had had hope of any restoring See Rom. 8.19 c. to 23. 4. Lastly if the deliverance of man had beene made in the nature of Angels the restoring had beene as unsufficient so also man had lost of his dignitie and honour thereby for man before his sinne was bound and subjected to God alone but then had hee beene subjected and bound to the nature of Angels And although man by his sinne nay even our Lord himselfe by his suffering for sinne was made somewhat lower then the Angels yet being raised from the dead the manly nature is exalted far above all principalitie and power and might and every name that is named in this world or in the world which is to come Ephes 1.20.21 Whence it will follow necessarily that God would dwell in the nature of man not in the Angels as you may understand by these Scriptures Heb. 2.14 Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himselfe likewise tooke part of the same ver 16. Hee tooke not on him the nature of Angels but hee tooke on him the seed of Abraham And for
to the severall natures that hee was dead and yet could not dye that Hee suffered and yet could not suffer or the like yet must all these contradictions of necessity hee understood of the distinct natures in the unity of that one Person indistinct so that the difference bee in the natures not in the Person And thus the Scripture hath taught us to speake as it is said Ioh. 1.10 He was in the world and the world was made by him which clauses though they may receive distinction by the differences of his being yet in the unity of his Person none at all For the same Person hath made the world and yet was in the world as another man For to respect the Sonne according to the perfection of his deity although nothing be essentiall unto him but that hee bee eternally begotten of the substance of the Father yet since he was pleased to take on him the office of our Mediator it was necessary that hee should take also our being wherein alone the satisfaction for us should be wrought For as it was necessary that our Mediator should be God that hee might be able to save and to support the manhood induring that punishment which might satisfie the infinite Iustice and raise it up againe to life lest being swallowed up of those torments Hee should not bee able to give life to them for whom Hee suffered for the State of the members cannot bee better than of the head So was it necessarie that hee should bee made flesh that is become truly and essentially man that the punishment being borne in the nature that had offended that nature might bee restored to the favour which it had lost Necessary I say but I meane not by any absolute necessitie on the behalfe of God for Hee is Debtor to no man nor on him can any necessitie bee layd toward the creature without which he is infinite in glory and perfection but yet necessarie with that necessity of supposition that seeing God for the praise of his Grace would by Himselfe restore His Creature that had sinned it was necessarie that hee should take on him the nature and being of that creature at â—east in part if He would restore it but in part but because the creature had sinned in the whole not in soule alone nor in body alone nor in the one without the other it was necessarie that He should become whole and entire man not to take on Him the soule of man onely but to become also flesh that he might redeeme both soule and body 2. But they object that out of Saint Iohn chap. 1.14 wherein it is said that He dwelt in us as in a tabernacle and againe it is said by Saint Paul Rom. 8.3 and Phil. 2.7 that He was made in the likenesse of man By which texts it may be gathered that he was made man in respect of some property or accident only For he that dwels in an house is not said to be one thing with his house and may goe out of it when he list and he that is like another can no way possible be the same For nothing is said to be like to but to be it selfe I answ that neither by the one speech nor by the other is it meant but that he was truely and very man of soule and body as we are but seeing the humane nature hath a certaine shew or resemblance of clothing to the deity because the Godhead is not seene or apprehensible of the creature in his owne being but onely as He is man Therefore by that Metaphore of his dwelling in us as in a tabernacle are we called to the meaning and true understanding of the Mâ—saicall tabernacle whereby his manhood was figured and the promises after a sort made visible to the Fathers as by those texts of S. Paul we are brought to remember that as Adam was created in the likenesse of God and lost it so the Mediator that second Adam to restore that first image was made true man in the likenesse of the first Adam For this is one immortall hope that as hee is truely and indeed partaker of our nature and one with us so shall we be truly partakers of the divine nature 1 Pet. 1.4 and one with Him Ioh. 17.21.22.23 3. A fourth being cannot come into the Trinity but if that being which was taken of the virgin doe still continue a manly being so that neither the Godhead be changed into the flesh nor that into the Godhead it must needes follow that a fourth being is taken into the Trinity and so we are bound to worship a Quaternity for a Trinity Answer This seemed no inconvenience to the ancient Fathers as it appeareth by Athan. epist de Incar dom nost Ie. Chri. contra Apollinar For to this objection hee answers that the humane body of Christ is the body of the increated word and therefore is adored lawfully And the first councell of Ephesus against Nestorius see can 7.8 13. doe not suffer the use of the word Coadoration or Conglorification of the body of Christ lest they should seeme to make two Sonnes or two Persons or any way to admit any kinde of division betweene the divine and humane nature as Nestorius taught but that with one adoration wee ought to worship Immanuel For the two natures therein make not two Persons but one Mediator in one Person in which person we adore the deity in the holy Temple of his humanity according to the commandement Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only thou shalt serve For neither is His humanity a person nor yet possible to be separate from His deity And seeing his humanity from the very instant of his conception never had any being but with the deity to part one of these from the other were to destroy the present being of his Mediatorship and to put Him in that state in which Hee was before his incarnation and that were to make void his sufferings and the glories which have hitherto followed thereon If you desire to intangle your selfe further in this question you may reade Athanas serm 6. epist ad Epict. and epist de incarnatione Dom. contra Apollinar and Epiph. advers Dimaeritas § 3. Now concerning that confusion or mingling of the two natures in Christ into one which the Timotheans imagined if neither the beings nor the proprieties of the beings divine and humane bee changed neither the Divine into the Humane as Eutyches imagined nor the divine into the humane as Apollinarius supposed it cannot bee inferred by any reason that any such confusion is or ought to be yeelded unto It is true which the Timotheans supposed that if any such mixture were the thing that did arise from that mixture must needs bee a third thing differing from them both For true mixture is the union of bodily parts changed by the mixture from their former being so that neither the being nor accidents of the things mingled is saved or kept
entire in the mixture but at least in part corrupted as in the mingling of wine and water of blacke and white colour neither the one nor the other remaine in their perfection And to admit this mixture in the union of the divine and humane natures in Christ as it is impossible in respect of the divine being which hath not any bodily parts So were it utterly to make void the comming of Christ which upon this mixture should have suffered in such a third being as had never sinned And if this foundation of the mixture of the two natures in Christ bee taken away all the Cage-worke of the Theodosians that the Mediatour is mortall and of the Armenians that hee could not suffer must needes bee rotten and unable to stand Therefore let us consent to that Antheme of the Church Miraâ—â—le mysterium Deus homo facius est id quod erat permansit id quod non erat assumpsit nec commixtionem passus neque confusionem O wonderfull mysterie God was made man Hee continued that which hee was Hee tooke to H mselfe that which Hee was not neither suffering commixtion to make a third being of them both nor confusion to change the one being into the other § 4. 5. 6. 7. Now it remaines to shew what were the holdfasts of Ebion Cerinthus Photinus and the rest of that ging For you may perceive how that although they had their private differences in their opinions yet like theeves they all conspired in this to robbe the Lord of glory of the Robe of His Divinity The reasons of their opinions after the long and wearisome reading of the Fathers which recite and answer them sometimes heavily and with much adoe you shall finde most briefly laid downe by Saint Thomas contra gent. lib. 4. cap 4. 9. 28. which in effect stand only in the misinterpreting of certaine texts of the holy Scripture For the better understanding of which let me remember you of these two rules First to hold stedfastly that the termes or attributes which are given unto Christ in the Scripture concerning His divine being belong unto him essentially and properly whereas the same termes attributed to the Saints belong unto them only by grace and appropriatly And by this difference you shall answer their cavils when being urged with such texts as this Heb. 1.5 Thou art my Sonne this day have I begotten thee they answer the angels are also called the Sonnes of God Iob. 1.6 2.1 and magistrates Psal 82.6 yea all the Saints are called the Sonnes of God Phil. 2.15 and 1 Iob. 3.1 and this is only by a grace appropriate and imparted unto us whereas Christ is the Sonne of God according to his essence and true being as it is said Ioh. 10.30 I and the Father are one not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Person but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing one being as Saint Paul interprets it Phil. 2.6 That he was in the forme of God that is in the most inward or essentiall being God for he hath no matier equall to God that every tongue may confesse that Iesus Christ is Iehova for so the word is there to be understood because the Greekes every where in the old Testament interpret Iehovah by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord. The second rule is that the proprieties of one nature in Christ doe not destroy or denie the other nature as where it is said that He was hungrie that he wept that he slept that He was ignorant of the Iudgement day and of the grave of Lazarus that his soule was heavie c. which belonged properly unto Him as man and prove that hee was truly man in bodie and soule yet doe they not at all take away the being of his Godhead but that with his manly being wee ought to confesse that hee is God blessed above all for ever and ever Amen Rom. 9.5 And by this difference well observed you may give a true answer to those texts which they falsly urge to their conclusion as where it is said All power is given unto mee in heaven and in earth Matth. 28.18 And againe Philippians 2.9 That God hath exalted him So where Saint Peter saith Acts 2.36 That God hath made the same Iesus which was crucified boil Lord and Christ By which texts and the like they would conclude that hee is not God by nature but for his merit and greater graces onely called God as it was said to Moses Exod. 7.1 Behold I have made thee a god to Pharaoh For say they Hee that receives of another to be exalted to bee made a Lord is not such of himselfe But this conclusion followes not but rather that which S. Paul affirmes Rom. 1.3 4. That Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh was powerfully declared to be the Sonne of God by his resurrection from the dead when he in is humane beeing received all power and was exalted above every name and manifestly declared to be both Lord and Christ both God and man The power therfore and glory was in him being God essentiall and eternall and in him being made man manifested by his resurrection to dwell in that manhood eternally And as that which these heretikes clatter is directly against the authority of the holy Scripture so is it utterly against all sense and reason For if our Saviour were onely man then our comfort which wee should have by him as being able to save because hee is God were utterly destroyed as a Father saith I would not beleeve in him if he were not God And this according to the Word of God Ier. 17.5 Cursed bee the man that trusteth in man Moreover if Christ were onely man excelling others onely by his progresse in vertue so that for his greater grace above others he might be made a Mediatour for others then many mediatours might be possible to bee seeing Noah Daniel Iob and Moses exceeded others in vertue and by speciall grace many others might exceed them but so our Lord should not be the onely Sonne the onely Mediatour contrary to that which the Scripture witnesseth as you heard in the end of the Chapter n. 10. Therefore concerning the Mediatour what he ought to bee let the followers of Ebion and Photinâ—â— heare Saint Paul Heb. 4.14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens Iesus the Sonne of God let us hold fast our profession And againe Verse 15. let the Eutychian heare and be ashamed for Wee have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sinne Therfore Jesus our Mediatour is both God and Man Here you may remember if you will that which you read before Chap. 20 21 22. More you may reade to this purpose in Iust Martyr his Dialog Triphon in Irenaeus also lib. 3. Cap. from 21. to 31. Tertul.
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gaber that mighty One even God and man in one person For seeing it was a new thing it must be such as never was before a miracle in the birth of a man which could onely bee in this That He should be conceived without a father among men and borne of a mother that was a maid as it is said Matth. 1.25 That Ioseph knew her not till shee had brought foorth The text of Ezech. 44. you shall heare by and by And beside these texts that are plaine and manifest others may seeme to import as much as that in Esay 9.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lemarbeh hamiscah to the increase of His dominion where from that close Mem signifying in their later Arithmeticke 600 and is not used but in the end of a word some will define the time from the fourth yeere of Achaz to the birth of Christ 600. yeeres but it holds not Others from thence will fetch the name Maria with as much adoe See Pet Galat. lib. 7. cap. 13. and lib. 4. cap. 10. But I like best of their opinion who thinke that the perpetuall virginity of Saint Mary was meant hereby yet will I rather professe my ignorance then presume to offer you any thing whereof I am fully perswaded Notes a THat our Lord Christ was borne of a virgin It was a worthy saying of Athanasius in Epistol Cathol 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The summe of our faith is the consubstantiall Trinity and the true God borne of the virgin Mary And well it accords with that of our Saviour Iohn 17.3 This is eternall lâ—fe to know Thee the onely t ue God and whom Thou hast sent Iesus Christ Whereto you have the full testimony of the devill himselfe in that with all his might he hath persecuted the professors of this trueth and endeavoured to deface it with so many errours as he by his ministers hath broached to the contrary Some you have seene before Note g on the 24. Chapter Some you shall have here in briefe against this Artâ—cle And they either concerne the Body of Christ § 1. or his Soule § 2. or else the Virginity of his mother § 3. Sect. 1 § 1. Simon the Witch according to that spirit of Antichrist 1. Iohn 4.3 denied that Christ was come in the flesh and so at once made voyd the Gospel of Christ 2. Valentinus denied that Christ had a true and humane body but onely heavenly and spirituall in which he â—assed thorow the Virgin Mary as water thorow a pipe without taking any flesh of her To the same purpose Cerdon and after him Marcion denied Christ to have beene borne of the Virgin Mary or to have had any manly body at all but onely heavenly or to have suffered but onely in shew 3. Apelles thought the body of Christ to bee a true substantiall body but yet to have beene borrowed partly of the starres from which hee tooke somewhat as Hee came downe from Heaven and partly of the Elements which body after He had risen from the dead was againe returned into the proper principles The madnes of the Manichees is as much as all the former came vnto and both the one and the other unworthy your hearing saving that you may give thanks vnto God that hath kept your heart upright in the holy faith of Christ yet shall you see them briefly examined note a in the end of the Chapter following Sect. 2 § 2. But the errors of Arius and Apollinarius concerning the soule of Christ must heere bee sifted a little neerer Arius held that Christ tooke of the Virgin the humane flesh onely and not the humane soule but that the Word did supplie all the faculties of the soule in Him 2. The Apollinarists called also Dimaeritae sometime denied that Christ tooke any flesh of the Virgin but said that Hee was perfect man while hee was yet in heaven before He was borne of the Virgin and that that same body of His was equall and consubstantiall to the Divine Nature because He made it unto Himselfe of the Divine being So that although He were borne of the Virgin yet was He in her body as in a place not as one of the same nature with her And these Hereticks though mungrells of Apollinarius and Marcion yet Apollinarius was accounted their Syre 3. Others among them affirmed that Christ tooke a body of the Virgin which was also enlived with a living but not with a reasonable soule And hence had they their name Dimaritae because they give these two third parts of the manly being unto Christ but said that a supercelestiall understanding supplyed the want of the reasonable soule These Hereticks were either most differing or most unâ—ertaâ—ne in their opinions as you may find by Socrat. Eccles hist lib 3. cap. 36. So by Athanas Epist ad Epict. Epist de Incarn Dom. and orat de Salut adventu D. I. Christi both against this opinion of Apollinaris And because both these opinions are against this Article you shall first see the reasons of Athanasius against his first position his second errour shall goe in common with that of Arius 1. The first reason of Athanasius is this The Trinity onely is vncreated but flesh had the beginning of man But Apollinarius might except by his owne positions That the Sonne made His body consubstantiall to Himselfe of the Divine being 2. Whatsoever is subject to sufferance is created But Christ suffered for us Therefore by a created body All is most true Yet Apollinarius might except againe by his owne position The Word became flesh and that Word was uncreated therefore also that flesh into which the Word was changed But I loose time to dally thus with these Hereticks Therefore for full opposition to this heresie and the rest recited before of Valentinus Marcion Apelles and their rabbles consider these reasons which are brought Chapter 20. to proove that the Mediator for the sinne of man must bee man and see how they accord with the Scrâ—ptures there cited Se also Galat. 4.4 and Phil. 2.6 7. You may see the reasons of Apollinarius for his opinions in Epiphanius haeres 77. of which I thinke these are the best 1. A true man y body is onely by the male-seed But Christ was not so begotten Therefore Hee had not a true manly but a heavenly body Answere The proposition is false For Adam was not of manly seed yet that true man from whom all humane nature descended Neither was our Lord lesse perfect man because hee was not so begotten See the 10. reason before 2. That which the Scripture hath pronounced sinfull may not bee given to Christ But the flesh lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 and so is sinfull therefore not to bee given to Christ Answere That text of the Apostle is taken by a Metonymia For the flesh is not sinfull but the lusts that dwell in the flesh are against the spirit and sinfull But Christ tooke the creature not the sinne
His resurrection and have denied also that I thinke with them that say that He went downe to suffer for our sinne And having as I thinke said enough to all contrary opinions the trueth by the Holy Scripture and the reasons grounded thereon must be made to appeare But first of all it is plaine that the meaning of our Church is such for in the 8. Article it is said that the Creed of Athanasius ought thorowly to bee received and beleeved and that because it may be prooved by most certaine warrants of Holy Scripture And in the 7. Article the Church of Ireland agreeth hereto in these words All and every the Articles conteined in the Nicene Creed the Creed of Athanasius and that which is commonly called the Apostles Creed ought firmly to be observed and beleeved For they may bee prooved by most certaine warrant of Holy Scripture And because it may not bee supposed that our Church cites the authority of Athanasius but according to his owne meaning as he himselfe hath explained it if it were the meaning of Athanasius that Christ after His suffering descended locally into the hell of the damned it must needes bee that our Church accorded to his meaning And what the meaning of this Article in the Creed of Athanasius is we need not to doubt who have Athanasius himselfe to declare it in his Epistle of the incarnation of our Lord Iesus Christ against Apollinarius where hee prooves against his Heresie that there bee onely two parts of the humane nature in Christ a body which the grave received and a soule which went downe into hell the grave received that which was bodily hell that which was not bodily And by his reason you may yet understand his meaning better When the Creator saith he call'd man into question for his disobedience Hee decreed against him a double punishment For to the body He said Thou art earth and unto earth thou shalt returne But to the soule He said Thou shalt die the death And for this cause man being dead is condemned to depart to two places And therefore it was also necessary that the Iudge Himselfe that made this decree should also undergoe it that in the estate of man condemned shewing Himselfe free from sin uncondemned He might reconcile man unto God and restore him to perfect libertie In the same Epistle hee had said a little before that in hell He condemned death that Hee might every way perfect the salvation of man in our image which He had put on and in his fourth oration against the Arians hee saith that the powers of hell withdrew themselues being afraid at the sight of Christ. So the meaning of Athanasius is plaine that the soule of Christ did locally goe downe to hell and withall the meaning of our Church Now among these texts of Scripture by which this doctrine of Athanasius may bee warranted that text of the 1. Pet. 3.18.19 is most plaine especially as it stands in the Greeke Christ suffered for our sinnes that He might bring us unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put to death in the flesh but quickened in the Spirit by which He went and preached to the Spirits in prison Which Scripture must be applied onely to the manly being of Christ who Himselfe had set an example to His followers to suffer ill patiently which could be onely in His manly being For as God He could not suffer ill Beside His God-head mooves not by any locall motion as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doeth signifie And moreover His divine spirit was no way quickned nor could be but He went and preached in that Spirit in which He was quickned which could bee onely in His humane spirit or soule in which having once suffered death He manifested His power to the disobedient spirits by taking to Himselfe the keyes or power over hell and death to shut in and keepe out whom Hee will Reuel 1.18 And although I deny not that the sence is true and good He was quickned by the Spirit that holy Spirit which Hee received not by measure yet I hold that this is not the native meaning of this place and the best printed copies of Stephan Plantin and others are with me Neither will the words naturally beare that change of In and By Neither did the reverend Noel Deane of Pauls and other like Him accord with them Neither is this the onely place of Scripture that prooves the locall descent of Christs soule into hell For that argument of Saint Peter Act. 2.31 whereby hee prooves the resurrection of Christ out of Psalm 16. because His soule was not left in Hell strangles these interpreters harder then Achelous was strangled in the hand of Hercules So that which Ionah the figure said of himselfe being by Christ the substance applied to Himselfe To be three dayes in the heart of the earth must bee as true in the substance as it was figuratively true in Ionah This is the confession of him that was holy as no man was Psalm 68.2 Thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell vers 13. as the Apostle speakes Ephes 4.9 10. He descended first into the lower parts of the earth and ascended above all heavens that Hee might fill all things So then the Scriptures not being of any private interpretation that is to set out the stories of private men 2. Peter 1.20 must have their highest and uttermost interpretation in Christ Now that this is the native interpretation of this Article and consequently the right meaning of the Composer or Composers of the Creed beside the texts of Scripture on which the Article is grounded it will bee further manifest by the Reasons 1. In a Catechisme the use of Tropes or borrowed speeches are not fit for the use of children and novices and such is the Creed or forme of the confession of our Faith as it is manifest Hebr. 6.1 And the suffering of Christ His Death Buriall c. is taken properly therefore His going downe also into hell Object Object If Christ went to the faithfull that were dead whose soules were in Paradise why doe you say to hell whereby is specially meant the place of the damned Answer Hee first went to the dead in Paradise as His promise was That the Thiefe should there bee with Him in Paradise Then to hell to take to Himselfe all rule all authority and power For God had put all things in subjection under His feet 2. If this Article He went downe to hell be not to bee referred to the soule of Christ after His death then have we no direction by the Creed to know what became of His soule neither are wee taught hereby whether He had a humane and immortall soule or no. So we are still left in doubt whether this Christ be the Saviour of the world But if this Article be referred to the state of Christs soule after His death then are we truely taught and informed against these doubts But that
68.20 That to Him belonged the issues of death both to passe out of death Himselfe and also to bring out His from thence Esay also Chap. 53. after He had declared His sufferings and death proves His resurrection by His dividing the spoile with the strong Our Lord also foretold His resurrection Himselfe in Mat. 12.49 and Luk. 18.33 and the b infidelity of Thomas made it certaine unto all Vpon all which texts we may firmely conclude with Saint Peter that it was impossible that our Lord should be held in the bands of death 8. And why the third day was appointed for His resurrection a reason or two are rendered Hee rose not before that none might doubt but that He was certainely dead See the 27. chap. for His death and buriall Neither was it fit to deferre the resurrection longer lest the faith and hope of His Disciples should faile Who trusted that it was Hee that should have redeemed Israel Luke 24.21 9. As Christ was man that He might suffer death Chapter 20. so was He also God the Lord and giver of life Chapter 21. But it was unreasonable that He which is one Person with the Author of life should be subject to death longer then that it might appeare that He was certainely dead and that by His owne life and power He had overcome death Therefore our Lord rose againe the third day from the dead 10. Although by the unseparable union of the humanity with the Person of the Deity the body of our Lord might have beene preserved uncorrupted for if the devills have power to preserue mans bodie uncorrupted for nine dayes Hom Iliad Ω or for a longer time as it appeares in the bodies of the Witches that die not by the justice of the Law much more might the body of the Lord have been preserued Yet because in Him and by His death the whole state of nature was to be restored the soule of Christ returned againe to the body before corruption in the course of nature could seaze on it 11. The signe of Ionas did prophesie as much Matth. 12.40 and Hosea in plaine and direct words Chap. 6.2 After two dayes He will revive us and in the third day He will raise up and we shall live in His sight For in as much as Christ our Lord doth now appeare in the presence of God for us we also are said to have risen with Him Colos 3.1 The word of Christ Himselfe is plaine to this purpose that He would rise againe Matth. 17.23 and 20.19 and Ioh. 2.19 and that even in the understanding of His aduersaries Matth. 27.63 And that it was the same Saviour that had suffered for us who rose againe from the dead the circumstances of the place doe make it evident For therefore was He buryed in a new tombe hewen out of a rocke wherein never any one had been laid because the hard-hearted and brazen-faced Iewes might have no pretext to say That any other had risen in His stead Notes a THen had it beene impossible that any of His beleevers c. Concerning the resurrection of the dead fitter place to speake will bee in the Article following Chapter 38. Here it shall bee sufficient to remember that the beleevers onely are raised up by the vertue and merit of Christs resurrection as it is said Iohn 11.25 but that the rest that shall be raised up in the last day shall rise by the power of the Father that according to the rule of Iustice and that sentence upon Adam and all his seed In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death they may re eive according as their workes shall bee b The infidelitie of Thomas made it certaine unto all God that brings light out of darknesse used the unbeliefe of Thomas for a most evident proofe of the resurrection of Christ so that although he would not beleeve the testimonies of so many witnesses as had seene him alive yet his owne tryalls according to his owne manner of proofe by his finger put into the print of the nayles and his hand thrust in his side might make him to beleeve yet was nothing of all this of any availe to them that aâ—e without For as Epiphanius nor obscurely signifies Haer. 28. and Aug. De Haer. cap. 8. directly affirmes Cerinthus that Hereticke and hiâ— followers tâ—ught that Christ was onely man and consequently that He was not yet risen from the dead But both the proposition Matth. 13.55 and the conclusion Matth. 28. fâ—om verse 11. to 16. were made by the blind-hearted Iewes before our Lords ascension and still is it their errour unto this day But if no man could doe those miracles that He did ex ept God were with Him Iohn 3.2 If God alone doth know the heart If God alone can forgive sinnes Mark 2.7 8. then their seared consciences were bound by their owne words to acknowledge that He was God Yet because they ever resisted the Holy-Ghost Actes 7.51 that their conclusion might stand that He was not risen from the dead therefore with large money hyred they the Souldiers that had watched knowne well to bee takers that they should say that His Disciples had stollen Him away whiâ—e they slept But this foule lie stinks to him that hath but halfe a nose 1. For if they slept indeed how could they say His Disciples stole Him rather then that Hee rose agaiâ—e of Himselfe 2. Besides when the Disciples themselves did not beleeve nor when they heard it understood that it was poss ble that He should rise againe Mark 9.10 and 31. Luk. 18.34 no nor yet after it was come to passe could they beleeve them that had seene Him Mark 16.11 and 13. to what end should they be the auctors of such a device 3. Moreover all other circumstances are against it For if they had stollen Him away wherefore should they offer themselves the second time to a needlesse danger as you reade Iohn 20.4 c. 4. Wherefore left they the fine linnen wherein He was wrapped which either respect to the corpes or covetousnesse or haste or feare of the souldiers or all together would not have given them time to plucke off when all places were full of feare the earth it selfe trembling and quaking Matth. 28.2 5. Beside all this the Priests having such power of themselves such favour from Pilate why did they not call the Apostles in question for the fact That the whole trueth if it were as they said might have appeared and wouâ—d easily by their wit and greatnesse have beene fish't out of silly fishers if they should have gone about to conceale it But male verum examinat omnis Corruptus Iudex And because they knew well enoâ—gh that by their further questioning the trueth of God and their lie would bee manifest to all therefore neither then nor at any time afterward durst they endeavour to disproove this trueth to which God Himselfe with so great power of miraâ—les and wonders and gifts
priviledges here mentioned of the forgivenesse of our sinnes resurrection and life but also having in Christ the adoption of sonnes wee have by Him an entrance unto God the Father a right and interest in the eternall inheritance of the Kingdome of Heaven and whatsoever may bee availeable to our eternall happinesse for the gift was not as the offence as you might see Chap. 18. § 2. For as we know that Christ our Lord the eternall Son was partaker of our nature and are likewise assured that the greatest actions of God in His creature are for the greatest good that can come neere the creature So ought wee to bee perswaded that we also shall be made the sons of God by that Spirit of God that dwelleth in us as it is said 1. Cor. 6.17 He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit And these are the exceeding great and precious promises that God hath made unto us in Christ that by Him wee shall bee made partakers of the divine nature 2. Peter 1.4 this is that union and Communion for which our Lord prayes that it may bee made perfect in us Iohn 17.21 22 23. 1. For seeing the soule of man is a thing whose excellencie doth so farre exceed all things of this world it may not be thought that the happinesse and perfection of the soule can stand in things that are inferiour to it selfe as in riches honour worldly pleasure or the like But seeing it knowes that there is one onely infinite goodnes which because it is infinite must needs be eternall and able to satisfie all the desire of the creature that can bee partaker thereof therefore doth it aspire thereunto because in the injoying of that alone it can be made perfect And if this desire of the soule should be in vaine then the Holy Spirit of God which wrought this desire in the soule should have wrought in vaine then the infinite goodnesse which might satisfie the desire of the creature should be defective toward the creature and consequently not infinite then the promises of God made in His word should faile and the prayer of our Mediator cited even now from Iohn 17. without effect But all these things are impossible Therefore there is a Communion of the Saints with God and with one another as wee confesse in the article 2. If the merit of Christ bee infinite and that not for Himselfe but for His body which is the Church then it is necessary that an infinite reward be given thereto But the merit of Christ is infinite both actively and passively Therfore an infinite reward is due to us thereby So that by the Spirit of Christ which is in us we have communion both with the Father and the Sonne 1. Iohn 1.3 3. All the dignities of God are infinite and they are all to bee manifested in the creature so farre forth as the creature can bee made capable thereof Ergo. Now the foundation and originall of communion is in this that for as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood He also Himselfe tooke part of the same that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death Hebr. 2.14 and that to this end that wee might be partakers of His immortality and from that union of the divine and humane nature whereby our Lord of the seed of Abraham became one with all man-kind ariseth that spirituall and mysticall union of us with Him that howsoever we are absent in body yet being renewed by the Spirit of our mind we live unto Him have Him evermore abiding in us as we evermore abide in him daily more more grow up with Him into one mystical body as if we were flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones Eph. 5.30 and from this mystical union we have the assurance of that glorious vnion which shall be in heaven when we shal be joyned to our head inseparably and this is that vnion or communion which all the faithfull hope for whereof we have the assurance of His promises in His Holy word the signes and pledges of the Holy supper and the witnesse of the holy Spirit of God in our hearts And thus is Christ ours with His graces and His merits and thus according to the exceeding great and precious promises are wee made partakers of the divine nature not that wee participate of the incommunicable essence of the deitie but that by the renewing of the Holy-Ghost wee put off our corrupt desires and are transformed in our minds according as His Divine power doth give us all things that belong to life and godlinesse ARTICLE XI ⧠The forgivenesse of sinnes CHAP. XXXVII BEing is of God alone whose being because it is infinite therefore must it hold in it selfe all the excreamities of being so that nothing that is can possible be but by Him therefore seeing the soule the body and the abilities thereof are from God alone the devill can claime no interest in man in respect of any of these for none of these had their originall from him But because he was a murtherer from the beginning and inspired his inbred poyson into man even from the beginning the root of man-kind being thereby poysoned the venome spreads throughout all his race to corrupt both his understanding and his will that so his actions being corrupted by the ill which he wilfully committeth his being also may become abominable But as the Physicians make a difference betweene the body and the disease so He our gracious healer discernes betweene the being His owne worke and the corruption thereof the tares I meane which the envious man sowed thereupon to save his owne worke and to cast the venome and the effects thereof on the face of the enemy to the increase of his eternall damnation and first heales the understanding that it may see the sinne then the will that he may detest and avoid it And thus by the renewing of the mind are we transformed from the image of the devill and that stampe which his sinne did set upon us So that the satisfaction being made to the infinite justice both for our originall and actuall sinne the workemanship of God even our whole being may be glorifyed with that glory for which it was created which also it had in the eternall decree before this world was And because our great weakenesse caused of our inbred infection and our many sinnes ensuing thereupon doth every moment stand up as a wall of separation betweene our God and us therefore hath God given unto us such assured hopes of His mercy that although we fall we shall not be cast away because the Lord putteth under His hand Psalm 37.21 and sustaineth us with this confidence That although our sins be as red as scarlet yet they shall be made more white then snow Esay 1.18 And because this hope and confidence ought alwayes to be before our eyes as being the sure stay and anchor of our soules therefore is nothing
sinnes so that they shall not rise up in judgement against us to our eternall condemnation But concerning the tempoâ—ary punishment in this world we must remember that which is Hebr. 12.6 Whom the Lord â—â—â—eth He chastizeth and scourgeth every one whom He receiveth And this appeareth most plainely in Dâ—vid 2. Sam. 12. whose sinne though God had put away that he should not die yet was it afterward punished to every circumstance as you may read And though all chastisement for the present bee grievous yet are not affliâ—tions brought upon men but onely for their humilitie and exercise of their faith and patience or to turne them from their sinne that they may repent and be made partakers of His holinesse and so the eternall remission of their sinnes made sure unto them according to His promise Esay 43.25 I even I am He that putteth out thine iniquities for Minâ— owne sake and will not remember thy sinnes And againe Esay 44.22 I will put away thy transgressions as a Cloud and thâ— sinnes as a mist Turne thee unto mee for I have redeemed thâ—e Read further Esay 53. from vers 4. to the end Miâ— 7.18.19 He retaineth not wrath for ever because mercy pl aseth Him He will turne agaâ—ne and have compassion upon us Hee will subdue our iniquities and â—aâ— all our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea Col. 1.13 God hath delivered us from the power of darkenesse and hath translated us into the Kingdome of His deare Sonne in whom wee have redemption thâ—ough His blood thâ—t is the foâ—givenesse of our sinnes Hebr. 1.3 Chriâ—t by Himselfe hath purged our sinnes See the text cited out of Ieremiah Heb. 8.10 11 12. and Hebr. 9.26 and 28. 1. Pet. 2.24 Who His owne selfe bare our sinnes in His body on the tâ—ee that by His stripes wee might be hâ—aled 1. Iohn 1. â— The Blood of Iâ—sus Christ purgeth us from all our siâ—nes Reve. 1.5 Hee hath loved us and washed us from all our sinnes in His blood Rev. 5.9 Thou art worthy to take the booke and to open the seales thereof For Thou wast killed and hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation ARTICLE XII ⧠The resurrection of the body and the life euerlasting CHAP. XXXVIII § 1. IT may seeme that the Christian mans hopes are more glorious then all other hopes because he is so well content with patience to expect the promises and to deferre his hopes to be enjoyed in a better life then this yea for those hopes sake to deny himselfe many pleasures and contents in this present life an argument doubtlesse as of a constant hope so of an inuincible courage that for this hopes sake because he judgeth Him faithfull that hath promised he beareth patiently all oppositions persecutions and all things else whatsoever may seeme to stand against this hope of happinesse in the life to come which constancy is so much the more to bee praised because it is of a hope above hope seeing all reason and causes in nature are against it insomuch as with them that beleeved it not it was scoffed at as you reade Act. 17.32 or else accounted madnesse as Act. 26.24 yea and where the great teacher of the Gentiles takes upon him to ascertaine this doctrine of the resurrection as 1 Cor. 15. he brings his maine proofe especially to this purpose That it is to be held a Gospel which we are to receive as a matter of faith which of it selfe is the substance and proofe of things hoped for We shall consider the validity of Saint Pauls arâ—uments in their due place in the meane time what hope we may have from them who undertake to give proofe of this Article by naturall reason you may see by that which Thomas Aquinas hath brought contra Gentiles lib. 4. cap. 79. The soule quoth he is immortall and naturally united to the body as the forme thereof Therefore it is against the nature of the soule to be out of the body and nothing that is contrary to nature can bee perpetuall Therefore it is necessary that it be againe united to the body that the body may rise againe To this reason it may be replied nothing is or can be put in nature whereby the soule being once departed is againe reunited to the body but that is a thing transcending nature and onely in the will and power of God For although the resurreâ—tion be indeed a naturall thing in respect of the termes that is the body and the soule becaus neither the body nor yet the soule is any perfect speciâ—s in nature seeing they are made one for the other and the soules desire of being with the body is never satisfied but in the body yet in respect of the principle or cause which should joyne them together being separated the resurrection is above nature and therefore cannot be enforced by any naturall reason For the soule by any disease or other cause contrary to nature being driven out of the body there is no naturall cause left either in the one or in the other which is able to reunite them for if so then that cause would have beene of force to have retained the soule still in the body that it should not have departed therefrom And therefore that axiome That nothing which is against nature can be perpetuall hath no force to inferre the resurrection which depends onely on the will the mercy and justice of Almighty God and not on any thing that is in nature The second reason is this 2. That which is imperfect in the being thereof cannot be capable of perfect happinesse The soule separate from the body is in the being thereof imperfect in as much as being a part of man it is not perfect but in the whole man soule and body together Therefore it is necessary that the soule be againe united to the body that both may be perfectly happy together Answer The perfect happinesse of the soule and body together is a promise of grace and utterly beyond the state of nature and so no naturall argument of the resurrection But the perfection of being is either naturall or connaturall The perfection which I call naturall shall be onely in the state of glory when the naturall parts of man soule and body shall be joyned together according to the perfection of their severall being after the resurrection The connaturall perfection of the reasonable soule is that which is in knowledge and contemplation of things that are divine The soule being separate because it is freed from that variable and fraile companion of the fantasie which followes the appetite and dieth with the body Psalm 146.4 is better fitted to that perfection which is in contemplation then while it dwelt with the body and because it sees that there is no possibility in nature of any returne to the body it is with all patience and joy content to expect till Gods appointment be that it shall returne
God should be in vaine Therefore the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together Esay 40.5 and from one Sabboth to another shall all flesh come and shall worship before me saith the Lord Esay 66.23 And I will powre out of my Spirit upon all flesh Ioel. 2.28 And seeing the flesh hath these holy promises therefore the flesh shall rise againe that as both the flesh and the soule have sorrowed so they may both reioyce together Object 2 Object 2. But the Prophets speake of the resurrection darkely and in figurative speeches onely Answer Not onely but oftentimes so as they cannot be otherwayes meant And though they use figurative speeches yet no figure is taken but from somewhat that is properly and truely such Moreover the words are often such as admit no other meaning as in Iohn 5.28 29. The houre is comming in which all that are in the graves shall come foorth they that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done ill unto the resurrection of condemnation Object 3 Obiect 3. If the same body shall rise againe of the same shape and lineaments some shall be whole men some maimed some halting blind c. Answer The qualities of the bodies shall be changed the substance shall not be lost For as it is against the justice of God that one substance should doe that which is pleasing to Him and another be rewarded therefore So if all teares shall be wiped away then also all cause of teares all hurts wants and deformity both of body and soule So that as the same body shall be returned to the same soule so shall it returne intire and whole Object But if the use of the members cease why are the members needfull Ans Though the naturall body shall be made spirituall and thereby be delivered from the necessities of those things to the use of which wee are now tyed as of foode clothes c. and so the members freed from their offices yet are they not therefore unnecessary For the tribunall of Christ requires a perfect man that he may receive in his body according to that which he hath done in his body Moreover for the perfection of beauty and glory the body must be intire the integrity of which stands not in the offices of the members but in their substance Neither yet shall all the offices of every member cease for the instruments of the voyce shall still serve for praise to God as this Father thinketh The objections which Thomas Aquinas brings from naturall doubts are of no force against the reasons which we have brought from the light of grace and knowledge of the Scriptures For it is yeelded that the resurrection of the body is beyond all the power of naturall causes to effect but that it is onely of the will and power of God as to make man at the first so to restore him againe out of his former principles into which he was resolved But that you may see how weake naturall reason is compared with the trueth of God and on what wretched hopes the Atheist depends which trusts that his sinnes shall never be brought to judgement I will propose the reasons and answeres as they stand Object 4 Object 4. That which is corrupted cannot be made the same againe as a naturall habit of the body or mind being deprived cannot be restored Answer The impossibilities of nature cannot limit that power which created nature especially in the resurrection of the body wherein the Author of nature hath professed that He can and hath promised that He will raise it up againe as you read before Object 5 Object 5. But the essentiall principles being lost it is impossible that the same thing in number should be restored Answer The essentiall principles in man are soule and body which being restored each to other in the perfection of them both nothing which is concomitant whether it be property or necessary accident can be wanting and that both these remaine in the state of being and consequently in the possibility of being brought together againe you may see Chap. 17. § 4. N. 5. Object 6 Object 6. Corruption is a change from being unto not being Therefore it is impossible that the being of man being corrupted the same being in number should be restored Answer This is in effect one with the former And it is true that the totall is destroyed in man by the separation of the parts But neither of the parts doe come to nothing but are in the hand of that power to bee conjoyned againe by which they were conjoyned at first Object 7 Object 7. If whatsoever hath beene essentiall to the body of man must in the resurrection be restored unto him then this bodily proportion shall be very uncomely in as much as the haire the nailes and whatsoever else is wasted away by the force of naturall heat were once as essentially of the body as that was which he carryed with him to the grave See the first supply to Logicke question 66. Answer As it was said before that whatsoever was wanting in the body should be made up So understand on the contrary that superfluities and deformities shall be taken away and that every one shall rise againe in that perfection which is peculiar to man-kind Object 8 Object 8. That which is common to all of any kind seemes naturall to the species But there is not any common virtue of any naturall agent to worke this Therefore it seemes that all men shall not rise againe Answer The resurrection of the dead is not by any naturall cause but it depends onely on the power of God to whose justice every man must give an account of his owne workes Object 9 Object 9. Death is the effect of sinne from both which wee are fâ—eed onely by the death of Christ Therefore it seemes that all shall not rise againe but they onely that are partakers of the merit of His death Answer It is true that such onely shall rise to eternall life the rest for justice unto judgement And because death is the wracke of nature in all men and the worke of the devill and that our Lord came to repaire nature and utterly to destroy the workes of the devill Therefore that it may appeare that Hee hath perfectly finished that for which He came all men must rise againe Object 10 Object 10. The last objection seemes a mighty one above the rest That if all men must rise againe perfect what shall become of the Canibals who have eaten one another nay if any of these Canibals eate onely mans flesh and beget children seeing their seed as their wisedome affirmes is onely the superfluity of the nourishment before it be conuerted into the substance of the fathers body here is the knot of Gordius who hath most right to this seed whether the sonne whose body was made of it or the father or he from whose body it was devoured by
to come And although by all the arguments of the two last Chapters and many before the question may receive an easie solution yet to give full satisfaction is this which followes in particular But to brand both the questions and the moâ—ers thereof with their due infamy it must ever be remembred that the errour of the mortality of the soule doth take away the foundation of all religion and common honesty For how can he make due reckoning of honesty that cares onely for himselfe to shift and sharke for a present maintenance in worldly plenty and supposed â—oy and thinkes that all is ended with him in this life Or what reverence can he have of God or His seruice who is not perswaded that there is a God or if that must needs be put yet is he perswaded that with this life ended his soule also comes to nothing And if there be no reward oâ— any virtue or of any religion is it not better to follow the pleasures of sinne with greedinesse 1. But Atheist I answere That if God should so neglect them that honour Him as that He would not reward them neither in this life nor yet in that which is to come then were He unjust if He knew not their devotion then were He not wise But these things are impossible for thee to suppose that God should be either unjust or unwise For perfect justice such as the infinite justice of God is doth ever bring foorth a judgement in which it must appeare that in Him that is infinitely just there was neither ignorance of the service done unto him nor any disability to reward it which because it appeares not in this life certainely it must be manifested hereafter Therefore the soule is immortall 2. Seeing all the world cannot affoord that which may give a full content unto the soule that judges rightly of every thing Seeing we are taught 1 Iohn 2.15 not to love this world neither the things of this world it is manifest that the true happinesse of the soule ought not to be sought here among those things that are inferiour and below the dignity and state of the soule which can be blessed onely in the sight of God as our Lord hath taught us Mat. 5.8 Therefore the elect of God which according to His counsell and command seeke true happinesse in another life shall in another life be sure to find it 1 Iohn 2.17 3. The working of the soule cannot be hindered by the body not onely the spirituall actions of the understanding and motion of the will but even the actions of the soule upon the body as I have somewhere given instance in the beating of the pulse and whatsoever hath motion of it owne nature cannot be hindred to attaine that end whereto nature drives it and the thing it selfe desires to come as the continuance and perfection of it selfe because nature doth not worke in vaine and the soule doth naturally desire true happinesse that is spirituall eternall and beseeming the nature of it selfe Therefore the soule is immortall 4. No substance which is intellectuall is corruptible For corruption in substances comes onely by the separation of the matier and essentiall forme And because beings intellectuall that is such as have power of an active understanding doe not consist of matier but are of themselues pure formes therefore they are not subject to corruption and death properly so called And although the soule beside the power of understanding have also the power of growth and sences as the naturall faculties thereof by which it doth enlive mans body to move to digest to see heare feele c. and that when it goes away from the body these faculties of the soule forsake the body yet they die not in the soule but shall enlive the body in the resurrection as they did before so that the soule is no way mortall 5. Common consent of all Nations both Christians and Barbarians hold and ever have held the immortality of the soule and the soule it selfe beares witnes thereunto which at the sight of grievous sinnes committed findes such terrours and affrightings in it selfe as are sometimes more fearefull than death But if the soules of men did not live after the body what cause had guilty minded men either to feare death or any torments that could follow after it 6. The excellent endowments of the soule the engines and curious artes that are invented the search of the heavens motions and the inuention of trueth in things removed from our sences yea even concerning the truth of God are arguments sufficient of the soules immortality 7. And beside these reasons the infallible authority of the Holy Scriptures ought to wring this confession even from the very Atheist For the soule being breathed into man by an immortall principle by the breath of God Himselfe may not bee supposed to bee corruptible for so how could a thing mortall or corruptible be the image of the immortall God Gen. 1.26 27. yet say I not as the Gnosticks or Priscillianists that the soule is of the same being or substance with God but that being so created by Him and His image it cannot be mortall Mat. 10.28 Feare not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather feare Him which is able to destroy both soule and body in hell The parable of the rich glutton and Lazarus in Luk. 16. shew the immortality and state of the soule both of the good and bad Read also 1. Pet. 3.18 19.20 Phil. 1.23 Revel 6.9 That there is not one common Soule of all men §. 2. 1. BY some of the reasons before and by all the authorities brought out of the holy Writ it is manifest that this fantasie of one common soule in all Men was but a dreame of Averroes For if the humane soule be the proper forme of the body and the specifick difference of every subject be by the forme thereof If there be one common soule of all men then the essential difference of men is taken away so that they bee not now this man and that man but all men must be one man as concerning their internall forms the difference of men must be in their heccieties or numerall diversitie of their bodies onely 2. But so the understanding and knowledge of all men should bee one and the same and one man should not bee wise and another foolish but all men wise or foolish alike if there were onely one soule or understanding of all men 3. So also the vice of one man should multiplie it selfe over all men 4. And all men should have equall joy in the end or happines of any one man But these things are not so And as these inconveniences proove the differences of soules while they are in the bodies of men So likewise doe they withstand that confusion which would bee of the soules of men being departed out of their bodies which are not supposed to fall into the Chaos of life and
nature produce his like as much as in it is as a man begetteth a man trees bring forth seed whereof their like in nature may spring and in like wise every other thing Therefore the infinite Power of God begetteth His like also which is the Sonne the image of the invisible God the first begotten of every creature Col. 1.15 But none can be like unto God in His Being who is not very God therefore Christ the onely begotten of the Father is also very God Maruail not that I make this argument from the creature to the Creator for in this very point of the Power and Godhead the Holy-Ghost Himselfe teacheth me to reason of the invisible things of God by the things visible Rom. 1.20 And hereby also learne to help your ignorance and put away your wonder how God should be one and yet three See you not how the understanding the Sun-light also is one in nature and yet three in evident and cleare distinction though in so base and imperfect order as that which is in all perfection is possible to be above it And further see you not in every thing a bodie a spirit and a life which is the knot betweene them Or rather see you not how the very bodily composition is both one and three one body which is united of three bodies that is earth water and ayre or oyle which yet againe in the roote of their nature are but one For oyle is but a due mixture of water and earth meanely fixt and meanely volatil and earth is but fixed water so that water which is but one is the roote of the three as it is manifest Gene. 1. and 2. Pet. 3.5 They which understand the rules of Pyronomie know what I say and if you understood me◠well you would confesse that not onely this instance which I have brought of earth water and ayre but even the whole frame of Nature did proclaime the Trinitie in the Vnitie If I should here tell you how the Heaven the Earth and the Deepe Gene. 1. might bee understood mystically and the Analogie betweene the Creator and the creature therein and then tell you what Let the earth bring forth living soule might meane and compare it with that place That which was made in Him was life and then particularly for man The Lord God also made the man of the dust of the earth and tell you that it was so necessary because that Christ is Terra viventium and inforce an argument to prove the Tri-Vnitie by that treeble repetition of the man made in the image of God comparing it with that place 1. Cor. 11.3 and 7. If I should then tell you that it was necessary that the Sonne of God must become flesh as well that the infinite iustice of God might be actuated in Him which could not be actuated in Him being onely God as for many other reasons Both from the Iustice and Mercie and Wisedome of God though to a well-sighted understanding I might seeme to have laid a precious foundation of Philosophie divine and naturall yet to you I might rather seeme perhaps to have proposed Cabalisticall dreames then any sound argument to the thing in question Yet this will I tell you and hold it for good Divinity that the mayne drift and scope of the whole Scripture is to shew the creation of all things in Christ through Him and for Him and the restoring of the whole creature in man by Him That in all things He might have the preeminence Coloss 1. Neither doth this any whit derogate from the honour of the Father For first It hath pleased the Father that in Him should all fulnesse dwell and besides it is an honour above all honours unto the Father to be the Father of so glorious a Sonne Therefore is this world and all the things therein created to the Image of Christ to expresse His glory even as He is the expressed Image and glory of the Father And here is the worlds Eternity which had in Christ an eternall Being according to that His Name Esay 9 6. The Father of Eternity Here are those separate Ideas about which Plato and Aristotle could never agree and which neither both of them nor many of their followers did perfectly understand not that they might not by the frame of nature and the wisedome which God had given to man be understood For is not this world as a booke wherein we may read and understand by the created truths what is the Truth which is increated but all true knowledge is the gift of God Therefore wrest not that place Coloss 2.8 against the Christian search after the knowledge of nature whereby above all other humane knowledges a man is brought to know God and to honour Him as he ought but rather be sorry that your knowledge of Nature is no more For this will I tell you to teach you to know your selfe that there is nothing in the creature which may be knowne and all may be knowne that is in the creature but man ought to know it and to glorifie the Creator thereby And this great labour hath God given to men that knowing how short they are of that they ought to be they might be humbled thereby Psal 1.11 Eccles. 1.13 And why ought this to seeme strange doth not God require that perfection at mans hand wherein He did create Him and was he not created with perfect discourse to know the creature that he might therein behold the Creator and so glorifie His wondrous power and goodnesse But this question would draw me from the question in hand and therfore I will briefly adde one reason more and because my leisure is little I will be as short as I can but I pray you lend me your eare for it is hard in English an inartificiall language to expresse my mind but because you told me you could a little Latine I will be bold here and there to use a word my reason is thus The whole and perfect nature of a Principle or Beginning is in God who is alone the beginner of all things Now a Principle is of three sorts whereof every one is so clearely distinct from another as that one cannot possibly be that other therefore in the Vnitie of the Deitie there is also such cleare distinction into a Trinitie as that one distinct cannot possible be that other from which He is distinguished yet in the Vnitie of essence they are all one The differences of a beginning stand thus It is either Principium principians non principiatum that is a Beginning which is a Beginner unto another yet hath not His beginning from another lest there should be a processe into Infinitie à parte antè this is God the Father to whom it is peculiar to beget the Son yet is Himselfe neither made nor created nor begotten of any other Secondly there is Principium principiatum principians to wit a Beginning which hath his beginning of another and is also a beginning
death unto life For he that judgeth himselfe and condemneth himselfe and brings no other plea unto Christ but that for mercy may be sure to find mercy in the time of need See 1 Cor. 11.31 Heb. 4.16 Now for the second question although it seeme more curious then profitable to aske where our Saviour was after the time of His resurrection during His absence from His Disciples yet I will answere what I thinke and leave you upon better consideration to give a better answere First therefore it is manifest by the Scripture that our Lord shewed Himselfe Eleven times after His resurrection if oftner yet is it not manifest by the text Of this number five manifestations of Himselfe were on the day of His resurrection 1. To Mary Magdalen alone Mar. 16.9 2. To her againe and the other Mary Mat. 28.9 3. To Simon Peter Luke 24.34 1. Cor. 15.5 4. To Cleopas and his friend Luke 24.15.35 5. To all the Apostles except Thomas Iohn 20.24 to which if you put that time when He ascended on the 40. day from mount Olivet the five appearances remaining for I speake not of those extraordinary manifestations of Himselfe after His ascension to Steven Actes 7.56 and to Paul Actes 9.17 and 1. Cor. 15.8 will bee most likely to have beene on those five Sundayes as wee call them which were betweene as it may well be gathered from Iohn 20.26 because the Lord would fully finish the ceremoniall use of the Iewish Sabbath and sanctifie the day of His resurrection for the remembrance of those benefits which wee receive thereby This use the Primitive Church made of it Iust. Mart. Apol. ad Anton. and further against our Traskits because they would prevent their errours who under the profession of Christianity did still retaine their Iudaisme whose folly to avoid in stead of the Iewish Sabbath they celebrated the day of Christs resurrection Ign ep ad Mag These times of shewing himselfe were 1. To the Disciples and Thomas with them Iohn 20.26 2. At the Sea of Tiberias Iohn 21.1.3 3. On a mountaine of Galilee appointed to them Mat. 28.16 4. To above 500. brethren at once 1 Cor. 15.6 5. To Iames. ver 7. And for the times of His absence from them because it is said in the text to the Ephesians cited above That He did therefore descend into the lower parts of the earth and ascend farre above all heavens that He might fill or fulfill all things which were written of Him not onely those which were necessary for our saluation as His Suffering Resurrection Ascension c. but also whatsoever belonged unto man to doe in that state betweene His resurrection and ascension as you may in part understand by that which hath been said Chapter 28. N. I thinke that in those 33. dayes He in His manly being did view this earth and the fulnesse thereof and especially visit and blesse those places where He did purpose that His Church and trueth should most of all flourish and continue Sect. 2 Sect. 2. Thus much for the questions by the way Now turne to that which is the maine To every degree of the abasement of our Redeemer there is a degree of exaltation and glory opposed So this of the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven is set against that of His descent into hell and that by the authority of Saint Paul He that descended is even the same that ascended And although it may very well be thought that after His Passion finished on the Crosse by His death His going to hell was the beginning of His victory to take to Himselfe that power whereby He as the Sonne of man is to reigne over all the powers of death and hell Yet because His body during those three dayes is by most supposed to have been held under the power of death and that all the parts of His victory are to belong unto Him as Hee is Lord both of the quicke and dead that is in His intire humanity soule and body together therefore that descent is rather held by many as the lowest estate of His humiliation as you might read a little before Chap. 28. § 2. N. 3. But that our Lord after that He had by many and infallible signes and arguments by the space of fourty dayes given abundant proofe of His resurrection did ascend into heaven these reasons doe make it manifest 1. Vnto every body is a place due according to the qualities and properties of that body as in all natures here below it appeares that the place is both conseruative and also generative of those things which are peculiar thereto as the lower parts of the earth of the mineralls the surface of the vegetables the water of fishes c. And againe it is manifest that all things under the Moone are subject to corruption and change no beauty strength or excellency is such as is not fading no pleasure such but that in the very using it growes loathsome no bravery so costly but in three dayes wearing it waxes stale so that by the voice and consent of all men the Angels and blessed soules and all such beings as are free from corruption and in the state of glory are sent into heaven But it is manifest that our Lord by His resurrection and conquest of death purchased first to Himselfe and then to us a state of glory and immortality Romanes 6.9 Ephes 2.6 Therefore also that Hee ascended into heaven 2. The blessednesse of the creature is onely in this That it may behold the glory of God in whom alone is the excellency of all perfection And this glory is seene onely in the face of Iesus Christ the Mediator as was shewed Chapter 24. § 10. N. 5. unto which blessednesse onely the pure and blessed inhabitants of heaven as the holy Angels and soules of men are dignified And from hence it must follow that our Lord is ascended into heaven the place of Angels and happy soules For no man dwelling in his ruinous house of clay is able to behold that glory Exod. 30.20 3. Hell is the place of torments the earth of troubles changes and calamities therefore heaven is the place of happinesse or else no happinesse at all is to be found But that is impossible For so all things should be created to wretchednesse and misery onely which cannot stand with the loue of God to His creature and His infinite goodnesse And if any such place of happinesse be and He our Saviour not brought thereto then the greatest obedience performed to the Father for the manifestation of His glory should be without reward But this were unjust with God and therefore impossible And therefore it was necessary that our Lord after His resurrection should ascend into heaven 4. By the consent of Christians taught of God and of Heathens taught by nature heaven is the place of the greatest glory and happines as hell of sorrow and wretchednes For although the Heathen allotted a degree of eternall blisse to the
soules which they sent to Elysium as you may read of Anchises and others Aeneid 6. yet they supposed that their faâ—se gods and such as were by them canonized went up to heaven as Hercules Castor and Pollux Romulus and he that was one of the chiefe masters of the devills slaughter-men Iulius Caesar From whence you may reason thus The place of the greatest glory is most due to Him that is both the Creator and Restorer of all things But such was our Lord Iesus as it hath appeared before Therefore He ascended into heaven 5. It is necessary that the blessed and damned doe differ by all those meanes whereby the paines of the one and the blessednesse of the other may be increased The paines of the damned are increased by the horrour of that place wherein they are tormented therefore the ioyes also of the blessed are increased by the superexcellent beauty and pleasures of that place of their abode And because our Lord is blessed and holy above all that are blessed and holy therefore it is necessary that He should ascend into heaven 6. If Christ after His resurrection had not ascended into heaven then could no other creature bee blessed in heaven by His merit So the place of perfect blisse should be without inhabitants and therefore created in vaine So God should want that praise which were due to Him for His mercy and goodnesse shewed to the creature But these things are impossible Therefore the holy Angels and Saints are blessed in heaven and Christ our Lord their King among them See Iohn 14.2 3. and Ephes 2.6 7. If Christ our Lord had not ascended into heaven yea so that His ascension might be witnessed both by men and Angels Actes 1.10 11. then could not we which beleeve in Him have full assurance of those heavenly joyes that are laid up in store for us 1. So the Christian faith were all in vaine and we still subject to the punishment of our sinnes 2. So His Conception Birth Miracles Sufferings Death and Resurrection heretofore prooved should have beene in vaine So His owne preaching and of His messengers 4. So the prophecies of the Scriptures which were before concerning Him even since the world began should bee without their trueth 5. So the faith and hope of them which confesse the most gloâ—ious things of God concerning His goodnesse and mercy toward His creature which faith they have in Him being taught by Him out of his word and by the successe of all things that have come to passe accordingly should be frustrate But all these things are impossible And therefore God is gone up on high in triumph and our Lord with the sound of the trumpet all the holy Angels and the spirits and soules of the faithfull joying therein all the troopes of the heavens and the heavens of heavens attending His comming and submitting themselues to Him their Lord and King Open your heads ô yee gates and be yee set ope yee everlasting doores that the King of glory may come in Who is this King of glory The LORD of hostes mighty in battell euen our Lord IESVS who by the warres of His suffering and death on the Crosse and by the conquest of His resurrection hath overcome the powers of Hell He is the King of Glory Amen Notes a THerefore He ascended into Heaven This Article hath beene gainesayed by the heretickes diversly Cerinthus said That because Iesus was man onely conceived and borne as other men Hee was not yet risen but should rise at last Aug. de haer cap. 8. And thus by consequence he denied that our Lord ascended into heaven But this Iew both by nation and opinion is refuted before in all by the proofe of those Articles which he denied And because he brought nothing for the proofe of his opinions but onely opinion let them all vanish at the authority of the holy Scripture as mist before the Sunne Carpocrates as he had beene taught by Saturnilus said that the soule was onely saved Epiph haeres 23. So that the soule of Christ onely after it was freed from the body ascended to the Father Epiph heres 27. Against this heresie you may set the reasons and authorities of the Chapter before and them that follow in the Article of the resurrection of the body Chap. 38. The errour of Apelles you read before Note a on Chap. 26. § 1. N. 3. his reasons and their refutation you have Note a on Chapter 27. N. 3. The Seleucians confesse that Christ when He ascended tooke with Him His manly body and carryed it as high as the Sunne but there He put it off and left it there But Saint Paul affirmes that He ascended farre aboue all heavens that is all the visible heavens either of planets or starres yet they brought their reason out of the 19. Psalm vers 4. He hath set His tabernacle in the Sun So the vulgar translation of the Latines hath it from the Greeke and so all the Greeke copies reade it except that of Aquila who according to the Hebrew hath it thus In them the heavens He set a tabernacle for the Sunne and this helpes the Seleucians nothing But the errour which hath swayed most against this Article and which with their sacriledge if they could see it hath now defaced their Church is that of the Vbiquitaries who because they beleeve that very substance of the body and blood of Christ is received with the Bread and Wine they are compell'd to say That His naturall body may be in many and consequently in all places at once as His God-head is And therefore that this ascension of Christ must be nothing else but a disappearance out of the earth or a vanishing from the sight of men For the ground of their opinion they urge the word of our Lord This is my body This is my blood but they deny not the Bread and Wine to continue still which if it be true then the sence of the words must bee In this or with this Bread and Wine is my body and blood But the words beare no such meaning but prove much rather that transubstantiation or change of the Bread and Wine into the body and blood of Christ which the Papists would But this opinion of the Papists were to denie Christ to have taken flesh of the Virgin Mary and so to have beene made of the seed of David at least in part of His bodily being when His hody and blood should be made of bread and wine I but it is said Matth. 28.20 I am with you unto the end of the world Answere Not by His bodily being but by His continuall providence and the graces of His Holy Spirit as Saint Augustine saith Corpus suum intulit Coelo majestatem non abstulit mundo Tract 50. in Ioh. But the Centurists cite also the auctorities of the Fathers for their consubstantiation as of Iust Martyr in Tryph. of Tertullian against Marcion but corruptly and falsly and of Origen but
as it was said to the soules oâ— the Saints That they should rest for a little season untill their fellow Martyrs time were fulfilled Revel 6.11 So that although for the perfect happinesse of both the soule is to be joyned to the body yet that joyning followes not for the desires sake of the soule but for His willâ— sake who hath promised such happinesse unto both soule and body Thus you see that the glorious hopes which the holy Christian faith brings with it are above all the reasons and possibilities of nature Therefore let us not seeke naturall proofes for the resurrection but from the light of grace and the vertues of the divine dignities which the holy Scriptures have made us to know let us see what arguments we can finde of more strength and solidity And because the reasons that are to bee brought for proofe of this Article will fol ow easily enough if it be made manifest that the will and decree of God upon all man-kind is that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust Act. 24.17 I will first bring the holy Oracles thereto then the reasons that accord with them and lastly answere such objections as Atheists are wont to bring to the contrary That which is in Gen. 3.15 The seed of the woman shall breake the head of the serpent in Iohn â— 8 is interpreted shall destroy the workes of the devill that is sinne and the punishment thereof death which cannot be except the dead be raised againe Iob 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that Hee shall â—tand at the later day upon the earth and though after my sâ—inne wormes dâ—stroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my selfe and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reines â—e consumed within me Which text though it be as plaine and dirâ—ct for the resurrection as any other in the Scripture yet Iohn Mercerus rejects that sence because the Hebrew Commentators doe not so expound it Esay 26.19 21. Thy dead men shall live together with My dead body shall they rise awake and â—ing â—e that dwell in the dust for the earth shall cast out her dead For b hold the Lord commeth out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity the earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more hide her slaine Reade to this purpose Ezech. 37. all And if you say that the calling of the Israelites is there prophesied in that Metaphor yet remember that no Metaphor is taken from things that are not Dan. 12.2 Of them that sleepe in the dust many shall awake to everlasting life some to shame and everlasting contempt Hosea 13.14 I will ransome them frâ—m the power of the grave I will redeeme them from death ô death I will bee thy plagues ô grave I will be thy destruction repentance is hid from mine eyes Iohn 5.28 29. The houre is comming in which all that are in the graves shall heare His voyce and shall come forth they that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done ill to the resurrection of damnation 2 Cor. 5.10 Wee must all appeare before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that which He hath done whether it be good or ill So by these texts among many other it being manifest that God hath decreed a resurrection for the bodies of men both good and bad it being also manifest that nothing is impossible unto Him but that He doth whatsoever it pleaseth Him in the heaven and earth in the seas and all deepe places Psal 135.6 it must follow of necessity that there shall be a resurrection which that ye may the better apprehend we will adde some reasons that accord hereto 1. And first of all that argument which our Lord Iesus brings to this purpose Matth. 22.32 I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob but God is not the God of the dead but of the living Therefore Abraham Isaac and Iacob though they be now dead yet must they rise againe for all men live to Him that is are in His power to be brought againe unto life when Hee will To know the strength of this argument you must looke to that which is Gen. 17. I will establish My Covenant with thee and with thy sâ—ed for an everlasting Covenant But no covenant can bee everlasting if either of the parties die Therefore Abraham and his seed that is the faithfull cannot perish but evermore live unto God as it is said in Luk. 20.38 For to this end Christ both died and revived and rose againe that Hee might bee Lord both of the dead and living the dead He saith that they may live againe For if our Lord Iesus died to purchase eternall life for us it is impossible that we should not live eternally 2. The arguments of Saint Paul in 1. Cor. 15. fall as thicke as haile and that first argument in the first place stands thus 1. It is a Gospel which he received and preached unto them according to the Scriptures And seeing the doctrine of God for His owne authoritie being the God of Trueth is to be received for our reverence only which we owe to him we ought to beleeve it Hitherunto tend those words v. 3. and 4. For I delivered unto you that which I received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was buryed and that He rose againe the third day according to the Scriptures 2. And from this ground of faith he doth conclude vers 12. that there is a resurrection to wit for them that die in the faith of Christ For Christ died not for Himselfe but for our sinnes and rose againe for our justification Rom. 4.25 3. Since by man came death by man also came the resurrection of the dead vers 21 22. For the well-being of the body cannot bee but by the head 4. vers 25. Hee must reigne untill He have put all His enemies under His feete Psal 110.1 Therefore death also shall be subdued Ergo. The bodies of men kept under His power shall rise againe 5. If the bodies of men rise not againe these absurdities and inconueniences must follow That they that are dead in Christ are perished and while they lived here were of all men most miserable Our preaching and your faith is vaine We are false witnesses of God ye are yet in your sin They that are baptized over the dead are baptized in vaine we are need lesly in danger every houre for the preaching and beleefe of this doctrine My contention at Ephesus hereabout was to no purpose The Epicure that lives to eate and drinke is the only happy man But these things are impossible and amongst Christians accounted incredible Therefore there is a resurrection His doctrine in other Epistles is to the same